#the problem of susan

[idkaguyorsomething]

it’s thinking about the last battle time again

#the chronicles of narnia #narnia #chronicles of narnia #the last battle #peter pevensie #susan pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #THEY HAD THEIR WHOLE LIVES AHEAD OF THEM #the problem of susan #every time i remember what happened to her i wanna sink into the floor #thank you fic authors who put in the work to give her at least something close to a happy ending #aslan knows she deserves it

[fallingskiesandrisingseas]

Susan Pevensie comes back from Narnia and tries to forget, not because she doesn't believe in Narnia anymore, but because it hurts too much thinking about what she lost.

In Narnia, she was revered, respected. People wrote songs about her, asked for her hand in marriage. She was with her siblings, and she was free, and she could finally stop worrying about her brothers dying in an air raid. She had a people she protected, a land she ruled, and family to look after. She was respected in courts and battefields alike.

Narnia brought other problems, of course. Not all her suitors were kind about her rejection, and Peter and Edmund were expected to lead armies, which meant they were always in the line of fire. More than once had they come home with grave injuries that took months to recover from, even with Lucy's secret potion.

It is this Narnia Susan vividly remembers just aftee she comes back, a wild and savage land where magic roams free, but evil roams free too. It is the Narnia of eternal winter, of giants and ogres, of Aslan dying on the Stone Table. The Narnia of Telmarines, of dead friends, of failed sieges.

England forces her back into obedience, into a mold. Tells her to behave in a way expected of a young lady. Lucy can stay wild a little longer, but Susan has an education to focus on, men to impress. England tells her she is below her brothers again, should get married and have kids.

So Susan tries to forget, convincing herself that the stiff upper lip, tight collars, kneelong skirts, ridicule from adults when she speaks her mind and forced silence is better than the freedom she had in Narnia.

For that freedom had to be paid for in blood. At least in England her family and friends don't risk dying, not after the war.

She alienates from her brothers and sister further. She tells them Narnia was a game, a fantasy. But the difference in faith is also due tk the way she has to hide how it changed her. Peter, Lucy and Edmund do not have to. The boys write long essays about justice and religion, join the fencing team. Lucy dances everywhere she goes and is known to never wear shoes if she can help it.

But the archery club at school will not accept Susan. Neither will the debate team. Her teachers are annoyed with the fact she never slips up, disgruntled at the fact a woman runs rings around them intelectually. Susan is a young woman after a time of war, and all of society would rather she shut up and do what she is told.

Soon, Susan has new friends, new things that matter. All these adult thoughts she can only discuss with her brothers and sister drive her crazy, and there is no one around that takes them seriously. And so she tries to grow up as fast as possible, get to an age where people listen to her again. She forgets so that she doesn't have to deal with the feeling she was meant for much more, to ease the mourning of all that she lost when she kissed Caspian goodbye.

All the Pevensies start forgetting Narnia slowly, the memories fading. Soon none of them remember the names of their generals at Beruna. They forget the smell of battle, the weight of an iron sword in their hands. But they all still walk as if their crowns are on their heads, and ride horses in a way none of their instructors understand. It takes a while before they are back to their Narnian levels, but it is clear to them someone has instructed them before. None of them can figure out what commands they use, however. Is it western style, perhaps? Or maybe rodeo? They cannot have been taught in England, not with the amount of control they can exert with and without saddles, the sense of balance. Some of their teachers are astonished by their academic growth, but others attribute it to the lax education standards after the war. Susan is sold short most often, but all the Pevensie children suffer from arguments with teachers and attitude problems. Teachers generally don't like it if you behave like you are older or more important than them. It's worse because they are almost never wrong, even though all of them feel the effects that having a teenage brain has on their speed of thought and the coherence of their arguments.

The Pevensies deal with these remnants of Narnia in different ways. Susan becomes an actress. She picks West End over Oxford because the stage is a place she is allowed to be free. And since Narnia, dry textbooks don't thrill her like they used to, while the fantasy concepts of spirits and courts and magic and other things thespians work with entince her all the more. Inside her is a longing to become someone else. She knows where it comes from, but she doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Susan plays a queen often, or a diplomat, or a model. Something about her performances have audiences hooked, convinced she was royalty in a different life.

Remembering Narnia hurts. She scolds someone for being reckless with the stage props while teaching them the correct way for a full minute before realizing the person in question is older than her, and doesn't listen to a young woman. He has the same name as her younger brother.

So Susan forgets. But as she carves her way into the elite of old Hollywood, years later, she begins to remember as well. What it's like to have a voice. How it feels like to have people listen.

When Lucy, Edmund and Peter die in the train accident, Susan weeps for days. She knows what she has lost in them. She is now the only person fluent in their interpersonal language, the only one that still remembers the mating call of the centaurs, what jokes a forest spirit makes. She is now truly alone in the world.

Narnia comes rushing back to her during this grieving period. Eventually, she remembers that she used to have a voice, a crown, lovers of whatever gender she wanted. And also how Narnia would have you pay for freedom in blood. They gave up on that freedom to protect her siblings. only to lose them anyways. Suddenly, Susan remembers how Narnia was fair, how a bargain struck was a bargain kept. She remembers the nymphs, the trees in spring. She remembers the beauty of it all.

Later, when Susan is a grown woman and an arrived actor in Hollywood, Aslan begins returning to her dreams. He never speaks to her, but the sight of him gives her strenght. She was once Susan the Gentle, who accompanied Aslan to his death. It is time she returns to being that person.

After the Stonewall riots and during the AIDS epidemic, Susan is the only actress willing to make a public stand. It costs her 2 box office hits and a 3 month ban from the tabloids. But she remembers justice, and the price of freedom. Others start looking to her for wisdom, just like they did all those years ago. Susan feels her quiet strenght returning, her faith slowly coming back.

She stops wishing she could forget Narnia. The magic that was responsible for the memory faded with time. Maybe it was just to protect her from mourning a world where she was so much more.

When Susan looks at the boys coming back from wars in Korea and Vietnam, she recognizes the look in their eyes. Reflected in their behaviour is a maturity that shouldn't be present in teenagers. The loss of innocence, the unrepairable damage to their childhood illusions. It is a look she spent her twenties avoiding mirrors for, because she knew what it meant. No matter what she told herself then, she believed in Narnia. She still does now.

She knows her siblings are in a different place now, and that she revoked her faith in that place, but slowly, as the years grey her hair and wrinkle her face, she begins to believe she may one day join them there. She remembers Aslan as a kind lion, even if he wasn't a tame one.

She grew old in Narnia once, after all. She hopes to die there.

Once a queen of Narnia, always a queen of Narnia

#my most famous post on here is about the Pevensies coming back to England #here are some more thoughts about it. #narnia meta #the lion the witch and the wardrobe #narnia #peter pevensie #lucy pevensie #susan pevensie #susan pevensie meta #idk this concept of forgetting the other world seems fucked up #prince caspian #character analysis #fanfic #edmund pevensie #susan pevensie fanfic #the problem of susan

[quecksilvereyes]

sometimes i think about narnia and i vibrate out of my skin like...

you walk into a world you cannot understand, frozen and dying, and it is you who thaws it. you who kills the witch, you who breaks the stone table, you who slays the wolf. it is you who is crowned and it is you who wails for two worlds when the wardrobe doors shut behind you.

your skin never sits quite right and your teeth are too dull. there are wars in your bones and decades in your eyes before you can reach the telephone on the wall.

you are king. you are queen. they won't let you read the newspapers at breakfast.

it calls you back from beyond a train and from within paint. begs with bloody palms and salt-crusted cheeks. takes from you all that you can give - and sends you back.

you watch your sister fade.

you are a child twice and an adult once. and when you stand in your home again, with crushed bones and the smell of coal still in your nose, you watch them sneer at your sister.

your sister is the sun above you. she is, beautiful and stone-cast, alive in a world you could never stomach. she smiles, still, and stretches her skin over human bones.

she is no longer a friend of narnia. do you tell them it is her who has to bury you all and the stars that are falling from the skies in shards?

#narnia #narnia fanfiction #narnia fic #the problem of susan #susan pevensie #peter pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #the kings and queens of old #the golden age #the lion the witch and the wardrobe #prince caspian #the voyage of the dawn treader #the last battle

[narniansteel]

Susan loved Narnia so much that she chose to forget it, because that hurt less.

#she was erasing the queen to forget the queen #the lipstick and nylons were distractions #the problem of susan #chronicles of narnia #narnia #cs lewis #the magicians nephew #the lion the witch and the wardrobe #lww #the horse and his boy #prince caspian #voyage of the dawn treader #silver chair #the last battle #peter pevensie #high king peter #king peter the magnificent #susan pevensie #queen susan the gentle #edmund pevensie #king edmund the just #lucy pevensie #queen lucy the valiant

[thelastofthebookworms]

I used some others of your suggestions for this one, keep making those, they're quite helpful !

#polls #gaiman's female characters #neverwhere #the sleeper and the spindle #sandman #stardust #the problem of susan #mirrormask #the graveyard book #good omens #american gods

[lasaraleen]

Susan hot takes be like *fundamental misunderstanding of the text*

#narnia #Susan Pevensie #the problem of susan

[marietheran]

Really, I feel accusing CS Lewis of sexism in the Chronicles of Narnia is a bit ridiculous. For what?

Just because it's mentioned once that he doesn't really think women should be in battle, even though that doesn't seem to have much import on how the story progresses and girls are shown to be just as brave and have as much agency as boys (not that a woman needs a sword to be brave, but if you insist...)?

And because one female character is once criticised for only being interested in clothes and parties?? (If it was a man, the character would be criticised for only being interested in his car, would that be wrong?) (btw, Jill is very much allowed to take delight in pretty clothes in TLB, if you care to notice)

Meanwhile, there are exactly as many female MCs as male ones, they're just as, if not more, important, and overall actually more positively portrayed than the boys (if we look at the four pairs only in Peter-Susan do we find the boy is shown to be wiser). Why fixate on two literal lines out of seven books??

#original post #Chronicles of Narnia #Narnia #the problem of susan #tt

[herbirdglitter]

Susan Pevensie gets so much hate and it makes absolutely no sense.

For starters, the comment about her only caring about lipstick and nylons was made by Jill, who’d been bullied by the popular girls at school. It was not said by the narrator.

For another, if you’d been raised in WW2 England and lipstick was an incredibly patriotic thing to wear and stockings were rationed to such an extent that people were literally painting them on, you’d care about lipstick and nylons too.

Add that to the fact that Aslan told all the kids to make new lives and fall in love with their own world… Susan is the only one who did that.

#narnia #Susan Pevensie #the problem of susan

[oceanlils]

Imagine walking all your life with your siblings, one besides the other, a perfect path, a perfect line.

That line is sometimes altered: sometimes, your brother Peter walks in front. Sometimes, he seems to wear a golden crown, until you realize it's just the light in his hair.

You usually walk besides your sister, Lucy, who is always smiling and, sometimes, seems to float instead of walking. Still, she sometimes runs in the front, so you take your brother's, Edmund, side, and you both look at each other in complicity as your siblings play in the front.

What never changes, it's the pace. Well— it does change. But you all change it at the same time. You walk at the same pace, everyday since you were little until you turn 21.

You don't know when it changed. Logically, you assume it was wen they left you, but then you remember how you pushed them aside long before the accident, and you wonder— was it really after they left you that you lost your pace, or did you walk alone long before that train took them from you? Did they really left, or did you force them to?

Now, you walk alone everywhere. No mom or dad to hold your hand. No Peter to offer his arm. No Edmund to snicker with you. No Lucy to smile and wave your way, before rushing to your side.

You refuse to take your friends arms. You do your makeup before meeting with them, and take the long way home in hopes that they will not accompany you. In hopes that one of ypur siblings will show up and lead you to them.

You suppose that's impossible, and quite unsafe. But it's also unfair, and long walks mean that you have more time to try and find the proper pace to pretend you are still surrounded by your siblings, to pretend Peter still walks in the front and Lucy still looks up at you in admiration, to pretend Edmund still intimidatea the guys that look too much at you and your parents still wait for you on the door.

You never manage to find the right pace, ans pretending is never enough. You walk alone, and your house feels cold.

#chronicles of narnia #susan pevensie #peter pevensie #edmund pevensie #the pevensies #the chronicles of narnia #lucy pevensie #the problem of susan #more like a tragedy #i love susan guys #they deserved the world #aslan give her family back #please

[doverstar]

if c.s. lewis said susan pevensie is no longer a friend of narnia, then she’s no longer a friend of narnia. he’s not a misogynist, he’s the author. he created susan pevensie. he made the character. he was making a point. it was good writing. stop whining

#I could go on #you can fight me that’s okay #susan pevensie #doverstar’s thoughts #text post #opinion piece #the problem of susan #narnia #chronicles of narnia #aslan #cs lewis #writing #opinion #fandom #the last battle #the chronicles of narnia the last battle

[whetstonefires]

All that said, I did once reframe The Problem of Susan as, "Susan didn't die because she didn't want to" and like when you put it like that, yeah okay. Valid of both of you. Susan and Aslan.

The fact that her whole family dying in a train accident while the fantasy dimension experienced the Book of Revelations is supposed to be a good thing remains freaky. But like.

Good on Susan tbh and ty Aslan for respecting that preference?

#hoc est meum #chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #christianity

[idkaguyorsomething]

The Problem of Susan Fic Recs

For many reasons, The Last Battle is probably the most contentious addition to the Narnia canon. The standout, though, has to be the infamous Problem of Susan, wherein the Pevensie children are all killed in a train crash and brought to Narnia 2 Electric Boogaloo aka heaven, then declare that Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia because of her interest in “lipsticks and nylons”. Hardly any time is spent on this, but the implications have been the ground for a lot of argument and discussion. What exactly would happen to Susan, and should it have happened? Over the years, dozens of fic writers have thrown their hats in the ring and weighed in on the subject, making the Problem of Susan almost a prism for the fandom: everyone shines through it a bit differently, resulting in a wide spectrum. Here’s some of the highlights under the cut.

http://shedletsky.com/blog/the-god-who-loves-you

Starting with the fic that coined the term, written by Neil Gaiman himself, this fic is a reflection and deconstruction of the idea that Susan would be able to find Narnia again by delving into the trauma that the experience of losing all her family at once as well as the social injustices that a young woman of her time would’ve faced, something that the narrative of The Last Battle never really addresses. It took off for a reason, as it presents a lot of good food for thought, but it’s also got some pretty weird shit that can feel like it’s conflating adulthood with edginess. Well worth a read for all the points it raises, but if you’re fond of canon you probably won’t like the way it takes a hammer to it.

Now this one is exactly what you’d want to read if you wanted some feel-good time. This story is probably the closest to how C S Lewis would’ve written Susan’s return to Narnia, detailing her rediscovering all the things she put away as well as what led up to her rejecting Narnia in the first place. It falls more to the end of being almost uncritical of canon, with the focus on Susan basically having the same sort of religious rediscovery that C S Lewis himself had in his life. Because of how she was treated in canon, that can be pretty frustrating, but the ending feels nothing short of joyous.

Swinging back to the other end of the spectrum, this fic is very critical of the idea of The Last Battle being a pretty happy ending for everyone, unambiguously stating that life is always worth living for all the Pevensie kids. It explores what their lives could’ve been like if they didn’t die, being a rebuttal of C S Lewis’ themes rather than a continuation of them while feeling equally as happy as the fic directly above.

And this story feels like a midway point between the above two. It dives really deep into the emotional damage that Susan would’ve suffered before and after the train crash in some absolutely gorgeous prose, showing both her and Aslan with great sympathy while maintaining that what happened to her is not a punishment in any way. Bittersweet and very, very good.

Heading back towards the more critical end of the spectrum, this fic presents a Susan who is not interested in finding Narnia again, only her family. She is very much a character straight out of an ancient myth rather than a teen trying to make sense of a senseless situation here, filled with determination as much as desperation. It’s probably the closest fic on here to having something close to a plot as well as a character study, with the exception of The Queen’s Return and one other:

Being a crossover with what’s pretty much the antithesis of the Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials, it’s probably easy for you to guess which side of the spectrum this story falls on. It’s more of a HDM story than a Narnia one, but the two worlds blend together surprisingly well, and it gives us a rare look into a Susan who’s lived decades of her life when the story picks up. She’s pretty much the Professor and it is fascinating, as is everything left to interpretation by this gem of a fic that is ambiguous yet deeply satisfying.

¡And here’s Susan as a Doctor Who companion! This isn’t directly a Narnia story so much as it is one about two people much older than they look mourning the loss of their worlds, with a Susan who is a queen wise beyond her years. Reading it is like taking an ice shower. It doesn’t hold back on the grief, and as a result it manages to feel honest as it reaches a warm ending.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/24311

Despite also being a crossover, this is in some ways the opposite of touch the sky with two arms. Susan is more of an everyday young woman than a queen, and [SLIGHT SPOILERS] Narnia itself does feature directly. But y’know, that’s part of what makes fandom so interesting. Not everyone is going to have the same take on everything, and the ending of this leans more happy than melancholy.

¿A shipping fic that’s also a crossover with Peter Pan that features neither Neverland or Narnia? Yes, this one probably has the least to do with Narnia or Aslan, but it tells a very compelling story about living life and growing up, something that isn’t perfect but can be good if you find someone you want to spend your life with. Susan Pevensie and Wendy Darling are a really good couple, pinky promise.

Technically more a series of ensemble oneshots, but Susan features very prominently in a lot of them, and they will make you feel every feeling that everything else on this list might’ve given you. Satisfaction, devastation, simple joy, just go give it a shot.

#phew that’s probably just barely scraping the surface but those would be my top recs #feel free to add on any others that you know about #the tournament will go up soon btw #narnia #chronicles of narnia #the chronicles of narnia #susan pevensie #the problem of susan #the last battle #his dark materials #hdm #tcon #pevensie siblings #wendy darling #doctor who #fic rec #ao3

[namedafterflowerstournament]

Botanic Tournament : Main Bracket !

Round 5 Poll M

Susan is a name coming from the word for lily (or possibly rose, it's unclear) in Hebrew

(Roses, black-eyed susan and lily)

#botanic tournament #tournament polls #round 5 #susan pevensie #pevensie siblings #chronicles of narnia #the chronicles of narnia #narnia #bookblr #movieblr #the lion the witch and the wardrobe #queen susan the gentle #the problem of susan #lilly ninjago #ninjago lilly #lego ninjago #ninjago lego #ninjago comic #ninjago community #ninjago movie #comicblr #lego comic

[quecksilvereyes]

“You cannot live your life to please others. the choice must be yours.” Susan

Uh. So this prompt possessed me a little bit, I sure hope smoking isn't a trigger for you, anon.

____

Sometimes, in the summers, when the air is thick and heavy, dripping with unshed rain and pressing into the hollow of her clavicles, Susan Pevensie stands in her mother's garden, and bathes in the sun. She drapes her blouse, soaked with sweat, and her skirt, soaked with perfume, over the old rocking chair that has long since splintered under the weight of its age, and then:

A breath.

With closed eyes and soft mouth, rouge-dotted and lipstick-smeared, Susan Pevensie tilts her face towards the light. Her brassiere is damp with English rain that won't fall, her petticoats are stiff with English breeze that won't blow and her wrists are strung up by English strings that won't pull.

Blue skies are rare, here. England is grey, and England is cloudy, and England rains and rains and rains until it has made itself sick and its ground unsteady. Some weeks, the clouds hang low for so long that the sun cannot reach what it wishes to nourish. Some weeks, Susan sits by her window, her head pressed against the glass, and watches the clouds drip into fog, the fog drip into the earth, and the earth drown and cry. Until her skin matches the grey of the skies, until her mind drips from her every breath onto the paneled glass, until she can't see through the fog, anymore.

"Su", says her brother, then, his hands on her forehead, his mouth in her hair. "Susie." His hands, shaking and unsteady, are warm and getting warmer with every passed winter. His voice, soft and careful and stripped of teeth, drops steadily deeper. When he turns his head, the beginnings of a stubble scrape against her cheek.

"Light of my life, sun of my skies."

The skies are grey. The grass is grey. The fence is grey. The world is grey.

Peter's eyes are blue. The clouds don't gather around his pupils, and his irises are clear as they've been for days. The English sky has never echoed the yellow freckles.

The Narnian skies were ever centered around the pupil of her sun, in the soft yellow streaks of Peter's eyes.

Susan wets her lips. She doesn't wet her cheeks.

Peter climbs onto the bench. "My sister", he says softly. "Where have you gone?"

Susan buries her face in his chest and leaves behind great streaks of make-up on his bleached dress shirt: a mouth of lipstick, a blur of rouge, a dust of powder. Splotches of mascara, lines of kohl. Marks of eyeshadow.

Peter rubs her back, and Susan doesn't cry.

In the summers, she drinks the sun with greedy mouth and empty stomach and hungry, hungry skin. In the dripping air and the burning grass, Susan Pevensie strips to her undergarments - and breathes.

In, and out.

A breath, and then another.

Beyond her closed eyes, the world drips reds and oranges, and bright, stark yellows. Beyond her hollow mouth, the air coats her windpipe; a slow dripping of heat.

She is alone, here. She drops her ball-jointed limbs and her painted porcelain face, turns her opal glass palms right side up, and breathes.

Until her lungs settle, and the fog has run dry. Until the colours are a bit sharper, a bit brighter. A smear more familiar.

-

The party is slow. Nicotine gathers heavy on the ceiling, and the music is a little too loud to be ambient. The drinks are spiked, the hems are lifted, and Susan is standing by the door, watching her friend lose the last of her lipstick to a stranger's mouth.

The boy is. Well, he's fine. Polite and gentle, soft-spoken. He ducks his head and worries the tips of his fingers and the spread of his lips until they bleed. His hair would curl, if it was long enough, and when she blows smoke in his direction, he coughs.

Smiles.

Susan takes another drag of her cigarette. Flicks the ash to the floor. Smiles.

"You'll have to forgive the cigarette", she says around the smoke seeping from her mouth. "It calms me down."

The boy blinks at her, and wets his bottom lip. It is dark with blood, dotted purple where he has almost broken skin, swollen with the almost-injury. "I can't imagine anyone ever denies you much of anything", he says. "You're too pretty for that."

"Too pretty to be annoyed with?"

He shrugs. His shoulders are slumped forwards, and it makes his suit jacket sit oddly on the rounded curve of his back. "People love pretty things. Better to keep them around."

Her cigarette is stained with her lipstick, and the tips of her fingers drip with it. The smoke in her lungs is warm, and the alcohol in her blood is warmer, still, so Susan tilts her head. "When I was a little girl, my mother bought me a little lace collar. I wore it until it broke, and begged her to fix it when it had long become too threadbare to even be touched."

The boy nods, and takes a breath.

Susan clicks her tongue. "I'd gotten beet juice on it, and it wouldn't come out in the wash. No matter the soap, no matter the scrub. There was a small pink stain near the lapel, and it simply bled in all directions. So my mother soaked it in bleach."

The boy cannot pull his shoulders forwards any further. He cannot bend his back more. He digs his teeth into the purple marks on his lips.

"The bleach dissolved most of it. The lace was too delicate." Susan throws the cigarette stub on the floor and savours the last breath of it, the hot coating of her tongue. "If she hadn't tried to get the stain out, it wouldn't have broken."

The boy's teeth break his skin. The blood pools, dark and shy, around the enamel and into the corners of his mouth. "You couldn't have worn the stained collar", he says, with his soft voice and his soft eyes, his soft, soft hair.

"Why not?"

"Well", says the boy. His shirt is starched and bleached. There is a wrinkle ironed firmly into the placket. He coughs again. "It was already ruined before your mother bleached it. It was stained."

Susan crushes the stub underneath her shoe. The music covers the sound of the grinding and the soft hiss of the dying embers. "It was mine, and I loved it", she says. "Was it my mother's call to make what I could bear?"

The boy shrugs. "It's a lace collar. There are others."

Susan hums. "Perhaps. But I wanted this one." Across the room, someone spills red wine over someone else's lap. Someone else holds their cigarette too close to their lover's sleeve. "You shouldn't live your life to please others. You mind the smoke, and you mind the talking. And yet-"

The boy laughs. The corners of his eyes wrinkle, the apples of his cheeks flush dark, and the blood on his lips spreads slow across his teeth.

"And yet", he says, "here I am."

#narnia #the chronicles of narnia #tcon #susan pevensie #peter pevensie #tcon fanfic #tcon fanfiction #narnia fanfic #narnia fanfiction #the chronicles of narnia fanfiction #the chronicles of narnia fanfic #seasonal depression #smoking #susan flirting at a party #susan having a panic attack about english weather #she contains multitudes #the problem of susan #sort of #larissa makes things

[ispeacetoomuchtoaskfor]

On the Subject of Susan

I'm going to be a little blunt and my words may seem antagonistic here. But no hate, please. I'm just trying to analyze and provide my analysis based on the very simple facts. Now.

I've never quite understood the anger at C. S. Lewis for how he ended Susan's tale. Mainly, I suppose, because I had the whole story.

Everyone gets angry that Susan is "banned from Narnia" because she likes lipstick and nylon stockings and being a teenage girl in the 1940s, but no one seems to understand that that's not quite how it went, much less that Susan still has a chance.

Let me work backwards a moment and explain the latter. You see, to quote Lewis himself, in a letter to a girl called Marcela in 1955,

"...Haven’t you noticed in the two you have read that she is rather fond of being too grownup? I am sorry to say that side of her got stronger and she forgot about Narnia... ...She is left alive in this world at the end, having been turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end—in her own way. I think that whatever she had seen in Narnia she could (if she was the sort that wanted to) persuade herself, as she grew up, that it was ‘all nonsense’”

Now, there's a lot to unpack here, but first and foremost, my point is quite simple. "Perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end-in her own way." It was always meant to be open ended, for Susan. Narnia is not forever closed to her, unless you and she choose so.

"But Peace!" I can hear you saying, "There's that whole 'too fond of being grownup' phrase!" Why yes, yes there is, how clever of you to notice. The whole point of the latter portion of Susan's arc is that she chose that- lipstick and nylons and "being grownup"- over Narnia. She grew and she chose to forget Narnia.

After all, what sort of modern teenage girl (in England, during WW2) would be so interested in medieval times and what they probably explained to their friends to be a good old game of pretend? No, no, she can't remember Narnia right now - she's going to the cinema with a few girl friends, she's going to a party, she's focusing on everything but there and inevitably, after pushing it away for so long, Narnia let her be.

You see, C. S. Lewis was a very Arminian (and yes, I spelled it correctly) Christian theologian. And while I'm sure most of you here on this hellsite would like to ignore that, it is relevant to how Lewis wrote his fiction. After all, it's at the core of his basic beliefs, despite his being a staunch atheist in college and into his adulthood, and despite what you may like to think, it crept into his writing even when he did not intend it. For example, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is called an allegory for the story of the Resurrection, despite Lewis' arguments to the contrary. He insisted that it be seen as what it is, very heavy symbolism. Very heavily used Christian symbolism, that is all over the Chronicles whether you like it or not.

Let me explain why this is relevant to Susan, what Arminianism even is, and how that term applies here. Susan is, so to speak, a symbol of an atheist left behind, after all of the Christians she called family died. In a situation where you regard Christianity as true, she is left on Earth while they have gone on to heaven. And this doesn't mean that the gates of heaven are closed to her, quite to the contrary! They would be closed on the day she died insisting that Jesus Christ was not Lord, plain and simple. She has a choice to make, so long as she is alive.

Now, to Calvinist theologians and Christians, Susan never had a choice. Either Aslan, the God symbol here, chose to bring her in, or he didn't. Calvinists believe in a thing called predestination, the concept that every believer that would ever be brought to heaven is chosen specifically by God. Arminianism declares the opposite. It's a whole thing in Christian theological circles, but that's irrelevant to this discussion. In any case, the core of Arminianism is that you and I have a choice in whether or not we believe in God, and in whether or not we go to heaven.

To an Arminian theologian, God, or Aslan in this symbolic case, can influence our choice, Susan's choice, up to a point. Once we reach that point, once Susan forgets, God, or Aslan, steps back. He accepts our choice, allows Susan to forget. It's up to us, up to Susan after that.

Lewis was an Arminian theologian. He made the point, repeatedly, in his theological works, about people having a choice.

He repeats that point with Susan.

One last thing, before you go. You see, there was another letter about Susan, after The Last Battle was released. He'd been asked if he ever intended to finish Susan's story.

This was his answer.

“I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?”

Well, my people? Now that you've heard what I had to say (and say through quite the essay, my apologies), why not? Go, do what you do and tell her story for yourself. The author has encouraged fanfiction, so go on! And don't worry about Christianity and symbolism too much. It may help you understand how and why Lewis wrote what he did, but unless you're determined to have your tale in his style and overlapping seamlessly with canon, it's unnecessary. Unless you choose to make it a part of your life, you don't have to be concerned about it.

Feel free to ask questions, and I'll answer to the best of my ability, with Google by my side!

Also, I nearly forgot. There are absolutely other problems with Susan being the last of her family, left alone in the aftermath of WW2. This is not the place to talk about those, however, merely to help you understand why she "is no longer a friend of Narnia" and to remind you that there's always hope.

Oh, and besides that, don't forget that I'm talking about the books and not the movies thank you very much, while The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was absolutely perfect to canon the other two were not and I'm not going to consider them in this post. I do appreciate them, but when dealing with book canon they're both nos.

#susan pevensie #the chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #narnia #narnia susan #well this wasn't my plan for 3 am but here we are #arminianism #calvinism #my theology is very arminian leaning #but i tried to depict the two sides fairly #or as fairly as i can at 2 in the morning #if you want to know #im arminian with a touch of predestination #i believe that you get a choice #but also that sometimes #like with paul #god will smack you upside the face with undeniable proof of his existence #even then denial is an option #just not denial of his existence anymore more denial of his sovereignty

[lexihowardhoney]

i'm surprised that nobody thought about idea of susan x ethel cain lyrics

"god loves you, but not enough to save you / so, baby girl, good luck taking care of yourself" literally the moment when everybody died in the last battle. "we all know how it goes / the more it hurts, the less it shows" entering narnia and then being send away with trauma. "but i always knew that in the end no one was coming to save me / so i just prayed and i keep praying and praying an praying" years after the last battle, grief/mourning.

"i followed you in and i was with you there / i invited you in twice, i did / you love blood too much / but not like i do" ptolemaea is literally about her and aslan. "hiding from something i cannot stop / walking on shadows, i can't lead him back" SUSAN AND ASLAN. "you poor thing / sweet, mourning lamb / there's nothing you can do / it's already been done" aslan to susan after train crash. "i am no good nor evil, simply i am and i have come to take what is mine / i was there in the dark when you spilled your first blood / i am here now, as you run from me still / run then, child. you can't hide from me forever" aslan when he took peter edmund and lucy to his country. aslan when susan lost her faith in narnia.

"how am i supposed to feel good about myself when everything i do is wrong?" SUSAN SUSAN SUSAN SUSAN. "i can't get out, can't run away, there's no escaping you now / i'm gonna die all alone" SUSAN SUSAN SUSAN SUSAN SUSAN SUSAN

"cause i hate this story / where happiness ends and dies with you" SUSAN WHILE BURYING HER SIBLINGS

#narnia #susan pevensie #aslan #the chronicles of narnia #the lion the witch and the wardrobe #the last battle #peter pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #prince caspian #voyage of the dawn treader #the horse and his boy #the problem of susan #ethel cain