The Maturing of Lucy

Copperfox

Copperfox

Well-known member
I felt that the character of Lucy was well handled in the movie. It's perfectly reasonable for her to have learned the use of weapons; indeed, the book The Horse and His Boy tells that in her Narnian-adult life she DID fight in battle, though NOT in close combat on the front line. The movie showed her as tough enough, without pretending that she was OMNIPOTENT like every female cop or secret agent on television today.
 
One of the things I did love about the new Narnia movies was what they did with Lucy’s character. Her actress did a practically perfect performance in the role (personally, I thought that Georgie was the best of the actors and actresses who played the Pevensies, so she gets the honor of being my avatar), and her character wasn’t butchered a la Peter.

I had no issue with her learning the use of weapons, since, as you say, she did know how to use a bow and arrow in Horse and His Boy. To me, women fighting isn’t something contrary to the world Lewis creates in Narnia, because Susan was given a bow in LWW, Jill is quite a good archer, and Aravis plainly knew how to use her brother’s scimitar. To allow Lucy to fight, then, was expanding on the universe in a way that was fairly consistent with canon material.

I like Lucy’s character in the movies, because she is not a weakling, but she also is allowed to show some more typical feminine virtues like compassion and gentleness. One of the things I don’t like about the modern craze for “uberstrong” female characters is the tendency to just take stereotypically male virtues and throw them on a girl or woman who will practice them a thousand times better than any boy or man ever could to show that women are just as good or even better than men. In the process, more typical female traits are assigned to weak women or even weaker men, giving everyone the impression that women who act in a traditionally feminine fashion are indeed somehow inferior to women or men who act in a traditionally masculine fashion (so the feminine is degraded by the feminist who purports to liberate her) and that men who show softer virtues traditionally associated with the feminine are automatically pathetic (so, thus, again, the feminine virtues are inferior to the masculine, since women being like men is glorified but men being like women is vilified).

I could rant about this for longer, but I won’t. I’ll just say that I appreciate strong female characters and ones who can fight, but part of creating strong characters is making them unique, and when we have only one type of “strong” female character in our literature and media, that is as bad as the cult of domesticity female in Victorian literature. It’s more acceptable to our contemporary sensibilities of what a woman ought to be, but it is no less preachy, degrading, and restrictive. (Gets off soap box and takes a deep breath.)

I’m so glad that Lucy was allowed to have faults, too, and that she wasn’t made out to be omnipotent. I was pleased when her character was allowed to grow by exploring some of the jealousies and insecurities that prompted her actions with the magician’s book. That was consistent with Lewis’ depiction of what happened in VTD, and it also made Lucy a believable and strong female character. I hope but I won’t hold my breath that Hollywood will create more female characters like Lucy. There should also be more young actresses with Georgie’s talent…:D
 
Good topic, CopperFox. I like Lucy in the VDT film. She has strengths and weaknesses, like a normal person.

I wonder why we just can't acknowledge, that men and women are different, and see it as a strength. Which I'm absolutely positive that it is. I agree with you, SunshineRose, that there's a tendency to glorify the "strong" character, who's not very emotional and compassionate, male or female.
What is a strong character anyway? Doesn't it depend on that is seen as strength?

Lucy is strong and courageous. And I think the VDT film does succeed in showing that, as well as showing her insecurities. She does learn from her experiences. I love her soft sides as well. One of my favourite scenes is, where she huges Reepicheep at the end. :)
The film also showes some softer sides in Reepicheep, like where he conforts the dragon/Eustace. That doesn't make him less couragoeus, does it! ;)
 
Liz said:
Good topic, CopperFox. I like Lucy in the VDT film. She has strengths and weaknesses, like a normal person.

I wonder why we just can't acknowledge, that men and women are different, and see it as a strength. Which I'm absolutely positive that it is. I agree with you, SunshineRose, that there's a tendency to glorify the "strong" character, who's not very emotional and compassionate, male or female.
What is a strong character anyway? Doesn't it depend on that is seen as strength?

Lucy is strong and courageous. And I think the VDT film does succeed in showing that, as well as showing her insecurities. She does learn from her experiences. I love her soft sides as well. One of my favourite scenes is, where she huges Reepicheep at the end. :)
The film also showes some softer sides in Reepicheep, like where he conforts the dragon/Eustace. That doesn't make him less couragoeus, does it! ;)
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I think that this failure in a lot of books and movies to acknowledge the differences in the ways that males and females tend to act, think, feel, and communicate comes from a need to create one ideal, unisex creature who is the current flavor of tough and successful. That has become the new idea of equality. Examining differences between the sexes and between individual characters is not, unfortunately, as important.

I would prefer it if the media showed us a lot of examples of men and women being strong in a variety of different ways. I think it is time that our culture paid more than lip-service to the idea that everyone has different gifts that bring something positive to our world.

As a gentler, more intellectual type (who can still be quite strong in terms of being patient and quietly persistent), I find it annoying that one particular type of loud-mouthed warrior woman is often shown and idealized over instead of women who are politer and are stronger in ways beside the physical. The loud-mouthed warrior woman would irk me less if the media hadn't seized on her as the only strong type of women that they have to portray. I would like my strong women to be a little more like the women I actually know and admire:D

To me, a strong character is someone who makes their own choices for moral reasons, having a definite moral code, and a personality that is unique to them in some way, transcending stereotypical attributes. I think that compassion deserves as much respect as courage, and that there are many different ways to show these and other virtues. I think a lot more virtues could be explored in positive ways in our books and films than currently are. That's why my goal as a writer is to show a variety of characters, male and female, who really have different strengths and weaknesses.

The scene where Lucy hugs Reep is awesome and adorable. It was so true to her nature. Also, Reep's compassion for Eustace is even better in the movie than in the book, and his gentleness with the repentant Eustace always makes me admire him more. The truly strong are not afraid to show gentleness, in my opinion. A person who is really fierce and never compassionate becomes a sort of monster or at least a caricature pretty quickly, in my opinion.
 
It is not accurate to draw a dividing line through humanity and say, "All right, the men are on this side and ONLY THEY can possess warlike virtues, while the women are on that side and ONLY THEY can possess gentle virtues." But it IS true to say that there are TENDENCIES. Males and females, as groups, overlap in their gifts; some will remember, for instance, my telling that I have a sister who is an expert swordfighter. But by God's own design, males TEND to have more of the warlike virtues while females TEND to have more of the gentle virtues. Mister Lewis certainly understood this.

Back before most currently-active Dancing Lawn members were with us, there was a feminism discussion thread. It was dominated by girls who wanted to believe that every girl was Catwoman while every boy was Barney Fife; and some of these waxed very absurd indeed. One girl, for instance, told of a female weightlifter who could lift something like 400 pounds.... IF she lay on her back and lifted the weight with her legs. This, by itself, was supposed to qualify the woman as a front-line soldier on modern battlefields. "Look out, you terrorists, or I'll lie on my back and throw barbells at you with my feet!"

Anyone who has not yet read my available novel The First Love of Alipang Havens should have a look. You'll see that in it, I depict some of this macho-girl-power obsession, and how a decent boy copes when it is being spouted at him.
 
A while ago, we discused the PC movie and I lamented the fight scene inside the How where there was a no-win situation where Lucy was fighting.She was too young to draw blood, but she also knew enough about fighting not to lose.

She was a little older in VotDT(though how old she was supposed to be in the movie is unknown) and I was more OK with the fighting in this one, but a little disappointed in the manner of her fighting. She was still doing things that shouldn't have worked even a fourteen-year-old girl was doing it.

I just wish filmmakers would match fighting scenes with the physical strengths of the characters. Too often, like I felt in this one, a punch is too strong for a certain character.

But it is intersting that Lucy, as a character, matured through the three movies without having dealt with any uncharacteristic changes from the books or, as Edmund did, go through a major change as a part of the plot. She simply matured.

MrBob
 
CF said:
This, by itself, was supposed to qualify the woman as a front-line soldier on modern battlefields. "Look out, you terrorists, or I'll lie on my back and throw barbells at you with my feet!"
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:p
ROFL!

Sunshine Rose said:
I could rant about this for longer, but I won’t. I’ll just say that I appreciate strong female characters and ones who can fight, but part of creating strong characters is making them unique, and when we have only one type of “strong” female character in our literature and media, that is as bad as the cult of domesticity female in Victorian literature. It’s more acceptable to our contemporary sensibilities of what a woman ought to be, but it is no less preachy, degrading, and restrictive. (Gets off soap box and takes a deep breath.)
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Exactly!

MrBob said:
But it is intersting that Lucy, as a character, matured through the three movies without having dealt with any uncharacteristic changes from the books or, as Edmund did, go through a major change as a part of the plot. She simply matured.
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I agree with this ... the interaction with the spell book was really the only moral choice "ordeal" which she went through, and although she slipped up, she navigated pretty well throughout the rest of the films, in line with who she was in the books. I wish they had let Peter do the same in the films rather than making up whole issues for him to deal with in uncharacteristic ways!

I agree with Sunshine Rose that Georgie is a remarkably good Lucy, and it was a pleasure to watch her maturing over the 3 films. She portrayed the air of adoration to Aslan that I had imagined from reading this books; and I think maybe in the books it is this close relationship with the Lion that helps her mature the way she did -- without many missteps, and to an adolescence that wasn't awkward or rebellious but kept her virtues at the center -- both her compassion and her courage.
 
SunshineRose said:
To me, a strong character is someone who makes their own choices for moral reasons, having a definite moral code, and a personality that is unique to them in some way, transcending stereotypical attributes. I think that compassion deserves as much respect as courage, and that there are many different ways to show these and other virtues. I think a lot more virtues could be explored in positive ways in our books and films than currently are. That's why my goal as a writer is to show a variety of characters, male and female, who really have different strengths and weaknesses.

The scene where Lucy hugs Reep is awesome and adorable. It was so true to her nature. Also, Reep's compassion for Eustace is even better in the movie than in the book, and his gentleness with the repentant Eustace always makes me admire him more. The truly strong are not afraid to show gentleness, in my opinion. A person who is really fierce and never compassionate becomes a sort of monster or at least a caricature pretty quickly, in my opinion.
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Indeed, a bit like some superhero, far from reality. I prefer real characters as well. Men and women are different, but each individual has different strengths and weaknesses as well. We humans cannot be put into little neat boxes, with various labels on. (Says the music teacher who has some, or should I say, a lot of experience in that field. ;))

It would of course be easy, if say all pupils had just one type of personality. Then I could "relax" and teach everybody the same way. But that's far from the truth, fortunately.

Moral strength is important, and firm principles. Someone who cannot be "bought" is indeed strong. Reepicheep isn't only strong, but has also principles and faith. I love the quote from the VDT film: "We have nothing if not belief". And although Lucy is very tempted to become more beautiful, she does learn her lesson, and demonstrates both courage and faith.

"We did it. I knew we would!" she says at the end of the VDT film. I wonder if she was so certain all the time, and didn't have moments of doubt. I believe her strong faith in Aslan carried her through. This is an example she, and Reepicheep, sets for all of us. :)
 
I agree with what everyone said. It's amazing how much Georgie has grown since LWW. I had wondered how she learned to use bow and arrows and a sword but like Copperfox said, she probably used it as an adult in Narnia before they went back through the wardrobe at the end of LWW.
 
Yes, that's the only explanation. It would have been possible in real-world England for a girl to obtain lessons in tournament fencing; but there would have been just about ZERO opportunity for a real-world girl in Britain of the 1940's to learn battlefield-type fighting, so as to be able to defend against MULTIPLE enemies coming from two or three directions.
 
Lucy is from our world and not used to hand to hand combat as every one in Narnia was, it takes years of pratice and training to be as good, she came from a world where the bomb and bullet ruled and not the sword, no way would she be as good as any Narnian who was born with a sword as her brother found out against Jadis. Lucys role was a healer after the battle or battles and no more she is not Joan of Arc she was a 9year old kid but had faith in Aslan who looked after her, put Lucy up against any Narnian Miraz, Caspian, King Frank ect or Jadis she would not stand a chance as she had no fighting skills what so ever except maybe in the school play ground.
 
Lucy, during her reign, was apparently an expert archer as she led the archers in the battle of Anvard. She was a warrrior and should have been able to know how to fight due to being back in Narnia. As I metnioned, however, there is only so much an eleven or fourteen-year-old girl can do. In the movie, her hand-to-hand combat was unrealistic.

MrBob
 
Jadis-the-White said:
Lucy is from our world and not used to hand to hand combat as every one in Narnia was, it takes years of pratice and training to be as good, she came from a world where the bomb and bullet ruled and not the sword, no way would she be as good as any Narnian who was born with a sword as her brother found out against Jadis. Lucys role was a healer after the battle or battles and no more she is not Joan of Arc she was a 9year old kid but had faith in Aslan who looked after her, put Lucy up against any Narnian Miraz, Caspian, King Frank ect or Jadis she would not stand a chance as she had no fighting skills what so ever except maybe in the school play ground.
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I totally agree!
 
Jadis-W, it is I who thank you for giving some consideration to realism. I've seen young women on this forum who were so frantically obsessed with "Girl Power Above Everything" that no other consideration carried any weight with them at all. Thus, back in the day when we had lively roleplaying here on TDL, one girl who was playing Lucy in a Narnian roleplay demanded that all of us accept it, as the most natural thing in the universe, that Lucy would be able to slaughter Peter at swordplay!
 
Thank you Copperfox, but it is not just this site its all across the web young girls seem to think Lucy and co are true warriors and have great battle skills due to the PC game and films were in fact none of them had any skill at all but had Aslan and luck on their side. If it were not for Aslan Jadis would have killed Peter and Edmund would have died if it were not for Lucy and her magic cordial, thats two who were no good with the sword and Susan and Lucy were not allowed to fight in that battle as they were told that they would be needed after it. Durning their reign there was peace in Narnia so they could not have had any experance in much warfare. The Susan Caspian love is another thing in the film but not in the book which I think is foolish too. :)
 
Yes. Andrew Adamson, be he ever scorned and rebuked, decided he wanted to film "Beverly Hills 90210" with swords, instead of filming "Prince Caspian."
 
In my personal head canon, I like to pretend that the only film adaptation of Prince Caspian was the BBC one. Give me school play special effects that adhere to the original story over idiotic love triangles, power-hungry Peter, and fake Spanish accents any day of the month.
 
Amen amen AYY-men.

It's like the fact that the best Doctor Who plots were written BEFORE they had a good special-effects budget for that series.
 
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