TLC Forum

Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:I don't recall anything about Black Dwarfs specifically being on the Witch's side.

I don't believe Lewis ever mentioned out and out that the Black Dwarves are more evil than the Red Dwarves, that's true. But in the PC book it says that the Black Dwarves Caspian meets offered to introduce him to a hag and a couple other evil creatures, and they were more surly than the Red Dwarves he meets. And Nikabrik (in Aslan's How) mentions that the Witch wasn't evil to the Dwarves. I'm pretty sure there were a few other similar parts in the books as well.

Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:I don't recall anything about Black Dwarfs specifically being on the Witch's side. (Reep says in the PC movie, "Ha! That's rich coming from you, dwarf, or do you forget that it was your people who fought alongside the White Witch?", so he doesn't discriminate necessarily. The LWW film, though, showed Red Dwarfs in Aslan's side and Black Dwarfs on Jadis'.)
As for Lewis addressing evil corrupting but not creating, there are a few places in Screwtape where he says the like.

That would be horrible if I was already mixing the book and movie.

Ariel.of.Narnia wrote: As for Lewis addressing evil corrupting but not creating, there are a few places in Screwtape where he says the like.

Good to know. I thought maybe it was in Mere Christianity or somewhere else too. But I can't remember. good to know I'm not imaging things.

@hobbit: ah, yes, I'd forgotten the other Black Dwarfs in PC.
@Lil: he might have said something in Mere Christianity too, but I've only read that once and not as recently as Screwtape. But no, you're not imagining things.

Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:@hobbit: ah, yes, I'd forgotten the other Black Dwarfs in PC.
@Lil: he might have said something in Mere Christianity too, but I've only read that once and not as recently as Screwtape. But no, you're not imagining things.

I found it. It's in chapter Five of Book 1 I want to say?

I think he says "Badness is just spoiled goodness."(of and course many other interesting things. I can't remember them all now to post.) which I think runs along similar lines.

In relation to corrupted goodness, canonically the orcs in LotR were tortured elves - goodness that was twisted to the forces of evil.

hobbit_of_narnia wrote:I'm pretty sure there were a few other similar parts in the books as well.

Of the Narnia books, only PC contrasts black and red dwarfs. Not even sure what colour Poggin is, hair colour, that is.

As mentioned, he wrote Pilgrim's Regress earlier, and in that black and red dwarfs, surrounding the SAME Barbarian, are an allegory for Commies and Fascists. No, the setting is NOT Narnian and NOT very Medieval. There is also an allegory of Freudian and one of Hegelian ideologies.

My take is that Trumpkin is the doubter or denier, initially, because Commies are often (and back then generally) Atheists, while Nikabrik is ultimately an occultist, because of the news during the war CSL had read that Nazis were into that.

ALL other Narnia books leave out the distinction between black and red dwarfs, except for SC perhaps mentioning Trumpkin's hair colour, if some red remained.

Shield Maiden wrote:canonically the orcs in LotR were tortured elves

I think not JUST tortured, but some kind of "transhumanism" if you can say so about elves.

Hans, you are incorrect about the distinctions in the other books - SC doesn't bother, but Duffle in HHB (the first dwarf Shasta meets in Narnia) is mentioned to be a red dwarf (and presumably, so are his two brothers). But there are other dwarfs in that book and nothing is said of their hair colour. I checked in HHB because of a fanfiction I'm writing... (Is "fanfiction" countable? Mostly rhetorical question.)

I would say that the distinction between red and black drawfs might be reading a little more into something than is really there, especially with the cross references between other books. It sounds like the red and the black dwarves are probably just clan divisions and there were clans that sided with the witch and there were clans that didn't. I think that to compare the clans to RL examples would probably be going too close to allegory and Lewis mentioned that Narnia isn't an allegory, it's a narrative in which there are moral lessons and an exploration of the concept of other worlds.

I think that generally it's the movies and fanfiction that make us think that there was a greater separation between the clans than there really was ever meant to be.

Actually, I noticed the distinction more in the books than in the movies. But maybe that's just me.
I think it's just that the Black Dwarves were less morally inclined (either by race or, more likely, by peer pressure) and often ignored the line between good vs evil, whereas the Red Dwarves tended to disbelieve something if they didn't understand it.

That last sentence sounds exactly like one book: PC.