It's all in Their Head

When I was watching the bonus features on The Chronicles of Narnia, they said something that caught me off guard. People sometimes read The Chronicles of Narnia as though it were all made up by the kids.

I never once thought that while reading the books. It feels like an almost condescending view of the kids. Acting as though they just made it all up. Look how upset Lucy is when she's accused of that? And then someone else ends up denying Narnia in the last book (which always makes me angry). It sort of stops being a fantasy if you read it like that. It's not a real world - it's just a story kids are telling each other. It means that none of the stakes really matter. Because all of those characters are imaginary.

But it's not uncommon for this to happen in movies and books- to have a story that isn't actually happening. The Wizard of Oz film takes place in a dream. Which is odd, because that was not the case in the book. Dorothy really went to Oz. The movie Mirrormask did something different. It was a dream, but the protagonist knew it was a dream. She found meaning in it despite knowing that it wasn't real.

Then you get things like Calvin and Hobbes. It seems obvious that Hobbes isn't really alive and walking around - Calvin only imagines him that way. But then again, Calvin does things with Hobbes which doesn't seem possible if he were really on his own. So, is Hobbes alive or not? And yeah, I may be over-reading this one.

But The Life of Pi addresses this directly. Do you trust the kids to tell the true story? Or do want the easier explanation - that he just made it all up.