the story I write is sometimes really, really not the story other people seem to be reading

[edenfalling]

On Monday I wrote a fic about Peter and Aslan, which attempts to explain why the Pevensies seem to have forgotten England during the fifteen years of their reign in Narnia. On Tuesday I posted it on ff.net. (It's called Out of Sight, Out of Mind, if you are interested in reading it.)

I often telegraph my themes rather broadly -- in other words, I beat them into the ground with a sledgehammer -- but I do that because I know from long and frustrating experience that things I think are blindingly obvious are often so subtle or reliant on idiosyncratic/personal associations and thought processes that if I don't haul out the sledgehammer, nobody will understand a damn thing I am trying to say.

Clearly, I should have worked harder to bring down the sledgehammer in "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," because so far, every single reviewer (well, okay, every reviewer who has mentioned the issue in question) has missed the point I was trying to make. In fact, they have come away with the opposite message of the one I thought I wrote.

*headdesk*

See, I was trying to do two things: first, explain the Pevensies' weird memory loss while remaining as true as possible to the characters and the canon themes, and second, to say that what I think Aslan did (bluntly, a fifteen-year-long mind wipe) was wrong. Understandable, yes. Justifiable in many points of view, also yes. Something that Peter (and, presumably, C. S. Lewis himself) might accept as a good and right thing under the circumstances, yet again yes.

It's still wrong.

The problem is that within the story, unless I drastically broke character or brought a random outsider into a private conversation, I had no way to signal that I disagree except by pointing out the facts of the situation... which are then explained away by Aslan, in the way I think Lewis would have resolved the issue. And if you agree with Lewis's general theology, the issue is resolved. There is no problem. I have been congratulated for showing so clearly how there is no problem.

Except, of course, there is still a problem. Changing memories is a violation of free will and mental integrity. It is a wound to the self (and, if you will, the soul -- since souls exist in Lewis's world, whether or not they exist in ours).

So I resorted to quotes -- one at the start, and one at the end -- to hopefully provide a slightly contrasting point of view. I opened with "Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose," by Kevin Arnold, and closed with "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting," by Milan Kundera. To me, the first says that a loss of memory is a loss of self, and the second implies that for Aslan to take or alter or veil memories is an act comparable to totalitarian dictatorship.

...

And I just got a review saying, essentially, that the quotes supported the point of view expressed by Peter in the story.

I give up.

[ETA: Do go read the comments on the LJ mirror of this post. They raise some interesting points!]

Comments

[theodosia21]

Honestly, I don't think Lewis gave it any thought at all, beyond not wanting to create a situation where the Pevensies go, "Wait. This is how we came into Narnia. I don't want to leave Narnia, so we better not go this way, just in case." But yes, I hate it when authors make their characters forget- it makes all of their struggles and growth and suffering worthless. It didn't really bother me in the LWW because in the very next book they're back and remembering everything, but I hated what happened to Susan in the Last Battle, with the implication that she chose to forget- that seems very weak and cowardly to me. For that matter, I also hated the end of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, where everyone except Will forgot what had happened.


Anyway, regarding your writing, I think your intentions were fairly clear, if the reader actually read the quotes instead of skimming over them and then thought about what they meant. Probably most aren't, though.

[edenfalling]

Yeah, I am sure Lewis was just thinking, "Wish-fulfillment adventure, yay!" and getting kind of fairy-tale terse at the very ending, but it does nag at me. And there is a reason so many post-series DIR fics have somebody remembering, or at least Will feeling guilty! (Another book that has a "and then we all forgot" ending is It, by Stephen King, and while that one has a kinda-sorta thematic justification -- behind the horror aspects, it's a story about the submergence of childhood games and memories in adulthood -- it still bugs me.)

It does not really surprise me that people misread stories -- I do it myself, more often than I would like -- but it's frustrating when the misreading is not just, oh, differing shades of interpretation, but a complete 180 turn on a moral issue. Then I start getting depressed about my failings as a writer.

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

I found the story unsettling for just the reason you stated; I didn't particularly like it since it kind of tampers with my pure ideal of Aslan and Peter (who I believe was done a VAST disservice by Prince Caspian, but I think we've gotten into that before). It's one of the reasons I didn't comment, because I don't like being negative. From a literary perspective I can appreciate what you were doing, but it's not a fic I'll seek to reread.

Memory is the core of what we are, and it is something that defines us. It's why Alzheimers is such a horrifying thing to me, literally a fate worse than death.

And... expecting thoughtful replies from ff.net is kind of like Charlie Brown asking Lucy to hold the football for him. It just might happen, but...

[edenfalling]

Fair enough; not every story will work for every reader!

"Out of Sight, Out of Mind" is an illustration of one of my various reactions to Narnia -- the one where I love and respect Aslan, and agree with a lot of Lewis's moral and thematic messages... and then choke, painfully, on some of the other ethical and theological messages and implications. I have a mental dissonance where I say, on the one hand, "But Aslan really is good and wise and loving, he must have reasons for what he does, and the other characters aren't stupid; if they love and respect him then so should I," and on the other hand I am screaming in the back of my head that it doesn't matter how good and wise and loving anybody is: the death of a world is still a tragedy, the loss of memory is still a violation, the capricious choice of when to intervene or to allow horrors to unfold is indefensible, and so on and so forth.

So I was trying to express that simultaneous love and respect vs.fervent disagreement, and I can see how that tension is a very uncomfortable place to be -- it's uncomfortable for me, too, after all.

The frustrating thing is, the reviews are not dumb. They are just taking the fic at face value, I guess, and analyzing it on that level. Or maybe they're seeing it through a mental lens that lacks the tension I was trying to invoke? That might be the real reason for the misreading, come to think of it.

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

I try not to read too deeply into the Christian theology of Narnia because it can make me twitch a bit (especially when we're looking at Lewis' views of the Progressives, which is illustrated by Eustace's background). I try to enjoy it as a story of love and innocence (which is why I avoid looking too deeply into the Christian bit).

I reread Out of Sight... and I think the dissonance between your intention and readers' interpretation is that there is no hint of doubt in the characters after Peter accepts Aslan's explanation. It might have been more effective to have the sentiment of the doubt worked into the narrative, rather than using a break and the quote. Bring in a bit of the omniscient narrator, perhaps?

I think it hit my buttons since it's something I'm sensitive to, but most fanfic readers aren't looking to read deep. They may need a little more direction - this may be too subtle?

[edenfalling]

Doubt. Hmm. The thing is, I think Peter really does put his doubts aside, at least on that issue, and I am bad at third person omniscient. But maybe I could signal something via Susan...? *ponders* Anyway, I am not sure I want to go back and revise again, but I will definitely keep your point in mind for future stories where I want to express disagreement with the overt POV of the characters.

*fights sudden urge to go write completely random fic in third person omniscient for practice*

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

I think since the characters were left with no questions, the readers didn't see anything to worry about. Susan would be an ideal way to signal that doubt, really, since maybe she doesn't reconcile. Though in all honesty, I think the piece is fine as-is. I merely wanted to offer a bit of concrit since you seemed frustrated...

<3 You know I love your work, right?

[edenfalling]

<3

[issen4.livejournal.com]

but I understand why you chose it for me. I'm sorry for second-guessing you, sir. I won't do it again."


Brrr. Oh, poor Peter! I guessed the explanation right off, partly because I've wondered the same thing before--I think it's a lot more horrifying to see/read it in a scene like this. It's violating Peter's own integrity to take the choice from him, however 'required' it is (which I don't believe).

[edenfalling]

A mind-wipe (or memory fade, perhaps, or a removal of the link between factual memory and emotional memory) is the only explanation that makes any narrative sense to me. It makes me want to scream.

But within the logic of the series, if Aslan does something, it must have a good and sufficient reason. Given that assumption -- and the theological viewpoint that, as one reviewer put it, "God works in mysterious ways," and humans do not have the knowledge or perspective to see how apparently 'evil' actions are really right and good -- Peter has to accept his violation as right and good. That makes me want to scream even harder.

I have had a couple reviewers express appreciation for the line about Peter getting fifteen years of good instead of fifteen years of guilt, and while I can see how that makes sense -- I wrote the line, after all -- my personal view is that those fifteen years of guilt and sorrow were his, and they were stolen; the other fifteen years were therefore based on a lie. While that does not negate them, it does leave a very sour taste.

OT, in case you never saw this (old entry request).

[(Anonymous)]

Link to Nora Jemison's DBZ fic trilogy.

ftp://ftp.gweep.ca/pub/anime/anime-fan-works/Dragon-Ball/Last-Warrior/

I think there are more fics by her in that index; just remove the last part of the URL (everything after Dragon-Ball/)

Re: OT, in case you never saw this (old entry request).

[edenfalling]

Thank you!

[alchymie.livejournal.com]

The difficulty is that it's impossible to write a story set in Narnia, featuring Aslan, and staying true to canon characters -- without making Aslan infallibly good. If Aslan does a thing, that thing is the right thing to do, by definition.

One can step outside this, set up a story where Aslan is either fallible or not entirely good, and such a story might be readable... but it wouldn't stay true to Lewis's canon.

It's certainly harder to see this dampening of memory as a violation of self, if no one calls it that in the story, or objects to it -- even to Aslan's face. Especially to Aslan's face.

An alternative, in Peter's case, might be the same sort of magic by which visitors to Narnia from our world get stronger and faster. Narnian magic comes into the body, pushes out the frailty from the "other world"... and could do the same thing to mind and memory, perhaps. It would then be a natural phenomenon (if we may use that term for what happens in Narnia!), not something done by Aslan's direct will.

But that would have made a different story. I prefer this one.

[edenfalling]

Yeah -- if I play by the rules, Aslan is always right and justified. And yet... I was trying, I think, to show how an action can be good and right (and accepted as such) within the context of the story, but when a different context (such as a different religious perspective, perhaps) is brought to bear on the issue, that good and right action suddenly looks awfully problematic.

I would have read my story as problematic even without the quotes, because that's how I read Narnia to start with -- there is, as I said to aishuu, a frequent tension between what the story tells me and what my own understanding of ethics tells me -- but I put the quotes in because I know that my reading is not the only one out there, and may well be a minority view among people who are obsessive enough to write carefully canon-compliant fanfic. *wry* Apparently the quotes are not enough to fully recontextualize Aslan's actions for a lot of readers. Which is fine; the story does work on a strictly canon-compliant level, and I wrote it to work that way on purpose. It's just frustrating to me that I couldn't get the second level across to everyone.

-----

That is an interesting alternate theory! I may do something with that someday.