Comparison Post - Part 1; Lucy Pevensie

 

     If you didn’t read my explanation of the Comparison Posts in my last post then I will explain again. This is going to be a 5-part post with a Character Comparison in each one. I will be doing the 4 Pevensies (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy) as well as Prince Caspian. I figured I’d start with Lucy (the youngest) and work my way to the oldest. =) So without further ado:

     Lucy Pevensie is a girl of about 8 when the story first starts in The Lion, he Witch, and the Wardrobe. She is torn away from everything she knows in Finchly, England and sent to live with the Professor in the country to wait out the war with her brothers and sister. She is a small, timid girl, afraid and unsure of what’s happening to the world around her. You see her getting a little more comfortable in her surroundings (the Professors house) when she begs Peter to play hide-and-seek. Which, of course, is how she finds the wardrobe.. but that is a long story. =)

   I think that out of the 4 Pevensies, the movies portrayed Lucy the best. In the first one, at least, she acts and looks exactly as she should! Picturing her standing there in the busy train station her eyes huge hugging her teddy bear.. that’s what we know her to be. We see her progress as she does in the book, into a bolder girl. As example the first night she’s there it shows her in bed complaining that ‘the sheets are scratchy’. Peter tries to cheer her up but she still has a forlorn look on her face. But the next day (after she finds Narnia) she sticks to her story of finding a world in the wardrobe though no one believes her.

“A jolly good hoax, Lu,” Peter said, “you have really taken us in, I must admit. We half-believed you.”

“But it wasn’t a hoax at all,” said Lucy, “really and truly. It was all different a moment ago. Honestly it was. I promise.”   -The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. [The Book]

    She becomes more adventuresome and brave, trusting completely in Aslan, knowing that whatever he does is best.

   “We sent the word that you were dead. Peter and Edmund would have gone to war.” Susan tells Aslan.

    “We have to help them.” Lucy adds drawing her knife.

     Aslan, gently pushes her dagger down, replying, “We will, but not alone. Now, climb on my back. We have a long ways to go and little time to get there. And you might want to cover your ears.” Throwing back his head he releases a roar that shakes the earth.

 -The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. [The Movie]

     I think all throughout the first movie there’s really nothing to complain about.  Her faith is strong and her character develops throughout the movie, as it does in the book, until she is, indeed, valiant. 

In the 2^nd movie, Prince Caspian, we find her again strong in her faith of Aslan. And again, they portrayed Lucy’s character really close to the book. Which, of course, I’m glad of. :)Though, in the book, she doesn’t have a dream that she talks to Aslan, she actually does talk to him. I almost like it in the book better because she again has to tell and convince her siblings something that they find hard to believe. And in this case she says she sees Aslan standing in front of them but they can see nothing. She finally convinces them to follow her as she follows Aslan, though none of them go willingly. That’s where, in the movie, they start going off track. After they cross the gorge they all continue towards Aslan’s Howe and then meet Prince Caspian gathering troops. As in the book, they all eventually see Aslan and admit that Lucy was right. Then after they cross the gorge they separate, the boys and Trumpkin traveling towards Aslan’s Howe to help Caspain and the girls stay with Aslan to help gather creatures. Susan and Lucy do not meet Prince Caspian until the end of the book, after the battle takes place. So in short, the whole thing about Susan and Lucy riding Caspian’s horse to find Aslan isn’t in the book. Also it is both Susan and Lucy who are with Aslan at the bridge, not just Lucy.

 Now we shall take a look at the 3^rd movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

 Lucy, Edmund, and their obnoxious cousin Eustace, travel to Narnia through a painting. In this movie it’s not as if there’s a bunch of small things they changed, it’s one big thing they added. I’ve realized that movie directors don’t like ‘adventure’ movies where there’s not a ‘main bad guy’. (If we want to call it that…) And since there was no enemy that they could focus on, they simply created one: The Green Mist. Or The Dark Island, whichever one you want to refer to as the enemy.

    When they get captured by the slave traders, Edmund and Caspian are thrown into prison, while Lucy and Eustace are put up for sale as slaves. While the men are locked up Caspian finds Lord Bern living in the prison cell. They then learn about this mysterious Green Mist, or rather, as much as Lord Bern knows. This is how it happens in the movie, in the book after they are captured they are brought back to town. A gentleman who lives on the island takes a fancy to Caspian and buys him. This gentleman turns out to be Lord Bern and Caspian confirms Bern’s suspicions telling him that he is King Caspian, the son of the Caspian the IX. Caspian then reclaims the island for Narnia and makes Lord Bern Duke of the Lone Islands. (Sorry for such a long rabbit trail, it will help in the later Post though, I promise!) 

This Green Mist in the movie tempts everyone in different ways. For Lucy she wants to be as pretty (or prettier) than her sister, Susan. When she releases the Dufflepuds from the spell of invisibility she comes across a spell in the Book of Spells that will make her the beauty she's always wanted to be. Later she recites the spell in the privacy of the boat room, and enters a dream where she is Susan and neither Lucy nor Narnia exist. The whole tempting business about the Green Mist and her wanting to be prettier than Susan, is not in the book.  
The tempting business with the Green Mist is not in the book, however, Lucy wanting to be prettier than Susan actually is! Lucy came across the spell in the Book of Spells when, like in the movie, she was releasing the Dufflepuds from the spell. In the book she didn't recite the spell later after tearing the page from the book, or enter into a dream. Even though she did not recite the spell to make her beautiful "beyond the lot of mortals.", she watches/looks at pictures in the Book of Spells that show her what it'd be like be prettier than Susan. Here's a section from the book that explains what she saw:

Lucy peered at the pictures with her face close to the page, and though they seemed crowded and muddlesome before, she found she could now see them quite clearly. The first was a picture of a girl standing at a reading-desk reading a huge book. And the girl was dressed exactly like Lucy. In the next picture Lucy (for the girl in the picture was Lucy herself) was standing up with her mouth open and a rather terrible expression on her face, chanting a recieting something. In the third picture the beauty beyond the lot of mortals had come to her. It was strange, considering how small the pictures had looked at first, the the Lucy in the pictures now seemed quite as big as the real Lucy; and they look into each other's eyes and the real Lucy looked away after a few minutes because she was dazzled by the beauty of the other Lucy; though she could still see a sort of likeness to herself in that beautiful face. And now the pictures came crowding on her thick and fast. She saw herself throned on high at a great tournament in Calormen and all the Kings of the world fought because of her beauty. After that it turned from tournaments to real wars, and all Narnia and Archenland, Telmar and Calormen, Galma and Terebinthia, were laid waste with the fury of the kings and dukes and great lords who fought for her favor. Then it changed and Lucy, still beautiful beyond the lot of mortals, was back in England. And Susan (who had always been the beauty of the family) came home from America. The Susan in the picture looked exactly like the real Susan only plainer and with a nasty expression. And Susan was jealous of the dazzling beauty of Lucy, but that didn't matter a bit because no one cared anything about Susan now.

                                      -The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Sorry it's so long. x) Anyway, that part is in the book, though some may either forget (like I did) or may not even know. :)
   I really liked Lucy in the 3^rd one. I like seeing her fight and be adventuresome. She’s finally old enough to be in the battles! :D Oh yes, that is another thing I need to discuss: her age. In the 1^st book she’s 8, she’s supposed to be 8 in the movie but in real life she’s 10. In the 2^nd book she is 9, in the movie/real life she is 13. As for the 3^rd she is 10 in the book but 15 in the movie/real life. We have to understand and remember that you can’t stop time. And when it takes about 2 years to plan, film, and make the movie it adds 2 years to the age of Georgie Henley (Lucy Pevensie) with every movie, and no one could stop that. So even if the ages are quite off (Though, in the 3^rd they did try to make her a lot younger than she is.) I don’t really mind because that wasn’t something the directors could change.

Over all I think that they did a very good job on portraying Lucy in all 3 movies, even if there are some changes. :) Here's a quick over view of her character: 

     Lucy is a very sweet girl in every way. She is very forgiving as we see in the 1^st movie when she forgives her siblings for not believing her and pretty much calling her a liar. She is full of courage and has a great to desire to help others and uses her cordial given to her by Father Christmas many times to heal them. She is a lover of animals and is very sad to see the wild land of Narnia, once filled with creatures and talking animals, invaded and harshly ruled by humans. She is also very brave and daring. Though we don’t get to see her fight in any battles other than The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan hints that she is a very brave telling her, "If you were any braver, you would be a lioness”. Later in The Horse and his Boy she does fight in a battle. As I read once, not only a lovely lady and an accomplished queen, she was also a fierce warrior, known to ride into battle in times of need. In other words…. she was a Valiant Queen and Warrior.

I fear this is getting quite long, so I will end it. But I hope you enjoyed this comparison of Queen Lucy. The others, however, will have more to compare. Edmund and Lucy are portrayed the best, but I think the older the characters get the more different the book and movie characters will be. :)

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“But as for Lucy, she was always gay and golden-haired, and all princes in those parts desired her to be their Queen, and her own people called her Queen Lucy the Valiant.” 
                    -The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Graphic made by Miss Evelyn