Buried Talent or Strategy? (VDT)

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

In rewatching VDT, something about Bern hit me.
“We lords made a pact to find the source of the mist and destroy it.” Pardon my asking, Bern, but um, what are you doing here? You made a pact to destroy the mist and stayed behind? They didn’t come back and you still stayed behind? (To be fair, perhaps he couldn’t go at that point because, you know, prison. But the fact that he’s in prison at all is never explained.) If you stayed to be “home base” or something, I could maybe buy that, but you don’t tell us anything, so I’m left to guess at a few scenarios.

And then later he brings out the (random, magical, Golden Age *holds in those questions for another day*) sword, all grubbied up because he’d... hidden it in a cave? Pardon my asking, Bern, but what possessed you to do that? The mist couldn’t have taken it away (since it didn’t do that to the others), so what were you trying to protect it from? And since you hid it, clearly this was before jail, so how long did you sit on that? Just like your staying behind, you don’t explain why you hid it, so pardon me for think of not-so-great scenarios.

Because the first thing that popped into my head upon this viewing when he brought out the sword was, “You’re useless. You buried your one talent and reproduced it like you did a good job.” (That being a reference to the parable of the talents.)
He made a pact... and didn’t follow through. He had a magical sword... and hid it.

The only positive way to spin it that I can see is this: The lords made a pact, and made it public. Bern, whether because he was to set up a base of operations or something as simple as illness or injury, stayed behind. The six never returned, but the mist continued to do so. The people get antsy waiting and assume (correctly) that the lords had failed. Bern takes an educated guess about where this is going and hides the sword so nobody can sell/destroy/toss it into the ocean. They seize him as the remaining man of this failed quest and lock him up, whether because they blame him or think he’s crazy or need to do something to feel better (why they don’t kill him or “feed him to the mist”, who knows?). And then when Caspian does free him and he brings out the sword, it turns out he made the smart decision, and now Caspian can carry on the quest. (Though why doesn’t Bern go with, what with the pact and no stated reasons, as in the book, for his staying put?)

Thoughts?

[knightofnarnia]

I thought of what the Strategy was before I read that part of your post. But if you really want my thoughts over it, this episode of Dawn Treader was purposely too short. They had to make it with out loosing money and so made it a lot shorter then the other two. (PC was way too long and they supposedly lost money when they made it)

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Corporate finances or no, I’m more interested in how they chose to tell the story in the time they had.