Stephen, Charles and Mike Maynard
The CBB -> Book Discussions
#1: Stephen, Charles and Mike Maynard Author: Josie, Location: London PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:09 am

Please discuss the three eldest Maynard boys here...

#2:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:30 am

One thing I really like about the holiday books is that we see more of the boys and of the Maynard family as a whole. The drive to the Tyrol in A Future Chalet School Girl really makes me laugh, when Mike drops his hanky out of the window and he and Stephen argue and then Charles moans that he's hungry - it's very true to life! The boys all seem quite interesting - Stephen as the responsible one, Charles as the quiet and slightly mysterious one and Mike as the mischievous one - but I suppose that seeing as the books were about a girls' school they were never going to get much of a look in. I'd love to know who all the Maynard, Bettany & Russell boys would've ended up with had the series carried on - I'm sure EBD would have found nice Chalet girls for them all!

#3:  Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:30 am

They almost appeared to have been unimportant. Sent off to school early and forgotten. Barely rating a mention in the holiday books.
Did Eleanor have no use for males who weren't doctors?

#4:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:56 am

tiffinata wrote:
Did Eleanor have no use for males who weren't doctors?


Well, they make up the numbers in the race for who could have the most children!

I suppose there are a few male teachers - Mr Denny, Herr Laubach etc - plus various caretakers/odd job men etc, plus the clergymen who appear every so often - but none of them have very much of a role. The only other man I can think of who isn't either a doctor/ a Bettany relative and does have much of a role is Michael Christy in the St Briavel's books: he seemed to spend a suspicious amount of time with Miss Annersley!

#5:  Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:18 pm

Just out of curiousity, which CS girls might we pair up with these Maynard boys? Someone like Audrey Everett with Stephen perhaps, or are they too close together in age?

#6:  Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:20 pm

Ohhh! New drabble,KB Wink

#7:  Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:35 pm

Not on your nelly! I have far too much to do!

#8:  Author: Changnoi, Location: New Mexico, USA PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:37 am

I really like Charles; I wish we saw more of him. In Three Go, back when Len still has faults and the triplets aren't so one-dimensional, Charles gets a little mention as the only one who can make Margot behave. Just by looking at her, he makes her behave.

That, to me, is the sign of the most mature and responsible one in the family. There are no lectures about devils or guardian angels. Just one look, and Margot behaves.

So Charles is cool. He may marry Lucy Peters.

Steve I like as well. Stolid, responsible, kind of quiet, but occasionally rowdy.

Steve can marry Adrienne, if she's not older than he is. Yes, I know that I have posted that I feel somewhat taboo about this, but since Steve is at school all the time and Adrienne has only been a ward since age 15 (?), they haven't grown up with each other enough.

Mike. I don't like him so much because EBD seems to give him no personality other than being mischievous and a mini-Margot. And then, after Mike, she makes Felix and Geoff JUST LIKE HIM. Mike, I think, ought to marry either Carlotta von Ahlen or Olinda von Gluck, whichever is more age-appropriate, as a way to cement the alliance between the originial quartet.

Chang

#9:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:46 pm

I think Charles is destined to be a priest... so he won't marry anyone. Smile I see him very much as a "father confessor" type - he has a quiet influence over Margot and his non destructive love of nature, as well as some comments in Joey & Co.

Quote:
Stephen giggled. “No blinking fear! Chas likes to watch things, but he won’t take eggs or kill butterflies or anything like that. Don’t go off thinking he’s a sissy—he ain’t! But he has some rum ideas about that sort of thing. Come on! They’re leaving us behind.” And he set off to scramble as hard as he could after the others.
Quote:
The Richardsons had already decided that the second Maynard boy was the most silent person they had ever met. It wasn’t shyness; that was quite clear, for if he wanted to talk, Charles said all he had to say without fear or favour. It was simply that unless he had anything to say, he held his tongue. Now, he turned away to stroll along by himself, his dark grey eyes keen to see any tiny happenings as he went.
“Is Chas going to be a naturalist?” Ruey asked Margot as they followed Joey.
Margot shook her head. “You know as much as I do. He’s never said anything about it, though he’s awfully keen on nature things. Steve’s going to be an engineer and Mike means to enter the Navy. It’s the only thing he’s keen on. But no one knows what Chas means to do.”


I know that last sounds remarkably vague, but it just reminds me of some of the things said about Margot before she broke the news of her vocation.

#10:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:54 pm

Kate wrote:
I think Charles is destined to be a priest...

I know that last sounds remarkably vague, but it just reminds me of some of the things said about Margot before she broke the news of her vocation.


I always thought this too - from the same passage Kate quoted - and the part in Joey Goes where he breaks the little statue.

Or he could be a second Kester Bellever! Wink

#11:  Author: Changnoi, Location: New Mexico, USA PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:08 pm

I agree that he has potential to be a priest, if anyone must, but I've always seen him more as professor or barrister. So he could get married.

Actually, now that I think of it, EBD is pointing in her own little way all along that she wants Charles in the priesthood. To me, the non-Catholic, it seems like two from one family is rather a lot, given EBD's other primary concern, that of bearing hordes of children and establishing a dynasty. If Margot is already removed from the breeding pool and Phil may be as weak as Phoebe Peters and having to adopt (no evidence there, just a thought), would EBD want to remove Charles from the breeding pool?

Maybe he could convert to being Anglican and be an Anglican priest and marry. Very High Anglican. In fact, this seems to me, again, based on nothing but my current whimsy, like something Charles would do.

Chang

#12:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:14 pm

In traditional-type Irish Catholic families, the eldest boy becomes a doctor, the second a priest and the third a farmer. Any spare ones generally become priests also, join the army or perhaps become schoolmasters - the thinking behind it is that they're all "safe" careers, the training didn't cost much, you can't split up the farm into bits for everyone and having a priest in the family raises the family up in the sight of God. Most Irish Catholics have priests as uncles or great-uncles. And they mayn't have gotten a choice in the matter.

I guess only one son needs to have children, especially if he's going to have nine or so too!

#13:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:20 pm

I don't think that one priest and one nun out of 11 would be a lot. Maybe by the 1950s/1960s the idea of entering the ministry (of any religious denomination) was becoming less ... appealing (sure that's the wrong word to use but can't think of the right one!), but the Russells and the Maynards do seem to have very traditional views about things like that, like when Madge and Jem talk about one of their twins going into the Navy and one going into the Army. They very much seem to take an old-fashioned upper-class/upper-middle-class view.

Just wondering why the clergy didn't play more of a role in the books - we see chaplains at the school sometimes, and we see Robin and her fellow nuns in "Adrienne", but there's not much otherwise. Given the emphasis on religion at the school, I'm surprised that they aren't mentioned more often. Sorry, this has nothing to do with the Maynard boys! I assume that Mike would have ended up in the Navy, Stephen would have been an engineer, and Charles either a priest or a naturalist (whoops, nearly put naturist by accident then!).

#14:  Author: Ray, Location: Bristol, England PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:20 pm

Alison H wrote:
(whoops, nearly put naturist by accident then!).


Shocked Shocked Shocked

That would be a very different CS book!

I have a *feeling* that in one of the English books, Joey jokes about Charles, as the second son, being destined for the clergy. I'm not sure which book that's in, though.

Ray *hasn't read enough of the holiday books to comment further*

#15:  Author: claire, Location: South Wales PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:21 pm

Going by the age gaps EBD seems to like Steven would probably end up with someone like Lucy Peters

#16:  Author: Changnoi, Location: New Mexico, USA PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:04 am

But Steven needs someone more *sophisticated* than Lucy Peters.

(What makes Lucy Peters unsophisticated? I have no idea. She just seems very girl-next-door-ish, always second banana to Felicity).

There's Adrienne, the quiet but oh-so-tres-chic French ward with a French accent and a mysterious past. I don't honestly know the age difference, but, for once, a Maynard/Bettany/Russell could marry someone close to them in age.

And Joey would like it as a way to unite the Maynard family with the Robin once and for all.

I think my perception of Joey/EBD is that she's out to build dynasties here. Joey feels threatened if anyone has more children than she does. She's willing to take in a large number of wards to educate in the Maynard traditions of murmuring-not-whispering and trilingualism. EBD wants to punish characters (except Mary-Lou) who are only children by giving them all strange personality quirks. Joey and EBD are trying to build an empire, and, as Gisela points out in And Jo, a nation is what it is because of its children. Thus follows the subsequent discussion about marrying David Russell to Natalie Mensch, as both will have had wonderful childhoods and impeccable 'training'. Although Gisela laughed off this idea, I don't think EBD would.

So that's why I wonder if she would really be content for Charles to go into a life in which he cannot have children. Margot has already been sacrificed to religion, the token that will allow G-d to smile favorably on The Maynard Dynasty. But to have Charles go could deprive Joey of anywhere between 11 and 16 grandchildren, depending on how many sets of multiple births his future spouse can have. Maybe he should marry Marie-Therese Courvoisier and then both sides of the family can have a history of twins.

I realize that I am completely talking through my hat with this. It's the end of a long day. I apologize, but I enjoyed writing this, and I am picturing the rise of the epic Maynard Dynasty.

Chang

#17:  Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:54 am

Changnoi wrote:
I realize that I am completely talking through my hat with this. It's the end of a long day. I apologize, but I enjoyed writing this, and I am picturing the rise of the epic Maynard Dynasty.

Chang


Scope there for a drabble maybe? Laughing

#18:  Author: CatherineS, Location: Smalltown, West of Scotland PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 11:11 am

I've just started reading the transcript of 'Future', and I agree with whoever it was (sorry!) who found the minibus trip at the start very amusing and thought it gave a great insight into the boys' personalities. This is the first book in which they really start to grow distinct for me. I can really see Stephen and Charles. Stephen reminds me of various boys at school and older brothers of friends - a bit too solidly confident on certain matters and all-knowing, and rather contemptuous of girls; Charles I adore so far, especially as someone who clearly knows lots and notices small things but only offers up the information rather than being supercilious (a bit snotty, actually) about it as Stephen is with car:

"Didn't you see Dad change gears?" Stephen demanded. "Didn't you hear the difference in the engine?"

Charles' tone is quite different:

"Wild snapdragons - the yellow ones - and pansies and marguerites and globe flowers. And those bushes that came right down to the road were junipers. Anna makes a tisane from the berries for headaches. I've seen her do it."

Charles just seems to me to embrace rather than shun characteristics which might traditionally been seen as female rather than male. And I don't just mean the flowers - althougth that's obviously part of it. I like Charles here because he's neither boastful nor scorning , and because of the picture it conjures up of him being with Anna, watching her and taking an interest in what she's doing. That sounds a bit silly now I've written it.

I agree that Mike seems to have little personality here but as being a creature possessed with the desire to push small boundaries. I don't mind that and have seen small boys like that in real life. I'm sure the inner life and conscience is developing somewhere, but it's difficult to see and I believe it's a tricky and changeable thing.

Must go and feed small child who is growing into a small Mike (much cuter I believe).

#19:  Author: Changnoi, Location: New Mexico, USA PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 1:16 pm

Lesley wrote:
Changnoi wrote:
I realize that I am completely talking through my hat with this. It's the end of a long day. I apologize, but I enjoyed writing this, and I am picturing the rise of the epic Maynard Dynasty.

Chang


Scope there for a drabble maybe? Laughing


There's already the wonderful drabble about one of the third forms in years hence being comprised entirely of Maynard/Bettany/Russell offspring. Also I think there is one in which Joey clones an army of Mary-Lous to go fight a war against the school. This is the kind of dynasty Joey wants.

Chang

#20:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:10 pm

claire wrote:
Going by the age gaps EBD seems to like Steven would probably end up with someone like Lucy Peters


Maybe it's time that the age gaps were reversed and one of the Maynard boys (probably Mike) ended up as somebody's toyboy. Would love to see Joey's reaction!

#21:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:37 pm

I agree with the idea that EBD liked to put little hints in about future relationships and careers etc into the books and with Chang about the dynasty-building.

The reason I put Mary-Lou with Rix in my drabble is from bits in Leader and Ruey. In Leader, there is Mary-Lou going on about how she will never marry - a la Joey Wink - and then in Ruey, the next book in the series, Rix is going on about how he can't get married yet either and nor can David, etc. Mentioned again in Future.

I really do think that M-L, as EBD's second favourite character, was destined to land one of these two prize hunks that are doctors and Russell/Bettany/Maynards combined, and I think it would be Rix because EBD seemed to prefer him and reward him with more 'screen time' and even some lines - certainly more than the other Russell and Bettany boys who I don't think are allowed to speak EVER in the entire series. He also undergoes a handy transformation from domineering little brat in Exile to dark silent type in Ruey, just right to be bossed around by M-L Laughing

Ever since I read the excellent drabble with Jack Lambert as Stephen's wife I have thought this more and more likely, because Jack is in some ways a dominant character that could end up being the next M-L, also the bit about having engineering in common is quite good.

I'm convinced Charles is meant for the priesthood.

Mike - hmm, I really don't know... will have to come back and edit when I've thought longer about it. I like the toyboy idea Laughing

Felix - Lucy Peters, Felicity's best friend! (though no big age gap)

Geoff - has to be Angela Embury??

I also think Mary-Lou should have been the one that got engaged in Prefects rather than Len.

#22:  Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 4:39 pm

Is Rix's appearance in Ruey only in the HB? I don't remember it in the pb-evil armada!

#23:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:50 pm

I doubt it would surprise many people on the baord that I'm quite interested in the few males we get to see in the books. The Maynard boys in particular are really interesting because we see so little of them in comparison to their sisters. Maybe Len is the oldest but you'd imagine Stephen would have some of that responsibility as the oldest boy but he rarely is seen to and actually comes across as quite tactless at times in the books.

Of course I paired Stephen with a non Chaletian, his little bit of rebellion, but I have to say that reading the books I thought that one of the clan was destined for Mary Lou and if the books had continued I would have expected more similar marriages.

#24:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 11:34 am

Cazx wrote:
Is Rix's appearance in Ruey only in the HB? I don't remember it in the pb-evil armada!


I just checked and it's on p119 of the Armada. Also I just realised I got the order of Ruey and Leader mixed up Embarassed so Rix's comment about marriage comes before M-L's

 

The CBB -> Book Discussions


output generated using printer-friendly topic mod, All times are GMT

Page 1 of 1

Powered by phpBB 2.0.6 © 2001,2002 phpBB Group