This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Thank you for joining me for another chapter by chapter review of Peter Pan talking about
Chapter 13 this time, Do You Believe in Fairies?
If this isn't, if this is your first time here and you're not joining me again, then
I would invite you to check out all the other episodes.
You can check this one out first because it's going to be good, and then you can go back
to the other ones and check out the whole thing.
I've got it all on the playlist.
I've got it linked on my website.
You can find all of the CXC chapter by chapter podcast episodes where you can hear me talking
about Peter Pan for now, and I will add to that as time goes on.
You can also check out Fortress Fiction where I talk about other books.
One great, well, not one great book.
A similar-ish book is Alice in Wonderland.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is an absurdist book, and there's a lot of absurd
elements in Peter Pan as well, which I really appreciate.
James Barry is very funny, very creative, very imaginative, very thought-provoking in
the way he writes things, and this chapter is no exception.
I'm intrigued by the fact that he did this metatextual thing where he asked the readers
to engage, and I'm a parent of small children, so I've seen Daniel Tiger, and there's the
scene where, or there's the parts in the episode where they ask for the audience participation,
and they wait and they pretend as if they've heard something, and I like the way that it's
framed and this way it's handled, and this is really interesting because it says, some
clapped, some didn't, and some little beast hissed or something like that, and that's
cool because if you were reading this to a kid and the kid clapped, they would be validated
for the choice of clapping.
If you were reading to a kid who didn't clap and it said some didn't clap but some did,
they would also be validated in that choice, and they'd be like, ooh, okay, I didn't kill
Tinkerbell by not clapping.
Somebody else clapped, and they took care of the problem for me, and I don't have to
worry about it, or even if that child is disconnected from the mat, or if they don't want to clap
for whatever reason, they're being transgressive or they're being a little stinker, basically,
just what transgressive is, then other kids throughout the world, you could imagine that
they are clapping at this scene at the same time because I would think that children would
think that if they're having the story read to them, that other children are having the
story read to them at the same time, and they think, oh, somebody else clapped, so it doesn't.
And it's a really interesting turn, it's a really interesting way to present it, and
then even throwing in the detail that some kids hissed at Tinkerbell because they didn't
like her, which is understandable, she's kind of irascible.
It adds this element of variety, or not variety, but truthfulness.
It feels very real because it's positioning and it's showing different perspectives that
different children would have on Tinkerbell and probably do have on Tinkerbell, and that's
kind of really interesting the way that's done.
Some other really interesting elements in here, or interesting dark elements or serious
elements that you might not expect in a story like this, is yes, while Captain Hook is trying
to kill Peter and the Lost Boys and Wendy, maybe less so Wendy, or maybe more, he'd kill
her in a more merciful, more gentlemanly fashion than he'd kill the Lost Boys.
Gosh, he might poison her instead of stabbing her with his hook, you know?
It's very much more romantic and nice and gentlemanly.
Yeah.
Barry doesn't shy away from being real about things, so Hook apparently is this intense
man who has concocted a crazy potion or a poison for himself that will kill him if he's
ever captured, well, before he's ever captured so that he doesn't give his enemy the dignity
of capturing him, and then being the ones to kill him, he'll take his own life.
And that's really dark and really serious, and very interesting.
It's very interesting that it's here.
We've got a lot going on, like Peter doesn't want to let Wendy win, so he doesn't want
to take his medicine for her.
He sleeps on top of the covers, not four feet over the covers, but on top of the covers.
Shout out if you know what that was a reference to.
Anyway, sorry.
But anyway, so he, I like a lot of stories, okay?
I like a lot of stories, I like a lot of movies, I like a lot of fun stuff.
So, he's doing things like that to get back at her even though she's not there, and he
even falls asleep laughing, because he knows that if he laughs instead of crying or being
sad that it would get at Wendy, it would nettle her, so to speak.
And what in the world is going on?
Anyway, you people who are watching the video, you get to enjoy this, and people who are
on the audio only, you don't know, you don't know what's going on here.
Anyway, so it's still not fixed.
We're just having fun here, aren't we?
And then he wants to make it up to her, so even though she's not there, he goes ahead
and drinks his medicine, which is just water, and it has this terrible poison in it, but
before he can drink it, Tinkerbell, who's warned him that Hook was in there, that Hook
put the poison in there, somehow he was in there and put the poison in there, she grabs,
she gets in between his mouth and the bottle, and she drinks the deadly draft, and she's
dying, and then we get this opportunity to save her life by clapping as we're reading
the book or listening to the book read to us.
And then after all that's done, and I'm not summarizing the book, I'm not summarizing
the chapter, but I'm telling you things that happened in it so I can remark on them, so
I just mentioned to somebody previously today that I don't really like when people recap
things unless they're doing it in such a way to add value to it and to pique my interest
in it.
And hopefully this is piquing your interest as a computer pan, but I'm trying to react
more to what happened, but I got to tell you a little bit what happened to react to it,
right?
So anyway, Peter leaves the tree house with all these weapons on him saying, Hook or me
this time, he vows, Hook or me.
So he's going out there to kill that man and to kill that adult, not that he hasn't killed
men before, and he's going with all these weapons and there's this really cool detail
about the fact that he has to fly a certain height, like he's got a kind of like skulk
low on the ground instead of flying high.
He wants the height advantage, the aerial advantage, he wants the high ground and to
be able to see what's going on on the island, but the birds will give him away because he's
... Is this because of the crazy names that he gave him or the name?
I don't know, something about the names that he gave the birds, but I really think it's
just because he's like a jerk or maybe the names that he gave them gave him a character
that's very aggressive.
Anyway, the birds would let Hook know that Peter was on the way and also him, well, because
if he were flying up near the birds would see him, they would alert Hook basically.
So he's skulking like an Indian, like one of the Peking Indian, and he is hoping that
all the, well, some of the lost boys in Wendy remember to do things that will help him to
find them and to trace them down.
Although I would think he would just go to Hook's ship, which the, you know, spoilers,
the next chapter is called Pirate Ship, so he must just go to their ship, but it mentions
at the very end of the chapter that he is having a blast.
He's having so much fun, and I think the idea is that while all of this is true and while
all of this is dangerous, this is all kind of just a game to Peter and to these kids
in Neverland, and it's all kind of done in good fun.
And that's, I don't know, it's kind of nice for the audience because it kind of softens
the blow, it softens the danger, it like helps them to know that this is going to be okay.
But reading it as an adult, it just makes Peter sound crazy.
It makes him sound crazy and dangerous, and I don't know, it's kind of interesting.
It's almost uncomfortable, but I like it actually.
So as I said while I was reviewing something else, I really like deadly weirdos.
Those are my favorite kinds of hero characters are deadly weirdos.
So anyway, I guess that's what Peter is.
Until next time, folks, take care.
Check out MJWindows.com to find all my stuff.
I'm reviewing a lot of things.
I'm also working on writing a lot of things.
I had a faux pas happen with a short story I was writing, but I went ahead and finished
it.
I need to go through and fix it up and get it punched up into proper order to share with
people and read to them or offer them to read.
And I have other short stories that I will be publishing soon over on MJWindows.com.
Before I finish reading Peter Pan, at least one of the short stories will be up for sure,
I think.
Anyway, take care, folks.
Be well and keep reading.
I hope you enjoyed that.
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