Peter, Lucy, Edmund, Susan- Love lives, and Forshadowing...

White Wolf

New member
Okay, we know the evil-soon-to be-donkey Rabadash had his evil calculating eyes on fair Susan the Gentle... but did those four not ever find love in 15 years?!

That's.... really sad if you think about it.... :(

LWW- Peter, Lucy, Edmund, and Susan fight the White Witch and defeat her army...

Jump a few years...

Horse and His Boy- Edmund and Susan run into trouble of the Tashban kind, Rabasah schemes, and Peter, Edmund, and Lucy right out to fight the good fight.

None of them ever fell in love or got married....?

Peter's trouncing giants, Lucy and Edmund are saving Archenland and Narnia from evil Calormen's, amd Susan... does what...? Sits high and comfy in Cair Paravel.... what if Lucy, Edmund or Peter got injured? Where's the cordial? Cair Paravel!

It steamed me that Susan got to relax while the other three were fighting :mad:
 
I think that's reading a lot into the stories. Extrapolating from the hints one gets of the Golden Age (there aren't many), my guess would be that Susan ended up with the role of Chatelaine of Cair Paravel (one of the many titles falsely claimed by Jadis), which meant that she ran the castle - no small feat, especially since the Four had to get an entire government up and running after the fall of a tyrant!

You've got a point regarding the progress of "normal life" - since all four got well into marrying age, why did nothing ever come of that? Especially for the women, whom Lewis records as having had several suitors? Lewis implies in Lion that they essentially forgot their origins in Narnia (though he seems to contradict that when he has the grown Queen Lucy tell the story of the wardrobe at a banquet at Anvard in Horse), so there'd be no reason they'd be holding off because they thought they'd have to return to our world someday. I think we just have to chalk this up to Lewis bending what would be reasonable and normal for people in that situation to the convenience of the story. (Just the sort of thing that drove "Tollers" mad!)
 
White Wolf said:
Okay, we know the evil-soon-to be-donkey Rabadash had his evil calculating eyes on fair Susan the Gentle... but did those four not ever find love in 15 years?!

That's.... really sad if you think about it.... :(

LWW- Peter, Lucy, Edmund, and Susan fight the White Witch and defeat her army...

Jump a few years...

Horse and His Boy- Edmund and Susan run into trouble of the Tashban kind, Rabasah schemes, and Peter, Edmund, and Lucy right out to fight the good fight.

None of them ever fell in love or got married....?

Peter's trouncing giants, Lucy and Edmund are saving Archenland and Narnia from evil Calormen's, amd Susan... does what...? Sits high and comfy in Cair Paravel.... what if Lucy, Edmund or Peter got injured? Where's the cordial? Cair Paravel!

It steamed me that Susan got to relax while the other three were fighting :mad:
Yeah I hate it to that Susan just gets to relax while the others are fighting. And Lucy likes to fight while Susan does not.
 
I know, I read Horse And His Boy and loved it, but the part that gripped me was the huge Narnian army riding out, and King Edmund (I love Peter and all, but Edmund gets his day once and a while, eh?)

::drumroll::

Lucy depicted on a charger, dressed in chainmail, a helmet and with a bow and arrow.

I LOVED that part! :cool:

Written proof that girls can fight, and not overdramatize it. It was completely accepted!

That's why HASB goes right under LWW, and PC. Lucy also states that Peter forbade her from carrying her coridal to the 'wars' as in she fights more than once.

Susan had better give her siblings a HUGE welcome home party when they get back from the frontlines :) Perhaps Susan's 'girlish' mode depcits how she falls from Aslan and Narnia in later years....?

Still... where was Peter?!..... :(
 
I also have problems with Susan not being present at the end to the HHB. Was she afraid to face Rabadash. I hate girls that won't face you when you break up. Get's someone else to do it. I would have a problem if in a upcoming movie Susan wasn't there at the end.
 
Susan didn't 'break up with' Rabadash. She ran away from him because he was trying to force her into a marriage with him that she didn't want. From my reading, Susan never told Rabadash that she wanted to marry him or have any sort of relationship.

Also, if all four Pevensies went off to war, then who would rule Narnia? Susan probably acted as ruler during the wars, when Peter, Edmund, and Lucy were fighting. It seems fairly clear in LWW that Susan doesn't like to fight. I see no reason why this should have changed. Wasn't it Lucy, not Susan, who asked Father Christmas why he didn't want her near battles?
 
WarriorSatyr is right: there WAS NO relationship to be broken up, except in Rabadash's warped, evil mind. Rabadash is like a stalker, not a lover.

As for women in battles: what Father Christmas said IN THE BOOK was not merely that "Battles are ugly affairs," but specifically, "Battles are ugly WHEN WOMEN FIGHT." Andrew Adamson felt a need to change that, because he knew there would be a lot of Xena wanna-be's in the audience. Firearms have of course changed the strength-difference situation between men and women; but EVEN in modern war, FEWER women than men have the upper-body strength to pick up a wounded comrade and carry him a mile to help. And female soldiers, if captured, ARE likely to be treated worse than male captives -- by, cough cough, certain classes of enemies. The Xena fantasy goes away real fast then.
 
How I envisioned it:

We know in the book that Peter was in the north fighting the giants. Susan and Edmund went down to Calormen for a diplomatic mission while Lucy stayed at the Cair.

The attack of Archenland is discovered by Aravis. She and Shasta, riding Hwin and Bree, race north to warn the Archenlanders. Shasta completes this mission and a messenger is sent to Anvard and then to Cair Paravel. Lucy heard the news just as the Splendor Hyaline is docking. Lucy then starts to assemble the army as Edmund and Susan are coming ashore.

Since Lucy is already preparing for the battle, Edmund joins her and Susan stays behind both for her own protection--she is after all the reason for the battle, and because they are wont to leave at least one of them at the Cair for security and to keep centralized control, one reason why Lucy stayed behind before. There is also the point that Susan was not a fan of battles, hence her moniker of "The Gentle". Since Edmund and Lucy were going to this one, she was satisfied that they would be sufficient.

As for their children, I still think it would have been fun if Lucy carried her newborn daughter through the wardrobe and then had to explain it to her parents. :D

MrBob
 
Well, I think it's also very ugly when men fight... I think war is a very ugly thing in general... And while I think those who have to fight - no matter what gender - should do whatever needed. Of both genders. Lucy did. She simply fought "like a man" as Corin said. She did her job. Just as Eowyn in LOTR fought - to do what was needed. But when women simply join the army to show off how modern and strong, etc. they are, there is often a lot of disharmony. Anyways, I don't want to start a discussion about women in war. What I mean is - I agree with both Father Christmas-es, in book and movie. It's an ugly thing when women fight in a war -and war is an ugly thing (no matter who fights! sorry that is the pacifist in me...). But I think the way Lucy fought - with no "I'm a superwoman look at me"-allures is fantastic. She is a wonderful role model for young girls. Because she is strong when needed, but still a real girl/woman. I consider myself a very liberated young lady - but not in that totally misunderstood pseud-feminism way, that is not anymore about women's rights about about women's ego. And that's why I just love Lucy. She is liberated and modern, but she doesn't have that weird feminism-ego-complex-thingie... She is not ashamed to be a woman - and stands her man. ;)

Susan had to rule the castle, as several people said so before me. She had to rule the country. She had to make contracts, do all the paperwork. She had to employ people, to look after her people. She had lots of things to do - ruling a country doesn't only consist of fighting. If you ask me, Susan (and I am not a huge Susan fan) had the most noble job. And I presume she was good at it - she would have failed in a fight. Not because she wouldn't be a good fighter (she is wonderful at archery) but because she doesn't like it. And seriously, there is nothing wrong with a woman (or a man) hating to fight.

LWW was the first book that was written. I don't think Lewis had any families in mind. 1. because it was for children - children don't like to read romance. 2. it was about children - the adult Pevensies are not of interest, especially not in LWW. 3. Seriously, if they all had married and children and so on - what would have happened to them? Not only would the readers have worried (what happened to their children?) but what would it have been for the storyline - I mean, the people of Telmar couldn't have taken over. And it might have been because of the innocence. If they had children as adults and then came back as children. Would they still be virgins? o_O
 
WarriorSatyr said:
Susan didn't 'break up with' Rabadash. She ran away from him because he was trying to force her into a marriage with him that she didn't want. From my reading, Susan never told Rabadash that she wanted to marry him or have any sort of relationship.
This is probably off topic, but wasn't the whole reason they were in Tashbaan because Susan was considering Rabadash's suit (ie. his proposal of marriage)? Now, that's not quite like a 'relationship' in the modern sense of the word, but the fact that they made the journey surely gave him reasonable expectation that her answer might be yes. So to say that she 'broke up' with him might be an anachronistic use of language, but it was perhaps the medieval equivalent.

That said, in the circumstances I think she was both justified and wise in running away without telling him!!

Peeps
 
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