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Fairy Hardcastle

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Fairy Hardcastle

Postby jo » February 28th, 2006, 4:32 pm

Just to make Stan's day ;)

I have been talking about Orual in the Apologetics forum and it occurs to me that there are some similarities between Orual and Fairy .. most noticably that both are very masculine (thanks to Chris for introducing me to this idea), although in different ways. Orual is a warrior queen and Fairy a depraved lesbian whose only sign of femininity is a smear of lipstick which contrasts obscenely with the cigar she chews.

She's an interesting character in some respects but a rather one dimensional one.. I was disappointed when I first read the books that there wasn't more to her. The manner of her death was a bit anti climatic and probably served to accentuate the point that she WASN'T, in fact, particularly significant.

THoughts on Fairy?
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Re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Stanley Anderson » February 28th, 2006, 6:26 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby jo » February 28th, 2006, 6:38 pm

"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"

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re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Theo » February 28th, 2006, 8:19 pm

I was a little surprised that Downing didn't really discuss the Hardcastle character at all in his study of the trilogy, Planets in Peril, only mentioning in passing that she's "a pitiless sadist" - even as he elsewhere spends some time thoughtfully discussing Lewis' views on women and how this comes through in the trilogy.

I'm conflicted about this character. On the one hand, she's well drawn and a good, genuinely menacing - and still, paradoxally, almost likeable - villain, on the other hand, she's an ugly and somewhat offensive stereotype. (Although not as ugly and offensive as the women in the short story "Ministering angels", but we might just do Lewis a favor and forget that embarassment. ;))

Hardcastle appears to me as Lewis drawing the most repulsive "modern, non-traditional female" he could think of and baking in several of his own hang-ups about women and sexuality (note, for instance, that the fact that she doesn't wear a corset is frowningly commented upon not once but twice).
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Stanley Anderson » February 28th, 2006, 8:49 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Theo » February 28th, 2006, 9:12 pm

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re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby jo » February 28th, 2006, 9:56 pm

Oooh I dunno Stan .. I know you're a Fairy fan but I wouldn't go so far as to say that Fairy was Lewis as he could have been. For one thing, he was not a sadistic female lesbian.

That's quite a big thing, really ;)
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Stanley Anderson » February 28th, 2006, 9:59 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Theo » February 28th, 2006, 10:03 pm

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re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby The Pfifltrigg » February 28th, 2006, 11:07 pm

I think that the fruitcake in "Ministering Angels" (if this is the "Mars Settlement" one I think it is) is the only other homosexual in Lewis' writing besides the Fairy, and a much less colorful character. She fills the role in THS of the classic gaudily-painted sub-villian, much as Jabba the Hutt in the early Star Wars films (or to some extent Vader, but he's much more central a villian than the fairy is) or Fenris Ulf (no, not "Maugrim", Fenris Ulf! ;) ) in LWW later.
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Stanley Anderson » February 28th, 2006, 11:14 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby jo » March 1st, 2006, 12:31 pm

"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"

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re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby sehoy » March 2nd, 2006, 8:38 am

cor meum vigilat
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby Stanley Anderson » March 2nd, 2006, 3:56 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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re: Fairy Hardcastle

Postby The Pfifltrigg » March 3rd, 2006, 12:24 am

It's a good thing Sayers was not too empatic about character development! What we have here is another case of a character being written by an author of the other gender--- and one asks how masculine a man a woman can write, or how feminine a gal a guy can write. In the case of the Fairy, she is supposed to be butchy, but Lord Peter on the other hand is only supposed to be a fop. Fairy works, as a character. Lord Peter's all right, but not so great beyond his detective role. Perhaps in Miss Hardcastle, Lewis was consciously cashing in on (or parodying) this writer/character disparity.

The two worst cases I can think of are (on the woman-authors' side) Little Lord Fauntleroy--- gag me with cute!--- and on the Guys-write-Dolls side a short story in the latest Ellory Queen Mystery Magazine called "Chick Sweeny to the Rescue". In this one the narrator says of an elderly friend "her grandson and I are lovers"--- and it isn't until halfway through the story that we're actually introduced to the speaker as a woman! The preceeding narrative is too masculine, however, so all you can do is hope his homosexuality doesn't actually come into the story. What? :??: It's a woman? You could have told me that earlier, don't you think?! :shocked: :angry:

Oh well.
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Freedom lost and then regained bites with deeper fangs than freedom never in danger. — Cicero
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