My current fantasy work in progress, “Crown of Crows,” started out as Narnia fanfic. I had no higher aspirations for it than that. I wanted to write it because I saw what I can only describe, frankly, as flaws and gaps in otherwise inspiring and evocative novels. I wanted to “redeem” the original works by adding to them.
I did the same thing in my Harry Potter fanfic. In the case of Potter, the gaps and flaws concerned mainly the house-elves and their portrayal, but I was also bothered by the hereditary nature of magic and the treatment of gender overall. I realized that I could answer or “solve” these problems by adding background and story to the Potter universe.
But in Narnia, the problems were deeper, and concerned feminism, religion, and ethics. I could still solve them, mainly by going back to Susan Pevensie and looking at things from her point of view (and I’m hardly the first author to think Susan was done wrong). But to truly “redeem” Narnia, to make it into the world I felt it could have been, I needed to go further. I needed to contradict some of Narnia’s essential facts. I needed to break Narnian canon.
Breaking Narnia
For example, the names and languages in the books really made no sense. (What language is spoken in Narnia, for example? Is it English? If so, why is it unchanged over the 2500 years of Narnian history? Is “Narnia” itself a Narnian word, and if so, what does it mean?) The spirits and gods of Narnia needed to be thought out more carefully. (Eg there’s a reference to an “Emperor-Over-Sea”. Is that Aslan’s father? To me it actually sounds somewhat imperialist: the Emperor rules Narnia, but lives away over the sea? Like Victoria ruled India?) The witch Jadis embodies a bunch of yucky feminine stereotypes, so that needed to be rethought. And so on.
And I found I could explain these changes in a satisfying way by introducing a fictional author of the Narnian books, “Donald Churwick”, who had changed things up to fit better with his rather racist and misogynistic worldview.
In addition, the very plot of the book involves healing Narnia / Sagaia from the trauma of the events of the Chronicles. Susan / Sarah must go “back in time” to various critical events and unwind and remake things so that Sagaia can be saved. In “The Last Battle,” Aslan says that the time for Narnia’s ending has come. But in “The First Battle,” when Sarah goes to Sagaia, Anllan asks her to go back in time, change the past, to prevent Armageddon.
So Sagaia has become quite different from Narnia. All the names, most of the events, certainly all the themes and most of the characters. Does it still count as fanfic anymore?
Crossing the Line
I decided to look into it. I thought maybe it had crossed into parody — a completely legal art form that falls under fair use copyright law. Maybe I could legally make this available as an original work.
Ideally I would check with a lawyer, but since I don’t have the money for that, I did the usual thing: spent some time googling around and reading articles.
The most clear-cut case of a work similar to what I’m going for with “Crown of Crows” is “The Wind Done Gone”, a retelling of “Gone With the Wind” from the point of view of the African American slaves. It reuses characters and situations from the original novel, but tells the story from a very different perspective, creating a valuable and original work. The estate and publishers of Margaret Mitchell brought that author (Alice Randall) to court and, while Randall eventually won, it was an arduous, unpleasant, and close-argued thing.
Another book I’m thinking about is “The Sword of Shannara,” published by actual lawyer Terry Brooks, which skirts just about as close as possible to “The Lord of the Rings” without tripping copyright law. The names are changed, of course, and there are no hobbits — they’re turned into rural humans — and Gandalf becomes a Druid. Oh, and the Ring of Power becomes a sword. Otherwise, it is beat for beat, plot for plot and character for character, the Lord of the Rings. Even some of the names, like “Durin Elessedil”, are grotesque, Moreau-like mashed-up bits and pieces from Tolkien’s carefully crafted originals. All perfectly legal, and it made Terry Brooks plenty of money.
Another critical case is that of “The Stone Table”, a fanfic written by fantasy author Francis Spufford. As the article in the Guardian notes, the issue here is not just the copyrights on the Narnian books themselves, but the trademarks that have been taken out on various critical Narnian names (such as, I’m sure, “Narnia” and “Aslan”). Trademarks can be continually renewed, eternally. Even if I were able to defend “Crown of Crows” as a parody in court, or waited a few decades for the copyrights to expire, the trademarks could prevent the book from ever being published.
I think it’s clear I need to dial back the Narnia-specific material a fair bit.
Rebuilding into Sagaia
So… I’m going to make some changes. I think I will keep the idea that Churwick was the actual author of the Chronicles of Narnia, since that’s pretty critical to the themes I’m going for. But Lewis and Narnia will be unnamed, and “Churwick” will be much looser with his material — making bolder, more drastic changes.
The biggest single change needs to be Aslan himself. The Lion is probably the single most recognizable thing about Narnia. Maybe I could get away with keeping him; but if I change him, it will be much harder to make the case that I’m stealing from C S Lewis.
So… suppose Aslan were a bear. Let us say a European brown bear, but of course of extraordinary size and strength. And let’s bring in the mythology, folklore, symbolism, and ecology of the bear. He is still a king, but not lord of all beasts, necessarily. He is omnivorous rather than carnivorous, enjoying berries and honey in one season, salmon in another. He is usually solitary, but a fierce defender of his children. And, unlike the Lion, he is a shapeshifter, for it is well known in European folklore that bears and men can sometimes switch their skins.
(I considered making the bear female, but for Sarah’s emotional journey, I think he needs to be a male figure.)
What would his name be? Not Anllan, that’s Sagaian for “the Lion”. It should mean “The Bear,” and it should be derived of course from Irish, the ancestral language of Sagaian. Now, Irish has a couple of different terms for bear; there’s béir, borrowed from English; and there’s mathúin, “the Good one,” a euphemistic term that’s probably intended to keep the speaker from having to name the bear and thereby possibly call its attention. And there’s the oldest form, mostly dead in modern Irish, art, which is distantly related to the name Arthur.
The Sagaian forms of these words would be:
- Anveirr, from béir.
- Anmahúnn, Amahúnn, from mathúin.
- Anahr or Antahr, from art.
(Another option would be Anúhrs, from the Latin urs-. This would more likely be the Witch’s name for him, or possibly a name used by the human nobility in later ages.)
I don’t think there’s a clear winner here. I may keep all as different names for him. I like how the -r, -rr endings make it seem like a growl. But I also like Amahúnn, the Good One, since it applies as well to his role as deity, and might remind one subconsciously of honey. Perhaps he’s usually called Anahr, but those who know him best, the small animals of the forests and fields who call on his protection, call him Amahúnn.
Why would Churwick have changed the Bear into a Lion? Churwick, writing in the late 40’s, might not have liked the fact that Sagaia’s main deity was a bear, due to the extreme tensions with Soviet Russia at the time. So he changed Antahr the “Russian” Bear to Aslan the English Lion. (I won’t spell this out in the text; “Aslan” will never be explicitly named.)
What else?
- I need to ensure that Lewis, Narnia, the Pevensies, and so forth are also never explicitly named. They’re in a few places now, but I can talk around those.
- The wardrobe… That’s kind of an important symbol of Narnia. Maybe it shouldn’t be a wardrobe? A cabinet? A cedar cabinet? I could go for a cedar chest — it might be a perfectly reasonable place for a child to hide, and since it’s a bit like a coffin, it would have connotations of death and otherworldliness that the wardrobe lacks. (But why would Churwick change it? Maybe to make it harder for people to find the real door to Sagaia?)
- A title comes to mind: The Girl in the Cedar Chest. Not sure why I like that title, but I really really do. I might like cedar chest for just that reason.
- How does the transition to Sagaia happen? You get in, lie down, and you smell the different air, and you realize you’re lying in a cedar wood.
- I considered changing the number of children, or making drastic changes to other characters, but I don’t think that’s necessary. The changes in names and the deepening of the characters (as I explore them from a feminist perspective) will be sufficient.
- I considered changing landmarks, such as the Lamp Post. The image of the faun with his umbrella under the lamp post is pretty iconic. I think, though, that I will keep it — not front and center, just backgrounded. To make it clear that yes, this IS Narnia.
- What about any creatures that Lewis came up with? I can’t think of any in particular other than Marsh-Wiggles. I’ll probably drastically change the Marsh-Wiggles.
In short, the reader will be able to tell that the Chronicles were probably the source material for Sagaia, but I will make enough changes so that it’s clearly a wholly new work. This will mean a lot of changes, but I should be able to keep the main themes I’m going for.
Of course, I just made a bunch of drastic changes throughout the text when I revamped the Sagaian language, so here’s another big round of revision before I proceed with the story. But I’m confident the book is just getting better and better, so I don’t mind.
Not too much, anyway.
A note on this post’s featured image. It was generated by an AI assistant provided by WordPress. I was so impressed with it I simply had to use it.
Axon Firings 