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I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I dream of a Narnian genderswap retelling of LWW, wherein the four Pevensie siblings are Mary, Stephen, Edith, and Laurence rather than Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy -- which would obviously change the intra-familial relationship dynamics a lot, and would then throw monkey wrenches into Lewis's rather gender-essentialist plot devices.
I am still not writing the alternate version of LWW. But. I am doing some background world-building and character exploration, of which this is one piece. In this world, Mary is struggling with issues Peter never had to face, and her troubles have the knock-on effect of making Edith's pre-Narnia family role very different from Edmund's, though she's equally unhappy in it.
So. 575 words on Edith, Mary, and their mother. The title is from Langston Hughes's poem "A Dream Deferred."
[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
( Fester Like a Sore )
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As you can see, Edith is like Edmund in some respects -- the practical bent that shows up in Edmund's interest in roads and railway schedules, the sort of push-pull pre-Narnia relationship with Peter (or Mary), a feeling of being unappreciated by family -- but she's channeled those similarities in rather different directions. Edmund is superficially the one pulling his family apart. Edith is superficially the one holding hers together.
Incidentally, Edith ends up much more associated with Jadis than Edmund did. Because she's female, she's seen as a potential apprentice and heir to the Witch. And to some degree that's fair, because Edith takes Jadis as a role model -- not in morality, obviously, but in the sense that she's finally found an example of a woman who unapologetically wields power without compromising her sense of self or renouncing outward trappings of femininity like dresses and jewelry. Mrs. Pevensie doesn't overtly wield power, and before Narnia, Mary is alternately trying to deny her true self and be a sort of wind-up caricature of what she thinks a "proper" girl is like, or running away, acting out, and trying to deny that she is a girl.
I am still not writing the alternate version of LWW. But. I am doing some background world-building and character exploration, of which this is one piece. In this world, Mary is struggling with issues Peter never had to face, and her troubles have the knock-on effect of making Edith's pre-Narnia family role very different from Edmund's, though she's equally unhappy in it.
So. 575 words on Edith, Mary, and their mother. The title is from Langston Hughes's poem "A Dream Deferred."
[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
( Fester Like a Sore )
---------------------------------------------
As you can see, Edith is like Edmund in some respects -- the practical bent that shows up in Edmund's interest in roads and railway schedules, the sort of push-pull pre-Narnia relationship with Peter (or Mary), a feeling of being unappreciated by family -- but she's channeled those similarities in rather different directions. Edmund is superficially the one pulling his family apart. Edith is superficially the one holding hers together.
Incidentally, Edith ends up much more associated with Jadis than Edmund did. Because she's female, she's seen as a potential apprentice and heir to the Witch. And to some degree that's fair, because Edith takes Jadis as a role model -- not in morality, obviously, but in the sense that she's finally found an example of a woman who unapologetically wields power without compromising her sense of self or renouncing outward trappings of femininity like dresses and jewelry. Mrs. Pevensie doesn't overtly wield power, and before Narnia, Mary is alternately trying to deny her true self and be a sort of wind-up caricature of what she thinks a "proper" girl is like, or running away, acting out, and trying to deny that she is a girl.
