The Last Narnia Book Was Super Dark
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- Опубліковано 26 жов 2023
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The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia really went out on a dark note.
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Love your content Dom! Huge fan! Hearth please❤❤❤❤❤❤
Yes yes, thank them for the sponsorship and all... but I refuse to believe that I was the only person who misread that as CockUnity.
Love your fabulous nails Dominic
Thank you so much for posting this, I love how crazy Narnia got at the end
A lot of us would live to see your thoughts on the Percy Jackson books after Sea of Monsters.
In keeping with the Bible, the last book is wild
This made me giggle because Revelations is my favorite book and that ish is WILD!
Even for a book filled with metaphors and symbolism... yes, it is wild.
I found Chronicles quite dull and lazy. It wasn’t even consistent with the previously-established timeline!
@@SamAronow
The Bible book or the Narnia books
Exactly! I did a whole college paper (I was taking a world religions class) comparing and contrasting Narnia to the Bible and spent my whole paragraph on The Last Battle arguing how it was Revelation w/talking animals
My issue with Susan's treatment is her actions can very easily be read as her just disassociating completely and convincing herself that it was all make-believe rather than facing the grief of perhaps never being able to go back to the place she so loved. It makes how damn near casual her family is about basically abandoning her come off as quite cruel.
Just as easily her actions are those of a shallow twit of a girl. Like ALL the Cardassian fans.
Christian "love"
They abandon family everyday for lack of faith and sexuality/gender issues.
Love it seems.....doesn't need to be unconditional to the loving faithful
Considering all the death, murderer and over all carnage in those books, she could be very much suppressing in account of all the PTSD
Also, it was in a time when saying that you've been to another world would have likely made you end up in an asylum. So yeah no shit she would rather forget than struggle with the cognitive dissonance
That's my head cannon too! I had to stop and do the math like three times before I kept reading the book and I immediately discarded what Lewis established.
I just realized that Lewis could have had his "Susan must find her own way back to Narnia" subplot and still had her at the end of the story giving her a happy ending. Remember that Narnia is completely out of synch with Earth time, so Narnia+ could be completely unhinged from it. "Where's Susan?" "She stopped believing in Narnia and wanted to grow up?" Enter Elder Susan who would tuck in her grandkids and tell them bedtime stories of her adventures, rekindling her belief.
Love it! That's how it should have ended.
Instead of Aslan telling them they died, it could have been Susan. Imagine that kind of reunion.
They see Susan and are simply happy to see her when she suddenly breaks down and hugs them and talks about how young they are and how much she missed them. They're confused, and she reveals that the train crashed, and they all died that day. Aslan then could appear and reveal that, although Susan lost her way for a time, she eventually rekindled her faith, and that's why she's here. Ending the story on a bitter sweet moment.
I understand CS wanting to keep it open-ended, a cautionary tale, perhaps, but for a fantasy story, I think this would have been better.
He wanted to do another book, that's what he had planned, but he died before he could finish it
@@corruptangel6793if they ever get around to actually adapting the entire series, I kinda hope they take the liberty to make this change.
Lewis himself said, “I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan ever getting into Aslan’s country, but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?”
I daresay, you just did 😊 that was just part of the Great Story he mentioned, “which no one on Earth has read: which goes on forever and ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before,” that we didn’t get to see because it was part of the things which happened which were “so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.”
It's an odd choice to make Susan's fatal flaw "wanting to grow up" when she's already grown up once before and had it taken from her.
The bit where the Pevensies lived basically a whole life in Narnia before reverting to childhood in England makes a lot of things weird. Susan wanting to grow up (and this being framed like a sad aberration that she needs to get over) is probably the worst of it, though.
"Growing up" doesn't mean rubbing shoulders with London's upper crust. Those people were hyenas, even after the war.
@@Hypogean7 Maybe a 21st-century American is missing some cultural context, but the description sounds less like "social climbing" than "having a social life".
Also, other characters complain about Susan wanting to grow up too quickly, not her trying to appeal to the upper class. Whatever you think Susan's flaw is, the narrative has a clear opinion that's hard to debate.
This is what I don't understand. They are already adults by the time of Prince Caspian. They're adults with children's body.
I got thinking of Matthew 18:3 now.
The problem I have with LEwis and Susan is that Aslan told them that they needed to focus on their own world. So she did, and gets punished for it.
Aslan: "You need to focus on your own world instead of fixating on Narnia."
Susan: "Okay." _(Tries to have a social life outside the family)_
Aslan: "No, not like that! I meant, like, church and stuff!"
To be fair, that is the most christian thing in the books
There's a difference. She thought Narina as a childish fantasy. And disregarded it altogether.
If a person you love dies then you continue without fixating on the times you had together or ruminating on the loss. You instead remember their effect on you and go forward. Suzan tho chose to forget that this person ever existed and delete their times together from her memories.
That is a step too far from what Aslan wanted
I think there is some logic to what Lewis was intending, except it's executed really badly. I should also add that Aslan _himself_ said that you don't need to be Christian, sorry, Aslanite to be one of his people --- it's that conversation with whatshisname the Calormene. (Even though that kinda conflicts with other stuff Lewis has said. If the atheist dwarves had been good people, would they have seen Narnia+ but not Aslan himself?) I've seen it argued that what Lewis was trying to go for was condemning superficiality, and that Susan was becoming obsessed with appearances rather than growing as a good person, which does make some sense. But it's done so poorly. She definitely deserved better.
@@bewilderbeestie I agree with what you've said. But I think that Luis saw himself in Suzan, and her fate was more akin to him, judging himself harshly
Susan's story line is so frustrating. Aslan specifically tells her and Peter that they've learned all they can from Narnia and if they leave they won't be allowed to come back. Of course she going to think "Well nothing I can do about that, better move on and make the best of my life in the other World."
Yeah, it’s completely plausible that Susan actually *does* remember Narnia being a real place; she just dismisses it as a game because, from her perspective, they’re knowingly rubbing it in her face that she’s not allowed back. Hence also why Edmund and Lucy are the only ones who don’t comment on it; they were first exposed to Narnia at the earliest ages and would understand how it feels to have that ripped away better than anyone else.
@@morinomajou I think there's something to be said about how Peter basically goes, "Here's the short explanation," and then, "OKAY LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE." He, Edmund, and Lucy know Susan better than anyone else there. Eustace just sees his silly older cousin. Jill just sees a lady who is Like Other Girls. Polly just sees a silly young lady. They don't know Susan, but they think they know what her whole deal is, so they mouth off about her. The people who actually know her don't want to get into all that, because it hurts, and it's probably pretty complicated, too.
You say ‘if they leave’ as though they had a choice. I’m pretty sure I remember is being a bit more of a ‘girl, bye’ kind of thing
She didn’t just make the most of her new life, it’s that she stopped believing in Narnia.
Remember that these stories of Narnia are heavily inspired of Christian allegory. In C.S Lewis time a family member being shunned because they lost religious faith was a serious concern, and something that could happen to anyone. Susan’s story isn’t meant to be _satisfying_ , it’s meant to be a warning.
@@dearthofdoohickeys4703exactly she denied it
Susan was always my favorite character. She was the eldest sister, the mom sibling, the responsible one. I identified with her and was so angry that Lewis framed 'growing up' as a bad thing. She was quite obviously pushed into adult behavior when she and her siblings got shipped out to the countryside, feeling responsible for her siblings when their parents weren't there made her grow up too fast, and then she gets punished for it? Sometimes I think she was the one who remembered Narnia the most. She remembered being an adult, a Queen! with power and responsiblity. She craved it, wanted it again. Denying it was the only way to not dwell on the pain of having her life torn from her and being shoved back into a child's body. And then she couldn't wait to be an adult again, peerless Queen Susan.
I like that idea, that she felt horrible about losing her Narnian adult identity and that her obsession with nylons, lipstick and invitations is her attempt to get that adulthood back as quickly as she can. Considering that she was a preteen verning on teenager when the books began, this makes absolute sense.
She has always been "sensible Susan" though - never believing in the fantastical until it's practically a given. Even Peter is never as skeptical. So, there is a personality flaw (if you can call it that) written into the books for Susan that definitely contributes to wanting to believe "sensible" things over fanciful things, so it makes sense that society's "sensible" pressure on her to grow up into the societal ideal of an adult woman might have contributed to how she was able to deny Aslan and Narnia and everything, which her cousins and siblings would have a hard time understanding.
@@DataLal Possibly. Still seems forced to me, setting aside the... troubling old-fashioned views it appears to be rooted in.
I mean it’s not the fact that she growing up to be an adult, it’s the fact that she was trying to adult so hard that it came off as childish despite still being a teenager. That’s basically the whole thesis Lewis is known for the idea that it’s not childish for adults to have outlandish imaginations of the fantastic or read books about fairies. He has a whole quote about it
@@Terriblyexplainingcomics I really don't care about anything C.S. Lewis might have said outside of the story to justify the absolutely terrible contents within the story, you know? No matter what he says, all the story does is throw Susan in the dumpster post-hoc, while trying to make it sound like a moral failing that she was the only main character in the story not to die in a random-ass train crash.
@@OneTrueNobody I mean you’re literally missing the whole context and themes he’s trying to present but okay
When I first read The Last Battle 50 years ago (yes, I’m that old), I felt exactly the way you do about Susan. It felt like he’d waited until the last few pages of the very last book to pull the magical rug out from under all the previous ones. And today, though I love the earlier books and have re-read them lots of times, I’ve only ever re-read TLB once. Steve in Ottawa.
My thought on Susan was that her behavior was just a very crappy way to deal. After all, she spent years in Narnia, grew up to a lovely young woman, was a good queen, and had adventures. Then she returns to our boring mundane world, back in her early teen self. She then gets to go on another adventure, but after that, is told she can't return to Narnia. That has to be a huge letdown. On top of that, she can't go around telling people about her adventures in Narnia. At best, they'll think she just took a game of pretend with her siblings way too seriously, and at worst they'll think she's crazy and try to have her committed. So she decides it's better to just pretend that Narnia wasn't real and was only a game of pretend and focus on what she thinks are adult things, like parties and make-up.
The irony of it is that there is a Bible passage about growing up and "putting away childish things" (Corinthians 1:13) which is exactly what Susan was trying to do. She would not have been treated kindly in her late teens and early 20s if she went around saying Narnia was real. Lucy was younger so would have gotten away with it longer and Peter and Edmund
... males
I always liked to connect Susan's detachment from Narnia to the Prince Caspian movie. Namely Her and Caspian's budding romance (poorly written as it is). During their reign the Pevensies never started a family in those fifteen years which I always found odd, considering that it is a royal duty to provide the country with successors. Susan obviously found nobody she was interested in. Now she finally found someone, not only can she never return to Narnia but she won't see him again.
@@George-Hawthorne It would really mess them up to have kids and then be teleported back to Earth and reset to being kids again themselves. Are there any parents reading this who can back me up?
@@cityman2312 Yeah C.S. Lewis really didn't factor in the psychological effect hitting the reset button on the Pevensies lives would affect them. Still the Pevensies didn't expect to leave Narnia and their lack of successors ended up haunting Narnia later on.
Yet somehow none of her siblings had fears of being committed. They even tried to include her in their discussions about Narnia and she rebuffed them.
16:38: This is the most absurd part of the Susan story. The Pevensies casually explain why their sister isn't allowed in Narnia anymore, and then just casually move on to eating fruit without so much as a shred of dignity spared for Susan. Is she even _mentioned_ once the other kids realize they're going to spend an eternity in heaven (without her)?
I saw a video once where they tried to explain that "no, Susan can go to heaven, she just have to live for longer than the rest" which is apparently also the reason why she didn't die in the accident.
Apparently she wasn't Christian enough yet, so she has to live in despair for a while first
@@JDM-is-my-name It's not enough that Christians have a theological excuse to sh*t on anyone who isn't a Christian, they also have to make up excuses to do the same to people who aren't the kind of Christian they like. And on top of that, they need _more_ excuses for when someone they like goes to the same church.
The book fades to black (metaphorically) in the middle of Aslan telling them that they don't need to worry about going home any more because they're all dead, so there's no time for her to be mentioned and distract from the happy ending.
At the time she's mentioned, Peter clearly doesn't want to talk about her - he says "shortly and gravely" that she's no longer a friend of Narnia and then changes the subject as quickly as possible. Edmund and Lucy, who might be expected to know her best, and Digory who showed deep thought and insight as Professor Kirke, say nothing and their reactions are not recorded. It's Eustace who tells of her dismissal of Narnia as a children's game, Jill who sums her up as nylons, lipstick and invitations, and Polly who expresses the opinion (which Lewis himself expressed elsewhere) that trying to spend your entire life as though you were student age is not at all grown up.
@@rmsgrey The sheer _disrespect._ Frick.
To be honest I would have prefered for Peter being the one being left behind...
I mean he actually would have plenty of opportunities and with him being the oldest he could have very well fallen into the character type of trying to be the grown up to protect and help his siblings, in which he attempted to keep himself away from their past in order to focus on some income and recognition...
It is now my headcannon that Susan herself is CS Lewis and wrote the Chronicles of Narnia as a way to share their adventures and cope with the devastating loss of her siblings. Hence why her end is bitter, for she was separated from them far too soon. 😢
I like this interpretation. It also fits with the self-deprecating description of herself in the end... She's suffering from survivor's guilt.
oh my god can you imagine if there was ever a tv/film adaptation that went with this idea??? like.... there's a mysterious older female narrator throughout the entire series, and then it's revealed that she was susan all along at the end. uGHh 😭😭😭
In that case we would need Narnia to be written by a woman. Greta Gerwig is doing the new version. Hmm, looks like it's possible. I do look foreward to her take on Susan, potentially expanding the universe (my idea can essentially be summed up as "Susan the Living Planet" being her afterlife).
Interesting considering Lewis was a staunch atheist at one point
Talk about coping...
The funniest headcanon I've heard about Susan is that she changes her last name to "Foreman" and joins an old time traveler that she starts calling"Grandfather".
BRUH
Thats fantastic
Who’s Susan Forman?
@@johannesvonmalos7505 the Doctor's granddaughter in the first series of Doctor Who
In that case, a talking lion would have seemed like both par for the course and a welcome respite, as she did eventually get drawn into the Time War.
I guess Aslan is a big fan of the lack of atheists on battlefields...
Kind of ironic that Susan is bad for "rushing" into adulthood but cs lewis rushed the rest of the kids into death
Yeah, at least she got to BE an adult!
@@AmaraJordanMusic When I first read _The Last Battle_ I saw Susan as the winner in the series. She got to live life! I was horrified that everyone else died in a train crash. The Narnia afterlife didn't seem particularly real to me.
If you want to see what Lewis really thought about women read his short story 'The Shoddy Lands" (that's typed correctly, it's not the Shadow lands).
@@missanne2908 thats an interesting way to put it. Everyone who couldn't outlive childish desires and fantasies died young, while she learned to turn what was a childish thing healthily into adulthood. I don't think it is what lewis intended, but it does seem like a better way to read it. Not perfect, since some childhood whimsy is at least good to live a happy life, but better than what seems to be the intended reading
I believe Susan will need to find who Aslan is in her own world so that she can deal with the death of her family. I didn’t like they killed everyone off and was hoping they could have all found who Aslan was in their own world. It’s true people can fall away from religion like Susan did but perhaps the death of her family will bring her back to God. It just makes me really sad for all of them they all should have lived a long life in their own world
And if Susan had got on the train she'd have the body she always wanted for the rest of her life.
Also I suspect everyone was killed off so there couldn't be any more books. Don Quixote was killed off for the same reason.
Fantasy author Ursula Vernon also wrote a story about Susan Pevensie. In this story, far from being ever-virginal like the four rulers appear to be in the book, Queen Susan had a long-term lover who she was cruelly ripped away from when the Pevensie siblings come tumbling back out of the wardrobe, and she never really forgave Aslan for that.
Thanks for recommending this one!
That makes sense, she's the only one that seems to have any romantic involvements in The Horse and His Boy.
So, virginity is the most important requirement to visit Narnia?
Now I think I made the worst mistake of my life when I met my ex😂 It didn't worth it😂😂😂
Upd: "Я променял свою философскую жизнь! Ради баб!" 😂😂😂😂
You mean they wrote a fan fiction story where they made a kid's book character a SLUT? WOW, that's so original!
Marvelous, heartbreaking story, thanks so much for the recommendation!
The death of the Dryad as her tree is cut was traumatizing for me as a kid.
That was in my mind when trading about the Ents finding the woods being chooped down in Lord of the Rings.
There was a good deal of really gratuitous cruelty in this book.
The explanation as to why Susan wasn't there makes me think of a tv show where an established character disappears between seasons because of the actor not returning, and the writers need to invent a reason for their absence.
It is rather like that.
The part that _really_ drives this comparison home is how casual it is. Susan is just _absent_ for most of the book; I'm not sure if she's mentioned at all before or after the one scene where the Pevensies explain her absence.
Growing up in the conservative South where we were not allowed to question anything and we had to be on the side of anyone yelling “Jesus” the loudest, this book really opened my mind. I know it hasn’t aged well, but I remember sitting in elementary school re-reading that part where Aslan is talking to the officer and how much truer that rang than so much of the hate and fear I heard in church.
This book changed my world view and I think helped think outside the mob.
It was pretty progressive. Just for a much more conservative time. I kinda wish people would remember that. In a thousand years progressives of the era will look back at us with disdain.
I am not sure that the last Battle was well at any time in its existence, aging or not.
Big Jesus Club was just too unsubtle and suffocating a plot twist and the destruction of Narnia felt like a lazy cop out from the first reading.
It's the only volume i'll probably never read again. There are chick tracts that are less offensive to read.
@samreddig8819 this, absolutely this. Progression unfortunately is a long an arduous path, the progressives of the 1920s were quite radical in their time and to us they have a darker connotation
Honestly, I thinks Aslans speach is a fine way of showing a progressive and tolerant viee of Christianity aka "Jesus is a nice guy and ig you also act nice, you follow him, but you are not losing anything in the grand game" wich is... really supportive and also pretty tolerant. If one really believes in this, it would also enforce tolerance towards atheism and other religions.
What makes it look so dated is, that the fact, that the demon-worshippers are so painfully obvious Muslims. This really sucks.
@@samreddig8819
I mean there ARE a few people who lived 100 or 200 years ago which manage to still be based somehow. Though the bar for the average person was of course a lot lower.
I went to a christian grade-school where we were limited on what fiction books we were allowed to read ("Little Pilgrim's Progress" was a trip) so I read this when I was about 10. It actually stuck with me for years because of how kinda-progressive theologically it seemed (I'd forgotten the racism - yikes). My school was telling me "if you dont believe *this* exact version of religion, in this exact denomination, you're f'ed no matter what" whereas Lewis was saying "names dont matter, actions do" which seemed much more humane. As someone witnessing the hypocrisy that tends to follow religion, that seemed logical to me. I've since moved away from religion entirely, but I still appreciate Lewis' stance _on that one issue_.
Ok, so, the Calormein empire is... problematic, perhaps, but not entirely unmerited. It's worth remembering that the Middle East for a large part of Lewis's formative years was being run by the Ottoman Empire, which was, well, everything Calormein was. It was a lot more too, and perhaps it's unfair to focus purely on the expansionist, slave-trading, megalomaniac side of it, but if you were living on the edge of the Ottoman Empire, you'd probably have described it exactly as Lewis described Calormein.
As for the blackface though... Yeah, I got nothing. The book was written in the forties (ok, the fifties).
While I hate the religion I will say I liked they actions matter more than names part too.
I was raised as an atheist, but I still really liked the stance of C S Lewis on religions in that part ˆˆ
Although, I've never understooduntil I was like adult that Aslan was a religious metaphor, for me he was just a magical lion XD
I never actually read this book as a child (never actually made it past the first one), but I remember being kind of jazzed when I heard that concept was in the book. I went through a crisis of faith in high school more or less centered on this issue, and the resolution I arrived at was that how you live your life has to matter more than what you believe. Kind of cool to hear Lewis put that exact same idea into an otherwise rather awkward book.
I get what you're saying, but I'm getting the message that Lewis believes good people are Christian even if they believe they are part of a different religion. It's like when you're told, "Oh you're so nice, you CAN'T be an Atheist."
The most messed up part is realizing the reality Susan would've been living with as a 21 year old. Assuming the last novel takes place in 1954 its publication year: Susan was raised to be a housewife. And the mean age of a woman getting married for the first time as a woman in the UK in 1954 is 23 years old. Average age of childbirth is 24 years old. She's literally expected to be a married adult by now, of course she's wearing nylons and lipstick and taking invitations. She's expected to be married and having babies already. Her friends are getting married and having babies, she's expected to do the same. And Lewis orphans her for it.
I always read it that Aslan arranged it for "everyone" (except Susan) to be on the train, because it is just too much of a coincidence. Another point: the Pevensey parents were not "friends of Narnia" yet they got to go to Earth 2.0, while Susan didnt... C.S. just really didn't like her, did he?
Honestly the last book felt lazy
Honestly, I don't see it that way. If Aslan arranged it for everyone to be on the train, he left Susan out for a reason. The others were ready to go and accept their deaths, but if Susan had died, she wouldn't have gone with her siblings because she doesn't believe anymore. And thus, Susan must find her way back into believing in Narnia again in order to see her siblings again. Now, that doesn't mean that she is going to drop dead the moment that she fully believes, but that she has enough time to find her way. And so, when she is old and surrounded by family and friends, having a her faith rekindled decades ago, she will pass on and be welcomed by Peter, Edmund, and Susan.
@@vicenzostella1390 excellent point, I hadn't considered that. a much more positive spin on it. Too bad Lewis didn't bring that concept in to play when the others are badmouthing Susan, though.
The reason she isn't in the new Narnia is because she was the only Pevensie who wasn't killed on the train, and the reason that she wasn't on that train was because she was no longer a friend of Narnia- she chose to stop caring about Narnia and pretended that it didn't exist.
@@ComicRaptor8850 the Pevensey parents were also not friends of Narnia, but they were on the train.
Personally, it always bugged me that Tash is just introduced out of nowhere.
Like, for all the other books, the Devil figure for Aslan is the White Witch. She was there at the birth of the world, and committed the first sin of Narina by stealing the Apple of Immortality, condemned the world to never-ending winter and suffering for centuries.....and suddenly there's this actual devil character that the evil empire worships and that it's where all the bad people go despite it never being mentioned before. Ever.
Tash comes out of nowhere and his inclusion drove me up the wall when I was kid first reading this book, because he felt so shoved in and pointless when the White Witch already existed and filled in the Satan analog to Aslan's Jesus
And while I've never read The Last Battle, it doesn't even sound like Tash does much of anything. And having an equal but opposite god of evil is rather more dualistic than orthodox Christianity generally suggests.
(Lowercase-o orthodox, not the Eastern Orthodox Church.)
A common theory is that when the White Witch sacrificed something for the deplorable world it was her soul. Tash possessed her and went to Narnia with her making him the villain of the entire story. Notice the illustrations in The Magician's Nephew. Tash's clothes match the clothes from The White Witch's home and nobody else's clothes. They are completely alien to the Calormen clothes. At Charm their is an illustration on a pillar that looks suspiciously like Tash.
@@timothymclean Yeah he really dosent do much
He shows up, looks scary and eats a few people then fucks off
Oh, it's he... The translation in my language made Tash a goddess, so we could see her as another avatar of the White Witch, who was probably also the Green Witch - all them women, so neat.
@@matthewhecht9257I really like that theory. Though I think "possessed" takes a lot of agency from Jadis. I'd rather go with "influenced by" or "allied to" heck, maybe Tash was a parasite and caught a ride in her soul from her home world?
I did listen to the Audiobook version read by Patrick Stewart so maybe that did help take the sting off a smidge, but still, rather cruel Susan gets to live but kept out of heaven with no means to get into heaven with her family. Like you'd think Aslan could have said, "Fear not, she will come in her own time, when she finds me again"
oh my god that's so much better!
That one line would have done SO much to redeem Susan's story.
I wish that line was actually in the story, but alas.
I’ll imagine it was there instead.
Tash's entrance in the audiobooks I grew up with was always absolutely terrifying, for seemingly no reason. The characters are basically "oh, what a weird bird cloud thing" meanwhile the audio is going full horror movie soundtrack
Lewis did basically say that to a fan who wrote him asking what the heck happens to Susan. He should have put it in the book though.
Whenever I think of Susan, I always remember the author quote at the beginning of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe "But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.". I think that's it for me, Susan just grew up, yes, she is alone now, yes, that sucks, but there will come a time when she remembers, when she understands, when she starts reading fairy tales again, when she returns to Narnia
Bless you for the Robin Hood Men in Tights reference
Also in hindsight, there's that quote from CS Lewis: "“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” He condemned people who were in a hurry to be "grown up" that they forget childish wonder so the way Susan went kind of makes sense.
Although, it still seems kind of fucked up when you consider the time period the siblings were from. I mean, what with war and some atiquated ideas about men and women's roles in society, etc, it comes off as callous towards a person who was pretty much forced to grow up too quickly, due to the predicament she was unfortunately put in.
Kind of like kicking a person when they're down, you know?
@retrogamelover2012
Except Lewis himself WAS from those times. He knows what he’s talking about. He lived through TWO world wars.
@@edwinsolis5710 I guess... Still...
@edwinsolis5710 What I would add, though, is that Lewis didn't live during that time as a woman. He was a man living during that time. He clearly had not the best viewpoints on women as shown in the books. So already Lewis had sexist viewpoints around women. Also, he wouldn't know what it would be like to live as a woman during the 1940's-1950's. He wouldn't have had to deal with the everyday sexism that Susan would have to deal with as a woman and the legal restrictions put on women at the time that he wouldn't have to deal with as a man. It's clear that Lewis didn't really think about the logical reality for Susan as a woman during that particular time period. He may have lived during that time, but that doesn't mean he had an understanding of what women really went through during that same time due to him having privilege as a man where he didn't have to think about what women went through.
i found it kinda funny that immediately after ranting about susan turning to a life of sin or some shit, the kids immediately pluck a fruit off a tree in god's special perfect garden and eat it. that couldn't have been intentional, but the irony is amazing
Oh PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT
Bahahaha! That’s true! 🤣
There were two trees in the garden. It's likely the tree of life.
Also, the idea that Peter is literally doing a “Look over there!” subject change. 😆
@@NeriSiren It's funny, but also sad to me, because I interpret Peter doing "look over there" as a way to get everyone to stop talking about the topic that makes him sad.
Ah, The Last Battle. The book that we have to thank for 319 fix-it fics tagged "The Problem of Susan (Narnia)", 50 tagged "Susan Pevensie Never Forgot", and 52 tagged "Susan Pevensie Deserved Better", on AO3 alone. Not counting all the stories on other sites (or in bookstores, in the case of Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan.) Hundreds, if not thousands of stories, many of which could reach over 50,000 words and technically qualify as a novel, written in response to the inexplicable writing decision that Susan in particular wouldn't get taken to New Super Narnia Deluxe.
I hate those tags so much. So many of them are written so pompously, or full of bitterness.
So many are written like they want to personally dig up Lewis and throw his bones off a cliff.
@@Hypogean7 well when an author you love gives your favorite character a proverbial middle finger of an ending, bitterness is usually what follows.
Oh?? Niel gaiman did something with it?
Actually identifying Susan with Lewis makes a lot of sense and makes her ultimate fate seem less cruel. Lewis himself suffered a lot of tragedy in his life from losing his mother, to many of his friends fighting in WW1. It feels like Lewis could've written a story where Susan heals from her loss and finds her way back to Aslan's country.
Lewis actually was working on a Susan follow up story before he passed away.
@@hubakon1368 wow that's crazy, is there info on how the story would play out?
I think a better way to say it is: Better to worship a false god with truth in your heart than to worship the true god falsely.
Yeah. Susan's fate isn't why I never got to the book (I wanted to read them in order and A Horse and his Boy was just... REALLY boring) but learning about it kept me from even wanting to TRY and finish. It's just so depressing, thinking about how much survivors guilt and self-hatred she'd have. Dismisssing her family's desire to help Narnia as silly little memories of childhood fantasies and then knowing they ALL DIED chasing after said "fantasies". I just imagine her thinking "If only I coukd have talked them out of it" or even "If I just talked to them a little longer they might have missed THIS train". Thanks Lewis, I hate this.
Thirty years ago, I would have said Narnia *could* be classified as required reading. But I don't think that's the case today. Arguably, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe should be considered a classic, but the rest of the series isn't actually worth the trouble for anyone casually reading a genre including it. I wouldn't really even bother recommending them to children; I'd rather show them Boxcar Children if I'm going to pick something from when I was a kid.
I DNF'd A Horse and His Boy multiple times 🤣🤣 Still have never finished it.
For all its faults, this book gave us Shift the Ape, who in my opinion is one of the best villains in the series. He was such a wonderful manipulative bastard, and a great way to highlight the dangers of charismatic leaders who can doup people into not thinking for themselves.
I also like the idea of a con artist ape dressing up a donkey in lionskin as a Narnian take on the antichrist.
...considering the time period and the rampant racism displayed throughout... Shift was probably commentary on black folks...
I think this is the first book growing up that taught me about what abuse and manipulation look like in relationships. As an adult, I see a lot of value, though depressing, in knowing how political and religious leaders can manipulate whole groups of people.
@@timothymclean
It's a really neat idea.
Especially the way Shift is presented as horrible cruel and abusive in the first chapter, but rapidly becomes a pitiable figure treated with contempt by The Calormenes.
I read this book earlier this year. the monkey heavily reminded me of the actions of a now former PM of England. I didn't know that Jill and Eustace came back for one last time. their role in the run up to the battle helped me come to terms with a part of English history that had bothered me as a teenager.
I remember being so distraught and so sad for Susan when I read this as a kid because HER WHOLE FAMILY DIES. C.S. Lewis just did not give a flying potato about her emotional well being and basically doomed her just because she wanted to party a little bit. Yikes.
No thats not true at all. Susan became the prodigal son who became focused on worldly things instead of her spiritual journey. However, since Susan didn't die she had the chance to seek redemption and enter True Narnia.
I love the phrase "a flying potato"
If he killed her alongside the rest of her family then she wouldn’t be able to enter Narnia. Aslan gave her time to reconsider so she’s still alive for there to be hope that she can return to Narnia.
Christian 'love' AKA 'if you don't believe in God, you deserve hell and suffering.'
Sometimes you need a really big shock to your system to put you back on the right path.
I think it’s worth pointing out that a lot of people at that time had lost young friends, I know my dad lost almost all of his in the Blitz. Young people dying was just so common, and Lewis might have been, either consciously or subconsciously, trying to take some of the sting out of that whole vibe.
Possible theory, the existence of Narnia is solely dependent on the lives of the humans that were there at its founding, Diggory and Polly. They died on the train, so Narnia was destroyed.
That is interesting, but this is 100% based on the Revelation of St. John the Divine. Quite heavily-handedly. If that theory is in the Bible version, I didn’t catch on to it.
That's actually a very interesting theory. I doubt it's the authors intent but it sure sounds plausible for why the entire setting was destroyed.
And when you consider Diggory’s role as a CS Lewis self-insert (most notably in the first book)… well… there that is…
@@kathrynolsen1256
True, true. But it's less of an argument of "why" and more an argument of "why now"
Interesting theory although I highly doubt that's what Lewis had in mind.
The problem with Susan that bugged me so much, is the time she lived in. Just like Dom said, she had basically no rights and the only hope she had for living well was marrying well. Dressing nicely and going to get togethers would be her primary way of securing her future. I mean, Peter was her head of family, it should have been his responsibility to look after her and instead of being worried about her being left alone, he discards that responsibility... really f-ed up imo /:
Kinda reminds me how people criticize Disney's Cinderella for being "too passive", "waiting for a prince to save her", and "being a gold digger"; despite the facts that:
1. The movie was made in 1950, when women didn't have a lot of rights, and takes place in 1850s, when they had even less.
2. She's an abused teenager or young woman, who is forced to mostly spend her time stuck in the house doing chores, so she probably hasn't had the time or the life-experience to figure out how to fix her situation.
3. If she left her abusive family, she would own pretty much nothing (because she would be abandoning her birth-parents' estate), and would not have a lot of career prospects, other than being a maid (which she already is).
4. She works hard to improve her situation, such as making the dress for the ball (in between all her chores).
5. She didn't go to the ball for the prince (or men in general), but mostly just to have fun, and she didn't even know that the man she was talking with was the prince or even wealthy.
So yeah, I would say that the *character isn't sexist, but the time period the story takes place in is*, and she worked with what she was able to do within those constraints.
(And finally, she's even more awesome in the 2007 sequel: "Cinderella III: A Twist in Time", which is more action-y (also, yes, you can skip "II").)
@@henrikleppa7632what rights didn't women have in the 50s? Lol the right to be a wage slave?
It was like 1950 England, not the regency. Not sure what her parents did for a living, but they could call in a favor to a tenured professor with a manor house so clearly they had some money of their own. And she wasn't concerned about her future, she was concerned about others' perceptions of her and her status in the extremely short term.
@@flpndrox Let's be honest, even in the 1950's things were a lot harder for single women than they are now. Sure, she probably won't die on the streets, but marriage was a lot more important for your place in society. And perhaps she didn't want to be a burden to her parents, and be a good big sister?
her only hope for living well was marriage? you know that's ridiculous, don't you? my great aunt pretty much ran the family pottery firm pre-WW2 because everyone recognised that her husband was useless; another female relative was a doctor pre-WW2 and never married (her fiancee died in WW1). My mother was 20 when the war ended and had worked as a lab assistant in a munitions factory during WW2, then worked in the small seaside hotel my grandmother ran, and later was a teacher in a small private school. My 'auntie' who lived next door to us and would have been older than Susan had a career in the civil service, and she never married but was pretty well-off for a single income household where she had to hire carers for first her father and then her mother. The idea of the head of a household being a much younger male if the father died is decades out of date for the period.
Poor Susan. The parents, who NEVER went Narnia, got to go? I couldn't get my mind wrapped around that.
The major problem I have with Susan's end, and it doesn't just apply to Susan, is that the books seem to take a hardline stance against feminine women. Jadis is the most femme lady in the novels and she's pure evil. Same with the green witch. Susan is silly for wanting a social life and lambasted for engaging in society the way women basically had to in that time period. Aravis's school friend is an airhead for enjoying a lavish lifestyle. Meanwhile Aravis is praised cause she does sword fighting and wears her brothers armour and doesn't follow societal expectations. Lucy is an amazing archer so she's awesome.
Yet at the same time as the books are firmly against feminine female characters, they're also constantly harping on the badass female characters for being too masculine. Lucy is told battlefields aren't for women. Everyone regards Aravis as strange for doing "boy things". It's like the books are simultaneously in favour of pick me girls and also ashamed by them.
Good. F toxic femininity! You want your daughters to learn that garbage, read them Cosmo, or just park them in front of $€x in the City!
I'm pretty sure that the point is that society England was (and still is) as shallow and predatory group of friends as you can have.
"Why rush the kids to heaven?" We know CS Lewis' thought process on this, from another book. In "The Screwtape Letters", Screwtape (a bureaucrat of hell) advises his nephew (a tempter demon) to keep his 'client' alive as long as possible. The logic is that the longer the person lives, the more sins they will accrue, and the more cynicism they will develop. Redemption is a possibility, but so rare as to not be worth worrying about. Now that I think of it, you should do an episode on "The Screwtape Letters" as a companion piece to this Narnia series. It's maybe the clearest statement on Lewis' beliefs, only in reverse.
Oh, it’s like how some sects have you baptized at death rather than infancy. Which honestly makes more sense-baptism is supposed to literally wash away your sins and give you a new pure life, and Jesus was baptized as an adult anyways
@@warlordofbritanniaDenominations that don’t baptize at infancy, but rather conversion, also get their theology from this principle (especially open-water, full-emersion baptism). They will say that the submersion underneath the water is actually the “death” of your old self, and that when you re-emerge you have been “reborn” to a new life.
@@user-uu2cj9ct3j
Exactly! And again, there’s more sense and precedent for that practice in the Bible than for infant baptisms-which makes me quite curious on how the latter got started, let alone become dominant.
@@warlordofbritannia it became dominant because of fear and high rates of infant mortality bud. If it "needs" to happen or you go to hell, wouldn't you want your baby to have it done before they maybe die at 6 months?
@@demonzabrak
Oh, that makes sense. Neat!
I distinctly remember finishing the entire series in like 1 month in the summer when I was about 13 and despite being a Christian I thought that dying a horrible death at a young age just so they can stay forever in Narnia was a very depressive ending. Also, justice for Susan.
Everything from "My goldfish Goldy?" to "Excellent, that's our plans for the weekend... then..." Always love the script writing, especially whenever you can fit in a Men In Tights reference!
Man, expecting Susan to find her faith after her literal entire family died in a train crash is wild. I know some people process grief by finding religion, but that is not always how it goes down. That’s certainly not how my family processed loss. I think a perfectly normal reaction to losing someone you love too soon is a shaking of faith, not a reinforcement of it. Even if the story is trying to say Susan will eventually find furry Jesus and go to heaven, killing her entire family is still a horrific thing to do to her.
EDIT: You literally addressed this 5 seconds after I posted my comment, good work as always.
Both Tolkien and Lewis lost almost everything during the war. This wasn't a punishment directly against Susan, it's just something that happens in life. Good or bad, you will eventually die.
Lewis went on to lose his wife and have a crisis of faith. There is a movie about this called "Shadowlands"
I think Dom's the first person I've ever seen tackle the 'Problem of Susan' to explain it so thoroughly and satisfyingly. Really hit the nail on the head in regards to the fact that the REAL problem is that it didn't need to happen at all in-universe, and it was fully C.S. Lewis's choice to leave her in such a terrible situation with no word of comfort or reassurance for the reader.
In real life Lewis went on to survive losing his wife and regretting some of his choices with Narnia. He was human too.
Admittedly "They were disembodied spirits while Susan buried their charred train crash corpses happily ever after" would've been a bit of a buzzkill.
This is clearly the post-credits scene
Their Force ghosts gathered round to have a chuckle as Susan checked with the police to see if any more bits of the bodies had been recovered and identified. Susan couldn't even remember the happy days she had spent slaughtering evil people with her family.
@@amulettsI want a deleted/alternate scene where, instead of the “Look! Fruit!” segue from the Susan talk, we get a full musical number entitled, “We Don’t Talk About Susan.”
@@NeriSirenGreat, now it's stuck in my head 😂
@@joannamyers1268 What can I saaaay, except: YOU’RE WEL-COOOOME! 😜
I think what a lot of people don't seem to mention about The Problem of Susan is that ASLAN HIMSELF TOLD HER TO GROW UP! She's being screwed over for following Aslan's instructions! He tells her and Peter in Prince Caspian that they're too old to return to Narnia, they should focus on their world, etc. Now maybe, in Aslan's mind, he's mad that she thinks of him as a "childhood fantasy" but still, Aslan himself is the one who kicked her out of Narnia in the first place. Of course she's gonna be miffed about that.
To bring it to the Christian allegory, if someone gets kicked out of a church, how likely are they to go to some other church and risk being kicked out again?
"Growing up" doesn't mean becoming a materialist and shunning your family. Peter also grew up, didn't he?
People grow up differently. Shunning your family isn't wrong, materialistic lifestyle isn't either, if there are good reasons?@@Hypogean7
I'd like to share my little headcanons for what happened to Susan after this book (I've thought about this a good bit because I need to be happy)
For a bit of backstory, Susan had a few friends and one of her closer ones was a guy named James. So, Susan hears about her family's death and is obviously devastated. James comes with her to identify the bodies and to the funeral to support her and help her through all of it. After the shock of the deaths fades, Susan becomes horrifically depressed and James takes care of her. He tries to help her get through the day (like making her breakfast and getting her to eat) and, eventually, she starts to get better. After a long time, she becomes happy again and, while still thinking sadly about her family, starts to live her life again. The two of them fall in love and get married and Susan has two kids (who maybe have their own adventures in, I guess, Narnia+). Susan lives a long, happy life with an amazing husband and children and then grandchildren. She dies of old age in her sleep and wakes up to her parents. They lead her to Narnia+ where she finally sees her siblings again.
If these books won't give her a happy ending, then I will.
Yeah, this seems likely. She was a bit of a mess in her 20s, but someone came along to show her love when she really needed it, and she eventually settled into a role that emphasized her kind and "gentle" qualities that shone in LWW. And if she had been swooped into Narnia she would never have fallen in love or had kids so that would have sucked.
instead of Narnia, I'd have her children have adventures in another world. The Magicians Nephew establishes a multiverse, I always assumed Jesus/Aslan appears in those universes too with other names
I think Susan was supposed to reflect how C.S. Lewis went away from Christianity as a teenager, so I believe he wanted her to be happy eventually.
That the skills as a diplomat and manager (given the analogy of a medieval queen she would probably been in charge of castle management at all times as well as tasked with leading the defense while Peter and Edmund were away) she gained in Narnia continued to mature and she joined the foreign service or an NGO with a loving, supportive husband and children that she gave the best stories to. Maybe she retired late in life and settled back in as an honorary professor providing advice and support to young women.
And she wrote some really awesome children’s fantasy novels for her grandkids.
When I was little (about 5 - 7 years old) my mum read me the entire Narnia series at bedtime. Except The Last Battle. I barely remember the ones she did read me, but I absolutely remember her explaining to me very sternly and slowly on night, 'I'm not reading that one to you. You'll have to read it yourself, when you're older, because it's too grown up for you right now'.
My dad did the same thing.
Yeah, my mum did that too.
@@BinturongGirl
A sensible judgement.
Ok on a positive note.... Tirian and Jewel's friendship is really lovely.
It's sad that Jewel hasn't been able to teach him wisdom.
I remember hating this book so much. I was probably too young to read it at the time, so my biggest memory is crying for like an hour after realizing that everyone for was dead. It was such a horrible ending to a series I loved so much.
When my siblings and I were younger, we assigned ourselves roles within the Pevensie children. My moody little brother was Edmund, and our cheery but petulant baby sister was Lucy. I was the studious, responsible older sister with long brown hair, so even though I always wanted to be Peter, I obviously *had* to be Susan. Needless to say, the ending of her story left my nine year old self extremely upset. I felt so betrayed, like Lewis had told me personally that I wasn't deserving of going to Narnia. It definitely fed into my future "not like other girls" phase and internalized misogyny
(Also, in defense of the ending, my tragedy and apocalypse obsessed child self used to read the actual description of the end of Narnia over and over again. It was so delightfully depressing)
Yes! Same here, though I liked Susan and just wished I had an older brother to be Peter. It hurt she didn't get into fantasy heaven. Same about the NLOG thing, too, yet another reason to think there was something wrong with being 'girly'
@@catrionabean On the bright side, Susan definitely ended up being one of my fictional crushes as I grew up lmao
Yeah the problem with Susan is definitely the judgemental and hypocritical side of Christianity showing. To me, the idea of Lewis sort of self-inserting his crisis of faith on Susan sounds like the most likely scenario. The complete lack of sympathy towards Susan for her choice makes sense from the perspective of a Christian who felt guilty for ever doubting his faith. Punishing and mocking Susan is an act of self-immolation. It gives the vibe that Lewis hated his past sin and was punishing his own past. From what I understand he first fell off his faith when he was a teenager and started getting other interests, which would explain why Susan's crisis of faith is primarily caused by her acting like a teenager.
The fact that C.S. Lewis decided to write the parts of himself that he hated most into a teenaged girl has a couple possible interpretations. Unfortunately, the most likely explanation is the boring "misogyny" one.
I'm not sure what label to give myself anymore, but I guess agnostic is closest. However, if there is a heaven where the primary center of all activity is worship and all of one's time and talents are used only in God's service to do completely as he wills, then I can't imagine that would be a very welcome way to spend eternity if that wasn't your thing.
I think it's also tough when you make Lion Jesus a character. Because irl, it makes sense why it would be on someone to rediscover their faith. But not in a world where Aslan can actually choose to communicate with Susan.
@@ellicel Yeah, like I wouldn't choose to be in a relationship with a narcissist here while I'm alive, so why the hell would I want one for eternity?!
@@empressmarowynn I knew the comments would be filled with total misunderstanding and judgmental people
talking about the Susen thing because you refuse to understand what C S Lewis was getting at
Ah yes, Snow White and the *Eleven* Dwarves, my favorite Disney movie! :D Anyway, thanks for the great recaps Dom! This series has been a lot of fun!
Too many dwarves to please Snowy and too few to form a dragon-gold raiding party!
the whole thing of the dwarves has some pretty deep and non-immediate symbolism in snow white, and even the edulcorated Disney incarnation kept quite a bit of them, so it's not unreasonable to prod at the concept, when the book was so specific about the number
@serPomiz Hold up… are they… representations of the Seven Deadly Sins or something?? (All I remember is Sneezy & Dopey & Grumpy, so this is probably MILES off, but the thought that they were symbolic just blew my ignorant little mind just now. 😅)
@@UGNAvalon ...no, that was never the intent of the Brothers' Grim fairy tale.
@@UGNAvalon negative, the other way actually, the seven degrees of growth in various pre-christian rites that eventually converged into the 7 big levels of freemasonry individual growth, regardless of sect (the newly iniciated, for example, cannot speak in role untill they move on)
As the oldest daughter (of many children) in my family, who grew up a zealous evangelical baptist and then in college woke up as an agnostic atheist queer, looking back and realizing how Susan had been treated has led her to hold a very special place in my heart for the last almost 10 years. This is a wonderful analysis, as always - thanks Dom.
Ew :/
Hope you don't mind the question. But how do you be agnostic and atheist? I'm agnostic myself, and I always understood it meant that we cannot know whether such an entity like god could exist or not, and it's neither faith nor disbelief in such an entity.
@@ZackRToler Being an agnostic atheist means being an atheist (not believing in/believing that there is a god), but also taking the stance that it is impossible to *absolutely prove* that no gods exist. And there are those sometimes referred to as gnostic atheists - though this is the way that people tend to always assume atheists are - who take the stance that they know firmly and confidently that there is no way that there is any kind of god. My stance has shifted more towards the label of just "atheist" (so, closer to a gnostic atheist) in the years since I first came to atheism in college. But I was thinking about my college self when I wrote the comment.
Similarly, growing up as both a Methodist and moderate Charasmatic, convinced I was just a cis-het man - my faith being shattered allowed me to realise that I'm non-binary, Polysexual, and could never believe in a god again
@samuelbrooks1533 so now instead of "just" being a normal person you're "just' a flavor of the week freak. Good luck with that.
My most abiding memory of the last battle was how I was never able to finish the audiobook cassette because it was broken and would only say HubuHubahuBHu
Lol
Arguably a better ending than the original
I would have much preferred this ending 😂😂😂😂
To me, the Problem with Susan was how it ended for her. I understand where CS Lewis was going with her character, but it was not executed well (most of my understanding comes from the knowledge of Lewis' own life and not information from the books) and because he never continued her story, those lines in the book being the last mention of her, it came off as an unnecessarily harsh and cruel ending.
My first exposure to Narnia was as an audio book of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, listening to it in a car trip with my parents. I remember the CD started with C.S.Lewis dedicating the book to his godchild Lucy, but mentioned how he hadn't realised "girls grow faster than book. By the time the book is finished you will be to old for fairytales". My parents, who were also listening in, made sure to point out that you are never to old for fairytales and not to let those words stop me from enjoying stories no matter my age. I feel like the Susan problem can be related to this, how C.S. Lewis might've had this missconception that young girls would just naturally grow bored of fantasies, so there was never any hope. Only later (which he wrote in this opening letter/dedication) would they "grow old enough for fairytales again". I fear that Lewis had some deeply rooted (possibly society rooted) mysoginistic mindsets that just bled into his books, without actually stopping to think what young girls actually thought or belived. The only bright side is that, as he said in the letter, he did belive girls would rekindle their intrest in fairytales when they grew older, giving Susan a direct possibility to once again belive in Narnia and to rejoin her family.
I think the reason Lewis killed them off so young is (at least in part) because he and his audience had just lived through World War II and this was a comforting way to think about all the children who had died. I used to hate the choice, but, in historical context, I think it was a kindness to his original audience.
Thanks for addressing the Problem with Susan, Dom! As a raised catholic who in adulthood got the apostasy I read the books myself and was enraged when Susan doesn't get Heaven because she stops believing. As an adult I Head Cannoned a whole new life for her healing from her trauma and doing good for children who experienced """"""""""magic"""""""""" at a young age and have issues growing up because of it. I liked to imagine 40 year old Susan adopting little Matilda Wormwood in the 80s and maybe even becoming a child therapist who helps our newly-maligned boy Harry with his post-war trauma (because you know that boy needs it). I basically liked imagining her doing good for other kids who will never go to Aslan's country like her because she knows they need it.
Oh my gods, you NEED to write this! I'd read the hell out of that fanfiction
...somebody write this.
There's a Neil Gaiman short story about Susan post Narnia.
It's very much in the "What the fuck were you smoking?" category of Neil Gaiman short story.
So… What happened to Susan meets McGuire’s Doorways series.
@@18Hongo Dom did mention it?
The problem with Susan is, when I read the book as a kid, I completely agreed with Peter. I read it at an age where everyone around me wanted to play at being adults (kids at the age of 10 dating and being too old for games, etc...) and it was downright miserable to watch friends and peers turn away from you, a child, for being childish. The Last Battle was incredibly validating for me from that point and I think we should not forget the pressure there has always been for kids to loose their childhoods.
At the same time, it is important that Susan has every change to return and the message that there is always a chance to redeem yourself after a mistake (especially one made unwittingly and with no one harmed) is an incredibly important one. It is a great shame that that was said in his letters, rather than clarified in the book.
I remember my mom reading every one of these books to me as a kid back before I could read which was a bit longer than most people because of dyslexia. Being the younger sister I always associated myself with Lucy, and in my head I associated my older sister with Susan. I remember feeling such a hollowed out disappointment by this book and how they treated Susan that I actually think it's where I learned to criticize media
This book was one of my childhood traumas. I distinctly remember finishing it and walking around with a sense of profound emptiness - as if the world ended and I ascended to heaven for real. Then again, I was like 10 at the time and this was probably the first book series I actually finished; not to mention, its conclusion was so... Final.
Yes!!!!!!!!!
This exactly.
I wasn't fussed about the religious interpretation or anything like that (9-year-old me was *not* a sophisticated reader - I just thought magical kingdoms were cool & stuff, & I had a vivid imagination where I could completely lose myself in places like Narnia & Middle-Earth) - I was just profoundly unsettled by the whole world... ending, so abruptly & anticlimatically. I still remember being stuck on holiday in Leitrim, in the pre-internet era with nothing to do but read, & devouring the last couple of books in the space of a day & then feeling really antsy & dissatisfied when the story just... stopped... with everyone dead, rather than coming to a satisfying conclusion.
Also, this doesn't relate to your comment, & it's totally subjective, but for some reason the "inner Narnia" concept just felt intensely claustrophobic - the idea of being eternally trapped in a self-repeating loop, going farther & farther *inward*, layer by layer. Yuck😬 - made me feel... trapped somehow. If we're gonna talk fictitious afterlives, then I'll take The Good Place any day of the week - a luxuriously long - but still finite - amount of time doing whatever fun stuff you feel like, then the liberation & closure of actual nonexistence.
I remember flipping and rereading the pages over and over and over again, cuz I really thought I missed reading something. I was like, "Wait. Are they really all dead??? 🤯"
Oh god I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN. I already had enough End Times crap slung at me in church growing up - this didn’t help 😭 I was so damn depressed about Narnia being destroyed and how the whole world was just OVER and it was awful!
@@Ash___________oof right!! Further up and further in! So claustrophobic!
One of the things that Aslan says to Diggory at the end of Magician's Nephew is that they may never use the rings again. And he obviously meant it, because they don't use those rings: they die on the train to GET the rings. It causes you to wonder if Aslan intentionally made the thing crash because, in reality, or at least in his mind, they BELONGED in Narnia, and he was going to end Narnia, so he brought them into the equivalent of the Narnian afterlife.
Jesus loves killing children so they can join him in Heaven. Why would so many die if that were not true?
Oh that's a very interesting thought.
I've always thought, in line with what i understand of Lewis's faith and my own faith. That Aslan just used a tragic accident that happened for no reason, cuz bad things happen in this world for no apparent reason. I think he would've sent Jill and Eustace into Narnia his own way anyway without the rings, but the accident happened so he used that.
But your theory provides an interesting take. Did Aslan punish them for planning to use the rings against his will? That seems rather cruel to me.
I wonder if Aslan's father acted instead? @@LivelyLinnea
I remember how badly the last book broke my heart. The characters I loved almost all died young and Susan who I identified with (in so far as you can identify with the absolute blank slates that were the Pevensies) loses her entire family and doesn’t get to come back to Narnia. Plus it was just a super depressing ending for Narnia. Like, Lewis just straight up set everything on fire.
Not even just the characters, but the entire world. Narnia was gone at the end. But actual heaven and going to it, isn't depressing. It's depressing that it doesn't actually exist. If it did, the ending is beyond beautiful, because you get to live forever with the people you love.
I always felt that C.S. Lewis was REALLY tired of Narnia by the time he got to the last book. So he made it so that people would stop asking him for a sequel. And that's why they all die so suddenly and definitively.
Regarding Susan, I always felt that she got dealt a bad hand. It must suck going from a queen with equal power to all your siblings to a young girl back in post war Britain. I always thought she was trying to desperately re-capture her Narnia days. It always struck me as odd that she would be criticised for nylons and lipsticks when she must have been used to velvets and gold.
Velvets and gold while being a servant to her people. Upper class people in England were more used to stepping on others.
I'm so glad you brought up Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan. It articulates everything I always felt about her fate in such a powerful way.
I just read it, and I did NOT need the sex imagery, that's gonna remain burned into my psyche (and not in a good way).
But I can see where he was coming from with the rest of it.
@@JP2GiannaTyeah someone flippantly recommended it to me and I was NOT prepared for the sex and gore and overall depression. As if Narnia wasn’t already problematic enough for me, that threatened to full on ruin it 😭 I get what he was doing but good GOD Neil???
Honestly, I really disliked it. I love Gaiman and I totally get what he was going for but he went way too far into grimdark misery porn and then instead of actually addressing the text of the books and arguing with them, he makes up some weird nonsense about how the whole series revolves around TLTW&TW and was an elaborate plot between Asian and the Witch to eat the Pevensie kids specifically (and then they bang over their mutilated corpses because… I dunno, it makes Susan’s “fate” look better?). It felt like Alan Moore ghostwrote it.
@@JP2GiannaTGaiman's a wanker. Moore, too. All those overrated comic book guys.
Gaiman's a hypocrite douche to complain about Lewis leaving Susan behind! Look how many innocent female characters he ○ff€d in Sandman! Had em burn to death , die of AIDS, and put one in a cell in hell for millennia for rejecting the main guy!
I was put off by The Last Battle when Lewis' statement in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, "Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia", no longer seems to apply to Susan. Instead, it's “My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia. Maybe Lewis forgot he ever wrote the first statement?? Anyway I thought it was really lame.
She chose not to be a queen of Narnia. You can’t be queen of a place you don’t think exists.
CS Lewis season 8 of Game of Thrones’d himself
@@warlordofbritanniaor more accurately, season 8 of game of thrones Last Battle'd themselves. D&D do have the collective brain cells of a coked out C.S.Lewis, it makes sense
I wonder, is there anything those two have written that are actually good, or is it more that if there is, their names are remembered more but the team heavily restricted them from doing anything they wanted?
@@professorbutterstranslation: doesn’t matter that she risked her life multiple times and was then forced out, she lost faith and that icky.
It really does push home the wonderful ‘you can be a good person but if you don’t believe in MY faith you go to hell!’ Of Lewis’ religion.
Yeah... this was a DEPRESSING and confusing way to end the world of Narnia...
The one thing I will remember from this book (aside from EVERYTHING else) is how at one point Tiran asks Jewel, his MALE unicorn companion ALL this time, to KISS him, and how at home he felt when SLEEPING ON HIM, to which Jewel respsonds with how he enjoyed being with, wished for no other life, and willing to die with him in their battle... YEAH... lots of questionable tones there by today's standards...
My coping mechanism for Susan's fate: She is naturally distraught from her lost, but becomes the Professor's sole heir to money and mansion... and much like how Jadis was the "last queen of Charn" who find herself in new worlds... so would Susan... and maybe even becoming the Aslan of other worlds, helping young kings and queens in need when their magic kingdoms are in endangered...
I remember reading Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan" on his blog quite a while before it was published in either anthology or graphic novel form, FYI. I found it extremely vindicating! Everyone I know who was attached to the Narnia books as a kid has ended up having to unpack the trauma they caused later as an adult, and Susan's treatment is a big part of that. Both Neil Gaiman's short story and Lev Grossman's "Magicians" series were much-needed therapy for me.
P.S., please do a Magicians series Lost In Adaptation video some time so I can get the show explained to me without actually having to watch it! ;)
Trauma?? From kids' books? Really leaning into that whiny, safe space millenial thing, aren't you?
Also, Gaiman's a hypocrite douche. Look how many innocent female characters he ○ff€d in Sandman! Had em burn to death , die of AIDS, and put one in a cell in hell for millennia for rejecting the main guy!
As a reader of The Magicians Trilogy who has never read or seen any Narnia thing beyond The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it is certainly an experience learning that death and eternal Narnia adventures was presented as a happy ending in this series. This is very different from The Magicians or The NeverEnding Story where the magical fantasy world that makes you king is actually a horrifying trap from which you must escape
I kind of always liked the odd end of Susan's character (what little there is in the books). Unlike the other 3 siblings she isn't the redeemed betrayer, the always faithful, or the perfect hero; she's the most like a real girl and I liked that her mantle Susan the Gentle showed she has a sweet, gentle personality that doesn't purposefully cause harm to others (I took that to mean emotionally not just physically) and is the typically fairy tale-esque beautiful one. So I took it as you can be a good person overall, and someone people admire, and still get caught up in yourself and wanting 'shallow' things like to be the prettiest girl in the room and have boys like you and take you out. And that doesn't mean you're a bad person forever, but it does alienate the people in your life who don't share those values and it's still possible to grow out of it and become someone less shallow again. Not that her wanting those things is bad, but it's kind of how when you're in your early twenties so many people (me included) get caught up in wanting to just have fun and don't take things seriously but most people grow out of that phase and exchange good time friends and relationships for more meaningful ones as you get older. She's much easier to relate to than the always virtuous characters of the other books and I kinda thought that was the point, but that can just be my own interpretation of the character in a series that was very special to me growing up.
I think Lewis, who seems to have been a generous person, would be happy to have fans imagine a whole life for Susan after he abandoned her.
So the review reminded me of how bonkers the Wrinkle in Time series got as it went. That would definitely be worth exploring. The first book even has a movie for a lost in adaptation.
Oh I'd love to see that. A lot of people know AWIT but nothing about the sequels!
I need a "Justice for Susan" shirt
She was set to get one but CS Lewis died before he could finish it
When I read this as a kid I was so pissed off at the ending with Susan I basically wrote my first fanfiction. The book I had, had 3 empty pages after the end of the book and I wrote into those how Susan gets also back to Narnia, though a little later than the others. Needless to say I was much happier with my own ending to the book xD
c.s. lewis would approve!!!
That sounds amazing!!
Aw man, that’s so creative. You probably would have made C.S. Lewis proud.
Can you upload it so I can read it?
While I happily devoured all the Narnia books that came before as a kid, I rember this one always feeling... off. Since as a kid I had no idea about the whole Christianity allegory, it fell disconnected from the other books and like the end came out of nowhere. I remember how when the dwarves asked for a proof, I was thinking - yes, finally someone sensible! And was very confused why they were punished for this specifically (not the other actually bad stuff), while reckless belief was rewarded. Also the Susan thing made me sad mainly because out of the four, Susan was the one I identified with the most (me being a girl, the older sibling in my family and doing archery).
The whole series is absolutely insane and i love it as a study on religious allegory and comparing it to the essays he wrote because the man was WILD #RIPSusan
The plot point of Susan makes absolute sense when you look at it from the type of religious' allegory Lewis was buying into, Narnia represented childlike faith, Lucy was the literal poster child for this, Susan was the opposite. Lewis's brand of Christianity was all about believing with a childlike faith. This was how you did Christianity to him and how you attained heaven.
Does this suck? Yes.
Is he heavy handed with the misogyny in his execution of it? YES.
If you are looking for more batshit crazy to read from Lewis, I would recommend The Screwtape Letters. That book is even more out there than anything in the Narnia books.
Ever read the Great Divorce?
Also, is it really misogynistic when he was essentially calling out Susan for being the same type of young adult that he was back in his university years?
@@Hypogean7 Uh, yeah. His misogyny comes out in other details, like the condemning of girly things associated with this for ex.
@@nkbujvytcygvujno6006 Susan and Lucy were very feminine when they were queens of Narnia, and everyone loved them. And Jill did pretty well for herself in the two books she appeared. And even the Witch was fearsome.
@@Hypogean7 I knew you were going to assume that canceled it out. Lol fine then genius good job with media literacy & no point in adding other examples
I think the biggest problem with Susan's story is that Lewis deliberately left it unfinished. He told people that her story wasn't done and she might find her way back to Aslan's Country, but he didn't want to write it. That just shows so little care and respect for the character. He could have had Aslan assure her family that she would join them in the future, or he could have written an epilogue or a short story. Why end a series with one of the stories left deliberately unresolved?
It would also have provided a nice symmetry for the Pevensie siblings. Lucy and Peter were always true to Aslan and rose to every occasion. Edmund and Susan had obstacles and fell short at times in their journeys. Edmund's fall and redemption happened early in his journey, and Susan's happened later. Covering her journey would have balanced her sibling's stories.
Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen. Susan is still a queen, and she deserves more respect than her author gave her.
Or he showed too much respect for her - feeling he wasn't worthy (or competent) to write her story.
If Susan was supposed to be a self-insert, it's not hard to see that CS Lewis didn't feel like he could finish the tale of his own life before he'd finished living it.
I've heard claims he had a vague concept for a story called Susan of Narnia, which would continue her story.
@@fairycat23 While he may have had some idea for how her story should continue, there's no evidence he ever had any intention of actually writing it, instead leaving it for fanfic to fill the gap.
CS Lewis did write that Susan could go to Narnia if she believed in it. Though there's no much of a story you can write about this now Narnia has been destroyed.
Susan’s treatment here was incredibly unfair and honestly quite cruel.
These recaps have made me appreciate Terry Pratchett's Discworld 1000 times more (which is impressive cause I already loved those books).
When I've read the book (in French admittedly, but it doesn't really matter), my reaction to Susan staying behind because she didn't believe in Narnia any more was "Well that sucks. So her whole issue is that she was the older sister."
And as someone who needed escapism for a good chunk of my childhood/young adulthood, Lewis did NOT help by basically saying "Arch, growing up is silly, ESCAPISM TILL YOU DIE IS THE WAY YOOHOO!"
It's good to know that I was not the only one being massively disappointed after reading this last book. So many people fell in love with this magical world just to have it burned down by what feels like an author who does not care about it anymore. I prefer what Ursula K. Le Guin did with her Earthsea series much more and the way she wrote an apocalyptic event with massive stakes that did not disregard the consequences and the effect it had on the many characters that came together from all of the books.
I think the thing with Susan forgetting the magic of her youth and trying too hard to be adult that she loses connection with that magic is a really interesting development.
It’s a very big theme for Lewis that trying to be adult and serious is pointless since being grown up and mature is something only children care about
Just a shame that this is the final book and Lewis very clearly gave 0 shits about her so the best we get is post book interviews where he goes “maybe one day she will remember, maybe.”
The thing that's extra frustrating about the Susan thing is that it is a common trope in British children's books is that the oldest sister takes on the surrogate mother role, and mothers are inherently "adult" and need to be practical, rather than living in a fantasy world. So she fills her expected role, takes that back to the "real" world, and then is punished for it.
She was a shallow girl who learned nothing and appreciated nothing. Being alone was her punishment for THAT. Thus she is a warning to others. A Bible thing.
@@xhagast How is it a warning though, beyond for readers?
@@valolafson6035 Don't be a shallow thing.
@@margotmolander5083
Indeed. It's all very unsatisfactory.
But a great occasion for fanfic.
my mom read me the entire series when I was a kid and the only two books I really remembered were The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and this one, and kid me thought it was just so goofy that the world ended because of donkey and monke
I think it kinda fits the real world. Sometimes the most challenges that a country has will not cause from the outside, but the people inside the country
my parents insisted i read “mere christianity” when i informed them i was rejecting catholicism at age 15. as a kid, my mom read the narnia series to me and my sister and we loved it. but being force fed lewis’s apologetic drivel, and so being confronted with his true intent in the narnia series, really soured it for me. i can remember the magic of narnia, but i cant really feel it anymore.
Narnia isn’t bad per say, but it is meant for children, I think the space trilogy by CS Lewis is much better overall.
Kind of weird though that being Catholic your parents recommended mere Christianity to you before orthodoxy or the summa.
Or better yet the catechism.
I was a lapsed Catholic myself for most of high school and the first few years of university, but thankfully I did find my way back to the bosom of the church.
In my theory, the Problem of Susan was already answered. Not in the Chronicles, but in Jack's last book, Till we have Faces, a retelling of Cupid and Psyche. Through the character of Orual, a mature and complex stand in for Susan. There's even a college essay comparing the two Queens.
Though they differ in appearance, Susan and Orual could not be more similar; both were great queens of their lands, both had younger sisters whom they loved, both had an experience with divine figures (Aslan, Cupid and Venus), and both their young sisters had a close relationship with the Divine (Lucy with Aslan, Psyche with Cupid). Both Susan and Orual scolded their young sisters (Sue called Lucy 'naughty' for following Aslan's orders, Orual threatened murder-suicide to Psyche if she does not learn of her mysterious husband's true identity). In a way, Orual is the mature and complicated reflection of Susan. Due to being born ugly and unwanted, Orual loved her sister Psyche dearly (raising her from birth after her mother's death and to have someone to love her) but her love for was also selfish, possessive, and Orual also envied Psyche for her beauty and admiration. But most of all, Orual hated the fact that the Gods loved Psyche more than she did, so much that they took her away from her. We may never know Susan's fate, but Orual has a happily hopeful ending; before she dies and completes her story, she has a vision of her descending to the underworld to face judgment. But Psyche appears, on her last task to Venus, and guides Orual out into a sunlit beautiful field. The Sisters reconcile, and Pysche offers the contents of the box of beauty, and Orual sees her reflection matches that of Psyche.
For me, its fair to say that Orual's redemption is the answer to Susan's salvation.
Till We Have Faces is one of CS Lewis's most mature and complex book. Even the women characters are fleshed out and well-rounded than female characters in Jack's past books. Mostly thanks to Joy Gresham, Jack's bold-minded wife.
Till We Have Faces is a great book and I'm so glad you brought it up.
@@RoyalHeather its one of Jack's better works. More complex than the Narnia books (which was after all written for children).
I actually love both Narnia and Till we have Faces.
@@RoyalHeather Jack (CS Lewis) even said in a letter that he thought Susan's story would be better as its own novel, as he thinks her story would be better suited as more complex.
So, my theory was Till we have Faces is that book, where Orual is a mature and complicated reflection for Susan.
thank you for mentioning this book, i love greek myth retellings and this sounds very interesting, so i've ordered a copy to read for myself!
@@sammyvictors2603 Narnia was definitely formative for me but I've always preferred Lewis' darker, more mature writings (Space Trilogy is great too). Which is maybe why I liked The Last Battle a lot 😅 IDK how to explain it but there was something satisfyingly unsettling about the end of Narnia.
Lewis, Susan and Narnia:
I think Lewis abandoned Narnia in a way in this book, not by letting it end, but because he wanted to tell his ideas about heaven and life/death more than he wanted to let his fantasy and creativity lead him forward in the book. That is one reason why it's so abrubt, he just wanted to kill them so he could tell about heaven.
Susan is left behind as an alternative for the reader; like "when you grow up, whom do you want to be?" And there's nothing saying that she not will go to heaven when dying at old age, and meet them all then (remember that heaven-Narnia and heaven-England meet further in). It could be so that Lewis thought she'd be less into "nylons and lipstick" after losing her whole family, and start to search for God (again).
I think poor Narnia, at least partly, has such a sad ending because of Lewis age when he wrote it (58 the publishing year) - to me it oozes with an older persons struggle with the thought that life didn't become what one expected, and that the only thing left is to fight the battle anyway, even though one is more or less alone and know that the battle will be lost. Puddleglum touches the same problem when he says that he wants to live like Aslan exists, even if he (Aslan) doesn't. And this nightmare of Puddleglum, is shown in The Last Battle, when they think Aslan is not "Aslan" and someone says it would be better to be dead than to see this day.
Also, after reading "The great divorce" which also tells about heaven, I suspect that Lewis actually had a near death experience (if they really exist, IDK) and wanted to tell about that, and therefore it's so flat: He seems overwhelmed with the feelings this place/heaven gives and can not give himself proper selfcritics/judgement of quality in the writing about this. The great divorce is a boring book in my opinion, and I love Lewis' work.
I read the books as a grown up, and have reread them several times.
This seems very plausible.
The Last Battle is so weird (even by Chronicles standards) that some explanation is needed.
Listening to your musings at the end gave me another idea, actually. What if Aslan didn't call them there just to join in on the end of the world, but the world ended because everyone who believed in it was dead? Narnia is probably not going to be anywhere near Susan's mind when she's identifying the bodies, maybe even enough trauma for her to forget that her siblings were trying to get there yet again when the crash happened, if she even was informed at all... So with nothing left to remind her, and no one else around that can travel back and forth?
I dunno, I'm no analyst, just what popped into my mind.
This playlist just got me through the roughest migraine attack, I couldn't see a thing or even look at the screen but you have a great voice and you managed to make me laugh, reminded me of the Narnia series (childhood favourites) and when the playlist was done I listened to the radio dramatisation (I think it was radio 4 back in the day...I got it on audible) Sincerely. Thank you. Keep doing these!
Overall, Lewis had a violent obsession with childhood. It's cute when he said his famous line about real maturity, not so cute when he shows the ctual applications of his philosophy
Have you even read his other books, like the Great Divorce?
Not to mention, that by the end of this book, all the characters are full grown adults, not one of them is a kid anymore.
@@Hypogean7 And it's not portrayed as a good thing
@@carlosalbuquerque22 Yes it is, they're all in Heaven.
This whole time watching I thought "isn't Dom going to mention the unicorn impaling people on its horn?" Was so happy you snuck it in right at the end.
It always to me brings to mind cabin in the woods where the unicorn is seen impaling people
Dom being an unapologetic Eustace/Caspian shipper is the energy I strive for in life.
Yeah because wanting a 9 year old boy and an adult man to get together is really awesome right!?!
caspian is not an adult in the books. The movie aged him up
@@yuvenamurakumo356 No it didn't - You might be surprised to find out that Will Poulter was 17 when he played Eustace but he was still clearly playing A CHILD!
Ben Barnes was 26 when he made Prince Caspian but this is Hollywood, 26 year olds play 17 year olds ALL THE TIME!
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But in Voyage Caspian is NOT 17, it's years later and Barnes' age isn't the issue.
Neither is Poulter's but again Poulter isn't playing a 17 year old, he's playing at most a 12 year old.
Georgie Henley was 15 in Voyage but again she's not playing a 15 year old Lucy, she was 10 in LtW&tW and even then was older than Lucy was supposed to be in that film.
@@franohmsford7548 This might just be my english, but I fail to understand why you’re talking about actors’ ages and movie ages, when we’re referring to the ages in the book
@@yuvenamurakumo356 Because I was replying to someone who brought up the ages in the book vs the movie.
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If we're talking about the book then Eustace is 9 years old and Caspian's in his 20s
If we're talking about the movie Eustace is maybe 12 and Caspian's in his 20s
EITHER WAY that is not something anyone should be SHIPPING!
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And yes, as I stated; I know Will Poulter was 17 in Voyage but he wasn't playing a 17 year old!
He was chosen because he looked younger than he actually was AND I'm sure they made him look even younger still with movie magic.
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Hollywood doesn't like casting actual children unless they absolutely have to because of all the rules they have to abide by.
So they cast 17 year olds to play 12 year olds, they cast 25-30 year olds to play 17 year olds!
Heck they've been known to cast 40 year olds to play 25 year olds and Tom Cruise is still playing guys ostensibly in their mid 30s when he's closing on 60!
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If I hadn't brought up Will Poulter's age someone else would have done BUT that doesn't change the fact that we're talking about the character's ages NOT the actor's ages!
Book or Movie makes no difference - It's sick either way!
This book, in my understanding, was his way of explaining the book of Revelations from the Bible to children. that particular book is hard for adults to explain so his interpretation of just his perspective of the apocalypse. I understand people having a problem with Susan but if you think of the book series message being top not lose your child-like wonder, then choosing one of the core characters to fall from grace , so to speak, makes sense. There is more dogma that could be used to explain parts but seeing that you have a personal connection, I can see how certain characters being treated a certain may strike a nerve.
I'm with you, I don't like how it ends. For me, a finale needs to mean something, it needs to feel big. Like, seeing Frodo finally subcumming to the ring while the ultimate battle is taking place only for Gollum to bite off his finger and kill himself big. I want the heroes to have something! It's last book and I kind of want to leave feeling a little complete over the adventure I been on and not just go "Well, that was book six, I'll stop here."
I do have to wonder, considering that Tolkien and Lewis were best friends...what was Tolkiens view on the problem with Susan. How did he feel about the ending considering he even had problems with how Tummus was protrayed.
Tolkien never liked the Narnia books to begin with. He never liked a message being too on the nose, plus they are written from a more Protestant view of Christianity.
the problem of susan is interesting to me. the fact that people feel so strongly about it and are still discussing all the emotions and implications decades later makes it a very powerful vehicle for ideas about well, all the things you discussed and more. I personally like to think she does make it to heaven narnia after a difficult but fulfilling life and the inclusion of someone who screws up and struggles and doesnt make things easy for themself but still makes it in the end gives me much more hope than everyone having perfect faith the whole time. I know that story is getting finished in my own mind but I value the opening in the canon works for me to fit it in.
As stated in the video Lewis positively encouraged fans to come up with Susan fanfic, and he may have written such an unsatisfactory ending with that thought, at least partially, in mind.
"See how humble I am!
I have left my series unfinished.
It's up to my fans to write an ending which makes sense to them."
The thing is, we had that character already. It’s Edmond, who literally got Aslan killed-something far worse than Susan acting like a typical 20-something.
@@ImYourCherryBombRemember, Edmund was a lot younger when he betrayed Aslan.
@@Hypogean7 Cool reason, still got him fuuuuucking murdered, which is far, FAR worse than a young woman choosing to move on from a world that literally said she could never go back.
Again, another glorious example of the author giving the male characters a wittle slap on the wrist for far worse actions.
I was so mad when I truly understood just how cruel Susan's fate was that I actually wrote a poem fixing it, ngl.
Neil gaiman is that you?
@@gregcourtney751 HA, I wish
@@gregcourtney751I love Gaiman, but if anything he made it infinitely worse.
@@DuelaDent52 how so?
@@gregcourtney751 Have you read it? You should, then if you don't have any criticism or thoughts on it after, then you probably won't get it. Or it'll take too long for most people to bother to explain it here.
It's a shame that Susan's story ends the way it does, not just because of the callousness of the other characters, but also the wasted potential of never showing her having to deal with the grief and maturity that any person who's lost a loved one and told that "it's all a part of God's plan" but left to wonder what kind of callous plan requires such tragic deaths would find relatable. Maybe I'm projecting a bit there. Anyways, thanks for covering the entire series, and here's hoping you get the support you need to avoid a life of Ren fairs!
It wasn't a plan for her. It was just the time to die for them, same as it was Narnia's time. This was written after WW2, death was just a part of life.
One aspect of Lewis's Narnia stories is that Lewis took profoundly to heart the Christian belief that death really is not the worst thing that can happen. He was very much against independent women, though, as the ending of _That Hideous Strength_ shows, where Ransom tells poor Jane, "You will have no more dreams. Have children instead,"
As someone who did not grow up with Christianity or any if he Abrahamic faiths, I am always so fascinated to learn about them and things like this that are inspired by them, cause they are always so wild
Oh, you think this is wild? You need to read some George MacDonald. The Princess and Curdie and The Princess and the Goblin are both pretty crazy.
I was just discussing the whole blackface thing with a colleague of mine, and I was like, "Oh sh*t, I forgot about that! HOLY SH*T!"
Yeaaaahhhhh... that hasn't aged well...
I forgot too jfc 😭
It was a disguise, not a minstrel show. Not sure why everyone is acting so shocked
@@gatergates8813I'm with you on this. I thought blackface is wrong because it mocks the other race. They're trying to sneak past enemy lines, not mock the Calormarines
@@gatergates8813 , because it's f*cking blackface? DON'T care about context: that shit is wrong.
Experiencing Narnia vicariously through Dom has been a hell of an adventure. Here’s to many more!
When I fist read the last battle and got to the ending it moved me to tears. Not because the ending was sad but because it was the kind of crying you do when someone does you a kindness that you can't process any other way.