I am also enthralled!

[whynot]

I borrowed the Chronicles of Narnia from my boyfriend's brother last year, and read about 3 of the books before admitting I was bored by them. It's true, my interest in the books arose from watching the 2005 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The movie exceeded my expectations. Where my friends saw plot devices, I saw a contemplation on the themes and constructs of fantasy, and of storytelling in general. How everything came together neatly in the end (sort of!, which I will address under the cut). It was almost meta in its tidiness. The movie's more enjoyable if you think of archetypes rather than stereotypes.

But, I gave up reading about two-thirds of the way through Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is ironic now because that's the book I'm thirsting to read, what with it being in pre-production. I watched Prince Caspian a couple days ago and the thought I had most often was, "There's probably going to be shit-tons of Caspian/Peter fanfic."


+ It's quite dark for a children's movie. The scene where Peter realizes he's fucked up the castle raid and has to let half his troops die? Brilliant. Tugs heartstrings! I love it in stories when kids are for some reason or another in a fucked up non-kid situation viz. Lord of the Flies, The Professional, The Client, The Good Son. (Not Home Alone.) I love this trend of darkness in children's movies. I hope it continues.

+ Also the scene where Miraz pretty much tells the general to kill three of his men. My reaction is a combination of WTF, geez, and admiration at the size of the storytellers' balls.

+ When someone was like, "What now, Your Highness?" and both Caspian and Peter start talking at the same time, and then look at each other awkwardly. Definitely an "ooh shit-tons of Caspian/Peter fanfic!" moment.

+ Also when they fight after the castle battle. Caspian's anguished, angered cry when Peter mentions his father. Guh.

+ Edmund has become rather something of a badass. He saves Peter's ass twice (at the station, against the White Witch) and just kind of goes back to business without making a hoo-hah about it. Very classy. AND HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THE SCENE WHERE HE'S CONVINCING MIRAZ TO FIGHT PETER. SO MUCH. SO VERY MUCH. But that aside, Edmund doesn't receive very much character development in this movie. Well, this wasn't his movie after all, not the way LWW was. We'll have to wait for VDT!

+ Yes, yes, the jury has agreed that Reepicheep is Adorable. But it's also kind of creepy how much he wants to kill people.

+ Maybe I'm out of line because I haven't read the whole series, or if I'm not then I'm sure this issue has been addressed in Narnia fandom before. Also, this is more of an LWW quibble but as a newcomer it still needles me: those kids grew up in Narnia, killed people in Narnia, probably fell in and out of love in Narnia, and then the closet spits them back out and they're KIDS AGAIN and the movie ends. That's it? That's IT!? What about the psychological trauma? The kids do all those things as powerful rulers of a nation and suddenly they're kids in England in the middle of a world war, don't TELL me that doesn't fuck a head up, unless there's some sort of magical explanation for it.
THIS is what I want to see more of. I want them confused and confounded and missing Narnia so much it throws them into spirals! I want to see the boys mired in alcoholism! More of Peter smelling like booze and more of Edmund smelling like perfume and stealing from his parents' booze cabinet! Yes! Brood, boys, brood! While you drink! After you have sex with women (or men!) you don't care about! More of the Susan from here and here though please, where we see the wisdom that tempers her regular bitchiness. I'm not so much for the superbitch!Susan thing.
SEKRIT RECS LOL

It's difficult reconciling the children's ages between movieverse and bookverse. I reckon I prefer movieverse with the older Pevensies in their late teens, 'cos I haven't read the books and don't have a complete idea of what that can offer. But of course the good fic around is bookverse fic. It's little surprise that fic for books are generally of better quality than fic for movies or TV. And lots of bandfic reads like a description for a music video.

So yeah, I'm totally swiping boyf's bro's Chronicles of Narnia again as soon as I'm back in the country, and until then I'm going to content myself with discreetly tearing the cellophane off books and reading them in the bookstore.

Comments

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I want to see the boys mired in alcoholism! More of Peter smelling like booze and more of Edmund smelling like perfume and stealing from his parents' booze cabinet! Yes! Brood, boys, brood! While you drink! After you have sex with women (or men!) you don't care about!

Oh, yes, please. I may have to write this. Especially Edmund wandering around having sex with random women while Peter drinks himself to desperation.

See, I read the books as a small child, and reread them many times, but there was a span of a few years where I did not read them, and then LWW came out. And then all the fic I read was Susan being bitter, because...apparently people concentrate on Susan. Because fandom is full of women? Or something. (Which is funny, because fandom usually concentrates on the boys, but not in this fandom!) Yes, but my major problem with the books was that there were no consequences, when they should have been going insane. (Also, Peter and Susan and Edmund totally sat up talking about how they would be running the war, because, well...hello, rulers.)

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Ya do it! I think that would be a satisfying fic to write. I itch to write someone drinking too much and MAN, I only recently started ficcing again and it's like suddenly I have this list of THINGS to do, or at least ponder, which may or may not include Glozelle (ENJOYING THE SOUTH SEAS, SOLDIER?) and that Holy War thing that started on your thread, and I signed up for a fic/meta challenge. wtf?

The Susan fic! Mmmhmm. I was joyous at first because they dealt with all the things that needed dealing with. The people's hearty way of saying, "WTF LEWIS." But then ya, be careful what you wish for. Oh there's definitely a section of fandom focusing on the boys, but from what I've seen so far the inspiration appears to mostly be drawn from Ben Barnes's cheekbones, if not William Moseley's soft golden locks.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. Until Narnia, I hadn't written fic in eight months (barring a few one shots to keep me from losing my mind writing my original novel and throwing my computer out the window into the snow, which wouldn't have done much for chances at graduation) and I haven't written it in this quantity for the better part of three years now. And then I was writing chapters for a trio of novel-length mysteries. (Dude, in those days, I somehow managed to write and post 2K a night.) Now I'm writing buckets and buckets of Narnia fic! Besides the Peter/Caspian (which involves Peter basically saying, "I would like to get laid at least once before I go back to England," except more genteel-like) and the story of how Peter is very claustrophobic and Edmund burned out an entire cave system, there's a mound of other stuff. Like the story where Peter and Susan go out dancing in London to "unwind", except, you know, Peter being Peter, "unwind" translates to "barfight with soldiers and getting arrested." (Somewhere in all of this I am going to have to find time and inspiration to write an HP fic for a ficathon too.)

Oooh, Glozelle. I'm actually curious about when in time Aslan sent them, because they're hopelessly out of step with the modern world, yet it was the modern world that was inferred (in the book) when Reepicheep offered to go through. But if it's not the modern world... Well. And if it is the modern world, I believe the Pacific War may have been going on right then and there. Hell of a thing to walk into. Wow, didn't think of that until now.

Ugh, yeah. I mean, not that Ben Barnes's cheekbones and William Moseley's soft golden locks aren't fine (hello, I am a teenage female, and also, I have eyes), but there was so much subtlety in the movie I feel compelled to write. Mostly about the boys, since I'm really bad at writing women, and also, the women are well-taken care of. (Hey, I like a good Peter/Susan fic as well as the next person.) But ahem. I have already reached the stage in this fandom where I Do Not Read Fic, because I have very set views on the characters and everyone else's are wrong, wrong, wrong. Which is, um...good? As it gives me more time to write? Anyway, I shall fill holes in the fandom. Because they need filling.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Woah the Pacific War! This leads to interesting possibilities of Glozelle finally finding a righteous commander to serve, but this entails my having to maneuver him around WW2 army life, which, uh, I can't do. So maybe I'm just gonna set them somewhere uninhabited. Maybe there will be friendly islanders, who knows. Occasionally planes will fly overhead and someone can be like, "Damn, those birds are huge." We'll see, we'll see. People will complain of the heat, but even more about the mosquitoes, and probably someone dies from a snakebite.

I love Peter/Susan! Though I don't like Edmund/Lucy. Well, actually. So, the opposite of finding too many fics of a thing I like and making me bored i.e. Susan and her angst, is finding too many fics of a thing I don't like and provoking grudging admiration! That thing being Edmund/Lucy. I just don't like Lucy but people keep on writing compelling well-written fic about her! And about her and Edmund! I am torn.