Jo Kershaw
@mthrjo.bsky.social
5.5K followers 920 following 16K posts
Priest, mediaevalist, geek, Scot. All views personal. She/ her
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mthrjo.bsky.social
Birds of 2025:
Chaffinch
Pigeon
Sparrow
Goldfinch
Robin
Dunnock
Jackdaw
Starling
Reposted by Jo Kershaw
cursed.monster
Roko’s Basilisk is actually an inkjet that functioned long enough to end the world, which is the true desire of all printers
mthrjo.bsky.social
No objection but I think I need @oldenoughtosay.com’s input on that
mthrjo.bsky.social
I am going to end up trying to write a book about woke readings of CS Lewis, aren’t I?

(Jack, o.p.n. Please).
mthrjo.bsky.social
He had a blind spot about gender until late in life, but even at his most unreconstructed he’s more interesting than his progressive critics and conservative fans tend to make out
mthrjo.bsky.social
I mean things are very bad but I am happy to point and say “that is the Enemy at work right there.”
mthrjo.bsky.social
Genuinely revolting to see how Metaxas has slandered a saint of God.
Reposted by Jo Kershaw
starshine.bsky.social
I have friends (of christ) everywhere
unraveledpress.com
Chanting, "we are the body of Christ! The body of Christ will be free!"

This crowd has swelled considerably. Few hundred here now.
mthrjo.bsky.social
Yeah, that is one of the better candidates
mthrjo.bsky.social
Oh, Puddleglum is my hero.
mthrjo.bsky.social
Jadis is very much the famous scene from Downfall, but better looking.
mthrjo.bsky.social
Dedra hasn’t got the chops to pull that off. She’s a natural follower.
mthrjo.bsky.social
Come to think of it, you could make a very interesting adaptation that really leaned into the Witch as fascistic.

(Might work even better for the Green Lady in Silver Chair. Make Underland Great Again).
mthrjo.bsky.social
Of course, it’s not irrelevant that Lewis wrote LWWW in the aftermath of WWII, and sets it at its beginning (probably), so it’s not entirely surprising that the Witch’s reign of terror has some fascistic touches, but I hadn’t realised how much Ed sounds like someone going fash out of resentment.
mthrjo.bsky.social
Ok, did not expect “The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” to feel quite so relevant to this moment.

Here’s Edmund, deciding to side with the leader who he’s been told disappears people.
He did want Turkish Delight and to be a prince (and later a king) and to pay Peter out for calling him a beast. As for what the Witch would do with the others, he didn't want her to be particularly nice to them - certainly not to put them on the same level as himself; but he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do anything very bad to them, 'Because,' he said to himself, 'all these people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are. I expect she is the rightful Queen really. Anyway, she'll be better than that awful Aslan!' At least, that was the excuse he made in his own mind for what he was doing. It wasn't a very good excuse, however, for deep down inside him he really knew that the White Witch was bad and cruel.
mthrjo.bsky.social
Yes, but not just them.
mthrjo.bsky.social
“he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do anything very bad to them, 'Because,' he said to himself, 'all these people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are.”

Oof.
mthrjo.bsky.social
But also, it is explicitly magic Turkish Delight.
mthrjo.bsky.social
I actually rather like it, but: INCREDIBLY sweet and sugar and sweets were very strictly rationed at the time. And presumably it was completely unobtainable at the time given shipping was… difficult.

(Unless he sold them out for a bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight, which I find rather less explicable).
mthrjo.bsky.social
Lewis cheerfully throws a bunch of period cues into a blender for Narnia, particularly in LWWW, and one of the things that goes into the mix is that the Witch has secret police who take people away to be detained indefinitely (by being turned to stone, it’s still a fairy tale).
mthrjo.bsky.social
Ok, did not expect “The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” to feel quite so relevant to this moment.

Here’s Edmund, deciding to side with the leader who he’s been told disappears people.
He did want Turkish Delight and to be a prince (and later a king) and to pay Peter out for calling him a beast. As for what the Witch would do with the others, he didn't want her to be particularly nice to them - certainly not to put them on the same level as himself; but he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do anything very bad to them, 'Because,' he said to himself, 'all these people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are. I expect she is the rightful Queen really. Anyway, she'll be better than that awful Aslan!' At least, that was the excuse he made in his own mind for what he was doing. It wasn't a very good excuse, however, for deep down inside him he really knew that the White Witch was bad and cruel.
mthrjo.bsky.social
Back when I was on Twitter some American had a go at me for “pretending to be a Catholic priest.” (Not pretending to be a priest, which is just big standard anti-women’s ordination rhetoric). They apparently thought the collar meant I was masquerading as an RC priest.
Reposted by Jo Kershaw
mthrjo.bsky.social
It’s usually a bad idea to start trying to spot the Antichrist and I would generally advise against it, but there are definitely more obvious candidates out there now right now than Greta Thunberg.