Talk:The Chronicles of Narnia/Archive 1

message: DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.
This archive page covers approximately the dates between Article Creation and December 14, 2005.
Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.
Please add new archivals to Talk:The Chronicles of Narnia/Archive02. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Lsommerer 19:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

message: "A more recent British series of novels, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, has been seen as an "answer" to the Narnia books. Pullman's series favours science and reason over religion, wholly rejecting the themes of Christian theology which permeate the Narnia series, but has many of the same issues, subject matter, and types of characters (including talking animals) as the Chronicles of Narnia."
The above is not NPOV.  Describing books that are similar, but without any form of possible interpretable christian influence... and then calling them the "answer" is hardly encyclopaedic, because I can easily disagree with this statement.  I think the "answer" is to simply not read a book if you fear the influence of religion on it... but I think you, and your children, will be missing out on a great classic.  I would advise changing this segment to not read "answer", but simply pose that these books are similar to Narnia, without religious themes.  You can't make a lack of religious themes sound "good" in an encyclopedia... in fact, many people and cultures would find a religion-neutered version of this book as apalling as you find the original.  
Actually, this whole reference should be completely removed, simply because the list of things influenced by the Chronicles of Narnia are FAR MORE VAST than should even attempt to be listed in this listing.  Wikipedia as a whole has serious anti-religion issues... Stop garnering attention by attacking people's beliefs.  It's a waste of your time.  You're not changing anyone's mind... you're just making a rude ass of yourself.
:I don't read that entry as anti-religion.  When I read the word "answer" in that context and quoted as it is I read it as "quote answer" and interpret it as "rejoinder" (so changing that wording would seem reasonable to me). They are not actually books that are "similar to Narnia without religious themes". My understanding is that they portray a very negative view of organized religion.  But in my opinion, this is the only entry in the influence section that is reasonable as they are without a doubt influences by Narnia. As for the NPOVishness of it, I could go either way. Lsommerer 14:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Problem with the Influence on Other Works Section

message: I'm interested in moving some of the content in the pages about the Narnia books.  Specifically, I would like to move the information about the 'world of Narnia' out of the places:Narnia page and onto the The Chronicles of Narnia page.  My thinking is that all of the other places pages deal with parts of the Narnia world (mostly various countries and islands) but the Narnia page deals with those details plus information about the 'Narnia universe'.  I think things would be more consistent if the stuff that dealt with the whole world were on the The Chronicles of Narnia page.  
Another solution would be to have two Narnia pages.  One for the country and one for the world in general, but this seems more confusing to me than simply using the pages that currently exist.
If either of these changes is made, we should also change the 'Narnia content box' (I don't know the right term for that thing). And move it to the top of the page (which seems to be the location most often used in book series).  In its current location it is very easy to miss most of the the Narnia content.
I am crossposting this to Talk:Narnia, so you might also look for responses there. Lsommerer 03:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving Content in Narnia pages

message: Can anyone defend the claim that the Chronicles can be read as allegory? A discussion on rec.arts.sf.written has not found many people (essentially, only one) who claim it is allegory. If we look at allegory we could be led to ask what meaning, in addition to the literal (which would include Aslan as Christ, since that is stated literally) is intended. I'd like some discussion of this claim. Gene Ward Smith 06:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Allegory or parallel? 

message: I took out the following sentence that used to be at the end of the TV paragraph...
"Especially the final book, The Last Battle, is necessarily darker than the rest of the series, as it deals with the ending of Narnia, and by extension alludes to the end of our world."
...because it didn't really seem to follow. (I supposed it could've meant that this was why "The Last Battle" was never filmed, but it's not really clear from the sentence (which isn't very grammatical anyway).
HDC 22:10, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-sequitur in TV section? 

message: Is the version of the Narnia books broadcast on PBS in the United States the same as the BBC version mentioned in the article? --Carnildo 22:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: PBS television series?

message: There are several quotes from Lewis in the article currently. What is the source for these? Such quotes should really have a cited reference, i think DES 20:58, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Quote sources

message: :...illustrate aspects of Christianity in a way that is accessible to younger children.
:...in a way that was accessible to the average reader.
Could we rephrase one or the other of these to be consistent? This bit really caught my eye while reading this (well done) article. Dxco 23:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Accessible" consistency 

message: A British newspaper is reporting that some find the Chronicles racist.  I've never read the books, but someone who has should delve into this claim -- with textual support, if possible, as to why some feel this way.  --zenohockey 17:26, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a popular series, written by a white guy.  Therefore, people will look into it to find racist, sexist, class-ist, and any other-ist subtext that they care about, not to mention the homosexual, homophobic, and pedophilic themes.  And it's a large enough work that they can find whatever they're looking for, even if it doesn't exist. --Carnildo 18:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's wonderful, isn't it, how the critics can validly ignore the possibility that C.S. Lewis was a product of his times and some of the prejudices of Britain c.1948 might have gotten into the books?  I especially like the Narnia-bashers who somehow seem to interpret every interpolation of Christian themes into a work of art, no matter how minor, as a repugnant and hateworthy attempt to proselytize the unsuspecting reader. 206.114.20.121 21:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

text: This is the kind of thing that is disappointing (to me) about some wikis; allegations get way too much leway in terms of truth, accuracy and validity.  The general opinion seems to be that "oh, there is an alleged something or other so we should cover all bases just in case."  Serious allegations such as racism, sexism, etc. need hard evidence, not someone's interpretation of a fictional novel.  If it can't be backed up by a quote, non-fictional writing, interview, news item, history, etc. outside of the work itself, I don't know that it can be considered credible -- especially in this case where the items are stretching at best.  Just my opinion, but including the items just seems to give validity to the allegations and effect people's opinions about a work or author whether they are true or not. --J, in StL --71.8.210.216 04:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racist? 

message: I think this is a fair summary of what we've been moving toward. Correct it as needed Lsommerer 23:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed criteria for Critisism section 

message: I've repaired the gross atheistic bias against the works by including reasonable and valid rebuttals against the Pullman criticisms.  I need to note to the original author:   having such a large section of Pullman criticisms was unwarranted.  There was more pullman content than Lewis.  Where is the similar criticisms of Pullmans work on his page?  To just blast away with a myriad of Pullman criticism without an adequate rebuttal is against the spirit of Wikipedia.
While I have left, fully intact, the atheistic critiques, I have justly added rational responses that are cited, and sourced.  
Please keep in mind that in the spirit of Wikipedia, it is unacceptable to have a personal point of view, and write up a "neutral" piece that is slanted towards that view.  The original entry for this book was overtly slanted negatively.  Four paragraphs of harsh criticisms followed by 3 sentences of defense is absurd.  The page is now corrected to balance criticisms with defense.
----
Fight POV with citations and neutrality, not counter-POV.  If you think the article could use more Lewis quotes, feel free to add them where appropriate.  However, the place for criticism of Pullman is the article on Pullman, not here.  Moreover, you can't keep feeding your words into the mouths of imaginary, unnamed "defenders" for very long without turning this into a rant. Your changes are not acceptable. Alienus 06:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I might be misunderstanding. I don't think seperate critisism/rebuttal sections would work because it is far "quicker" to critisize than to defend. That's why I prefer cited summaries for rebuttal. If you are considering negative-review/positive-review then that seems reasonable to me. I see a difference between a bad review (which to me is the opposite of praise) and critisism (sexism/racism). I believe we solve the same problem by only allowing cited information. Lsommerer 21:36, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Yet more NPOV discussion

message: I removed the paragraphs below from the Christian Parallel section for 3 reasons:
*It is uncited
*It is largely similar to the quote already in the text
*The quote doesn't necessarily support the statement: "Lewis meant the whole story to be about Christ"
:According to a recently found letter to a fan written in 1957 (to be published in 2006), Lewis meant the whole story to be about Christ saying:
::"Supposing there really was a world like Narnia . . . and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?"
::"The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of talking beasts, I thought he would become a talking beast there as he became a man here. I pictured him becoming a lion there because a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; b) Christ is called ‘the lion of Judah’ in the Bible." 
The quote seems to come from here but seems to be a partial quote from here or perhaps from this chapter that doesn't seem to have made it into the book Narnia Beckons.
Lsommerer 16:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian Parallel (quote) 

message: Anyone with more experience think this page could use some archiving? I'm thinking of the sections that haven't been touched in a while(obviously) and the recent "forum like" discussion toward the bottom of the page. Maybe the NPOV? section could be archived too with a link to it from whatever the new NPOV section turns out to be. Just an idea. Lsommerer 12:00, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving anyone?