The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Written by: C. S. Lewis
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
Genre(s): Allegorical Fantasy
Series: The Chronicles of Narnia
Preceded by: Prince Caspian
Followed by: The Silver Chair
First published: September 15, 1952
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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third instalment of The Chronicles of Narnia, which takes place a year later in Earth-time (and 3 years later in Narnia Time) since the previous instalment, Prince Caspian. Along with an unpleasant cousin Eustace Scrubb, Edmund and Lucy return to Narnia and travel with now-King Caspian to the edge of the world, where he is searching for exiled Telmarine lords who were loyal to his father. On the journey, their cousin is turned into a dragon, and they encounter many wonders on an adventurous voyage, at the end of which, Lucy and Edmund, like Peter and Susan in the last book, are told they will never return to Narnia.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is one of the series' most popular instalments. It was adapted for TV as part of the BBC's Chronicles of Narnia series in 1989, and reached the big screen in 2010.

Tropes used in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader include:
  • Badass Adorable: Reepicheep, to Lucy at least
  • Blessed with Suck: There's a lake with the Midas curse upon it.
  • Captain Obvious: The entire race of Dufflepuds, played for laughs.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Eustace gets magically transformed into a dragon, but treats the whole situation as something rather dreary and depressing. Then again, this is probably expected, as Eustace is the kind of person who considers going on a magical sea voyage in a fantasy land a thoroughly unpleasant affair.
    • Plus there's that golden bracelet stuck on his arm. Now that he's grown bigger, the bracelet is way too small and it causes Eustace a lot of pain until he's changed back into a human via Aslan's help.
    • He does consider the good side of being a dragon, but quickly realizes that he doesn't want it. It's an essential part of his Character Development.
    • He also realizes (no matter how hard they try to hide it from him) that his huge size would cause a lot of trouble for the crew, making it nearly impossible to bring him along, but he also knows that they wouldn't leave him. In short, he feels guilty that he is causing his friends so much trouble.
  • Dirty Coward: The Dufflepuds.
  • The Ditz: An entire race of them with the Dufflepuds.
  • Fridge Horror: Deathwater Island, in-universe.
  • Genre Blindness: "Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair, but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books"
    • Also, from the movie:

Caspian: Everyone knows not to touch a dragon's treasure.
Eustace: Death Glare
Caspian: Well, everyone from here.

  • Gold Fever: Deathwater Island
  • Green-Eyed Monster: One temptation Lucy suffers when reading the magician's book.
  • Gunboat Diplomacy: The Lone Islands
  • Heroic Vow: Caspian made one at his coronation to search for the seven missing lords of Telmar.
  • Hey, You: Eustace calls his parents by their first names.
  • I Just Want to Be Beautiful: It is revealed that Lucy envies her sister's beauty.
  • Impossibly Delicious Food: The water from the sea at the End of the World isn't just sweet and drinkable, it's all the crew needs for sustenance.
  • Irony: Caspian says that in Narnia they have fairy tales about places where the world is round.
  • Karmic Transformation: Eustace sees a dragon moving toward him, which dies shortly thereafter. He walks past the fallen beast into its lair, and, finding a hoard of treasure, steals a ring and promptly falls asleep, dreaming of plunder and thinking "dragonish" thoughts. He awakens to find that he has become a dragon, and spends a short while in this state. When he re-establishes contact with the group, he exiles himself during meals, so that nobody has to watch the gory spectacle of him dining. (The Anvilicious undertones are downplayed in the film version.)
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: When Lewis was checking the book over for publication in America, he made several changes, mostly in the Isle of Dreams sequence (the original British had the island entirely disappear; in the revised version it was stated to still exist). In 1994, when a new publishing company took over, they used the British text in the American printings, so the original American text is now getting hard to find.
  • Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Eustace argues that the men should use less water while working because their perspiration would cool them down, so they would need less water. Ignoring the fact that the whole reason you need more water when warm is that you lose more in sweat... oh, and that perspiration would, at best, keep temperature at normal, rather than cooling down beyond normal. Despite reading a lot of non-fiction, Eustace actually doesn't have that much raw intellectual firepower.
    • In the same argument, he fails to grasp that continuing east after the storm in search of land is the only viable option for restocking the ship, because they cannot cover the distance back without a similar tempest before the water runs out. He instead decries it as "wishful thinking."
    • This is lampshaded by Edmund in the movie, via limerick:

There once was a fellow named Eustace/Who only knew facts that were useless ...

  • Made a Slave: The main characters after being kidnapped in the Lone Islands.
  • Magic Pants: Not literally with pants, but the idea behind this trope is still averted when the bracelet Eustace is wearing doesn't transform to the size of a dragon limb when Eustace transforms into a dragon. His other clothes, along with a bunch of jewels in his pockets, have disappeared when he reverts to being a human - fortunately, Aslan provides him with a new set of clothes when he changes Eustace back. The bracelet (and new set of clothes) remain in the film version, although the rest of Eustace's clothes are instead discovered loose (and slightly singed) among the dragon's treasure.
  • Mass "Oh Crap": The sailors' reaction upon realizing what "dreams come true" really means.

There was about half a minute’s silence and then, with a great clatter of armor, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before...

  • More Hero Than Thou: When the characters are threatened to make Lucy to do something, Lucy argues for doing it, and the boys that they should fight to defend her.
  • Nightmare Sequence: "The Island Where Dreams Come True." Sounds great, until you remember that nightmares are dreams.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: Governor Gumpas.
  • OOC Is Serious Business: When the ship is attacked by a giant sea serpent, Reepicheep yells at everyone to push the serpent off the boat rather than fight it. Since Reepicheep usually fights first and asks questions later, this is unusual enough to startle the rest of the ship's crew into helping him.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different: While traditional merfolk dwell in the sea coast of Narnia (as mentioned in LWW), the Dawn Treader Crew encounter a different kind: They are two-legged, bipedal humanoids with ivory skin and dark purple hair who wear no clothing except for royalty (who wear only capes and circlets). They ride on giant seahorses, use hunting fish like land hunters use hawks and falcons, and shepherd other kinds of fish as well.
  • Portal Picture
  • Real Dreams Are Weirder: The reason why the island where dreams come true is so horrifying.
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: Along the way they meet a star whose penalty for an unknown sin was to govern an island full of exasperating dwarfs.
  • Reality Warping Is Not a Toy
  • Refuge in Audacity: Caspian cannot possibly wrest control of the Lone Islands from Gumpas and his slaver allies with the relatively small number of men he has with him on the Dawn Treader. So he makes a huge flashy show of his arrival to keep any of their enemies from realizing that. It works beautifully.
  • Schmuck Banquet: The Island of the Star, or so the main characters assume: It actually is completely benign, and the only reason the Telmar lords were cursed to sleep was for attempting violence against each other at the table.
  • Send in the Search Team
  • Shaming the Mob: Once they've gotten as far as Ramandu's island, the crewmen don't want to sail on any farther. Caspian counters this by announcing that being allowed to accompany him farther eastward is an honor that he's not sure any of them deserves.
  • Slave Liberation: Caspian does this at the Lone Islands.
  • Something They Would Never Say: Reepicheep's example is OOC Is Serious Business, above.
  • Star Tropes: We meet two stars, both living on islands in the sea due to being exiled (Coriakin) or retired (Ramandu). In Narnia, stars are angel-like beings.

Eustace: In our world, a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.
Ramandu: Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.

  • Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom: The "Island Where Dreams Come True." Dreams, as in nightmares.
  • Take That: At modern educational and childrearing techniques that produce such a brat as Eustace.
  • These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: But -- we really want to know what kinds of sins a star can commit.
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: Coriakin's Great Big Book of Everything. Also a bit of Forbidden Fruit, in regards to some spells.
  • Unfortunate Names: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." In the next book, after Eustace's Jerk Face Turn, Lewis introduces him with "but he wasn't a bad sort."
    • Written by a man named "Clive Staples," who vastly preferred to be called "Jack."
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Used with an actual mouse. It is implied, but not explicitly stated, that Reepicheep made it to Aslan's country. We don't know if he reached it successfully in his boat after going over the giant wave, or died in the attempt and went to Heaven the old-fashioned way; the book simply states that after that moment, no one could claim to have seen him again.
    • It's explicitly shown in the BBC version, where his boat floats up the waterfall to Aslan's Country.
    • In the last book, he is there and greets everyone.
    • We never find out exactly what happened to Lord Octesian; the characters guess that he was either eaten by the dragon or turned into a dragon on Dragon Island, but the only clue they have is his bracelet.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Caspian in his Pride wants to stay at the end of the world; the entire crew and even Aslan calls him out on abandoning his responsibilities and promises.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: "The Island Where Dreams Come True." (Unlike most places described by the phrase, emphatically not a nice place to visit.)
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