Guides Through the Marsh
Jul. 7th, 2008 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmI’m always interested in locals-versus-incomers moments, and reading The Eagle of the Ninth with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_schrapnell threw up one that seemed very familiar. I’m thinking of the passage where our heroes are guided through otherwise-impassable marshland by the hunter Guern, who has the requisite local knowledge. Haven’t I come across that same scene several times elsewhere? There’s Gollum in the Dead Marshes, for example. And Grimpen Mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles, if memory serves, was such another (not sure about that...). My son tells me that the same thing happens in Outlaw of Redwall too. And – well, there are lots more. Lots. Aren’t there?
How do the locals find out about these routes? Is it trial and error? How many "volunteers" does the average marsh tribe lose in plotting out the correct way through their marsh? (Luckily there always is a route – and always exactly one, irrespective of rain or drought. Nor does it ever seem to change, despite the unsettled condition of the land.) I can see the survey team now: “I hope you’re making a note of all this---glub!”
The marsh sits in the interection of two sets of narrative devices: the labyrinth (Ariadne was the original "local guide") and the seemingly-impassable hero barrier, where it belongs with clashing rocks, unscalable mountains, and guardian beasts. I’ve never written an epic journey myself - well, not since I was 18, and the less said about that the better - but it must be very difficult to find new variations on these themes. And yet, where would we be without them? “Well, we have made good time to Mordor!”
lady_schrapnell threw up one that seemed very familiar. I’m thinking of the passage where our heroes are guided through otherwise-impassable marshland by the hunter Guern, who has the requisite local knowledge. Haven’t I come across that same scene several times elsewhere? There’s Gollum in the Dead Marshes, for example. And Grimpen Mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles, if memory serves, was such another (not sure about that...). My son tells me that the same thing happens in Outlaw of Redwall too. And – well, there are lots more. Lots. Aren’t there?How do the locals find out about these routes? Is it trial and error? How many "volunteers" does the average marsh tribe lose in plotting out the correct way through their marsh? (Luckily there always is a route – and always exactly one, irrespective of rain or drought. Nor does it ever seem to change, despite the unsettled condition of the land.) I can see the survey team now: “I hope you’re making a note of all this---glub!”
The marsh sits in the interection of two sets of narrative devices: the labyrinth (Ariadne was the original "local guide") and the seemingly-impassable hero barrier, where it belongs with clashing rocks, unscalable mountains, and guardian beasts. I’ve never written an epic journey myself - well, not since I was 18, and the less said about that the better - but it must be very difficult to find new variations on these themes. And yet, where would we be without them? “Well, we have made good time to Mordor!”