Well, That's interesting questions...
//
1. Why do the Narnians need us to constantly pull their asses out of
the fire? Why can't they do it? Why kids? Why can't older people come
to Narnia? Why kids from our world in particular? Why doesn't Aslan
ever help them? Does Narnia exist just to test the character of a group
of children? Why is Aslan so interested in just these kids? How many
other earthlings have been to Narnia? Lewis never clearly set down just
what the relation was between that world and ours.
//
They are only called when Narnia is in danger. But really, it seem that
even Lewis knew: People are more powwerful than beasts, even talking
(none of them is actually bright)
as for kids, they are more easy with talking animals, and grown-ups
simply wouldn't BELIEVE what they see (Susan).
/////
>Why doesn't Aslan
>ever help them? Does Narnia exist just to test the character of a group
>of children? Why is Aslan so interested in just these kids?
They found the wardrobe. So they go t to learn God in Narnia...
>2. I find troubling the notion that these children lived full lives as
>adults then were transformed back into children. Did they retain all
>their adult memories in childish minds? Do they remember adult sexual
>experiences?
Lewis never adored "adult sexual experiences". That's why his Last book
completely ignores their age.
>3. Anyone find it disturbing that while the talking animals are
>untouchable, nobody sees anything wrong in eating the dumb ones? All
>animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others.
#
Centient being are holy. Non-centient arent. This is the same in, say
Star Trek towards robots.
>4. Narnia was destroyed, how did the underground dwellers and sea
>people get out?
Only Narnia. Calormenes live.
>5. Aslan is constantly driving the children to self-flagellation over
>such minor wrongs. Digory purely by accident lets the witch in. Lucy
>follows her brothers and sister instead of following Aslan into the
>woods alone, and later spys on her friends. Jill shows off how brave
>she is, then fails to recognize the city.
this acoords to Protestant religion: ALL sins, regardless how small,
lead to Hell when not redeemed. Smaller sins just need less redemption,
while some are unredeemable.
>They are all judged *so* harshly for such *minor* sins. It sits very
>badly when you realize they are *school children* plucked from their
>own universe to risk their lives on adventures fighting the forces of
>evil. Realistically, that they did anything more than sob, collapse,
>and die shows incredible strength of character. It made me hate Aslan.
It was a war. Read "Tomorrow, when the war began", for example. There
minor soins actually cost two childer their life! Again Lewis ideology:
you never know when the test comes, be ready!
//
This is from The Natural History of Make-Believe by John Goldthwaite.
"The first adventure had begun in the spirit of a school holiday, but
this was a deception: these children are about to be examined more
rigorously than ever they were at school; one of them Lewis is
literally going to damn to hell. Unlike a Pinocchio, moreover, they
will not even enjoy the freedom and dignity of their own thoughts along
the way. The oft-scolded Pinocchio was only being asked to look to his
studies, after all; he was otherwise free to think and run loose as he
chose. In Christian terms he had the full free will necessary to make
his actions meaningful. Lewis's children are puppets in a way that
Pinocchio was not. It is possible, of course, that they are lacking
free will by default; for where Collodi could quote straight from a
child's brain and heart, Lewis seems not to have had a clue. His
children are stock characters from series books, and they think in the
clichés of series books. Occasionally they sound at least as
convincing as Nesbit's children, but usually not, for he lacked
Nesbit's ear for child-talk. The Pevensies and their friends speak the
rhetoric of adventure and school stories. As a consequence, Lewis could
ignore them as real persons and deal with them punitively at his
leisure. The voice of the hall proctor stalks these pages, monitoring
the children's every move and thought. Lewis judges their already
predestined decisions, counts the demerits of their tears, and sets
them to monitoring one another for lapses in right behavior."
//
Great. Add to that the word of Philipp Pullman from "The Darkside of
Narnia":
"...an open-eyed reading of the books reveals some hair-raising stuff.
One of the most vile moments in the whole of children's literature, to
my mind, occurs at the end of The Last Battle, when Aslan reveals to
the children that "The term is over: the holidays have begun" because
"There was a real railway accident. Your father and mother and all of
you are - as you used to call it in the Shadowlands - dead." To solve
a narrative problem by killing one of your characters is something
many authors have done at one time or another. To slaughter the lot of
them, and then claim they're better off, is not honest storytelling:
it's propaganda in the service of a life-hating ideology. But that's
par for the course. Death is better than life; boys are better than
girls; light-coloured people are better than dark-coloured people; and
so on. There is no shortage of such nauseating drivel in Narnia, if
you can face it.
There is the loathsome glee with which the children from the
co-educational school are routed, in The Silver Chair: "with the
strength of Aslan in them, Jill plied her crop on the girls and Caspian
and Eustace plied the flats of their swords so well that in two minutes
all the bullies were running away like mad, crying out, 'Murder!
Fascists! Lions! It isn't fair.' And then the Head [who was, by the
way, a woman] came running out to see what was happening." There is the
colossal impertinence, to put it mildly, of hijacking the emotions that
are evoked by the story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection in order to
boost the reader's concern about Aslan in The Lion, The Witch And The
Wardrobe. ""
See also below.
>6. Everyone in Heaven seems to forget about Susan whose entire family
>had been incinerated. With no money and no family, Susan's only
>recourse is the brothel, where she becomes hooked on drugs, is beaten
>by her Johns, and dies from a botched abortion.
>Well, that's what you get for wearing lipstick.
Again, Pullmann:
"...And in The Last Battle, notoriously, there's the turning away of
Susan from the Stable (which stands for salvation) because "She's
interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and
invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."
In other words, Susan, like Cinderella, is undergoing a transition from
one phase of her life to another. Lewis didn't approve of that. He
didn't like women in general, or sexuality at all, at least at the
stage in his life when he wrote the Narnia books. He was frightened and
appalled at the notion of wanting to grow up. Susan, who did want to
grow up, and who might have been the most interesting character in the
whole cycle if she'd been allowed to, is a Cinderella in a story where
the Ugly Sisters win. "
And the following comment I found:
"In the end, It wasn't Susan who betrayed Narnia. It was Lewis
hiomself, who allowed the IDEOLOGIST to win over HUMANIST and AUTHOR,
Death over Life, Devotion over human passions, and dogma over humanity.
In fact, he betrayed his own words:
<<He who speaks Tash(devil) and does good belongs to me, and he who
speaks Aslanm and does bad belongs to Tash.>>"
It would be actually a good idea to write a fanfic where Susan Pevensie
is a mother of Petunia and Lily Evans (from "Harry Potter"), encourages
Lily to go to Hogwarts and never back up from a dream, and not be
afraid of death, as there are thing worse than that - like having your
entirely family killed... Better would be , Rowling would write that
in HP7.
Neil Gaimann had actually written a short story "The problem of Susan",
published in the book "Flights: Extreme Visions of fantasy".
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. But that