(09-15-2022, 03:20 PM)classicdrogn Wrote: As for Narnia, I never even caught on to the RL religious undertones of then until someone went out of their way to explain it and poke fun at me for admitting to liking them when I am vehemently anti-religion, so again I have to say yes. It did ruin them for me, but if that person hadn't had to go and be maximum asshole I can't say I'd ever have noticed, and might even have softened from my zero-tolerance stance if I had eventually figured it out, rather than having the worst kind of religious douchebaggery shoved in my face, making it the perfect counter example for why the current, aggressive tack is ineffective at best and counterproductive all too often even when it's sincere, let alone this bullshit of blaming whatever -ist-ism of the moment for people calling out lazy, shoddy writing that ignores the long established lore and tone of settings and/or characters to push whatever social agenda in the most blatant and offensive way possible.
If you never caught on to the crypto-religious subtext in the Narnia books, you're basically the target audience for the Narnia books. I'm sad that the person who pointed this out to you was rude about it, CS Lewis would have been appalled. The whole idea was to take this world of fantasy and fun -- a story everyone can enjoy -- and then the reader can later pivot to the fact that Aslan is actually real, though he went by the name of Yeshua bin Yusuf in our world. Lewis asks the reader to look at the story of Christ through a different lens, without all the trappings of Christianity, and see it for the adventure it really is. Lewis was a convert from atheism, and like most converts, he wants to spread his passion to others. The "Christian" you talked to went "maximum asshole" and did the Devil's work, from my perspective; Screwtape would be proud.
I feel ambivalent about Rings of Power's casting choices. Lewis's friend Tolkien wrote these medieval tales, and medieval peoples were pretty homogeneous. In the Roman era, there were African soldiers stationed in Britannia, but not so later. It's also a TV show, so I should just relax. But if you're not seeing that mountainous rectangular area to the southeast of the map as the province of Ottoman hordes threatening Christendom, well, you should consider it. I think black actors should get roles. I also think it's okay if someone wants to make a medieval story about medieval people on its own terms. But what I really, really want is a damn movie treatment of Beren and Lúthien already.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto