Lament for Susan Pevensie

[Midge]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

:blush: And one of my favorites, too.



I understand, I just disagree. But, according to your beliefs, why is it morbid to feel joy at somebody dying? Shouldn't you be happy? Even the loss shouldn't be the sadness of departure- after all you know you'll be seeing them again, in a better place. Really, the feeling should be one of envy- they get to go on holiday early, while you're stuck at work- yet somehow no religion seems to actually view it that way.

Okay, let me rephrase that. It's morbid to feel happiness at someone dying. They may be in a much better state now, especially if they died of chronic medical complications, but feeling happy about it like saying, "Oh, I'm SO glad they're gone!" You don't do that. You miss them. You cry. You are glad they're in heaven, but at the same time, you're sad that they are gone.

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

And what if she doesn't? Will they feel joy about that, too?

"Remember our sister, Susan?"
"Oh, yes- I'm so glad she went into the Shadows and is lost to us forever- say, why don't we go Further Up and Further In? I'm sure the apples there will be even better."

This is where we get into such a lot of speculation. There's no knowing about all this because Lewis didn't write about it. What he did say at the very end was that it was the beginning of the most beautiful story in the world, with each chapter better than the one before it. As terrible as it may seem, I don't see them even saying, "Remember our sister, Susan?" I don't think they would have forgotten her, but their minds would so occupied with other joyful things that they wouldn't have time, room, or desire for any sorrowful thing.

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Again, doesn't that mean we should hope that everybody (including ourselves) dies as young as possible- I know we're not supposed to kill ourselves, but wouldn't a train crash be like winning the lottery?

Well... everyone probably has times and situations where they think, "Death would be better than living through this." Every college kid during finals thinks that, I'm sure. However, we were set on earth to live for Christ. You make it sound like people should stay alive as long as they're unbelievers and then when they become a believer, should not have any reason to live. That's the opposite of how it is. Believing in Christ gives one the most fulfilling reason to live ever: to bring glory to God.

In the case of the Pevensies, Aslan had given them a charge: He had another name in our world, and the Pevensies were to discover that name and grow ever closer to Aslan thus (we hear him say this to Edmund and Lucy in VDT, and I'm sure that it is similar to what he told Peter and Susan in PC). Susan didn't live up to that. And the thing is that they wanted to grow close to Aslan. In VDT, Lucy says, "It isn't Narnia, you know. It's YOU." when talking about what they would miss the most from not coming back to Narnia. But it's the same thing for believers in our world. Once they are saved, they are charged with living a godly lifestyle (for the glory of God) for the rest of their life. I don't think that includes hoping for death, although it does entail a desire to be united with Christ and continually anticipate His return.

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Here's a question- why did Lewis feel he had to kill the Pevensie children's parents as well? After all, as Peter himself says, they had nothing to do with Narnia.

P.S. - Love "Arsenic and Old Lace" - my mother played one of the old ladies in her Little Theater group when I was a kid.

IMHO, Lewis used the Calormene Emeth being "admitted" to the better Narnia to show that Aslan was not a local god. That is a policy that it is very possible to think based on the other books. Aslan is majorly Narnia's (and possibly Archenland's) deity. I think he used the Pevensie parents as another example to show that Aslan (or God) is not a local god, although this time it's a different type of local. With Emeth, it was country to country. With the Pevensies, it was universe to universe. Remember in TMN, Lewis says that Narnia is a place you can only get to by magic, that no matter how far you traveled in our universe you'd never get there? Aslan isn't only a god across countries, He's a god across universes! How amazing!

P.S. Yes, "Arsenic and Old Lace" is so funny! It makes me cringe watching it, but it's worth it every time.

[Varnafindë]

Originally Posted by Midge

Well... everyone probably has times and situations where they think, "Death would be better than living through this." Every college kid during finals thinks that, I'm sure. However, we were set on earth to live for Christ. You make it sound like people should stay alive as long as they're unbelievers and then when they become a believer, should not have any reason to live. That's the opposite of how it is. Believing in Christ gives one the most fulfilling reason to live ever: to bring glory to God.

In the case of the Pevensies, Aslan had given them a charge: He had another name in our world, and the Pevensies were to discover that name and grow ever closer to Aslan thus (we hear him say this to Edmund and Lucy in VDT, and I'm sure that it is similar to what he told Peter and Susan in PC). Susan didn't live up to that. And the thing is that they wanted to grow close to Aslan. In VDT, Lucy says, "It isn't Narnia, you know. It's YOU." when talking about what they would miss the most from not coming back to Narnia. But it's the same thing for believers in our world. Once they are saved, they are charged with living a godly lifestyle (for the glory of God) for the rest of their life. I don't think that includes hoping for death, although it does entail a desire to be united with Christ and continually anticipate His return.

Good point, Midge.
The apostle Paul says in one of his letters that he would have liked to go to stay with Christ, because that is so much better - but staying in this life is more useful for those churches and people he then can help.

[Midge]

What I like best about these threads is that I grow a whole lot from discussing all this. I know I wrote like, some kind of book up there, and it's often really hard to read super long posts (even those that are broken up by quotes), but for the writer, it's a really good process to go through.

[Midge]

This is kind of off topic, but it ties in in an analytic way.
Instances of Aslan the seven books and which children saw him:
TMN:
Creating Narnia - Digory and Polly
Protecting Narnia - Digory and Polly
Blessing Narnia -Digory and Polly

LWW:
Meeting - Susan, Lucy, Edmund, Peter
Killing and resurrection - Susan and Lucy
Reviving the stones - Susan and Lucy
Defeating White Witch - Susan, Lucy, Edmund (delirium, does this count?), Peter
Coronation - Susan, Lucy, Edmund, Peter

HHB:
Journey - Shasta/Aravis
Reprimanding Rabadash - Edmund, Lucy

PC:
Lucy's sighting - Lucy
Leading them across the Rush - Lucy, Edmund, Peter, Susan
Waking the trees - Susan, Lucy
Liberating Narnia's villages and towns - Susan, Lucy
Caspian's Coronation - Susan, Lucy, Edmund, Peter,

VDT:
Un-dragoning - Eustace
Albatross - Lucy
Aslan's Country - Lucy, Edmund, Eustace

SC:
Aslan's Country - Jill, Eustace
Dream - Jill
Aslan's Country - Jill, Eustace

LB:
New Narnia - Lucy, Edmund, Peter, Jill, Eustace, Digory, Polly

I was thinking: Aslan must be so amazing in person. We as readers love him mainly because the characters in the book love him and have faith in him. But why do they love him? They only see him really a few times. Not often at all from our perspective. From LWW to HHB is probably fifteen or twenty years!

After thinking some more about it, Lucy definitely sees him the most (which is why, in VDT, Edmund tells Eustace that Lucy sees him the most... I get it better now!). So it makes sense that her faith is great. But Susan is like, second or third (with Edmund, probably). Why is her faith not as great as Lucy's? Perhaps did she never have what might be called a "conversion experience"? And Digory and Polly have probably the lowest experiences, but they believe still when they're very very old! However, they did see him do great things.

Any thoughts? In relation to Susan's falling away and Val's lament?

[GrayMouser]

I suppose you could compare it to going to church. I went to Sunday School every week, and even won prizes- but it didn't take. I have friends who are Christians who were converted suddenly as adults.

Susan seems the type who is very down to earth- not necessarily a compliment in Narnia-it's a trait shared with witches and dwarfs.


So, maybe just personality types- which leaves me to believe that "faith" is a very poor method of deciding on who gets saved- cheers to Lewis for his nod to inclusivism.

[GrayMouser]

And even more off-topic, the Narnia timeline seems to feel a little off to me. While TLTWTW conveys the feel of England during the Blitz, VDT and SC seem to be much more post-war.

I especially note Mr. Pevensie taking Susan with him to America in Summer 1942- smack in the middle of the worst of the Battle of the Atlantic, with the U-boat wolf-packs ravaging all shipping between England and the US. Hardly time to take your 14-year-old daughter for a holiday cruise!

[inked]

I submit to all those that think the deaths of Pevensies morbid,

LIFE IS A 100% FATAL PROSPECT.

You are either prepared for the inevitable or you are not. No one, not even God, got off this planet without the experience (since we are not able to establish that the taking up to heaven of Enoch or Elijah or the Blessed Mother did not involve the process however they were translated).

Most people in most places at most times have lived well less than 40 years and still do. This is the consequence of life on a dangerous planet such as ours. That CS Lewis wrote small what is writ so large that we choose not see it, well, that is a boon, not a defect; a feature, not a bug.

Know well that you too shall face the inevitable. How one chooses to live one's life in the face of that knowledge has repercussions. If Susan's proclivity towards nylons and stockings mean anything at all, it has less to do with sexuality than it does with being blinded by the materialist assumption and faith that this world is all there is. To choose to major on the minors is a loss all too evident in these times. You have at least the advantage of having to consider whether such a choice is the sole choice for life direction.

There is a major difference here between Lewis and Pullman to which you are to respond. Both authors intend that.

Keep on thinking!

[Midge]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

I suppose you could compare it to going to church. I went to Sunday School every week, and even won prizes- but it didn't take. I have friends who are Christians who were converted suddenly as adults.

Do you mean that I could compare Susan's experiences with Aslan to those who attend church and are "good at it" but aren't truly converted? I think that is exactly what Lewis is doing here.

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Susan seems the type who is very down to earth- not necessarily a compliment in Narnia-it's a trait shared with witches and dwarfs.

This is a funny play on words.. Dwarves, the "sons of earth" are very down-to-earth. Do we know if Lewis based this description of dwarves off how Tolkien created Dwarves in the history of ME?

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

So, maybe just personality types- which leaves me to believe that "faith" is a very poor method of deciding on who gets saved- cheers to Lewis for his nod to inclusivism.

That's the whole point of being saved: that you have faith. That you can trust in things you have not seen.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Midge

Do you mean that I could compare Susan's experiences with Aslan to those who attend church and are "good at it" but aren't truly converted? I think that is exactly what Lewis is doing here.

No, to those who may have originally believed and had everything presented to them but ceased to believe anyway.

This is a funny play on words.. Dwarves, the "sons of earth" are very down-to-earth. Do we know if Lewis based this description of dwarves off how Tolkien created Dwarves in the history of ME?

No, I think they were both drawing on earlier legends like the Nibelungenlied. Dwarfs were traditionally associated with the underground and mining, though, interestingly, while Lewis shows them very liable to backsliding and turning against Aslan, I can't think of any place he mentions them being greedy or loving gold.

[GrayMouser]

Lament for? No, paean to Susan Pevensie:

I come home in the morning light,
My mother says "When you gonna live your life right?"
Oh,mother,dear,
We're not the fortunate ones,
And girls,
They wanna have fu-un.
Oh,girls,
Just wanna have fun.

The phone rings in the middle of the night,
My father yells "What you gonna do with your life?"
Oh,daddy,dear,
You know you're still number one,
But girls,
They wanna have fu-un,
Oh,girls,just wanna have
That's all they really want.....
Some fun....

[inked]

Aww, GM, I was hoping for something more MATERIAListic, like

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!
...Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone
And another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Shoot it
Hey
Alright

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/q/q..._the_dust.html

[Midge]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

No, to those who may have originally believed and had everything presented to them but ceased to believe anyway.

Oh. Like the seeds planted on rocky soil which sprang up quickly and then scorched because they had no root. I think we could probably see all kinds of foreshadowing of that, like with Susan in LWW wanting to go home before the adventure even started.

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

No, I think they were both drawing on earlier legends like the Nibelungenlied. Dwarfs were traditionally associated with the underground and mining, though, interestingly, while Lewis shows them very liable to backsliding and turning against Aslan, I can't think of any place he mentions them being greedy or loving gold.

Oh, that's why I don't know that. I wasn't in the English class that read Nibelungenlied, although I remember friends talking about it.

[frodolives21]

i know i always hated that part. but that's life, and c.s. lewis wrote narnia from a Christian perspective. things like that do happen. when you write, you don't always have to have a happy ending!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Midge

Oh. Like the seeds planted on rocky soil which sprang up quickly and then scorched because they had no root. I think we could probably see all kinds of foreshadowing of that, like with Susan in LWW wanting to go home before the adventure even started.

Yes, and as I believe someone mentioned earlier she always seemed to be less attached to Narnia. She was older than anyone but Peter when she first got there, and Peter as High King had more of a special position, (at least relative to those who came after- we see all of them feel awe in the presence of King Frank and Queen Helen; what would Peter's relation be to those kings and queens who came in between?)

Oh, that's why I don't know that. I wasn't in the English class that read Nibelungenlied, although I remember friends talking about it.

Me neither, though my European history prof- he was Austrian- had a movie night in college where we sat and drank wine and watched the old German silent movie- dir. Fritz Lang, 1924, with the greedy dwarfs looking suspiciously ethnic.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Aww, GM, I was hoping for something more MATERIAListic, like

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!
...Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone
And another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Shoot it
Hey
Alright

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/q/q..._the_dust.html

Actually, I may have gone a little easy on Susan there - she would have been a lot of the girls I disliked in high school, but certainly not due to sexuality or materialism (in the philosophic sense- better to refer to it here as naturalism, to avoid confusion). She would have been in the cheerleader/jock/soc. set, always obsessed with cars and dates (in a North American context).

In those far-off days, I too divided people into two groups, but not the saved and the fallen, at least in the Christian sense. It was more the Acceptors and the Questioners, the Satisfied and the Seekers, of whatever faith or belief system; there were religious and non-religious people in each.

Being one of the old-timers here, I'm sure you remember those ancient days before the Tolkien boom; before the movies or RPGs; before Fantasy took up whole sections in the bookstore- "Part 12 in the never-ending Quest in which Giliard the Searcher and his trusty companions Krrgronk the Dwarf, Swish the Elf and Grandgulf the Wizard confront the Dark Lord and His Evil Black Raiders!!!"
In those days, full scorn was poured on anyone found doing anything as weird or 'fruity' as reading "Fairy Tales."

That's why I particularly dislike what Lewis has done in "The Last Battle"- falsely equating Imagination and Christianity. While there are materialists/sensualists out there totally involved in the things of this world, there are also plenty of Christians deaf to the trumpets of Faerie- and plenty of non-Christians ready to folow the melody into the Hollow Hills.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by frodolives21

i know i always hated that part. but that's life, and c.s. lewis wrote narnia from a Christian perspective. things like that do happen. when you write, you don't always have to have a happy ending!

That's the point- everybody dies, and that is the happy ending

[GrayMouser]

And don't get me started on Dwarfs- I have some rather idiosyncratic views on some of the symbolism in "The Last Battle".

[inked]

Ahh, GrayMouser, the mortality rate is 100%. Whether or not one is happy in the life to come is THE issue. And the way one lives one's life is part and parcel of that ability, witness the dwarves (dwarfs).

But about them you were going to say?

I do remember when one had no recourse after Lewis or Tolkien but the Sword of Shannara. THAT dates me, doesn't it? There was science fiction, of course. Heinlein, Asimov. Also, one could turn to George MacDonald. Then, mystery novels by Dorothy L. Sayers. Dante...

Ah, so much to read, so little time.

Now, there's Harry Potter, too!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Ahh, GrayMouser, the mortality rate is 100%. Whether or not one is happy in the life to come is THE issue.

No, whether or not there is a life to come is more of an issue- or at least an issue that has to be dealt with first

And the way one lives one's life is part and parcel of that ability, witness the dwarves (dwarfs).

But about them you were going to say?

I do remember when one had no recourse after Lewis or Tolkien but the Sword of Shannara. THAT dates me, doesn't it? There was science fiction, of course. Heinlein, Asimov. Also, one could turn to George MacDonald. Then, mystery novels by Dorothy L. Sayers. Dante...

Ah, so much to read, so little time.

Now, there's Harry Potter, too!

Well, I date you by a fair bit then, being fifteen when Lin Carter started reprinting the classic fantasies under "The Sign of the Unicorn" in 1969:

Together we saw it all. I remember as Lin and I climbed onto the back of a reptilian shrowk to fly above the mountains of the Ifdawn Marest with Maskull and the wild and beautiful Oceaxe in David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus. Or when we stood by the cairn with Rhiannon in the world of The Mabinogion, the Welsh Iliad, through the works of Evangeline Walton, a quartet of books beginning with Prince of Annwn. Parched with thirst, Lin and I crossed the burning deserts of the dying continent Zothique and stood frozen in fear with Ralibar Vooz in the caves of Hyperborea with Clark Ashton Smith. We crept down the seven hundred onyx steps and beyond the Gates of Deeper Slumber with H.P. Lovecraft in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. We eyed one another in silent awe as we fled from the descending Powers of Evil, through the Utter Darkness toward the safety of the towering Great Redoubt of William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land, that bizarre and beautifully flawed story of an earth whose sun has died. Swords in hand, we fought the bloody manticore upon Koshtra Pivrarcha with Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha in E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, a work written with power and elegance in archaic English.
....
We slipped past the Pool of the Blue Flamingo through the Gate of Khoire in Hannes Bok's Beyond the Golden Stair. We crossed into Faery itself with Alveric to win the heart of the Princess Lirazel in The King of Elfland's Daughter, with Lord Dunsany, possibly the greatest writer of prose in the English language. We crossed those borders again, this time through Dreamland with C. S. Lewis' old mentor, the Scotsman George MacDonald in Phantastes and in Lilith

We trod the dusty roads to Utterbol to The Well at the World's End with a genuine Renaissance man in both the arts and literature, William Morris, who might well be called the father of modern fantasy. Lin and I donned masks and gave chase through the streets of turn-of-the- century London in G. K. Chesterton's farcical The Man Who was Thursday and pondered detective's mysteries in Arthur Machen's The Three Impostors. We traveled to the East, in George Merideth's seductive oriental fantasy The Shaving of Shagpat, where I held the hair, while Lin wielded the scissors. We bottled genies in F. Marion Crawford's Khaled, saw the gates of Hell itself in William Beckford's bejeweled Vathek, and sat by the roadside in China to watch the great oriental storyteller, Kai Lung himself, unroll his mat and spin his tales in Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung's Golden Hours.

http://www.beyond49.ca/Carter/stoddard_trib.html

And on the S&S front Conan was reprinted in 1966/67 and my own dear Gray Mouser and Fafhrd in 1970.

[GrayMouser]

As for the Dwarfs ( I'll use t Lewis's spelling to show I'm only talking about them in the Narnia series), while in the other books they are prone to skepticism or selfishly concerned only with their fellow Dwarfs in "The Last Battle" they not only stand in for all those self-blinded by philosophical materialism (like Uncle Andrew in TMN) they also specifically symbolize the British working class/Trade Unions/Labour Party movement.

Yes, yes, I know- - but think about it for a minute. "The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs" represents the Left's commitment to the workers only, and their rejection of the legitimacy of other classes or sectors of society.

The Dwarfs, having stood solidly against the invading Calormenes (Nazis), then refuse to return to their allotted place in the hierarchy of Aslan/Tirian/Narnia (God, King, and Country) and instead are seduced by a philosphy of secular materialism (socialism/Marxism).

My God, they even voted out Winnie- how's that for betrayal?- at least to a conservative like Lewis.

You could even argue that their targeting of the Horses in the battle around the Stable is meant to show Labour's hostility to the aristocracy, noted for their love of horses and their self-identity as "those born spurred and destined to mount".

One of the complaints of the socialists against Christianity was that it instilled passivism in the poor, as in Moses the Raven's description's of the wonders of Sugar Candy Mountain in "Animlal Farm" or the old Joe Hill song "The Preacher and the Slave" :

(to the tune of "The Sweet Bye and Bye")

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:
CHORUS:
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

The starvation army they play,
They sing and they clap and they pray
'Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:
(CHORUS)

Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
(CHORUS)

If you fight hard for children and wife --
Try to get something good in this life --
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.
(CHORUS)

Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:


FINAL CHORUS:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.

When offered literal 'pie in the sky', the Dwarfs are so deluded by their materialism that they can't accept it. They've rejected the wonderful offer of satisfaction in the life to come for the sordid goal of filling their bellies here and now.

This of course parallels Tolkien's attack on the post-WWII Labour government in "The Scouring of the Shire" and leads us to the conclusion that these scholarly dons spend an inordinate amount of time concerned with what they were getting for dinner.

Or as Lapham Lewis put it, "the conviction that the modern world is entering into a state of degeneracy rests largely on the fact that Oxford dons once had servants but now have to do their own washing-up."