I won't argue the fact that there's nothing explicit in the books to say Eustace and Jill would have been romantically involved. That wasn't often in Lewis' purview in the Narniad. I also agree that authors often add romance between characters purely to have romance and not because the character make sense as a couple. However, to return to the topic at hand, I would like to point out that (for Eustace and Jill) their being lifelong friends doesn't preclude any romantic possibilities. In fact, many married couples start out as friends and continue that friendship for many years into their marriage. For a Narnian example of this, see Shasta and Aravis. So, while Lewis doesn't say that Jill and Eustace would have or might have become a romantic couple, he also doesn't completely rule out the possibility (at least not with his comment about their always being friends).

The difference between my opinion and your opinion is that I'm not comparing Eustace and Jill to real life situation. The real life situation doesn't help me because I don't know anyone who has married their childhood sweethearts, i've been best friends with a guy since grade school meaning Kindergarten and he and I never loved each other that way and we still don't.

Back to my point, I see your point of view however since they are not real people I'm going to see and base judgments on how I see them in the book and not think about 'What ifs' when I only see them as friends and just that for life. Girls do need those guy friends that they're just friends with you know.

Fair point, DamselJillPole. I can see how that sort of relationship you had with your friend from Grade School (Primary school as I understand it?) would match something like we learn about Polly and Digory who were friends for life but specifically did not marry.

On the other hand, C.S.Lewis in HHB allowed Aravis and Shasta to first become friends before eventually marrying. By that time they had grown up enough to appreciate each other's friendship and trustworthiness even if they argued still. And I could agree that if Jill and Eustace had been allowed longer to live, they, too, might have eventually developed romantic feelings for each other. The relationship Jill and Eustace had in LB is far different, from the armed truce they had in SC. In Last Battle, Eustace even admires Jill, even gushing to Tirian how skilled she is in finding their way.

Relationships are very vital to the story. Whether that be brother and sister, cousin and cousin, best friends, or husband and wife, interactions between characters are important.

What I do hate is when writers just making characters fall in love just to fall in love. It's very soppy and often detracts from the conflict. If characters do fall in love, it should be for a certain reason. Do they have similar characteristics? Beliefs? Backgrounds?

As said before, this is why I love Narnia. Romance is not a driving part of the plots. I just love it when friends just remain friends, and these friends do not happen to fall in love with the cousins of the friend.

No, and I think that the little C.S.Lewis says about relationships in general goes a long way to explain his views of romance and marriage. The way Aravis and Shasta became friends was in learning to work together as equals, and to start to respect and trust each other as equals. There is something inherently unequal when a girl marries an older man, who might try to dominate her on this ground alone.

This can be the case even if it wasn't a revolting old man like Ahosta, practically buying a young girl like Aravis to own. And when you comment about "writers just making characters fall in love just to fall in love", I am wondering the downside of this sort of phenomenon is what C.S.Lewis is commenting about when he has Susan deluded into almost accepting Rabadash's hand in marriage. There she was, looking at pictures of would be suitors at the end of LWW, then being swayed by flattery and courtesy in Cair Paravel in HHB into visiting Rabadash at Tashbaan.

Rabadash was very much the "tall, dark and handsome" stranger that Susan, as a girl of her age would be led by 'grown-ups' to see as a suitable romantic figure, if she believed the sort of instant, whirlwind romances of WW2 movies and radio serials. But Susan really needed to realise what sort of person Rabadash was when he was at home in Tashbaan, before Edmund could get her to see why she should flee from there ASAP.

I wonder if this is really Susan's problem in LB, that she wanted to forget the lessons of Rabadash when she told Eustace, "fancy your remembering those funny games we played as children". I'm wondering if she represents those who "want to fall in love just for the sake of falling in love", maybe with another stranger like Rabadash, probably someone older than herself, and never mind what the consequences might be if she married for the sake of marrying, perhaps someone whose values, background and characteristics might be wildly different from her own.

waggawerewolf27, Interesting point about Susan and Rabadash. Susan seems to be quite a soft character and when Rabadash was at Cair Paravel he acted very gentlemanly which would make him first choice for any princess. Although there were no comman feelings, I mean they hardly knew each other. It was all very official. I don't know how she could even consider him?

I'm coming in late to the conversation but I would say that the only romance in Narnia that I would approve of is Caspian and Ramandu's Daughter. In a SC film there would have to be a flash back or an intro to the movie that involves the younger years of Caspain and his queen. We need a lead up to the sorrowful moment when she dies, and I don't think the Walden's VDT gave us much to go on.

I don't want a Shasta/Aravis romance for the surprise factor. They bicker so much in the story that them getting married is the last thing you expect, and yet somehow seems to be the only possible way that the story could end. I like how you don't expect it.

There could be a couple pseudo-romances. A film of HHB could show us more of the charming side of Rabadash. Then when we see his true colors the hypocrisy will make him seem all the more dangerous to our heroes. Perhaps the film makers might dare a bit of Rillian/LotGK romance in order to surprise us when we find out she's evil?

I agree with you Movie Aristotle.

I always wonder and worry about how they are going to go about the Caspian/Liliandil relationship in SC, actually most of all with Liliandil. It's a given that Suspian fans will cheer in crowded theaters when she

Spoiler

dies.

However they didn't build up her personality enough in Dawn Treader for people to even like her so to be honest if they don't do this at last minute in SC no one will care and to be honest I probably wont and this makes me sad because I want to feel sorry for these movie characters.

I am hoping to see a marriage and some romantic flashbacks of Caspian and Liliandil.

I agree with you Damsel. When I went to the movie with some friends who hadn't read the book and I told them that actually Caspian and Liliandil get married they were like "What? He hardly even knows her. I thought she was just a side character" it really is sad. Becasue the movie tried to put more romance than in the book, but it truned out to be nothing. Only fans of the book know what's going on. I think they did it more for the fans then for the story.

It's a given that Suspian fans will cheer in crowded theaters when she dies.

Maybe that is the case, but there is a good way to resolve this issue for both sides. A heartbroken Caspian as an old man is no romantic figure at all. And he should die as he lived, faithful to Liliandil and finally relieved to get his missing son back. At the end of SC (book) Jill goes to a party where she wears her Narnian get-up.

What if that party was Susan's engagement party? To a much younger Caspian look-alike perhaps? Someone with whom she has rushed into a 'romance' with, because he seemed someone "suitable", just like Rabadash? Wasn't that sort of scenario hinted at in Lucy's beauty spell in VDT? I can see how on some such occasion that Susan might say things like "fancy you remembering those funny games we played as children", that she would be too busy with wedding plans and socialising to give Jill the time of day, that she would be too happy flashing around her gorgeous engagement ring to be interested in meetings to discuss Narnia, and that Polly Plummer, if she was there, would have some grounds for her LB comments?

A thought's just struck me: we tend to assume, from the way Eustace, Jill and Polly described it, that Susan's rejection of Narnia was entirely her free choice and therefore her own fault. But what if it was due, in part, to her feeling pressure from those around her to act in a way that they considered to be "sensible" and "grown-up"? She might have secretly wanted to join in the Narnian "games", but didn't want to be seen to be acting in a way that the people she wanted to impress would consider childish; just as in PC, while they were making their way to Aslan's How, she wanted to believe Aslan had appeared to Lucy but wouldn't let herself. Susan always appeared to be more sensitive to what other people thought about her (or what she thought other people thought).

Yes you are right. We were watching a program which roughly covered Uk in the 20th century from 1901 to 1979, that is to say, between the death of Queen Victoria and the election of Margaret Thatcher. This 5 part BBC series, called Turn Back time, and set in Morecombe in Northern England, showed how families behaved to each other and to their neighbours according to class, income, position in the family, and type of occupation and how this all gradually changed as a result of first WW1, the Depression, WW2, the swinging sixties, and lastly the difficulties UK was having during the 1970's.

Of course Susan would feel pressured by what 'grown ups' thought of her, as she had always been, & what was considered usual, strange and scandalous in 1949 when Narnia finished, or even a couple of years earlier. In the pre-war age, there were plenty of references to 'romance', but royalty, in particular, was expected to marry someone who was considered 'suitable' to their station. Even back in UK it would be still little different about what was considered 'respectable' for everyone, despite the changes the WW2 was making to how people related to each other. Thus, I couldn't see her wanting to discuss Rabadash, Tashbaan, the Narnia romp or even Caspian with any of the seven friends of Narnia in front of anyone else in her life at that time, let alone a new fiance, or, worse still, his people. It wouldn't be 'respectabiggle' now would it?

And I expect she wouldn't want to let on that at one stage she thought Lucy was going mad, or that despite being Queen in Narnia, she was really still a frightened child at heart, even when she liked to pretend otherwise. My point is that in Narnia Susan had some difficulty in facing the possibility that someone who had the rank of the Crown Prince in Calormen could be so unsuitable in character, when character analysis, even perhaps her own, was clearly not something that Susan was really good at. And that whether one lived in Narnia or UK handsome still is as handsome does.

I also guess that Polly saw through her. And that if Susan really wanted to get married, because it was the 'done thing', she would find herself in quite a predicament at some stage or other in her life when she would be forced to 'come clean' about these Narnian adventures and what they should have taught her about trusting the wrong people and the wrong sets of values, among other things. Of course Susan is only a fictitional character, but what would happen if she talked in her sleep for example? Or let something drop when she couldn't have avoided it?

I like the pairing of Shasta and Aravis, but of course, that's because it is actually book canon. I wouldn't want to see very much actual romance in a movie adaptation of HHB, though. It's been done enough times. It's expected to happen, and it's cliché. It would be very neat, in my opinion, if the filmmakers could come up with something unexpected. Shasta and Aravis don't even like each other at first -- I don't see any grounds for romantic scenes between them (at least not until a lot closer to the end of the story!). Why should they like each other? Aravis is of a high lineage; and for all she and Shasta know, he's merely a peasant. I would like to see a fair amount of rivalry going on between them -- as long as it's not the rivalry that comes out of having a secret crush on someone. (Plenty of rivalry, bickering, etc. goes on between them, Bree, and Hwin in the book.)

waggawerewolf27, Interesting point about Susan and Rabadash. Susan seems to be quite a soft character and when Rabadash was at Cair Paravel he acted very gentlemanly which would make him first choice for any princess. Although there were no comman feelings, I mean they hardly knew each other. It was all very official. I don't know how she could even consider him?

In histories and fictional stories, it's a common thing for people of royalty to marry each other even if not for the purpose of love. I imagine an alliance between Narnia and Calormen (due to the marriage of Narnia's queen to Calormen's crown prince) could be greatly beneficial to both countries. This would explain why a marriage was being considered between the two in the first place.

Although now that I think of it, it seems that it would be odd for Narnia to want any sort of alliance with Calormen. Unfortunately I haven't read the book in too long to be able to recall exactly what Peter and Edmund thought about the whole arrangement. It seems to me they ought to disapprove of the idea, being that Calormen is essentially an enemy country and worships the god Tash? Surely Peter and Edmund wouldn't want Susan to end up in that sort of environment.

I always wonder and worry about how they are going to go about the Caspian/Liliandil relationship in SC, actually most of all with Liliandil. It's a given that Suspian fans will cheer in crowded theaters when she

Spoiler

dies.

However they didn't build up her personality enough in Dawn Treader for people to even like her so to be honest if they don't do this at last minute in SC no one will care and to be honest I probably wont and this makes me sad because I want to feel sorry for these movie characters.

I am hoping to see a marriage and some romantic flashbacks of Caspian and Liliandil.

Spoiler

Or even have Liliandil with Aslan after Caspian dies and we can see them reunite in Aslan's Country.

I think the idea of flashbacks of Caspian and Lilliandil (for a movie adaptation of SC) would be absolutely perfect. VDT was way too rushed of a movie as a whole. (I was disappointed with the ending in that it didn't show or give any sort of teasers as to what happened to Caspian after the Pevensies and Eustace returned to England. Even if the filmmakers hadn't wanted to go too heavy on the romance, I believe some sort of foreshadowing with Lilliandil would have been very much appropriate.

As it is, I think flashbacks in SC is a very good idea. There is the part of the book where the Owls have to fill Eustace and Jill in on Caspian and Rilian's entire story. In the book, C.S. Lewis essentially uses the same style of flashing back to previous events as he uses in Prince Caspian when Trumpkin is telling the Pevensies about Caspian. The 2008 movie adaptation of PC didn't use flashbacks; rather, it showed things as they happened. I believe it would be really neat to see the same sort of thing happen in a movie adaptation of SC.

However, we are all forgetting the most important thing: in LB, Jill is said to have "fallen in love" with Jewel. What do we make of that?

That is why I do not understand why people pair Jill with anybody. Lewis clearly states that Jill has "fallen in love" with Jewel so why pair her with anybody else? She would be much too busy thinking about Jewel to think about anybody else.

I'm coming in late to the conversation but I would say that the only romance in Narnia that I would approve of is Caspian and Ramandu's Daughter.

Exactly. Added romance is NOT necessary. Stick with canon. Romance is not required to make a good story or a good movie. I do like the idea of pseudo-romances for Susan and Rabadash and possible LotGK and Rillian ( a small one in both cases).

I don't want a Shasta/Aravis romance for the surprise factor. They bicker so much in the story that them getting married is the last thing you expect, and yet somehow seems to be the only possible way that the story could end. I like how you don't expect it.

I completely agree. I don't want Shasta and/or Aravis clearly having romantic feelings. They're early teens at the latest. I love the way Lewis ends it with them getting married. I hope they can figure out a way to work this line into the movie.

Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.

There could be a couple pseudo-romances. A film of HHB could show us more of the charming side of Rabadash. Then when we see his true colors the hypocrisy will make him seem all the more dangerous to our heroes.

Precisely. I'd also want to see what is meant by calling Susan, Susan the Gentle. Surely she would be turned off by someone like Rabadash, who treated his underlings cruelly and thoughtlessly. Surely she would have been taken to the temple of Tash to see what might go on there, and surely she could not help but notice how aggressively and arrogantly he might be starting to behave towards her and her entourage, perhaps.

In histories and fictional stories, it's a common thing for people of royalty to marry each other even if not for the purpose of love. I imagine an alliance between Narnia and Calormen (due to the marriage of Narnia's queen to Calormen's crown prince) could be greatly beneficial to both countries. This would explain why a marriage was being considered between the two in the first place.

Yes, and there are often repercussions in such arranged marriages, even if the couple managed to fall in love, anyway. Marie Antoinette wasn't just hated in France because she was the extravagant wife of an incompetent king. She was also a hated foreign princess whose country of birth opposed France. And other couples were often desperately unhappy, however well their marriages served national purposes.

I agree that Rabadash and Susan being married might have been beneficial to both countries, but rather more beneficial to Calormen and the Tisroc than it would be to Narnia. However, I doubt that Peter or Edmund would try to tell Susan how to live her life and whom she was to marry.

Although now that I think of it, it seems that it would be odd for Narnia to want any sort of alliance with Calormen. Unfortunately I haven't read the book in too long to be able to recall exactly what Peter and Edmund thought about the whole arrangement. It seems to me they ought to disapprove of the idea, being that Calormen is essentially an enemy country and worships the god Tash? Surely Peter and Edmund wouldn't want Susan to end up in that sort of environment.

Peter put on entertainment albeit of a military nature, to keep Rabadash and his entourage amused whilst Edmund later hinted that he didn't think much of Rabadash, who seemed to think his marrying Susan was a foregone conclusion once she arrived in Tashbaan, with Edmund escorting her. I expect both Peter and Edmund wanted to hear what Rabadash had to say and what was in it for him. Rabadash's reaction to their leaving told them all they needed to know, as well as what Aravis could tell them later on.

I'm not sure that Jill falling in love with Jewel would stop her falling in love with other people. I've fallen in love with my cats but don't necessarily stop loving my family.

Although now that I think of it, it seems that it would be odd for Narnia to want any sort of alliance with Calormen. Unfortunately I haven't read the book in too long to be able to recall exactly what Peter and Edmund thought about the whole arrangement. It seems to me they ought to disapprove of the idea, being that Calormen is essentially an enemy country and worships the god Tash? Surely Peter and Edmund wouldn't want Susan to end up in that sort of environment.

I know what you mean, and I was thinking about it recently and from what we see Susan is a soft person. She might have at first seen Rabadash and fairly liked him, but then when she saw the true him she realised that she didn't want to be his wife, but she didn't want to say no, not to offend him or whatever. And Peter and Edmund probably didn't like the engagement at all, but they just wanted their sister to be happy. Because if she did actually love him and they would forbid any such alliance, it would be very cruel to her. That is why they visited Caloremen to see if they should make such an alliance or not.

I wouldn't put Jewel in quite the same category as a pet. He's an accomplished warrior. Another spin on the idea would be to say that their relationship was that of a knight and his lady. Just think of all the epic Narnian poetry that could have resulted!

(Jill also states that she 'loves disguises'. Methinks she might be a touch unreliable in her use of the word 'love'. )