In my last post on The Horse and His Boy, I talked a little bit about how the essence of Mercury is change and how Calormen, the empire to the south of Archenland, is a demonstration of the evils of empire: entitlement, greed, tyranny, exceptionalism (everyone else being "barbarians"), and most of all, an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo. Calormen is anti-Mercurial because most of its citizens assume that nothing about it ever will or should change. We see this attitude and its Northern opposite most clearly in the characters of The Horse and His Boy. This post, therefore, will consider those characters and how they contrast with each other related to the anti-change nature of Calormen.
Kings
The Tisroc is the epitome of status quo, as seen in the catchphrase "The Tisroc (may he live for ever)" uttered by every loyal subject of his. Even though, as Bree points out, the idea is completely meaningless, the Tisroc not only requires it of his subjects, but assumes it himself in conversations with his son and Vizier. This even prevents discussions of succession. When Rabadash envisions the High King Peter seeing his nephew and grandnephew on the throne of Calormen, which would happen if Rabadash succeeded in marrying Queen Susan, the Tisroc responds, "He will not see that if I live for ever as is no doubt your wish." Dude. You know you won't, he knows you won't. What is even the point? Well, maybe it was to curb Rabadash's "dangerous" tendencies. Apparently five Tisrocs before him have been assassinated by impatient princes. But denying him any thought of ruling will make him a pretty poor ruler when this Tisroc does eventually die.
Of course, the Tisroc encourages the status quo because it is one in which he is entitled to every good thing, another characteristic attitude of Calormen. The sun appears dark in the Tisroc's eyes because he remembers that he does not yet own the Northern kingdoms. In his mind, everything rightfully belongs to him: the jewels and furs that cover his massive frame, all the countries of the world, and the love of all his people. A throwaway comment at the end of his scene shows glaringly how entitled he is. He orders Ahoshta to "call back the pardon we wrote for the third cook" because he, the Tisroc, feels like he's going to have indigestion. In other words, the third cook was going to be punished, the Tisroc pardoned him, but now he feels sick and is going to punish the third cook again. Really? Was it the cook's fault, O enormous Tisroc, or was it just that you ate too much and want to blame anyone but yourself?
King Edmund, the first Northern king we see, could not be more different. Change for the better is a huge part of his character. His upbraiding of Shasta (mistaken for a truant Corin) is intended to set him back on track, to get him to confess and repent. Later, he accepts the change of mind that Tumnus proposes, seeing poor Shasta as sun-stricken. When the mistake is revealed and Shasta apologizes for overhearing his plans, Edmund readily forgives, while yet issuing a warning not to do it again. One of his best lines comes when Rabadash's fate is discussed, and Edmund points out that "even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did." We who have read LWW know that he's referring to himself. One of the main tenets of the Northern philosophy is that people can change and often should.
And Edmund knows that he is included in that, because he has no false sense of entitlement or self-righteousness. We first see him walking down the street with his nobles as an equal, rather than being carried as the Calormene VIPs do. When he finds himself and his friends trapped in Tashbaan by the will of Prince Rabadash, he doesn't bluster and blow smoke about how important he is, but puts his mind to work plotting an escape. He brings the court back and back again to practical realities, which even kings and queens must take into account. Once the battle of Anvard has been won, Edmund acts as an advisor but graciously accedes to King Lune's wishes. This is his turf, after all.
King Lune is probably my favorite character in all the Narniad (as Michael Ward calls it). He is a clever statesman, a gracious king, and a wise father to the irrepressible Corin. Lune is ready and even eager to accept change. When his eldest son is revealed to be alive, Lune immediately embraces him into the family and changes the succession plans accordingly. He willingly talks with Cor about "when I am gone" and Cor will be king. No nonsense about living forever here! Even more remarkably, King Lune welcomes Aravis the Calormene noblewoman into his household with a bow "stately enough for an Emperor" and a loving trust based only on Cor's word. Her prince just attacked his country and tried to kill him, but he can recognize the good in people no matter what their country of origin. He cares who you are, not what you are.
This, of course, also carries over to his philosophy of kingship, which is a far cry from the entitlement of the Tisroc. In King Lune's view, power is given as a responsibility, like a sentry's post, in order to take on hardship and danger for the sake of those governed. People are people, no matter what class (or even species--see his treatment of the Talking Horses) they are. This means he respects Rabadash, but doesn't take any guff from him. He loves his sons, but doesn't spoil them, instead doling out rebuke, advice, jokes, and lectures. "Never taunt a man save when he is stronger than you," he tells Corin; also, "Sit down, Corin, or shalt leave the table." These could be said to any feisty young boy. Princes don't get any special treatment just because they're princes.
Princes
Rabadash. Oh, Rabadash. A man with the emotional maturity of a three-year-old. This guy is in a perpetual temper-tantrum. "I want her," he cries of Queen Susan. And to him, this means "I must have her." He gets everything he wants in Calormen because of his status. "He is little used (more's the pity) to having his will crossed," says Edmund, and the narrator informs us that "In Tashbaan everyone always took him seriously" when he made silly faces and wiggled his ears. And even when he's tied up and at the mercy of the Northerners, Rabadash is still making threats and demands, obsessing over "the barbarian queen" that he can't have. He kicks the Vizier in the backside for quoting poets at him, and the Tisroc can barely muster up a weak, "Desist, O my son." (Threats are much greater, of course, when Rabadash challenges his father directly, but I digress.) To Rabadash, the universe exists to make him happy.
This is why he simply cannot handle the environment up North, and I don't mean the cold. The environment of thought that takes him simply as a man, without all the awe afforded to his status, and judges him as one in need of change, is repellent to him. How fitting, then, that the great judgment of Aslan upon him is changing him, first into a donkey in front of his enemies, and then back into a man in front of his subjects. And it's rather ironic that, out of fear of one kind of change (being overthrown by successful generals), Rabadash instituted a different change in Calormen (peaceful foreign policy). It wasn't exactly the kind of change the Northerners were hoping for (a change of mind and spirit), but one takes what one gets out of life.
Corin is one of the most fun characters in any children's story, IMHO. Just look at his first scene and the matter-of-fact way he narrates his adventures. "A boy in the street made a beastly joke about Queen Susan, so I knocked him down." And then his big brother, too. No bragging, no grandstanding about how "I beat him and his big brother." It just happened. "Then we ran into three men with spears who were called the Watch. So I fought the Watch and they knocked me down." Same thing. No "how dare they", no "my father will hear about this." It's a hazard of getting into fights. Even a prince can get knocked down. And then he doesn't bother with being all grandiose with the Watch, either, when they take him to lock him up. No struggling, no threatening. He cleverly tricks them into passing out drunk so he can escape. And when Shasta realizes he'll have to tell the Narnians the truth, Corin demands, "What else do you think I'll be telling them?" Princes have minds and consciences just like anyone else.
As far as welcoming change, Corin does a splendid job of it. He eagerly takes Shasta under his wing, telling him how to escape from Tashbaan, bringing him into the battle, and teaching him what he can about riding and fighting. When Shasta is revealed to be his brother Cor, and apologizes for "chisel[ing] you out of your kingdom", Corin is delighted with the change. "Hurrah!" he exclaims. "I shan't have to be king. I'll always be a prince. It's princes have all the fun." And the way Corin has most fun is boxing, leading to the incident of the Lapsed Bear of Stormness, the last episode we hear of him. Lots of change in that one. The Lapsed Bear was a Talking Bear who had gone wild (change one--bad), and Corin climbed up to its lair and boxed it until it "couldn't see out of its eyes" (change two--ambiguous) and "became a reformed character" (change three--good).
The third prince (how come there are three of just about everything in this book?) is the most complex: Shasta/Cor. Shasta starts out as an ordinary citizen of Calormen, but almost immediately shows himself to be far from ordinary. Quite apart from his fair Northern skin and hair, Shasta has a completely different attitude toward life than his "father" Arsheesh. He's curious about what lies Northward beyond the green hill, where Arsheesh couldn't care less. When he discovers that Arsheesh is not in fact his father, he accepts the change readily. "Why, I could be anyone!" he exclaims. Shasta speculates about his potential status as the Tarkaan's servant, but doesn't hold any delusions about being entitled to special treatment (despite his grandiose fantasy of being the son of a god). And when he discovers a Talking Horse, his default reaction is telling: "How ever did you learn to talk?" Apparently, in his mind, horses can learn to talk. That is, they can change.
In spite of all this, Shasta still has some Calormene attitudes from his upbringing. He calls Aravis "only a girl" (she rightfully upbraids him for it), says of the Tisroc "may-he-live-for-ever" until Bree calls him on it, and assumes that the Narnian lords will act like Calormenes would if they discover who he really is. "Like Calormenes" is still his default assumption of how all people are or should be. But all of that changes (there it is again!) over the course of the story, as directed by Aslan. He joins up with Aravis, and, through traveling with her, learns to appreciate her. He spends the night in the Tombs with the protective Cat (secretly a Lion), who motivates him to be kind even to dumb animals in future. Being forced to protect Aravis gives him a powerful lesson in sacrificial leadership, the kind he'll need someday as king of Archenland. And the hardship of finding King Lune, the fulfillment of the prophecy at his birth, and the revelation of Aslan's complete sovereignty ("I was the Lion") shows him that he's only a very small part of a very big story. In that context, he can't think of himself as The Most Important Being in the Universe, like Rabadash does. Even when he comes to see Aravis in his new princely garb, Cor makes sure to let her know that he didn't get all this up to impress her; he's still just himself.
Noblewomen
I can't say "queens" or "princesses" because they're not all royal, but the contrast is very strong between the three main female humans we meet. Let's start with the easiest one to characterize: Lasaraleen. She's one of the most Calormene characters in the whole book. Her descriptions and dialogue simply ooze entitlement, privilege, and total acceptance of the status quo. In contrast to King Lune, Las cares much more about what you are than who you are. She cries to Aravis, "if only you had sense you could be the wife of a Grand Vizier!" Ahoshta's numerous moral and physical shortcomings are invisible to her. All she can see is his wealth and power, his pearls and palaces. Her servants are merely things to her, modes of transportation and labor-saving devices. Even Aravis has to remind her that Las' fate isn't the only one that matters ("I meant, all would be lost for me"). Particularly reprehensible is her reaction to the Tisroc's plot against Narnia with Rabadash: "It must be right if he's going to do it!" (emphasis original). Because everything we do is right because we're enlightened Calormenes, right? Ugh.
Aravis, on the other hand, is a paradox: a very Northern Calormene. She sees and rejects everything evil about her own culture. At first, she only sees her own forced child-marriage as being wrong, and sees change as so hopeless that her only chance is suicide. (Though she can see clearly that Ahoshta is a jerk who has bought all the power he has.) But then Hwin speaks. Again, Aravis' response is telling: she at first believes that the fear of death has made her hallucinate. Only later does she ask how the mare learned to talk. Aravis still has several Calormene attitudes at the beginning: she manipulates the system to get her way, like Ahoshta, and she sees the servant girl as merely "a tool", not caring that she was beaten. When entering Tashbaan, she chafes at not being able to travel in a way suited to her station, with a litter and servants and soldiers saluting.
But then in Tashbaan, Aravis encounters all the evils of the Calormene culture at their most glaring, even witnessing the secret councils of the Tisroc with Rabadash and Ahoshta. Having seen them, Aravis utterly rejects them. It's at this point that she stops wishing the Tisroc to live forever and begins to see Shasta in a much more positive light. Unlike Lasaraleen, Aravis sees Ahoshta for who he really is: "A hideous grovelling slave who...hopes to get his own back by egging on that horrible Tisroc to plot his son's death." And Las, after seeing the same scene, still thinks he's a "great man"?! Aravis declares, unusually for a Calormene, "I'd sooner marry my father's scullion than a creature like that." Even earlier, when Lasaraleen is horrified at the thought of running away with a peasant boy, Aravis accepts the fact that "I'll be nobody, just like him, when we get to Narnia." Of course, in the end, he turns out to be far from nobody, but Aravis couldn't have known that. She comes to respect him as simply himself. Even her attitude toward leadership changes, as we see after the grueling desert journey when everyone falls asleep. Aravis is first to wake up and is furious with herself, grumbling that the Horses and Shasta had some excuse, being slaves all their lives. "But I ought to have known better" (emphasis original). In other words, her noble privilege is a responsibility. How Northern of her. Hopefully that made it a little easier to adjust to life in Archenland.
Susan, whom we only see for a couple of scenes, remains her tragically non-planetary self. She's almost the reverse of Aravis; the most Calormene of the Northerners. Of course, we barely see her in this book. But even that is significant. She's the only reason the Narnians are in Calormen, because she responded well to Rabadash's suit when he was in Narnia. On the one hand, she does willingly change her mind once she sees who he really is. But on the other, she seems pretty helpless and childish in the discussion that follows; almost like Rabadash himself. (Was that why she found him attractive?) Even earlier, when "Corin" is brought back to her, she acts like one child talking to another, calling him "playmate" and asking how he could do this to her. And while Edmund and the others set their minds to the problem of escape, Susan contributes nothing useful. She gets sidetracked on the description of the desert route and then just bursts into self-deprecating tears. And unlike Lucy, we don't find her at the battle, doing the Northernly royal thing of leading the troops. We know from PC that she never did like battles, but still, if she's one of the best archers, isn't it her responsibility as queen to take on hardship for her people? Susan is using her privilege to avoid hardship instead. Even Shasta does better before he knows he's a prince!
Advisors
We don't see much of the advisors, either, but there's quite a contrast there. Starting with the sleazy vizier (try saying that five times fast) of Calormen, we find the hideous, groveling Ahoshta Tarkaan. As Aravis observes, Ahoshta is one of the only upwardly mobile characters in Calormen; however, the way he made his way to the top is by gaming the system, by flattering the people in power. Later, we observe this yes-man in action, full of "live-forever's" and fawning phrases like "The praise of my masters is the delight of my eyes." The entitlement-driven status quo of the Calormene court is his territory, his life, and his means to power. His desire of Aravis is only another aspect of this epitome of Calormene attitude. A sixty-year-old man marrying an adolescent girl? Apparently it's always done that way "in the great Calormene families." And it's not hard to guess that Ahoshta wants Aravis in part so he can make a useful connection with her influential father. Though he claims to love the Tisroc more than his own life, it's clear that this is only a means to gain more for himself.
On the other side, we have not just one, not just two, but--let me check--at least six Narnians advising Susan and Edmund. And they don't all agree with each other. There's give and take, critique and counter-argument, even after Tumnus reveals his master plan for their escape. And no one is telling the king and queen what they want to hear; they're offering what they think will do the most good for them and for Narnia. We can tell that the royals are listening to and considering them all; diversity of opinion is important to them in their counsels. Tumnus, though, is probably the most influential. As I mentioned, he eventually has the best idea and saves them all. He's also the one to suggest that "Corin" has a touch of sunstroke and is confused. One gets the sense that this happens a lot, and that Tumnus is one of the most trusted members of the court. Yet he isn't puffed up about it or given some kind of exalted rank. He's just happy they can get out of the trap, and happy to serve the convalescent prince his meal, too. The Narnian group of advisors are the perfect example of servant leadership.
Just in case anyone's actually following this series, I do apologize for the insanely long delay. Maybe someday we'll get to The Magician's Nephew. Until then, farewell!
