posted
OK, don't read on if you have not read "The Last Battle."
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I just skimmed through "The Last Battle" at Borders and I was just reminded that Susan did not make it to the "real Narnia" with her siblings.
Was it because Susan no longer believed in Narnia? Do you think Susan has a good chance of rejoining her siblings later on?
I'm just a casual fan of the series. I apologize if this has been discussed here before. (I did a search and couldn't find a topic on it.) Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I think it's because she stopped believing.
She got caught up in the material world and stopped wanting anything beyond that, so she ended up with nothing beyond that.
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Do you think there is something about Susan that sets her apart from the other characters? Some hint in the other books showing us that Susan would be the most likely unbeliever?
I vaguely recall an instance in "Prince Caspian" where Susan denied seeing Aslan even though, deep inside, Susan knew Lucy was telling the truth about having seen the great lion. But then again, Edmund did the samething in the first book.
I like Anna Popplewell's take on Susan's personality:
quote:Anna: I think at the beginning of the story, Susan is definitely very practical, very logical. I think she's forced into a kind of maternal role by being away from home as a result of the evacuation [due to the WWII bombing of London].
And I think she almost feels that she has to grow up before she's actually ready to, and maybe that's what fuels that sense of logic and her pragmatism. But I think that as the story progresses and she experiences Narnia and goes on that journey, she warms up and she's able to allow herself to be a child again. I think she really learns something from Narnia.
posted
Let it be noted that all the Pevensie children (in fact, all the children who went to Narnia, period) go through a period where it's difficult to trust. To not listen to fear. To obey one's better impulses instead of the selfish ones.
Yes, even Lucy.
In Voyage of the Dawn Treader it's revealed that Lucy is very jealous of Susan...and very insecure of what her friends think of her. She gives into temptation and makes a horrible mistake. Not one as dramatic as Edmund's treachery or Digory's releasing Jadis...but one that has personal repercussions that I (as a reader) could relate to.
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posted
Edmund, in the beginning of 'Wardrobe,' criticizes Susan for trying to be too much like a grown-up.
>>In Voyage of the Dawn Treader it's revealed that Lucy is very jealous of Susan
It is? Where? Susan doesn't even appear in Dawn Treader. . . Remember, Peter went to study with the Professor, and Susan went with her parents to America (here again, we see Susan's 'maturity' mentioned). Edmund and Lucy have to go spend the summer with the Scrubbs. It does say that Edmund and Lucy both were jealous of Susan's opportunity to travel, but that's hardly given as a character trait.
I think you're thinking of Prince Caspian, where Lucy sees Aslan, tries to convince the others that she has seen him, but acquiesces when they don't believe her. Aslan later chides her for not following him, even if it's on her own. Even so, I don't remember Lucy ever being jealous of Susan. . .
>>Was it because Susan no longer believed in Narnia? Do you think Susan has a good chance of rejoining her siblings later on?
By the time of 'The Last Battle,' Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. I don't know if she didn't believe in it any longer, or what; we are given the impression that she patronized their memories of Narnia, treating them like children's games.
There's always hope in CS Lewis' theology for redemption; but we have to work with what we're given in the books. And I don't see much chance for Susan. (In any case-- ****SPOILERS****
all the Pevensies but her died in order to get to uber-Narnia at the end of 'Battle.')
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quote:It is? Where? Susan doesn't even appear in Dawn Treader. . . Remember, Peter went to study with the Professor, and Susan went with her parents to America (here again, we see Susan's 'maturity' mentioned).
When she's reading the magician's book and sees the spell to make a woman beautiful beyond all others. It specifically mentions Lucy being noticed more than Susan, and this being one of the things that attracts her to the spell.
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posted
You should hear J.K. Rowling on the subject, look for the Time interview with her about Half-Blood Prince. Hint, she gets angry at Lewis.
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quote:She hasn't even read all of C.S. Lewis' Narnia novels, which her books get compared to a lot. There's something about Lewis' sentimentality about children that gets on her nerves. "There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex," Rowling says. "I have a big problem with that."
I think that's a hugely Freudian stretch to make.
I have more to say but I think I'll wait till I've re-read the actual words of The Last Battle so I can do it well.
Long story short, I think it was much more about social vanity than sexual awareness...
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It is? Where? Susan doesn't even appear in Dawn Treader. . . Remember, Peter went to study with the Professor, and Susan went with her parents to America (here again, we see Susan's 'maturity' mentioned). Edmund and Lucy have to go spend the summer with the Scrubbs. It does say that Edmund and Lucy both were jealous of Susan's opportunity to travel, but that's hardly given as a character trait.
I think you're thinking of Prince Caspian, where Lucy sees Aslan, tries to convince the others that she has seen him, but acquiesces when they don't believe her. Aslan later chides her for not following him, even if it's on her own. Even so, I don't remember Lucy ever being jealous of Susan. . .
I was referring the chapter ten of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, "The Magician's Book". In it we get some insight into Lucy's less "pure" character traits...and jealousy of Susan and insecurity of her friends are definitely both there.
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quote:Long story short, I think it was much more about social vanity than sexual awareness...
Social vanity has everything to do with sexual awareness.
And even if it didn't, it is still very much a part of being a human being. It's developmentally normal. It's too bad that being developmentally normal barred her from Narnia.
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posted
I completely disagree that this is what barred her from Narnia.
Even if it were, just because something (like social vanity) is normal, that doesn't mean it is good nor desirable. Something "normal" could very well bar you from Narnia -- after all, most normal people don't ever get there.
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posted
It's not the lipstick - it's the viewing Narnia as a quaint little children's story. Rowling's characterization is just wrong. Her mistake is attributing one element from the dialog that describes Susan's rejection of Narnia with the reasons for her rejecting.
And that's what's key - Susan rejected it. She wasn't barred. Nor do we know if her rejection is permanent.
Considering that treachery, almost complete and total self-centeredness, vanity, and lack of fortitude don't keep Edmund, Eustace, Lucy, or Jill from Narnia, it's not a fair characterization of the Susan situation to say lipstick kept her from Narnia.
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posted
And it isn't social vanity that is fatal. One possible way social vanity could motivate her to reject Narnia is Susan not wanting to admit to others something that will embarass her. We see Eustace mocking Edmund and Lucy in VotDT.
Peter Gabriel talks about much the same thing in Salsbury Hill.
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posted
I love Narnia, I lvoe the books, and I've read them a dozen times.
But the kids don't grow up. Even as adults, they rule together as siblings. There are some married people, but it isn't messy and it isn't hard. Prince Caspian marries the daughter of a star with apparently no courting whatsoever. I love those books, but they are unreal in that aspect.
The Chronicles of Narnia were written by an religious academic in his fifties who had never married, and Harry Potter was written by a happy mother with more than a little experience in the love thing. It's not surprising that growing up in Narnia is idealized, and that growing up at Hogwarts is awkward and real and hilarious.
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posted
Polly and Jill mention Susan being into lipstick and parties is given as only one element of a few other reasons why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia.
The part where she sneers at her siblings about "the game we used to play when we were kids" seems to point to a much more important reason.
Or the clues given in "Prince Caspian" about her intense self doubts and frustrations. There's quite a lot of them.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: But the kids don't grow up. Even as adults, they rule together as siblings. There are some married people, but it isn't messy and it isn't hard. Prince Caspian marries the daughter of a star with apparently no courting whatsoever. I love those books, but they are unreal in that aspect.
Good thing Lewis never claimed they were non-fiction. He was writing fairy tales about kids, for kids.
Sure, it skims over Shasta and Aravis falling in love as they grew up or the like...but that's because he was writing a story distinctly for children.
And because the siblings didn't get married as adults in Narnia, then Lewis must be negative towards adult courtship and marriage? I'm not too sure about that..or his marriage to Janie King Moore and praise of sex and marriage being pleasures given from God in some of his non-Narnian fiction doesn't make much sense.
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posted
Puffy Treat, that does make the books sound a bit patronizing, which was Rowling's big complaint.
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I think works of art should be judged on what they are trying to accomplish.
In the case of the Narnia, it does excellently well at what it was trying to accomplish. I do love them.
Rowling was trying to accomplish something different. I love her books as well.
I think the conflict is not between the execution of the disparate purposes, but in Rowling's evaluation of Lewis' purpose.
Of course she doesn't agree with his purpose; they are both writing a seven-book series about children. If she agreed with the purpose of his books, she would have chosen the same for her own. She didn't.
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I'm not sure if that was directed at me... my last was written before reading both your and Dag's last posts.
From where I sit, the conflict comes from Rowling's fundamental misunderstanding of what Lewis is trying to say about Susan. Rowling clearly feels that Lewis has set up, in Susan, a conflict between sexuality and religion in which religion is the right choice. He did nothing of the sort. As I intended to say and Dagonee elaborated, it was more about what other people would think of her for continuing to "play Narnia."
Lewis's goal? to get basic Christian ideas across in a series children's fables.
Rowling's? to write a good series of mysteries in a fantasy setting for teens and in which the chracters and the audience grow up at roughly the same rate.
posted
Neil Gaiman wrote a story -- "The Problem of Susan" -- that's a very different, very creepy take on Narnia. (I liked it, but I remember someone on Hatrack saying they didn't. It does have a weird sex scene.) It's in the anthology Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy -- Amazon link
(Interesting anthology, it's also got the OSC story "Keeper of Lost Dreams," which is related to Magic Street though I can't remember if it's an excerpt or a precursor.)
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Me, too. Very much so. And if Lewis were alive and took Rowling to task for her liberties with language, I'd think he was being fairly ridiculous. (I don't know if he would or not, but it's the clearest example I could think of.) If he took her to task for using ungodly magic (which I seriously doubt he would do, but others have), then I'd be as annoyed with him as I am with Rowling for her comments.
Rowling's criticism was aimed at the very heart of the purpose of his work, and based, as Jim-Me said, on a fundamental misunderstanding of his intent. The fact that the comment was used to further some hack's mistaken understanding of fantasy as a genre isn't her fault, but it does make them more noticeable.
On a similar note, the Dursleys are clearly little more than plot devices - they are simply flat out not believable. Given her ability exhibited with other characters, I believe this to be a conscious choice. She's as much admitted this in interviews - there's not supposed to be anything redeeming about them except that they took Harry in. I like it. And criticizing her for presenting an unreal situation isn't really relevant criticism.
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posted
Dag, I happen to agree with you. . . I see the irony of Rowling criticizing Lewis for underdeveloped characterizing when she herself does it as poorly with the Durslys. The fact that she does the same thing, with a similar intent, but refuses to consider that Lewis had reasons for delibratly doing the same as well....
I don't mind the HP books, and I have read them all so far, the last 4 the day they came out in the USA, but the HP books aer completely different than the Narnia books. I like the Narnia books as well, espite some serious flaws.
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We don't know that she's refused to consider. We do know that she's come to a conclusion that you may not agree with, but I won't dismiss her opinion by thinking that she reached it by not considering everything.
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Back when Lewis first wrote LWW, he had no idea that it was the start of a series...and he always planned to end with the children returning to England and their normal lives.
That's the biggest reason why he didn't have them get romantically involved with any Narnians: Having them abandon spouses and potential offspring by the story's end would've made a book he intended to be uplifting...very depressing.
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posted
The fact that Susan loses out on Narnia completely at the end always really bothered me as well. I understand that it's supposed to be an analogy, and I can see why Lewis might want to show an example of someone discarding religion and thus being barred from heaven, but the analogy doesn't work in the story itself. If you think about just Susan and Narnia, disregarding religion, what did Susan do, after all? For dozens of years she ruled Narnia well, believed in Aslan, made plenty of sacrifices, was a really good person. Then they went back home, and she was exposed to quite a lot of outside, "adult" influences (she was the only one who was taken to America, remember) and managed to convince herself that Narnia was all an imaginary game that they used to play. I mean, Narnia is a pretty hard thing to believe when faced with the adult, non-magical world. The fact that Susan is given no chance of redemption, just because she's convinced herself that something never happened, because that's much easier to believe, all those years of believing in Narnia and doing so much for Narnia are totally wiped away? Plus, how old IS Susan at the end of book seven? Not very old, really, as far as I can remember - and by now, she's probably been convincing herself for so many years that none of it really happened that she really believes that. Why shouldn't she get the courtesy of meeting Aslan again, to see if she sees him, or if her reaction is like the dwarves? I definitely think she deserves that, and I also think that she WOULD see him.
Even as a religious analogy the situation seems very unfair to me. Susan was a loyal "Narnian" so to speak for many, many years. Just because she "lost her faith" as a teenager when surrounded by so many outside influences, she's totally lost? Hopeless? Doesn't get any more chances, even with all that she did and sacrificed for Narnia in the past?
I truly hate reading The Last Battle - the religious imagery practically bludgeons the reader in the face, which is a big turn-off already, and the whole Susan thing makes me want to throw the book across the room. I love The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I love The Hosrse and his Boy, I love all of the books, really, except for the last one. I really feel that in the last book, Lewis was focused much more on the religious symbolism and analogy then on telling a good and "real" story, and that shows, very much so.
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quote: Even as a religious analogy the situation seems very unfair to me. Susan was a loyal "Narnian" so to speak for many, many years. Just because she "lost her faith" as a teenager when surrounded by so many outside influences, she's totally lost? Hopeless? Doesn't get any more chances, even with all that she did and sacrificed for Narnia in the past?
IIRC, Lewis believes in death-bed rependance. That is, if you turn toward God at the end of your life, it really can make up for a lifetime of working against Him.
It would make sense that he believes in the opposite as well -- you could live your life serving God, but if you turn against Him at the end, it "makes up" for it.
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quote:The fact that Susan is given no chance of redemption, just because she's convinced herself that something never happened, because that's much easier to believe, all those years of believing in Narnia and doing so much for Narnia are totally wiped away? Plus, how old IS Susan at the end of book seven? Not very old, really, as far as I can remember - and by now, she's probably been convincing herself for so many years that none of it really happened that she really believes that. Why shouldn't she get the courtesy of meeting Aslan again, to see if she sees him, or if her reaction is like the dwarves? I definitely think she deserves that, and I also think that she WOULD see him.
But she is given a chance at redemption - the same chance Lewis sees available to any of us. He specifically states that the reason Lucy and Edmund (and presumably this applies to Peter and Susan) are barred from Narnia is so that they can know Him better in their own world.
Susan didn't take that chance. But she also didn't die when the others did, so she has other chances.
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posted
Don't you think Susan might have had a bit of re-evaluation of priorities when suddenly orphaned for real (even if nearly an adult) and having all of her siblings and many of those she cared about deep down, suddenly dead?
I suspect that she had to live, in this world, for those who had their actual lives cut short, and had other things they wanted to accomplish on Earth.
posted
I apologize for not reading everyone's posts in this whole thread, I got the first dozen or so.
So how is not getting killed in the big train wreck mean she is irredeemable? Also, their parents were absent.
Sex: Aravis and horseboy got married. I forget if he was Cor or Corin or Col or Colin. But the point is, it's not like everyone ruled as a chaste sibling regent.
Death bed repentance: We believe in death bed repentance too. You just can't count on it, since few people know when their death is actually going to be. And the repentance has to be sincere.
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posted
Didn't the kids see their parents in the afterlife?
I have a question about the train wreck. Was it all part of the plan for the children to leave our world forever or was it a coincidence that they died just in time to witness the end of Narnia?
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quote:Sex: Aravis and horseboy got married. I forget if he was Cor or Corin or Col or Colin. But the point is, it's not like everyone ruled as a chaste sibling regent.
Getting married and having sex with your spouse is chaste.
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posted
Eek, are we implying that Susan was unchaste in that sense? Not to offend anyone.. uh never mind. Glad I washed my foot well before putting it in my mouth.
And... hearing Rowling's complaints about Narnia really makes me glad I never bought any of her books.
P.S. Susan was in the Horse and His Boy. I can't quote chapter and verse off hand, but it seems like she was a player even then.
I guess the thing about the kids is they were still kids when they went back to earth. How weird would it be for them to have lived a full life while they were gone? That always kind of made them movie "Big" icky to me.
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posted
I think casting aspersions on a character outside of the context of the story is fairly silly.
Why did Susan reject Aslan? Well. . . because Lewis told her to. Or had her do it. In any case, I feel like it IS in line with her character as presented throughout the books.
Just because YOU were a beautiful, practical, social, intelligent teenager doesn't mean that Lewis thought you were going to hell.
posted
Now I want to read the books again. I think I always felt that Susan's problem was denying that Aslan was real, denying that Narnia was real, and focusing exclusively on the most frivolous aspects of adulthood, and disrespecting her younger siblings to boot. But that could be a phase, something that hopefully she'll grow out of and then she can become the woman she was meant to be.
She always reminded me of Meg, from Little Women. I know she was into appearance and manners and so on much more than Jo was, and that was just fine, but didn't she go through a short phase where she tried to pretend to be haughty and grownuppish and then repented of it? I imagined Susan was in that phase.
I so loved the Narnia books when I was in grade school that I used to name our family bicycles for Narnia characters. My brother had boys' names for his bikes. I had girls' names. The bike I had for all my teenage years was Susan. I guess I've always felt she'd come around in the end.
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posted
I'm kind of surprised at the conclusions people are drawing about Susan and Narnia...I've read them all more than once, and I cannot recall ever seeing that Susan was denied uber-Narnia (basically Heaven) forever.
I don't think necessarily that social vanity has everything to do with sexual awareness, but I do agree that once one is an adolescent, sexual awareness and social vanity are connected. (Not active sexual behavior, of course, but awareness of sexuality, sexual attraction, etc.)
I disagree, Kat, that it was the lipstick that barred Susan from uber-Narnia at that time (certainly not forever). I think rather it was a prioritization of other things ahead of Narnia, ahead of things that she knew were true.
I mean, if we're going to dwell on the religious symbolism, Susan rejected God, after seeing and talking with God face to face, on more than one occassion, right?
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posted
That's still what bothers me. It IS important to keep the Lord in mind, but oh my stars, figuring how who you are and your social place and how to wear lipstick is hard and it's time- and attention-consuming, and I refuse to believe that the Lord is only happy with the girls who are not bothering with that kind of thing.
It's okay - the Susan thing was oddly done, but the books were written by a 50-year-old bachelor with no sisters. I'm not surprised.
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