For Narnia

She/Her, 18+, I've been in love with Peter Pevensie since 2005, I like to write 🖊⚔️ If I ignore canon mind ya business 😊 

[blackskiesbeautifultimes]

[ollyrewind]

got myself into reading and look what happened again

[itsiparwing]

Day 3: Arrow | Susan Pevensie

[calormen]

           yknow i said i wasn’t doing inktober, but .. have some pevensie sister studies. 

[lauriesmoony2]

people will ask me if I love Ben Barnes, sir my dog’s name is literally Caspian…

[thebirdandhersong]

Peter tries SO hard to be Grown Up and Kingly in the first half of Prince Caspian, especially after meeting Caspian... yes, I'm not a big fan of the exponential increase in Antagonism and Aggression between them in the film (for the sake of Interesting Conflict, I assume) HOWEVER it works to create an incredible contrast when, halfway through the movie, the sneak attack on the Telmarines fail. After the gate slams down between them and the Narnians trapped behind it tell him to run, Peter looks back and sees them fight to their deaths. The look of absolute devastation that crosses his face when he realizes that he can't save them makes him look like a child again. It just about broke my heart.

[the-utter-east]

peter thesis moments 5/?

aka scenes i would use in an essay about him

[the-utter-east]

#peter is looking at who he used to be here#all of the glory and responsibility he’s been forced to pretend like he never even had#what must it be like to look at an image of yourself being strong and ‘magnificent’ when you’ve been feeling so stifled#…#and after this narnians accuse him of having abandoned narnia to suffer and fall to ruin.#it makes sense that he makes desperate moves in order to save narnia.#not only does he feel lesser than his past self#but he’s been put into a smaller weaker body in comparison to the adult he used to be.#i’m not making any coherent points i’m just saying. holy hell peter has a rough time in this movie <<< yes to all of this

[bloodybigwardrobe]

no but just thinking about the pevensies’ relationship with war is enough to make me froth at the mouth. cause like!!

war shook their fathers hand, dragged him out by the collar, made their mothers face grow thin and their family stain and crack under its weight, made them grow up underneath its shadow. it hands them weapons and pushes them into a conflict they have not enough time to even grasp and makes them stain their child hands red.

and THEN! one day down the road, susan wakes up and looks at peter with his sword and armour, and wonders at which point he became what they fled, at which point the shadow turned out to be her brother’s outstretched arms above her head in a desperate attempt to keep them safe. when did it happen, she will wonder, and she won’t be able to answer because every day it gets harder to think of a “before”.

and the worst part will be that it’s a stain that won’t wash out, even when lucy puts flowers into peter’s hair when he comes home battered and bruised, even when he smiles at her across the breakfast table. out damned spot, she will think, and it won’t help.

because he will ride out to war again and the nightmares of him in a field of carnage and gore will return and she won’t even be able to say they’re just dreams because her brother is out at war and she can’t even remember a time where he wasn’t at home amidst the fight.

and eventually, she won’t even think it strange to call this tall man from her nightmares, bloodied, bent out of shape, buckling under the weight of the dead, her world balanced on his shaking shoulders, family.

eventually, susan will wake and not think it odd to call war her brother.

[fantastic-nonsense]

I genuinely think the most of the differences between the Pevensies in the books vs. the movies can be explained by one simple fact: the Movie!Pevensies are fully cognizant of and emotionally attached to their experiences in Narnia after returning to England, while the Book!Pevensies have a notable emotional distance to their memories of Narnia

It's an explicit plot point in the books that the longer you stay in one world, the easier it becomes to forget about the other one (or think of it as a dream). Additionally, while the Pevensies do remember what happened and are permanently changed by their experiences in Narnia, they seemingly forget a lot of their Narnian-learnt knowledge and skills. This gets briefly mentioned in Prince Caspian, when Lucy talks about swimming:

When they had drunk from the well and splashed their faces, they all went down the stream again to the shore and stared at the channel which divided them from the mainland. “We’ll have to swim,” said Edmund.

“It would be all right for Su,” said Peter (Susan had won prizes for swimming at school). “But I don’t know about the rest of us.” By “the rest of us” he really meant Edmund, who couldn’t yet do two lengths at the school baths, and Lucy, who could hardly swim at all.

“Anyway,” said Susan, “there may be currents. Father says it’s never wise to bathe in a place you don’t know.”

“But, Peter,” said Lucy, “look here. I know I can’t swim for nuts at home—in England, I mean. But couldn’t we all swim long ago—if it was long ago—when we were Kings and Queens in Narnia? We could ride then too, and do all sorts of things. Don’t you think—”

“Ah, but we were sort of grown-up then,” said Peter. “We reigned for years and years and learned to do things. Aren’t we just back at our proper ages again now?” -PC, Chapter 3

So she learned how to swim while growing up in Narnia, but forgot it again when she returned to her own world and was back at her proper age. But the longer the Pevensies stayed in Narnia, the more those previously-learned skills came back to them:

This was real broad-sword fighting. The great thing is to slash at your enemy’s legs and feet because they are the part that have no armor. And when he slashes at yours you jump with both feet off the ground so that his blow goes under them. This gave the Dwarf an advantage because Edmund, being much taller, had to be always stooping.

I don’t think Edmund would have had a chance if he had fought Trumpkin twenty-four hours earlier. But the air of Narnia had been working upon him ever since they arrived on the island, and all his old battles came back to him, and his arms and fingers remembered their old skill. He was King Edmund once more. -PC, Chapter 8

The same general principle appears to apply to their memories and the emotions attached to them (which I think is one of the main reasons why Book!Susan is so easily able to dismiss Narnia as a "silly children's game" when she gets older). Narnia's magic protects visitors from feeling the pain and suffering associated with being de-aged/losing their home/etc when they leave Narnia by forcing a mental and emotional distance from their experiences, and they're only able to re-forge those connections once they return.

By contrast, the Movie!Pevensies are acutely and painfully aware of what they've lost by returning to England, and it dramatically alters the equation for everyone involved.

It turns the level-headed, loving, tired Books!Peter into the angst-ridden, hotheaded Movie!Peter who's constantly trying to prove himself. It turns Susan's story inside out, because it gives her entirely different reasons and motivations for possibly wanting to forget about Narnia and dismiss it as a "silly game." It gives Edmund a narrative reason to retain the massive character growth he'd experienced in LWW, act as the steadying rock in the siblings' lives, and feel like he has something to prove in VDT without Peter around.

And while I think Lucy remains the least changed between the books and movies, there are several added dimensions to her fully remembering her first fifteen years in Narnia that really start to peek their heads out by the time we get to VDT (particularly her desire to feel grown up and desired by the men around her; if she's truly feeling her age, I think there's an additional nuance to that plot that goes beyond the vanity and "she wants to be like Susan" dimensions from the book).

Do I think this accounts for all of the characterization differences? No. But I think it's a massively understated difference that doesn't get talked about enough as being a major driver of how differently the Pevensies act and react to things in the later books vs. how they act and react in the movies.

[lenoreamidala]

the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe (2005)

[totheglisteningeasternsea]

Lucy Pevensie:

[pterpvensie]

On my way to rewatch Narnia for my mental health

[bloodybigwardrobe]

in your dreams, your older brother wears a crown of crimson red and speaks of death like a lover, letting it spill past stained teeth and over his tongue with reverence. there is a smile on his face, too wide, too full of glee. your hands are wet and the hem of your dress is soaked and your brother’s hair is turning dark. his sword looks larger than your memory serves, and you never recall the shape his armour ought to be beneath the blood. he holds out a rust-coloured hand and laughs as though the audience he means to present you to is not the dead piled up beneath his feet.

you wake with screams trapped behind cracking lips and silver tears staining your cheeks. you wake early enough to watch the same red you fear spill across his blue skies as you clasp desperate hands until your knuckles turn white and your nails leave marks.

your sister, bright and hopeful, braids your hair with fast fingers. the flowers she pins among your curls won’t wilt until she asks them to and her hands are warm and steady in yours. your younger brother, restless and as pale as you, dips bread into soup like it has offended him but brushes a hand over your tense shoulders with gentleness he always says was taught by you. his voice is calm where his legs are not.

they wait the same as you, with your shoulders straight despite the taste of blood at the back of your throat. the fourth seat remains empty another day, and your voice is called for more often than it ought to if things were right.

you wait for him to come home, victorious, whole, with blood-free teeth and tongue. your siblings wait the same, your sister singing louder and your brother standing taller to fill the empty space.

in your dreams, your older brother wears a crown of crimson red and speaks of death like a lover and of war like home.

when you wake, you pray.

[impishglee]

childhood emotion of wanting a dragon that is your friend so bad that it feels like there is a vacuum in your soul that only a dragon who is your friend can fill

[betweenbeatriceandbaudelaire]

Narnia Children by liridi

[bloodybigwardrobe]

(Looking back, there were holes in their beings that they never knew how to understand. Looking forward, it was Narnia. Always Narnia.)

In a wilder Narnia, Peter Pevensie drives his sword through the heart of a grinning witch, before taking off her head too, a growl unfitting for a young boy from England vibrating in his chest and blood dripping from his chin. 

In a wilder Narnia, Susan Pevensie still hates the war but masters it in the curve of her smile as she tilts her head to listen to the voices of their land, ready to open her mouth and let her blood-red lips bring down another enemy.

In a wilder Narnia, Edmund Pevensie was enchanted into allowing his siblings to bear wolf-teeth scars on their legs and arms, and this weight transferred into his steps, shaking the ground of the kingdom they inherited.

In a wilder Narnia, Lucy Pevensie grows needle-sharp teeth and claws to fight for the kingdom that would be hers and her family’s home, be it stained with blood or flashed in warning at any that dare step in their way.

In a wilder Narnia, the Pevensie siblings grow in very Narnian ways. They don’t shy away from showing their teeth, from growling at those that refuse to show respect, from reminding everyone that dares to forget that they sat upon their thrones in blood-stained armour and skin. Their eyes shift from blues and browns to amber, their strides carry power and weight, their teeth never hide the possibility of tearing into enemies that find themselves foolish enough to come close.

(In a very grey England, Lucy finds her body soft, fragile, without its claws and screams in anger; Edmund finds his steps too easily overheard and grits his teeth in spite of it; Susan finds her smile seen as shallow and she buys crimson paint for it; Peter finds his chest empty of a growl and throws clenched fists to try and bring it out. In England, they grow in all the wrong ways.)

[jessmalia]

An interesting theme in these stories is how the concept of “home” changes for the Pevensies. In The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the siblings are sent away from London, and long to return to what is then their home. In Prince Caspian, they’re back in London, but are unhappy once more, because the city is no longer home to them. They are left in the exact same but opposite situation as before.