oh, god, history. *headdesk*

[bedlamsbard]

Post-LWW fic: Peter is sullen, Susan is still in that state of, "This can't possibly be happening," Edmund is playing his mother and creeping her the hell out, and Lucy is traumatized. Helen Pevensie is also kind of a wreck, because dude, talk about having many things do a number on your psyche all at once.

My state of mind: Wait, so, okay, the Pevensies were evacuated from London somewhere around September of 1940. (The Blitz started on September 7, movie canon shows us that, uh, the Blitz is going on.) And they probably would have returned in 1941? But canon (PC, this time) also tells us they were at school during the course of that year. Book canon (PC, again) tells us that this is supposed to be Lucy's first year at boarding school. So -- Peter, Susan, and Edmund left the professor's house to go to school, and Lucy was left at the professor's house? Or would they have already been back in Finchley at that point in time?

Meanwhile, if I have Peter going running, what would he be wearing and would it be regarded as normal or not? (This is in Finchley.)

...this is why I try and stick to writing about Narnia, not England. I can make stuff up.

ETA: And Helen Pevensie would probably be working, yes? Must check if Papa Pevensie would have returned from his deployment or not.

Comments

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Do we know they were actually at two different schools pre-LWW? I thought that Edmund had just fallen in with a bad crowd.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

Well, the book says Edmund was "looking better than she had seen him look - oh, for ages; in fact ever since his first term at that horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong", which leads me to think it was the school that was the problem, because surely if it was only a crowd he'd've said something else? Peter seems to be doing fine, and there's no mention in PC that the school has suddenly shaped up or whatever.

But I don't suppose we know for sure...

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

*flaps hands* It makes no sense to send them to two different schools.

And, well, it is Lucy's POV. She wasn't there; maybe she's just blaming the school.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

The only way I have EVER made any sense of this was that Edmund and Peter went to the same primary school, only sometime after Peter went to boarding school the primary school burned down or...they moved, or something, and Edmund started there pre-LWW. That puts his first year of boarding school right after LWW, so he's still a year older than Lucy, and he winds up with Peter for PC.

Oh, Lucy. ::shakes head:: And if it was boarding school she would *seriously* not know; just, you know, he's nice and then he goes to school and comes back mean.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

That's the assumption I've been going on, anyway -- er, the second one, that the horrible school is all Lucy's perception.

And then LWW happens and the Pevensies suddenly have no friends because dude, they're scary.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

I think it is like anything else in this fandom--you stare at the canon for a while and then you go "I DON'T KNOW I AM GOING WITH THIS ONE."

Peter was also probably better at fitting in at school than Edmund, at least before Narnia. (And I can't imagine Lucy did very well at home alone with her mother/parents; she must have built Edmund up in her mind as someone to play with/talk to/understand/help, and there's just no way he could be all that when he came home, even in the best of circumstances.)

I waver between "Oh god those kids are SCARY!" and "I really want to be friends with them but they never talk to me!" (Usually the former for the boys and the latter for Susan.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

YES. THAT.

I bet he was, because he's just so typical teenage boy. Good at schoolwork but not outstanding, probably did sports, planned on joining up to go fight for his country, etc., etc. And then he came back after LWW and he's...he's not a teenage boy anymore.

The kind of vaguely interesting thing I consider when writing post-Narnia Peter is that I don't think he ever really had any friends in school, afterwards. He simply didn't care, and he never tried. But once he went to RAF training (for my Peter) -- that almost equals them out. And he does have friends by the time LB and Dust rolls around...but they're all soldiers and other pilots.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

Peter definitely is. In the books, too, he's very Good British Schoolboy (you know he plays cricket or rows or whatever), and that type leads to friends. Edmund...not so much.

I think that's a really interesting way to write him! Your Peter is much angrier than my Peter (I think because I write bookverse and you write movieverse)--my Peter just gets sad--but I've never written him with close friends. A girlfriend once, and Edmund otherwise--but I think it's more, with me, that he just doesn't *get* the kids he's around anymore. He'd like to have friends, it's just--this is what they think about? I think he's well-liked, just...no one gets close.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And Susan was probably very much, well, schoolgirl.

I wrote Peter in school post-LWW once...here (http://bedlamsbard.livejournal.com/268545.html?thread=1609985#t1609985). (Damn, that's not on my main timeline, I need to put it there.)

My Peter doesn't even try. All he's holding onto -- especially post-PC -- is getting through his last year or so of school and then getting into military training, because fighting he can do. That he can do.

And Edmund...doesn't make friends, but he does make allies. He's much better at faking. Lucy makes friends. Susan -- doesn't, really. She's like Edmund, she makes allies and...friends to an extent, but not really. She's good at playing people (playing herself, really) and making them think they're more than they are to her.