Did Peter appear to be an arrogant goof in the film?

A true warrior knows when not to fight and that, for some battles, retreat is the correct strategy. Peter, in the stairwell, should have just apologized. inky's comments about Susan's statement to Peter show that he has regressed into picking fights with people for small issues, the exact same thing Edmund was doing in LWW.

"But his idea of attacking the castle made more sense than just holing up in Aslan's How until everybody died of thirst, starvation, or disease caused by unsanitary living conditions."

They had only those two options in the book, Glenburne, but not in the movie. In the book, the Telmarine army was camped right outside the forest. In the movie, they were settled nicely in the castle. They had no worry of running out of food, they just needed to get more people on the food hunt.

But there is a lot of choices between doing nothing and an all-out night raid. Lucy gave her own option. The raid was very risky and it showed that peter had forgotten everything he learned in warfare as King of Narnia. 1) know your enemy 2) When you capture the enemy leader, take him. 3) When the plans go awry, retreat is your best option.

"His explanation for the changes with Peter was the fact that he started wondering how the kids would react to being so suddenly thrust back into the roles of children ...Adamson said that Lewis never really answered that question, which set him to thinking about how Peter would react emotionally."

But Lewis did explain it. He explained how their Narnian memories came back to them as they were exploring the ruins. In PC, Lewis hardly had any comments on their life in England other than the fact that they were going back to school.

Also Glenburne, why would only Peter have the problems? Lucy went from preteen to adult and back to preteen. She went from battle-hardened queen to not even being able to stay hime alone. Same with Edmund. Susan, along with her younger siblings, would have to go through puberty all over again. Why should Peter have the hardest time with the changes?

Going to Narnia was supposed to change their lives for the better. That was the point for Edmund in LWW. He was not the same nasty little prat he was at the beginning of LWW because of his betrayal of his siblings. Why would Peter have become worse than Edmund in LWW? That is the betrayal of Lewis' intent.

MrBob
 
The thing is, we just dont know precisely what happened, for all we know perhaps Peter DID apologize to those two at first but they were just out to humiliate him. That tunnel is actually a very dangerous place for a fight, it has just two exits, one on to the platform and the other back up the stair the way they came and both of them are crowded.
There just is no room there to retreat or `just walk away`.

With the castle raid, the situation as it is set up appears to be this.
1) The main Telmarine army is located at the Ford of Beruna where they are building a bridge to get their seige engines across the river. Their scouts have already discovered the location of Aslan`s How so they can be expected to arrive in a few days.
2) The Narnian army has some good individual fighters but they are fewer in number and untrained, they can`t be expected to win in a pitched battle. Also the How isn`t realy built as a fortress and probably can be easily destroyed by seige weapons.
3) No fortress, no matter how good can be expected to hold out indefinately without there being some sort of outside force out there somewhere to relieve it.
4) We are told that the Telmarines think their castle is impregnable and that it has only a small garrison as a result.

So, while Peter can be assumed to be a good general he knows that he has very little to work with and that the clock is ticking, which is why he goes for the rather risky castle raid plan.
The execution of the plan goes wrong because of Caspian, who starts changing it then changes it again! With that sort of thing everybody needs to do precicely what they are supposed to or things start to fall apart.
Peter probably should retreat when the garrison is alerted but I wonder how many of the assault group would have got out successfully.
Would Trumpkin and the mice have heard Peter call retreat and could they have got out of the gatehouse if they did?

Instead, knowing whats at stake he takes a gamble continues the attack and, untill the portcullis is brought down they appear to still have a chance of winning. Perhaps if they ever do that again it might be a good idea to take a six foot bauk of timber with them and stick it in the portcullis runners to prevent it from dropping!
 
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The thing is, we just dont know precisely what happened, for all we know perhaps Peter DID apologize to those two at first but they were just out to humiliate him. That tunnel is actually a very dangerous place for a fight, it has just two exits, one on to the platform and the other back up the stair the way they came and both of them are crowded.
There just is no room there to retreat or `just walk away`.

With the castle raid, the situation as it is set up appears to be this.
1) The main Telmarine army is located at the Ford of Beruna where they are building a bridge to get their seige engines across the river. Their scouts have already discovered the location of Aslan`s How so they can be expected to arrive in a few days.
2) The Narnian army has some good individual fighters but they are fewer in number and untrained, they can`t be expected to win in a pitched battle. Also the How isn`t realy built as a fortress and probably can be easily destroyed by seige weapons.
3) No fortress, no matter how good can be expected to hold out indefinately without there being some sort of outside force out there somewhere to relieve it. (So they realy need to go get Aslan.)
4) We are told that the Telmarines think their castle is impregnable and that it has only a small garrison as a result.

So, while Peter can be assumed to be a good general he knows that he has very little to work with and that the clock is ticking, which is why he goes for the rather risky castle raid plan.
The execution of the plan goes wrong because of Caspian, who starts changing it then changes it again! With that sort of thing everybody needs to do precicely what they are supposed to or things start to fall apart.
Peter probably should retreat when the garrison is alerted but I wonder how many of the assault group would have got out successfully.
Would Trumpkin and the mice have heard Peter call retreat and could they have got out of the gatehouse if they did?

Instead, knowing whats at stake he takes a gamble continues the attack and, untill the portcullis is brought down they appear to still have a chance of winning. Perhaps if they ever do that again it might be a good idea to take a six foot bauk of timber with them and stick it in the portcullis runners to prevent it from dropping!
 
I wasn't happy with the way the film was handled and the plot altered. I know why they did it; to put more action into it and make it more dynamic but it spoiled it in my opinion.

Blowing the horn at the start was all wrong, as Caspian used it almost as a last resort in the book when things weren't looking great for him.

I guess I feel that way because I came to the story via the book many years ago. Perhaps if I'd seen the film first I may not feel as I do.

I agree that it made Peter look bad.
 
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