harmonizing hobgoblins

Benisse

Perelandrian
Staff member
Royal Guard
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) once wrote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." C.S. Lewis, for whatever reason, left some inconsistencies scattered throughout the Chronicles. This is the thread to point them out, and to try to harmonize the seeming contradictions if you can. Please number the problems you point out to make it easier to track the various discussions.

1. At the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe we are told the Pevensies almost forgot their other world existence as they grow up during their reign; it is as if it was a dream. Yet in the Horse and His Boy, during the victory celebration in King Lune's court, Lucy recites the story of the Wardrobe and the defeat of the White Witch... How could she do this if she had forgotten her former life?
 
Ah, yes. Well, you've picked out the most obvious inconsistency right there.

Of course, some people think that we shouldn't iron out the inconsistencies because that spoils the books. I disagree, because I think seeking to iron out the inconsistencies does the Chronicles the honour of treating them as real chronicles. I started a thread not long after joining the forum called Hermeneutics in Narniology in which I discussed the methods appropriate for doing that.

Accordingly, in response to contradiction 1, there are two main possibilities. One is that the LWW version is drawing on a Narnian folk legend that arose to explain the mysterious disappearance of the Kings and Queens from Narnia, and is therefore not an accurate account. This could be argued on a number of grounds, one being the mysterious White Stag that seems like a legendary creature rather than real history. I also find it implausible that a lantern that had been standing from the beginning of the world, so as to be remembered by Jadis as significant in pointing the direction to the world of men, and being so significant to the entry of the Pevensies into Narnia, should have been forgotten.

The alternative possibility is that it is the HHB version that is inaccurate, an interpolation by some editor guessing at the kind of thing that might have been said at such a banquet. This view has much to commend it, particularly that the White Stag reference is also repeated in PC ch 2 by Susan in giving an explanation as to how she lost her horn. That would mean that, if the LWW version is incorrect, the mistake must have been copied into the records of the return to Narnia as well. Also, if the LWW section is incorrect, this also raises questions about how the Pevensies did end up leaving Narnia.

On balance, I would be inclined to regard the HHB version as the more suspect, though I have my doubts too about the complete acccuracy of the LWW version. Of course, there is one other possibility, in that LWW does not say how long they reigned. It could be that the exit from Narnia took place some decades after HHB, by which time they genuinely had forgotten. However, this seems unlikely, if she remembered the story for what must have been at least a decade (judging by Shasta's apparent age).

There are a number of inconsistencies between TMN and LWW. I'll pick up on a couple.

2. No explanation is given as to how Jadis acquired the rights to the blood of any traitor, and a surface reading of TMN would seem to count against her acquiring such rights (though I did attempt to address this in my thread Jadis's rise to power).

3. It is unclear why Professor Kirke was not more open with the children in LWW about the fact that he had been to Narnia himself.

Peeps
 
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1.

Peeps,
Thank you for the link to the Hermeneutics, thread. At first I thought I would merge this thread with the other, but since this one is more focused on bringing up specific apparent discrepancies and discussing them (rather than hammering out parameters of what can be discussed) I will let the two threads stand as is.

1. Here are the quotes that are in seeming contradiction regarding what the Pevensies forgot (Lion Witch Wardrobe XVII):
a. "...they lived in great joy and if ever they remembered their life in this world it was only as one remembers a dream."
b. Then the story goes on to say that at first the kings and queens did not recognize the lamp post and marveled at seeing "a tree of iron" or, on closer inspection, "a pillar of iron with a lantern set on the top thereof"
c. ...and yet at the celebration at Anvard Lucy was able to recite "the tale of the Wardrobe and how she and King Edmund and Queen Susan and Peter the High King had first come into Narnia..." (Horse and His Boy XV)

Regarding (1a), I do not see this claim as incongruent with Lucy's recounting the tale of the Wardrobe. For example, I do not often think back on my childhood in the South, but when I do, much of it seems so far away; I know this and that happened but much of it is a blur of random scenes. Perhaps Lucy's memories before coming to Narnia were like that: faded in the light of the reality of Narnia, just as my childhood memories do not have the depth of experiential reality of my recent life serving with my husband in various churches or raising our children. I do not live looking back.

However how could the Pevensies forget what a lamppost is when Lucy was able to repeatedly tell the story of their coming to Narnia (1b, c)? My best guess, if I assume narrator reliability, is that in their hunting the white stag, there was a bit of enchantment going on which clouded their memories and thinking, making the woods and lamppost not only unfamiliar but unnameable --as a precursor to their translation from that world to ours.
 
No, there's no need to merge threads. I just like to post links to old threads that may have some relevance to the current one, or that may be of interest to newcomers who find this current thread interesting. Another such thread is Thing you'd never noticed, which is not the same topic as this thread but it does contain a few things that would be relevant to this thread.

Here's one from PC:

4. Aslan's journey with Susan and Lucy starts near Aslan's How, and then progresses to Beruna, which is on the river. At Beruna they cross the river, and from there they move along the left bank on the north side, which presumably means they were moving east. They travelled to Beaversdam, which the map certainly places upstream (ie. west and possibly north) of Beruna, though I'm not sure if the text says this. I also can't remember if the text explicitly says that Beaversdam is the same place as the Beavers' house in LWW. But whether or not it does, they cross the river again at Beaversdam and continue eastwards to arrive at Beruna (where the Telmarine soldiers were by then surrendering). Even disregarding the map, it must be a mistake to have them travelling east all day, yet somehow arrive back at the place where they started.

On your enchantment idea for (1), I hadn't considered it before. I shall ponder further...

Peeps
 
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