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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. A very even split regarding analysis of the sources. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:45, 27 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Stone Table

Previous AfDs for this article:

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Stone Table (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline and the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant English-language coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar. Old AfD from 2008 was keep, but back then as we all know, the guidelines on notability were not really applied to fictional entities. Times have changed, and I think this would be a likely uncontested PRO these days, but it is not eligible, so... let's discuss. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:04, 20 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:04, 20 July 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:04, 20 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment Linking to old AfD's under the former title, Aslan's How. I'd recommend delete if consensus is against keeping, since this title is too generic. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 04:19, 20 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete The sourcing is all to the primary sources, there is no showing that this receives significant enough discussion in secondary sources to justify an article on it. Wikipedia has a horrible record of creating excessive numbers of articles on minor details in fictional works, and we have an even worse record of letting some of these articles on non-notable things and places exist for over a decade. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 17:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete primary sourced article without substantial enough coverage to improve this into an encyclopedic article. There's no way to turn this into something that meets the WP:GNG, with substantial detailed coverage in third party sources. Shooterwalker ( talk) 18:51, 20 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. I could only find blog posts and other media on the subject of the books or a few chapters of the books, excerpts from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a well-written fanfic that got some publicity, and one source that gave a few sentences to what the stone table respresents. Fails WP:GNG and is an example of WP:PLOT. -- Danre98( talk^ contribs) 19:27, 20 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per WP:GNG. The amount and quality of sources listed by Daranios below are good enough to merit a keep (and the one above I referenced). WP:PLOT does not apply due to the analysis Daranios listed. The article should also be moved to Aslan's how, as Stone Table is too generic. -- Danre98( talk^ contribs) 19:48, 21 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep and move to Aslan's How (I agree with LaundryPizza03 that Stone Table is too generic, even though that's probably the only instance where that appears capitalized): There are secondary sources, I am, again, surprised that noone has found them when using Gscholar and Gbooks rather than simply Google, but granted, it took a bit of digging:
A Guide Through Narnia relates it to elements in paganism and especially Christianity; The Good Guys and the Bad Guys - Teachable Moments in the Chronicles of Narnia does so even more extensively. WP:GNG should be fulfilled by those. HISTORIOPHOTY IN THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE has a shorter similar comparison; The A-Z of C.S. Lewis: An Encyclopaedia of His Life, Thought, and Writings is a secondary source which mainly has plot-summary information (which also contributes to notability as long as not only such sources exist), but also explains the word origin of Aslan's How; there are a number more secondary sources which have only plot-summary information, like [1] and [2]; [3] and [4] have short bits (white magic association, and film rendering); and then there is Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life, which has a very extensive section about a different "Aslan's How", which is inspired by the one from the article and would fit into a real-world related section; and there are still more sources out there, including those already found in past deletion discussion.
I ask all who voted deletion based on "no secondary sources exist" to review the ones presented here. Daranios ( talk) 14:17, 21 July 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Daranios: Thank you for listing the sources. The sources are reliable (btw, correct link to your second source [5]), through the discussion of the Stone Table as a biblical metaphor is limited to 2-3 sentences in each. The book source you link on this page has a dedicated paragraph entry to the ST, but it consists of a 4-sentence long plot summary, and two sentences of analysis, one on ties to paganism, one on ties to Christianity. The second linked source which you say discusses the issue "even more extensively" really has only so much to say about this: "On the simplest level, the cracked Table recalls the stone that rolled away from the tomb at the Resurrection of Christ. On a deeper level, it recalls the Veil in the Temple which miraculously tore in two from top to bottom when Christ was crucified." So a two-sentence long analysis on ties to Christianity. The analysis in the third source is, as you note, even shorter: "After that, the Stone Table will crack and even death itself will turn backwards. These situations same with Jesus when rose from the death and witnessed by his disciples." Given that none of this is present in our current article (the section on Stone_Table#Symbolism_and_theological_significance is very short and totally unreferenced), I'd suggest that the sources you find can help write a new paragraph about the Stone Table at Religion_in_The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Christian_parallels, but I don't see why we need a dedicated article to a fictional object that is discussed only so briefly in reliable literature (not counting the plot summaries). I'll note that only the first linked (book) source has a dedicated paragraph on the topic, all other sources just discuss this object in passing. Again, I think the Christian symbology of Narnia is a notable topic and the linked article should mention the Stone Table - but I am not convinced we need a stand-alone article based on the two-sentence-long analysis in 2-3 sources that are nearly identical, as, in the end, this article can be just a plot summary with a 2-3 sentence of analysis, 4 if we are generous. Is this enough per GNG/NFICITON? I am afraid I still think it is not. PS. If this article is deleted and no-one has done so yet I'll use the sources here to add a note to the linked Religion in Narnia article, probably 1-2 sentences long since it seems impossible to squeeze more value from the linked sources (outside of a plot summary). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:36, 22 July 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Piotrus: Thanks for looking at the sources and thanks for your offer to incorporate the should this turn out to become a merge! I agree that target site can benefit from the found sources. But I can find more in these sources than what you mentioned:
A Guide Through Narnia: I think you have only looked at p. 214, which has plot summary and 3 sentences of analysis, linking the Stone Table to paganism (and similar symbols in another of Lewis' books) and the veil in the temple, allowing for 2 sentences in the article, as you said. But in additon, p. 159-160 has three paragraphs, linking it to Old Testament Law and how it has to be overcome for salvation in Lewis' Christian world-view ("the Stone Table will crack ... What a marvelously succicnt expression of New Testament message of...") - material for several sentences in the article. P. 165: comparison with the communion table, + more plot summary from Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is not yet in the article.
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys - Teachable Moments in the Chronicles of Narnia: Also relates it to the veil in the temple (as you said), but goes beyond A Guide Through Narnia in explaining its symbolism. Compares it to the stone that rolled away from the tomb at the Resurrection of Christ (as you said), which A Guide didn't. There's also two more points that you didn't mention: "On a yet deeper level", like A Guide.., compares it to the Law, but more specifically the Tablets of Stone and what that signifies. And in just one sentence compares it to the cross.
HISTORIOPHOTY IN THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE also links the Stone Table to Christianity, as we both said, but has a new element: Linking it to Golgotha
Then one bit each, which together would be more then one sentence in the article: The A-Z of C.S. Lewis, a better source for the word origin, already present in the article. 3: Association with " white magic". 4 technical treatment in the movie.
Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life, as I said a different Aslan's How, but definitely related. That extensive section would need at least two sentences to explain and include this instance of real-world (well virtual real-world) impact of the fictional location.
So together that should beat your four sentences, I stay with my keep opinion. The fact that we sometimes have multiple sources for the same thing should be a plus not a minus, right? Should I look for more?
Whatever the outcome, I think that deletion definitely is not self-evident in this case, and that it’s better to have this discussion than deleting the article after a prod. Daranios ( talk) 11:28, 22 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep: The sources identified by Daranios are good enough for notability. —  Toughpigs ( talk) 14:16, 22 July 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. ― Susmuffin  Talk 04:30, 23 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • KEEP Daranios has found sources to prove notability of this. Dream Focus 03:16, 25 July 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete after a respectful review of Daranios's sources. We already have an article about Aslan and the Christian overtones in his death, which is covered again in Religion in The Chronicles of Narnia. This article talks about Aslan's death as a story sequence and barely mentions the table at all. This chapter is also about the moral and spiritual overtones (it's great stuff), but it barely focuses on the table, and only mentions it in passing. Official guides like this only ever give us a few in-universe details (and if you turn every entry in that guide into an article, you'd have hundreds of short articles with no real explanation or context). There's already two articles that talk about the religious overtones of Aslan's death and this starts to feel like overkill. Archrogue ( talk) 19:05, 26 July 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Indeed. It is more useful for readers to find relevant information in those two articles, it is unlikely anyone actually searchers for the Stone Table which is a very minor plot element. In the end, this article can be expanded beyond a paragraph of analysis, and is only de-stubbed due to an overly long PLOT section. IMHO readers would be much better served if we had the paragraph of analysis in the Religion of Narnia article, and plot summary, well... for a minor element like this (a table!) is simply non-encyclopedic and very fancrufty. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:08, 27 July 2020 (UTC) reply
      • I can understand that argumentation (as compared to "there are no secondary sources"), but I still think keeping would be better for several reasons: First, "a table!" is like saying " Newgrange is a hill(!), so why should we care" (in a fictional version, of course). If something is encyclopedic is generally decided on the interest of secondary sources in a topic, and I am still convinced the secondary sources fullfill WP:GNG. Also, WP:NOTPAPER, so what's the drawback of having the article? Of course the article should not detract from the other, more prominent topics Archrogue has suggested, but having the article in itself does not do that. It is hard to imagine to me how the existence of the article will confuse a reader into not finding the others, if they want to. (I have also added a link to help.)
As for "it is unlikely anyone actually searchers for the Stone Table", it seems about 30 people a day do. Or look at the bottom of first deletion discussion for something Wikipedia can, and I think should, do.
As "fancruft" is a non-argument in itself, the only real one I see is WP:CONTENTFORK, but I think the other arguments outweigh that.
Lastly, if one should follow Archrogue's argumentation, usefullness would surely be better served by merge and redirect, while deletion may lead some readers to not finding the information Archrogue want's to keep easily tractable. Daranios ( talk) 11:06, 27 July 2020 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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