Dammit, I knew I forgot something

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1656318]

Comments

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

GO TO WORK!

[andrewducker]

On a bus!

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

No - on an egg!

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I can not understand at all why anyone would pick an option other than Dawn Treader.

And if someone picks The Last Battle - where Aslan completely betrays the older girl it will freak my shit out.

He fucking tells her at the end of Prince Caspian to go out and find her own life - and then in The Last Battle tells the other children that she now is denied entrance to heaven because she's done so.

[andrewducker]

She's denied Narnia because she denies it exists and describes it as a game they used to play as children.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Which is essentially what Aslan told her to do!

The real implication is that she's denied because she is getting laid.

Then again, Aslan is constantly a dick and the main flaw in the series. When he tells Reepicheep that he shouldn't get his tail back because of pride I wanted to fucking scream.

The mice were originally completely screwed by Aslan's Narnia and only got the ability to talk after they completely selflessly gnawed through the knots that held him to that alter or whatever it was.

Then, they practically single handedly save Narnia in Caspian and he won't give him his fucking tail until all the other mice are like "fuck you dude we'll cut our tails off too!"

And, he is all powerful but never, ever gives any characters any useful information.

Hell, Obi Wan with all of his lies to Luke, was still 100 times more helpful than Aslan ever was to anybody.

And, he's willing to kill every living thing in Narnia because one fucking ape puts on a lion skin.

Don't get me wrong - I love these books - it's only Aslan I have issues with.

[andrewducker]

I don't remember him ever telling her to deny Narnia existed..

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

He says to move on with her life and forget Narnia.

She's physically incapable of forgetting so the best she can do is pretend she doesn't believe in it.

If Aslan hadn't told her she could never come back I suspect she would have behaved differently.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I've somewhere got a very long argument about Susan, mostly inspired by Andrew Rilstone, which basically says she wasn't denied heaven for ever, but probably just needed a few years more growing up first. Many people dissented, but I don't think it's as straightforward as many of us thought when we first saw that the problem.

OTOH, I definitely admit that it's still disturbing.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

She isn't 'denied entrance to heaven' - she doesn't die with the rest of them.

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2005/11/lipstick-on-my-scholar.html

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on how you read that section of The Last Battle.

I think it's pretty clear that when she does eventually die she won't be seeing Reepicheep anytime soon.

There are arguments made that it's because she's become 'grown up." But, that's patently ridiculous because in The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe they are all clearly allowed to grow up.

Before they are sent back to England it's clear that they've - at the very least - reached their 40s and had a great time being adult kings and queens.

Yet, at that point she's still allowed back to narnia.

It's when she does things that imply she's interested in sex that Lewis is like "Yeah, she'll never be here again."

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."


Seriously, read through Rilstone's essay. He pretty much demolishes this argument, much better than I could...

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

A quote from Lewis' "Letters To Children":

"The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there's plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end... in her own way."

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

That would be up there with George Lucas saying "Don't judge Obi-Wan for completely lying to Luke because stuff happened that I have not included in any of the source material to make him completely justified in his actions."

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I think there is a systematic problem in interpreting books, that if a character is obviously supposed to be acting for reason X (eg. as wise mentor, as justifiably outraged jilted lover, as betraying a country for abstract principles, etc) but as is often the case that isn't really supported within the books, do you classify that as "character acted in insane and unjustified and evil fashion" or "book failed to properly justify later character revelations"?

It partly depends whether the flaws are obvious to you when you first read it, and partly whether they're obvious to anyone, but even then I'm not sure.

Sometimes you accept what happens when you first read the book, but later decide it was utterly indefensible. But sometimes you think the book is badly written, but that's not "really" what the character's like, but perhaps SAY he is as an ironic rhetorical technique to point out the flaws.

My instinct is to read the Narnia books as if there is some good reason for Aslan to be mysterious and inconsistent, even if we don't know what it is. But I don't know if that's because I'm too generous to their intent, or find it too hard to let go the assumptions I formed based on what the characters said when I first read it, or because you can appreciate the strengths of the book (based on that assumption) separately to recognising the dire problems of importing that assumption into real life.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I hope it's clear that I do like the books.

I wouldn't be as passionate about the things I disagree with otherwise.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Good point. (And me too.)

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

[fub.livejournal.com]

I never read the Narnia books (they're just not that popular in my neck of the woods, it seems), and my first exposure was the LWW movie. I liked it fine enough, but I found the thinly veiled propaganda for Christianity hard to stomach.

[zz]

now they're making them into films, i have no reason to read the books.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

There's always a reason to read the books, because you don't get the exact same experience. For one thing, films tend to gloss over many of the minor details that can add much to the story and world. I'll admit, sometimes it's difficult to visualise exactly what the author had in mind, but films really have to get this correct, so you get people better at interpreting that sort of thing to do it for you.

[zz]

for me it's mostly a time thing, in that reading a book takes vastly more time than watching a 2-3hr film, and partly just that there's very little i'm sufficiently invested in that i'll care about missing those little details - cf harry potter.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

That's a shame as the films are pretty poor compared to the books.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

I read them all when I was in my single digits, and thus I remember very little specifically about them, but I do remember -- though I can't actually remember why -- loving the hell out of the Magician's Nephew. I think I liked Eustace.

[draconid.livejournal.com]

Ditto this, except I think I only read the first three - maybe four. I have memories of loving Magician's Nephew. I also remember drawing scenes from it in school, so maybe that's why I remember it so fondly.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased by how many people are voting for Silver Chair. It's tied with Dawn Treader as my favorite really, and I often get lots of flak for liking it. Can't imagine why, it's TERRIFIC!

[0olong.livejournal.com]

It's just about tied for me, too. Puddleglum! But Dawn Treader still comes out ahead, just...

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Silver Chair wins for me, simply because it's the one which freaked me out most as a kid, and that is very, very high up my kiddie reasons for loving it :) Although I am immensely fond of Magician's Nephew as well.

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

I don't think any of them suck, but I wouldn't pick any of them as the "best book." Maybe Orson Scott Card's "Speaker For The Dead" or Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird."

[pennski.livejournal.com]

I actually like all of them - it depends on my mood. And I loved "Lipstick on my scholar".