[ SECRET POST #2606 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2606 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07. [repeat]


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #372.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

14. http://i62.tinypic.com/30u2uk2.jpg

[intrigueing]

I thought it was racist even when I was eight, which didn't stop me from enjoying them. I just asked my mom "uh...how long ago was this written?" Then again, I'm not white, so maybe that's why I can't ever recall a time in my life when racism was a shock to me or something I was sheltered from.

The Horse and His Boy is still my top favorite of all the books, btw. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not familiar with Narnia...what's racist about it?

[(Anonymous)]

Who cares? Why do people make such a fuss about anything racist all the time?

[quantumreality]

I hear you, OP. The Narnia series in general is not really that kind to darker-skinned people, and there's many instances of subtle digs at "look at how those funny darkies do things compared to how the good white folk do it in Great Britain Narnia."

[kathkin]

Are you me anon because wow I could have written this secret. xD Loved so many things about The Horse and his Boy but goddamn it, even as a little white kid I knew there was something off about it. :(

[(Anonymous)]

Historical. Context.

[(Anonymous)]

It was always my favorite too. It was more interesting for some reason.

[forgottenjester]

When I first read it it bothered me too. I mean, I know they're old books and that's why but it does really put a damper on my enjoyment of the series.* I wonder how Disney will deal with that if they do the movie. If they deal with it at all.


*I only say series because the racist stuff, mostly with the Calormenes, are in more than just The Horse and His Boy.

[cakemage]

It's still my favorite of the Narnia books because I've always been a sucker for anything horse-related, especially sassy talking horses. But yeah, the racism has always bothered me even if it was relatively mild for its day. Historical context can only make up for so much. Still, Bree and Hwin are awesome and so is Aravis, and speaking of, Aravis/Lasaraleen is my Narnian OTP.

[(Anonymous)]

Aravis was one of my favourite fictional characters when I was a kid! Always found her and Shasta much more interesting than the Pevensies. And I could be wrong (it's been a loooong time since I read the series), but I seem to recall that the horse was sassy as fuck. I liked him too.

But yeah, even reading the book as an 8-yr-old I thought the portrayal of the Calormenes was a little iffy.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll admit it was racist, but the presence of Aravis made up for a lot of the generalizations, AND C.S. Lewis's problems with sexism (of which there was a lot).

I know we're getting "The Magician's Nephew" and that "The Silver Chair" has been green-lit, but I'm holding out hope that the film franchise will make it as far as "The Horse and His Boy." I would KILL to see an on-screen Aravis, though at the same time I suspect producers would blanch at any portrayal of the Calormenes.

OTT

[elephantinegrace]

This reminds me of a Tumblr post (yes, yes, feel free to groan) of a guy in a coat spinning around in confusion, captioned, "Where are all those POC actors we used to play villains now that we need protagonists? I swear we put them all here after Zero Dark Thirty!"

Obviously, I'm paraphrasing, since I've no idea how to find the post again.

[(Anonymous)]

That was my favorite too!

(I don't really like the Pevensies, especially Lucy)

[(Anonymous)]

I think I read those books when I was a kid but don't really remember them. What was racist about this one?

[(Anonymous)]

I had no idea it was racist as a kid. I'm white and grew up in a kind of cultural pocket of Enid Blytonesque Toytown. I guess I absorbed those messages about the funny darkies, because I came to learn there was an other to our whiteness.

As an adult, with a lot of contact with Middle Eastern culture for various reasons, I look back at it and it's like crriiiiiiinge to my naive reactions, and anger at the type of stereotyping that carries over to real life. The fucking Crusades were centuries ago. And all the Orientalism, ugh.

Still well written, fun book / books, shame they relied on denigrating others for some of the drama and ~exoticism, glad it's a little harder to get away with it being as obvious now.

Incidentally, my son has a name from this book.

[(Anonymous)]

If there's a movies, I wonder what they would do to change it?

[(Anonymous)]

That one was my favorite, too, as a kid! I wanted to go live in that city they pass through. I mean, screw Narnia, that city was where it's at - which is probably NOT what Lewis wanted readers to want. (I'm very fuzzy on the details here, it's been so long since I've read the book.)

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with all of this OP. I always wished there were more stories in the series set during the time that the Pevensies were grown up kings and queens. And Aravis and Bree were some of my favorite characters in the series.

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty much everything written long ago is racist by todays standards. Doesn't make it any less of a classic. Before crying about it remember how long ago it was written and understand that it's worded for the time period.

[dentedsky]

that was my fave book too! but... i don't recall the racism, so i guess it's time for me to read it now that i'm an adult

[blueonblue]

I loved it when I was a kid because it was one of the few fantasy novels to have a brown-skinned heroine. I still love Aravis.

[(Anonymous)]

NGL, never saw the racism in this. Learned something new.

[(Anonymous)]

I always loved that book too, cause...not gonna lie, I thought it was rad as hell to see other races in the Narnian verse than the lily-white folks. The Calormenes were obviously supposed to bring Turkish/Arabic culture to mind, but it's not like they were uniformly evil. Some of them were assholes. Some wanted power. A few were just kinda spoiled and stupid. Some of em were cool! And one was Aravis, who actually overthrows Jill Pole as the bombest yet most overlooked heroine in the series. I loved her SO MUCH and thought even when I was a kid that it was just so awesome that she was coming from a totally different world than our young hero (who was smart enough to fall in love with her).

Now, when I reread it when I was older, I noticed the unfortunate reliance on stereotypes rather more than when I was a kid. But even so, I'm chalking that up to the different time in which it was written because they did NOT read as just a faceless wave of villainy to me. That, I would have had a much bigger problem with.

(On a similar note, I can't remember if it was the same in the book because Prince Caspian is my second-least favourite book in the series [though of course nowhere near as bad as The Last Battle] but I quite liked in the movie how the Telmarines were clearly supposed to be the fantastical expies for Hispanic people. That story, again, focusing heavily on the Telmarines meant that a lot of the antagonists were, but again, they weren't written as All The Same within that culture. Some good guys, some bad guys. Ya know, just like any other humans.)

[waterfall8484]

This was always one of my favourite Narnia books, although I can't remember why now - clearly I have to read it again! I was a very oblivious reader as a child (still am to some degree), and so I totally didn't pick up on this at the time. Yet another reason to re-read it as an adult, I suppose.