I’m going to call her Lilliandil because I don’t went to keep repeating Ramandu’s daughter again and again.
In the movies it’s not even a real thing we’re seeing so there’s not much to tell. She’s just being simped by men and she’s not really doing anything but giving information. Caspian with Susan had more potential in the movies and I don’t say I prefer this ship either. Laura Brent was good on the role though ngl. And it was good that at least she has been given a name.
In the books we get more dialogue that is overall cute and all but at the same time it just makes me eye roll a bit. We see Caspian dismisses girls because they’re not good enough and then comes Lilliandil to which he says “aw you’ll be mine cuz you’re a star girl” the first time he sees her. No depth, No development, no character arc, no emphasis. And I know I shouldn’t like expect much from a three pages character but Lewis did write good and more real characters anyway. And yet even today this seems to be an OTP ship for many people.
No disrespect to Lewis, I too write stuff that may not make sense and every story has one. And I do love lots of his other themes just not that. I know this is classic medieval romance thing and it was popular in the 50’s but it doesn’t seem it’s a positive thing for today’s generation.
Lilliandil is essential an NPC (Npcs are ai placed characters in video games that you can interact with and have dialogue, like a merchant you buy weapons from but just exists without any effect). She is only built who’s only built to be awesome, cute, beautiful and perfect and she shows no personality, no character arc whatsoever. Everyone loves her because she’s beautiful and… that’s why. Also because of her dad being a star so she kind of has some influence and seems so noble. So not much.
I don’t hate her, don’t say I do. And that’s because I have got nothing to hate. I can’t hate a character in one chapter that only says what happened in Aslan’s table and that’s responding to flirt. There’s nothing to love or hate so there’s no personality displayed anyway. Maybe there is but Lewis didn’t give it to us so I can’t do anything about it. Lewis wrote Caspian and the other narnian characters much better. But even so, people come and write paragraphs beneath some of my posts because apparently she’s too op and the perfect lady for Caspian.
I also hate the fact that Caspian rejected many girls to go with the pretty one and just instantly flirted right away with Lilliandil and married her in a short period of time. And I don’t say he shouldn’t chose a girl he loved but when did he even get to love her? That wasn’t even love marriage it was just a flex marriage. People somehow see depth in it besides the whole medieval love thing and I suppose the GenZ has missed that.
And also this perfect girl archetype without any effort is also disturbing: Lilliandil in the books is this always beloved girl who charms everyone with her beauty. Edmund says to her “When I look at your face I believe anything you say. It’s just like a witch.” I hate this type of archetype of Lilliandil’s in every story, the classic pretty Princess who is only admired in looks and unbiased personality for no reason. It’s a reason I never liked Aurora or Snow White as a disney Princesses. And as I’ve said I don’t have anything with pretty girls, I’m not bad looking myself and my fav Disney princess was always Rapunzel, I just hate those pretty girls that gain everything without any real effort and then gain essays about it online. That’s why Susan, Lucy and Aravis are much more compelling than her which I believe deserve praise and recognition. That’s why I don’t engage with them as much.
I also feel that Caspian is a very much beloved, noble and compelling character to be wasted for an irrelevant love story like that. As if his life wasn’t sad enough, we got this short, dry and empty cute romance while we do know Lewis can make compelling and interesting characters.
You may say I shouldn’t care and yet some of you come and write entire essays in the comments section. People have written essays roasting one kiss in the Prince Caspian for 3 seconds movie over an npc in the book of three pages.
Topic starter
Posted : August 31, 2025 4:41 am
I do agree she's not a particularly well written or interesting character. In a series which has lots of interesting, well written female protagonists (Lucy, Polly, Jill, Jadis) she's a bit of a nothing character.
In a way she kind of just feels like a tokenistic prize of romance, waiting at the end of the story.
I would sort of give the VDT movie screenwriters some credit for trying to develop her character more, but given that the majority of her scenes from the script got cut out, it all comes across a bit flat in the end
Posted : August 31, 2025 7:46 am
Courtenay liked
@thef-maria I would say many of the same things about Ramandu's daughter. She unfortunately seems to exist only as a trope, a mysterious and incredibly beautiful woman for Caspian to conveniently fall in love with (when he barely even knows her), and we find out virtually nothing about her — not even her name, canonically — except that she later dies suddenly and horribly, murdered by the venom of a serpent-witch.
But I also always bear in mind that this is a relatively simple fantasy series for children, written in the early 1950s by a man who was born in the late 1890s, and some of his ideas and values and preferences are naturally not always going to match up exactly with what some readers may prefer in the 2020s. He also wasn't very particular about filling in the gaps in his stories, so there are plenty of instances where we never find out more about an intriguing person or place or event. It's unfortunate that Caspian's love interest is one of those, but there it is. He wasn't a Tolkien-style writer, spending years creating his own fantasy world in intricate detail and expanding almost endlessly on its history and the stories of key figures and only publishing a tiny amount of the entire saga in his lifetime.
But he (Lewis) did regularly encourage young readers who wanted more Narnia stories, or who wanted to know more about particular characters or happenings, to try writing those stories for themselves. I don't know what he would have thought of fan fic in the modern sense, but he was certainly happy for his readers to use their own imaginations to fill in whatever he hadn't said or hadn't thought of!
So I just remember all this when I'm tempted to be frustrated with the occasional things in the Chronicles of Narnia that aren't exactly how I might prefer them to be, and meanwhile I don't let those minor quibbles detract from my enjoyment of a fantasy series that's been part of my life since I was a young child, one that's come to mean more to me than just about any other fiction I've ever read.
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)
Posted : August 31, 2025 8:27 am
I don't really mind NPCs. I know I'm supposed to see them as a writing flaw, but they don't bug me and I'm through pretending things bug me when they don't. I don't love NPCs or anything, but I don't hate them either. As you say, what's there to hate? (Or love?)
Also, this might be controversial, but Caspian is not obligated to marry anyone to whom he's physically unattracted just as Susan isn't obligated to marry Rabadash and Aravis isn't obligated to marry Ahoshta.
This post was modified 1 hour ago 2 times by Col Klink
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Posted : August 31, 2025 10:06 am
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