As I’m sure every fantasy fan already knows, Dumbledore (full name Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore) is the mysterious but kindly Headmaster of Hogwarts, the magical boarding school Harry Potter attends. In the movie series, he’s depicted in full-on Gandalf mode, with hippy-style long gray hair and a like beard he keeps tied in …
Tag: YA
Apr 02
The Book of Three [Reading Challenge 2022]
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander Square Fish, 2006 (Originally published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964 ) [ Challenge # 23: Read the first book of a series. ] The Chronicles of Prydain is a much-loved children’s book series originally published in the 1960s. It consists of five books that follow the adventures …
Jul 15
The Lady of the Green Kirtle (Part II)
Green Kirtle = green scales = reptile = poison = poisonous intent, poisonous sexuality, poisonous philosophy. The Green Witch is all about poison. Green-yellow is the color of pustulence, of unhealthy phlegm, pus, the eruptions of an infected wound; it’s the color of insects, snakes, lizards, certain larvae, caterpillars, and amphibians, and centipedes. Creepy-crawlies that …
Oct 17
All Things Charn (Part III)
Previous parts of this essay: Part I Part II Since it’s pretty certain that Charn had biblical origins, can we say the same of Jadis? Is she the same as the infamous Whore of Babylon, or is she something more? One thing Jadis is not, is European. In her own element she wore no tight …
Sep 30
Tash the Inexorable
Tash is the antithesis of Aslan the lion. In The Last Battle he’s the principal god of Calormen, a horrid epitome of an ancient Middle Eastern deity who receives sacrificial victims in bizarre and novel ways, like being tied up inside a brass bull which is heated by a wood-burning fire from below. He’s cut …
Sep 30
Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/30/20: Narnia XVIII
In The Last Battle, Lewis introduces the reader to Narnia’s equivalent of Satan: Tash. Tash is the foremost deity of the desert nation of Calormen, mentioned first in The Horse and His Boy. However, in that book we are not told what he looked like, only his temple: it has a silver-plated roof and sits …
Sep 28
North African Charn
Sep 23
Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/23/20: Narnia XVII
Lewis ended the Narnia Chronicles after seven books. Not only that, he burned that bridge behind him: In The Last Battle, both Narnia and the child protagonists are destroyed. But what if he made a never-ending series of Narnia, or allowed other writers to carry on his work, as L. Frank Baum did with Oz? …
Sep 17
All Things Charn (Part II)
Lewis heavily drew on pulp SF and fantasy tropes to create the masterpiece that is Charn; but he also drew on the good old-fashioned fire and brimstone of The Bible. Since it was, and may still be, the most-read book in Western Civilization, it’s natural that many of its stories influenced fiction of a fantastic …
Sep 09
Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/9/20: Narnia XV
One of the questions I always wanted answered about Narnia-the-world is that of other civilizations. Sure, we had Narnia; then Telmar, dull and problematic as it was, and Archenland in Prince Caspian; in the next book Galma, Terabinthia, Calormen, and the Seven Isles came along, then Ettinsmoor and the Underworld in The Silver Chair. But …