"Went Away to War"

Curubethion · 07-18-2006, 07:58 PM

Okay, this was never mentioned in the books, IIRC, but in the movie, Tumnus says (in reply to Lucy's line: "My father's fighting in the War.") "My father went away to war, too."

I never took the time before to think about just what war that might be. Now, looking at it, was it possibly the war against the White Witch? If so, this actually starts to bring the pieces of Tumnus' betrayal together. His father was a member of the resistance, and so obviously was Tumnus. Tumnus also says, comparing himself to his father, "No, I'm not a good faun at all." This seems to imply to me that he did something bad (besides being a human-hunter) that his father didn't do. So, here's my proposed history of Tumnus...

His father was fighting in the Resistance. The Witch catches both Tumnus and his father, and threatens them with death. The father meets death bravely, but Tumnus is weak and agrees to help the Witch. And thus we have the human-hunting. It's basically the one thing keeping Tumnus safe from the Secret Police. And since he lets a human escape, there's his safety net gone.

This serves to enlighten Tumnus' character, when he decides not to betray Lucy. He's meeting the same temptation that he faced before, and this time he's resisting. Helped along, of course, by Aslan.

So...what do you think? Comments?

07-18-2006, 07:58 PM	#1
Curubethion Fenway Ranger, Lord of Red Sox Nation Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: College! Posts: 1,976	"Went Away to War" Okay, this was never mentioned in the books, IIRC, but in the movie, Tumnus says (in reply to Lucy's line: "My father's fighting in the War.") "My father went away to war, too." I never took the time before to think about just what war that might be. Now, looking at it, was it possibly the war against the White Witch? If so, this actually starts to bring the pieces of Tumnus' betrayal together. His father was a member of the resistance, and so obviously was Tumnus. Tumnus also says, comparing himself to his father, "No, I'm not a good faun at all." This seems to imply to me that he did something bad (besides being a human-hunter) that his father didn't do. So, here's my proposed history of Tumnus... His father was fighting in the Resistance. The Witch catches both Tumnus and his father, and threatens them with death. The father meets death bravely, but Tumnus is weak and agrees to help the Witch. And thus we have the human-hunting. It's basically the one thing keeping Tumnus safe from the Secret Police. And since he lets a human escape, there's his safety net gone. This serves to enlighten Tumnus' character, when he decides not to betray Lucy. He's meeting the same temptation that he faced before, and this time he's resisting. Helped along, of course, by Aslan. So...what do you think? Comments? __________________ Adventure...betrayal...heroism... Atharon: where heroes are born. My wife once said to me—when I'd been writing for ten or fifteen years—that I could always go back to being a nuclear engineer. And I said to her, 'Harriet, would you let someone who quit his job to go write fantasy anywhere near your nuclear reactor? I wouldn't!' (Robert Jordan)