Posted by PeterH on September 18, 2006 at 11:10:40 from 86.130.129.226 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Real danger posted by Jock on September 18, 2006 at 10:52:56:
Yes, I think Jock is onto what I meant. I meant instant, undoubted, inescapable death. If the Old Level roof had caved in when the children were underneath, it would have been curtains. Another example is if John had been washed overboard when he went forward to reef on the Goblin - in that sea he could not have been rescued. I don't count things like blizzards or crags - people face these every day without injury. You can be isolated and die in a snowstorm, but death is not immediate and there will be various possible escapes, particularly in WH, where help was never far away. The 'Red Sea' incident is a bit hairy, but Titty was already making plans to swim for it and they might well have done this - they had a chance anyway. Ditto the night sailing in S&A. A possible candidate would be in ML, where the children, and certainly Capn Flint, could have been executed as spies. Once again, though, there was an escape route - intervention by others, which happened. It seems to me that AR very rarely confronted his characters with instant unqualified death - rightly, because if death is avoided in every chapter you get a sort of 'Indiana Jones' strip-cartoon story, which may be entertaining but good literature it ain't.