Power to the People

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

...but Tolkien, I think, might have allowed Mr. Tumnus a greater power over his own fate. Therein I think lies what to me might be the ultimate issue here. Is the difference between Tolkien's work and Lewis' work one of artistic hierarchy or competence?

Allow me to distract (or, perhaps, move forward) from the main discussion, since this little quote from your last post, Bêthberry, seems very interesting to me, in the light of the currently active thread regarding "That Which is Fate to All Things Else".

Here is another place where things differ. Although we have prophecies in Narnia, we never have FATE, and even these prophecies are not, apparently, infalliable, since there is a very grave fear in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that the White Witch will be able to prevent the prophecies from becoming true.

In Middle-Earth, on the other hand, we have very clear statements regarding the presence of Fate. Now, it is true that there is very great debate as to the interaction of this Fate with Free Will (for that, I direct you to the aforementioned and other various threads), but that Fate exists in Middle-Earth is taken as a given by pretty much everyone here.

As I've noted, though, there is no such Fate in Narnia. For which reason I find your statement that Tolkien would have allowed Mr. Tumnus greater control over his own destiny to be highly interesting. If I may imagine Gandalf talking to Lucy, I can imagine him saying something like this:

Gandalf: "You were meant to come into Narnia, and Mr. Tumnus was meant to meet you."

But, as presented in the Chronicles, Mr. Tumnus isn't so much MEANT to meet Lucy as he is simply the first Narnian to do so.

Now, I'm not sure if I know where I'm going with all this. One could easily make a case that Narnia is very much a world where Fate figures in, I do not deny that. But the contrast between Tolkien's outright declaration of Fate as contrasted by Lewis' avoidance of any such statement is interesting...