Posted by Robert Dilley on July 16, 2002 at 17:58:49 from 216.211.68.243 user rdilley.
In Reply to: Re: The things that AR did not tell us posted by Ed Kiser on July 15, 2002 at 20:05:36:
Like others, I disliked the arrow-firing in SA, and when reading it to my children would interpolate a comment about its silliness. The crossbow incident in SD seemd much less serious, as it was made clear the quarrel was not being aimed at anyone.
However, I don't share Ed's distaste for the battle in SW. Maybe Ed's childhood friends were an especially peaceable lot, but in my experience we did sometimes get hurt and put it down to part of the experience (talking of friendly "pretend" battles, not out-and-out fights). In SA the Swallows speculate on how an outright fight would have turned out, and when they all storm the houseboat there is real hand-to-hand fighting in which anyone could have got hurt.
I find one of the positive things -- especially for the time the books were written -- is that there is no mention of "boys musn't fight girls" or "girls don't fight". They are all treated equally. They think about fighting, but are clearly glad they don't actually have to do it seriously.
Incidentally -- I don't have the books with me in my office, but wasn't it Roger who cannons into Nancy, not John? Being the smaller boy somehow makes it more acceptable -- and , in any case, he wasn't trying to hurt Nancy. She just happened to be in the way of his charge.