#Calormen

[whats-in-a-sentence]

This is the story of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands between, in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Narnia and his brother and his two sisters were King and Queens under him.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy" - C. S. Lewis

#book quotes #the chronicles of narnia #the horse and his boy #c s lewis #pauline baynes #story time #adventure #narnia #calormen #golden age #peter pevensie #edmund pevensie #susan pevensie #lucy pevensie #brothers #sisters #siblings #king #queen

[winter2468]

The way CS Lewis did worldbuilding in Narnia is wild because only four humans could defeat the White Witch so you'd assume "yeah it makes sense that there had to be kids from another universe to save Narnia" but then you read the other books and it turns out that there ARE other humans in the Narnia universe, but they're either

A thinly-veiled metaphor for Scottish people or

A thinly-veiled, very r/acist metaphor for Muslims

so I guess you can only save Narnia if you're English.

#narnia #the chronicles of narnia #books #archenland #calormen

[artist-issues]

I love your post detailing greta gerwig's changes in her adaptation of little women, but isn't Narnia definitely flavored with some universalism? In the Last Battle, a worshipper of Tash ends up in heaven because he's like "truly seeking the face of God" essentially even if he knew Aslan by the wrong name because his culture only exposed him to Tash. Also, I was raised protestant so I don't know if catholics have a different idea about what counts as universalism or not, but basically I'm not so sure if this will get in the way of her working on the films, especially if she does the Magicians Nephew. Unrelated, I wonder how they're going to go about adapting the Horse and his Boy without it being lambasted for racism etc lol

I think "flavored" with Universalism is a good way to describe The Last Battle--and only The Last Battle, and only that bite of the meal that deals with the young Calormene. Because my understanding of Universalism is that they believe all people, regardless of their beliefs contradicting Biblical Christianity, go to heaven and are not condemned for choosing to be god-of-their-own-life.

You can't quite look at C.S. Lewis' entirety of work and believe he was a Universalist in that sense. He certainly believed in the Biblical truth of Hell. Otherwise, specifically in Narnia, there would be no "Darkness on Aslan's Left Side" that all the creatures who fear and hate him disappear into at the end of the world. That seems like a pretty straightforward representation of Judgement.

I think the whole thing with Emeth the Calormene is interesting. From the language Lewis uses, it seems like he's trying to say something about the posture of a heart more than the name one swears by. Emeth is confused that he's been allowed into the True Narnia because "all my life I have served Tash." But Aslan basically looks at the heart; he says if Emeth had been serving Tash, his deeds and his heart would match Tash. It actually seems more like Emeth didn't know who Tash was at all, or he would have been performing vile works to please Tash. Aslan also says Emeth would never have kept "seeking" for so long if his heart had been serving Tash, which implies that Tash is easier to know than Aslan.

All of that is fascinating (I do think it is the theologically weakest, if not worst, part of the Chronicles of Narnia series.) But I don't think it has anything to do with Universalism as we know it today. Unitarian Universalism is just "Believe whatever you want as long as your belief system doesn't judge other people's belief systems, and you'll be fine with 'God.'" Lewis certainly didn't subscribe to that unbiblical worldview, even with the Calormene in the Last Battle.

I don't know what you mean about the Magician's Nephew.

The real problem with Greta Gerwig is not that she claims Unitarian Universalism. It's that she can't tell a story that is faithful to the original books; she has to transpose it into her own values. So, for example in what we're talking about, if she were doing "The Last Battle," she'd certainly cut out The Darkness on Aslan's Left Side scene, and maybe even reduce the whole conversation between Aslan and Emeth to "all are welcome!" But the main thing she'll do is elevate Susan, Lucy, Jill, Aravis, and Polly to a disproportionate degree.

Finally, I would just say, I'd love for somebody to explain to me what makes The Horse and His Boy racist. (With a reminder that nobody on this website knows my race, so nobody can claim that race-based unconscious bias is what's keeping me from seeing it.)

Lewis invented his own race that, yes, is heavily influenced by Western-Arabian-Nights-interpretations of Middle Eastern cultures. But the Calormenes don't serve Allah, they serve Tash and other gods. The Calormene characters are not all ugly. The Calormen food is not all disgusting. Aravis is a Calormene, and she is a heroine and a main character. Not even every Calormene is even evil, or the enemy of Narnia, though the nation is. What, just because a non-white nation is depicted in Narnia and you can see what culture their fantasy culture is based on, that makes it racist? How? Because Lewis doesn't even write all Calormenes as good or evil, he writes them as humans. Explain to me how that's racist.

(I mean, not you, @childlessoldcatlady, I'm enjoying answering this question. I just meant, someone explain it, now that I'm on the subject. Thanks for the question. I'm Protestant, too.)

#Christianity #The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle #Emeth #Calormen #The Horse and His Boy #Aravis #C.S. Lewis #asked #answered #Greta Gerwig #Unitarian Universalism

[vra-luci]

Just out of curiosity, If I decided to post my combination of every map of Narnia and Adjoining Lands + the Eastern Sea, how many people would be interested in seeing it, because I would like to share it because I have spent a lot of time on it. It is not yet finished and won’t be for a few months but when it is…

#narnia #lion witch wardrobe #prince caspian #narnia aslan #wildlands of the north #archenland #calormen #the great eastern ocean #map #cartography #fictional map #book maps #this took for fucking ever #compass #geography #art #digital drawing #digital fanart #drawing #old maps

[calormen]

today i'm thinking about calormen and its rich topography of rivers and oasises and grand cities plucked straight from a dreamer's head. i think about their craftsmanship, their displays of mosaics, of stained glass that reflects onto handcrafted tile and dyes the world in a flurry of colour. i think about their culinary crafts and the wonders they can do with a sweet pallet. i think about the almalgamation of culture that reflects in their generations of doorways to other worlds, and how g-ds were born from it, cultivating their rich pantheon. i think about their jewellers who work with the dwarves on their side of the mountain ranges, i think about their pantheon's statues reaching to the skies and set with said jewels from deep beneath the mountain's feet. i think calormen is a land rich in culture, diversity, and progress, guided by forward thinkers, artists and the hands of their g-ds.

#calormen #the chronicles of narnia #i WILL romanticise calormen.

[tenth-sentence]

"I shall go back to Calormen," he said.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy" - C. S. Lewis

#book quote #the chronicles of narnia #the horse and his boy #c s lewis #bree #horse #calormen #return trip

[jennettically]

I recently bought this lovely piece from an antique shop on the U.S. east coast, and I have no idea what the history of it is.

There's no maker's mark, name, or branding of any kind anywhere, even on the clasp.

The style of the pendant reminds me of the ancient art of different parts of Asia, especially the stylization of the horse and the armor. But that could be Turkey, China, Mongolia, the Arabian Peninsula... you name it.

I'd love to find out what the history of it is! I picked it up because it so strongly reminded me of the illustrations of Calormen, from C.S. Lewis' "The Horse and His Boy", which has obvious cultural influences from Western and Central Asia.

Any suggestions or input welcome!

#jewelry #costuming #costume jewelry #antiques #antique #antique jewelry #vintage #vintage jewelry #necklace #pendant #the chronicles of narnia #calormen #the horse and his boy #c.s. lewis #c s lewis

[remy]

happy birthday remy :) i am giving u a birthday cake and latkes a cat friendly birthday cake. it is not his birthday but i dont want 2 leav him out

Thank you!!! Latkes got a special can of fancy feast today because hesy special little boy

#asks #calormen

[quecksilvereyes]

Forgive me, brother, for I cannot follow. The nave of this cathedral has long been robbed of its candles and the doors of the confessional have rotted off their hinges an age ago. The lattice has broken from the window, the curtain hangs no longer.

If I leant forwards on this weeping wooden bench, I could fit my palm to the slope of your jaw. I could lay my forehead against yours, I could taste the salt on your cheeks. The window is wide enough, brother.

Forgive me, brother, for I have drowned myself in spirits. My hems are wet and the world is spinning. My tongue tastes as though some sick, bloating thing has made itself at home within my mouth. I've stuck my own head below the surface, brother, and I screamed until my lungs burned and my nails broke where they clutched for purchase.

A question, brother. A thought. How long must I claw at divinity to drag it down to earth? Someone has fallen. Another must surely follow. Do you not think it lonely, in that box? The stone is crumbling, and the earth is shifting. How long does a god sit atop waning faith?

Your knuckles are raw. There is blood on your lips, and your back is hunched. A self-important prick. A blown-up brat. Too busy trying to get himself shot to watch where he's going. It is the four and twentieth day of the month and this is the twenty-fourth phone call mother has made, her mouth drawn tight.

This is a confessional, brother. Did his teeth crack under your fist? Did his blood run warm? Did he apologise for the way he looked at you, or the way he stood where you walked? Did you reach for a sword no-one can carry here? I know the way you dig your teeth into a duel, brother, but this was no duel.

This was just a boy.

Forgive me, brother, for I doubt you. Your hands are shaking, and in the dim sunlight that reaches through the dirty windows of this cathedral, your eyes are a sky dipped into a brilliant twilight. In the darkness of your mouth, your teeth shine like stars.

These are no earthly constellations. The vowels on your lips are not of a language we share with our parents. How many rosaries must I pray, brother, for these sins? Must I shed dress and negligee and girdle and skin, and bare to the yawning mouth of this cathedral my flayed flesh?

Will you dig your claws into me, will you rip muscle from me in ribbons until you find, nestled between my lungs and crushed by my spine, the pearl of my faith? Will you pry me open with golden, bruised hands, and take from me the only thing of worth I can still produce? So you may hold it up when you return, upon a pillow of silk - an offering. There is just a delay. Worry not, the faith is still there.

Forgive me, brother, for I will not board the train. I will not clutch the little ones to my breast, and I will not bury my face in your chest.

I watched you slay a beast-god when we were children. Its blood soaked you to the bone, ten-and-three and weeping sorrow, red from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes. To the tip of your sword and the tip of your tongue, until the field was flooded and the skies groaned.

I took your face in my hands and kissed your slick cheek. At our feet, the last breaths of the one hundred year winter rattled from the witch's lungs, and the beast's claws wore themselves to dust. Our little brother lay dead in the sludge. Our little sister wailed until her voice gave out.

Eight. And ten.

Forgive me brother, but I am reaching through the window. My nails are broken, I know, and my hands are calloused. I am digging into your flesh, I know, but maybe, if you folded yourself right, you could fit through it. Maybe, if you bandaged your knuckles and closed your eyes, you could submerge yourself, full-bodied, and draw the blood from your every pore.

There is no holy water in the basin anymore, but the river by the mill might do. Perhaps we will find a hammer with which to smash the pillars of your shoulders. My brother, where will the skies rest then? Won't they slide from you, and aren't they already shattered?

You do not move. The twilight shines with salt. Your hands shake and your hair is golden. Come with me, you say. You go through a wardrobe and I follow, you drape yourself in hide and I follow, you are crowned and I follow. You walk from a train station and I follow, you duel the man who has sat himself upon your throne and I follow. My skies and horizons, my brother.

You will board the train. I will dip my face below the waterline. Forgive me.

The cathedral is ransacked, and I do not know how to make it fit for worship.

- High Queen Susan the Gentle gives her last confession to her brother, High King Peter the Magnificent, successor of the lion by right of blood.

#susan pevensie #peter pevensie #the problem of susan #headcanons as always are a mix between mine and calormen' #bc. i genuinely cant disentangle it anymore #narnia #tcon #the chronicles of narnia #narnia fanfic #narnia fanfiction #catholicism #i am. leaning HEAVILY into the confessionals guys #peter as divinity #susan as fallen divinity #she remembers still but its slipping #a conversation between a dying god and a living woman #hello i am. vibrating. #cw alcoholism #cw drowning #cw mutilation #larissa makes things

[mihrsuri]

FIC: The Talking Horses, The Singing Lions & The Golden Queens

THE TALKING HORSES, THE SINGING LIONS AND THE GOLDEN QUEENS - AO3

Queen Susan had once thought that perhaps she could love Prince Rabadash - for he had all the correct curtesies, manners and amiability that might be expected of a noble person. At least he had possessed them in Narnia- a performance without fault, but a performance only she realises too late. When the gates of the trap had closed around her and she could not get out.

Summary: This is a story that begins before a Golden Age - in the time when The White Witch still ruled in Narnia and Archenland stood free but nervous on the other side of the border. It was then, in amongst the human exiles of Narnia that there was discontent. It was there, perhaps that the evil began.

#lil and her ridiculous aus #fic #au: empress of calormen #book: narnia

[hollers-and-holmes]

Alright, gang. It might be fixing to get a little western around the #salt and light tag. We’re working on community/collection sorts of things in the event that the fussypantses do what they’re threatening and flood the tag with putrescence.

In the meantime, if they say vile things about you, well… we have marching orders for that, too.

#salt and light #the joy of the Lord is our strength #so laugh and sing a hymn and let your shoulders swing freely like Narnian soldiers on the streets of Calormen

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

checking out an otherwise well written LotR fic featuring Rhûn and the orientalism is staggering once you notice it

I don’t doubt the author isn’t doing it on purpose (obliviousness is kind of a feature of orientalism tbh), it’s just a subtle but very present undertone in the descriptions of more aggressive people having a stronger accent, regal characters being shrewd, the women being mysterious and languorous and revealing and ‘more graceful’, assassins using poison and deception and sorcery, all food being super spicy, all clothes being described as lavish and bejewelled… I feel like I’m reading a 19th century novel

i think it’s an interesting case of somebody drawing on the classical literature they’ve read to emulate a LotR writing style - to great effect btw - without having given a lot of deeper thought about the tropes of that classical corpus.

#orientalism #fanfiction #lord of the rings #interesting what biases we might be blind to even though we’re otherwise well meaning #this is like fanon dorne and canon calormen wrapped up in one with a tall serving of ‘evil sexy enchantress’ #so yeah 👍 #I might not be able to get through it

[jo-does-things]

This has nothing to do with anything but I do occasionally think about how CS Lewis's world is so focused on the East we have a tonne of lore and maps between Narnia and the east end of the world and then to the West its just.... Forest and mountain I guess???? BUT then Tolkeins world everything faces West. From Erebor West to the end of the world is mapped and we know language groups and lore... and then the East is just.... Desert and forest I guess?? I wonder if they ever had discussions about their worlds being connected in their writing group. Personally I think the Blue Wizards wound up in the Ettinmoors and got eaten by those fucking giants from The Silver Chair.

#The lore of the two worlds do not mesh AT ALL #but consider this! Random Rohan patrol wanders too far East and winds up having races and talking horsemanship with the Calormens #Archenland noble decides to go adventuring West and winds up in Mirkwood fucking SURROUNDED by Spiders #Anyway #LOTR #Narnia

[whats-in-a-sentence]

There were fifteen Calormenes, a Talking Bull of Narnia, Slinkey the Fox, and Wraggle the Satyr.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle" - C. S. Lewis

#book quotes #the chronicles of narnia #the last battle #c s lewis #pauline baynes #fight #battle #calormenes #bull #fox #talking animals #satyr

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

I know Tolkien deserves all the laud for language-smithing and word-weaving, but I just think it's time we credit C.S. Lewis with the coolness that is Aslan's name being obviously just as Calormene as the demon Tash's name is, and how both are pulled from one of the oldest languages / civilizations in reality, which is Turkish/Turkic

#- HK #i'm not saying the Calormenes are analogous to the Hebrews BUT #I do need to brush up on my Narnian history so don't @ me #x #Narnia

[noratilney]

I’m planning out a Narnia fanfiction with a prominent secondary character who is a Calormene royal lady and I’m realizing I’m not sure what forms of address there would be for the wives, sisters, and daughters of the Tisroc....has anyone thought about this before and have thoughts?

also I’d be curious to know what Earth cultural influences you associate most with Calormen, whether gut feeling, identification, textual similarities, etc.

#narnia #chronicles of narnia #calormene #i say things