beyond the wide world's end

You know, I think I might be able to solve my POV problem in the fic-that-shall-not-be-named by changing my tactics. Literally, since I'm writing a battle scene. I think I might be able to kill two birds with one stone, since I have a sinking feeling that the tactics I was planning to use aren't actually suited for a pre-gunpowder battle. But if I switch to pre-gunpowder naval tactics (i.e. ship-to-ship), I think that will also (partially) solve my POV problem, since that will allow me to take my emphasis off the big picture and by extension not have to have multiple POVs in order to accurately portray the battle.

( First, on writing battles. (Spoilers for Red Seas Under Red Skies, Dies the Fire, A Game of Thrones (book), Twilight (book), Song of the Lioness, Agincourt, Rome (HBO).) )

Now, onto my own fic. ( Where the stakes change slightly because it's a naval battle, not a land battle. Spoilers for my WIP. )

I just had a sudden urge to put the Erinyes into Narnia. No, honey, we're not going to do that, that's the whole point -- by removing the White Witch from the equation, Aslan has destroyed the balance of power in Narnia. Yes, the White Witch disturbed it in the first place by causing the Long Winter and keeping Aslan and Father Christmas (and presumably Bacchus) out of Narnia, and imprisoning the river gods in slumber by freezing the rivers, but she didn't go so far as to kill Aslan until the circumstances had changed. And then Aslan destroyed her utterly, and Narnia was left without a replacement. The Deep Magic was disturbed. (Also, this leads into my conspiracy theories on why The Last Battle ended the way it did.)

"Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?" asked the Witch.

"Let us say I have forgotten it," answered Aslan gravely. "Tell us of this Deep Magic."

"Tell you?" said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. "Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill."

[...]

"Fool," said the Witch with a savage smile that was almost a snarl, "do you really think your master can rob me of my rights by mere force? He knows the Deep Magic better than that. He knows that unless I have blood as the Law says all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water."

"It is very true," said Aslan, "I do not deny it."

(C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Ch. 13: "Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time")

...huh, I wonder what the Secret Hill is? I don't think it's mentioned elsewhere in the books -- do you think it's the hill in The Magician's Nephew with the Garden on it? But then what are the fire-stones? You don't want to put too many precious world-creating/world-sustaining immortal magical objects in one place.

(clearly, I have the attention span of a gnat.)

I was out hiking around Vantage and Frenchman Coulee yesterday with my geology class, which was made of win; I haven't been out that way for a couple of years and I can't actually remember if I've ever been to Frenchman Coulee, which means I probably haven't. It's fairly well-known for rock climbing -- googling gets me some pretty cool pictures here, but the view is just fantastic. Washington's absolutely gorgeous sometimes, especially eastern Washington -- we're very geologically active, and have been in the past, too, and a lot of the land east of the Cascades has been shaped by the Great Missoula Floods. It's very stark and very impressive. It is also, not particularly coincidentally, my mental setting for the High Reaches in Narnia.

( Narnia, the Pacific Northwest, Cair Paravel, New Orleans, and the Doylist perspective* )

*Watsonian vs. Doylist, for those that haven't heard the phrase before.

*

I have also been thinking about domestic fantasy, which is sort of a rare subgenre in the fantasy world, and may not actually be an "official" subgenre the way high fantasy, urban fantasy, or swords and sorcery are, since I'm not entirely certain I've actually heard about it outside of my own head. Which -- doesn't seem unlikely, actually, because my mental picture of domestic fantasy is something that's very heavily based in the world, in the home, in small, discreet magics rather than grand, flashy ones, and -- need I say it? -- very female-oriented. The only published fantasy that I can think of that meets that description is in some of Robin McKinley's books -- my beloved Spindle's End being one of them, Chalice another. I would probably even count Sunshine in, because the main character is so heavily involved in baking. (Actually, I think the only RM books that don't fit this description are The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, though I haven't read The Outlaws of Sherwood, so I can't speak towards that.) All of RM's books tend to have grand magics at the end, but they're still fired by those small, domestic magics, and largely occur almost as an afterthought. I can't think of another author who does something similar. (Maybe some of Diana Wynne Jones's books? But those are less concerned with the home, generally.)

I've been thinking of writing an original short story for a while now that is domestic-y; the main character is a baker, and her magic is tied up in baking. (Also there is world-building where yeast is very important; an unmarried woman who works with yeast is something of a social outcaste, since yeast is traditionally associated with fertility and pregnancy. In this world, the majority of bakers are either married women with children underfoot or women who have passed the age of menopause and cannot have children. The main character is an unmarried woman without children, and doesn't work with yeast. See what reading a lot of cookbooks for fun gets you?)

Thinking of this because a lot of my pleasure reading lately has been cookbooks and food history, and I knit a lot, so I think of that, and I just picked up a couple of books on country traditions from the university library.

*

Kitten cuddling kittens! Puppies cuddling puppies! Kittens and puppies cuddling! Lots of animals cuddling!

*

Work proceeds on Traveling Woman; I am halfway through the last chart.

*

My Latin prof thinks I am a fast translator! *preens* I think, at least in this early stage, that this is one of the few cases where being really really good at English is actually helping, because I'm used to taking words and phrases that are jumbled together and then rearranging them in a coherent, meaningful order, which with the Latin-to-English translations in the first few chapters of Wheelock, is basically what we've been doing. Later this will doubtless no longer be as true, but at least the fact that word order doesn't matter isn't confusing me as much as it is some people in the class.

*

My cousin is having a baby! The (traditional Japanese) family is somewhat alarmed about this, because she is unmarried and her boyfriend is black, and therefore the first inkling we got of this is when my uncle (my mother's brother) e-mailed my father and told him how ashamed he was for the family and also to find out what kind of man had fathered a child on his daughter. My parents' reaction to this was somewhat hysterical laughter, as we have actually met my cousin's boyfriend on several occasions, and he's a very nice guy. (He's in the Army, as well, and has been shipped out to Iraq and Afghanistan twice since he and Maya have been dating? And keeps getting told he's shipping out again, and then they don't actually ship out.) So instead of hiring a private investigator, we called my cousin to confirm that she actually is pregnant (she is), and then assured her that we were on her side and we supported her. I don't think we actually care if she gets married or not, but he's asked her before, and now they're thinking about a courthouse wedding, with a big ceremony later. (Also, as I have mentioned, her boyfriend is Army, which means military benefits if they get married.) It was not planned, and she was on birth control, so -- an accident, but she sounds pretty happy about it.

(It also means I can start knitting baby clothes! What is the best yarn for baby clothes, o knitters?)

*

Huh, I should probably look up when the narniaexchange deadline is. (I have -- thoughts. And have to do research.)

*

I want to bake pie. Well, crostatas. I require blackberries, although blueberries are what I am more likely to get. (Blackberry pie is my favorite! But blackberries are expensive out here, because it's too dry for them to grow. On the West Side, they are an infestation.)

I shall probably attempt to do muffins, bars, and cookies this weekend, as well, since I am baking considerably less than I usually do because of classes, so I have to make it up during the week, as we have nearly burned through the stash in the freezer.

On the heels of the Deathly Hallows trailer, a thought that's been swimming around in my head for a week or so now.

I tend to hate series endings. There are only about two or three that really, really work for me, and one of them is my Ideal Platonic Ending. The others come pretty close.

Deathly Hallows is not on the list. Last Battle is not on the list. Return of the King is not on the list. The Lost finale is not on the list; it could have been by a difference of one or two beats. Freak Nation is also not on the list, but the second season of Dark Angel didn't work for me on a number of levels. I don't have the emotional background to judge the BtVS or AtS finales, and for some reason I still haven't gotten around to seeing the back half of BSG or the last episodes of Kings or Caprica 1.0.

My runner-up endings? Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and the last episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, "Born to Run." My one perfect ending is the end of S.M. Stirling's Emberverse trilogy (the first one, not the second quartet), A Meeting at Corvallis. It's just -- perfect on so many levels. So many. I reread the trilogy a couple of weeks ago, and have been thinking about the ending for a while now. I love it, and it makes me cry, and it makes me smile, and there's hope. There's beauty, and pain, and -- the world goes on.

The world goes on.

(For levels on which The Last Battle fails, look at that last one. *snort*)

The Wardrobe Door has posted new pictures from PC. I may never come down again. Susan's red and gold cloak that wasn't in the film! The fact that Rhindon is on Peter's right side instead of his left in the FIDM display! OMG, look at this beautiful shot of the tooling on Peter's bag. Oh, Tumnus! Peter's body language in this cap!

(Seriously, that's -- I really need to rewatch this movie, but if that one still is representative, and since that's how I write Peter in PC, that -- yes. I was not pulling stuff out of thin air. His pose is physically imposing in direct conflict with his actual body and the fact that, technically, he's at a disadvantage. He's looking down at Caspian, head cocked critically; Caspian, despite the fact he has a sword in his hand, is in a defensive pose -- not fighting-wise, but he's loose and open, confused. He doesn't know what's going on.)

Also, what is the Narnian in the back of this cap, between Caspian and Susan? I can't see a head, so it's hard to tell. That's not Trufflehunter, is it? Must rewatch to see if I can get a clear shot -- oh, that is Trufflehunter, I can see it now. I think he and the mice are the only Talking Animals that stand upright in this film, if I'm not mistaken. Also, in this cap, look at the expressions on the Pevensies' faces -- Lucy, Susan, and Edmund are all looking ahead, wide-eyed and excited, while Peter's eyes are closed; he's smiling quietly and calmly to himself. The others are directed outwards; he's directed inwards. (Granted, again, I really have to rewatch the film; this is just what I'm picking up on from caps.) Caspian looks dubious, of course.

Seriously, just look at that cloak.

(Oh, Narnia. You have successfully prevented me from working on Dust 20, new with no canon whatsoever! Yes, even less than usual; this is, like, The Godfather of Cair Paravel, a.k.a. the new OC POV.)

When I applied to college a few years ago, one of my application essays told in exacting detail how I believed in the lost city of Atlantis and its cousin, Lemuria, and how when I got my degree in archaeology, I was going to find it, and prove all the believers right. Whether or not that essay helped me get into college I don't know, but my grand plan of majoring in anthropology turned into a physics major, then back into an anthro major, then into an English major, then history, then medieval and early modern studies, and finally I've rolled back around to classical studies, where at least I'm likely to at some point in time go on an archaeological dig, although I'm coming up on my junior year and have yet to take an anthro class. My search for Atlantis has been pushed aside in favor of ancient Greece and medieval Europe. But that doesn't mean I'm any less interested -- in Atlantis, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, or a thousand other pieces of history that might be lost or might never have existed at all. I call them Archaeology Conspiracy Theories, or ACTs.

( Archaeology Conspiracy Theories )

After rewatching The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, I have a few thoughts:

* I think, though I may be wrong, that Simba is a lot more outwardly affectionate towards Kiara than Mufasa was towards him. Some of it may be because he's a father interacting with a daughter rather than a father interacting with a son, but still -- and at some point, he definitely licked Kiara. I think previously we've only seen lionesses lick cubs.

( Dont't worry, you'll only be a *little* disturbed )

The real moral of The Lion King movies: BAD THINGS HAPPEN IN GORGES. STAY AWAY FROM THEM.

What the fuck did I have this thought about? I can't remember if it was a book or a movie, though -- okay, yeah, I remember, it was The Dark is Rising. (The book, I have not been able to bring myself to see the movie. I think I saw the first two minutes and then promptly tried to rip my eyes out.)

I reread The Dark is Rising with the intent of rereading the series as part of my project to figure out what it was that had been gnawing me about The Graveyard Book in the same standing as Narnia and a couple of other classics of children's fantasy lit (and now I can't remember what they are -- I think I was also going to reread the Prydain Chronicles, but then I had to come back to school). It wasn't the first book of the Dark is Rising sequence that had struck me as being similar to the rest of the books on my list, but I haven't reread the series in a really, really long time.

Yeah, I didn't get to the others, because something about The Dark is Rising bothered me a lot, and here is what it is:

I don't like stories about extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. I like stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Extraordinary people being -- oh, Will Stanton, who finds out he is a superspecial Old One, and just -- agh, I reread the book and was kind of flailing in horror at some parts, I think especially the scene in the church with his brother and the priest, where it's all, oh, these humans wouldn't understand, and human-ness, humanity, becomes a weakness. Like -- I feel that this is actually a generational difference between, say, fantasy/sci-fi/horror written in the past decade or couple decades, and before that, and that more current work is much more focused on humanity as a strength rather than a weakness (HP and the power of love is the first example I can think of, and then most of Robin McKinley's work), but then again - it's been a really long time since I reread a lot of children's fantasy lit, so I could just be making this up. (Or conflating fanfic with original fiction, because I feel like that POV is much more prevalent in fic than in original fic, and I don't read a lot of original fantasy fiction because my tastes are so weird.

But, okay, example: One of the reasons that Narnia really works for me is because, on a core level, it's ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It's four almost absurdly ordinary schoolchildren suddenly forced into an extraordinary situation, finding out exactly what they're capable of. It's not four kids finding out they have amazing magical powers or that they're really aliens (with amazing alien powers!) or anything like that; they're still the same people they were before, just in a new, unfamiliar setting where there's suddenly so much more expected of them. Same thing with Jill and Eustace. Sure, it's an amazing world, but they're still -- just people, with all the limitations that includes.

With Harry Potter -- on one level, that sort of fits into the "extraordinary people" category, but actually -- not so much, at least for me. I mean, he's not one of a privileged few, or the only one ever, he's one out of many wizards, and he's still just human. He doesn't have any special powers because he's Harry Potter, who may or may not be the Chosen One; he's just one wizard out of many, but one who has to do absolutely crazy things.

And now we shall get a little more controversial! I think that, when it comes to Star Wars, the PT actually fits into "ordinary people doing extraordinary things" more than the OT does. I mean, the OT has ordinary as hell Luke Skywalker, but he's special, he's the one remaining Jedi! And the PT has not-so-ordinary Anakin Skywalker, who has the most amazing Jedi powers ever, but -- okay, I give up, I think this argument is falling down unless I switch the focus to a non-Skywalker character, like Obi-Wan motherfucking Kenobi. Yes? Yes. Because he is ordinary; he's just a regular guy (with some cool powers, but he's far from the only one with such skills) doing extraordinary things in extraordinary times. (Minor break for Obi-Wan flail. Obi-Wan! OBI-WAN MOTHERFUCKING KENOBI. Okay, I'm done now.)

Wow, it's a good thing I never meant for this post to be coherent, huh?

ETA: Because it probably bears repeating at this point, I was just talking about the title book, not the whole series as a whole.

Thoughts on a rewatch of LWW, both in comment and fic form, because I'm special that way. Also, I suddenly realized that when I watch movies, I'm writing snatches of description in my head. It's...very disturbing, actually.

( rather than interspersing comments and fic, we shall begin with the comments and go on to the wee tiny fic bits )

Also this week we have watched Sharpe's Eagle and Sharpe's Company, starring Sean Bean, which leads my father to remark during the council scene, "He looks like he'd rather be back in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon might have been tough, but he wasn't pure evil like Sauron! And the French aren't orcs!"

I remember there was a lot of criticism of Orlando Bloom's Legolas (who I really like, by the way) when LotR first came out (and oh, but I have memories of going to see LotR in theatres!), but if you give culture shock -- dealing with humans! and dwarves! and hobbits! probably for the first time in his life, unless you count the time the dwarves got taken prisoner by Thranduil in The Hobbit -- his character portrayal makes a lot more sense. Of course he hangs out with Aragorn a lot; Aragorn was raised by elves, so they're practically of the same species.

It may be the Sharpe thing bleeding over, but I found myself liking Boromir a lot more this time, and I couldn't put my finger on why until the last scene, where Boromir's blowing his horn, and then I knew:

Basically, Boromir is Susan Pevensie.

Or, shall I say, Boromir is Susan redeemed. Both of them are the only two characters to doubt and fall (and one can argue this in LotR, but the situation further on in the trilogy is slightly different), but unlike Susan, Boromir manages to redeem himself in the end. Susan just falls -- diminishes, and goes into the West, and remains Susan Pevensie. To, uh, mix characters in LotR. The rest of them rise to glory; she and Boromir fall.

Also, both of them have horns. There's something here that I can't quite put my finger on yet. *muses* (Perhaps my senior honors thesis can be on similarities in post-War British fantasy literature, hmm?)