The Different Places

aslansroar

aslansroar

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One of the things I love most about the world C.S. Lewis created, is that he didn't go into deep detail about everything. He left it for the readers to imagine what Narnia looked like. Almost like a coloring book. Lewis created the outline and left it up to us to fill it in.

I've always wondered about the different places that we never got to read about. Like Terebinthia and Galma, for example.

What did it look like? What kind of people lived there? Their culture, and what kind style of clothes they wore. Were they friendly people, distant?

So I'm just wondering how everyone else pictures these different places to be like. I love to hear what other people think. So please, feel free to share! :)
 
I've always wondered how they were populated. Lewis gives a hint about the origins of the Telmarines in Prince Caspian, but I've always been intrigued by the Calormenes. Their culture seems mid-Asiatic (Persian or Turkish), but pre-Islam. They have an advanced culture, at least in certain ways, but worship a false god even to the point of human sacrifice. The ancestors of the Calormenes must have come from our world, but where and when?
 
Well for one thing they had different dialects as well as different ways of dressing. You could tell a Paraveller (citizen of Cair Paravel) from someone knocking about the Lantern Wastes...he/she would stick out like a sore thumb. Much like Scotty stands out when he comes on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Cap'n, ya canna breek th' laws of physics!"

Temperatures in the Lantern Wastes tend to be colder and rainier. In the south toward Archenland and Calormen it is hotter and drier. Those who wear clothes they weren't born in tend to wear different styles to compliment the climate.

Houses in the colder, rainier north often have bright colours inside and on the trim because so much time is spent indoors. Accommodations are larger for the same reason. Further south, a house is more some place to sleep and eat while not out in the field or in town. Colours are more natural...woodgrain, plaster, whitewash.
 
Oooh, I like what you're imagining ES, the way the places might look, the way the people might dress and talk. Very intriguing. And what about, like Puddleglum, wonder why the Marshwiggles were such a gloomy species, you know? They seemed to always look on the dark side -- PG said the others thought he was too frivolous, and he was very gloomy!
 
aslansroar said:
One of the things I love most about the world C.S. Lewis created, is that he didn't go into deep detail about everything. He left it for the readers to imagine what Narnia looked like. Almost like a coloring book. Lewis created the outline and left it up to us to fill it in.

I've always wondered about the different places that we never got to read about. Like Terebinthia and Galma, for example.

What did it look like? What kind of people lived there? Their culture, and what kind style of clothes they wore. Were they friendly people, distant?

So I'm just wondering how everyone else pictures these different places to be like. I love to hear what other people think. So please, feel free to share! :)
Click to expand...

With Terebinthia and Galma, I always pictured them as kind of having an Indonesian or Pacific Islander culture to them. I envisioned tropical fruits and fish as being a large part of their diet. I envisioned them wearing light and colorful clothes. I imagined them living in sort of reed structures or brightly painted houses made of something like adobe with good air flow to let the tropical breezes cool the houses.

I would envision them as being very connected to the ocean. I think that they would enjoy swimming, and would be very skilled seamen, building a lot of different boats and a lot of people would depend on the sea for food and would make their living as fishermen. I could picture a sort of tribal structure to society with people living in sort of extended families at the least. I think that the people would appreciate the natural beauty of things like shells, coral, sand, and brilliant blue water a lot, and that they would have rather laidback personalities with a soft approach to passing time. I also think, though, that they could be sort of reckless, always daring new stunts in boating and swimming, and competitive with one another in those fields.

With the Telmarines, I figured that their ancestors were criminals who had been shipped off to Australia and who ended up in the Narnian universe in the way that Aslan describes. However, in the Narnian universe, I felt like they landed in a tough, remote place, and had to deal with having to survive with basically nothing in a world unfamiliar to them. I see them developing into a very tough, seafaring society analogous to the Vikings. I could see Caspian's ancestors as trying to conquer Narnia because it was a more agreeable climate with more fertile land. Over time, once they had settled in Narnia for awhile, they would have forgotten their seafaring roots but not their military prowess, and they would have come to see the ocean as a threat (because new invaders, like them, could come that way, and Aslan could come out of there, and Cair Paravel, the old seat of Narnian government, was down there). I think within three or four generations of living as rulers in a conquered Narnia, Caspian's ancestors could have forsaken a mastery of the sea for a fear of it.
 
That's how I picture Terebinthia and Galma as well, SunshineRose. Warm summer breezes, close knit community and such.

I also like what you described EveningStar.

It's nice to see what others imagine it looking like. Things I'd never really think of. Like the brighter color houses up north, for example. But now I can picture that completely.
 
aslansroar said:
That's how I picture Terebinthia and Galma as well, SunshineRose. Warm summer breezes, close knit community and such.

I also like what you described EveningStar.

It's nice to see what others imagine it looking like. Things I'd never really think of. Like the brighter color houses up north, for example. But now I can picture that completely.
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It's always cool to think about the time periods and places in the Narnian world that Lewis didn't write about too much. There is so much room for imagination in those places. My favorite fanfictions tend to take a time period or place that we know only a little about and use those details to create a wonderfully interesting story:D
 
Well, we know some of the Galmans have freckles :p

I imagine the climates of the islands as following where they are. The Seven Isles may be akin to the Icelandic climate. Galma and Terabinthia may be more like the England/Scotland climate. The Lone Islands were probably more Polunesian or Carribbean climates.

I think the northern islands were populated with people who were closer to early Narnian humans. Their cultures probably have a modified Narnian culture. The Lone Islands, which were closer to Calormen, would have had similar cultures, although it got a bit better after Caspian X intervend.

MrBob
 
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