beyond the wide world&#39;s end

He is not pure Telmarine, no. It has been three hundred years since Caspian. The concept of him being a redhead just amuses me a little, though.

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I was not expecting that. I always imagined him blond, maybe with some curls. And like the other commenter said, he really wouldn't have much telmarine blood in him would he?

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I was not expecting that either. I was thinking light brown, maybe -- I'm one of the least visual writers ever; I almost never picture my characters. And then Susan spoke up and went, "Nope, he's a redhead. A freckled redhead. There's not much of Caspian in him -- but there is something."

Seriously. A freckled redhead. Who saw that coming?

My assumption would be, because of marriage alliances, the royal family has less Telmarine blood that the average Narnian human citizen.

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The picture of them all that I have in my head almost always matches the way that Pauline Baynes drew them in the book illustrations. Probably this is why I didn't even blink at the prospect of a dark-haired Caspian - since that's how she drew him for Prince Caspian. Then you get to Dawn Treader, where Lewis actually happens to mention that he's blond as he fishes Lucy, Edmund and Eustace out of the sea, and there's obviously an "oops" moment and she illustrates him as blond from that book onwards.

In her coloured versions of the illustrations Tirian seems to be blond, but on the cover everything's orange and firelit, which obviously pushes him to redhead. ;-)

Now if only Peter and Edmund hadn't been completely reversed from each other between book and movieverse...

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really?

WRT Peter and Edmund, even though I know Edmund's blond in the books, I had no problem with him being dark haired in the film. It's like Lucy. I know she's supposed to be blonde, but the first actress I saw portray her was dark haired (just before the BBC series came out). My brain clung far more to a blond Peter (blame the BBC series), and Pauline's illustrations in LWW and PC could be taken either way on Edmund and Lucy.

Caspian - No real opinion even though I knew he was blond. I think my brain was just sitting there going 'the Telmarines are Spanish? OMIGOD GIMME.'

Tirian I always thought was white-blond. When I wasn't mentally throwing things at him. But then the covers I grew up with mostly concentrated on Jewel.

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I am one of the least visual writers/readers ever -- I literally don't picture characters at all when either writing or readers. Setting sometimes, specific weird details more often, but characters? Almost never. (Which makes it a good thing I'm writing for a media-based fandom right now; there are times when I literally forget what the characters look like and have to go searching for pictures.)

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Edmund is blond in the books?

...my brain just broke. I...cannot picture a blond Edmund. At all. Well, I have problems picturing characters period, and I tend to skip over, skim, or completely forget descriptions in books. (Although, for some strange reason, my mind is fixated on Pansy Parkinson being blond. I don't know if it's ever mentioned in the books, but she's a brunette in the HP movies, and it breaks my brain. That's one of the few times I've ever actually had a good impression of any aspect of a character not out of a movie.) I almost never picture characters, either as a writer or a reader, which makes it a good thing I'm writing for a media-based fandom right now; I have been known to forget what characters look like.

No, I have no idea why my brain (SUSAN. That should tell y'all whose POV the next chapter's from) has decided Tirian is a redhead. With freckles. FRECKLES. And a good-natured face, with something of Caspian there -- maybe in the cheekbones. Who knows, really?

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Well, I re-read them a few weeks ago and I'm pretty sure that's the case.

Yeah, i have very few images of the characters i read in books, aside from LOTR, which people it seems have very definite mental pictures. my most annoying one was doing an original nano, grabbing icons of people I thought would do for posting the chapters in my nano lj, and most of them didn't turn out like that at all mentally. On the other hand, there was the underground resistance nano where I was using icons for mood purposes and then realised three weeks in that the male lead looked like Paul Bettany.

:shrug: could go anyway, genetically. On my mum's side no-one looks the same from one generation to the next, on my dad's, all the males are clones, so we're suspecting that if you could time travel with a camera, you could trace his family perfectly for a good several generations.

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*chews lip* I've got pictures of characters a couple times, but only when I deliberately go looking for them, and even then -- usually it's when I base characters either on other characters (really, half my original characters are fandom characters with the serial numbers filed off) or actual people. The last time I went looking around for actors/faces was for Peta, and she has a visual ref, since I'm taking Peter and extrapolating from there.

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Freckles?! UGH!!! *glares at own freckles in mirror*

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Rilian is red-haired and freckled and mild-eyed and shorter than Caspian!

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...the hell was the *point* of marrying a STAR and tainting the heir's BLOOD if *that* is what you get, Caspian?! *smacks him*

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Well, it is three hundred years down the line; it's not all (or even mostly) Caspian's fault. Just whichever of his descendents married a redhead...

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Re-read that post...you said "Rilian" and I just went with it. I *knew* we were talking about *Tirian* but did it register...? NOoooo!

Still. Somehow, it's all Caspian's fault, anyway.

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Right, because I can't type, apparently. *facepalm*

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Blame Caspian. I do! *rotfl*

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Writing Tirian gives me so much more respect for Caspian. Caspian has charisma and balls! Tirian's lacking one of those two.

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Tirian is a damsel in distress.

Actually, given that your female characters tend to be warriors,among other things, I *would* be curious about a (respectful!) treatment of a male character who *wasn't* a warrior. Since Golden Age Narnia is so war-torn, would a man of any specied who wouldn't or couldn't fight be respected, if he was decent and good at other things? Or would they prioritize fighting skills (like in LOTR Gondor, where Boromir was prized more than Faramir, until near the end)? And how much of that attitude would the Pevensies carry over to England and the back to the different "ages" of Narnia?

It's gender studies, from a different angle. *seeds your brain*

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A picture to break your brain a little more...

From left to right, Tirian, Peter, Polly, Digory, Edmund, Jill (standing in front of the rest), Lucy and Eustace. No Susan, damnit, but she's drawn as dark haired like Lucy, but with longer hair.

Tirian actually looks like a redhead here, but I think that's just the colour registration gone slightly awry as the same thing's happened to Polly, Digory, Edmund and Jill. He looks blonder in other pictures.

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I don't have a terribly visual imagination when reading either, which is why I can be so easily led by the illustrators. Apparently I do get a mental image of a character, because I seem to know at a glance whether they're "wrong" or "right" in a film adaptation, but I couldn't tell you what it is ahead of time.

Really though, as Lewis almost never describes his characters, anything goes. And I rather like the idea of Tirian as the pleasant-faced, freckled, redhead. It doesn't say a thing about whether he's in control or not, but somehow it makes it all the sadder if he's got the kind of face that his subjects should warm to, and they resent him anyway.

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I think my brain was just sitting there going 'the Telmarines are Spanish? OMIGOD GIMME.'

That very concept was what sold the movie to me. So long as Lewis meant South Sea as in south of Panama, it works brilliantly. Yay, pirates.

Of course, if he meant South China Sea instead then we're scuppered because the Telmarines should have been Chinese. But the very name of their race suggests the first interpretation. I've always thought it pretty funny that they should have been afraid of the sea but carried it everywhere with them in their name.

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franceica.livejournal.com

OMG Peter
OMG Edmund
My brain completely broken. *facepalm*

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Haha! I know this is very prejudiced of me to say but, that's not what I imagine a king to look like. Maybe it's because I never imagined Narnia to have redheads. (god knows why) I also kinda imagined that when Peter came the Narnians were astounded at his blond hair. It wasn't normal...

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I've decided that the reason that Tirian is a redhead is because someone (his grandfather?) married a pretty redheaded barmaid. That might not be your reason, but it atleast helps me=) This way my brain breaks a little less.

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If I remember correctly, Lewis's main descriptions went, "The Narnians are all fair and pleasant-faced and tall! The Calormenes are swarthy and dark-faced!" *cough*

I am warming to the idea of Tirian as the sweet-faced, good-natured-looking redhead, because it's just so painfully ironic. And you're right, sad. He's not a bad guy; he was just completely the wrong kind of king to have for this type of situation.

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...I have only seen that pic in black and white (it was in my books too).

Yeah, that sound there? My brain breaking.

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*snaps fingers* That's why he became the High King! His hair was the same color as Aslan's mane!

(Mmm, and a thousand years down the line the historians are squabbling about whether the epithet "gold-crowned Peter" refers to his position as High King or the color of his hair, using the example/reference of "raven-browed Edmund" as well....)

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Because the fact that he was the eldest has nothing to do with it?

And of course they are. Isn't that was historians are for?

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Not acccording to the people who think that Susan is the eldest Pevensie. (THIS IS WHY I DON'T READ FIC.)

Listen, o man, and hear of the
glory of gold-crowned Peter.
Fire-eater, Bittersteel, Summer's King,
wise in council, strong in battle,
named High King over all kings of
green-hilled and blue-watered Narnia.

[...]

Far-eyed Edmund, justly named
Eagle of Narnia
fleet-footed, silver-tongued,
Evening's King, the Whisperer.

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Ooh! Poetry! Susan, the eldest? What have they been smoking?

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I don't know and I don't want to know. *makes horrified sounds*

*throws more poetry at you*

...[Rhin]don cut through
the bonds that bound Edmund and
Peter put his shoulder under his
silver-tongued brother's. "Lean on me,"
said the King of Summer, and together
they went out, Silvertongue and
Bittersteel, those crowned kings,
those wise minds, long vanished
into the west, lost and diminished.
But they were not yet gone, gold-
crowned Peter and raven-browed
Edmund, and they rode to Cair
Paravel still rank with the blood
of their foes.

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Oh this is wonderful! I wish I could write poetry like this!

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Oh this is wonderful! I wish I could write poetry like this!

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mwhahaha.

Though I'm so glaring at Pauline. how come Polly and Jill have little tiaras and Peter and Edmund don't get headgear - being actual kings and all.

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...I never even considered Chinese. But then I got caught up in that whole medieval Europe/Calormenes are obviously the Turks and Arabians thing.

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Every time I hear South Sea I'm back at, "ASLAN YOU BASTARD YOU DROPPED THEM RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACIFIC WAR." *cough* Referring to the Telmarines who got sent back to Earth, that is.

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*squints* Hell, Tirian has a circlet. And the HIGH KING has nothing.

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so by Pauline's logic, the less headgear you have, the more actual power? Since Peter and Edmund are supposed to be able to menace you with just their presence.

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Damn straight Peter and Edmund can menace you with just their presence. All Peter has to do is raise an eyebrow and you're on your knees blubbering for mercy...Edmund can't quite pull that off, but damn close. And Caspian's getting there.

Tirian could never pull that off; he doesn't have the physical presence for it. Poor bastard.

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He is. He so totally is. He gets rescued by children! So does Rilian, for that matter. At least Caspian is putting up a fight.

I would think that in Golden Age Narnia, there's a large emphasis on self-defense, even if you don't serve in the army. (Huh. I wonder what the chances are that's mandatory? Because my Golden Age Narnia has a pretty large standing army. *muses*) And they prize artists and poets and whatnot, but if you can't defend yourself, you're nothing more than deadweight.

The Pevensies would have carried that attitude over to England, definitely. I think it's still present in Narnia to an extent through Caspian's time; I think by Tirian's time they lost it because Narnia was pretty peaceful through the intervening centuries.

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Even a warrior society needs people who keep the daily society running-miners, weavers, cooks, sailors, healers, etc. Everyone can't be in the army-there'd be NOTHING LEFT to come back to! Somebody has to clear the roads, harvest the grain, make the clothes, and keep trade and relations going with other countries (the ones Narnia isn't fighting, which seems almost everyone.)

Nor would it be practical to attach all of these people to the army, either-it has to be mobile, and the more camp followers it has, the slower it's going to move.

But some kind of minimal conscription might work...everyone having to do a couple of years in some kind of military service. That would give them a large pool of semi-trained people to draw on during times of war.

As Narnia grows more peaceful, she'd need a different kind of king. We've alread discussed the damage that having the star blood does by weakening the kings' ties to the land; add in the fact that Narnia at prolonged peace might not need to be able to speak to her king much, and would sort of hibernate.

I forgot-*Rilian* was ensorcelled by an evil enchantress, so it's not his fault he had to be rescued! By children was incidental.

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Oh, that's what I mean, a couple years mandatory service, either in the army (or navy, for those eligible) or the road or border guards. I didn't mean everybody all the time! (I have textual evidence for this! "These Last Golden Days of Summer.") And there are levies, like the National Guard, which get called up at varying degrees of intensity.

I think Tirian was a damn good peacetime king; I think most of the Telmarine kings (from Caspian's line) were. Add in to that the factor that the world, by this time, had changed; I think there were fewer smaller, independent countries squabbling over land, like what the Pevensies had to deal with, and more empires or larger, more powerful countries. The Pevensies are what you want in more primitive times when your allies and your enemies are the same people.

Hmm, speaking of the earth bond, are you seeing it in Dust at all? Because I'm hesitating over putting it in.

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I think that's how the Israelis do it, everyone has one mandatory year. (Did you know that Dr Ruth was an army sniper, btw? She's like yay high *indicates someone teeny tiny* and people joke about her accent and sex talk show...!)

Well, I meant that *since* not everyone can be in the army, no matter how important it is, they'd have to acknowledge other needs and priorities, too.

I think it's too easy to blame the LB on Tirian, *because* he's the last king. His lines of communication obviously broke down, and that in a country with a citizenship used to going directly to the monarch to talk about things. He might be guilty of complacency, but that's different than incompetence.

You said something in another thread that I wanted to take up, about meeting with "non-crazy Narnians"...this group, in Dust, sound like some real radicals or fanatics, to me. It would be interesting to see how a better-balanced group of people regard him...*and* the Pevensies. Do *all* Narnians worship them, or do most of them realize...just people. What kind of schism would that create between the 2 groups of Narnians? *enables like whoa*

So far, I haven't spotted the earth bond in Dust. My advice would be to *not* bring it in, either. It works excellently well in the wars!verse; but it will consume ALL of your verses and screw up your characterization, if you bring it into other fics.

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Well, not everyone in the army is an actual fighter, too. They need cooks and hostlers and all that -- basic self-defense, but the majority of the army isn't going to be fighters.

Complacency would be one way to put it. I'm not necessarily sure I'd say incompetence; how do you react to your god coming in and telling you and your people to do things, to bow down to foreigners? But still -- Cair Paravel fell in about five minutes flat, and that's without the donkey-in-the-lion-skin. These things happen, but they don't happen without some serious flaws in basic self-defense here.

*smirks* Next chapter we see the group of Narnians Tirian was staying with. They are the sane ones. They come in and tell Arnau and the rest of the zealot Narnians off for using dark magic. (And while the majority of Narnia does worship the kings and queens of summer as the four little gods, they haven't really made the connection between the four little gods and the High King and his siblings of old. *waves hands* There's a lot of doubt, and since the Calormenes brought in someone pretending to be Aslan, why couldn't some of the Narnians bring in someone pretending to be the King of Summer?)

*nods* That was my thought, especially since I'd like Dust to be more approachable for someone who hasn't been really exposed to the rest of the 'verse.

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I hate to break up a perfectly good theory - because you know that nobody there is going to argue with Peter under any circumstances, and that Edmund can talk them into submission if you give him thirty seconds - but having had another squint at both that image and the one of Peter and Tirian a couple of pages later, they're both wearing circlets as well.

Just really tiny ones. I suppose she thought the tiaras looked a bit girly, and that crowns would seem a bit swanky in Aslan's country.

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Heh. It was a bit mean. Probably Glozelle's promised good future in our world was not getting wiped out by a bombing raid.

But it was a handy way for Aslan to get the alternate heir (Miraz's son) out of circulation so that any disgruntled factions who remained behind in Narnia couldn't use him as a rallying point in opposition to Caspian.

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