[Fic] "The Golden Age: A Historical and Cultural Survey" -- Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

Summary: An excerpt from the introduction to The Golden Age: A Historical and Cultural Survey, published by the University of Redhaven in the year 1667. (225 words)

[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]

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The Golden Age: A Historical and Cultural Survey
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The so-called Golden Age of Narnia is best understood not as a distinct historical era but rather as a later attempt to construct a new national ideology in the wake of the Long Winter and its concomitant destruction of both material and performative culture. The Pevensie tetrarchs ruled for a mere fifteen years, much of which was spent rebuilding a shattered land, warding off attempted conquest on several fronts, and mediating the legal and social complications of mass repatriation. Their reign was by no rational standards a time of stability, let alone of prosperity. Their abrupt and still unexplained departure did not tragically precipitate chaos, as legend would have it, but was merely one of a nearly uninterrupted string of crises that began with the Pevensies' arrival in Lantern Waste and continued throughout Lord Steward Peridan's reign. Narnia's political fragility cannot truly be said to have ended until the year 1102, when Lady Steward Evelyn declared herself Queen Evelyn the First of Her Name, thereby raising House Scrapemoss to royal status in law as well as in fact.

Why, then, is such an ephemeral and troubled period remembered as a paradise?

The question can be answered in part by a simple comparison of the Pevensies to their immediate predecessor, Jadis the Usurper, whose dictatorship, enforced by both magical and mundane cruelty, ground Narnia nearly to oblivion over the better part of a century...

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Inspired by the 7/12/15 15_minute_ficlets word #231: ephemeral

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Writing fake history is fun. :D

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Reading fake history is fun! :-D

[edenfalling]

Thanks!

[transposable_element]

I've always suspected as much.

[edenfalling]

It is MUCH easier than writing fake poetry, at least for me. :D

[autumnia]

Whee, loved this! And yes, a Golden Age is not a Golden Age until it's already over and things have become even worse in the land. :-)

I feel like there should be an addendum somewhere about their reappearance just before the new age with Caspian began.

[edenfalling]

Thanks! Yeah, the Golden Age has the definite ring of a mythos that grew up significantly after the fact, particularly since one of the few things we know about the Pevensies' reign is that it was unsettled enough for Lucy to casually speak of carrying her cordial "commonly to the wars." That does not sound like an era I'd particularly want to live in, regardless of the complacency of the Narnians living along the border with Archenland (which may have been the only secure border Narnia had).

As for an addendum, the book is written about 650 years before Caspian takes the throne (so about halfway between LWW and PC), so I think it's unlikely to be republished just to include those events. But I'm sure the Pevensies' reappearance led to a LOT of rather excitable monographs, and quite possibly a sort of 'sequel' dealing with further mutations of the Golden Age legends during the Telmarine Era and some speculation on what may happen as a result of the tetrarchs' brief return.

[branchandroot]

*sparkles* Excellently cool fake history! Also, so very, very true. I mean, Lewis glosses it as a golden age, but when you look at what he actually says it's mostly "didn't poke their noses in everyone's business".

[edenfalling]

I think a fair bit of the whole Golden Age shtick is a pure and simple comparison to Jadis. And let's be honest: almost anything would look wonderful in comparison to Jadis's rule. Another part is probably related to Aslan's personal presence at the start of their reign and occasional appearances thereafter. Presumably those tapered off after the Pevensies vanished, though they may not have stopped altogether until around the Telmarine conquest. Thirdly, I think Narnians needed to construct a new national mythos to hold together both those who had suffered through the Long Winter and those who returned to their ancestors' homes after a century of exile and at least partial assimilation in other lands and cultures. The end result is the recasting of the Pevensies as the True King(s) whose ascension ended chaos and in whose reign everything was Good, regardless of the actual facts on the ground.

This is not to say that they were bad rulers -- I think they did the best they could under the circumstances, and clearly by the time of HHB they'd managed to get the southeast (which borders Archenland) into a safe and stable state -- but they were facing a LOT of complications and it's equally clear they fought a LOT of battles over those fifteen years. I mean, apparently they built a navy to rival that of Calormen! You don't spend that kind of money without a very compelling reason.

[heliopausa]

:D I enjoyed this!

[edenfalling]

Thanks!