Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - The Chronicles of Narnia: Books 4 & 5

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Part 2 of our 4 part series on C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. Ketho and Asha discuss The Silver Chair and The Horse And His Boy. We have a reversal of favorite and least favorite books in the series, Jadis 2.0, and a plot so well done it probably belongs in a different series.patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

🎵 bro are you fucking real man come on we are back we're talking about as you said sort of this forgotten middle section of the chronicles of Narnia. The Silver Chair, which is sort of like the first three books again. And A Horse and His Boy, which is a book from a different series with recurring characters. It's your favorite characters, but from an entirely different book series. Like, Lewis got on to a whole other thing when he wrote A Horse and His Boy, and spoiler, before we get to it,

I think it made what is the best book in the series so far. I would agree. I think that as an adult, it hits different. It's unintentionally Lewis's most mature work. Yes. And I think mostly because he removed from himself the restraint of having to write from the perspective of characters that we'd already seen before. Like he doesn't,

he doesn't have to worry about how these characters tie into the main central plot line of the, the like the pevencies and eustace he doesn't care in that book yeah and yeah it gave him some freedom to write a different story and i think it's way better i it makes it legitimately sometimes actually makes me curious about the wider world of narnia um what else is happening around here? Yeah, it's, I would have liked more. I think this, this to me gives, it's giving to me what I call the star Wars problem where at this point,

I don't give a shit about the skywalkers anymore. Don't care. Don't want to hear about them. But what I do want to hear about is just some of the other nonsense going on in this infinitely large galaxy right it's like anything could be happening that's that's why people liked andor so much right it's a good story about other stuff that just happens to be happening at the same time like that's why like you know people like uh the two of us love like the knights of the old republic games games

so much it's just a cool story about a thing that happened in this universe that we're already familiar with. And I think getting ahead of ourselves, I think that's what's so good about Horse and his boy is you get to like touch in on the main timeline, but it's not entirely related to it. And it lets you tell like a more freeing story because you don't give a shit about the main characters. And like, I think it's better for it. like a more freeing story because you don't give a shit about the main characters and like i think it's better for it and i think star wars properties are better for it when you get to do that yeah

when they're not tied into the main that's why the ending of that last star wars movie made me and so many other people so furious when she's like i'm skywalker and you're like shut the fuck up and they gave her the yellow lightsaber. I'm like, it's better when you were just the daughter of some dirt farmers. That's way better. It's a better story. Anyway, it's because Ryan Johnson is an actual writer. It actually can tell a story. Yeah. Anyway, let's start with Silverchair. Now, going into this, you and I both remembered clearly that this was our favorite one as children, right? Yep. And I am left at a loss as to why.

I think I was like, I read the books in chronological order, like in universe. So you started with Magician's Nephew. Well, technically, I read Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first. But then I read everything in order. So then you went like what, Magician's Nephew, Horse and his, no, it would have been Magician's Nephew, Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Horse and his boy. Horse and his boy. Caspian. Dawn Treader. Dawn Treader. The Last Battle. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, so Doing some weird Star Wars, again, some like, what do they again, some like what they call it, what they call it, like the slash order.

It's just, uh, uh, I don't, I don't know why I did that. I think I did that because scholastic ordered them that way. Um, when they really should have ordered them by release order.

But, uh, I was just particularly interested in anything that had an adjacent connection to Jadis. Um, and you were entranced by the feminine wiles i was i was just constantly on the lookout for anything that had to do with her and this book is kind of like the semi return of her in a weird adjacent way um this is the not jadis definitely not jadis uh jadis um she comes back as the green witch instead of the white witch um we're gonna i'm also gonna bring jadis back up when we talk about

uh horse and his boy because i got some thoughts about how the way she's mentioned in that one too but anyway yeah silver chair um but it but it was my favorite as a kid and i really i'm i'm struggling to figure out why um i'm in this i'm in the same boat as you i also remember thinking this was my well i think this and dawn treader i think were my two favorite like growing up i could see dawn treader i can get dawn treader was interesting um, like you, I'm not really sure why, because I'll be honest, neither Edmund nor Jill Poole are that interesting. No, actually, the most interesting member of their group is Puddle Glum. Puddle Glum is interesting for sure. Did I like it because there were man eating giants in it?

Um, did I like it? Cause there were man eating giants in it. Maybe the underground world where you get to see father time asleep, which everyone take a note of that, make a mental note of father time sleeping under the earth. This will be important in two episodes, two episodes from now, this will be important in part four. Um, but I don't honestly know why, even though i will say it does get a little intense at the point where he's in the chair like begging them to release him oh yeah it's kind of messed up it's a little messed up but like they're they're sitting there coldly being like well i don't know

how do you feel about this chap and he's like i am in an unending torture please free me you're the only ones who can ever do this and they're like maybe and then he's like jesus and they're like okay he's like in the name of jesus and they're like oh shit he's christian okay we can let him out he's cool we can save him he's saved his soul is eternally saved so we can save so we can save his physical being um i remember distinctly actually funny enough really disliking Puddle Glum when I was a kid he's a wet blanket and he just says like

gibberish half the time as an adult you're like yeah I'd also be a depressed piece of shit if I had to escort these two little children around and the drawings the art for him was kind of weird again if I was in Puddle Glumpse shoes, I would also be grumpy. Hey, we're going to pull you out of your home and send you on a fucking wild goose chase with these two kids.

You're probably going to die. But something that I now notice as an adult when reading this book that I didn't notice as a kid. And this kind of strikes back to this makes me think of starship troopers a little bit is the whole shtick this experiment house oh yeah it's the beginning of the book where they open at the experiment house and at the end yeah well and then they occasionally mention it in the middle too um the experiment house is effectively a experimental school where children are not disciplined. So it's essentially CS Lewis saying corporal punishment should be allowed in

schools. And if it isn't, then bad things happen. It's like, he's lashing out at like new types of education and like, I don't know, Montessori schools or something, which is really disappointing because Montessori is pretty great

when done appropriately. That's what I'm talking about, right? Where kids are sort of like self-directed learning and kids can like... Yeah, kids of different ages are mixed together and essentially the older kids can help teach the younger kids. And then they're kind of put into a space that has a bunch of different potential options um and then the kids themselves pick which they want to do this is clearly c.s

lewis being like monoscory sewells lead to bullying and bad children and crime like you he does the he does the hindline argument he does the hind if you don't discipline your kids they turn into criminals. But it's even mentioned in the middle of the book. Like, I just opened the book randomly and found it. But it says, Scrub and Jill made an awkward attempt at a bow. Girls are not taught how to curtsy at Experiment House. Okay, bud.

It's like girls aren't taught how to curtsy this is just it's it's they aren't taught proper manners this is just a bad thing girls girls need to learn proper manners they have to they have to curtsy and boys bow women curtsy even if you're not wearing a dress i guess he also mentions curtsying in horse and his boy because um oh what's uh what's your name oh aravis knows how to curtsy properly because she was raised in high society it's a weird thing that he seems to be stuck on a little bit let's not look into that too far computer science lewis i can't remember i don't know i don't know i remember what cs Well, it computer science is as good a guess as any. so yeah,

we opened this book with being like experimental education is bad. Um, they get into Narnia Aslan. Jill almost kills admin by pushing him off a cliff. Yeah. Aslan's like, I'll just blow him over to Narnia. It's okay.

As there's like, hang on. Okay. He's safe now. Uh, cause you have to remember Aslan can do literally anything mm-hmm which I don't know if it's now we can wait to the last episode when if both our guest experts on we can

again mention the weird Christian conceptions of like an all-powerful God that can act chooses not to but whatever so the problem of evil yeah we to but whatever the problem of evil yeah we're talking about the problem of evil stay tuned for part four I think where we might discuss that so

he pulls Edmund to safety and then Jill's like he's gonna eat me and he's like I might bitch try me and she gets her mission they get a bunch of signs that they have to follow to get their mission. Correct. They fail three of the four signs.

Yeah. It, it made it over the course of the story. He's given like four signs to look for, and then they just fail all of them, but it doesn't matter because the fourth one's the most important one. Cause that's where it's recognizing that really, and we'll know who Jesus is.

I, I made two connections in my head two biblical connections in my head um first was in my head the ten commandments yeah um which seems pretty self-explanatory but the second one i thought of the story of peter being told that before a rooster crows three times you will denounce me interesting peter's like no no no no i won't that he does interesting because there's the three signs that they don't that they fail at before i think i think it's probably more directed at being the commandments to a degree could be but much less moralistic and more just here's some cool little hints. I definitely get some like talk about the Christian overtones in the like

really in will you'll know it's him because he'll like say something in my name. It's very much biblical and like the by my name thou shalt know me type, you know, type thing like very, very biblical. It's rambling over here, but like,

here's the thing, listeners, there's honestly not that much going on in this book they get there they get puddle glum they almost get eaten by giants they go underground they rescue the prince that's it and you know what's really funny it's the longest book yeah it drags a little bit i think i'll be honest when i was when i was going through this one i was like this one does kind of drag a little bit like there's like parts where you're like I don't know if this needed to be this as much as it was like and like the parts that are interesting I don't think we dwell on long enough like they're only in the underground city for like two chapters and I'm like this is like cool. Yeah. Seeing other types. Cool. Think other time is cool, but no, we have to spend like, I don't know an entire chapter,

just like on the road from puddle glum's house to Harfang. And you're like, Oh, okay, sure. A whole chapter about the parliament of owls. And you're like, okay,

sure. Why not? When I, again, when you get to the interesting parts of like underground cities and gnomes and the plan to conquer Narnia, they're like, Oh yeah, she's going to use me to conquer Narnia. They're like, Oh yeah,

she's just going to use me to conquer Narnia. Don't worry about it. Anyway, she's dead now. She does show up very quickly and then even faster. Yeah. Um, after they have a weird,

like battle of song and enchantment, which puddle glum overcomes by being stubborn. Yeah. By being stubborn and just being puddle glum. Really? Um, everyone tries and fails to throw off the enchantment. And he's like, yeah, well, you're a bitch and like stomps on the fire.

Snaps everybody out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, I'm sorry, but this one just going back and going through it again. I find myself just simply like, I do think that the most interesting tidbit about it is the experiment house. I do like it. Yeah. He's got a live real. As we talk about this, his real politics coming out in his talk about experiment house.

All these kids are bullies. They're not getting slapped around enough. You don't beat your children. They're going to become bull gonna become bullies funny because statistically the opposite is shown to be true fucking beat your kids turns out they beat other people because they learn that beating is the way to do things yeah wild shocker shocker um like i, this is the last book for a little while that does like the, I call it like the sort of train of characters. Because you go from like the four Pevensies to the two Pevensies and Eustace to Eustace and Jill. No, sorry. Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's like a train of each time bringing like another person. But this is the one that breaks the chain because after this, he writes a book from a different series and then writes genesis so like the pair of characters can't come back until you figure out who the magician's nephew is later but like you know what i mean there's no like recurring characters after this aside from the fact that i mean the pevensies make an appearance in horse and his Boy and are characters, but they're not, like you said, the characters. They are tertiary characters

at most. Yeah, you can like hang out with them. And again, also I think shows the Pevensies that they're most interesting, which we will get to. So, final thoughts. I don't, I feel like there's probably, if like Doug Carden, if there's probably something thematic we could come up with, like where he pulled the idea of the enchanted prince who's himself for one hour a day.

During the witching hour, the curse is temporarily lifted. I'm sure that comes from somewhere. I'm sure the chair itself is symbolic in some way. I'm sure that comes from somewhere. I'm sure the chair itself is symbolic in some way. Oh, I could do a slight bit of research, listeners, which you know I hate to do, but I did. I found right here, the Manor of Rillian's confinement true chair recalls the imprisonment of Theseus and Peritheus in the underworld when discovered by Heracles on his 12th and final labor, the abduction of Cerebrus. So again, kind of what Alex talked about in the last episode, there's a lot of classical Greek stuff going on in here. And we actually see that again in Horse and His Boy.

There are a lot of classical Greek references throughout Narnia, which I feel is weird, like we talked about last time, for someone who's so patently like, yay Christianity, yay England. Pulling from pagan stories. Yeah, but this is Imprisonment of Theotheus and Paritheus in the underworld. Again, we're going to see more Greek symbolism in the next episode as well with Corrin and Cor. But yeah, the Lady of the Green Curdle, which curdle, weird i the lady of the green curdle which curdle uh weird word lady all right i'm gonna figure out is the lady of the green curdle just just jade is she the white is she just jadis again the story never makes clear who the great lady is where she came from

the silver chair includes her among several northern witches a group that includes jadis so did jadis make a coven way up in the north before she took her narnia i think so i think there's actually a coven because there are several northern witches huh i always just kind of i don't know i kind of always assumed that there was a connection there why else would he keep bringing up witches well i i do think there's probably i don't know if we'll discuss it now or discuss it more i don't know in one of the other episodes but i feel like maybe maybe next episode when we do the magician's nephew there's definitely some like i want to call it like biblical sexism throughout lewis's work with the fact that it's

like these witches and they're female and again we'll have to talk about it magician's nephew when we talk about jadis and her origin because she's lilith um and is immortal from like eating an apple uh so i feel like lewis doesn't try very hard at all to get away from the like yeah women am i right yeah, Eve ate that first apple. Like, what a bitch. Like, he really doesn't do that much to distance himself from that sort of... The women are the evil of the sex, and, like,

they're the ones that are, like, responsible for the fall. But... Yeah. It doesn't really investigate it more than that. He just reuses the trope a couple times. Yeah, he reuses the trope a couple of times. Yeah, he reuses the trope. He leans into the witch thing.

And as we're going to find out with the horse and his boy, it is not his only, we'll say, classic Christian mistake. When it comes to sexism, racism, etc. Yeah. Any one of the isms. If it's an ism, racism, et cetera. Yeah. Any one of the isms. If it's an ism, Lewis has got some, Lewis has got some isms.

Isms that we need to talk about. Honestly. Yeah. I think that's about it for the silver chair, to be honest with you. There's not much else going on. I think I might. I don't think there's,

there's not even that many lessons to take away from it. Even though I, I do want to make a, if I may, because I don't, we haven't really for an episode or two. I'm going to make a direct

comparison here to one of Lewis's BFFs, Tolkien. Ah, yes. Because the North land where the giants live is called Etten's Moor. Etten being an old word

for giant. Anyone who's played D&D knows that Etten's are a giant race. They're the two- knows that attins are a giant race the two headed ones yeah they specifically the two headed ones um hang on a second and um while the lands north of narnia are called the ettenmoors it's called etten's more because that's where the giants live uh in the lord of the rings the highland region between sort of the Shire and Rivendell is also called Ettenmoors or the Trollfels. It's just literally the same name.

I wonder who had it first. Well, the Ettenmoors, I think are first mentioned in The Hobbit. Okay, never mind. We figured out who had it first. I'm pretty sure. Trivia. It even says it in the trivia for the Wikipedia for the Lord of the Rings one that they're friends and they're like,

yeah, this is a cool name. We're both going to use it. Look, I may be biased, but I'm going to be honest. I would attribute it to coming from Tolkien first. That's the kind of thing he would do. Probably without a doubt because it's unlike half of the other things in Tolkien's, I mean, in Lewis's world. Tolkien is very persnickety about language. So, you know, it's like everything that he's calling his thing, his stuff, means something in some language, even if it's a conlang. Yeah. Whereas. Where Lewis is just like, I don't know, it's Etten, even if it's a conlang. Yeah.

Whereas where Lewis is just like, I don't know. It's at mores where giants live. Yeah. Like he's, he's just doing that. He's just slap dashing it on there. Also another very,

sorry. Another very Tolkien thing is the fact that there is a ruined giant city that they have to like find to go through, which is incredibly similar to the concept in, in Lord of the Rings called the Elda Ente Iwerke, which is like this old English phrase for like the work of giants, which is how a lot of post-Roman Britons felt about Roman ruins that they came upon, like roads and walls and stuff.

Like, I don't know, giants must have built this shit because we can't. And it's a concept throughout Lord of the rings is they they talk about the work of giants or the elder and your worker which is just literally them coming across an old abandoned ruined giant city and you're like oh okay neat you did just lift this from your bff um it's especially weird too because it's like the town the city itself has collapsed in such a way as to essentially be like a geoglyph where you can't read it until you're in the air above it. Yeah. So you're up in the castle. And then you can see, you know, it's like down here below me or whatever it says.

Under me. Under me. You're like, what? Why is this built this way? It's like, well, because Aslan caused it to be built that way. Oh, Ooga Booga. Booga. like what why is this built this way he's like well because aslan caused it to be built that way at some point you can't tell the difference between aslan as like i don't know as god and aslan as just kind of creepy magician man yes both. Both. Both. Speaking of Aslan as God and Creepy Magician Man, let's move on to the more interesting of these two books. Let's move on to Horse and His Boy.

Man, you know what's really funny about the Horse and His Boy is I think when I was a kid, I think this was my least favorite when I was a kid. Yeah, maybe. Because I was like, where are the penalties? But as an adult, this is definitively so far the most interesting book of the five yeah we have read so far if all of lewis's books were like this i would want to read them all like more yes this comes across as a book from a different series that had a slight crossover with narnia and it's the better for it. Like 100%.

It's better for it. It's just, it's more interesting just in general as an adult to, especially because at the very least Narnia has like this veneer of perfection over top of it. That makes these sort of intrigue plots very difficult to pull off without it feeling incredibly out of place. Calorman is pretty bleak and and we'll we'll get into the ism that is a kind of a problem here

but at the same time it's more intriguing because it is not this shiny perfect um it's it's not perfect england 2.0 yeah it's not it it's much more harsh much more rough around the edges and much more intriguing intriguing and the plot that takes place here if you just look at the overarching story that takes place and compare it to what we just talked about with the silver chair okay silver chair right it was like show up giants underground prince the horse and his boy we just talked about with the silver chair okay silver chair right it was like show up giants underground prince the horse and his boy you have runaway slaves runaway noble avoiding noble girl

running away from a forced marriage to a creepy old man so you could call that a weirder other other form of slavery yeah so you've got like multiple types of escape slaves. You've got like sort of Prince and the pauper mistaken identity. You've got intrigue. You've got kidnapping. You've got diploma, like weird diplomatic things going on between Calumet and Narnia with like a delegation got set. They're attempting to get like princess Susan's hand in marriage. They're like, Oh, if she doesn't do it, we're going to like hold delegation got sent. They're attempting to get like Princess Susan's hand in marriage.

They're like, oh, if she doesn't do it, we're going to like hold them prisoner anyway. You've got, oh, we're going to, you know, sneak through the, you got people like hiding in a room and overhearing secret councils. You've got a race through the desert, sneak attack on a country, a battle where Edmund stabs people with a sword. Like you get descriptions of giants wearing boots with spikes on them so they can murder people in combat.

By stepping on them. By like stepping on them or kicking them with spiked boots. This is like, in a lot of ways, a much more adult and much more intriguing and intense story than any of the other ones up to this point. It's so wild that when I was a kid, I thought this was boring. You know, it's so much better. You've got like, again, horse races through the night. You've got sneaking through the Sultan's Palace.

Sorry, the Tisrax Palace to like an overhearing council. They're talking about like international subterfuge. sorry, the Tisrax Palace to like an overhearing council. They're talking about like international subterfuge. Like the idea that the prince is going to do this thing with his dad's blessing, but his dad has also multiple reasons for doing it. Because like if it works, he wins. If it doesn't work, he gets one of his most troublesome sons killed. They might also get Arkenland as part of their empire, but maybe that'll just get them Narnia too. That is straight out of a better series.

This is C.S. Lewis doing his best George R.R. Martin. Kind of, yeah. George R.R. Martin is just doing the horse and his boy for adults. Like, yeah, this is like some, you know, it's not quite Martin level shit, but like, it's the idea, but no, but the concepts behind it are though, the idea that he's going to

kidnap Queen Susan and teach her a lesson and force her to be his wife, that is some like, that's some adult shit. Yeah, yeah well i mean the very concept of arranged marriages and the implication that sits behind that they even make mention of the fact that um uh girls of um arabis's station are often married off at the age she is which is i don't know about 11, which because,

because Shasta is like, you're too young to be married. And Brie kind of gives them this, like, not if you're a nobility and you're like, excuse me. Not, not,

not, not the, it's a different, it's a tone shift from the series. That's like, no one has ever fucked. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Just, um, I'm going to try and find the image and I think this is going to kind of lead into maybe our first ism though this ism is kind of a two for one it's orientalism

ding ding ding yeah orientalism which goes pretty well with racism so racism yeah taking everything i just said about how this story is the most like intriguing from an adult perspective of plot and like story elements and like i think i don't we might have said beginning episode might have been before recorded the whole like way they escape from Calorman with like planning a party, but then like using that as cover to get supplies and themselves to their ships they can escape. Really cool. Interesting. However, I said in a message when we were preparing for this episode that this horse and his boy is both a lot better and a lot worse than I remember.

It's a lot better for all the reasons we outlined just now it's a lot worse because it's a lot more orientalist and racist uh that i had a concept of when i was like 10 um i i bring it up when i did uh specifically about the 10 or 11 year old being married off, which doesn't happen in Narnia. And of course not Narnia. Everyone gets to choose their own partners. And I'm going to, I'm going to share with you right now because I don't know. I'm not very good at describing it, but to everyone in that's listening,

I'm going to be showing a picture of Jean Leon Jerome's The Snake Charmer. Pause the podcast, Google Jean Leon's The Snake Charmer. If you're driving, just keep driving. Look it up. It's a good example of Orientalist art,

but it also kind of is reinforcing the idea of this weird exoticism in pedophilia. That is part of the Orientalist mindset of like this kind of like, Ooh, they do weird things to children out there. Ooh.

Yeah. Everyone, you should look up that picture. It is a, if you want at the moment, it is a young nude boy facing away from the viewer with a python of some kind wrapped around him in front of a group of adult men and old men like playing music and watching this young naked boy hold a big snake it's um clearly set in the

um arab world somewhere they're like wearing turbans and like the artwork on the wall is all, is all, you know, and, and don't expect the, the Muslim. Yeah. The art to make any sense in the terms of like,

Oh, this thing in the background, this is Turkish. And like this thing in the foreground is, is something that's clearly Hindu or, or, or, or from the Indian peninsula. It's like,

you know, it, it's, it's Orientalist in that way where it's kind of a mishmash of all these kind of Middle Eastern, South Asian things. Snake charmer guy is more of like a India thing. Got like the Islamic architecture is more of like a sort of,

you know, Middle Eastern thing. Some of the guys in like the head wraps and stuff look more like North African than anything else. But like you said, it's a weird mishmash, which fits perfectly

with this book. Yeah, because the, and not to say this necessarily when it comes to creating fantasy cultures, like you're never going to be able to avoid coding and some to some degree. Um, but,

and you are, I can see you are allowed also to combine aspects of different cultures. That's fine. Yeah. Um, it's just that so much of, of Calorman is just, just depicted as being horrible.

It's like everyone that is good is trying to flee in some way or another. There's not really a lot of redeeming qualities that are used. And, and then there are things like slavery. There are things like a lack of kind of personal freedom in general. There's a, you know, arranged marriages for very young children, people being sold, the fishermen trying to sell the main character at the beginning.

Like if you're in the city that everyone just makes way as soon as there's someone more important, everyone has to be forced out of the way. And it's not so much that this would be a horrible thing to include in a setting if you're trying to go for something dark or more serious and more adult with its themes and all that yada, yada, yada, yada. The issue is more that it's just this place that has it. And Narnia is like England, but perfect. And the whole like the continued rallying cry of Narnia and the North that they say throughout the story, it's very much like, damn, aren't all these people weird and backwards? If only we could get to Narnia where things are right and good. And even has the people, some Calorman people. Obviously, Shoust is different because he stands out because he has like the skin color of a Northerner. Uh,

and then they have people like, like the one noble lady that helps, um, or have us escape mentions that like, she actually finds the Northern men to be more handsome specifically. Like the Prince Rabidash keeps going on about how attracted he is to the barbarian queen susan like it's this very like these people are different and worse but they obsess about narnia and and how good it is and how good it is well and do their ideas bad but like

in need of subjugation because it's better than them in a weird way it's very orientalist narnia is kind of perceived as this sort of like in a weird way i'm gonna use this word but kind of pure or i think this is going to be kind of disturbing but like virginal yeah um it's seen as being like fruitful and bountiful and like especially because in the previous books like you were saying it's a very uh sexless setting um and then this book is like haha what if it wasn't what if we went somewhere that was weird what if we went somewhere where sex actually is a thing. Where all the brown people live. And you're like, whoa. We have actually heard a mention of Carla man before.

They were the ones that were de facto ruling the Lone Islands at the beginning of the Dawn Treader. That's why there was like a slave market going on there when Caspian got there. But like the map itself has a little uh at the back of all the books is a map and it literally says over the uh lone islands here were slaves which i just i just think it's really funny and i want to point it out that's a really weird way to use the like a mapus mundi thing of being like here there bc monsters like here there were slaves and you're like oh just plaster that across all of Europe. Anyway. Um,

so if it hasn't been clear from our description, Kellerman is essentially the Ottoman empire through the eyes of CS Lewis. Like it is essentially the Ottoman Turks with a mishmash of like a Persian Mughal, Indian and Moorish influences. It's essentially just to, to in Lewis's eyes, the Arab world. Yeah. They even worship the wrong god.

Yeah. A god they call Tash. Which, remember that. That'll come back in episode four. Yeah. Again, something to remember for the last episode. Remember the god Tash. That if I remembering that correctly, cause it's been so long since I read the last battle,

that might be the most problematic aspect of that book. It's one of them. Remember Tash, the God of the Calamon, who is a sort of cruel and capricious God. But it's very like, look at these weird non-white people and their weird God and their terrible customs. That is the undertone of this entire thing. Like you said, anyone you encounter that has a good heart or a good personality personality is trying to leave Calum or, or says something positive about the North. Yeah. Or yeah. Talks positively about the North.

Yes. So it's like the, the good people are the ones that like England, England. And I don't know, Germany, which is Arkenland, whatever Arkenland is trying to be the Swiss. Yeah. The Swiss, if they were allied to, I don't know, Germany, which is Arkenland. Whatever Arkenland is trying to be.

The Swiss. Yeah. The Swiss, if they were allied to, I don't know, northern parts of Europe, I guess, because they're just this weird little mountain kingdom that you've never heard of before and is now very important temporarily. I think he just put that there because he didn't want them to be attacking Kaer Paraville. Yeah, I think so. I think he had to have some intermediate castle for them to be fighting. Um,

I think they might've mentioned Ark and Lynn in a previous book. It's just like this weird little kingdom. That's like in between, um, Calumet and all of the, all of the art that is both in the book. Um, now of course artists,

uh, don't really get it. Yeah. They get, they get to interpret stuff. Um, the covers of books are never decided by the author unless the author is someone particularly. The author is George R.R. Martin.

Yeah. So unless you're extremely notorious, you have a lot of notoriety. You're just not going to get that chance, especially after your death. that chance, especially after your death. So in the case of the Scholastic books, but the cover of the Scholastic books, the art for Tashbon in

the map. Tashbon, the capital of Collarmen. And then the art for Tashbon, which is the original art from chapter four. It's kind of like in here, which is original art. I'm not sure who does that art if it might be Lewis himself

but if it is it has more further connection to the Ottoman Turks because it looks an awful lot like an artist's rendition of Istanbul it sure does it very very much looks like Istanbul and it even has a it has like an Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia like look alike yeah in it yes very much looks like istanbul and it even has a um it has like an isofia uh yeah an isofia like look alike yeah in it yes um it's a little it's a little bit different because it sits on a river instead of on like a straight well it's on a river slash coast because they have a boat that they can get on oh yeah the river goes to the coast um so they can like follow that but at the end of the day um the only the only major difference is that it's sitting kind of in the middle of a, of a river as opposed to sitting across a straight. Yeah. But it is very much, uh, these are the Ottomans, uh, which even in the, I will say though, if you're making the Ottomans, the whole like it is a little historically accurate for the Ottomans in the like the sultan has like a bunch of sons and the way you determine who succeeds

the sultan is by who survives because the Ottomans essentially had a de facto policy of the next sultan will be the son that kills all of his brothers first. I forgot the actual word for that, but there's like it was essentially their standing policy that like the head of the Ottoman Empire would like, as his sons came of age, would like give them governorships, like the territories that had the most money and had the most soldiers in order to give his favored son a leg up on his brothers. But it was, like, accepted that upon the Sultan's death, the brothers would trick or murder or exile each other and that the one that remained would become the new Sultan. And you very much get that here in Kellerman, where theultan's like look i've got like 18 of you you just happen to be first in line and i find you to be annoying so if you die on

this stupid adventure of yours it's i don't care that much because also a lot of sultans die because their sons get bored so now i will say of the things about comparing it to the ottomans that one is actually fairly historically accurate uh about s about sultans being overthrown by their sons and the sons murdering each other. That doesn't protect this book, though. The fact that that is somewhat historically accurate does not protect this book from all the other ways it's Orientalist and weird. including sort of what I want to call them, like that, I don't want to call them bad, but like things that are supposed to be negative in your story about a

different, like a, one of the cultures in your book, like child marriage and slavery, that's fine. That can definitely happen in your story. It's when you take it in conjunction with the rest of Lewis's work about Narnia and the way Narnia is presented,

it's very much alike. Yeah. Where the white people live is good and pure, and where the not white people live is bad and evil. And the people there are duplicitous and decadent and not good, and they worship the wrong god. The way it's presented in opposition to Narnia is what makes it to me very inherently problematic. Yeah. Yeah.

It's it's the comparison point between the two, not the existence of one or the other, especially I mean, especially since Narnia is where all the white people are. It's just the places to the north just have all the white people who are better places. And this place is full of, you know, devil worshiping monsters for the most part. I mean, it falls into the same trap that, as we talked about earlier, his BFF Tolkien falls into, which is that the West is full of the white people who are good and worship the right one. And the East and South are full of the dark skin people who are under the thrall of Sauron. It's the exact same trap. It's the same.

The exact same sort of racist setup of your fantasy world. And which also makes me feel like I have to remind everyone of our, of our, of our queen of the podcast, Ursula Le Guin, who specific goes out of her way to be like, yeah, all the normal people of earth sea are all actually pretty dark skinned. And the weird barbarians that do slave raids are the white people from cargo art and that,

and the car and the car and the cargo lands very specifically did that. She also specifically does that in a few of the books from the Hanish cycle, specifically a planet of exile. It's the white skin. People are the weird ones that are barbarians. So I just wanted to throw that out. Just, just flipping it on its ass.

Just, just to be a little goober. Particularly with Earthsea. that was a very very intentional choice on her part to have the white people be the weird scary barbarians and have all of the dark-skinned people be the civilized ones which i mean if you're going to be medievalist about your world there's also a whole lot about the middle east in sort of the medieval period that was much more highly cultured, if you want to call it that, than a lot of Europe at the time, considering that the Arabic scholars at the time were like inventing math. Yeah. Yeah. Like modern mathematics.

Inventing math and like medicine at the time. Is that the like Islamic golden age? Yeah. The Islamic golden age where they were like, man, we invented the concept of zero and the numerical system that we still use to this day. And, you know,

medicine and a bunch of other things that were, are still very influential and that the Renaissance in Europe would not have happened without, but I digress from my history thing here. Cause the, I also, the idea of calling one area civilized another area not has a whole lot of other uh significant pitfalls you can fall into

and i can see the ghost of david graber appearing before me um we're talking about civilization but just that is this the horse and his boy despite a lot of the cool storytelling that happens in it, it is hamstrung by its racism and by one other thing that this book has in spades, which is, I am Jesus, this is my plan. That's, you could call that a bigger problem with the entire series. Yeah, but it's, I think it's almost at its most obvious here that it's Aslan's plan. Well, yeah, especially in this one. I feel like Aslan does the most effed up bullshit at times.

Yes. It takes the most active hand in events. So even in the first book in Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, when he's around, even he's upset because he has to endure being crucified. He's upset because he has to endure being crucified. And you have his like, well, and you have his like, you know, his moment of like, what? No, Garden of Gethsemane, like, ah, yes, I will be killed. That is my father's plan. Ergo, I must go through with it, even though it sucks.

Sure, it only lasts like, I don't know, like four hours, but he still does it. And he's like sad about it, right? Like he understands there's a plan and has to go with it. In Caspian and Dawn Treader, he just sort of appears as like a face sometimes to be like, hey, by the way, here's what you're supposed to be doing. In Silver Chair, he's there at the beginning to like set them on their path,

like that's it, right? Horse and his boy, he is present throughout the entire story and is literally directing nearly every event. Driving Erebus and Shasta together and their horses together, Wyn and Bree together, that's him. He's the lion scaring them to force them together.

The cat that protects Shasta when he's sleeping at the tombs, that's him. The lion that chases them to remind the horses that they can run faster, that's him. It's all him, the whole time. The lion that literally maims an 11-year-old child as penance for her actions.

This 10 or 11-year-old girl who in order to escape forced marriage and near bondage. Essentially sex slavery. Essentially sex slavery to a man that is described as being a creepy old man.

In order to make her escape good, she sort of drugs a servant girl they mentioned like well what happened to the servant girl and she's like i don't know i'm 11 i don't know fucking no she does that girl does seem regretful about it she's like i'm sorry but like i had to uh that servant girl apparently got whipped 10 times so for that without explanation in advance aslan puts like 10 big 10 cuts directly down this 11 year old girl's back to make her feel the pain that the servant went through. So you did the right thing in escaping bondage, but because you did something kind of bad in the process of doing it, you must also still do penance. It's very much like, I don't know.

It's a very christian thing um this sort of like even if you do the right thing um if you sometimes doing the right thing makes you sin a little bit and then you got to ask for forgiveness i mean tolkien does also kind of do that a little bit except his is more like you could do the right thing and still lose. Or you can do the right thing and it will still suck. Lewis's is more directly like you can do the right thing, but you're going to be punished for it also. Yeah, in a way it's just, I don't know.

That's some wacky morality. I can't wrap my head around personally. And it's probably my biggest driver away from Christianity. I think it would be a little better served if it was like you were a noble and have never understood consequences up to this point. And so you have to learn a lesson in here about the fact that the people under you have suffered for you. You know what I mean?

Sort of like a whipping boy scenario. That I can kind of see, but it's not couched that way. It's couched in the, like, you need to do penance for your crimes, not like you need to learn compassion for your lessors. Well, I mean, even though she kind of does, because you think that's happening, because Averis learns to like Shasta after he supposedly saves her from the lion,

and you think that that is like, Oh, this former noble is earning compassion for her lessers, except it's not because he's a secret Prince. So she's not learning compassion for her lessers. She's learning compassions for her peers. She just learns compassion for, yeah,

for a peer that she kind of doesn't like, which before we get off the Aslan stuff, I just, I find it very frustrating because it's, this is like not even Deus Ex Machina. This is just Deus. Yeah. This is just the plot is God. The plot is God.

Like he's lost in the fog and Aslan walks alongside him to keep him from falling off the cliff, which is very, very, you know, take a walk in the garden with God, you know, take a closer walk with me type stuff. And Aslan has just been like, yeah, bruh, that's been me the whole time. It's very much like these books are full of what you would colloquially call come to Jesus meetings, like literally, you know, we use it in a figurative sense in the modern world,

like a come to Jesus meeting, but they literally have them. In the first book, it's Eustace. In the next book, it's Edmund. Or two books later, it's Edmund. It's Jill. And now Shasta and Varus are all literally having come to Jesus meetings. Everybody has their come to Jesus moment. But like, again, what is otherwise an interestingly constructed story about intrigue and survival is to me is just undercut by the fact that we'll actually be Jesus made all of it happen anyway.

So it's like, did these people we're going to get back to like what we talked about last time was like, did these people have free will to do these actions anyway? Are these people bad because they were forced to be? Is the universe making them bad is the universe making carlo man bad and is shasta actually good or was he simply born to be good because he's the secret son of of king loon and aslan had to force him to do the right thing like again and otherwise even exist if yeah which i think we did talk about a little bit last episode. The tree will even exist if your creator deity is omnipresent and omnipotent. And literally involved.

Yeah. Like, but that leads me to what I think is the other, the one other sort of, I'll call it a plot thing that I don't like to see, which is the, I actually saw someone talking about this online recently, which is the, I'm a nobody from nowhere who has to go on an adventure and become a hero, but actually I'm not a nobody. Bringing it back to Star Wars, I see. Yes, it's Rey. I'm a no one from nowhere. Actually, you're like the granddaughter of Palpatine,

and afterwards you're going to take on the name Skywalker. Oh, my God. I'm a no one from nowhere. Actually, you're the lost twin son from King Loon of Arkenland. And you're like, oh, my fucking God. Just be a guy. Just be a guy. Just be some dude who has to do something heroic just be some fucking guy that's why one of the best characters in lord of the rings is one that

doesn't make it into the movies it's the palace guard it's barragond because he actually does the right thing against orders because he's just a guy and he's doing the right thing and saving uh faramir's life he's just a guy he's not the long lost king of somewhere he's just a guy doing what he believes to be the morally correct choice but like so many i think this is just a problem for ya this is just a ya problem is that you can't just be a guy some girl yeah you can't just be some some peasant girl who like you know takes the weight of the world on her shoulders eventually you have to be the long lost daughter of whoever and you're like oh well okay so actually you were special the whole time i mean part of that is a fantasy yeah because every kid wants to act secretly be special but they do it weirdly in reverse talking to brie brie thinks he's special brie the war horse thinks he's special because he's a

talking horse which makes him more intelligent than the rest of the horses and made him a really good war horse in the calumet empire which let's not even talk about how many people or animals brie is probably killed um brie thinks he's special, but Bree's story is about learning humility. And the hermit literally says to him before he goes back to Narnia, you're going to have to be okay just being an average guy and not being special anymore. The hermit says this to him like verbatim you will not be special in narnia yeah yeah he does i'm just remembering that he literally said like brie is like all pouty and not wanting to go back to narnia because of his pride or whatever and the hermit's like shut up nerd go go to narnia

yeah you're not going to be special anymore you were special before because you were better than everyone in narnia you're not better than anyone, so you're not special. You're the same as every other horse in Narnia. Yes. Which, like, it's weird that we have that lesson for the horse, but for the humans, it's like, actually, you are secretly special. It is like a

weird turnaround. And you are, and not only are you a long-lost prince, you're actually the older of the two twins on air to the throne. Due to to immute immutable law, which Corrin doesn't seem to have a problem with. No, Corrin's actually pretty chill about the whole thing. So he didn't want to be King anyway.

And he, to be fair, on one hand, he is right. In a lot of particularly European countries, being the like brother of the King was a pretty sweet gig. Oh yeah. You got to be a Royal.

You got to fuck around. And it wasn't your fault. If anything went wrong. Who just wants to be a Prince. Like he actually just chill. It's like, he's cool with it. And that's how the story plays it off. But like,

it's very much like, Oh, actually you were the, you're the special boy. You have been the whole time here's a fun fact for you in the russian translation of the narnia books the callar men are called callar men the empire is called tarkistan as in the land of the tarkans so it literally translated into the way the russians viewed like central asia or the cons. It literally calls it Tarkistan. That's, that's pretty funny.

Yeah. Also like all of the Kellerman poetry and stuff is about like being obedient and learning your lesson. I don't know if he necessarily portrays that as a bad thing. Yeah, no. Well, they're poetry,

but nobody can. So this, this we can leave back in is when you're talking about like Kellerman, like, like poetry, all it's poetry are these little like lessons about like obeying your masters, knowing your place. But like we're like northern poetry is like about love and war, which sure. But you can contrast this when you're talking about the way that the emperor is like, talks about the northern countries, these little barbarian countries that call themselves free, which is a idle, disordered and unprofitable. Meanwhile, you get like, you get Lewis's like direct opposition to that in a phrase that King Loon says near the end. This is what it means to be king, to be the first at every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat if there's hunger you have to wear fine clothes and laugh louder over scantier meals which let's be honest no king ever actually went with scantier meals when their kingdom was oh

not at all being hungry this is this to me very much reeks reeks of the same sort of idea of kingship that tolkien goes, where it's like the king is supposed to be the best among the people. Like you're the first in attack, the last in retreat, the most noble of all your peoples and all that other sort of monarchist nonsense. Meanwhile, like the Tarkir or whatever his name is, like the emperor of Calamon is just like, yes, I'm Randalin in my palace. I have slaves and servants to do everything for me. And that's a more accurate representation of how all monarchs work. All monarchs,

not just the, I mean, were the Ottoman sultans like that? Yes. So also were all the Kings of all the other places generally, except for the few that did go into battle occasionally and got like captured, like, you know, john of france rip um i did want to point out was since we were talking about

the poetry um i kind of opened up the book and found this i think it's kind of interesting and this is the reason why i think it's not necessarily a um depicted as a bad thing, at least the, the, the Kalorman poetry and things like that. Um, uh, our of this is like sitting down and telling the story of, this is right before she kind of tells the story of, um, who she is.

And, uh, he says, for in Kalorman storytelling, whether the stories are true or made up is a thing you're taught. Just as English boys and girls are taught essay writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays. I mean, I think that might just be a genuine observation.

It is, but it's also the English of the English schooling system. It's just also just kind of a funny joke. Yes. So I thought I thought I'd the narrator. So just kind of a funny joke. Yes. So I thought, I thought I'd, the narrator and I would compared to other ones,

like the narrator definitely has more like almost asides to the reader. Yeah. It's a bit wittier. This one's a bit wittier. It has more like little asides, you know, comparing their world to our world. I think then you get in some of the other books where you're more like,

this is the story and it's happening. And this one, the narrator is more like, yeah, wouldn't that suck? Right. Wink. Wink. I mean, yeah, like a little bit more of that but again the poetry of callerman is very much based off of like arabic like style poetry um and then the northern poetry

is very much more like here's an epic about how i fought a giant you know what i mean very much like these are the northern sagas and the middle Eastern poetry is like, you know, he who attempts to deceive the judicious is already bearing his back for the scourge. Or swords can be kept off with shields, but the eye of wisdom pierces through every defense. Wow. Wow. Again, takeaway from this is like the overarching plot is very good. I think. Yeah.

Actually, I still think this might be the best one. So far? Definitely. I know it's better than the last book. We got to go back over in Magician's Nephew again to see how I feel about that. But I think plot wise, this is the best and the most exciting. It's got the most elements. It's got, again, intrigue and subterfuge and international politics. i've got some friends that are going to be very happy to hear this yeah this like the

horse and his boy is like genuinely pretty good you just also have to deal with the orientalism and the fact that jesus is making every plot point happen i don't know that's it like i love i love that we are a audio podcast but i wish they could have seen the look on your face there. Very just like, well, this is what it is. It's still a C.S. Lewis novel. Still C.S. Lewis novel. novel again i think the only other really interesting thing we could dig into here is something that's going to have to wait for episode four because it's stuff about tash and i think that's gonna have to wait even though one more thing i want oh i mentioned we're gonna bring

up stuff about um uh like more classical references and such um the, the, uh, between Corrin and core, the twins, one that's good at riding horses. And the other one that's good at boxing is, uh, was also a classical Greek story about the Spartan twins, Castor and Pollux of Greek mythology. Oh yeah.

That's they're essentially, it's just Castor and Pollux. Um, also the, uh, the fact that rabid ash gets turned into a donkey and then restored to humanity as an act of divine mercy is similar to the Golden Ass by Apelleus, which is a classic of Latin literature. He's having Jesus do all the pagan things. He's having Jesus do all the pagan stuff that he just thinks is cool. But that to me also just speaks more of like the stuff that he had to do in

school as a British school child, where they would have just been studying classic Greek and Roman works. So that's what you did in British schools. I think you still do probably if you're British, reach out and let me know. Do you still got to read Greek shit in school? Cause I know they did for a long time. You had to do the classics if you wanted to like you know be have a highfalutin education that's such a old holdover from yeah it's a latin just being like the language yeah it's

again we really found it in the first one in the first episode but this episode is very much like hey cs lewis just took some classic stuff and it's like i like this i'm gonna use it which hey you know what you're only as good as what you steal from so that's fine actually maybe it's trying not to be racist about it just not just an idea you have any final thoughts um my final thought is my my favorites have flipped and that that's an interesting learning experience. Like a polar flip around from the one I didn't care about and the one I liked the most. Just it's a new one. I mean, it's been I will say it's been a while on the podcast since I've read something that I've already read before and significantly had my opinion of it change.

I think. Yeah. To be fair, we have been reading a lot of new stuff lately, but also like just reading something I read before and you have a completely having a new opinion of it change i think yeah to be fair we have been reading a lot of new stuff lately but also like just reading something i read before and you have it completely having a new opinion of it is that's interesting well i will be fair the last time i read these i was like 14 so yeah sure sure i mean hey that's that was it's kind of the that was again literally the generating statement of making this podcast happen was that i was rereading the red wall series that i loved when i was a kid and being like hey there's something going on here that I'd like to talk about. So this is us doing Narnia is essentially going back to our roots as a

podcast. These are for children, but what the hell is happening here? But no, I think we'll keep this one relatively short because as you all know, there's two more to come and I cannot guarantee brevity on episode four. No, not at all. so we'll enjoy this one thank you all for listening um i know we don't mention it often but since this one is short and i've got

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