Sunday, 12 December 2010

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The two youngest Pevensie children, Lucy and Edmund, are staying with their odious cousin Eustace Scrubb during the final days of the second World War, while their older brother Peter is studying for his university entrance exams and their older sister Susan is traveling through America with their parents. Edmund, feeling upset with his status as a child when he was once a king, attempts to join the military, though he is turned away. After returning to their Aunt and Uncle's home, Edmund notices a wondrous painting hanging on the wall in Lucy's bedroom. As the Pevensie children speak of how very Narnian the ship is, Eustace begins teasing them about their secret country. After a brief argument between Edmund and Eustace, Lucy notices water coming out of the painting. Eustace pulls the painting from the wall, while the room floods. They swim towards the light, and find themselves in the middle of an ocean, with a large ship coming at them. Lucy recognizes her rescuer as Caspian, the King of Narnia. Eustace, Edmund, and Lucy are taken aboard the Dawn Treader.

The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries as King Caspian's Telmarine ancestors had never built ships as they had always feared the sea. Three years have passed since peace has been established in Narnia, and Caspian has undertaken an oath to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund are delighted to be back in Narnia, but Eustace is less enthusiastic and at odds with the talking Mouse Reepicheep, who has joined the crew in hopes to see Aslan's Country beyond the seas of the "utter East".

They first make landfall at the Lone Islands, Narnian territory which has become a heaven for slave trade . Caspian, Lucy, Edmund and Eustace are captured as slaves. While imprisoned, Caspian meets one of the lost lords, Lord Bern, who reveals that those not sold are sacrificed to a mysterious green mist he and the others were investigating. When the Dawn Treader crew arrives during an auction, Caspian and Edmund manage to escape and free Eustace and Lucy, taking the Lone Island back from the traders. Caspian names Bern duke of the Lone Islands while given one of the seven swords the lords possess. Before leaving, a man whose wife was captured and sacrificed to the green mist, pleads to go with Caspian to find his wife. Though left in Narrowhaven with her aunt, Gael, the man's daughter, stows away to find her mother and is accepted by the crew.

At the second island they visit, Lucy is abducted by the invisible Duffers who force her to enter their oppressor's manor to recite a spell of visibility. While doing this, Lucy rips out a page from the spell book that details an enchantment to make her like her sister. Later Lucy and the others learn the oppressor actually cast the spell to protect the Duffers from the evil green mist that comes from Dark Island and is becoming stronger. To defeat the Dark Island before its evil can grow and consume Narnia, the crew must locate the other Swords of the Seven Lords and lay them in Aslan's Table on Ramandu's island. During a storm after leaving the Duffers' island, Lucy decides to read the torn page from the Book of Incantations that contains the spell to make her beautiful. She suddenly find herself as Susan, and back on Earth at a party, together with Edmund and Peter. Realizing that Lucy is not around, she's bothered by her conscience and decides to be herself. Lucy becomes herself again, and sees Aslan through a mirror who tells her that she mustn't lack self-value for she is beautiful just the way she is. Lucy wakes up, goes to Caspian and Edmund, who have also plagued by the green mist playing on their personal demons: Edmund's self-doubt assuming the form of Jadis, the White Witch and Caspian with his fear of not living up to his father's expectations.

The group then makes a stop at a volcanic island, with Eustace leaving the group to avoid participating in the work and finding a massive treasure that arouses his greed. He fills his pockets with gold and jewels and puts on a large golden bracelet from a corpse. Elsewhere, Caspian and the Pevensies find a pool of water which turns everything immersed in it into gold, including Lord Restimar. As they obtain his sword they are almost tempted by the gold and Edmund and Caspian almost killed each other over it. Lucy manages to calm them both, and they return to the ship. Realizing that Eustace is missing Caspian and Edmund volunteer to find him. Soon after as they are about to leave, the group encounters a dragon which destroys some parts of the ship. Reepicheep injures the dragon, which then flees back to the island. Caspian and Edmund, who think that Eustace is dead (as they found his burnt shirt together with the corpse who was revealed as Lord Octesian and his sword), encounter the dragon, which abducts Edmund. The dragon takes Edmund to a place where words made of the dragon's fiery breath indicates that the dragon is Eustace.

They continue their journey, until a merperson warns Lucy about going to Ramandu's Island. After hours of struggle (caused when the crew finds it hard to move the ship towards the water), Eustace helps them out by pulling the ship. He and Reepicheep built a special bond. Eventually they reach the Island of the Star, where they find the three remaining lost lords in enchanted sleep. They also saw the three swords belonging to the three lords. They realized that this is Aslan's Table. Caspian guesses that what made them sleep is the food, which is served in front of them. Lucy sees the star, Ramandu's daughter Lilliandil, who tells them that the only way to awaken the three lords is by setting things right and reveals the last lord, Lord Rhoop, is on Dark Island itself. Lilliandil also tells them that the three lords' slumber was not caused by the food, but by their argument, which was forbidden in front of Aslan's Table.

At Dark Island, Caspian warned his crew about their temptations as they venture to the island. There they found Lord Rhoop, rendered half mad and desperate from his long solitude as Eustace had to carry him on the ship before. However, Edmund's fear-ridden thoughts manifest as a sea serpent. Though Eustace helps in fighting the sea-serpent, Rhoop fearfully throws his sword and it sticks in Eustace's back. Eustace flies back to Ramandu's Island, where he lands in a snowfield as Aslan appear and turns him back into a boy so he can place Rhoop's sword with the other six. That completes the magic to defeat the Dark Island as Edmund overcomes his inner demons and slays the sea serpent. The darkness and the Dark Island disappeared, leaving all the boats and boatfuls of people who had been sacrificed to the Darkness by the slave merchants and elsewhere.

Soon after, Caspian heads to the world's end with Reepicheep, Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace, venturing in a small boat through a sea of lilies until they reach a wall of water that extends into the sky. There they meet Aslan, telling them that beyond them is his country. Caspian asks Aslan whether his father is there, but Aslan said that the only way to know is to go there by himself though he may never return from there. Caspian decides not to go, as he cannot leave his kingdom which his father fought for until his death. Reepicheep gains Aslan's blessing to see his country, paddling a coracle up the waterfall to be never again seen in Narnia. Aslan then sends the children home, telling them that Edmund and Lucy will not return to Narnia and that they should learn to know him by another name in their own world. However, Eustace, now a much nicer person from his time in Narnia, can return someday. Back in his world with his cousins, Eustace's mother calls him for he has a visitor, Jill Pole.

***

The two youngest Pevensie children, Lucy and Edmund, are staying with their odious cousin Eustace Scrubb while their older brother Peter is studying for his university entrance exams with Professor Kirke, and their older sister Susan is traveling through America with their parents. Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace are drawn into the Narnian world through a picture of a ship at sea. (The painting, hanging neglected in the guest bedroom that the Pevensie children were using, had been an unwanted present to Eustace's parents.) The three children land in the ocean near the pictured vessel, the titular Dawn Treader, and are taken aboard.

The Dawn Treader is the ship of Caspian X, King of Narnia, who was the key character in the previous book (Prince Caspian). Edmund and Lucy (along with Peter and Susan) helped him gain the throne from his evil uncle Miraz.

Three years have passed since then, peace has been established in Narnia, and Caspian has undertaken his oath to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund are delighted to be back in Narnia, but Eustace is less enthusiastic, as he has never been there before and had taunted his cousins with his belief that the country never existed. The Talking Mouse Reepicheep is also on board, as he hopes to find Aslan's country beyond the seas of the "utter East".

They first make landfall in the Lone Islands, nominally Narnian territory but fallen away from Narnian ways: in particular the slave trade flourishes here, despite Narnian law stating that it is forbidden. Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, Eustace and Reepicheep are captured as merchandise by a slave trader, and a man "buys" Caspian before they even reach the slave market. He turns out to be the first lost lord, Lord Bern, who moved to the islands and married a woman there after being banished from Narnia by Miraz. When Caspian reveals his identity, Bern acknowledges him as King. Caspian reclaims the islands for Narnia, and replaces Gumpas, the greedy governor, with Lord Bern, whom he names Duke of the Lone Islands.

At the second island they visit, Eustace leaves the group to avoid participating in the work needed to render the ship seaworthy after a storm has damaged it, and hides in a dead dragon's cave to escape a sudden downpour. The dragon's treasure arouses his greed: he fills his pockets with gold and jewels and puts on a large golden bracelet; but as he sleeps, he is transformed into a dragon. As a dragon, he becomes aware of how bad his previous behaviour was, and uses his strength to help make amends. Aslan turns Eustace back into a boy, now a much nicer person. Caspian recognizes the bracelet when Eustace is finally able to get it off: it belonged to Lord Octesian, another of the lost lords. They speculate that the dragon killed Octesian — or even that the dragon was Octesian.

They make stops at Burnt Island; at Deathwater Island (so named for a pool of water which turns everything immersed in it into gold, including one of the missing lords who turns out to have been Lord Restimar); at the Duffers' Island, where Lucy herself encounters Aslan; and at the Island Where Dreams Come True — called the Dark Island since it is permanently hidden in darkness. They rescue a desperate Lord Rhoop from this last. Eventually they reach the Island of the Star, where they find the three remaining lost lords in enchanted sleep. Ramandu, the fallen star who lives on the island, tells them that the only way to awaken them is to sail to the edge of the world and there to leave one member of the crew behind.

The Dawn Treader continues sailing into an area where merpeople dwell and the water turns sweet rather than salty. At last the water becomes so shallow that the ship can go no farther. Caspian orders a boat lowered and announces that he will go to the world's end with Reepicheep. The crew object, saying that as King of Narnia he has no right to abandon them. Caspian goes to his cabin in a temper, but returns to say that Aslan appeared in his cabin and told him that only Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, and Reepicheep will go on.

These four named venture in a small boat through a sea of lilies until they reach a wall of water that extends into the sky. Fulfilling Ramandu's condition, Reepicheep paddles his coracle up the waterfall and is never again seen in Narnia (Lewis hints that he reaches Aslan's Country). Edmund, Eustace, and Lucy find a lamb, who transforms into Aslan and tells them that Edmund and Lucy will not return to Narnia – that they should learn to know him by another name in their own world. He then sends the children home.

In their own world, everyone remarks on how Eustace has changed and "you'd never know him for the same boy" - although his mother believes that Edmund and Lucy have been a bad influence on him.

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