@thef-maria  (Quote 1) Cool, I mean that's literally all she does her whole life, she grew in this island and welcomed visitors.

(Quote 2) My main problem which I failed to state was the idolized barbie doll role she has that only exists for admiration.

Lilliandil, according to Wikipedia, & which I have linked to, was supposed to be Narnia's answer to Tolkien's Luthien, and needed to look a bit elvish and somewhat ethereal, it would seem. Played by Australian actress, Laura Brent, she was nevertheless a minor character. Apparently, according that article I linked to, Caspian returns to Narnia, then goes back to collect Lilliandil, three years later, when they finally marry. I find that info to be a new twist to what we know already, which I agree isn't much. 

As for "welcoming visitors", that task has been the backbone of whole industries, like Hospitality, Event Management, Transport, Tourism and Diplomacy in the real world. Customer service personnel. like my daughter, working on the light rail, work very hard, shepherding passengers around to their destinations, including "en masse" to events like the Ashes (cricket), concerts, horse racing and more, mostly to get people to avoid accidents as well as getting round any other hitches. And also, to Hannukah-on-the-sea at Bondi last Sunday week. For a new twist to the next time, if ever, VDT is filmed, I wouldn't have minded seeing Lilliandil played by someone with a more Aboriginal vibe, with didgeridoo tones, a sort of ageless, ancient and present being, in tune with nature, very knowledgeable in lore and guardianship.   

I daresay after 10 years of waiting, Ramandu's Daughter was really expecting Caspian & his entourage to turn up on account of his quest & would have been glad to see him finally turn up. At least there was food prepared for their arrival, and yes, like a good tour guide she told them what they needed to know. Too bad there were no hotel beds on land & yet the brawling threesome from a decade or so were still snoozing at that table. There are other meetings & greetings throughout VDT: 1. The Lone Islands encounter with Pug and his pirates; the nightmarish landings on Dragon Island, Deathwater Island, and of course, Dark Island, which accounts for 3 of the missing lords. What about Caspian's "welcome" from the Dufflepuds, and from Aslan, himself at the end of the World?

Actually, I loved the way that Ramandu's Island scenery was done, on Queensland's Mount Tambourine, with the eucalyptus vegetation surrounding Aslan's table. And reading about how Rillian's parents met there allows a comparison between how he met the Lady of the Green Kirtle, also without a name or really much of a background. Remember some years ago how we, NarniaWebbers, tried to find a name for this Queen of the Underworld? And surmised that LOTGK was the flip side of Lilliandil? 

@waggawerewolf27 I haven't been in NarniaWeb since last year so didn't really catch that.

But yeah, her main job has always been to welcome visitors. Which brings me back to stating that she didn't have much life experience to suddenly be given the title of queen and have the responsibility for the Narnian people. But I said all these in another post so I won't rant about it here again. 

Posted by: @thef-maria

But yeah, her main job has always been to welcome visitors. Which brings me back to stating that she didn't have much life experience to suddenly be given the title of queen and have the responsibility for the Narnian people.

The thing is, though, we are never told anything about Ramandu's daughter's background. How do we know she has always lived on that particular island and has only ever had the job of welcoming visitors there and has never had any life experience anywhere else? We don't.

Her father has presumably been on the island ever since he grew too old to be an active star, and this is where he has been sent to grow young again, fire-berry by fire-berry. But we are never told anything at all about who his wife, his daughter's mother, is or was. Was she a star too, or human, or another kind of being entirely? We just don't know.

And we don't know where their daughter was born, or what her childhood was like. How do we know she didn't live somewhere else, with her mother, before choosing to join her father on his island? Maybe she only arrived there after the three Narnian lords got there and had their quarrel and touched the Stone Knife and fell into their enchanted sleep, and perhaps at that point Ramandu realised he'd better have somebody else with him to keep an eye on things? (Please let me know if there's anything in the book that contradicts this — I'm writing on the fly here and don't have much time at the moment.) 

And meanwhile, what if her mother was or is Queen of another land (or world) that we haven't heard about, and she, the daughter, lived there and played some role in governing that place before she went to her father's island, for whatever reasons she did? There is so much we're not told, which means there is so much scope for people with a bit of imagination to add to and expand on Ramandu's daughter's story without needing to change what we know about her canonically. 

Which is why I find it sad that there's obviously a subset of fans who write her off completely as an "idolised Barbie doll" and a useless, characterless "blondie", and fantasise about Caspian finding someone (they think is) more appropriate, instead of thinking beyond what the text tells us and realising there's actually plenty of potential for Ramandu's daughter to be and to do far more than the little we officially know. 

At this point you must've been tired of my rants and at this point I have nothing left to say. But I will try to at the very least explain my point of view because clearly I don't think you understand it. Not just about the Narnian series but as a person and a writer. I have high expectations for GOOD stories and good characters in books. That's it. Caspian is my favorite character and he deserved an actual character for a queen, not an NPC. I don't mind minor romances like Frank and Helen because indeed we get no context from BOTH of them.

Posted by: @courtenay

Which is why I find it sad that there's obviously a subset of fans who write her off completely as an "idolised Barbie doll" and a useless, characterless "blondie", and fantasise about Caspian finding someone (they think is) more appropriate, instead of thinking beyond what the text tells us and realising there's actually plenty of potential for Ramandu's daughter to be and to do far more than the little we officially know. 

@courtenay As I said it isn't appropriate and wasn't from my side to label Lilliandil as "blonde". In no way that should define a woman and I realized it was wrong... I thought we were through that. I don't like her because of the idolization NOT her blonde hair! My fav disney princess is Rapunzel.

BUT that doesn't mean she is the perfect queen for Caspian. I can argue the opposite. In fact I can right now come up in 10 minutes with 30 different ocs, made queens for Caspian that can work for Caspian and actually complete and challenge his story. And I mean characters not idols. Even if people don't want to admit it Lilliandil Is an idol because her only description is being beautiful and kind. Is that bad? No. Is that fitful for a flawed, structured character like Caspian? No. I indeed think there could be so many characters more appropriate for Caspian. I don't know why I am forced to imagine him only with Ramandu's Daughter. Well I did in my story but it was plot armor. My character grew along with it. 

Objectively, a character with no name, no backstory, no personality or arc IS an npc. A character whose arc is centered around her beauty IS an idol. It's like when you see a lady in the reception of a hotel and notice she's gorgeous. You. haven't seen her. Will you marry her? I don't think so. She's meant to be an NPC, an idolized barbie doll tossed to a very well written character, some people agree with me and some don't, both are okay. I don't even mind NPCs or barbie dolls, I have been watching barbie as a kid and I play video games now that I love to look into the lore and the npc that can align with the story. But in video games you don't just marry random merchants to the main character. 

For example in the Horse and his boy we get enough context both for Aravis and Cor and THAT is what makes them a good couple. As a disney fellow fan I always adored Rapunzel and Eugene as a couple because we actually SEE their time together, their growth and all! In Sleeping Beauty, what context do we have? Phillip comes to the woods, sees that Aurora is pretty, marries her. That's all. Yes we could imagine that Phillip and her had more time together but THEY DON'T. He literally says that he found the girl he will marry and said "I don't know who she was, probably a pauper!". That's what's happening here and it's involving a well written character. 

In the Frozen movie there is a reason why it stigmatizes Anna's sudden enthusiasm and impulsiveness, thinking the handsome and charming Hans was her "true love" and it's watched by 4 year olds. In the "Witcher", Geralt of Rivia loves a woman, Yennefer and we know her character and her story so the reader can picture them together since they do know BOTH characters... I hope this helps. 

Posted by: @courtenay

The thing is, though, we are never told anything about Ramandu's daughter's background. How do we know she has always lived on that particular island and has only ever had the job of welcoming visitors there and has never had any life experience anywhere else? We don't.

I have stated many times that INDEED we don't know much about her BUT we do know many things about Caspian and we have two boys focused on his growth, then his love story was three pages... Lewis didn't want romance I get it so why add it? We had Aravis and Cor it was enough, it satisfies us, Rillian had his entire arc fulfilled and we do know he loved his mother and that's another whole thing but I can't really see a couple together when they only have three pages. And then they marry the second time they meet. I don't like this, it's my opinion. 

I hope those can have you understand my point of view and to understand also that I have NOTHING against blonde women. If there's anything else please message me because this topic is getting very long.

@thef-maria I wonder if you're forgetting that the book implies Caspian and Ramandu's daughter conversing offstage, as it were.

"Lady," said Caspian, "I hope to speak with you again when I have broken the enchantments." And Ramandu's daughter looked at him and smiled.

Readers can always imagine they got to know each other really well when that happened, not to mention afterwards. 

To be honest, I think Caspian and RD's romance is probably closer to most successful marriages than Shasta and Aravis's, even though I'm more of a fan of the latter as characters.  I know that dramatic convention, especially nowadays, dictates that lovers start out hating each other, either for good reasons or due to misunderstanding, but how many of us actually hated our spouses when we first met them? I bet most of us started by finding them physically attractive just like Caspian and Ramandu's daughter found each other. Of course, that by itself doesn't equal a long lasting, successful relationship. But that's how they generally start. To quote Victor Hugo,

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only

(If I remember the movie Tangled correctly, the romantic leads are also implied to be physically attracted to each other on the first view, or physically intrigued anyway, however much their romance depends on what comes afterward.) 

@col-klink

Posted by: @col-klink

Readers can always imagine they got to know each other really well when that happened, not to mention afterwards. 

I think it was implied that Caspian had Lilliandil come with him and marry him in Narnia the second time he got to Ramandu's island, to get the sleeping lords back. Which again - why come with a man you barely know? Probably wanted to travel a bit and then they got smitten and probably then they had the real thing. Idk. 

Well, my point of viewing different on that matter and I think that everyone can view this romance the way they can. As I have stated many many many times I wouldn't really care if she was simply married to a minor character butte is married to a character who has been developed in 2 books. That's what's bothering me. That Caspian's story ends up with that kind of romance. He should have, in my opinion, an actual and compelling romance, a real character for a queen that has taken an actual part of his story. 

I don't know if you have seen an example with the restaurant reference but it does explain what I believe about all of this. 

Posted by: @thef-maria

@waggawerewolf27 I haven't been in NarniaWeb since last year so didn't really catch that.

But yeah, her main job has always been to welcome visitors. Which brings me back to stating that she didn't have much life experience to suddenly be given the title of queen and have the responsibility for the Narnian people. But I said all these in another post so I won't rant about it here again. 

No, you haven't been in NarniaWeb prior to last year, so it is my fault for not mentioning that the discussions about LOTGK were from after VDT's release in 2010, & long before the present website was updated to what it is today, 15 years later, so I do beg your pardon.    However, to discuss Ramandu's Daughter, it wouldn't be a bad idea to discuss LOTGK, also, and exactly why this Snake Woman would want to kill "Lilliandil"? Co-incidence, isn't it, that neither Ramandu's daughter nor LOTGK were given names, and I wonder why? And though I can argue that "Lilliandil" was only a minor character, LOTG was definitely a major character in The Silver Chair, as the main antagonist always is. Thwarted love or ambition are both possible motives for Lilliandil's poisoning. 

@thef-maria I think it was implied that Caspian had Lilliandil come with him and marry him in Narnia the second time he got to Ramandu's island, to get the sleeping lords back.

Yes, that is how both BBC & Walden VDT understood how matters stood. But the book and C.S. Lewis' intentions, according to the Wikipedia page I linked to, tends to see things differently, which I have quoted below, as well as saying "Caspian X makes a promise to her before departing that he will break the curse. He returns to Ramandu's Island three years after the end of his voyage, and marries Ramandu's daughter"

Wikipedia [also] states: According to Lewis scholar Paul F. Ford, Lewis created the character of Ramandu's daughter having been inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth elves, specifically Lúthien and Arwen. Ramandu's daughter has also been compared to the angelic entities known as Maiar, also featured in Tolkien's novels. Douglas Gresham, Lewis' step-son, created the name Lilliandil for the 2010 film version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

There is really a lot to "welcoming visitors", ranging from going around with a megaphone, to tell passengers to stay well back from the edge of the platform or "to get off the tram lines", to keeping a "welcomer" at shop front doors to prevent shoplifters etc. On a grander scale, the late Queen Elizabeth II gave state banquets for both kings & overseas presidents & their entourages, including President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China in 2015, and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe in 1994. One could almost say Queen Elizabeth II spent 70 years "welcoming visitors" as a crucial part of her career of service for the British nation, on behalf of the British Government. And it was she who also introduced garden parties to get to meet & greet her people. 

When Charles III, the Monarch who makes us a Constitutional Monarchy, visited Australia's parliament in October of 2024, as part of his reception, he did duly receive what he, himself, considered a lovely traditional "Welcome to Country" performed by Aunty Violet Sheridan, a Ngunnawal Elder. But after his speech, Charles was heckled by Aboriginal Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe, who shouted "you are not my king" and "this is not your land". And so, the Ngunnawal Elder labelled Thorpe's comments as "disrespectful" at the very least. But the Senator still survives in Parliament, to represent her people, according to her point of view.

Today, at church, we were told how the protocol for humble people meeting the Bhutanese King, respected, & even revered as a sacred figure, involved following certain rules, including not speaking until the king asks them to, and not looking the king directly in the face. Such rules or worse, have often been expected elsewhere, and conspicuously so, in the Tisroc's court in Tashbaan. Caspian X, by contrast, was a much friendlier & humbler king. You say that his character is developed over 2 books, PC & VDT, but really, it is more like 3 books, including The Silver Chair, where he mourns Lilliandil and the loss of his son, Rillian, who vanished. 

@col-klink To be honest, I think Caspian and RD's romance is probably closer to most successful marriages than Shasta and Aravis's, even though I'm more of a fan of the latter as characters. 

Was the exchange you mention from the book also in Walden's movie? Perhaps not, which would have been a pity. Another thing, perhaps this subtly promising encounter should also be compared to Rillian's encounter with LOTGK in a Narnian forest glade, & witnessed by Lord Drinian. 

Merry Christmas, everyone.  

@waggawerewolf27 I never really said that welcoming visitors isn't important. And never implied she didn't do anything important in her early life BUT that doesn't mean she has enough life experience to become a queen and a partner for a very detailed and interested character like Caspian and that this is decided the second time they meet. That's what I'm saying.

If you remember or saw an argument with going to a fancy restaurant and you eat a bon fillet but then you are served a candy bar from Walmart? That's how this felt to me. Is it just me? Not really. Does it matter much in the whole series? No.

Like a lot of stories, the things you are missing happen 'offstage', because Lewis didn't write love scenes in his books for children. 

If you'd magically had the chance to ask him, I'm sure he would have told you that those things did happen and that he chose to leave them out of his book.

He wrote some rather old fashioned and formal words between them, in the same style as the ones Reepicheep spoke. But the private words, like the ones which he sometimes had the Pevensies whisper to each other, are not recorded, and we are not meant to know them.  We can only guess.

Another member has mentioned the later meetings between Caspian and this lady,  and it is understood that they had private conversations where they agreed to marry. 

@coracle I have understood the whole concept of "off stage" and I do agree but what I am insisting on bothering me as a person is that Caspian's story is centered all around his growth, his adventure, his struggles and friendships and the challenges he had to endure. He has learned so much, he is a very good natured character that essentially he deserves a good structured romance and a partner that challenges his feelings and isn't there just because of idolization which as a person I really hate in storytelling. That is what bothers me. Caspian is a character. Lilliandil is an idol. At the very least she could display some personality but she doesn't. Caspian's entire arc shows us to have courage, to have mercy and compassion, we have literally seen his entire life and then the romance was like "Hello princess you're beautiful!". And Lewis not intending romance? Good. Understandable and respectable but at least not involve it at all. Ramandu would be far enough and he's an entire different character himself. There could never be a minor mention of her in the end. 

And that is all according to my own eyes and own world view. In the 50's this female perfection of the pure and kind girl was romanticized and now it is fading. Narnia thankfully stands out still for the important messages but this in my opinion, this "love story" reaches the very few cons. As a person, I don't like idols at all. I like characters. And I love Caspian as a character. He deserved a good love story which if we don't have we can only speculate. All of this doesn't come from just the story, it just means that my own eyes, I highly dislike idols that are centered around their perfection I always hated Sleeping Beauty as a kid and Lilliandil is actually just that - a sleeping beauty. The perfect girl who is adored when she doesn't do anything special (that we know of) but be pretty, is a type of character I personally dislike and when I see them with an important well structured character it bothers me. I do know there is much off stage but this immediate "Kiss the princess" just looks lame in my eyes.

I honestly don't know why I have to keep explaining this. I think I have already said enough and I don't know how to explain better. Long story short, Ramandu's Daughter is exactly the type of character I dislike and she is too underdeveloped for a character so important as Caspian. I honestly like fans considering other queens for him including Susan. I want to stigmatize this type of characters in my stories. And none of what I say is targeted against anyone personally. 

@thef-maria thank you, I was only hoping you could see my point of view too (as someone who was majoring in English Literature at University 50 years ago when I read the books, and had read lots of modern books as well as older ones).

Of course we don't have to agree with each other on everything.  And yes there is a big difference between your generation and mine (a baby boomer), and I was familiar with traditional fairy tales from childhood, while you have had 50 years of films and TV that show a variety of experiences and relationships. But I'm glad you are so enthusiastic about the other characters and stories. No more comments.  

@coracle I don’t think it’s only about our generations. As a person I happened to grow specifically with the newer Disney films and the most "dynamic" characters. 

Esmeralda, Jasmine, Rapunzel, Merida, Mulan and Tiana are all at least somewhat in healthy romantic relationships and they’re no hard core warriors BUT they take active decisions in their story and they DON’T marry someone they just met or at least they get through a real adventure.

When saw Sleeping Beauty and saw what she had with Prince Phillip I immediately hated it. Because that’s exactly what happened in Narnia too… 

At least we have Suspian and fanfics which aren’t canon but they’re a comfort zone. 

Posted by: @thef-maria

@coracle I don’t think it’s only about our generations. As a person I happened to grow specifically with the newer Disney films and the most "dynamic" characters. 

Yes, I'd love to have seen them as a child too.

But I couldn't because those films hadn't been made! In my generation I grew up with much of the same things as children from the 1900s to 1950s. That included what Lewis read. So his stories for children fitted my world view. 

  @coracle To be honest, I think Caspian and RD's romance is probably closer to most successful marriages than Shasta and Aravis's, even though I'm more of a fan of the latter as characters.

Sorry, coracle, but in this most enjoyable debate & discussion that we have all been having over Lilliandil, I beg to differ, probably agreeing more with @thef-maria that like most human endeavours, a successful marriage can't really be judged as such, until it reaches the finishing line, whether it is by death or whether by divorce. Agreeing with @coracle, that much of the action was off-stage, we only learn that the marriage finished prematurely, when LOTGK killed Ramandu's Daughter (or Lilliandil), leaving Caspian grieving for her loss. And when his son Rillian was far more obsessed with finding the snake who killed his mother, Caspian was robbed of his son's help as well. On the other hand, who was LOTGK? Why did she kill Caspian's Queen? Why did she think she'd be a good queen for Rillian?  

In the marriage service we make certain promises: For richer, for poorer; for better, for worse; in sickness and in health, until death do us part.  Shasta & Aravis' relationship shows just how important it is to keep learning how to manage inevitable disagreements, not letting issues slide under the carpet, festering, rankling, unchallenged & unresolved, & for both to be true to each other. It also shows the value of their being of similar ages, and their ability to work as a team, to achieve their goals. It would have been a tragedy for Aravis to be forced to marry that ghastly Vizier, so many years older than herself, no matter how important he grew to be in Calormen.    It would have been a tragedy for Shasta to become Anradin's slave, let alone remain as Arsheesh's drudge, when he was capable of much better ways of living his life. Marriage is the longest conversation one ever is likely to have with a partner, & Shasta & Aravis were basically on the same page with their values. 

@thef-maria As a person, I don't like idols at all. I like characters. And I love Caspian as a character. He deserved a good love story which if we don't have we can only speculate. All of this doesn't come from just the story, it just means that my own eyes, I highly dislike idols that are centered around their perfection.... The perfect girl who is adored when she doesn't do anything special (that we know of) but be pretty, is a type of character I personally dislike

In other words, you dislike stereotypes, seeing them as one-dimensional, especially Sleeping Beauty, I notice. And fair enough, when nobody is perfect, even those who seem to pretend otherwise. C.S. Lewis originally wanted to end the series with Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which would have justified the stereotyped "happily ever after" - my grizzle about old traditional fairy tales, seeing it as a cop-out. But four more Narnia books were produced by 1956, so when C.S. Lewis had no further use for such a minor character, he had to make sure the Narnian Sleeping Beauty went on sleeping permanently. I wonder if her snoring was too much of a bother? And I also wonder if your dislike of Sleeping Beauty justifies LOTGK murdering said Sleeping Beauty, snoozing happily away, hypothetical stereotype though she might be? And who is LOTGK, anyway? Any relation to Jadis, the White Witch?

In the 50's this female perfection of the pure and kind girl was romanticized and now it is fading.

Yes, it was a 1950's trope when we finally got to see TV shows, in 1956, in the same year that actress Grace Kelly married Monegasque Prince Rainier. To some extent, this seemingly bridal image of female perfection remained as a stereotype, through to the 1980's, when the then Prince of Wales married someone who seemed a similarly ideally pure & kind "Princess of Wales" to many, especially journalists in the Media . When both marriages ended unhappily in reality, it is surely time to get rid of such one-dimensional stereotypical "fairytale" expectations of women even in art. 

VDT is one of my favorite books, but I definitely think that Lilliandil could use a lot more characterization. What I would like to see future adaptations do is either introduce her much earlier in the story so that we can get to know her better, and any romance with Caspian would feel more natural, or just introduce a completely new character to be Caspian's love interest, and keep Lilliandil's  role limited to welcoming them at Aslan's table, which wouldn't be a very big change in the overall narrative.