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Apparently, when I have no school to do but yet need something to do - I do sort-of school anyways. In this case, research for a paper that might never get written, about the prevalence of children's stories in which at the end most/all of the protagonists either choose to leave or are forcibly kicked out of the fantasy land they have found. exhibit a, naturally, being Narnia. I even have a timeline now! For series, the date is the year of the first book's publishing.

1865 - Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. English, forcible eviction.
1900 - Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. American, chooses to return home.
1904 - Peter Pan (the play) by J. M. Barrie. English, chooses to return home. (The book adaptation was published 1911.)
1950 - Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. English, forcible eviction.
1965 - The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. English, forcible eviction.

Anyone know of other children's literature, at any point in time, in which the children find a different world and have to leave it at the end?

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But Dorothy later goes back to live in Oz, right?

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. English, forcible eviction.
Of all the leavings, this one upset me the most. :(

Pamela Dean's Secret Country Trilogy was the first thing I thought of. It was first published in 1985.

--The Secret Country Trilogy has American kids.

Oh, and also, William Corlett's Magician's House Quartet, 1990. It's set in England.

apparently she does! I had not previously been aware of this - I see that I shall have to look into this more. :D

I knowww! I just read Silver On The Tree yesterday, and I was quite upset.

Ask Lassiter. She knows all about that stuff. You could include Where the Wild Things Are and The Night Kitchen, in theory.

hmm! I suppose I could, though I have never personally read them.

HMM THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR XD

Do you have access to the Gilead article? Otherwise I can send it to you. Also, not all the endings of the Narnia books are forcible evictions. Are you writing about all seven books?

Is that really the only article? I did a very cursory search, but I'm surprised you haven't found more scholarly analysis of Narnia. Hrrrm.

*waits for you to do my work for me*

My homework was only thematically applicable to Narnia, but never required me to look for sources specifically about Narnia itself. Most of the Narnia material I've found is mainly editorial.

SUCH THINGS SHOULD BE EVERYWHERE :DDD

I do! through my college's database! FABULOUS. :DDD it is quite an interesting article - I like it!

I do not know what I am writing about, to be honest - I just know that someday I will get a chance to write this essay and it will be fantastic fun. And that is true - I suppose one could make arguments for only LWW being a forcible eviction, but then how much choice are they truly given in the others? it seems like very little to me. (except, of course, The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle, though I think The Last Battle could count as forcible eviction from life, so.)

HAHA. You've been evicted. FROM LIFE. Because that's what happens when you don't pay the life rent on time XD

In the books, is the return at the end of PC voluntary? I only remember the movie, in which... it kind of was. I think LWW and TLB was the most abrupt evictions, but with the others it's kind of like when people give you the courtesy of resigning before they fire you.

... I'm currently reading an article where the author suggests that by simply not writing about sexual desire in Narnia, he leaves the way open for speculation. and then goes on to suggest that since one of his sources was The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, in which the boy and girl who are like brother and sister at the beginning kiss at the end, incest is a probability. ACADEMIA BACKS US UP, LASS.

I think you would like this entire paragraph:

Certainly there are some differences between the Snow Queen and the White Witch. Most obvious is the fact that the White Witch dies at the end of Lewis's tale, while the Snow Queen does not. Another difference is that the Snow Queen is symbolic of reason and intellect in a way that the White Witch never is. Very noticeable in Andersen's "The Snow Queen" is that when Kai is following the Snow Queen's sleigh on his sled, "all he could remember were his multiplication tables" (Andersen 239) and that while putting together the Snow Queen's mirror, he is playing "the Game of Reason" (259). As Gracia Fay Ellwood notes, "Andersen's icy queen differs from Lewis' in that the former is identified with rationality. [...] She is almost impersonal--she destroys by virtue of what she is, in contrast to Jadis, who is gratuitously cruel and a betrayer. And correspondingly, she is not destroyed at the climax; she is simply absent when Gerda comes for Kay [sic]. Rationality cannot be slain" (23). While the White Witch is cruel for the sake of being cruel, the Snow Queen is simply dispassionate and rational.

OMG WHAT ARTICLE IS THIS?? Goddamn, I should've gone into a comp lit program maybe! I hear they're gonna make a 2D animation Snow Queen movie, Betsy, how awesome would that be.

That paragraph is CERTAINLY FOOD FOR THOUGHT. *WILL NOT WRITE SNOW QUEENS CROSSOVER* That is fascinating that it shows Jadis to be the more impulsive, because I have always imagined her to be a vessel for the Deep Magic, as important as any force required in the ~*balance*~ of the world. Almost like she is an anthropomorphized force, almost. But no, here we have the Snow Queen being more like the impartial anthropomorfication. The snow queens persist in different ways. Hmm. It kind of seems like the Snow Queen would totally kick Jadis's ass.

Lewis is not without his "reason is bad if it goes against Jesus!" kind of slant. What is the redemptive force in Snow Queen? Love?

I don't know if the PC return is really voluntary so much as Aslan tells them to and they agree? I do not think they would have really considered leaving otherwise, though perhaps they might have. hmm.

"No sex in Narnia? How Hans Christian Andersen's "Snow Queen" problematizes C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia." I have the PDF if you are unable to find it through your databases. :D I actually just opened one of the databases, searched 'narnia', refined the search results to full text and in academic journals, and then started reading. (62 results! this is going to be FUN.) (holy crap, he just started talking about how if Aslan wasn't always referring to Susan and Lucy as children the romp scenes read almost like sex scenes, and huh, he's absolutely right. O.o)

it does seem like this Snow Queen would kick Jadis' ass! she is all rationality and cold figures, and I think Jadis is much more personally motivated. she has a lot of spite and hatred and anger wrapped up in her coldness - against Edmund, and Aslan, and the Pevensies, and going further back against her sister, and anyone who would deny her what she considers her rightful power.

it is indeed love, from what I gather! Gerda goes after him and kisses him back to his normal self and brings him home, apparently. :)

Yeah, it's kind of a choice that's not really a choice. OR IS IT? When is it really "time" for them to go? What justifies their departure?

No sex in Narnia?!?! hahaha FANDOM'LL SHOW THEM. What database is this in? JSTOR?

THE ROMP, MAN. Seriously! When I was rereading these books, I was like "wtf wasn't Bacchus like the god of DEBAUCHERY?? he has no place in Christian allegory!!"

Maybe Jadis should go under the Snow Queen's tutelage for a while. The Snow Queen can be like, "Your anger makes you weak." Like jedi training or whatever.

exactly exactly! it reads like a choice, but it totally isn't.

heee! it's actually disproving the idea that there is no sex in Narnia. heee. I do not remember! uh, Gale online? But I have uploaded it for those who want to have a go at it: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SJKOP8DJ

HAHA! this was about the romp in LWW, but seriously, the one in PC was kind of like a blindside to. (Bacchus? is he... is he talking about the same Bacchus I am? huhhh.)

haha! "You must learn to control yourself. Your emotions will be your undoing." Sometime they'll hook up with Nimueh, who tells Jadis "Things are what they are. You do not choose what the Magic decides."

Sweet, I will download that and read it later. I haven't read the LWW book in a while but maybe I will now haha, verify this ~sexuality~. And as for PC, I am not necessarily opposed to it ending in one big drunken orgy.

Sometime they'll hook up with Nimueh, who tells Jadis "Things are what they are. You do not choose what the Magic decides."
AND THEN THEY DUEL WITH LIGHT SABERS. Have you read Z's Narnia fic with the Force stuff in it? 'To the Heart' about Peter?

I think perhaps once I read it? I cannot remember! where is this Force story? :DDDD

NATURALLY they duel with lightsabers. WITCHES TRANSCEND WORLDS. (sometime this needs to be written, all these witches, with their stories about the boys who escaped and sometimes killed them, and their amusement at the futility of such acts. they always return.

sometime this needs to be written, all these witches, with their stories about the boys who escaped and sometimes killed them, and their amusement at the futility of such acts. they always return.
THIS TOTALLY NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN.

Back when I was still in the process of falling in love with Z, this was one of the things that sealsed the deal. http://zempasuchil.livejournal.com/79383.html

I knew I loved Z for a reason! (a multitude of reasons, actually.)

I knowww! I would write it but I have apocabigbang and school starting up and.

... BAD LASS.

"Magic certainly loves it's kings," Jadis says, and Nimueh nods.

"They're just figureheads," she says. "They too are used and tossed aside, sacrificed for other ends." The Snow Queen says nothing, adjusting a figure in the equation she is always revising, searching for infinity.

"Still, it is a comfort to know that they didn't last," Jadis says, her lips stained with wine.

"Rex quondam, rexque futurus," Nimueh says. "They will return."

"And so will we." Their lips curve in knowing smiles, and the Snow Queen turns and accepts the glass of wine Nimueh offers her.

"To time," she says, and drains it dry.

(COMMENTSTALKING YOU GUYS = MY EGO ASPLODE. YOU GUYS YOU MAKE MY DAY OMG <333333)

also I love your cold queens story idea! and their kings are mere boys, too! Nimueh's got a real grown-up king, the others are apparently reckoning with some other force, the hand behind the figurehead, whatever it is.

I WANT THESE MAGICAL QUEENS TAKING OVER THE WORLD. Killing lions and shit. Wearing their manes for war trophies! Doesn't Camelot have a lion on its shield? It's perfect.

/faraway tree, enid blyton?

I have not read these books! they look nice. how does the ending go?

His Dark Materials - maybe not quite what you're looking for, but I think it fits, how in the end Lyra and Will both have to go back to their own worlds, or die.

PS, I forgot to say - I think that's a really awesome topic! Good luck with it! Yay scholarly pursuit!

scholarly pursuiiiiit! it is fun and fascinating. :D His Dark Materials does fit, though perhaps not quite as easily as the others. still, they are definitely banished - from each other, and from the various worlds. hmmm. *works into equations*

I can't *remember* what happens in Phillip Pullman's novels, but I think they stay? You might want to use that as a contrast, since Pullman has gone on record saying he wanted to write a Narnia for modern era.

T.H. White's Once and Future King you might also want to use - children don't get kicked out of anything, but Arthur grows up to be king, dies, and then the fifth book is all about him back as a child again re-learning all the lessons of his life.

Consider also the Faraway Tree books?

They don't stay, in HDM :(

One of the saddest story endings I've ever read. They *could* have chosen to stay together, one of them thus being away from their own world, but as exemplified by Will's own father, this would result in that one who is out of his/her own world becoming sick and dying really young. So they have to close up all the tears in the world and live without each other, "meeting" once a year by both sitting on the same bench in the same garden at the same time. So tearjerkingly beautiful.

They aren't kicked out, though, per se - it *is* a choice they make.

Ahhh, right, I remember that! Betsy, you should definitely read those books. Only, uh, hide them from your family. Definitely hide them from your family :)

I have indeed read them! and yes, hidden from my family. :P you know them so well.

they do remain in their own worlds - they do not, however, remain with each other, or even in the world they want to be in, I think. it is very sad. :(

mmm! I have not read either of those series, but I shall definitely consider them, especially as The Faraway Tree books have been suggested twice now!

In The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, the main kid wishes he never had a little half-brother and goes into a fantasy world partially created by books that he's read. After saving the world, he decides to return to his home to protect his brother. It's a very good book, but a little disturbing. First publication was 2006.

I have not read this book! perhaps I shall, sometime. more research! YAAAY.

Also, Bridge to Terabythia.

Brian Caswell's Merryl of the Stones. (seriously, read that one, it's AWESOME. And Australian, yay!)

Hmm... I read the other day about a victorian era book called someone-or-other's adventures in doll-land, in which a little girl gets taken into the land of the dolls and put on trial for whipping her doll. I'll see if I can find the full title for you later.

Oooh, Neil Gaiman's Coraline - Coraline *escapes* from the other world.

There are some where kids get taken into video games... Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind, and, uh a series by Gillian Rubenstein that I loved as a kid and can't remember now.

does Bridge to Terabithia count? I considered it, but at the end Jessie still has Terabithia, if not Leslie, and he is in fact bringing another person into it. *considers*

I shall see if I can find it! and O.o put on trial for whipping her doll? interesting!

Coraline! why did I not think of this one? and yes, it would be the perfect 'other' example. 'well she WANTED to leave!'

I have never read this one of Pratchett's - my library does not have it. D: sometime I shall get my hands on it, though!

It counts! Well, it counts as one where the children don't get evicted. And it's interesting because the relationship between fantasy and reality is more clearly spelt out in Terabythia.

"Only You Can Save Mankind" is part of the Johnny Maxwell trilogy!! Which I loooove. That is the first book, and in the other books they time-travel and hang out with ghosts at graveyards. The time-travel story might be especially interesting for your purposes, that one is called "Johnny and the Bomb".

OH. "Neverwhere" might be applicable, except the protagonist is an adult, not a kid. But it totally sometimes deals with two worlds and returns. I dunno, a lot of stories can be twisted to fit this as such. Harry Potter? A couple of the Sandman arcs? Jumanji? omg I love Jumanji. omg is seized with the desire for Jumanji fic. eek!

Of course Dorothy goes back a bunch of times and eventually goes to Oz to live with her aunt and uncle. /Oz fan.

You could try the E Nesbit books? A lot of them have the magic come to an end. And the Eager books, too. Matilda loses her powers. The Mary Poppins books end with Mary Poppins leaving (except for Mary Poppins in the Park, which is different). Golden Compass of course. The Chronicles of Prydian have the magic leaving the world. (Damn, I feel like there were more. Wtf, self!)

Oooh, these are all true! eeee, yay! I see I shall have to come up with other categories - Mary Poppins leaves, the children don't. and His Dark Materials they do not leave their own world, but they give up the ability to travel to others, so. hmmm. this is lots of fun!

(and I keep hearing this! so I shall have to learn more about the ending of Dorothy before I use it as an example.)

I would be very interested in hearing what you come up with, this is way cool.

(yeah! Baum wrote 14 Oz books--Dorothy gets back to Oz in number 3, Ozma of Oz, and then in the Emerald City of Oz, which is--I think--book 6, she and her aunt and uncle go to Oz to live forever. There are a couple other real-world people who do the same, including the Wizard, who pops back up again in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz.)

if I ever do write this essay, it will probably end up being posted here. under f-lock, but posted. :P

huhhh. I have never heard of these other books! well, vaguely - I think I remember reading part of one where Dorothy goes invisible? but I never realized there were 14, or that she goes back!

You should think about reading them! The whole world of Oz is really really interesting/weird.

In The Dark Is Rising, there's actually forcible eviction for some and choice for others - I don't want to spoil you if you haven't finished them, but at the end of the last (Silver on the Tree) it's all about this. As for Will, well, he has to be an Old One and not leave the magical world even when he feels kinda lonely about it! Man, those books and their angst factor... I love them so much.

I think everyone else has mentioned anything I would've - His Dark Materials fits so well, and they are some of my favorite books, but they are possibly the worst books for your dad to know about...

This is an AWESOME project and I am kinda jealous, in the sense that I wish I'd thought of it :)) good luck!

I just finished Silver On The Tree yesterday! it was fabulous, and sad, and a little bit heartbreaking. :( all about choice! and yet not, because Simon and Barney and Jane! omgg. these books and their fantasticness and heartbreakingness. and BRAN I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. when he goes all Pendragon on them! omggg.

(they are, possibly, but I have already read them safely without him finding out, so yay!)

:DDD fandom as academical talk! (things you would totally be interested in - the essay I told Lass about up there. it is all about the various deviant sexualities in Narnia. it is AWESOME in its own kind of twisted way. :P)

That book is definitely the saddest of my childhood. I would say His Dark Materials, but I think I read that late enough for it to not be like childhood-crushing. But Silver on the Tree did :(((( it struck me as the worst thing that could possibly ever happen, forgetting all your adventures! I reread the ending so many times because I hoped I had read it wrong! BRAAAAANNNN OMG he is SO augh I love himmmm. so, since you have finished, now you can see why the fandom for these books, while small, is so passionate and outside of the gen pretty much hardcore Bran/Will shipping. gah. some of that fic is so satisfying. can I rec you one? it is gen, even, but it is almost my favorite in that fandom: The Ascent by Annakovsky. my heartttt

WHOA deviant sexualities in Narnia! I would love to read about that! *goes to look*

omgggg it was horrible. it made me want to cry, because Will was just 'I think it's time to go home for lunch' and they were all 'lovely view! no wonder we came up here!' Me: 'AUGHHHHH NO when did Bran say ANYTHING about being willing to give up his memories? he just said he would be willing to be mortal! and the others said NOTHING about giving up their memory! not even having a say that's HORRIBLE.' BRAAAN. I love him. and that is a FANTASTIC fic, I thoroughly approve. *bliss* you may rec me any and all TDIR fics you like!

mwahahaha! I found the theories in it partially hilarious and partially really interesting (and all fannish). :P

WILL JUST WANTS TO GO HOME :((( and Bran's "oh look a pretty rock, hey do you want it Jenny?" T_T I DIED. That is right! I guess he can't have two lives in any sense, not even in memory D: and yeah the others too! makes me cryyy.

I might dig up some more tDiR recs, I don't remember what I have bookmarked, but I may just post them sometime.

oh fannish theories! sometimes I get annoyed but mostly I just enjoy them SO MUCH.

Is it just me, or is there a pattern of English books and forcible eviction? Other than Peter Pan, of course.

:P I suppose maybe? there's just very few American books to judge by, maybe. hmmm.

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