1980: Turkish Delight

2018-04-14T13:51:16Z

Realsmart987: Added what it said in the book that the movie left out.

{{comic
| number = 1980
| date = April 13, 2018
| title = Turkish Delight
| image = turkish_delight.png
| titletext = I take it Narnia doesn't have Cinnabons? Because if you can magic up a plate of those, I'll betray whoever.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A DELIGHTFUL TURK- I guess we could expand the second paragraph? But I don't know what to add... Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

''{{w|The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe}}'' is a fantasy novel by British novelist {{w|C. S. Lewis}}, the first published and best known of seven novels in ''{{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}''. In it, a group of four sibling children discover another world called Narnia. At the beginning of the story, the land is in a perpetual winter caused by the {{w|White Witch}} (the antagonist of the story). One of the children, {{w|Edmund Pevensie}}, is approached by the White Witch and offered {{w|Turkish delight}}, a type of confection, in exchange for leading the other children to her. What the book says and what the movie leaves out is he doesn't know the sweets are enchanted by the White Witch to make the eater want them the more they eat them. Not a full mind control, but more of a strong urge to get more.

Turkish delight is very different from typical confections found in the modern Western world and isn't very popular in the United States. [[Randall]] comments that he was very disappointed when he tried Turkish delight, after having read in the novel about how delicious the characters considered it. If he were in Edmund's shoes, he would not have been persuaded.

[https://www.tor.com/2016/08/08/why-was-turkish-delight-the-ultimate-temptation-in-c-s-lewis-narnia/ It is not uncommon for present-day Narnia fans to be disappointed when they try Turkish delight], as different as it is to modern confections. However, in the late Victorian era when Lewis grew up, Turkish delight was very popular in England. Because it was nearly impossible for local confectioners to make properly, it had to be imported from Turkey, at great expense, making it a status symbol for the wealthy and a rare treat for those with less money. When Lewis wanted to come up with the perfect temptation for Edmund, he drew on his own childhood memories of a favorite rare and expensive treat--which would have been even harder to come by because of [https://flashbak.com/sugar-rationing-in-world-war-2-photos-13598/ sugar rationing during World War II], when the story was written.

{{w|Cinnabon}} (referenced in the title text) is a popular chain restaurant in the USA which serves mostly {{w|cinnamon roll|cinnamon buns}} covered in a thick, sugary glaze. The chain is not well known in Britain, but has recently opened a [https://www.cinnabon.co.uk/store-locator/ few restaurants], mainly in the London area. (A more common UK equivalent of the cinnamon bun is the {{w|Chelsea bun}}.) There are presumably no branches of Cinnabon in Narnia.{{Citation needed}}

The world of Narnia is a recurring theme in xkcd, with previous prominent appearances in (at least) [[665: Prudence]], [[821: Five-Minute Comics: Part 3]], [[969: Delta-P]], and [[1786: Trash]].

A prescriptivist might claim that the title text contains a grammatical mistake: the word should be "whomever," as that is the objective case. However, a descriptivist would point out that many dialects no longer maintain this distinction except in highly formal contexts.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:White Witch: Have some Turkish delight. If you betray your family, there's more where that came from.

:Edmund: Wow.
:Edmund: This is ... not great.

:The ''Narnia'' books gave me a really unrealistic impression of how good Turkish delight tastes.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Fiction]]

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1980: Turkish Delight