‘Second Life – Why would you go there?’#5: To practice Tai Chi in Narnia

February 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Tai Chi on Cair Paravel

Q: Second Life, why go there?

A: To practice Tai Chi in Narnia!

It would be fair to say that some of us are wondering whether the White Witch has vacated Narnia and moved into the North East of the US? At least our neverending winter was temporarily interupted by a frugal Christmas Day. Narnia, under the spell of the White Witch, may never have Christmas but it does have clean sparkling snow (unlike the grubby gray stuff by the side of the road in real life). I went to visit the Chronicles of Narnia, as re-created by TP Fizzle in Second Life, to escape last week’s bad news about the groundhog seeing its own shadow on Groundhog Day. Another six weeks of winter? Where is the Turkish Delight?

The lampost

It seems wise to apply virtual lip balm, scarf and mittens to your avatar before stepping through the wardrobe. The snowy scenes awaiting you will have you turning up the central heating at home. That said, the views you will see are beautiful as TP Fizzle has an excellent eye for synthetic scenery! The photographs below show mainly Fizzle’s Narnian landscapes (because they impressed me so much). You will have to find your own way into Second Life, and teleport over to the Chronicles of Narnia, if you want to sit inside Tumnus’s cave or have tea in the beaver dam…

Moonlight over Narnia, is that an incubi or a sprite in the distance?

TP Fizzle takes a few departures from the C.S. Lewis’ books and one of these flights lead him to create the Grand Ballroom of Narnia. This is a fabulous build and well worth visiting too. Fizzle manages to create a floor that looks like reflective glass, or shiny marble in this epic sized room. You will be intrigued to see how the effect was achieved. And finally, another nice touch was the addition of Tai Chi poseballs in Care Paravel! I feel sure that C.S. Lewis would have approved these flights of Frizzle Fancy! (More images below.)