Preserving the Past...and That Which Will One Day be the Past

I realize that this Journal is something of a random collection of ideas, goings-on in Caledon and areas with similar themes, adventures I've had (or, gasp, fictionalized versions thereof - though a fiction of a fiction is a little too meta-fictional for me), journeys to other sims, with the occasional observation about the, ah, larger world thrown in for good measure. Viewed differently, however, this Journal not random at all: it's a compendium of the experiences of Rhianon and Kathy Jameson in this slice of our lives, and those experiences cut across all the categories listed in the previous sentence.

Some of the entries serve to memorialize places that no longer exist - or, to put it more properly, will at some point no longer exist and deserve to linger in memory. Two recent posts, here and here, discuss the unfortunate demise of the October Country sim. I was there in mid-December; the picture below is all that exists in my files; if memory serves, I had meant to return for a longer stay at some point.

The point is, one never knows how long something will last. Hence, my insatiable desire to experience, preserve, and catalogue.

All of which brings me to today's exercise in chronicling Lands of Interest: Cair Paravel, in the East Narnia sim. (Interestingly enough, the adjoining sim is called "Chronicles of Narnia" - not to be confused with "Chronicles of Gor," which is what one first sees by typing "Chronicles" into the Map - but travel to that sim is blocked, and the sim itself appears to be still under development.)


Our flame-haired correspondent, Kathy, visited one late afternoon. Sweeping vistas, pounding surf, intimidating mountains and rocky outcroppings were very much in evidence. Actual Narnia-related builds, not so much. Below, a carved Aslan overlooks his kingdom.

A primitive village shows signs of habitation - but no villagers.

As an aside, when I read the Narnia books, I always had an uneasy feeling about the way the series ended. Susan, the oldest of the Pevensie children, is unable to return to Narnia for the last battle - and thus, presumably, is not among the saved - because she grew up. That seems a little harsh. Also harsh was killing off her siblings in a train crash. Certainly that avoided the chore of fending off rabid fans eager for yet another sequel, but still... As it turns out, Neil Gaiman also found himself uneasy at how things wrapped up, and wrote a story, contained in his 2006 collection Fragile Things, called "The Problem of Susan." Gaiman has a somewhat more, ahem, adult take on the whole Narnia thing.