[Fic] "Heart's Desire" -- Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

Jadis in the garden: separation from God is only a punishment if you believe in him.

[ETA: The AO3 crosspost and the ff.net crosspost are now up.]

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Heart's Desire
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"Come in by the gold gates or not at all," the garden's maker had written. And truly, there was no need to turn aside, walk a quarter-circle around the hilltop, and clamber over the wall, but Jadis was the Queen of Charn and she bowed to no one.

She would have the apple on her own terms, as she had earned everything else in her life.

The fruit was sharp and almost painfully sweet, with a metallic tang underneath that expanded to bitter and salt in the aftertaste. The juice was shockingly dark for such a fair-fleshed fruit. Jadis licked the red-brown stain from her hand and laughed.

Pure theatrics: the apple bled. Was that supposed to induce guilt or shame?

The Lion had made this world, she acknowledged, but she had been here at the making; her magic was thus woven deep into its earth and air, inseparable from its very fabric of being. Until this world died, the Lion must adjust his plans to account for her. And even after, she could continue -- if that simpering fool had learned to travel between the planes, surely so could she! And she would learn to cross directly, without the crutch of that horrible, drowning place between the worlds.

A breeze stirred the garden, swirling petals and scent from the tree. Jadis sneezed, and then nearly gagged on the rotting sweetness of the silvery perfume. Stumbling, she turned aside, holding her arms across her face as if to block the very air from attacking her.

The air stilled. The scent dissipated.

Jadis lowered her arms and clenched her free hand, seething. So. The Lion had fashioned a trap for those who defied him and ate the fruit unbidden. But even he could not stop the apple from performing its function; already she could feel new strength coursing through her blood and bones like a river of ice, scouring away her mortality.

She had forever, now. She had new magic to master, a new world to conquer, a new foe to destroy. If the Lion thought that a mere tree would defeat her or that length of days would lead her to despair, he was a fool, as her sister had been.

Jadis ran her tongue across her teeth, savoring the iron tang of immortality, and took another bite.

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Inspired by the 4/27/09 15_minute_fic word #108: hungry

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Near the end of The Magician's Nephew Aslan tells Digory and Polly that Jadis "has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want: they do not always like it."

I never believed him. First, people do not always get what they want; anyone who claims otherwise is engaging in sophistry or wishful thinking. Secondly, the sense I got of Jadis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was emphatically not of a woman mired in despair. Jadis is too practical to give in to despair or wallow in depressive introspection, and I am not at all sure she's even capable of misery; her emotional repertoire seems limited to anger, frustration, fear, hatred, pride, triumph, (self-)satisfaction, and sometimes a pure joy in skill and motion. Possibly also greed or covetousness, but I think even her ambition is more a surety that everything already does belong to her, and she just has to make people acknowledge that truth.

Jadis is evil, no two ways about it. She's selfish, cruel, and probably sociopathic -- other people are not real to her except as tools or obstacles. But length of days with an evil heart is only miserable if you know and care about your relative moral standing. If you don't -- and Jadis doesn't -- then length of days gives you time for everything you find pleasurable, like magic and conquest and fighting.

So with all due respect, I must disagree with Aslan (and therefore, more relevantly, with C. S. Lewis). :-)

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NOTICE! There is an extensive discussion in the comments on the Livejournal version of this post, which happened after I imported my journal to Dreamwidth. I think it is worth checking out.

Comments

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

!!! I love Jadis and am always XD when I find good Jadis fic. Like now! Jadis as Eve omg yay! Your summary line is very apt, too. (and my edmund icon keywords, lemme show you 'em XD)

She had forever, now. She had new magic to master, a new world to conquer, a new foe to destroy.
<3

[edenfalling]

Thank you! If Lewis is going to provide perfectly good parallels -- a woman eating a forbidden fruit in a garden, for example -- there is no reason not to make use of them. :-)

[baka-mazoku.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful!

And yes, much worship for Queen Jadis!

[edenfalling]

Thank you!

I would never in a million years want to meet Jadis for real, but she is a seriously kick-ass character. *grin*

[baka-mazoku.livejournal.com]

Agreed. ^_^

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

Interesting story, well written. I especially like Jadis mocking the theatrics of bleeding apples.

As for what Aslan said: I think he's saying that, despite getting what she wants, she'll never have true satisfaction. She has immortality...unless that blasted prophecy about sons of Adam and daughters of Eve is true. She has complete control and power in Narnia...except for those who secretly work against her. I read LWW and I see a dictator with every power possible, but completely terrified that it can be taken away from her at any moment...just like she took away her sister's victory with a word. She is miserable, if only because, deep down, she knows that, despite her immortality and unwearying strength, she will never be fully safe in her rule.

[edenfalling]

I think she has immortality regardless of the prophecy of Cair Paravel. My interpretation of the apple's function is that it tied Jadis's life to the life of that world, which is why she didn't completely die even when Aslan killed her in LWW -- and was therefore available, in some sense, to be potentially summoned back into physical being during Prince Caspian. I'm not even sure if she dies completely at the end of The Last Battle, because so far as I can tell, the Narnian world does still exist beyond the stable door; it's just a dark, frozen, motionless wasteland for all eternity... and Jadis is trapped there, bodiless, but perhaps still aware on some level.

Which, I grant you, is not a fate she would like, though it does satisfy the letter of her desire for immortality. :-)

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

I don't have my books with me at the moment, so this is off the top of my head. From what I understand, the apple just gives immortality - there is nothing to suggest that this is connected with anything else in Narnia. And, even if she is immortal, it doesn't mean her rule is immortal - hence the prophecy - which would mean there would always be the nagging doubt that she would spend her whole, immortal life as queen of Narnia. (Also, as a LOTR fan, I can't help but think of the immortal elves...who could be killed in battle or by grief. Immortal can just mean un-aging)

And Aslan did kill her in LWW, and Lewis never suggested otherwise. The Witch only partially came back in the Prince Caspian movie. In the book, Nikabrik and the hag only suggests that she could return...and I really wouldn't take them as reliable witnesses. Remember, Aslan is God/Christ: He has power over all created things, mortal or immortal. Whether you personally believe in Christ or God, Lewis created a canon where Aslan=Christ, and this has to be taken into consideration when it comes to writing about Aslan's abilities and sovereignty (GeoffryF on ff.net talks about this on his profile: he's an atheist, but he writes Aslan as Christ because that's canon).

Sorry for longness of my response! It's late and I just finished writing two papers, so I am automatically writing with as many words possible to up my word count/pages written. =D

long comment, part 1

[edenfalling]

(I was very longwinded, so I have had to split my response into two comments; I apologize for any confusion that may cause.)

Thank you for such a thoughtful comment! I hope my own response does not come off negatively. I am trying my best to be polite, but I know religion and authorial intent are tricky and emotionally-charged subjects, and it's entirely possible that I have phrased things badly.

I never said the apple would make Jadis's rule immortal. I simply think that every world in Lewis's universe may have a garden, and it seems reasonable that their fruits are connected to the worlds in which they grow. One could just as easily argue that all the gardens are the same garden -- that they are, in fact, little pieces of Aslan's country brought forth to touch the more mundane worlds -- and their fruits therefore are eternal and beyond any individual world's influence. But I like the connection of the youth of Narnia's world and the freshness of the garden in the Western Wild, so I choose to think that the fruit is of that world, and its power is part of that world's Deep Magic. Your mileage may, of course, vary. :-)

I think that, since she heads north from the garden rather than east toward Narnia, Jadis doesn't start off obsessing about ruling one small, particular part of her new world. In fact, while I think she wanted to conquer Narnia to spite Aslan and show that his Tree of Protection couldn't stop her, I doubt that the former queen of an entire world intended to stop as the queen of only one country, even though it's the magical heart of the world. I speculate that by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, something may have happened to trap her in Narnia, and the endless winter was as much her revenge for that imprisonment as it was a method of keeping the country under her thumb.

I know Jadis never came back in the books (which are my canon; the movies are only an interpretation of that canon), but I take the hag's statement as true because nobody ever disagrees with her -- not even Lewis in his role as omniscient narrator.

Re: long comment, part 1

[glenstorm63]

Hi Elizabeth, 14 years on, I stumbled upon this conversation for the first time, not being a lurker in DreamWidth before.
I am utterly with you about Narnia being the whole world in LWW (until we learn at the end that kings and princes from across the sea sought Susan's and Lucy's hands in marriage) but that the broadening and diversification of the world in later books then does beg the question:
WTF is she even bothering with Narnia for at all? It's a little land. The idea of her being trapped in Narnia from the point she returns after 900 years to kill the Tree of Protection also occurred to me. So in my head canon (and stories) her 100 years as Queen is in fact her 100 years as chief prisoner (and executioner, always a stigmatised gig in history) and that the act of the tree dying is to seal the borders so that she cannot escape: and indeed to impose always winter, never Christmas. Not her direct doing. She springs a trap. Aslan sacrifices his people (as always) in achievement of his deeper magic and somehow they are still meant to love him and fawn upon him. Okay, okay, I'll pull back on the character hate just a little. Lol.
I am not a lover of AU, but in my alternate horror universe, which is not written, Jadis gets to use her Creation-Witness and Apple-Consumption power, her psycho-analytics, her sociopathy and sheer force of personality to subjugate the world. And not through ice and snow.
Have a nice day.

Re: long comment, part 1

[edenfalling]

An interesting theory.

I deleted the anon version of your comment since I assume that's why you reposted.

Re: long comment, part 1

[glenstorm63]

Yep, all good.Sent on the go with Vodafone

long comment, part 2

[edenfalling]

Also, while Aslan is clearly intended to be an analogue of Jesus, the literal equivalence Aslan=Jesus is never stated flat out (though it is heavily implied to people who have the Biblical and cultural knowledge to catch certain references). It is, therefore, equally valid to view Aslan as a distinct incarnation or child of any generic supreme deity. Aslan is very vividly drawn as a character, and Lewis stresses that his essential nature is leonine, not human; he is always refered to as a lion, even when he takes other shapes, to the point where he talks about 'us lions' in LWW. (The only real exception is in the last couple paragraphs of The Last Battle, but I find that book abhorrent on moral and religious grounds, so I tend to disregard most of it. And even there the equivalence is never made explicit.) Aslan coexists perfectly happily with pagan deities such as Bacchus, which is, so far as I know, not generally accepted Christian doctrine. Furthermore, there are differing views of Jesus, some of which consider him a lesser power under God, or not even divine at all; I know that's not Lewis's personal belief, but because he never explicitly lays forth his Christian theology in the books themselves, I am free to interpret his portrayal of Aslan without regard to his personal theology.

Narnia must stand or fall on its own. Bringing Lewis's other writing into consideration can be very interesting from a cultural perspective, but ultimately, if he didn't explicitly write a theological position into the series itself, I do not have to pay attention to that idea when considering the series. If a thought is not on the page, it is not offically part of the story canon.

The story an author writes is only pure and true to his or her intent until it enters the mind of a reader, who brings her or his own worldview and experiences -- the living story that results is a collaboration, always. I respect GeoffryF's choice to write Aslan as Christ, and I am perfectly happy to read fanfiction other people write with that viewpoint, but I could not follow that path myself because that is not how I, personally, experience the books; any Narnia fanfiction I wrote with that theological interpretation would be, therefore, a lie. (It would also be stillborn on the page, so the issue is somewhat moot.)

reply to long comment, part 1

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not offended; I enjoy having discussions about my favorite books, and they can get boring if everyone agrees on everything. =D

I agree, though, that Jadis probably didn't intend to rule only Narnia. I think we run into the problem that Lewis didn't start out to write a series, so that the other lands in the world Narnia inhabited are later inventions. So when writing LWW, Narnia really was the whole world. So that's all interpretable as you will.

I do have to disagree with you in that Aslan is not a literal equivalent of Jesus. For one, it's hardly good writing if you write "Aslan is Jesus" in the middle of a narrative. A good writer shows, he doesn't tell. But Lewis shows throughout the series that Aslan is equivalent to Jesus. Lewis describes this himself in one of his letters: "Has there never been anyone in this world who (1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. (2.) Said he was the son of the great Emperor. (3.) gave himself up for someone else's fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. (4.) Came to life again. (5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb...."

Now, I know that's an outside source, but it's only reciting what is in the book itself. Aslan comes at Christmas. He's the son of the Emperor-Over-The-Sea. He gave himself up in place of Edmund and came to life again. He appears as a lamb. Even his lion form comes from Christianity: Jesus as the Lion of Judah.

reply to long comment, part 2

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

As for differing views of Jesus, as you stated that would have to be implied by the stories themselves. Aslan is always viewed as an immortal son of the Emperor, but also as the Creator which implies equal standing. He has power over death and seems to be all-knowing. Therefore, the Christ that Aslan is meant to represent would be the Christ that Lewis (and most Christians) believe in.

I can understand not wanting to write Aslan as Christ. It's not even always necessary for Christians to do so in many stories, particularly those in which the focus is not on any sort of theology. I've written stories myself that don't deal with Aslan at all. But if Aslan is in the story, he has to be written as he is in canon: as the immortal, all-powerful, not safe but good, Creator son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea who has conquered death. That's how he's portrayed in the stories and that's how he should be written (I tend to be a purist when it comes to canon, regardless of if I like it or not). I don't mean to offend, but that's how I see it.

(Side note on Bacchus: I have a personal idea that characters like Bacchus and Father Christmas were given their names by King Frank and Queen Helen because they were similar to characters they remembered from England. Therefore I think Bacchus is similar to dryads, but for vines instead of trees, but he was similar enough to the Bacchus of our world that that's what Frank and Helen named him. But that's just me and not canon).

Re: reply to long comment, part 2

[edenfalling]

That's a very interesting idea about Bacchus and Father Christmas! On the other hand, I do wonder if it somewhat undermines your point about Aslan coming to Narnia at Christmas, if the Narnian Christmas doesn't have that interworld link back to Christmas in our world.

I also find the timing of Christmas interesting, since Christmas in our world was most likely given its current date largely to co-opt older pagan solstice festivals, and to take advantage of 'light returning from darkness' symbolism... and was not a particularly spiritually notable holiday until the past couple centuries, but was rather an excuse to get drunk. Easter was the big religious holiday. And the 'Christmas' in LWW isn't even a proper Christmas -- it's just Father Christmas taking advantage of the breaking of Jadis's spell -- and in any case, it happens in what apparently ought to have been spring or summer were it not for the magical winter. So, especially with the events of the Stone Table happening so soon thereafter, there is a fascinating conflation of secular Christmas and spiritual Easter symbolism in LWW, and that makes me more inclined to see that symbolism as something organic to Narnia (and therefore not necessarily traditionally Christian) and less inclined to read it strictly allegorically, because allegorically it is a mess.

As for your other points, I am composing a reply, but I want to be very sure I am actually saying what I mean to say (and hopefully arranging my thoughts in a coherent order as well), so I may not post it until this evening.

Re: reply to long comment, part 2

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

Yah, I tend to do that to myself with my ideas. Though the 'Aslan coming to Narnia at Christmas' point is Lewis's, technically.

I will say, as a student of classics who's taken classes on paganism and the beginnings of Christianity, I tend to tire of the whole 'co-option' debate. I think you answer your own point when you said Christmas wasn't a spiritually notable holiday until recently. Other Christian holidays - besides Easter, Pentecost, and several Saints' days - were put in place in order to provide Christians alternate means of celebration when they left paganism. That doesn't make them unimportant, just not chronologically specific.

I always thought that the 'coming of spring' in LWW was actually an acceleration: winter went from perpetual, like, December 15th to choose a random date, to speeding up to Christmas and racing forward until spring. Christmas happened on Christmas, but time sped up so that it was only a short time until spring. But that's just my thought.

You can't take Narnia as an allegory. Lewis specifically stated that Narnia was a supposal: “Suppose there were a Narnian world and it, like ours, needed redemption. What kind of incarnation and Passion might Christ be supposed to undergo there?” as he said in one of his letters. The Incarnation and Passion in Narnia is different from that of our world because our world isn't comprised of Talking Animals, and there aren't any Romans who like crucifying people since Narnia has a different history.

I look forward to reading what else you have to say. Like I've mentioned, I enjoy a good discussion. =D

REALLY long comment, part 1

[edenfalling]

Okay. You say But if Aslan is in the story, he has to be written as he is in canon: as the immortal, all-powerful, not safe but good, Creator son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea who has conquered death. That's how he's portrayed in the stories and that's how he should be written.

I agree with most of that. However, I don't think that this portrayal necessarily links Aslan to Jesus, for two reasons.

First, I know that it is possible to read the Chronicles of Narnia without ever linking Aslan to Jesus. That's how I first read the books, and how I continued to read them for four or five years, until someone explicitly pointed out that Lewis had most likely written Aslan as an analogue of Jesus. Once that idea was part of my mental arsenal, I was able to see a lot of the analogies, references, and so on. However, the books work perfectly well if you consider Aslan as a fictional entity unto himself and do not carry any Christian baggage with you.

In that reading, Aslan first appears as a sort of magical lion (in LWW) who does not conquer death of his own power, but rather takes advantage of a loophole in the rules that Jadis doesn't know about. He is talked about as a temporal king and does things like organize armies, which did not in any way remind me of Jesus (who very definitely removes himself from all temporal power). In PC, Aslan's presence in Narnia a thousand years later and the question of believing in his presence begins to shift his portrayal from 'magical lion' to 'lion-god,' but the presence of Bacchus and the river god makes him seem the chief god of a pantheon rather than a Christian figure. In VotDT, Aslan is portrayed even more as a deity (what with the transformations and the vision of his country beyond the rim of the world), but once again, he works perfectly well as a fictional god of a fictional world. I know that he says he is also present in our world, and under a different name, but my assumption was that he existed in our world as a pagan lion-god of some sort -- perhaps from Egypt or Mesopotamia, or some other area in the ancient world where people would have been familiar with the Greek ideas of dryads, naiads, satyrs, etc. (And nothing is said within the book to directly contradict that assumption.)

In SC, we get another glimpse of Aslan's country, and for the first time he seems to have direct power over life and death (instead of simply gaming the Emperor's rules), when he 'resurrects' Caspian. But again, while the implication is that he's a god who has power over or influence in many worlds, the story continues to work if you assume that he's a lion god in a pluralistic religion. In HaHB, we see more evidence of Aslan's power and transformational skills, but there is, interestingly, nothing to suggest that the Calormene gods don't exist as well -- in fact, my automatic assumption was that of course they were real -- and that while Aslan is presumably stronger than they are (since he can override whatever protection Tash may have given Rabadash), they're still all the same type of being.

MN continues to increase Aslan's power -- he is now the creator-god of the Narnian world -- but given that the pool was already present in the Wood Between the Worlds, and there was bare earth to stand on and air to breathe, my assumption was that somebody or something (maybe the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, maybe natural laws working according to blind chance) had already created the world, and Aslan simply moved in and decided to wake it up and decorate it. Also, while he is shown as present in Narnia and in his own country (which apparently has connections to all worlds), he is neither shown nor described as ever having been present in Charn, and I took that as evidence that he is not all-powerful nor omnipresent. (In a related point, and I realize this may not agree with your beliefs or with Lewis's, my general impression of the Christian God and the risen Christ were always of disembodied spiritual forces -- at least in the way they touched the world after Jesus ascended to heaven -- and Aslan always seemed physically present, which made it even less likely for me to connect him to Jesus.)

Re: REALLY long comment, part 1

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'll try to answer each of these separately. Hopefully it will all make sense.

For this first point, I can see that part of your problem (bad word to use, but I can't think of another this time of night) in understanding Aslan as Christ is that you seem to have an impression of Christ that isn't that which most Christians have. While some sects of Christianity separate the physical and spiritual (a Greek influence), the Christianity of the early church and that which most Christians adhere to insists on the immutability of spirit and matter. God and Christ are spiritual beings, but Christ became fully human while being fully God. He physically resurrected from the dead: hence he ate and drank with the disciples and Thomas physically touched his side, and his second-coming is viewed as a physical coming. Christ, like humans, is both spiritual and physical.

I agree that Aslan is actually the least Christ-like in LWW, likely because Lewis didn't consciously choose to make Aslan a Christ figure until later. Of course, Narnia is a different world: we can't expect that the same rules apply to Christ in both worlds. Our world needed spiritual salvation, but Narnia, which was not necessarily a fallen world but one into which evil entered at the beginning, needed physical salvation. That Aslan acted differently in Narnia than Christ in our world is dependent on the needs of each world.

As for Bacchus and the river god and the nymphs and the 'pagan dieties', I've already mentioned one theory. However, it is my view also that Bacchus and the gods of Narnia are not actually gods, despite their names. They were created (by Aslan) with certain abilities, just as some humans are born with insane math skills or physical strength. And, like Christians to God, the Narnians use their skills in service to Aslan.

For VODT and your theory he was is a pagan lion-god in our world: I would politely request that you study the ancient myths and try to find a pagan lion-god with the attributes that Aslan shows in CoN. As a classics major and ancient history/myth buff, I have yet to come across one. It is a moot point unless one can find a pagan lion-god who reflects the attributes of Aslan more than Christ.

In SC I was caught more by the image of Eustace piercing Aslan's paw with a thorn, with the blood resurrecting Caspian. To me, that is clearly Christian imagery.

I'm confused by your argument that the existence of the Calormene gods is un-Christian. Many Christians, particularly of the ancient church, believed that the pagan gods existed. However, Christian theology states that they are not gods in the sense that God is God, but that they are fallen angels: created, powerful beings who rebelled against god. I see no reason why the Calormene gods' existence subverts Aslan's power.

You have a good point about MN in that the Wood Between the Worlds had to be created separately. But there is no reason to suggest that Aslan/the Emperor/Christ/God did not create it as a primary creation with each individual world as a secondary creation. And I believe that a Christ figure in Charn isn't mentioned because there really wasn't room for it in the story. That doesn't mean he wasn't there and that the Charnians rejected him. We know little about what happened on Charn save what Jadis relates, and I don't consider her an unbiased witness. Plus, if you'll note, it is implied in MN that Aslan knows exactly what happened on Charn, he's just making Digory confess. How would he know unless he was there/was omnipotent?

Re: REALLY long comment, part 1

[edenfalling]

Thank you for taking the time to reply -- this continues to be a fascinating conversation! Alas, I did not get enough sleep last night and don't trust myself to be clear (particularly since I seem to have been unclear yesterday despite my best efforts), so I am going to make a placeholder response now and a more thorough one tomorrow.

First, I'm not saying that I cannot currently see the parallels Lewis presumably meant to draw between Aslan and Jesus. I am saying that it is not necessary to see them in order for Narnia to work as a story, nor is it necessary to see those parallels in order for Narnia to impart ethical lessons. I am also saying that it is perfectly possible to miss the links Lewis inserts and to enjoy the books as pure fantasy or even as an exploration of a fictional pagan religion... and, in fact, I consider that to be a greater artistic achievement than if it were not possible to miss them, and if the books could not be read intelligibly without holding the Aslan=Jesus idea in one's mind. As I see it, a truly great work of literature works on multiple levels and has many possible interpretations, and I consider it a great strength of Narnia (and a significant factor in its popularity and survival) that it can be read in ways that Lewis did not intend and might even have been horrified by.

I am also not attempting to make claims about what the majority of Christians believe when I talk about how I first read the books, and I apologize if my words came off that way. Anything I say there refers to my understanding of Christianity as a child and a pre-teen, which was, naturally, an outsider's half-informed perspective. (I don't claim to be vastly better informed even now, though I have, at least, read more, and so am more aware of my ignorance. *grin*)

I have failed to clearly communicate my point about my assumption that Aslan's equivalent in our world was a pagan god. I am not saying that there is such a god. What I meant is that, because I was reading the books with the assumption that Aslan was a god along the lines of ancient Greek gods (though with ethics more agreeable to modern Western civilization), I naturally jumped to the assumption that his identity in our world would be a pagan god in an ancient pantheon... but I never assumed that this hypothetical god really existed, because I considered Aslan entirely fictional, and I considered the Pevensies' England fictional as well (by virtue of its presence in a fantasy novel and its magical links to other worlds). So it doesn't matter that there most likely is not any such god who parallels Aslan more closely than Jesus, because the existence or non-existence of such a god is beside the point.

Also, please remember that I am not Christian and I was considering Aslan as a pagan deity rather than the singular Christian deity. Therefore, when I assumed that the Calormene gods were real, I assumed that, being gods, they were exactly the same type of being as Aslan and that he was simply stronger -- not that he was a 'true' god and they were somehow a different type of being. (Rather than God and a fallen angel, think of, say, Zeus and Proteus -- Zeus is much stronger and has greater authority, but they are both gods.) Therefore, their existence would subvert the exact Christian parallels, because it would preclude Aslan having Christ's (in Christian theology) status as a uniquely holy being.

More tomorrow!

Re: REALLY long comment, part 1

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

Definitely interesting conversation! And I'm probably as much at fault with the confusion, since I wrote my answers late at night and probably didn't process your comments as well as I should have.

I think where we fell of the track was the difference between reading and writing. I believe that everyone has a right to their own interpretation of what they're reading, particularly if they're reading for enjoyment. I know I missed most of the Christian symbolism the first time I read Narnia, and I was raised in a very Christian home. And, like I mentioned, even Christians have problems with Narnia, including Lewis's best friend, Tolkien, because of the way they read it.

When writing in a fandom, though, I tend to be harder on the purist angle. I know not everyone agrees with me that author intent matters, but to me it's important to get into the author/creator's mind in order to write a fic that is coherent within that world, no matter what the fic writer's own beliefs are. If I were to write in the Northern Lights fandom (and I don't, I petered out after the first book), I would have to take Pullman's consideration when creating that world in mind when writing in it. I couldn't have the faux!Catholic church represent anything other than what Pullman sees as a corrupt church in our own world, despite the fact that I disagree with him vastly. But to do otherwise would be un-canon. I could create a splinter group within the church which worked for good, but I could not change the foundation of it.

I think my problem with understanding your relation of Aslan as a pagan deity stems from long years studying Greek, Roman, and Norse myths, combined with my understanding of them being 'real' in the sense that there were spiritual entities that took those 'forms' and were worshiped by many. There are certainly levels of power within pantheons, but none of them had the absolute power that Aslan seems to have over the other deities in Narnia. Zeus/Jupiter was only king because he overthrew his father (who overthrew his father), and was always wary of being overthrown himself (hence swallowing Metis and marrying Thetis off to Peleus). I saw the Zeus/father-god figure in Narnia as more along the lines of Tash: the most powerful god in the pantheon, but not all-powerful. After all, Zeus was subject to fate (hence he couldn't save his son Sarpedon), while the majority of the Norse pantheon actually die (and stay dead. Well, except Baldur, but some scholars think he might have been influenced by the Christian monks who actually wrote the myths down). Aslan just never fit my image of the pagan gods I've studied since I was a little kid.

But, again, that comes from our different experiences. I was raised a Christian, and have an intense interest in ancient myths, which influenced me to view things a certain way which others might not see the same. Which is why it's interesting to hear how you see things differently. I look forward to hearing more!

on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 1

[edenfalling]

I am going to collate everything back into one five-part response, because otherwise I will get hopelessly lost trying to follow multiple threads. Okay. Point by point:

You don't seem to care much for LB, so I won't go into it except to say that I see Lucy's statement about the stable as a continuation/knowledge of Christianity as an outcome of her search for Aslan in our world which began in VODT.

My basic problem with TLB is that in order to see it as an emotionally satisfying and ethically acceptable ending, you must agree to some tacit assumptions that I cannot agree to: namely that this particular crisis is self-evidently insoluble in a way that previous crises weren't; that senseless, random death (as opposed to, say, death in service of a cause) can be seen as a happy or even desirable ending (or is somehow not senseless and random); and that it is good and admirable for Aslan to call down the end of all things, divide all souls into the saved and the damned, and go home without a qualm. I realize that it's a relatively faithful dramatization of the Apocalypse mythology, and that if you believe in a literal heaven and God's plan and so on, it may not come off as senselessly, arbitrarily cruel. But because I do not share those beliefs, even if I can intellectually see that the book is a coherent treatise about humanity's powerlessness without God, and a vivid dramatization of John's revelation, my emotional reaction is visceral disgust and betrayal, because my ethical framework is shaped by the assumption of randomness rather than the assumption of a divine plan.

If Lewis had included even as much as three sentences in which someone explained that Narnia was growing old and had reached the end of its appointed time, or that the lack of community that makes it difficult for Tirian, Jill, and Eustace to rally support is a sign of the coming end, I might have been more reconciled to the end of the world. As it is, Roonwit's tale of calamity in the stars did not make me think 'end of the world' but made me think 'great crisis' -- and all the previous great crises had been solved.

The basic Christian idea of humanity is that we have become 'bent': we view ourselves as gods and want to be left alone to worship ourselves and our pleasures, to put it one way. Those who do not, through grace, love God would not want to be anywhere near him .... It would be unjust for God to force people who don't want to be anywhere near him to stand in his presence for eternity. It would be cruel. So God gives them what they want: to be away from him, to live their own lives without his presence. And, like the dwarfs in LB, they'll live exactly how they expect to live.

Maybe so. That is not, however, the impression I got from TLB. The dwarfs are left alone to believe what they want; I can accept that. However, the great sorting of souls does not simply leave those who don't love Aslan alone. Instead of coming into the stable and being allowed to ignore Aslan's presence, the Talking Beasts cease to be Talking Beasts which always felt, to me, as if Aslan were taking away all chance of them ever regretting that choice and choosing anew -- taking away their minds and selves and, if we're talking religion, their very souls. Which is horrifically unjust and cruel. (It's also discriminatory, since he doesn't turn the humans who reject him into mindless beasts. That always bothered me.) Furthermore, all those who fear and hate Aslan do not simply refuse to enter the stable. They swerve off into Aslan's shadow, which has a terribly ominous feel; either they are immediately transported to hell, or they remain in Narnia and die in ice shortly thereafter, or they are unmade as the Talking Beasts have been un-souled.

I think the implication of finality bothers me most: the idea that you get only one choice, and must abide by it for the rest of eternity, as if you will never learn or change but will be fixed from that moment onward. Lewis implies (by saying that the children never saw the damned again) that hell is forever. That is a denial of life and free will, and I find it ethically unacceptable.

Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 1

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the long wait for a response. I had to write a paper on the thirteenth century for finals. *headdesk* Anyway, I'll try to do this the same way you did.

My basic problem with TLB is that in order to see it as an emotionally satisfying and ethically acceptable ending, you must agree to some tacit assumptions that I cannot agree to: namely that this particular crisis is self-evidently insoluble in a way that previous crises weren't... and that it is good and admirable for Aslan to call down the end of all things, divide all souls into the saved and the damned, and go home without a qualm.

I had always taken the crisis as one they were expecting to solve in some way. I believe there's talk, after the Calormenes take over Narnia, that Tirian and the others would rescue the Narnians near the stable and wage a guerilla war such as happened in Prince Caspian. Basically those Narnians at the stable were the only hope for the continuation of Narnia. And once Narnia fell completely, the world fell: because Aslan originally created the world for Narnians, with humans kinda sneaking in here and then. And, really, all that is good about that world doesn't really die, but is experienced as it 'should have been' had evil not entered into the world.

the great sorting of souls does not simply leave those who don't love Aslan alone. Instead of coming into the stable and being allowed to ignore Aslan's presence, the Talking Beasts cease to be Talking Beasts which always felt, to me, as if Aslan were taking away...their very souls...Furthermore, all those who fear and hate Aslan...swerve off into Aslan's shadow, which has a terribly ominous feel; either they are immediately transported to hell, or they remain in Narnia and die in ice shortly thereafter, or they are unmade as the Talking Beasts have been un-souled.

I can see where you're coming from here. But I don't see how the swerving of the creatures into the shadow deviates from what I said previously. They all came and looked into Aslan's face. Than they made a choice, to either stay with Aslan or go into the shadow. It was their choice, Aslan did not force them to go either way. As for the 'dumbing' of the Talking Animals...I'm not sure where to go with that, actually. There's no Christian theology that I know of that indicates anything of the sort happening at the end times. Possibly Lewis was postulating that, since Talking Animals were created differently from humans, their end would be different as well. Perhaps it was even meant as a kindness: instead of letting them go into the shadow, they can live eternally as regular beasts. Perhaps that's what they wanted. I agree, it's hard to take sometimes, though. I'm the first to admit, Lewis isn't perfect.

I think the implication of finality bothers me most: the idea that you get only one choice, and must abide by it for the rest of eternity, as if you will never learn or change but will be fixed from that moment onward. Lewis implies...that hell is forever. That is a denial of life and free will, and I find it ethically unacceptable.

I do not see how a final choice denies free will and life. People freely choice to spend eternity away from God. I think it highly unlikely that people will change their minds once they reach eternity. Of course, that's due to my perception of hell. To me, hell is a place where people are allowed to be their sinful selves, without the light of God that sometimes pierces the darkness of this world. Lewis' The Great Divorce shows this idea, actually, though I warn you it's a hard read and I don't understand about a third of it. Actually, the Great Divorce is interesting in that it postulates that people are given a chance to 'visit' heaven from hell and that some, very few, choose to stay: Lewis implies that, to those who choose heaven their time in hell was Purgatory. I don't have solid views on the existence of purgatory, but it seems a plausible explanation.

Plus, honestly, would you truly like a fluid eternity? It would just be an extension of this life and would cause heart-break and darkness. I would find an unsettled eternity unbearable, always wondering who might change their mind. It's hard enough in this world. A fixed eternity allows for joy.

on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 2

[edenfalling]

But where is it referenced in CoN that the 'lesser deities of Narnia' and 'the rival pantheon of Calormene' have any power other than what Aslan allows? I truly would like to know, I've never noticed it but I haven't ever looked for it before.

I don't think it's ever said that they have any power other than what Aslan allows them. On the other hand, it's never said that they don't have independent power, nor that Aslan has absolute power over them. It's true that Bacchus, Silenus, and the river god defer to Aslan, but that can be seen as respect for a more powerful deity just as easily as it can been seen as respect for someone who grants them their power. In the absence of hard evidence, both interpretations are valid.

I think my problem with understanding your relation of Aslan as a pagan deity stems from long years studying Greek, Roman, and Norse myths, combined with my understanding of them being 'real' in the sense that there were spiritual entities that took those 'forms' and were worshiped by many .... I saw the Zeus/father-god figure in Narnia as more along the lines of Tash: the most powerful god in the pantheon, but not all-powerful. After all, Zeus was subject to fate (hence he couldn't save his son Sarpedon), while the majority of the Norse pantheon actually die (and stay dead) .... Aslan just never fit my image of the pagan gods I've studied since I was a little kid.

Interesting! The idea of a deterministic plan for the universe is totally alien to my understanding of the world, so it never occurred to me as an issue. In any case, if there is such a thing as fate, I can't think of any action Aslan takes that breaks any such foretold events. In fact, the only foretellings I recall are the prophecy about four thrones at Cair Paravel and the defeat of the White Witch (fulfilled), the auspicious meeting of stars in PC (justified), and the inauspicious stars in TLB (also justified).

Also, my reading of LWW is that if Jadis had managed to kill Aslan in some other fashion, he would have stayed dead; he was only resurrected because his sacrifice met the terms of the Deeper Magic. So despite his power, I never saw Aslan as inherently indestructible. In fact, I figured that if he hadn't been resurrected, while he might have still been alive in other worlds (as Caspian was able to be alive in England for five minutes though he was dead in Narnia) he would have been either barred from Narnia altogether or reduced to a ghost. If you work from the assumption that Aslan is Christ, a lack of a physical body might not have reduced his power, but if you don't start from that assumption, you're left with a dead god, just like what happens to the Norse pantheon at Ragnarok.

-----

Aslan's deference to the Emperor still fits with Christianity. The Trinity is a complicated thing to go into, but I'll try as best I can. In the Trinity, Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are one and the same, and yet three and separate. In the Bible, Christ defers to God's command: he doesn't want to be crucified, but he says "Your will be done". It's part of what makes him fully human as well as fully God. I can't really explain it better: of course, Christian theologians have been arguing about specifics for donkey's years, so I can hardly do it justice. I will say that I thought the triple succession of "Myselfs" in HHB when Shasta is alone with Aslan points to a Trinitarian idea, though.

So far as I can tell -- and I admit my knowledge on this subject is shallow -- every way to rationalize the essential nonsensicality of the Trinity has been declared a heresy; the only correct way to see it is to say that yes, it makes no sense, but it's beyond our comprehension and we must take it on faith. This, I confess, I flat-out can't do. From a Christian perspective, that's a failure on my part. From my perspective, that just means I have a different approach to religion. *shrug* You are probably right that Lewis meant the three 'Myselfs' as a nod to the Trinity. That had never occurred to me; I simply thought Aslan was expressing different parts of his personality, which is not a totally dissimilar idea, but which does not require one to see him as three separate people.

Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 2

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

It's true that Bacchus, Silenus, and the river god defer to Aslan, but that can be seen as respect for a more powerful deity just as easily as it can been seen as respect for someone who grants them their power. In the absence of hard evidence, both interpretations are valid.

Yup, guess we'll have to agree to disagree. =D

if there is such a thing as fate, I can't think of any action Aslan takes that breaks any such foretold events.

And here we would get into the argument of who controls fate. In Zeus's case, he was subject to the Fates. Aslan, though, as Creator is also the creator of 'fate', so to speak. Therefore, it isn't so much that he is subject to what fate has determined, but that he created fate to determine such a thing happening. Of course, I'm not a complete determinist myself. I believe God/Christ wills for certain things to happen, but that we as humans determine how we reach those points. Bad explanation, I know. Believe me, this is yet another debate that hasn't been solved, even within the Christian community.

Also, my reading of LWW is that if Jadis had managed to kill Aslan in some other fashion, he would have stayed dead; he was only resurrected because his sacrifice met the terms of the Deeper Magic. So despite his power, I never saw Aslan as inherently indestructible.

Interesting. I always read it as Aslan was only able to be killed because he allowed himself to be killed. The White Witch was always portrayed as afraid of Aslan, and I felt that it was only his submission to Death that allowed the Witch to kill him.

So far as I can tell -- and I admit my knowledge on this subject is shallow -- every way to rationalize the essential nonsensicality of the Trinity has been declared a heresy; the only correct way to see it is to say that yes, it makes no sense, but it's beyond our comprehension and we must take it on faith. This, I confess, I flat-out can't do. From a Christian perspective, that's a failure on my part. From my perspective, that just means I have a different approach to religion.

I don't think it's a failure. I have a hard time taking things just on faith as well. But, if you think about it, we take a lot of things on faith in life. I have absolutely no idea how gravity works, despite years of schooling, but I have faith that it'll keep me on the ground and that it equals 9.8 m/s^2, because people smarter than me have it figured out. Faith in the trinity is having faith that God (who's a lot smarter than me) has it figured out.

And I don't think every way of explaining the Trinity has been declared a heresy, though it depends on who's saying which theory is a heresy. Probably everything in the history of the world has been declared a heresy by someone at sometime. But each denomination, I believe, has at least some sort of understanding on the Trinity, and Catholics and Orthodoxs have probably the fullest explanations (not that I can explain, or understand, some of it. That would involve more research than I have time to do during finals week).

on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 3

[edenfalling]

I'm not sure I can help with the cognitive dissonance. I can suggest that you do as GeofferyF and suppose that Christianity is true in the universe that Narnia inhabits, even if you don't believe it exists in this universe.

The thing is, I don't see any need to go that route, because as I have been saying, the books work without that supposition. If a book works when read under more than one set of assumptions, then each of those interpretations is just as valid as the other, no matter which one the author intended to write.

-----

I can't help you with feeling as if you are falsely proselytizing if you write Aslan as Christ. The thing is, many if not most of Aslan's attributes are Christ's: if you write Aslan as Aslan, and stay true to canon, you fall into that trap regardless because, just as many people read Aslan in CoN as Christ, they'll read your story and, if Aslan is written like Aslan, they'll see it in your fic as well.

And I am okay with that! Just as I can interpret Lewis's books without considering Aslan an analogue of Jesus, other people can interpret any portrayal of Aslan that I write as if he is Jesus, whether that's what I was thinking as I wrote or not. It would be hypocritical of me to suggest otherwise. *grin* I just can't write with that interpretation held in my mind.

-----

I think I mentioned it somewhere else, but since the Narnian world is not our world, the incarnation and the passion would be different: that's what Lewis is saying. It's not a one-to-one correlation because there worlds don't correlate one-to-one. And, as I mentioned, Lewis didn't start out intending to write Aslan as Christ: it just happened over time, so his characterization of Aslan in LWW was a little off.

And I think that lack of strict one-to-one correlation is what allows the books to be read as if there is no correlation at all. The parallels are there if you approach the books from a certain point of view, but they vanish or twist if your initial point of view is different.

I do wonder, actually, if the 'variant' characterization of Aslan in LWW might be one reason Lewis eventually said the books should be read in internal chronological order. Because if your first impression of Aslan is from LWW, you're much more likely to miss the Christian underpinnings than if you first meet him creating a world and a garden that has a Tree of Life. *grin* (I still think publication order is best, regardless of what that does to people's view of the religious subtext in the series, because LWW stands alone much better than MN, and is much more likely to lure people into reading further.)

-----

If I were to write in the Northern Lights fandom (and I don't, I petered out after the first book), I would have to take Pullman's consideration when creating that world in mind when writing in it. I couldn't have the faux!Catholic church represent anything other than what Pullman sees as a corrupt church in our own world, despite the fact that I disagree with him vastly. But to do otherwise would be un-canon. I could create a splinter group within the church which worked for good, but I could not change the foundation of it.

I don't blame you for petering out; the first book is by far the most boring of the three. And while Pullman is in some ways more technically skilled than Lewis (there are fewer holes in his world-building and his characters are more rounded), he's much less successful at subordinating his ideology to his story. I can read Narnia as pagan if I want too; Lewis left that space for interpretation in his books. I cannot read His Dark Materials as anything other than an attack on organized religion in general and the Catholic church in particular. And that annoys me, because while I am not Christian, I am religious and an active member of my local Unitarian Universalist congregation, and I dislike it when people focus only on the failings and flaws of organized religion and disregard all its virtues and benefits.

(I do love the ending, though, because Pullman doesn't cheat. He obeys the rules he set up at the beginning, and the resulting bittersweet ache is more attractive to me than any loophole-produced happy ending could be.)

Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 3

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

And I am okay with that! Just as I can interpret Lewis's books without considering Aslan an analogue of Jesus, other people can interpret any portrayal of Aslan that I write as if he is Jesus, whether that's what I was thinking as I wrote or not. It would be hypocritical of me to suggest otherwise. *grin* I just can't write with that interpretation held in my mind.

I guess it boils down to the fact that an Aslan written in fanfic should, in theory, be written as a character with attributes almost identical to Christ's, but that you, as an author, don't have to write Aslan with Christ in mind, just the attributes. That makes sense.

And I think that lack of strict one-to-one correlation is what allows the books to be read as if there is no correlation at all. The parallels are there if you approach the books from a certain point of view, but they vanish or twist if your initial point of view is different.

Valid point, and I think Lewis would agree. Tolkien would certainly agree, as he was none too fond of strict allegory.

I do wonder, actually, if the 'variant' characterization of Aslan in LWW might be one reason Lewis eventually said the books should be read in internal chronological order. Because if your first impression of Aslan is from LWW, you're much more likely to miss the Christian underpinnings than if you first meet him creating a world and a garden that has a Tree of Life. *grin* (I still think publication order is best, regardless of what that does to people's view of the religious subtext in the series, because LWW stands alone much better than MN, and is much more likely to lure people into reading further.)

Though I usually cringe at any mention of reading the series in chronological order first (I'm a member of the 2456317 club) you may have a point. I'm also under the impression that Lewis intended to go back and rewrite the earlier books with the later books in mind, but died before he could, which might have led to a different characterization of Aslan in LWW.

And while Pullman is in some ways more technically skilled than Lewis (there are fewer holes in his world-building and his characters are more rounded), he's much less successful at subordinating his ideology to his story.

That's what I understand, from what I've heard. It sounds like he just ran off the road with it at the end. And I truly dislike it when people have such a narrow focus of institutions and history. Yes, the church did bad things. Guess what, it's made of people and people do bad things. As my pastor says, a church is a hospital for the sick, not a museum of saints. But the church has also done a whole lot of good over the years, too.

on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 4

[edenfalling]

I think where we fell of the track was the difference between reading and writing. I believe that everyone has a right to their own interpretation of what they're reading, particularly if they're reading for enjoyment. I know I missed most of the Christian symbolism the first time I read Narnia, and I was raised in a very Christian home....

When writing in a fandom, though, I tend to be harder on the purist angle. I know not everyone agrees with me that author intent matters, but to me it's important to get into the author/creator's mind in order to write a fic that is coherent within that world, no matter what the fic writer's own beliefs are.

Ah. Actually, you did not completely misunderstand me. I was talking about writing as well as reading.

I agree that implicit or thematic canon is in some ways more important than explicit canon -- in other words, there's a difference between a story that portrays Aslan as manipulative and evil and a story that asks what might have happened if Edmund, not Lucy, had entered Narnia first and met Mr. Tumnus. The first would bother me a lot, though I could probably tamp down my discomfort while reading if it were well enough written otherwise. The second could be either fascinating or awful, depending on how it was written, but it wouldn't induce an automatic 'but that's wrong!' reaction the way the first story would. So I definitely know what you mean about writing a story that works within the canon guidelines.

However, while I am reluctant to disregard thematic canon, I often find myself writing stories that challenge or reinterpret it, particularly when I find a theme morally unjustifiable, when an author has written an internal contradiction into a series (like J. K. Rowling, who shows the evils of prejudice and then proceeds to tar 99% of Slytherins as worthless scum even after the Sorting Hat says all four houses must work together), or when I think an author has missed the implications of a particular theme or element of his or her world-building. I do this because I care about themes. They are the part of a story that can change the way a person sees the world, and therefore they are the part I react to most strongly and devote the most thought to reconciling.

I think that if an interpretation of canon is valid for reading, it is also valid for writing. Fanfiction is a conversation with canon and with other fans, and while it's important to be respectful of the basic ideas that start the conversation, it's also useful to prod at the boundaries and see if the conversation can be led down new paths and into new areas. Fanfiction can be a way to work out problems a writer has with the canon of a series, and to share those problems and potential solutions with other people. It's a response to canon, not just an imitation of canon.

So I choose to think of Aslan as a deity of love and justice who is completely independent of Jesus and the Trinity... and to either ignore or very heavily handwave most of TLB. I also choose to see Aslan either as a character or as the focus of someone's belief, but so far not both at the same time (because of my cognitive dissonance problem).

And I suspect that at some point I will write one or more stories to explore my ethical problems with TLB, because I think that is a conversation worth having, and it's often easier for me to think in stories than in essays. I think I can, actually, manage to make most of the events of TLB palatable enough for me to swallow, but I'd have to do a lot of delicate tap-dancing over Lewis's phrasing of certain sentences and mentally embroider the edges of the story with various justifications Lewis does not bother to provide. (I still can't get past the removal of the Talking Beasts' wits, though. There is no justification I can see for that, and I suspect I will end up writing a story to either express my outrage over that, or try to reconcile that evil to the idea of Aslan as a loving and just god.)

Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 4

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

I agree that implicit or thematic canon is in some ways more important than explicit canon -- in other words, there's a difference between a story that portrays Aslan as manipulative and evil and a story that asks what might have happened if Edmund, not Lucy, had entered Narnia first and met Mr. Tumnus. The first would bother me a lot, though I could probably tamp down my discomfort while reading if it were well enough written otherwise. The second could be either fascinating or awful, depending on how it was written, but it wouldn't induce an automatic 'but that's wrong!' reaction the way the first story would.

Agreed, thematic canon is more important than explicit. All fanfiction messes with explicit canon by its very nature. I'll even allow for dark canon, where a character is inverted in order to explore responses (I wrote a fic once where Peter hates Edmund, based off of his rather stiff and flat character in the LWW book. I was playing with the inversion of a character, but stated it upfront and that I didn't agree with the characterization at all. It was still one of my least liked fics.). I would have a harder time with an inversion of Aslan's character, because I don't see room for an inversion. The flatness of Peter's character allowed me to speculate, but Aslan was more fleshed out and very much shown as a loving, good character.

So I choose to think of Aslan as a deity of love and justice who is completely independent of Jesus and the Trinity... and to either ignore or very heavily handwave most of TLB...I think I can, actually, manage to make most of the events of TLB palatable enough for me to swallow, but I'd have to do a lot of delicate tap-dancing over Lewis's phrasing of certain sentences and mentally embroider the edges of the story with various justifications Lewis does not bother to provide.

I think that's perfectly valid. Though I would be hesitant about something that ignored TLB if it took place during or after. Tweaking it a bit, like you suggest, would be fine, but ignoring it would be unwise, I think, as long as it fits in with the other six books.

it's often easier for me to think in stories than in essays.
Agreed a thousand times! I can't tell you the number of fics I've written either to explain a thought I had, or that ended up unconsciously explaining something that I hadn't thought about before writing it! And I think writing fanfiction helps us understand and think about the source material more than just writing an essay about it, because you have to think closely about the characters, in particular.

on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 5

[edenfalling]

I can also say that true things are rarely easy to comprehend, not if they have real meaning.

Mmm. I do agree that many important things are difficult to fully understand or put into practice, especially since every single absolute principle I have ever thought of becomes untenable when taken to extremes. But the thing is, I am a very religious person. I just have a different approach from you.

I believe that there are no spiritual powers and no spiritual realm. I believe there is no life after death; this world and this life are the only ones we ever get, so we have to do our best here and now. I believe we are part of this earth and this universe; when we die, our bodies return to the world from which they came, and maybe one day, billions of years from now, fragments of the earth will become part of a new star; we are all connected to each other in the mystery of existence. I believe that good is whatever helps another person, that sin is whatever harms another person, and that we should ask other people whether they've been hurt or helped instead of assuming we can judge for them. I believe that community is sacred, that learning is sacred, that there are infinite paths to wisdom and love, and that everything that leads to greater community and understanding is holy.

Those beliefs can, of course, be abused, just as Christian beliefs can be abused and turned to hatred instead of the love Jesus preached. No religion is perfect. But I believe in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and I believe that questions are sacred while answers are dangerous and not to be lightly accepted.

Unitarian Universalism is a religion based on values rather than beliefs; we do not ever use any form of creedal test, and therefore every UU tends to have slightly different beliefs and practices. In terms of my beliefs, I am a secular humanist agnostic with vague leanings toward Buddhist philosophy and earth-centric pantheism (i.e., a belief that the whole world is sacred). I say I am agnostic rather than atheist because atheism seems, to me, to focus on the lack of a deity, whereas I think the existence or non-existence of deities is utterly irrelevant. The point is to have reverence and respect for the universe and to live in such a way as to help people rather than harm them. I would consider those two goals the heart of my religion even if a god appeared to me in flame and trumpets, because any god who didn't put those two goals at the heart of his or her instructions would not be worthy of worship.

(From what I understand, those are some of the main goals Christ told his followers to pursue. Which is why I can read stories that portray Aslan as Jesus, even through the cognitive dissonance, because unless they're specifically dealing with the Apocalypse, I usually agree with the values on which they're based. *grin*)

Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 5

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

I believe that there are no spiritual powers and no spiritual realm. I believe there is no life after death; this world and this life are the only ones we ever get, so we have to do our best here and now. I believe we are part of this earth and this universe; when we die, our bodies return to the world from which they came, and maybe one day, billions of years from now, fragments of the earth will become part of a new star; we are all connected to each other in the mystery of existence.

I find that an interesting philosophy, if rather sad from my own belief. I see so much misery in this world and can only yearn for the next where everything will be made right. Even a person who lives a good, happy life goes through misery and troubles at some point, does bad things. I also don't understand how this idea reconciles with your disgust over the loss of the Talking Animals' 'souls' in TLB, since you do not seem to believe in a spiritual world from which a soul comes. Or perhaps, you have a different definition of soul?

I believe that good is whatever helps another person, that sin is whatever harms another person, and that we should ask other people whether they've been hurt or helped instead of assuming we can judge for them. I believe that community is sacred, that learning is sacred, that there are infinite paths to wisdom and love, and that everything that leads to greater community and understanding is holy.

While it does make sense that good is whatever helps someone, can't it get confusing? What is your definition of 'help'? Help them be happy? What is happiness, then? What if, in helping someone, you hurt someone else? And I agree that working for a better community and understanding between people is a good thing, but do you truly think it is possible in this world? And what is your definition of holy? (I'm not being facetious with these questions, I truly want to know and understand).

Those beliefs can, of course, be abused, just as Christian beliefs can be abused and turned to hatred instead of the love Jesus preached.

Oh, most definitely. Which is why I like to believe that there will be an eternity where we can fully understand and be able to do as Christ instructed us to do, which isn't possible in this world. Even the best person in this world does something bad at least once, and probably thinks or contemplates evil more than they admit.

I believe that questions are sacred while answers are dangerous and not to be lightly accepted.

This confuses me. How are questions sacred (and what is your definition of sacred)? And how can questions be good and answers be bad? What is the use of questions without answers?

The point is to have reverence and respect for the universe and to live in such a way as to help people rather than harm them.

Those are very good values, can't dispute that. I just wonder what your basis for that is? Is there some basic truth behind why you believe that respecting the universe and helping people is a good thing. Again, it's an honest question. I am curious to understand your belief system. And please, feel free to ask me about my own faith if you want to know. I welcome any questions/problems you might have about my faith, because it makes me examine it more thoroughly and forces me to ask myself why I believe what I do.

Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 5

[edenfalling]

A quick response before I go to bed, to just this one point: I also don't understand how this idea reconciles with your disgust over the loss of the Talking Animals' 'souls' in TLB, since you do not seem to believe in a spiritual world from which a soul comes. Or perhaps, you have a different definition of soul?

I accept the existence of immortal souls within Lewis's fictional world, and am therefore outraged because of the ethical implications of the removal of such souls. I am also outraged because even without speculating about souls, changing Talking Beasts into dumb animals removes their minds and memories and thus their selves, whether such a self is embodied in a soul or simply encoded in electrochemical potentials and neural links in a brain. And if that isn't murder, it's awfully close.

I define a soul as 1) an eternal, nonmaterial essence that is a person's true and best self, which is a generic religious concept that I do not believe has any objective validity; 2) a useful metaphor for describing a person's core traits and memories, the things that make her herself rather than any of the other billions of people who ever have lived or ever will live; 3) a somewhat less useful metaphor for an ethical or aesthetic sense; or 4) a generic fantasy concept based on the religious concept I don't believe in, but which I will accept as part of the other objectively unreal (i.e., magical) elements of a story, within the context of that story and for the duration of my bringing that story to life in my mind.

Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 5

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

*nods* Gotcha. I can understand that viewpoint of TLB, and, as I think I mention in a previous response, I can't really give you an answer about what Lewis was trying to say.

I would have to say that my definition of a soul is close to the Catholic catechism: "In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man. " And I also believe that spirit and body are intertwined so intimately that we are not complete without both being in perfect concert with God's plan. In this life the soul and body conflict with each other due to sin, at death they are separated, and at the final judgement the body is raised, perfected, and reunited with the soul to make a complete person again.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing what else you have to say!

REALLY long comment, part 2

[edenfalling]

The only Christian reference I noticed in the first four or five years after I read the books is in LB, when Lucy talks about a stable on earth once holding something bigger than the entire world. I noticed that because it jumped out at me as not being organic to the story -- it's Lucy comparing something in Narnia to something on earth, instead of people just describing things in Narnia. I remember my reaction to that line was something along the lines of, "Something inside a stable bigger than the entire world? But that doesn't make any sense... no, wait, it's a metaphor; she's talking about Jesus. Okay. So she's read a Bible at some point since we last saw her. But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" because I had never equated Aslan to Jesus and so I couldn't see the point of including an explicit Christian reference in a story about an imaginary world and a lion-god.

So as you see, I interpreted Aslan as a pagan lion-god, the son of another pagan god (the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, who is, incidentally, also implied to have a physical body -- he has a scepter, in any case, which would generally require hands or paws to hold), the ruler of a pantheon of lesser deities in Narnia, and the opponent of at least some members of a rival pantheon in Calormen. His home is in a world that touches all other worlds, or at least an awful lot of them, and the implication is that either he creates areas within his world that are like other worlds but somehow richer, or that he decorates other worlds so they resemble parts of his own world. He is powerful and wise, and gentle and dangerous, but I did not get a sense that he was all-powerful -- otherwise why would he defer to the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea? And there is never any implication that Aslan and the Emperor are one and the same, the way the doctrine of the Trinity claims that Jesus and God are one and the same; if that claim had been made, I think I might have noticed Lewis's Christian parallels on my own, since I had not run into that particular theological idea in any other religion.

While I was given a children's book of Bible stories to read when I was very young, my parents also gave me a book of Greek myths, a book of Norse myths, an awful lot of fairy-tale collections... and treated them all as collections of interesting fictional stories that I ought to know for general cultural literacy. So while I did have Christian stories and some Christian symbolism in my mental library, I had a lot of other religions and magics floating around as well. And to me, pagan religions seemed to fit Narnia more naturally than Christianity, particularly since, for me, Christianity is so dependent on a particular series of events in a particular time and place. It's hard for me to mentally transfer that religion to a different setting without directly transferring those stories, but it's easy to transfer the general idea of polytheism, because polytheism is just a general notion of 'many gods' and those gods are organic to their own settings, as Aslan is organic to Narnia, but Jesus would be a foreign imposition.

So that's one thing.

Re: REALLY long comment, part 2

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

You don't seem to care much for LB, so I won't go into it except to say that I see Lucy's statement about the stable as a continuation/knowledge of Christianity as an outcome of her search for Aslan in our world which began in VODT.

As I mentioned before, the physicality of Aslan/the Emperor fits perfectly well in Christian theology. It seems that you see Aslan/The Emperor at the head of a pantheon. But where is it referenced in CoN that the 'lesser deities of Narnia' and 'the rival pantheon of Calormene' have any power other than what Aslan allows? I truly would like to know, I've never noticed it but I haven't ever looked for it before.

Aslan's deference to the Emperor still fits with Christianity. The Trinity is a complicated thing to go into, but I'll try as best I can. In the Trinity, Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are one and the same, and yet three and separate. In the Bible, Christ defers to God's command: he doesn't want to be crucified, but he says "Your will be done". It's part of what makes him fully human as well as fully God. I can't really explain it better: of course, Christian theologians have been arguing about specifics for donkey's years, so I can hardly do it justice. I will say that I thought the triple succession of "Myselfs" in HHB when Shasta is alone with Aslan points to a Trinitarian idea, though.

I don't think you're alone in your thinking. I believe Tolkien had the opposite problem, unable to see the fit of pagan religions along with a Christian supposal. Though, granted, his problem tended to be more that there were too many different pagan aspects and he thought Lewis should stick to just one. It's hard to go against your education. And believe me, sometimes I have a hard time with the Christ in Narnia idea. That's when I tell myself it's fiction and that Lewis was making certain points about Christianity, some of which I don't necessarily agree with. He was just human after all.

REALLY long comment, part 3

[edenfalling]

Second, I run into cognitive dissonance when trying to equate Aslan and Jesus. Fantasy novels do not purport to be objectively true, but, within the bounds of their imaginary worlds, I believe that everything they chronicle really happened. Christianity, on the other hand, does purport to be objectively true -- it claims that the events it chronicles really did happen in our own world -- but I do not believe that claim. I acknowledge that Christianity is obviously subjectively true for millions of people, but it is not true for me. So trying to equate Aslan to Jesus is asking me to equate a truth in an imaginary world to a fantasy in the real world, and it gives me a headache... because I do believe in Aslan, within the bounds of Lewis's world, but I do not now, never have, and never will believe in Jesus Christ in a religious sense. It is actually easier for me to equate Aslan with a hypothetical pagan lion-god of the ancient Mediterranean world, because for me such a god and his mythology would be fantasy, and would therefore have the same 'reality' as Aslan.

Interestingly, I can sometimes pull a trick whereby I equate Aslan with Jesus, if and only if I treat Christianity as a collection of fairy-tales. The trouble is that Christianity is not a dead religion but is alive in the world today, and I experience it as such -- which means I'm not equating two fictional deities but rather equating a fictional deity to a deity who is claimed to be real, and whom C. S. Lewis definitely believed in. And since I do not believe any deities are real in our world, I stumble.

I think that if I were only reading the Chronicles of Narnia and not thinking and writing about them, it might be easier for me to say, "Yes, okay, Aslan is meant to be Jesus, which means he's 'the immortal, all-powerful, not safe but good, Creator son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea who has conquered death,'" and leave it at that. But once I start participating in the narrative more than the bare minimum -- in other words, once I try to bring Narnia to life in my own mind and writing -- I run into that cognitive dissonance where, while I can write about a fictional deity that my characters believe in as if that deity were real, I cannot write about a 'real' deity that I don't believe in as if that deity were real, because that feels as though I'm breeching the boundary of my story and proselytizing a lie.

This is very odd to me, since I can and have written characters who believe in some sort of Christianity, and have not had a problem with treating their beliefs as real. I have also written fanfiction for Angel Sanctuary, a manga series which uses various religious figures as characters. (I am fairly sure you would consider the series blasphemous and horrifically immoral, btw, so don't feel you have to seek it out! I'm just mentioning it to show that I don't always have a problem writing religious figures as if they're real within story boundaries.) I think the difference is that in a story that treats angels and demons as characters, I am not being asked to believe in them as religious figures, just characters. And in a story about religious people, I am only being asked to treat their beliefs as a real, which I can happily do, since their beliefs obviously exist and affect the way they live and interpret their lives.

The problem is that Lewis is attempting to persuade readers not just to treat his beliefs as real, but to accept the object of his beliefs as real -- to accept his characters as more than characters. And I can't do that, because for me Jesus-as-Christ is not real. So in order to write Aslan as a deity, I have to divorce him from Jesus and consider him a fictional pagan lion-god, who has no more attributes than the one directly ascribed to him within the books, and who can be interpreted without regard to Lewis's beliefs and any other Christian theology.

Re: REALLY long comment, part 3

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can help with the cognitive dissonance. I can suggest that you do as GeofferyF and suppose that Christianity is true in the universe that Narnia inhabits, even if you don't believe it exists in this universe.

I can also say that true things are rarely easy to comprehend, not if they have real meaning.

I can't help you with feeling as if you are falsely proselytizing if you write Aslan as Christ. The thing is, many if not most of Aslan's attributes are Christ's: if you write Aslan as Aslan, and stay true to canon, you fall into that trap regardless because, just as many people read Aslan in CoN as Christ, they'll read your story and, if Aslan is written like Aslan, they'll see it in your fic as well.

REALLY long comment, part 4

[edenfalling]

In a lesser issue, I also find Lewis's theology abhorrent since I feel that if the Christian God is a god of love, then everyone should be saved, and the condemnation of so many beings at the end of LB strikes me as the most hideously immoral action in the entire series, and I find it very awkward to write about a supposedly 'good' deity figure who could perform such an action and consider it righteous. But that's a separate problem and is not really related to my main reluctance to equate Aslan to Jesus, since according to the book of Revelation, Jesus is going to be just as immoral in the Christian apocalypse.

-----

I always thought that the 'coming of spring' in LWW was actually an acceleration: winter went from perpetual, like, December 15th to choose a random date, to speeding up to Christmas and racing forward until spring. Christmas happened on Christmas, but time sped up so that it was only a short time until spring. But that's just my thought.

Whereas I'd always figured that Jadis didn't stop the progress of time; she just completely mucked up the weather and magically blocked Father Christmas. There isn't enough evidence to disprove either theory. *grin*

"Suppose there were a Narnian world and it, like ours, needed redemption. What kind of incarnation and Passion might Christ be supposed to undergo there?"

And here you see the crux of my problem: because I do not believe that our world needed (or got) redemption, I find it difficult to take that belief in Christ as an objective reality and then apply it to the subjective reality of a fantasy world... but I find it perfectly easy to believe in a fantasy god who dies and is resurrected. Furthermore, and I realize this is a minor quibble, I don't see how Aslan dying specifically for Edmund is meant to redeem an entire world, especially when Narnia didn't seem to need spiritual redeeming but rather physical liberation from a temporal tyrant. (And also when nobody in Narnia seems to have any interest in bringing the worship of Aslan and tales of his death and rebirth to other lands in later books.) So again, that particular Aslan=Jesus link doesn't jump out at me, nor particularly convince me once pointed out.

Re: REALLY long comment, part 4

[lady-lirenel.livejournal.com]

I find that comment incredibly interesting, because some Christians have problems with LB because they think Lewis is too inclusionist: allowing Emeth into heaven despite the fact that he worshiped Tash.

But I also have to correct you on your assumptions about the Christian God. Yes, he is a god of love: he is love. But he is also a just god. The basic Christian idea of humanity is that we have become 'bent': we view ourselves as gods and want to be left alone to worship ourselves and our pleasures, to put it one way. Those who do not, through grace, love God would not want to be anywhere near him: it's like when you're next to someone who is close to perfect and you can't stand being near them because they make you aware of your faults. It would be unjust for God to force people who don't want to be anywhere near him to stand in his presence for eternity. It would be cruel. So God gives them what they want: to be away from him, to live their own lives without his presence. And, like the dwarfs in LB, they'll live exactly how they expect to live.

----
We'll have to agree to disagree on the progress of time in LWW. It's a magic winter, let's leave it at that. =D

I think I mentioned it somewhere else, but since the Narnian world is not our world, the incarnation and the passion would be different: that's what Lewis is saying. It's not a one-to-one correlation because there worlds don't correlate one-to-one.And, as I mentioned, Lewis didn't start out intending to write Aslan as Christ: it just happened over time, so his characterization of Aslan in LWW was a little off.

Ok, I think that's all I have. Let's see if all these comments come through. =D

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

This is excellent! I adore Jadis-centric fics; she's such an interesting character. Your take on her is AWESOME, she's sort of a mix between Eve and Satan and it's brilliant. She isn't guilty--she has nothing to be guilty *of*, because in her mind Aslan isn't someone to be worshiped and Narnia is a place to be conquered.

Jadis was the Queen of Charn and she bowed to no one. Omg, yes, this is Jadis entirely. She wants to dominate, and she's willing to destroy everything to do it, and then she wants to make sure you know she's going to.

[edenfalling]

Thank you! I find Jadis fascinating, and I am toying with the idea of writing a story about what she did between The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Unfortunately, I don't have a plot yet, just unconnected ideas, but maybe a 15_minute_fic word will knock something loose one of these days. :-)