Favorite Characters in The Chronicles of Narnia | Talking Beasts
Who is your favorite character in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis? Rilian and Glumpuddle force themselves to narrow down their list to just 3 each. Towards the end, they also respond to a couple listener comments about two scenes in the upcoming movie adaptation of The Silver Chair.
The C.S. Lewis Minute is brought to you by William O’Flaherty, author of C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell and creator of EssentialCSLewis.com.
Think you can stump a NarniaWebber? Submit Narnia trivia questions to podcast[at]narniaweb.com with the subject “Stump” (please do not include the answer).
Listen:
Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
At around 11 minutes, Glumpuddle says there are examples in movies of people who are deeply good – any examples?
Great podcast! I would add as a favorite character, Caspian – as he appears in "Dawn Treader" (the BOOK, not the movie!)– a model of leadership, courage, intelligence, curiosity, hope and joy.
Hmmm. Top 3 characters? Shasta, Puddleglum, and . . . here's where I can't pick. Jill (she's got one of the most unique relationships with Aslan in the series), Reepicheep (see Rilian and Gp's discussion), Edmund (esp. PC/VDT), and Eustace (post-dragon) all clamor in.
I think I side with Rilian for the pronunciation. I usually try to match it to the sound of Reepicheep, just nixing that pesky "h" that FotF slips in.
And Rilian definitely said both pronunciations, so he gets the answer. 😉
My favourite character is and was always Edmund. It is easy to be a good guy from the beginning on, but to change like he did, is quite hard. Especially in PC I like how he developped.
My second favourite is Caspian, as he developped as well from PC to VDT a lot.
And last but not least number 3 is Eustache especially in SC and LB.
Sorry I didn’t mean to be demanding lol great podcast as usual! And I think we’d have to ask C.S Lewis himself about that pronunciation My fav characters are Jill, Lucy and Aslan. C.S Lewis certainly had a God-given gift for making lovable, relatable and good characters. I’d like to be like Lucy but I think I end up being more like Jill I love how simple yet complex Narnia is.
Eustace, Edmund and Shasta are my favorite male characters. They provide so much for me as they change and progress.
I agree with shastastwin, Rilian should get the answer correct.
Jill, Diggory and Reepicheep. I was Jill in a way, I was bullied throughout Middle School, not gonna go into that. I am a believer like when Diggory believed in the Pevensies. Reepicheep is just a really cool Animal Character.
Which one, Glumpuddle or Rilian named Peepiceek, pronouncing that name as Peepiseek? That is, the c sound as in receive? Because that is the way I say it continually and I think the BBC audio version also says Peepiceek's name that way. I'm not at all sure what the TV version did since even VDT was truncated, though not as badly as PC.
Dear comments moderator, I have a stump a Narniawebber question: How many times does Puddleglum say the phrase "I shouldn't wonder" in the silver chair? P.S. I would have emailed this question in but, I don't actually have email.
Will you guys possibly talk about The Silver Chair itself in the next podcast?
BBC TV version didn't even mention Peepiceek to my recollection.
Reepicheep!
My favourite characters are Reepicheep, Aslan, and Puddleglum. The runner up is my favourite human character: Caspian X.
btw I've always pronounced Peepiceek as "PeepiKeek".
Hahaha love it! 😛
So have I; the only reason I would question that pronunciation is because of the rule where c and g are soft after an e or i.
Of course, with English, you never know; there are a number of instances where that rule is broken, including names. And sometimes a c is pronounced as /ch/; especially if borrowed from the Italian. So maybe Rilian was correct on both attempts.
Puddleglum.
Thanks for answering my question on the "breath scene"! Personally, I would love the director to move away from a literal image of Aslan blowing them and focus more on the magic and wonder of the lion. Maybe him blowing and then magic carying them off.
Great podcast, as usual! Lucy is one of my favorite characters for the same reasons. She's a lovable but relatable character. And I'd definitely listen to a Top 100 favorite characters podcast.
I don't think Rilian got the point in this one : D
Two uniquely Narnian races that are entertaining are marshwiggles and dufflepuds!
What are some others, fellow Narniawebbers?
I too thought it was "Peepicheek."
I wholeheartedly agree with GlumPuddle's idea about atmosphere in films.
LOTR had great atmosphere, especially using lighting and sound to bring that across beautifully. And so did Walden's LWW when Lucy is coming in to Narnia for the first time.
I enjoy the snapshot we have of the Pevensie's in The Horse and His Boy. It is something I have not seen done the same way in other series. To see them as grown ups but not the same timeline as in The Last Battle is kind of like an alternate timeline.
#Pevenception
Finally had a chance to listen to this! Great episode. I especially appreciated the idea that Reepicheep being trapped in the body of a mouse paralleled his longing for Aslan's Country. I've never thought of it that way before!
Picking favorites when it comes to CoN is *so* hard for me, but if I must: Aslan, Shasta, and Puddleglum.
Lucy is my favorite.
Difficult; how do you pronounce Peepicheek.
First off, depending on the word in question, the letter combination "ch" can actually be pronounced many different ways. It can be pronounced like "ch" as in "chime", like "sh" as in "parachute", "tch" as in "sandwich" or it can be pronounced like "k" as in "chorus".
As far as how it is used in this instance, I've always used the "ch" sound myself, but I think it could be any of them.
(Possible pronunciations)
Peep-i-cheek
Peep-i-sheek
Pee-pitch-cheek
Peep-i-keek
Give a little leeway since unless you can get the actual answer from the author himself (highly unlikely), and there are too many possible pronunciations.
My top 3 are: Edmund because of his character arc, Puddleglum because he's just amazing, and probably Tirian because of how earnest he is in everything and refusal to stop believing in the true Aslan.
Also, I don't listen to many books on tape, but I always thought Peepiceek had a hard 'c' sound.
Since reading your comment, I've been pondering what "deeply good" means exactly. Requires more pondering.
But Superman (Christopher Reeve), Captain America (Chris Evans), and Forrest Gump come to mind as possible candidates.
Maybe another worthy candidate for someone being 'deeply good' is Wonder Woman(any version really, but Gal Gadot especially). It is interesting to me that Patty Jenkins could get the character so well in the fact that Diana is a bit naive and hope filled in humanity, yet still having an amazing character arc in that film.
It is hard to say what my favorite characters are to even narrow down to three, but I shall strive to anyway. Aravis is my favorite if one could not tell from my name. The reason being that she comes across in the beginning as the annoying spoiled brat(intentionally so) but the explanation of her backstory really I started to understand why she has the attitude. Considering she is in less than half the book is also something to respect with all the character development in that amount of time and the fact that I relate to her so well is why she is my favorite. Next is from the same book, Shasta. I love this character because he has been brought up in what many would say less than a servant's lifestyle, and yet still come up with that hopeful attitude when the Tarkan came to his house. Not to say he is not realistic, especially with that scene where he is talking to Aslan and saying that he does look back on his life and start to see the problems is when I decided that he was one of my favorite characters. Because I think everyone has that point in their life regardless of their personality will have that point where everything seems to be getting to that boiling point of depression. But the fact that Aslan shows him how his life is not so bad showed me that part of God where he is not a respecter of persons. Regardless of background God always shows you that life is better than one deserves. The last character is difficult, but I am going to go with Edmund. Edmund is the original character where you get that these kids are not saints. I think that you could say in the beginning that he is kind of a cliched jerk. But once he gets into the Witches' castle you get so much development that is never told, but the fact that he does show remorse for the animals at the feast displays to me that he has changed. My favorite lines about Edmund though is one from Edmund himself and the other is about him. The line Aslan gives to the children after Edmund is rescued from the Witch and tells them "What is past is past, there is no need to speak to Edmund about what is past". The line that I love from Edmund is in 'Prince Caspian' where he is trying to speak on Lucy's behalf and says in summary that he did not listen to Lucy before and he thinks it only makes sense to consider that she is telling the truth.
Without going through the agony of actually deciding a top three, I'll just say that I've always loved & related to Lucy. There's one thing that has always bothered me, though, and I've thought of it while listening to the last two podcasts, so I'll just say it. Am I the only one who wishes Lewis had given a reason why she had to go upstairs alone at the magician's house? Obviously, she had to for the story to have the right mystery & tension, but I do wish he'd given a reason why they weren't all allowed to go up with her for moral support.
Oh, and grammatically, I'd go for Peepi-seek, but as a companion name to Reepicheep, it's really hard to avoid saying Peepi-cheek. It's definitely more comfortable. The only real answer would be how Lewis pronounced it himself.