Social understanding of sexuality is a really tricky one...most people I read seem to let themselves off the hook with 'ok, Narnians were completely hedonistic and Telmarines were completely prudish'.
Which is nonsense. Of course. It all started with me thinking 'oh dear have I fallen pray to the Everyone Is Gay (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsGay) effect? ARE my characters gay? Edmund I can't tell, since he effectively opted out of puberty the first time around. Peter I've nailed down as functionally bi with a statistical preference for men, which was fine in the Golden Age (hey, fauns and satyrs don't care who you boink as long as you rule well. Animals don't care as long as you can reproduce. Which might be a problem as the kids get older and don't marry... hmmm...), but really really messes him around when he gets back to England.
Caspian, meanwhile, is incapable of forming meaningful relationships with women. Not too great at it with men, either. This might make him gay, or a moron. Except, after long reflection, Telmarines understand sexuality in terms of top/bottom, not gay/straight. This makes Caspian's hangup about teh buttsexs sooo much more interesting...
Mm, Telmarine empire. Which explains what some Telmarines are doing in Narnia in the first place- expansionism. Except it wasn't a very STRONG empire, and Telmar itself got overrun by Calormen due to overstretching itself with the conquering thing. So Caspian, by a strange stroke of luck, is possibly the last surviving scion of the Telmarine royal line.
Haven't yet decided why Telmarine Narnia didn't get flattened by Calormen. Possibly they were unwittingly protected by the legacy of That Rabbadash Incident? Also they have very closely tied themselves with Archenland.
Pirates come in because Drinian is a Telmar-Calormene pirate, I have decided, who heard that Narnia had, with the aid of Galma (I think?) launched a baby navy and was wobbling around learning to sail. Drinian took his pirate ship down there to prey on the baby navy and got the shit kicked out of him by griffins. Accordingly he swore loyalty to Caspian. (H/T to Bedlam who used similar plot devices in her Golden Age fics.)
This, happily, means that Caspian isn't setting off to the end of the world in a boat captained by a man who had until a few years ago been afraid of the sea.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-06 09:06 am (UTC)Which is nonsense. Of course. It all started with me thinking 'oh dear have I fallen pray to the Everyone Is Gay (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsGay) effect? ARE my characters gay? Edmund I can't tell, since he effectively opted out of puberty the first time around. Peter I've nailed down as functionally bi with a statistical preference for men, which was fine in the Golden Age (hey, fauns and satyrs don't care who you boink as long as you rule well. Animals don't care as long as you can reproduce. Which might be a problem as the kids get older and don't marry... hmmm...), but really really messes him around when he gets back to England.
Caspian, meanwhile, is incapable of forming meaningful relationships with women. Not too great at it with men, either. This might make him gay, or a moron. Except, after long reflection, Telmarines understand sexuality in terms of top/bottom, not gay/straight. This makes Caspian's hangup about teh buttsexs sooo much more interesting...
Mm, Telmarine empire. Which explains what some Telmarines are doing in Narnia in the first place- expansionism. Except it wasn't a very STRONG empire, and Telmar itself got overrun by Calormen due to overstretching itself with the conquering thing. So Caspian, by a strange stroke of luck, is possibly the last surviving scion of the Telmarine royal line.
Haven't yet decided why Telmarine Narnia didn't get flattened by Calormen. Possibly they were unwittingly protected by the legacy of That Rabbadash Incident? Also they have very closely tied themselves with Archenland.
Pirates come in because Drinian is a Telmar-Calormene pirate, I have decided, who heard that Narnia had, with the aid of Galma (I think?) launched a baby navy and was wobbling around learning to sail. Drinian took his pirate ship down there to prey on the baby navy and got the shit kicked out of him by griffins. Accordingly he swore loyalty to Caspian. (H/T to Bedlam who used similar plot devices in her Golden Age fics.)
This, happily, means that Caspian isn't setting off to the end of the world in a boat captained by a man who had until a few years ago been afraid of the sea.