Btw, has Sean or anyone else seen Gundam Unicorn yet?
Regarding Japanese naming scheme:
Hey, any culture that can come up with Gentle Uterus as a combat power… (:
Um, the Golden Compass and Percy Jackson are not related to Narnia. Did I miss something?
If I remember correctly, The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman was directly written in protest to C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia.
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If you want to know more and fall completely in love with Tilda Swinton, read up on her personal life. She’s a total hero.
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I love “The Problem of Susan.” Great essay. Like Audra, the Chronicles of Narnia were really important to me in childhood. But for that reason I almost regress to a more childlike mental pov as I reread them today. The NG essay helped me think about the series in a new way, which is always a good thing. And I still love it, even though I also love Susan.
Ted is the least interesting character on HIMYM! My friends and I are mid-S4 right now and we just don’t get what Your Mother is eventually going to see in him!
You should read The Golden Compass before deciding that you like it least, imo. The movie was visually beautiful and I loved (!) the website for it, which matched you with your own Daemon, but it wasn’t an especially good film or a great telling of the story. Lyra is actually a very engaging, appealing, realistic character. The books are very anti-organized religion (esp. the Catholic Church) but also has a strong ethical core and a fierce belief in the wonder and spirit that is the universe itself.
Ok, when you brought this up in the previous cast thread, I thought it was a JOKE. I love that it’s really the new Gundam series!
My own personal Narnia story is actually shockingly personal… but here goes:
My favorite 2 movies from the time I was 4 to the time I was 7 were the animated adaptations of The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
I wore out the library’s VHS!
When I turned 5 my father started reading TLTWATW to me every night before bed. He was a very Catholic and I think he was trying to introduce me to many of the concepts of his faith in a way that resonated with little kid me.
We read Prince Caspian, too, and had started Voyage of the Dawn Treader when we went on a family vacation in the winter of 1989 or 1990. Our copy of Voyage of the Dawn Treader was tragically lost forever in a terrible luggage black hole incident. We never got another copy or finished the book.
Not long after my father left, I read all seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia and just loved them. Reading them reminded me very strongly of my dad and was one of the only ways that little kid me allowed myself to connect with my grief.
I also really connected with the children at the center of the story–Lucy, Eustace and Jill, especially. They had to figure out how to do the right thing and make their way through their adventures without parents to rely on, not just because Aslan brought them to Narnia away from their parents but also because their parents were in the midst of war and were otherwise consumed in their own problems in ways that shut out their kids without meaning to.
As I got older and got better, I went through the very normal teenage phase of questioning faith and god and my values relative to my family’s values and the Chronicles of Narnia was totally part of that, too. I had heard somewhere along the way that C.S. Lewis meant it as a Christian allegory and that just annoyed me–I felt like Narnia was like being tricked into eating my veggies. But when I sat down to reread the core texts, TLTWATW and The Last Battle, I ended up feeling like Narnia was not so much a story of Christianity being right as I felt it was a story that demonstrated one way that Christianity could lead to right and good.
I’m still not a Christian but Aslan’s sacrifice still moves me. And so far as twentieth century theology goes, C.S. Lewis is still pretty awesome. His story–and thanks to Audra for the refresher/briefing–inspires me to take time to be reflective and try to live with integrity.
Here is a picture-
Uh, ooops… sorry, that is ‘My Little Gundam’…
Yeah, but Starbuccaneer explains it better than I.
Yeah, I haven’t read the books. If I stopped playing MMOs, maybe I’d find the time. d: But, I was just talking about the movies themselves.
In my mind, Narnia (very based in Christian) and Golden Compass (anti-religion) were opposite ends of the same spectrum (religion). So, I didn’t want to watch Narnia w/o seeing Golden Compass too.
Percy Jackson was just something on the list.
No, I wasn’t joking. I didn’t use a smiley or anything… I think. (:
Lol Omra!
So, anyone seen it?
HAH! Thank you for that. 
On Narnia:
I reread the series last year, so I love that you’re talking about it. Very awesome. Audra, you are a virtuso at analysing literature, and it’s always fascinating to hear your thoughts on it.
These are my battered old Narnia books that were given to my by an older cousin, so they apparently were published way before I was even born! (A look at the sleeve tells me they’re published in 1970. The price tag is still on it, and the box set cost US$16.95. 17 bucks! Dang.)
Whatever my thoughts are on C.S. Lewis and some of his other books on religion (which is actually kind of a weird and fascinating read if only because of how much I disagree on his thoughts on Christianity and religion), and maybe because I first read them when I was young and therefore didn’t see the connection til I was older, I try to enjoy Narnia in a more simple way, as a story first and foremost, and not dwell upon what I know of C.S. Lewis since then. It is definitely a bit of a different experience reading it as an adult vs. reading it as a child though since you can’t ‘unsee’ the connections as much - but regardless, I still love the series and treasure them (especially these books. I have a big thing for older book illustrations/covers) to this day.
Or perhaps Hello Gundam! 
My LtWatW story mirrors many that have been discussed before. I first fell in love with the animated movie and would bawl like a baby at the sacrifice scene. Then I got the exact complete series of books that Coco showed, but never got beyond Dawntreader though. I guess eventually I’ll give the later ones a second chance; probably when the daughter is old enough to enjoy them…
Now that I know Gundam Unicorn is real, I’m definitely going to need to check that out! In high school I blew through as many of the Gundam series that I could get my hands on through inter-library loan. Gundam Wing was on tv in the afternoons and I liked it, so I watched Mobile Suit Gundam, Gundam ZZ and After War Gundam X. Haven’t watched any of it in more than 10 years though… I’ll have to look into Unicorn, much as it might make me giggle a little.
You should really try out both The Silver Chair and The Horse and His Boy. Both of them are truly excellent–new characters having new adventures that are very much in the spirit of Narnia. I think that The Horse and His Boy is my favorite one, actually. And Dawn Treader next, but apparently that’s weird in this crowd. :rolleyes:
Like I said, it only has 2 out of 6 episodes out so far with the next one prolly coming out in January (my guess).
If it’s been that long since you’ve seen Gundam, maybe you should watch Gundam 00 (double zero) to tide you over. There are two seasons (series) out. IMO, the second season was better than the first, but you have to watch the first season to appreciate the second.
Also, lemme gives props to Macross F (Frontier). It has a complete season and a movie retelling. It will have a second movie in a few months that continues where the first movie left off.
Yoko Kanno (if you dunno who she is, you’re missing out) did the music for Macross Frontier.
Coco! That is the same set my family has 
I’ll have to surreptitiously lift it when we’re home at Christmas…
Putting son to sleep tonight and what do I find (that I didn’t know I had). I found a paperback copy of the lion, the witch…
Started reading to him (he’s coming up to 17 months). Don’t know whether to feel insulted that he fell asleep when I got to the second page.
Such knowledge could prove useful/fruitful in the weeks, months, and years to come. d:
It’s a double win: Easy work for you, plus the experience reading to him will last longer if you only do a page a night.
Oh. I forgot to mention. Simon Jones (aka Arthur Dent) played the role of C.S. Lewis in the PBS: The Question of God.
That is all.
Oh, that’s so cool! I love that so many of us have the same set - aren’t they gorgeous? It’s the same reason why I kept all my old Little House on the Prairie books and WISH that I had a set of old Roald Dahl books (instead of borrowing them from the library).
On Jinn’s
Just so you know folks, Jinn’s (or elementals) are a Persian influence - remember the Ali Baba story? Belief in Jinns here are strong due to traditional Malay witchdoctors (known as [Bomoh’s). The gravelings you see in the tv show Dead like Me are also known as the Momok in traditional Malay culture.
If you read The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, CS Lewis explains somewhere that the Ice Queen is the product of a giant and a Jinn.
On that Lewis-Tolkien bromance
Folks, these guys were WWI vets, drinking buddies and part of the Inklings. Being friends, they had no problems sharing story material, and each took it and turned the story beats their own way.
What is more remarkable that shouldn’t be understated is their friendship being informed as an Anglican & a Catholic which is something very rare and should be celebrated.
FWIW, it’s usually spelled Djinn (when it’s not being spelled Genie, which is the same thing.)
There’s a really good series of books out there (marketed to Young Adults) titled The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. At first I thought it would be a Harry Potter rip off, because the premise is a young boy discovers the world of magic, blah blah blah. But it takes a very different turn from HP. The main Djinn in all three books is Bartimaeus, and he is actually more interesting than the main kid who learns to be a magician. I highly recommend the series- it is well written, smart, and funny.