I remember listening to one of the early Talking Beasts podcasts discussing VDT, and either @glumpuddle or @rilian suggested that the Duffers were wearing gloves when they were carrying the dishes.  I think this explanation fits quite well, meaning that the gloves would be invisible since they were directly touching the Duffers but the dishes would be visible since there was no direct contact.  Likewise, the weapons were invisible since the Duffers were touching them directly without wearing gloves, fitting with the fact that the arrow was vivike when it left their hands.

My explanation is weapons and dishes are two different things. (Not a great explanation but my own.) Their clothes are invisible too. Maybe weapons count as part of their outfits.

All very good reasons.

I'm not so sure C.S. Lewis didn't do this accidentally - but the explanations are so much better

That's part of the fun, to try to work out what may be the reasons that would work inside the story, in that universe, whatever the technical reasons may be for what the author did in his writing process.

I wouldn't be surprised if Coriakin (and/or Aslan) specifically made it that the monopods' weapons would turn invisible in their hands so they could defend themselves if any enemies unexpectedly turned up.

As someone who watches a lot of other fantasy, sci-fi and comic-book material, I can at least assure you that these sorts of "Power Transfer" questions about the scope and applicability of a particular supernatural power set, are both inevitable and universal in this sort of literature. Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a particularly huge or uncommon blunder to make.

Posted by: @icarus

As someone who watches a lot of other fantasy, sci-fi and comic-book material, I can at least assure you that these sorts of "Power Transfer" questions about the scope and applicability of a particular supernatural power set, are both inevitable and universal in this sort of literature. Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a particularly huge or uncommon blunder to make.

Now that's reminding me of how years ago, one of the earliest websites I got to know (late 1990s) was a collection of humorous comments and silly questions and so on, all sending up Tolkien's works. Among its list of great unanswered questions about Middle-earth was "If Frodo hung the Ring on a chain, why didn't the chain turn invisible?"  

I had seen someone comment earlier that Lewis could've been a panster. Whether he was one or not I have been noticing a few inconsistencies here and there during my rereading of the books. I would think he'd discovered if it was a mistake in editing. Anyways I'm rambling. I would have to go with the theories that the Duffers were wearing gloves or the dishes are not part of the magic bestowed on their invisibility. It could've been a part of their garment when they were turned invisible.

@daughterofthestar I had to look up 'pantser'- LOL!  ["a term most commonly applied to fiction writers, especially novelists, who write their stories "by the seat of their pants"  -  from a Readers Digest site; the article varies between spelling it pantser / panster] 

Posted by: @coracle

@daughterofthestar I had to look up 'pantser'- LOL!  ["a term most commonly applied to fiction writers, especially novelists, who write their stories "by the seat of their pants"  -  from a Readers Digest site; the article varies between spelling it pantser / panster] 

I referred to Lewis as "pantsing it a bit" just the other day in another NarniaWeb discussion, adding the explanation "making things up as he went along"! I think I first encountered the term "pantser" elsewhere on this site in one of the Spare Oom discussions about novel writing. It's a good one, and yes, I do think Lewis did that to quite some extent. At least, he certainly didn't plan out everything in his Narnia stories in anywhere near as much detail as Tolkien did with Middle-earth, as the many inconsistencies between the books show.

I would guess that this is just another one of them within one book (within a couple of pages!), where Lewis simply wrote what sounded good to him without thinking it through in detail. Having the Duffers armed with invisible weapons that "get visible when they leave us" — as a spear apparently flies out of nowhere and sticks in a tree behind Caspian's party — adds an exciting element of threat to this island with its strange, invisible, highly garrulous yet potentially dangerous inhabitants. As Lucy puts it when she agrees to their demand for her to go into the magician's house alone, "I don't want to be cut to bits with invisible swords any more than anyone else."

And then in the very next chapter, Lewis goes for the comical element: "It was very funny to see the plates and dishes coming to the table and not to see anyone carrying them" — with the added humour of the fact that these still-unseen hosts move in bounds or jumps, and so the dishes bounce up and down in mid-air, with "rather disastrous" and messy results when the food is anything like soup or stew. He was possibly so relishing writing this amusing scene that he genuinely missed the contradiction between it and what he wrote only two pages earlier about the Duffers' weapons!

Other than that, the only "in-universe" explanation I can think of is that possibly the Duffers were already carrying their weapons with them when they were made invisible, and so the enchantment covered those too, but not anything else that they've picked up since then, such as the dishes. But as they've already been invisible for some time (is it a year at least? I can't find the reference, if there is one), that still makes things awkward, as they can't possibly have had their weapons in their hands day and night, all that time, and when they put them down and the weapons become visible, do those weapons become invisible again when picked up, but no other object does...??

No, I can only conclude Lewis just didn't think it through, like a whole lot of other elements in the Chronicles. Including, as another famous example, where Mr Tumnus and the Beavers in LWW got all their food from — bread for toast, butter, honey, eggs, flour and sugar for the sugar-topped cake, not to mention all those and the marmalade for the Beavers' marmalade roll (and marmalade is made from oranges, which don't grow in a British-style climate even in summer, unless you have a greenhouse!), and oh yes, the potatoes too — in the midst of a hundred-year winter with deep snow on the ground everywhere!! Friends of Lewis were pulling him up on that one within months, possibly weeks, of the first book being published, and he had to admit he had no answer.

I've just always taken that and all the rest (the inconsistency with the Duffers included) as the many charming quirks of the Chronicles, with no explanation other than "It's a kids' story" or, even better, "It's magic, duh!!"  

@courtenay A possible explanation for the source of these items, during the 100 year winter in Narnia, is that Archenland was not affected by it, and continued to grow, make and share their foodstuffs and goods with Narnians. When LWW was written, Archenland had not been thought of, and anything is possible. 

@coracle Yes, that's what I've thought of as an explanation too. Although as Archenland seems to be largely inhabited by humans, with few if any Talking Beasts (Shasta / Cor only starts encountering Talking Beasts — other than Bree and Hwin — once he crosses into Narnia in HHB), that then makes a mockery of Mr Tumnus having a book entitled Is Man a Myth? and the Beavers claiming that there have never been "any of your kind" in Narnia before... But as this is now getting thoroughly off the topic of the Duffers, I'll shush up!  

It should be noted, however, that King Lune does mention to Bree (regarding rolling in the grass) that he has a few talking horses in his employ who have taught the non-talking horses how to do so.  Furthermore, Sallowpad the raven was also a part of the envoy to Calormen along with Corin, Susan, and Edmund.  As such, talking beasts were obviously known to the Archenlanders.

@digorykirke I was referring more to the Narnians in LWW knowing little or nothing about humans, rather than whether or not the Archenlanders knew anything about Talking Beasts (they obviously do, in HHB). If the Narnians had been getting their food supplies from Archenland during the Witch's winter, then — since most of the inhabitants of Archenland are humans — the various non-human peoples and creatures of Narnia would know about "Man". So Tumnus having a book titled Is Man a Myth? doesn't make sense in that case, and nor does Mr Beaver's comment to the children, "But there's never been any of your race here before." Of course one could speculate that maybe the people of Archenland had never actually crossed the border into Narnia, but that seems unlikely, especially if there's ongoing trade between the two countries. (Mr Beaver's line is regularly pointed out as being contradicted by the events of MN, but Lewis wrote that story a few years later and presumably hadn't given much thought to Narnia's origins while he was writing the first book.)

Now I really will get off the subject before this thread has to be split into a new one on "Where did the Narnians get their food during the Long Winter?" or "Various Other Inconsistencies in the Chronicles"!