This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
I'm going to be talking about chapters 6 of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
Check out my short, it's kind of funny, it's kind of wild. I am not mentioning that there, and I've decided that the shorts are going to stay on YouTube or TikTok or wherever they are, and maybe even on Twitter.
But I'm not going to include the content of them in my long videos anymore.
That way it gives me a little room to breathe, because the word, well, a certain word comes up and you can find it on your own.
It's pretty bad though. But I have a couple notes on this chapter, because other than that crazy thing mentioned at the end, it was a pretty cool chapter.
And it was like simple and sweet and I liked a lot of what was going on.
So first of all I'm going to talk about killing Toodles.
So Toodles was Tinkerbell's hapless victim, and she duped him into shooting the Wendy Bird for Peter.
And after he shot the Wendy Bird he realized that it wasn't a bird, it was a lady.
That's what they call her I guess. She's older enough than them, the Lost Boys, that they just call her a lady.
Although it's super ill to find how old these guys are, so that's kind of weird, but whatever works.
A lot of older books I find it's very hard to understand. George McDonald's The Princess and Curie.
I can't tell if the princess is 5 or 15, and I mean that literally.
Also, well she sounds more like she could be 11 at the oldest, but she could be 5.
Same thing with Dorothy and Elfrick Bums, Wizard of Oz. She could be anywhere in the age range because she's a girl.
And then Curdie, who's the boy, the miner's son, he's a miner himself.
M-I-N-E-R, he mines for a profession.
But he is also a miner, although he's on the cusp of manhood I guess you could say.
It's hard to tell how old he is, and there's some sweet interactions between him, Curdie and the princess.
Irene, or Irene, sorry.
And then there's some odd interactions based on you don't know how old this girl is, and even if she is the right age for him,
it's also kind of weird because of just the context and how things are done, but she also seems like a very childish, innocent type person.
But she's lived a childhood life. That's a whole other book, George McDonald's The Princess and the Goblin is fantastic.
The Princess and Curdie is potentially even better. They're definitely a great companion set of books that I strongly advise anybody who likes any of these.
Any form of literature to go ahead and read because they're just that good.
But let me get back to this. We have Tootles is the hapless pawn of Tinkerbell, and he thinks he's killed Wendy,
and he's very proud that he made the killing shot against the Wendy bird.
Turns out she's a lady. And all the Lost Boys are gathered around, and it's so silent the book says that if her heart was beating they would have heard it.
Which is a great... I don't like being told to do this in my writing, add sensory details to really make the reader feel immersed.
I don't know that I felt immersed, but it's just like, oh yeah, it must have been very quiet if they would have heard her heartbeat.
But it also implies that she is dead because her heart's not beating anymore, which is great.
A lot of great work being done by one small line. So that's very interesting.
The Lost Boys all huddle around Wendy to hide the fact that she's dead because when Peter comes he says,
guys, I brought a mother for you. And they realize, uh oh, this was the mother and we've killed the mother.
Well, Toodles did specifically. And this was really interesting. Toodles, Peter's furious and he wants to kill Toodles.
And he pulls out his dagger to do it. And Toodles puffs out his chest basically and says strike me. Strike me down now.
And he's willing to give his life because he did wrong and he accidentally killed this innocent girl.
And I find that very interesting. It's very honor bound, which these boys playing it at men, playing these games where they're playing it being men,
they get to do that. They have the luxury of doing that. They don't have to think about what it would mean to actually give up their lives.
It's not even 100 percent certain that Toodles is not pretending that he would die for Wendy and amends for having killed her.
But it is mentioned later on in this chapter that Peter doesn't know the difference between pretend play and real.
And he basically bullies the boys, the lost boys into playing along with him because they do recognize the difference between pretend play and real.
And the worst of it is when he pretends that they've had dinner already and they all have to agree that they've already had dinner and then they don't get to eat their dinner, which is pretty interesting.
Again, it goes in this weird psychology of Peter Pan. Like he's this, like he is the most lost of the lost boys.
And his memories are lost and his concept of reality and pretend is lost. It's very interesting.
I find it very stimulating thing to like think about psychologically because what does all that mean anyway?
But he doesn't kill Toodles. Why? Because Wendy saves him because Wendy's not dead.
Surprise, surprise. The pendant, the kiss that is the acorn on a string that Peter had given to Wendy before his kiss saved her, which is pretty interesting to think about.
So it's kind of I don't know if this was a novel thing at the time or if it was cliche already that the pendant or the arrow was stricken or stroke that the arrow struck into the acorn that was over her heart or chest or whatever.
So it was the blow and then the shock of it falling out of the sky that made her seem as if she was dead, but she wasn't really.
And I find that to be really interesting. I like it. It's fun. It's simple.
It contradicts directly the thing about them not being able to hear her heart. But was her heart really so loud that they would have heard it?
Had it been thumping, which it was obviously no, because that's not how hearts work.
She didn't have a boombox or she didn't have, you know, base installed in her chest to, you know, rattle it as her heart's beating.
So, you know, it's kind of interesting because it seems like a contradiction, but it's not really if you think about it hard.
And it's very like lovely, flowery, cool writing. So a lot of cool literary stuff going on there.
And like I said, it was the kiss. It was the kiss that saved her and Tootles actually, because she stayed Peter's hand, which was cool.
And then they all get on their knees and they like plead for her to be their mother and to read them stories and to do all this stuff.
And this is exactly what Peter had tempted her with to come away, come away to the to the Neverland Island.
I guess this is what the boys want or what they wanted all along.
And when they learn that she is going to be able to provide that for them, they're very enthusiastic.
And I can't remember whose idea it was now, but somebody asks for the boys to build a house for Wendy.
I kind of wonder if it's so that she doesn't stay with them separately.
I think Peter does like it strikes as fancy to say like, oh, we need to build a house for her.
And if she's going to be our mother, she needs a separate home or whatever.
So they do that. And it's pretty cute because they're going through and excuse me,
they're going to the forest with axes and stuff and chopping wood and bringing things over.
And like she specifies that she wants the walls to be red and the green, no, and the roof to be green.
And like, I don't know if that they're actually painting it.
I think they're just pretending that there are certain colors. And that's, again, fun.
There's a lot of fun play ideas being represented here.
And it's very whimsical and very enjoyable.
So they go ahead and build that house for her.
And they're also pretending that slightly as a doctor and like he's got to take care of Wendy.
And just like he's like prescribing her medicine or treatment or whatever.
And it's just really interesting to like the power of the fantasy and the power of the play at work here.
And then there's something real that happens at the end of the chapter.
No, not that from the short something else that happens that Peter says,
because he can hear the pirates carousing and he hear the wolves roaming around,
that he actually stands outside all night, except for when he falls asleep, of Wendy's house.
And he guards her holding his knife, not a sword. I think it's his knife.
Pretty sure it's a dagger that he's got. Anyway, and it's kind of interesting because like there's interesting gender roles at play here.
There's, you know, the boys are treating the girl differently.
She's in this exalted position, but she's also like serving them.
But they kind of love her and worship her a little bit.
And they tend to her and care for her. But she also does that in return for them.
And it's kind of gentlemanly to have her have her own sleeping quarters
and have Peter protecting her from any dangers that might come to them.
And I don't know, just it's interesting because it's just it's very I don't want to over overstate this.
It's just the way that the play is manifest is interesting because so much of what's going on is pretend,
even though they are in this other world, even though they are in this other world,
which goes back to my assertion that it's interesting how much of how deeply ingrained and I haven't talked about this here before.
But there's manga, anime and light novel trend that's been going strong for 10 years, if not more.
I would say at least 10 years, probably 20, because I don't keep that strong of a tap on Japanese culture.
But of Isekai, it means in another world, I think. And it's where characters get sent to another world.
Often they get sent to another world by getting killed, which I didn't know about until recently.
But like this book, The Children Go to the Neverland, which is another world,
and CS Lewis is the land in which the wardrobe and all of those Narnia books, they all get sent to another world.
I'm trying to think of older examples, anything with fairy in it.
And I do like I do mean the F.A.E.R.I.E. like that Tolkien would have talked about, for example, people get whisked away into fairy.
So they have fairy adventures, but they also get whisked away into a fairy land and they go into the fairy realm.
And even like the fairy circles that are spoken of in like Kensington Park or Kensington Gardens, I don't know what it's called.
I'm not British. They seem to kind of be representative of fairy circles and that entrance into the world of fairy.
And I find it to be very interesting that the Isekai concept is so strong now and so popular right now.
But that also people getting Isekai in stories is a very old storytelling format or concept in stories that we get to see played out in different ways.
And I just think it's kind of interesting to point that out that it happens here, too.
So that's all I have to say for now. Check out the rest of my ongoing or check out the previous episodes where I'm talking about.
Chapter by chapter Peter Pan and stay tuned for the rest of them.
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So I'm very much like Peter Pan and I'll talk about books that I don't like here.
I'm going to try to avoid books I hate as much as possible.
But I've kind of given myself a random ish list of classic and modern children's books to read, middle grade books, I would say, to read.
And I'm going to work through them all chapter by chapter. And I'm inviting you to join me along for that journey.
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I also talk about Japanese superhero stuff and some anime as well over on another channel called Henshin Inspection, where you can find everything linked at MJMunoz.com
I'm also working on getting published this year of 2024, my own children's middle grade book, children's book middle grade book about magical bugs who battle monsters.
And I hope people will find that interesting because I sure do.
I think it's a lot of fun and I have ideas for other dozens and dozens of other stories I want to write.
Until next time, folks, take care and be well.
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