Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Swanwhite » Tue Aug 01, 2017 2:35 pm

13. Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time and 14. The Triumph of the Witch

“But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan.”

“Edmund was on the other side of Aslan, looking all the time at Aslan’s face. He felt a choking feeling and wondered if he ought to say something; but a moment later he felt that he was not expected to do anything except to wait, and do what he was told.”

These chapters bring up some hymn titles to mind. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” and “Trust and Obey” for ch. 13.

For chapter 14 I was thinking of “He could have called ten thousand angels”.
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Swanwhite » Tue Aug 01, 2017 4:35 pm

Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:
*giggles at Jadis' bare arms* Aunt Letty would still not approve! :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Ajnos wrote:I knew that the American version had Fenris Ulf. But I was surprised to see Peter given the title “Fenris-Bane”.
Interesting that Fenris is going to be in the next Thor movie. It might not be a large role, but he looks pretty fierce in the trailer and I'm curious to see how he'll be portrayed.

It just occurred to me that Thor and Loki are in some ways an extreme version of Peter and Edmund. Peter is more intelligent and less arrogant than Thor, but there is a certain similarity in their type. They're both kingly, jovial, confident, outgoing and protective.

Edmund becomes a much more trustworthy person that Loki, but at the beginning he is as bitter and spiteful as Loki, and both characters continue to be very clever, cunning and insightful.

I think it comes from both stories being influenced by the same myths.

Oh also when my sister and I were listening to the part where there is a bull with a man's head she googled and found this
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Ajnos » Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:25 pm

Day 8: Chapters 15&16

I’ve already mentioned the LWW play that I saw a couple months ago at a local church. It was fairly low budget and church members made up the cast but they did an excellent job for what they had to work with. (Like Edmund was played by an adult – probably between 18 and 25 years old; I guess they had trouble finding a boy who wanted to and could take on the role. But this guy did a good job). Anyway, two of my favourite scenes that I thought were most cleverly done were from these two chapters.

The first was the mouse scene. They got a group of about 5 pre-scool aged kids to play the mice. Their costumes were simple with a mouse-ear alice bands and mouse faces painted on. They stood in the front of the stage holding and chewing on a rope. And then the chief mouse who was a slightly older girl sang:

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a lion who loves me
I want to say goodbye
.

I think there were verses sung by the choir but don’t remember the words. It’s probably not the most theologically sound way of putting it, but it was so adorable ^.^ A lady I went to primary school with was standing in front directing the mice and it turned out two of them were her kids (which made it all the cuter to me). Actually, I just realised that she and I were in the same class and did a couple projects together the same year we had MN ans LWW as set books.

The second scene was the statues. The petrified creatures stood on the stage with sheets of silvery grey chiffon or organza fabric (I don’t know my fabric names – that semi-transparent stuff?) over them. And then Susan and another girl, standing in for Lucy, danced around them while the fabric was thrown off and they came back to life (Aslan was always off-stage). The dance wasn’t too polished but the basic effect was quite good.

It’s been a long day and I should be in bed so I’ll just give a few quotes and comments on other things that struck me in these chapters:

The stars were getting fainter—all except one very big one low down on the Eastern horizon.

Since we know stars in Narnia were people, I wonder who this was.

Every moment his dead face looked nobler, as the light grew and they could see it better.

Was death already starting to work backwards at this Point? Either way, it’s a beautiful description.

—The romp: I have no memory of this romp; I’ve obviously skipped over it too quickly when I’ve read it before (and it has been a while). I remember him roaring and telling them to block their ears, but not the game. Also do you think Peter and his army and the witch heard his roar?

—"It's all right!" shouted Aslan joyously. "Once the feet are put right, all the rest of him will follow."

Love how jovial and playful Aslan is despite being Aslan.

Here's a poor little kangaroo.

Kangaroos are exotic but lions and cheetah’s arent? Just kidding. It catches me everytime too.

—It’s interesting that Aslan could break down the witch’s gate himself but he chooses to use Rumblebuffin instead. A bit like him giving Lucy the cordial though he could heal people himself. Reminds us of how God likes and chooses to use us in his plans even though he doesn’t need us.

—"Us Lions!" I love the other Lion. It’s kinda cool how Lewis introduces some new interesting characters here at such a late point in the book (Rumblebuffin and the lion) and gives them really appealing characters even though they have no greater roles to play.

And finally, I can't omit to mention: At least he went on saying this till Aslan had loaded him up with three dwarfs, one Dryad, two rabbits, and a hedgehog. That steadied him a bit.

I was thinking the other day that I was sure there was a hedgehog reference in LWW but couldn’t remenber where it was. Some years ago I went through and found all the references to and pictures of hedgehogs in the chronicles. If I remember right, VDT is the only one with no reference to them.
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Swanwhite » Wed Aug 02, 2017 12:25 am

Glad you found the Hedgehog, Ajjie :)

15. Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time


Who would have guessed
something utterly tragic
was bringing the best
and the deepest of magic.

The night was so cold,
but the sunrise is warm,
and we’re playing with a kitten
and a thunder storm.


16. What Happened about the Statues

This chapter is so splendid

(I wrote this stanza about my actual window and the beautiful edge of a thunderstorm that was blowing outside, but I realized with a little adjustment it could fit the witch's castle being searched and opened up.)

The windows are opened,
and the wind has come in,
and it smells like a story
is about the begin.


Revival of stone.
Dry as bone
till the lion’s breath
reverses death,
and calls back to life all His own.
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Ariel.of.Narnia » Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:52 am

@hobbit: Ooh, totally digging that sketch of Aslan and Jadis!


Chapter 15:
I've not taken note of this before, but the birds' action (namely, making chuckling sounds and singing) is in stark contrast to the mice. I mean, for one, we know from PC that these mice became Talking Mice because they unbound Aslan, so their action seems more consciously related than the birds'. Basically, I'm saying that the mice did something rather unusual while the birds did what anyone would expect of birds, dead lion in the vicinity or no. But, that said, I almost wonder if perhaps these birds caught onto something, some sort of indication that it was a most joyous morning indeed.
*blinks* The description of Narnia whilst Aslan is racing across it... I want a holiday. A very long holiday. One from which I may not return....
So, linkage to two related fics, one from Susan's pov and one from Lucy's. (ff.net is not affiliated with TLC, etc, etc) https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8145315/1/ ... efore-Dawn and https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8145735/1/ ... -Comes-Day

Chapter 16:
You know what that bit about the giant's feet reminds me of? "Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit...." John 13:8-10
*sigh* I need to write that Tumnus fic.... One day. One day, I will.
Man, Lucy's always got a hanky on her. (Where was she when Bilbo needed her? lol. (Yup, totally just crossed over fandoms. Don't mind me.)
So I know Narnia's geography is made rather spotty by Aslan's rushing around both in LWW and PC, but the only thing I can think of to marry the distances of Narnia with the timing of these liberation runs is that Aslan must be granting everyone both the speed and stamina to make the journey the way they do.
More linkage, this time a poem: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8005087/1/It-is-Finished
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by hobbit_of_narnia » Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:01 am

@Swanwhite (earlier): Last time I was reading through Narnia I was intrigued by the reference to the bull with the man's head, too, and googled it and immediately facepalmed because of course!! I'd seen pictures of them before, I'd seen replicas of statues, but it never dawned on me that that's what Lewis was referring to. :lol: :lol:

@Ajjie: I always assumed that the star was Aravir..... :?
I loved the romp. In the old cartoon LWW movie, little white flowers sprang up wherever Aslan's feet touched the grass during this romp, which I just thought was the coolest thing. But then I could never remember if it was canon or not... :P
:lol: I guess it's that kangaroos are from Australia. The other animals mentioned in the series seem to be limited to Europe and Africa (or mythology). But now I want to know if there were giant pandas or moose in Narnia, too.

@Ariel: :mrgreen: Thank you!


Day 9:
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"And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you heard it? Can you remember?"
Why yes...yes I have. *starts humming* To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying, the wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying...
(Ariel, I think your fandom-crossovering is rubbing off on me! That's literally the first thing that came into my head when I read that line. :lol: )

"...that wonderful hall...hung with peacocks' feathers..."
Was it in the LWW movie commentary that I heard that peacock feathers are supposed to be bad luck? I guess the superstitions in Narnia are different. :P

Does it ever actually give any description of the Pevensie boys' hair colors? Because for some reason I thought it did at the end of LWW, but I guess not...

(Also, why do the Pevensies use a more modern manner of speech in HHB, instead of the Shakespeare-talk they use at the end of LWW? I feel like Lewis regretted having made that choice by the time he got to HHB and went, ".....maybe nobody'll notice." This has bothered me for yeeeeaaars. :lol: But I love that the narrator's voice changes with the Pevensies'.)

How much did the Narnians freak out when their entire royalty disappeared, I wonder? They're there, and then they're not. Everyone talks about how strange it was for the Pevensies, but I've only seen a couple of things about the Narnians' reactions. The four had courtiers with them on the hunt (who were of some species that could ride, because it mentions the courtiers' horses becoming tired)...were these suspected after the Pevensies' disappearance? I don't mean to be morbid, but...they were last seen in the woods. If one was planning to murder someone else, it's unlikely that investigators could search a whole forest for evidence before it's too late to find any, if you know what I mean. (WOW, that got dark. Why am I even thinking about this??)

Final sketch just for good measure:
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(The scanner was being a weirdo today and glaring off all the dark lines. :( So the image quality is kind of bad.)
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Ajnos » Wed Aug 02, 2017 12:55 pm

A catch-up on commenting on your posts from the last couple days.

Firstly, I totally meant "leopards" when I said "cheetahs" yesterday. I blame being really tired. And the movies.

@Ariel: thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Ed-must-be-sacrificed-on-the-table problem. I guess we'll never get it completely figured out but it's less odd than it seemed at first.

@Swan: all your pictures are amazing!! Well done! I was also curious about the bulls-with-man's-heads but didn't get around to looking them up. Its a bit weird that they're on the good side and minotaurs on the bad side but maybe there's something about the more humanoid creatures (fauns and centaurs) being good (based on what Mr Beaver said about things that pretend to be human but aren't). They should have had a bull-with-a-mans' head in the Dawn Treader instead of a minotaur. Related to this, does Lewis ever clearly explain what difference he envisaged between fauns and satyrs (which are both good)?

@Swan: I love the kitten or thunderstorm line and how you used it in your poem!

@Hobbi: Your Aslan and Jadis picture is amazing. You've given Aslan a sense of dignity while at the same time capturing the sad state he is in. And Jadis is great too. Also yay for the other lion! (if you ever feel like drawing the picture of the other creatures + the hedgehog being bundled up onto his back, it would be nice to see - I wanted to draw it myself but can't draw) No pressure though ;)

@Hobbi: While Pauline's pictures are great in some ways, there are problems in them from time to time. I've noticed when trying to recreate characters on character builder that she doesn't go into too much detail on the clothing, and she loves flowwy sleeves, even on men. I think the Jadis and Aslan walking one is the strangest of the lot and am sure I've heard commentary on it before. I think it was with reference to that picture that I heard that she had read the whole book and missed the whole "Aslan represents Jesus" analogy and said that if she had realised that she would have done the picture differently. (But I could be completely mistaking my memory on the matter, so don't quote me on it).

@Hobbi: I'll comment on your Chapter 17 stuff when I've done my own reflection for it.

[I feel like I've been writing so much PhD thesis lately that I can't form normal coherent sentences anymore. So if anything I write here doesn't make sense, that's my excuse]
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Swanwhite » Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:31 pm

Chapter 17. The Hunting of the White Stag
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Also I forgot to include this before, but I made marmalade roll this week. I used this recipe: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/538 ... on-the-run (click at your own risk. There is a automatically playing video on the side which is kind of annoying.) and it turned out pretty good.
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by hobbit_of_narnia » Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:37 pm

@Ajjie: I figured you meant leopards. I noticed that there were cheetahs alongside the leopards in the movie and thought how there probably weren't a lot of people who would actually notice the difference.
Anyone can draw. :lol: Just some people get more practice than others (or sometimes have a sharper eye for proportions or colors or action or expression, though 70- or 80-something percent of it is in the amount of practice, from what I've seen).
.....nonetheless, challenge accepted. :P I did this in maybe fifteen minutes, so I apologize for the sloppiness of it. Aslan especially turned out looking not at all how I was hoping. :roll: And then the host site for my drawings was being weird, and it ended up taking over an hour before I was finally able to upload it...*sigh* Oh well.
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(I love playing up the size difference between Aslan and the other lion. This one I got to do that even more than usual because the other lion is crouching down so that the other creatures can get on his back, and that makes him hardly more than half the height of Aslan.)
(Also so many dwarves..........)
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Re: Summer Challenge Sharing Thread 2017

Post by Swanwhite » Wed Aug 02, 2017 4:21 pm

Hobbit, that is extraordinary! And Professor Kirke is incredible too!
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