Narnia: What Would Have Happened?

Twice, when Lucy messes up, she wants to know what would have happened had she done the right thing -- and Aslan declines to tell her.  But when Digory very reluctantly does the right thing, Aslan consoles him (in a sense) by telling him what would have happened had he done the wrong thing.

As I have summarized it here, we can see a certain philosophical approach that might reconcile Aslan's decision to tell, or not tell, the foreclosed alternative future.  And ordinarily I'd say Aslan's approach need not be consistent -- for example, it could simply vary depending on the circumstances and his relationship with the person he's talking to.

But unfortunately, Lewis complicates the matter by having Aslan tell Lucy -- twice -- that people are never told what would have happened.  Aslan announces this as a categorical rule in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but three years later, Lewis does not in any way acknowledge this prior statement or even attempt to carve out an exception as Aslan breaks this "rule" for Digory in The Magician's Nephew.

"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy.  "You don't mean it was [my fault]?  How could I--I couldn't have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I?  Don't look at me like that ... oh well, I suppose I could.  Yes, and it wouldn't have been alone, I know, not if I was with you.  But what would have been the good?"

Aslan said nothing. 

"You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right--somehow?  But how?  Please, Aslan!  Am I not to know?" 

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan.  "No.  Nobody is ever told that."

 (Prince Caspian, ch. 10 [published 1951])

"Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in any other way.  And you have misjudged your friend.  She is weak, but she loves you.  She was afraid of the older girl and said what she does not mean." 

"I don't think I'd ever be able to forget what I heard her say."

"No, you won't." 

"Oh dear," said Lucy.  "Have I spoiled everything?  Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn't been for this--and been really great friends--all our lives perhaps--and now we never shall." 

"Child," said Aslan, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?" 

(The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, ch. 11 [published 1952])

"I--I nearly ate one [of those apples] myself, Aslan," said Digory.  "Would I--" 

"You would, child," said Aslan.  "For the fruit always works--it must work-- but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. [...] And the Witch tempted you to do another thing, my son, did she not?" 

"Yes, Aslan.  She wanted me to take an apple home to Mother." 

"Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers.  The day would have come when both you and  she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness."  [...]  But now Aslan was speaking again, almost in a whisper: 

"That is what would have happened, child, with a stolen apple.  It is not what will happen now.  What I give you now will bring joy.  It will not, in your world, give endless life, but it will heal.  Go.  Pluck her an apple."  

(The Magician's Nephew, ch. 14 [published 1955])

I suppose we could invent a silent condition to the "rule" -- perhaps Aslan meant, "no one is ever told what would have happened, if they have the temerity to ask about it" or "no one is ever told what would have happened, if they had done the right thing."

But I suspect this is more of an indication that Lewis was going with what made sense in the moment for the story and characters and whatever points he wished to make... rather than worrying about developing or maintaining "the inner consistency of reality" which so preoccupied Tolkien.

Brave Hobbits

Frodo, Hobbit of the Shire

Recently, @alas_not_me noted the unusual distinction given to Frodo when wielding the Phial of Galadriel (as opposed to when wielding the Ring):

Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes.  (758)

The moniker seems almost to deflate the heroic moment by calling attention to Frodo's unheroic, no-larger-than-life status:  He is a hobbit, not a hero or warrior, even though he shows similar courage.  In the event, Shelob is temporarily dismayed by the light of the Phial and retreats.  But not for long; she soon returns and overpowers him.

But I found myself wondering if this formula - a seemingly heroic title that almost paradoxically stresses the character's lowly status as a hobbit - was repeated for the other three.  Here's what I found.

Samwise the Hobbit

We first see the words "Samwise the hobbit" after Gollum's near-repentance, when Gollum explains he "was given that name ['Sneak'] by kind Master Samwise, the hobbit that knows so much" (753).  This formality is clearly a bit of sarcasm, designed to put Samwise on the defensive with Frodo, since Gollum knows perfectly well Frodo will disapprove of the name-calling.  Indeed, we might say Gollum grants Sam this title in spite, at the time of Sam's greatest blunder.

But not long after Frodo's heroic moment with the Phial, Sam gets his own.  Crouched in fear, seeing his death in Shelob's eyes, Sam responds to "a thought [that] came to him, as if some remote voice had spoken."  As he grips the Phial and calls on Galadriel, his voice is suddenly and briefly the vessel or conduit for some other will crying in a language he does not know.  The short poem ends,

And with that he staggered to his feet and was Samwise the hobbit, Hamfast's son, again. (766)

At this point, Sam is thrown back on his own linguistic resources and his own courage, but his own rustic words and fierce passion immediately set the Phial ablaze again and he chases Shelob off for good this time (as far as he and Frodo are concerned).  So the title here granted by the narrator emphasizes Sam's normalcy, his hobbitness and his lowly roots, just as he shows his quality and the Phial responds to it.

Sam is one more time referred to as "Samwise Hamfast's son," but it is not a heroic moment.  Rather, it is highlighting that Sam is thrown on his own hobbit resources to figure out his priorities and plan of action:  But [Frodo and Sam] were far beyond aid, and no thought could yet bring any help to Samwise Hamfast's son; he was utterly alone.  (939)  Here, too, the narrator seems to be emphasizing Sam's ordinariness.  He is not a man (or hobbit) set aside for great things; he is not marked as special.  He must instead think for himself and do his best with no guarantees of wisdom or success - and so he does.

Meriadoc the Hobbit

We should perhaps be suspicious that Merry is in for great deeds when he rides off to war in disobedience to Théoden:

Thus it came to pass that when the king set out, before Dernhelm sat Meriadoc the hobbit, and the great grey steed Windfola made little of the burden.... (842)

Yet during the battle itself, including the moment when he pierces the Black Rider's sinew behind his mighty knee, Merry is referred to as "Merry"; and so also in the moment immediately following, when he cries out "Éowyn! Éowyn!" Only in the aftermath of this heroic deed -- as he grieves -- does the narrator again grant him a heroic title:

And there stood Meriadoc the hobbit in the midst of the slain, blinking like an owl in the daylight, for tears blinded him.... (881)

And still Meriadoc the hobbit stood there blinking through tears, and no one spoke to him, indeed none seemed to heed him. (884)

Here, the title seems to lend grandeur to his grief, a sort of heroism in the ordinary.

As with the previous examples, the formula "Meriadoc the hobbit" seems to stress that an individual from a relatively obscure and insignificant people -- one typically "left out of the old lists, and the old stories" (484) --  has somehow got caught up in the epic struggle between good and evil.

Peregrin the Hobbit / Peregrin Paladin's Son 

Alone of the four hobbits, Pippin seems to have no particular heroic moment and thus no similarly elevated nomenclature associated with such a moment.*  Instead, he gets called "Fool of a Took!" with some regularity.



FN* Thus, when Pippin is given titles, the context is quite different.  For example, he refers to himself as "Peregrin son of Paladin of the Shire of the Halflings" in swearing fealty to Gondor (791), and Gandalf and Denethor refer to him as "Peregrin son of Paladin" in connection with this service (792, 794, 863).  And earlier, at Orthanc, with mock-formality, Merry refers to himself as "Meriadoc, son of Saradoc" and Pippin as "Peregrin, son of Paladin, of the House of Took" (581).

Giles in "Helpless"

In an article lauding Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example of non-toxic masculinity, the author notes -- essentially in passing -- that Giles at one point "drugs [Buffy] to rob her of her power at the behest of their governing body, to test her resilience and resourcefulness. They [Buffy and Giles] weather these trials and grow stronger."

This is a reference to the episode "Helpless" (3.12), in which Buffy comes face to face with a truly shocking abuse of trust by Giles. It doesn't help that he has betrayed her trust only at the instruction of the council of watchers, his employer and supposed "governing body."

I think what moves Giles into non-toxic territory, in "Helpless", is his reaction when he realizes the enormity of what he's done:

• He realizes he has done wrong, and is filled with shame. 
• He admits his mistake and tells Buffy everything. 
• He apologizes -- and more importantly seeks to make things right: "You have to listen to me. Because I have told you this, the test is invalidated. You'll be safe, I promise. Whatever I have to do, to deal with Kralik and to win back your trust-" 
• He follows through on this promise.  He stands up to Travers and the council, taking Buffy's side, entering the field of danger and disobeying orders to help her.  (She still dispatches Kralik, of course, but a secondary baddie takes her by surprise and Giles manages to dust him while Buffy looks around for a weapon.) 
• And so Giles makes things right with Buffy at some personal cost, since he is fired for it.

Surely this is non-toxic masculinity. He's an authority figure for her, an unambiguous father-figure.  But when he messes up big-time, he is frank and contrite and sets aside his own safety and security to put things right.  There's no "father knows best" mentality here; he owns his mistakes.

Remembered Conversations in LotR

AlasNotMe has made some interesting observations about Frodo's memory of his conversation with Gandalf, noting (esp. at fn 5) that the words remembered are not identical to those originally spoken.

There is actually a similar phenomenon with Merry at the Pelennor Fields, remembering Théoden's words to him.

Théoden had been as gentle as possible in turning down Merry's request to accompany him to battle, saying to him: "This is no journey for such steeds as Stybba, as I have told you.  And in such a battle as we think to make on the fields of Gondor what would you do, Master Meriadoc, swordthain though you be, and greater of heart than of stature?" (803).

When Merry remembers this conversation, he leaves out the gentleness and courtesy and instead focuses on the part that he took most to heart, feeling "bitterly the truth of the old king's words: in such a battle what would you do, Meriadoc?" (837).

As edited, these words are shorn of (1) the respectful titles of "Master" and "swordthain"; (2) the seeming specificity about the kind of battle in which he might not be much use (due to his small stature), kindly leaving open the possibility that in other battles elsewhere he could hold his own; and (3) the acknowledgment that Merry's valiant, odds-defying courage (greatness of heart) is belied only by accident of physical limitations:

in such a battle as we think to make on the fields of Gondor what would you do, Master Meriadoc, swordthain though you be, and greater of heart than of stature?

Riding In to Court

In my post about the Green Knight and the Mouth of Sauron, I hadn't been sure what to make of the fact that the Green Knight rides in to Arthur's feast; it seemed discourteous, even deliberately provocative.

Now I'm reading The Forest of Medieval Romance, by Corinne J. Saunders, who says that the Green Knight "rides into the court, thus imitating the role of king's champion at coronation feasts" (148).

Sifting the Evidence

Very interesting discussion, and a reminder of the need to double-check seemingly common-sense interpretations when considering legal records:

• As to whether those convicted were executed, the answer hinges on the meaning of "Death Recorded" in the Old Bailey records - apparently a term of art. 
• As to whether the underlying charges involved consenting adults, the interviewer appears to have identified some counterexamples among the book's featured examples. 

For my own part, I wonder -- if the prosecutors targeted consenting adults, might we expect to see pairs of prosecutions?  (Not necessarily, I suppose, if one or more previously-consenting partners decided to cooperate with the prosecution; then again, presumably the cooperator[s] would not portray the relationship as purely consensual.  And I suppose if men did not dare and/or desire to enter into long-term exclusive and stable relationships in that era, they would not necessarily be prosecuted in pairs.)

Edited 5/25/2019 to add some further reflections:

I don't know what site(s) the author was using to search the Old Bailey records, but I could not find a definition or explanation of "Death Recorded" anywhere at the Old Bailey Proceedings Online site (https://www.oldbaileyonline.org).  I explored menus and links within the site itself, and also tried site-specific google searches, to no avail.

After running an unrestricted google search for some phrases the interviewer read on-air, however, I eventually found the explanation of the term at the Digital Panopticon site:

The emotional impact of the death sentence and the authority of the law was moreover undermined in the early nineteenth century by the fact that the overwhelming majority of capital convicts were being pardoned, and the death sentence thus turned into a mere formality.  In recognition of this problem, in 1823 a new practice of “death recorded” was introduced, whereby judges could abstain from pronouncing a sentence of death on any capital convict whom they considered to be a fit subject for a pardon. 

The carefully-choreographed theatre of sentencing and its emotional impact might also be undermined by open acts of defiance by the convict or the attending crowd.  It was complained in the eighteenth century that some capital convicts made light of their sentence by comments and gestures. 

The court sometimes decided to postpone or respite a sentence until a later sessions, such as in the case of pregnant female convicts, or for reasons that were unrecorded.  In 1848, judges were empowered to invite the jury to respite sentences in cases where the law was doubtful.  In these instances, the case was passed on to the twelve judges at the newly established Court for Crown Cases Reserved (superceded in 1907 by the Court of Criminal Appeal).

Searching the Digital Panopticon

The Digital Panopticon site offers a different search mechanism from the Old Bailey Proceedings Online site.

For example, it seemingly allows you to search for all males actually executed from, say, 1835-1899; that particular search came up with 5 hits, with executions in 1835 and 1837 only.

(And indeed, for what it's worth, searching for males executed between 1838-1925 on the Digital Panopticon site results in zero hits.  After playing around with searches a bit, it would seem the last recorded execution of a male in their dataset occurred in 1837, and the last recorded execution of a female in their dataset occurred in 1832.)

Relationship Between the Two Sites?

As described on the Old Bailey Proceedings Online home page (https://www.oldbaileyonline.org):

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913
A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. 

As described on the Digital Panopticon home page (http://www.digitalpanopticon.org):

Tracing London Convicts in Britain & Australia, 1780-1925This website allows you to search millions of records from around fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey.

The Digital Panopticon site credits the Old Bailey Proceedings Online site as  "foundational":

The Old Bailey Proceedings are the foundational source for Digital Panopticon. They contain published accounts of the criminal trials which led to the convictions and sentences for the 90,000 convicts whose lives are traceable on this website. Each trial account provides basic details about the offender, offence, verdict and punishment sentence, as well as some verbatim testimonies from those who testified at the trial.
[...]
A full digitised edition of the Proceedings is available from the Old Bailey Proceedings Online. 

But the Digital Panopticon draws from a broader base of records, presumably (or at least potentially) providing a more complete picture of the fate of each defendant:

Trial Records

• Old Bailey Proceedings 1740-1913
• Old Bailey Associated Records 1740-1834
• Newgate Calendars of Prisoners for Trial 1782-1853
• England and Wales Criminal Registers 1791-1892

Post-Trial and Sentencing Records

• Capital Convictions at the Old Bailey 1760-1837
• Home Office Criminal Entry Books 1782-1876
• Judges Reports on Criminals 1784-1827
• Petitions for Pardon 1797-1858

Transportation Records

• Middlesex Convicts Delivered For Transportation 1785-1792
• British Transportation Registers 1787-1867
• Convict Indents (Ship and Arrival Registers) 1788-1868
• Surgeons Notes from Transport Vessels 1817-1857

Colony Records

• New South Wales Convict Indexes 1788-1873
• New South Wales Convict Savings Bank Books 1824-1868
• Van Diemen's Land Founders and Survivors Convicts 1802-1853
• Van Diemen's Land Founders and Survivors Convict Biographies 1812-1853
• Van Diemen's Land Convict Labour Contracts 1848-1857
• Western Australia Character Books and General Registers 1850-1868
• Western Australia Convict Probation Records 1850-1868

Imprisonment Records

• Bridewell House of Correction Prisoners 1740-1795
• Deaths in London Prisons 1760-1869
• Hulks Registers 1801-1879
• Prison Registers 1770-1951
• Middlesex House of Detention Calendars 1836-1889
• Newgate Calendars of Prisoners 1855-1931
• UK Convict Prison Captions and Transfer Papers 1843-1871
• UK Licences for the Parole of Convicts 1853-1925
• Metropolitan Police Register of Habitual Criminals 1881-1925
• Prisoner Photograph Albums 1871-1873

Civil Records

• Records Associated with London Lives 1740-1800
• Census Returns for England and Wales 1841-1911
• FreeBMD Deaths, 1837-1925

Tempest in a Teapot: Easter Worshippers

Seems to me that "Easter worshippers" is shorthand for "people worshipping on Easter Sunday."

In the US, at least, churches are often full to the brim on Easter Sunday with what we might call "cultural Christians" -- folks who do not ordinarily grace the inside of any church and are not necessarily Christians in any theologically meaningful sense on a day-to-day basis (prayer life, devotion to Christ's teachings, etc.).  So from a purely technical point of view, "Easter worshippers" could potentially be more accurate than "Christians" to describe the victims.

In any event the phrase, though inelegant and easily mockable, is clear enough.  It seems odd to complain that these tweets failed to use the word "Christians," when the word "Easter" makes clear that the victims were not culturally or theologically Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or the like.  Does the word "Christian" have some totemic power that it must be invoked in a tweet expressing sympathy for the victims?

Moreover, the phrase "Easter worshippers" arguably gets to the core of the matter -- these attacks were not just random attacks on Christians on some random Sunday.  They were targeting Christians on the highest of high holy days, the day when it was fully revealed that Jesus was not just another nice guy who finished last, but instead was God himself incarnate, sacrificed and resurrected for us.  And they were targeting Christian churches on a day when anyone with any cultural or theological affinity to Christianity whatsoever would likely be in a church. (Presumably in order to maximize the deaths/injuries.)

"We were worsted"

I associate "worsted" with wool, but Tolkien uses the verb form of worst twice in LotR, in places where I'd have been inclined to say bested or defeated:

• Merry (post-barrow): "The men of Carn Dûm came on us at night, and we were worsted.  Ah! the spear in my heart!"
• Gimli: "With its own weapons was it worsted!"

According to the OED, worst, v. is about two centuries older than best, v., and slightly rarer nowadays.  But they are essentially synonyms; just as flammable and inflammable are synonyms.

So for worst, v., the second meaning is the one in current use:

2. transitive. Cf. best, v. 

a. To get the better of (an adversary) in a fight or battle; to defeat, overcome.
1636—2015

b. To defeat in argument, to outdo or prove better than (a person). Also: to overcome or foil (an undertaking). Frequently in passive.
1646—2012

But for best, v., there is only one meaning:

transitive. To get the better of, to get an advantage over; to outwit. Also: to cheat, defraud; cf. bester n.
1839—2006

I think bested may be more popular with modern Americans, because it focuses on the victor: who was best?  Whereas worsted focuses on the loser: who came out worst?

So compare "With its own weapons was it bested!"  vs "With its own weapons was it worsted" -- Tolkien's version has better alliteration, of course, but it also emphasizes the irony of this particular defeat.

(Curiously enough, as Corey Olsen has noted, cleave and splice are each their own antonym; also sanction, for that matter.)

First-World Problems

Carolyn Hax, responding to a letter-writer’s self-negating comment (“I know there is so much worse stuff going on in the world right now”):

This can be a useful thought exercise for dealing with disappointment, say, but for grief, especially on so many fronts? There’s no “first-world loss,” there’s just loss — unless your Mercedes-Benz has died.

Washington Post online, April 14 at 11:59 PM.

Gleaming Cohorts

This morning, I suddenly thought of the opening lines of Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib," as mediated by James Thurber.  They gallop memorably along in anapestic tetrameter:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

Thurber reports the complaint of some self-help guru that people just weren't reading these lines properly: "when a suspicious-minded investigator tested them, quite a number turned out to suppose that the Assyrian's cohorts were an article of wearing apparel" (75).

Thurber's rejoinder is a delightful defense of this misreading:

What the second line means is simply that the cohorts' articles of wearing apparel were gleaming in purple and gold, so nothing much is distorted except the number of people who came down like the wolf on the fold.  The readers who got it wrong had, it seems to me, as deep a poetic feeling [...] as those who knew that a cohort was originally one of the ten divisions of a Roman legion and had, to begin with, three hundred soldiers, later five hundred to six hundred.  Furthermore, those who got it wrong had a fine flaring image of one Assyrian coming down valiantly all alone, instead of with a couple of thousand soldiers to help him, the big coward. (75-76, bold emphasis added)

That bit in bold is a contender for Best Literary Criticism Ever, as far as I'm concerned.

But it turns out Terry Pratchett has also played with a similar misreading of "cohorts" in Byron's poem.  For example, in ch. 6 of Going Postal:

A voice behind [Moist] said: ‘The Postman came down like a wolf on the fold / His cohorts all gleaming in azure and gold... ’ 

[...] He turned to Miss Dearheart. 

‘When I was a kid I always thought that a cohort was a piece of armour, Miss Dearheart,’ he said, giving her a smile. ‘I used to imagine the troops sitting up all night, polishing them.’

And in Feet of Clay, there's a reference to "Stronginthearm's Armour Polish for Gleaming Cohorts."

A brief google search confirms that Wodehouse riffs on these lines as well at various times in multiple books, but it doesn't look like his characters necessarily mistake the meaning of "cohorts."  For example, in Bertie Wooster Sees It Through, Bertie at one point complains that Stilton "was once more in the position of an Assyrian fully licensed to come down like a wolf on the fold with his cohorts all gleaming with purple and gold."  (Later, he reflects that Stilton's demeanor "was that of an Assyrian who, having come down like a wolf on the fold, had found in residence not lambs, but wildcats, than which, of course, nothing makes an Assyrian feel sillier.")

(Another Wodehousian twist: "With the nippiness of a lamb in the fold on observing the approaching Assyrians...." - The Code of the Woosters.)

---

I suspect the substitution of "a wolf" for "the wolf" is probably quite common.  But  "a wolf" suggests a mere everyday simile (the Assyrian approaches just like any wolf would), whereas "the wolf" suggests more of an iconic encounter, maybe even the Platonic ideal of wolf-sheep encounters, the Wolf all sheep fear.

----
Thurber, James. “Miscellaneous Mentation.” Let Your Mind Alone! And Other More or Less Inspirational Pieces, 1st Perennial Library ed., Harper & Row, Publishers, 1976, pp. 72–79.