Don't be even slightly sorry for writing a long review. It's absolutely lovely to wake up and find this in my inbox. :)
I'm not quite sure when Edmund became my favorite Narnian, but he's owned the podium for a while now so it was lovely to concentrate on him for a while. And I know a lot of people claim that Susan "suddenly" turns away from Narnia, but I've always felt that Lewis gave us clues and that Susan's almost-falling for Rabadash was one of them. It's so clearly a bad idea and yet...
The dialogue was a tricky balance to strike. Like you pointed out, the medieval speech from the books always came off too unintentionally humorously for me to take it seriously, and these are brothers and sisters and they've always acted like it. But I didn't want to make things too casual since they're also kings and queens. Also, Britishness, which is not always easy for me as an American (I watched lots of BBC to compensate for that).
As to the Calormenes... :D I love the style of speech and formal storytelling that Lewis created for the Calormenes. However, it does lend itself to self-parody without really much effort, and I admit I may have abused played that up a bit here with poor Irukan. Irukan Tarkaan, in my head, speaks in a manner almost identical to the head of the Knights Templar from the film Ivanhoe, released in 1982, and starring Anthony Andrews and Sam Neill (there's a few different ones, hence all the specifics). He had exactly the same sort of overblown self-importance that I assigned to Irukan.
I'm really glad you have enjoyed things so far, and I sincerely hope that the rest of the story lives up to your expectations. Thank you. ♥
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I'm not quite sure when Edmund became my favorite Narnian, but he's owned the podium for a while now so it was lovely to concentrate on him for a while. And I know a lot of people claim that Susan "suddenly" turns away from Narnia, but I've always felt that Lewis gave us clues and that Susan's almost-falling for Rabadash was one of them. It's so clearly a bad idea and yet...
The dialogue was a tricky balance to strike. Like you pointed out, the medieval speech from the books always came off too unintentionally humorously for me to take it seriously, and these are brothers and sisters and they've always acted like it. But I didn't want to make things too casual since they're also kings and queens. Also, Britishness, which is not always easy for me as an American (I watched lots of BBC to compensate for that).
As to the Calormenes... :D I love the style of speech and formal storytelling that Lewis created for the Calormenes. However, it does lend itself to self-parody without really much effort, and I admit I may have
abusedplayed that up a bit here with poor Irukan. Irukan Tarkaan, in my head, speaks in a manner almost identical to the head of the Knights Templar from the film Ivanhoe, released in 1982, and starring Anthony Andrews and Sam Neill (there's a few different ones, hence all the specifics). He had exactly the same sort of overblown self-importance that I assigned to Irukan.I'm really glad you have enjoyed things so far, and I sincerely hope that the rest of the story lives up to your expectations. Thank you. ♥