edenfalling | Apr. 30th, 2009

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Apr. 30th, 2009

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.]

( Heart's Desire )

---------------------------------------------

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). :-)

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: home

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.]

( Heart's Desire )

---------------------------------------------

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). :-)

---------------

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.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: home

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

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