How is it a shame that human life is considered more sacred than an animal's? If you're a Christian, you recognise humans are made in God's image and therefore are extremely special. If you're not a Christian, you can at least recognise humans are different to animals. Otherwise, this is the sort of thinking that encourages ridiculous PETA philosophies. Ugh.

Wow, talk about absolutes Humans ARE animals. One primary difference is that humans place themselves as superior to all life and have a nasty habit of destroying things rather than trying to live in harmony with them. This of course extends to other humans. So what of humans killing one another? If they are not Christians perhaps it is ok? Is it all a matter of degrees?

FYI, I consider myself Christian. However I am also a biologist. I like to vary my ethics when new scientific facts come to light, and as we now have much more knowledge about other animals (their cognitive abilities, the fact they feel pain and suffering, etc) than early Christians did, I don't feel the need to hang on to those previous beliefs. I believe all beings are sacred. I see the beauty of God in all the animals I work with and study. As for lumping together anyone who disagrees with you into an extremist movement like PETA, I can only laugh.

The Narnia books helped cement my Christian beliefs, and give me hope that some people can see other life forms as being just as worthy as our own. Tolerance is a key theme throughout (although Susan may wish to disagree!). Sadly it is lacking even amongst Narnia lovers.

To bring this back on topic, I believe it was self defense, and I don't think the scene lingered on the violence like so many did in PC.

Um...Wow. Cool down, peoples.

I believe it was self-defence. I don't know if any of you have ever been assaulted or sold into any kind of slavery, but...well, just know that if a man comes at you or any of your friends, in the dark, with a large weapon, while screaming, you don't just stand there. You kill him. Think about this before passing quick judgment, if you haven't been there.

Some of us are Christians; some aren't. I'm not going to try to use the Christian arguments for this. It's just common sense to me. If it's not to you, you may need to move to someplace where there are no dangerous people (good luck with that).

And P.S. I think that in Narnia, the lives of intelligent beasts are all considered equal. Animals=humans. Though it's a different story in this world, for obvious reasons.

The way I see it, instead of showing this scene how it was in the book, they went with film status quo. Its this type of thing that kept VDT from being a candidate for most awards. I consider it self-defense how Caspian reacted at this point. But plotwise, the slave trader's death was gratuitous. I would argue that it was reasonable of the character Caspian to defend himself when attacked but it was unethical of the film makers (although commonly done) to include a death at this point in the film because it wasn't necessary in anyway to move the plot forward. Showing someone die without it meaning much is done too often and I worry that it desensitizes people. It would have been more appropriate to show a minor scuffle (with no deaths) when they are first captured unless they went even closer off the book and had them first hailed as friends and even then I think the BBC film showed them resisting some when they were being captured.

Prior to my first viewing, the Felimuth/Narrowhaven sequence was one of the scenes I was most looking forward to seeing. After watching, I was disappointed. Its not that it is any worse than most movies. Many movies, tv shows, and video games have main characters casually killing baddies who attack them. Its just that they missed the chance to show something different and philosophically better. In a movie based on C.S. Lewis books, I expect to see something that rises above the status quo. And in this sequence they failed to do that. They could have shown a peaceful resistance of slavery, oppression, and bureacracy carried out in a clever / (and I agree with the first poster) humorous way. Overthrowing Governor Gumpas would have worked well visually. Having them handle their capture with violence has the movie contradicting itself. Later in the movie Lilliandil says, "violence is forbidden at Aslan's Table" and Reepicheep when leaving for Aslan's country leaves his sword behind. And that's all fine, but its too little too late. We have already seen them handle conflicts with violence. How much better would the anti-violence rhetoric at the end of the movie been if it could have supplemented that with showing Caspian et al. handling their own captivity/slavery in an effective, nonviolent manner?

This would've been a graet scen for Eustace to say, "I hope he wasn't the British Consul." If he wasn't captured, that is.

Personally, I think Caspian took a reasonable action. Why else would people swing down on ropes toward you, other than attck you?

I too just think Caspian was defending himself. Not going to lie, I would have probably done the exact same thing.

The protagonists of LWW killed a great many creatures, but never once did they kill any other humans. The general Christian belief seems to be that the killing of a human is a much greater evil than killing a random creature.

Sorry, but this is certainly not my belief.

I couldn't agree more! Everything should be equal!

As far as the killing scene goes, it didn't occur to me that this was a problem, I see no reason why people would suddenly slide down ropes in a sinister hall shouting and brandishing swords if their intention was not to injur or kill you, so Caspian did what I'm sure a lot of people would do, and protected himself and the others! Of course we filnd out later that they were being captured not killed so the death was not necessary but there was a lot of violence/holding of swords or daggers to throats/ general evilness so self defence clearly was needed!
I didn't think anything of this untill I read these posts, I can see why others thought it wasn't necassary but to be honnest I've seen worse! I think the think that has shaken me best out of all 3 films was when in LWW the White Whitch turns a flying bird thing into stone and it crashes to the ground and smashes, taking out other people...THAT was scary

So I guess everyone feels Caspian would have been justified in shooting Peter when he lunged out at the minotaur with his sword in PC?

Well, yes, Caspian would be justified in shooting Peter, don't you think? The Minotaur was an Old Narnian, and as such was a worthy and loyal member of Caspian's army. And yes, Caspian has a duty of care to his army and its members, including the Minotaur. That includes saving their lives if necessary, and if he can.

Armies aren't just cannon fodder, whatever some WW2 leaders and the likes of Miraz might have thought. Peter might have very well felt justified in attacking the Minotaur, since in days gone by, Minotaurs were firmly in the White Witch's camp. But that was then, in LWW, and in PC, this is now. This is one of the main points of Prince Caspian in both book and film, that it doesn't do to linger on past memories, that after time, even the very countryside changes, and old enemies might be new and loyal friends. Well some of them, at any rate, and it is very easy for even experienced people to lose their way and misjudge what fight to pick.

Perhaps it is just as well that in PC the film that Lucy, or whoever it was, intervened at that point? Imagine the outcry if Peter had got killed in film Prince Caspian.

And since I am not supposed to take Bookwyrm's bait to go off topic, I will then assert that in VDT the same principle applied as it did in PC. That King Caspian as the undoubted leader of the expedition, had a duty of care to protect his companions against people armed to the teeth and swinging on ropes to ambush them all.

It seems to me that if someone comes at you shouting and waving a sword, whoever they are, I don't think you want to stand there and wait until you're sure they want to kill you. By then, they already will have. Besides, Caspian, Lucy and Edmund had already realized that there was something suspicious going on in the Lone Islands that involved slave traders.

For another example in PC, think of the bear that Susan was afraid to shoot. She thought it might be a talking bear, but Trumpkin knew better and killed it just in time to save Lucy.

What I'm trying to say is, if somebody is clearly attacking you, are you supposed to wait and see what happens or are you supposed to defend yourself? If the slave traders had meant no harm, I doubt they would not have slid down ropes shouting and brandishing their swords like that.

I think the problem with this scene starts long before Caspian shoots the slave trader. Beginning from the fact that Caspian, Lucy, Edmund and Eusatce go off alone into a strange, creepy city without any guards or escort, and Caspian tells Drinian that "if they're not back by morning, to look for them" or something like that (the exact lines fail my memory ) Now, pardon me, but that is a bit of a dumb thing to do. They're sending all the Royal Blood into a large, freaky place not knowing what's awaiting them, and no one even offers to go with them and protect them? They're kings after all!
I know that in the book VDT they also wander off alone, but that is a completely different story. They are going onto an island that theoretically belongs to them and are going to stretch their legs. It's a warm sunny day and there's no danger in site. There's a difference.
The scene already started wrong, so how can it continue right? Why did Caspian shoot the slave trader? I know why--he was smart and read the script!!!
I think that the point here is not the fact that Caspian shot the slave trader. Looking at it that way is like taking a long chain of events leading in the wrong direction, picking the link in the middle and saying, "That is wrong!". Of course that link is wrong, but it's because the original link is wrong, and that link in the middle is just following the first one. (am I making sense? ) I don't mean to insult anyone, but I believe the issue begins with the fact that the whole scene is put in such a way that it is "supposed" to add "intrigue" by making the whole experience a spooky, haunted, "epic" (I'm starting to hate that word) scene. Making Caspian shoot someone is an "obvious" thing to do. I like scenes that are touched to be made interesting or epic, but what frustrates me is that they chose such boring, stereo type effects and methods. It's just boring to watch already. There's no intrigue, because you know what's going to happen. As soon as they get to the city, you just know Caspian and Edmund and Lucy and Eustace are going to go in there and someone is going to attack and there will be a fight, and you know Caspian will shoot someone, because why else would he take a crossbow? (He's not going duck-hunting...is he?) Why can't they make something new? The book introduces a whole new, interesting, or at least very under-used method of resolving a conflict. The movie makes it all stereo-type...violence and bloodshed. Believe it or not, making people shoot other people is not the only way to add mystery.

I don't have much of anything to say that hasn't already been mentioned. One thing I haven't seen that I will point out is that Caspian had to be very careful. He couldn't really take the risk of being thrown into slavery or killed or whatever those guys were planning to do. No, the slave traders didn't come and announce, "Hey, we're enemies!!!!! We're coming to harm you!!!!" But I think Caspian made a well educated guess. He was protecting himself and those around him.

This is gonna sound really bad, but Caspian was too important to take risks. He could already gather that the slave traders weren't intending to sit and have tea with him or anything. They obviously meant some kind of harm whether it was death or imprisonment or slavery. The thing is Caspian couldn't even afford to be imprisoned. He was the king of a country that had just been in a civil war three years prior. He was the king who had united the Telmarines and Old Narnians. On a large scale there was peace in the country but things like that don't just go away in the space of three years. The unity in Narnia was still pretty new. Caspian had no wife and no heir. If Narnia, in it's somewhat fragile state, had lost the ruler who had united it, it very well may have reverted back to its civil war. Caspian had no living reletives. Who would've taken the throne if he'd died? It was not only in his best interest, not even his and the Pevensies' best interests. But in defending himself he was also defending Narnia as a whole.

Narnian_Archer, I agree. It was really stupid not to take more people. But there were places in the books where the characters were stupid. Stupidity happens to the best of us.

I know odds are in the opposite favor, but one could argue that the arrow might not have killed the slave trader. though, as I said, unless it just hit him in the arm or leg, and he sought out medical care right away, im sure it did kill him.