Miraz
{{Short description|Fictional character in The Chronicles of Narnia}}
{{for|the album by Bosnian singer Elvira Rahić|Miraz (album)}}
{{Infobox character
| name = King Miraz
| series = Narnia
| image = Miraz-pcfilm.PNG
| caption = Sergio Castellitto as King Miraz in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
| race = Human
| title = Miraz the Usurper, King of Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Telmar
| family = Caspian IX See relations of Caspian.
| spouse = Prunaprismia
| children = Unnamed son
| nationality = Narnia
}}
File:Miraz.jpg as Miraz in the BBC serial]]
Miraz is a fictional character from C. S. Lewis's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. He is the main antagonist in the book Prince Caspian, and is the uncle of the book's protagonist.
Miraz killed his brother, Caspian IX, allowing his nephew to live as heir until, as the book opens, his wife bears him a legitimate heir. He is a descendant of the Telmarines who had invaded Narnia hundreds of years before, and a cruel and unpopular ruler. Most notorious for banning the teaching of Narnia's pre-Telmarine history, he also levies high taxes and enacts harsh laws. He is ultimately defeated in a duel by Peter Pevensie and then slain by his own advisors.
Character
Miraz is a tyrant. Eliana Ionoaia notes that "this type of kingship can be termed a tyranny since Miraz rules through oppression, cruelty, and fear."{{cite book |last1=Ionoaia |first1=Eliana |title=The Hero Paradigm in Fantasy Novels |date=2020 |publisher=Bucharest University Press |page=227 |isbn=978-606-16-1127-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iYNYEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA227 |access-date=28 October 2023}} Matthew Dickerson and David O'Hara argue that{{cite book |last1=Dickerson |first1=Matthew T. |author1-link=Matthew T. Dickerson |last2=O'Hara|first2=David|title=Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C.S. Lewis |date=2008 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |page=63 |isbn=978-0-8131-3865-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=80hdtBdYnigC&pg=PT63 |access-date=28 October 2023}}
Miraz seeks to remove all sense of enchantment from nature — swords and battles are what are real for Miraz, not talking animals and trees — and by removing enchantment he seeks also to remove all sense of nature's sanctity. For in disenchanting and desanctifying the earth and its creatures, he will be more justified in exploiting it.
Significance
The relationship between Miraz and his brother's son, Prince Caspian, resembles that of Claudius and Hamlet in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, as well as Pelias and Jason from Greek mythology.{{cite book|last=Hardy|first=Elizabeth Baird|author-link=|title=Milton, Spenser and the Chronicles of Narnia: Literary Sources for the C.S. Lewis Novels|publisher=McFarland & Company|date=December 13, 2006|location=|pages=53–54|url=|doi=|id=|isbn=0-7864-2876-7|quote=…it is likely that Miraz's creation owes more to a tradition of scheming, murdering throne-stealers, such as Hamlet's Uncle Claudius…}}
In a Christianity Today opinion piece published in 2008, Devin Brown noted that Miraz was "aloof and emotionally distant" like Lewis' own father.{{cite news|url=https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/aprilweb-only/isthismancaspian.html|title=Is Caspian Really C. S. Lewis?|date=April 22, 2008|accessdate=August 18, 2022|last=Brown|first=Devin|work=Christianity Today}} This theme is explored in more detail in Chandler Hanton's dissertation, The Tragedy of Caspian: C. S. Lewis and His Trauma.{{cite thesis|type=MA|last=Hanton|first=Chandler|title=The Tragedy of Caspian: C. S. Lewis and His Trauma|url=https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3574&context=etd|date=Spring 2022|publisher=Georgia Southern University|accessdate=Aug 18, 2022}}
Adaptations
In the 1989 BBC adaptation, Miraz is played by Robert Lang.{{cite web | url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/8cf95dbedd4d4011bf2d6f236db2b62b | title=BBC Programme Index | date=26 November 1989 }}
In the 2008 cinematic adaptation, Miraz is portrayed by Sergio Castellitto, an accomplished Italian actor hypothesized by IGN as chosen "to give the Telmarines a Latin-Mediterranean ethnic flavor."{{cite news|url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2007/03/13/caspians-king-miraz-cast|last=Davidson|first=Paul|work=IGN|title=Caspian's King Miraz Cast|date=Mar 13, 2007|accessdate=Aug 15, 2022}} The New York Times' review noted that the film's "major source of dramatic energy is the villain, Caspian’s uncle Miraz, who is played with malignant grandeur" by Castellitto.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/movies/16narn.html|title=Out of the Wardrobe, Into a War Zone|last=Scott|first=A.O.|date=May 16, 2008|work=The New York Times|accessdate=August 15, 2022}} While panning the movie as a whole, movie critic Mick LaSalle found Miraz "square-shouldered and decisive and, by medieval king standards, probably not all that bad. His beard may be too pointy for virtue, but he's hardly evil enough to make it worth yanking the Pevensie siblings out of 1940s England."{{cite news|url=https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Movie-review-Narnia-sequel-lacks-magic-3214275.php|date=May 15, 2008|title=Movie review: 'Narnia' sequel lacks magic|last=LaSalle|first=Mick|work=San Francisco Chronicle|accessdate=August 15, 2022}} In an extended critique of the movie, Steven D. Boyer complains that the rivalry between Caspian and Peter is nowhere in the books, but is rather itself a reflection of Miraz' original character.{{cite news|title=Narnia Invaded: How the New Films Subvert Lewis's Hierarchical World|url=https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-06-030-f&readcode=&readtherest=true|work=Touchstone|last=Boyer|first=Steven D.|date=Nov–Dec 2010|accessdate=August 18, 2022}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{Portal|Speculative fiction|Children and Young Adult Literature}}
{{S-start}}
{{S-reg}}
{{S-bef|before= Caspian IX}}
{{S-ttl|title=King of Narnia|years= 2290–2303}}
{{S-aft|after= Caspian X}}
{{End}}
{{Narnia}}
Category:The Chronicles of Narnia characters
Category:Literary characters introduced in 1951
Category:Fictional fratricides
Category:Fantasy film characters
Category:Kings and Queens of Narnia
Category:Male characters in film