Let's Skin Us Some Pirates: Neverland's bloodfest as written by Barrie

Mr Tarantino has nothing on J.M. Barrie. The author of the beloved Peter Pan was a small, frail man with an imagination that rivaled the bloodlust of Blackbeard, a writer who unleashed a romp through the fantasy battlefield of little boys – but with a very real body count.

Not that anyone makes a big deal of it. All's fair in child's play, after all. And Peter is nothing if not fair.

"There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us," Peter told him. If you like, we'll go down and kill him."

"Suppose," John said, “he were to wake up.”

Peter spoke indignantly. “You don’t think I would kill him while he was sleeping! I would wake him first, then kill him. That’s the way I always do.”

He’s not just bragging, either.

He often went out alone, and you were never absolutely certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten about it completely; and then when you went out you found the body…

These charming bits more or less give you a picture of the sort of wonderland we’re visiting. That is, the sort where life is cheaper than a pint of pirate rum.

The boys on the island vary in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.

And by ‘thinning them out’, I have no choice but to assume He Offs Them.

Probably by throwing them to the crocodile.

Then again, facing a man like James Hook repeatedly must cultivate a ruthless streak in the sweetest of boys – not that Pan (Barrie’s Pan, not Disney’s) has ever been sweet. When your entire life ambition involves taking down one of fiction’s most awesome villains, you want to have a heart that matches your balls of steel. Mr Barrie takes utmost delight in demonstrating Hook’s sheer badassery in this one paragraph:

Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do. As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside and the pirates pass on. He has not even taken the cigars from his mouth.

Around the line ‘Skylights will do’, you begin to get the feeling that the isle of Neverland takes murder lightly. And not just-another-day-in-a-mafia-thug’s-life lightly. More like tra-la-la lightly. Neverland does not breed sissies. It is a place where the most ‘pathetic’ of men is one who affectionately names his sword as he twists and turns it in your wound.

You read me.

“Shall I after him, captain,” asked pathetic Smee, “and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew?” Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew because he wriggled it in the wound. One could mention many loveable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.

In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s Mr Smee. The so-called ‘good guy’ pirate in every film adaptation of Pan thereafter, the one who might reluctantly slug a fellow man but spare the children. Tough luck, kids. If you’re lucky he won’t wriggle that blade too much. Oh and, since he’s too busy cleaning his glasses, your blood will have the honour of adorning his instrument of death.

It’s not just the pirates who are to be feared, either. Neverland is a savage place, and by the time night falls it’s best to be safely tucked up in the Lost Boys’ secret burrow. You’re not in the sterile paper cut-out forest of picture books. You’re in the jungle, baby.

The redskins disappear as soon as they have come, like shadows, and soon their place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions, tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from them; for every kind of beast and, more particularly, the man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the island. Their tongues are hanging out, and they are hungry tonight.

Oh, and traipsing around to dance with the fairies might be a good idea, or not, depending on whether it’s Orgy night.

You read me.

The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with a bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking beautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy.

Now this story was written at a time when ‘gay’ meant happy, so I’m fairly sure the fairies weren’t unsteady from attempting the reverse cowgirl while airborne. But somehow it doesn’t make the context any less...intriguing. To quote from the fairly reliable Dictionary.com, an orgy could also be:

-Uncontrolled or immoderate indulgence in an activity

-A secret rite in the cults of ancient Greek or Roman deities, typically involving frenzied singing, dancing, drinking, and sexual activity

. . .

You know what, screw it. I’m going with the second definition.

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