BEDTIME
WITH
BITSY
A CRITICAL READ OF THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
ALEXIS RECORD
© Copyright Alexis Record 2022
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by Hypatia Press in 2022
ISBN: 978-1-83919-197-8
www.hypatiapress.org
Dedicated to Linda Record. Thanks for lending me your Narnia series, helping me process my former fundamentalism, and stepping into the mom role on multiple occasions.
Contents
1 The Importance of a Bedtime Story1
2 Going on a Lion Hunt6
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 1-46
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapter 511
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 6-715
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapter 817
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 9-1321
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 14-1727
3 Prince Murder Boy33
Prince Caspian: Chapters 1-533
Prince Caspian: Chapter 638
Prince Caspian: Chapters 7-941
Prince Caspian: Chapters 10-1146
Prince Caspian: Chapters 12-1551
4 Treading Water57
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapter 158
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapters 2-464
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapters 5-669
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapters 7-873
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapter 978
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapters 10-1184
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Chapters 12-1688
5 The Simpleminded Signs97
The Silver Chair: Chapters 1 and 1697
The Silver Chair: Chapters 1-2107
The Silver Chair: Chapters 3-4113
The Silver Chair: Chapters 5-6119
The Silver Chair: Chapters 7-8126
The Silver Chair: Chapters 9-11131
The Silver Chair: Chapter 12136
The Silver Chair: Chapters 13-16144
6 Racism and His Boy150
The Horse and His Boy: Chapter 1150
The Horse and His Boy: Chapters 2-3157
The Horse and His Boy: Chapters 4-5162
The Horse and His Boy: Chapters 6-8169
The Horse and His Boy: Chapters 9-10175
The Horse and His Boy: Chapter 11180
The Horse and His Boy: Chapters 12-15186
7 Long Live the Queen194
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 1194
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 2198
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapters 3-4204
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapters 5-6209
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 7215
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapters 8-9221
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 10225
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 11230
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 12238
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 13243
The Magician’s Nephew: Chapters 14-15247
8 It’s the End of the World and We Feel Fine254
The Last Battle: Chapter 1258
The Last Battle: Chapter 2263
The Last Battle: Chapter 3268
The Last Battle: Chapters 4-5273
The Last Battle: Chapter 6279
The Last Battle: Chapter 7284
The Last Battle: Chapter 8290
The Last Battle: Chapters 9-11295
The Last Battle: Chapter 12-13299
The Last Battle: Chapter 14313
The Last Battle: Chapters 15-16319
9 Where Do We Go From Here?325
Acknowledgments329
1
The Importance of a Bedtime Story
Magic spells, witches, and children running around without parental supervision? How were my conservative Christian parents okay with this?
I was luckier than some. I had a mother who read to me. Despite a lot of limitations growing up in the eighties and nineties during the height of evangelical culture, I had the world at bedtime. I played with children living in boxcars, raced chariots with champions, made messes with a talking cat, and ate chocolate with golden-ticket winners.
Leaders in my fundamentalist Christian tradition considered many popular books, types of music, and television shows to be influenced by the devil. Anything with witchcraft (Smurfs), otherworldly powers (Power Rangers), or spirits (Ghostbusters) were labeled satanic. The only power allowed in our home was God’s and the only spirit was the Holy Spirit. Our church taught an abstain-from-all-appearance-of-evil1 approach to media which led to substantial restrictions in my early years. If there was any doubt something would not pass the godly sniff test—movies, books, clothing, music, activities, public education—we simply avoided it. It was the Chuckie Finster approach to life. Tommy Pickles was mainstream society and our every response to it was, “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
When it came to the culture around us, we were “in it, but not of it,” as the mantra went. I even proudly wore a shirt that said “Narrowminded” with Matthew 7:14 printed beneath. No influence could touch us beyond what our Baptist church allowed. Yet when it came to The Chronicles of Narnia, Christian propaganda in the form of children’s stories, suddenly magic and witchcraft were allowed, even encouraged by my pastor! I could finally experience something new—journeying to far-away lands, meeting interesting talking creatures, and stumbling upon spellbound adventures. It was incredible!
I was at a friend’s house the first time I saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle live-action movie. Splinter had been kidnaped and the turtles were searching for him. In one scene they all concentrated on their master until he appeared in spirit-form in their midst. My friend’s mom grabbed for the remote to pause the movie and sputtered, “I did not remember this part. Please don’t tell your mother!” I left thinking I had sinned. Giving Foot Clan soldiers concussions or putting Master Shredder through a garbage compactor was all fine, but the moment those turtle teens used the power of love in a séance, now we were in evil territory!
It makes sense that violence in our media was sanctioned whereas love magic was not, considering brutality is plentiful in the Old Testament stories I grew up with, and magic condemned. If physical violence was truly bad, why would God order so much of it in the Bible and then command his people to teach their children about it?2 Terrorism and bloodshed were the prescribed methods for dealing with witches, disobedient slaves, or people from countries where God’s favorites wanted to take up real estate. It had to be excused then, at least in many cases, from our list of evil things to avoid.
I was forbidden to absorb evil content, but what made something wrong or right depended on who did it. Hitting my sister was forbidden, but God could strike people down. A witch’s potion used to cure maladies was demonic, but Jesus’ magic spit mud3 was acceptable. It took me a long time to realize the Venn diagram of evil magic and holy miracles is a circle. Or as Aron Ra put it:
“A boat may be considered a ship if it’s big enough. When a rich man is neurotic, we call him eccentric. When a V.I.P. is murdered, it’s an assassination. When a god performs magic, he’s working miracles.”4
With definitions this nebulous, I must acknowledge how hard it was for my parents to navigate what exactly was off-limits. The mental gymnastics our family did in order to accommodate Rainbow Brite (she’s using color “technology”), Care Bears (God made them that way; they could be angels), and The Legend of Zelda (video game magic beams are just lasers) was baffling. However, I remain dearly indebted for every brain-bending exception to the “no Satanic influence” rule. Each enriched my childhood.
If magic is anything formed in the imagination, then a child must be pure magic. Childhood itself is something precious and wonderous. No wonder we loved The Chronicles of Narnia. Sure, C. S. Lewis’ tales were stamped and approved Christian fables used to help children understand the weightier parts of the theology they inherited, but they also happened to be fun adventure stories. Many of my friends from similar restrictive religious backgrounds had the same experience with these stories that I did. We felt free to explore magical worlds for the first time. It was a welcomed break from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and The Pilgrim’s Progress, both assigned reading for my limited education.
I must hand it to C. S. Lewis; the man could paint a word picture. I can still imagine transforming into a dragon, falling into a picture frame, and feeling the bottom of a wardrobe turn from wood to snow.
Fast forward a few decades and I find myself with a daughter of my own who loves magical stories. We just finished reading the entire Harry Potter series and wondered which magical tale would be next. We read The Hobbit, but I often had to stop and explain the extant language or complicated themes. We only got one chapter into the first Lord of the Rings book before realizing it was much more of the same and a bit too slow in action for my nine-year old. Then I remembered the first set of children’s tales I had really been drawn into when I was around her age. I borrowed the massive novel from my aunt Linda that contained all seven books bound together and we dove into the first tale of thinking trees and a magic wardrobe. It felt like I was coming home to old friends after a long time away and here was my real-life Lucy sitting right next to me!
Even as my heart was pumping with excitement over these stories, my brain was jumping higher and higher hurdles around problematic paragraphs. My daughter, whom I’ll call Bitsy for her short stature, stopped me to ask clarifying questions here and there. I realized that she was shocked by some of the material I had simply taken for granted at her age.
One question she asked inspired this book:
“Is Aslan the bad guy?”
Bitsy has been taught how to think critically about what she is reading by her experienced teachers, skeptic mom, and thoughtful dad. When I was her age, I was told what to think, but never how to think. My reading material was all pre-selected, so I never needed to analyze what I consumed. Since the stories of Narnia were based on the stories of the Bible, a book I was taught never to question, I absorbed my Narnia fare with the same uncritical consumption.
As I read aloud, pausing as Little Bit interrupted with her thoughts, I noticed she was testing the characters by her sense of right and wrong. She found some of the heroes morally lacking when it was clear the author meant to communicate their goodness—holiness even. The more I read, the more I began to wonder if Aslan was essentially good. He certainly holds some characteristics that no child should emulate or praise.
It’s with a bit of trepidation that I forge into unfamiliar territory by analyzing these books I know so well, grappling with their darker elements of racism, sexism, and prejudice, and confronting their arbitrary code of ethics. While I will always appreciate The Chronicles of Narnia for its role in my childhood, it no longer holds a place of inerrant reverence in my heart.
Time to start the adventure with my little guide, but this time with eyes wide open.
2
Going on a Lion Hunt
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 1-4
“Oh, I do not like Edmund.”
“No one does, honey.”
***
Bitsy has patiently allowed me to explain the air raids of London during World War II before moving past the first paragraph of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.5 This setting allows the four main characters—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—unsupervised access to magical lands away from their parents who are busy with Nazis. It was no real matter to Bits how the children ended up with the “old Professor” out of town. She reads A Series of Unfortunate Events with her dad, so children finding themselves in strange living arrangements with bizarre caretakers is old hat to her.
We are only one page in before we get our first taste of misogyny. The Narnia series holds to a strong hierarchy of adult men over adult women, older people over younger people, boys over girls, and human people over talking animal people. Those not on the top of the hierarchy are rarely given their due which is why women’s work is largely undervalued in these stories. Susan, the eldest girl, has been forced into a caretaker role of the other children. Adopting the motherly example she learned at home comes with reviling rather than respect from the others. Susan has the audacity to refer to the professor who took them in as a “dear”—language Edmund finds particularly saccharine—and tells her siblings that they should be in bed when she notices they are tired, thus cementing her unsavory motherly tendencies.
Peter, in contrast, often takes on a fatherly role, but the younger children go along with this without the same lack of respect they show Susan. Edmund is the exception, as he shows a lack of respect to both older siblings, but this is a deliberate effort by Lewis, our author, to highlight Ed’s role as the flawed-then-later-redeemed character. In the end, he will change his tune towards Peter, but not towards Susan, and that is considered acceptable.
We have hardly introduced characters or setting when Lucy, the youngest child and Lewis’ favorite based on his goddaughter, falls through a wardrobe and is transported to a magical land. If Lord of the Rings had found action this quickly, Little Bit may have stuck with it longer!
Lucy finds a talking faun (read: adult male stranger) and, because she is a polite child who does what she’s told, goes home with him. In her defense, he does outrank her in terms of age and gender in the hierarchy, so the “right” behavior in Lewis’ mind would be to submit to him. I remember being directly taught on numerous occasions, even in my premarital classes, that my duty as a female person was to submit, even to the point of harm, to male persons God put over me. This set up is perfect for predation.
The faun, Mr. Tumnus, is an abuser. Full stop. Narnia fans across the globe may cringe at the suggestion, but the adverse label fits any adult who gives a young girl drugged tea and cake to render her unconscious. The plan was to kill her.
This plot point never bothered me before reading it aloud to my own child. Tumnus is a beloved character and my first reaction to the discomfort I felt during this scene was to make excuses for him. Well, he wasn’t going to kill the girl; the witch would. If not for the circumstances, he would never do such a thing. He really is harmless, I almost said about an adult who drugs children to harm them.
Instead, the bedtime conversation became about how one-dimensional abusers only exist in stories. Abusers are people, and as such, they have emotions, complicated motivations, extenuating circumstances, and they even, on occasion, say they are sorry. None of these things are proof they are safe or good. Tumnus had a change of heart in the story and broke into tears. He laid all his problems on the small child, forcing her to console him. Emotional labor is considered her responsibility as a good girl and she is rewarded when their bond is solidified. Her very next trip to Narnia finds her running straight to his home again.
He said he was sorry. Mr. Tumnus could give lessons in grooming.
The faun greets Lucy as a “Daughter of Eve;” this is our first introduction to human beings being referred to as a binary along with Sons of Adam. Bitsy piped up at this point and said, “Just like in Islam!” I had to chuckle at what I could only assume our Catholic-leaning6 author’s reaction would have been to that! We had just learned about the basic beliefs of Muslims since Little Bit’s elementary school is next door to a mosque. According to the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism), Adam and Eve were the first people created by a creator god, well, arguably “gods” since the language of “us” and “our” are leftovers from the polytheistic Canaanite religion. There was a Canaanite god named El during this time and the Hebrew word for God in Genesis’ creation account is Elohim, a plural form of El.
Adam was a mud golem following a long line of traditions from this time and place in which gods formed humans out of clay and made them alive by magic. Eve was created out of Adam, turning the natural order of men coming from women7 on its head. Eve is also faulted as being naïve, committing the first sin, and bringing about the downfall of the entire human race. Her story has been used for thousands of years to subjugate women and gave my childhood church permission to think of women as weak and subordinate to the men they were supposedly created from. C. S. Lewis bases his Narnia stories on this biblical one, and his view of women throughout the subsequent tales is rooted here.
Lucy returns to find time works differently in Narnia and that she had a whole mini adventure in the space of seconds. She discovers this when she tries to tell her siblings what happened and no one believes her as they just saw her moments before. However, one day Edmund follows Lucy back through the wardrobe and finds himself there as well. He calls out for Lucy to forgive him for teasing her about it, but when she fails to answer, as she’s not around, he says, “Just like a girl […] sulking somewhere, and won’t accept an apology.” Of course, Edmund is no role model of behavior, but this kind of gender bashing is repeated throughout the series even when the characters are all morally good ones. Soon a giant woman known as the White Witch shows up; named for her white skin, she is the epitome of Lewis’ beauty standard. Her looks should be a red flag that she is out to trick unsuspecting boys. She gives Edmund magical food that compels him to bring his siblings to her since Tumnus failed to do so. While both children found themselves being groomed upon first entering Narnia, their situations are portrayed very differently. I got the impression Edmund was breaking the rule of taking candy from a stranger and is getting some sort of natural consequence for that transgression. Yet when Lucy takes food from a stranger it is considered courteous. Edmund, according to my former church, would be outside God’s protection for his actions since victims are blamed for their own victimization. Lucy would be considered obedient, having shown the proper submissive demeaner to an adult man. Lewis can’t claim eating treats from a magical creature ten seconds after finding yourself in a magical world is foolish or wrong if it seemingly depends solely on the genders of parties involved!
Lucy does end up running into Edmund after the Witch leaves and they return together to tell the others. For reasons unknown, or simply to prove he is horrid, Edmund decides to lie and say Narnia is all made up. Lucy is considerably upset by this betrayal and enters a period of near-constant crying. The wailing is endless. Susan and Peter start to become concerned. Finally, they decide to do the responsible thing and tell the only adult in charge about their sister losing it. Which leads to one of the worst parts of the book.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapter 5
“The professor totally knows about Narnia or he wouldn’t be saying this weird stuff, Mom.”
“Yep. Just wait until we get to The Magician’s Nephew.”
***
What happens when Susan and Peter, the two oldest children, finally bring their youngest sibling’s mental break to the attention of the guy who is supposed to be their guardian? They get summarily reprimanded for a lack of faith. Seriously.
The Professor, as he’s called in this book, is here to impart wisdom, not parent brats! His title shows which archetype he is: The wise old teacher, who holds the extra hierarchy cards of being both male and older, and who is supposed to be trusted as an authority. Preferably, without question.
God help him if he ever met Bitsy!
Peter and Susan are worried about Lucy; they can’t seem to stem her emotional outbursts. She is the very picture of a distraught believer who must evangelize her siblings into faith in Narnia. When they fail to come around, she wails long and loud. Lucy insists that her fantasy world is real and speaks with such certainty that they can’t help but wonder if something is mentally wrong with her. If they were hoping for comfort, sympathy, or even help from the Professor, they’re in for disappointment.
I submit that Lewis sees himself as the Professor, and his lessons, mysterious and wise, are meant to wow the children with his intellect. He tells the children that accusing their sister of being untruthful is morally wrong of them despite her claims being outlandish ones, like visiting another world and suspending the passage of time. Why? Lucy is generally a truthful person. The logic goes: Truthful people don’t tell lies. Lucy is a truthful person. Therefore, Lucy does not tell lies.
The false premise is clear immediately: All people are capable of lies. Lucy is a person. Lucy is then capable of lies.
The Professor continues with a trilemma, a favorite go-to of Lewis when making a point:
“There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth.”
Um, no. Who says there are only three options and those are it? Also, what “further evidence” is necessary? The first thing the other children did was go to the wardrobe and check that the back was solid. It was.
The Professor says it is obvious that Lucy is not mad, but obvious in what way? Isn’t she extremely emotionally upset? Isn’t she unreasonably demanding the laws of physics were suspended for her? When someone’s entire mood and sense of reality has changed, isn’t that a red flag for mental stress or psychosis? If not, what would be?
For those like me, raised to see Lewis as the epitome of the logical argument, this alone should dispel that notion. The view that Lewis was a great thinker and great man are often very Evangelical in nature, and beyond that, very American. I was in my 30s before I realized that most collegiate philosophers, outside of an evangelical alma mater like mine, laugh at Lewis’ arguments. They tend to be one fallacy after the next. The bar for sound reasoning can be pretty low when the only thing that matters is Christian doctrine. This is more evident in Lewis’ theological books.
The trilemma of ‘mad, lying, or truthful’ is disingenuously limited to two positions easily rejected and one that so happens to be the preferred choice of whoever set up the options. Lewis’ most famous trilemma in Mere Christianity was the assertion that Jesus Christ was either a lunatic, liar, or Lord. This falls under the false dilemma fallacy or the fallacy of false choice. Many other options are available; Christ could be a legend or a lie, keeping with the alliteration. As for Lucy’s options, she could be in mental distress due to parental separation, distraught over the war, which is hardly atraumatic, or maybe she was being forced to say things against her will by a bully? Edmund maybe? Or she’s simply testing her world as children do. Sorry, Professor, there are way more than three possibilities, and many more reasonable than that of the world’s natural laws being completely upended.
Of course, the main fallacy here is the argument from ignorance. Just because they cannot prove Narnia is imaginary does not mean they should accept it as true. Or in the words of Hermione Granger, when prompted by Xenophilius to prove something did not exist:
“I’m sorry, but that’s completely ridiculous! […] I mean, you could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist!”8
The world of Harry Potter is also a fantastical and magical one, but it holds a measure of consistency to it without sacrificing critical thinking. Maybe this is an unfair comparison since one set of books does not have the same agenda to spread Christianity to children that the other set does. Dumbledore is graciously spared having to be a stand-in for a major religious deity.
The Professor performs special pleading, which is another logical fallacy where certain aspects of the children’s arguments are deliberately ignored since they are not favorable to the assumption that Narnia exists. The wardrobe is normal, time has never stopped working in known history, young children are known for imaginations—all of these are dismissed without discussion. As a result, our young protagonists are forced to accept an exception to the rules of physics in this one case for no discernable reason. Later we will learn the Professor had been to Narnia himself as a small child. The fact he does not admit this up front is a serious omission.
The philosophic burden of proof requires Lucy to substantiate her claim with evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as the saying goes. Furthermore, according to the late Christopher Hitchens,9 “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Lucy fails in this basic first step when the older children test her claim. At this point the other children are under no such obligation to believe her. Yet their wise caretaker expects belief in her claims as common decency.
Enter one of the series’ biggest themes: Blind faith is a moral responsibility for those of good character.
Belief without evidence is ridiculously presented as essential to goodness. Peter even apologizes for not believing Lucy and it is assumed he was in the wrong for his failure to believe. His initial skepticism, then, was portrayed as foolish. I have so many issues with this, but of course magic is real in the story so the ends (getting to enjoy the magic) justify the means (sacrificing logic).
The Professor starts telling the children that having other worlds hidden “all over the place” is “probable.” But is it? When the children push back against this idea, the Professor seems to get angry that his authority is being slightly questioned. When questioning authority is a sin, Professor Botched Logic’s response of giving “a very sharp expression,” telling them to mind their own business, and dismissing them abruptly is seen as appropriate. The next paragraph describes the children avoiding the “alarming” subject entirely, never reaching out to another adult, and not dealing with Lucy’s crisis at all. That sounds like a super healthy response.
That said, this is a fairytale. So naturally all the Professor’s pseudo-logic works out. In the real world, which fables like this are supposed to help children navigate, these words of wisdom would lead to disaster. How well would it turn out if a child growing up on these lessons went out to buy their first car sight unseen because of the word of a salesperson? Relying on authority might work out and might not, but it is undeniably an inferior way to make decisions.
After a contrived predicament, all four children find themselves needing to go into the wardrobe and thus into Narnia. Now the story gets interesting.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 6-7
“Does Mrs. Beaver have a first name? Is she the only girl animal in all of Narnia?”
“No, and, um, no?”
***
All four children find themselves in the wardrobe and wouldn’t you know it, it’s all real! Peter continues his role as the de facto leader of the group and decides to follow Lucy to Mr. Tumnus’ house. Unfortunately they find it ransacked by the White Witch.
Susan remains her horrible, awful self by pointing out common-sense things like it doesn’t seem safe, it’s getting too cold, and they have nothing to eat. (Shut up, Susan!) She must appeal to Peter to let the children wear the coats from the wardrobe and he only relents to her sensible plan once she has persuaded him sufficiently. Yay, the boy decided! Hierarchy at work!
A robin appears to lead the children away from the crime scene and into the woods. Edmund, a hated character by all at this point, tells Peter in a whisper that this may be a foolish plan, but he doesn’t mention this to his sisters since “there’s no good frightening the girls.” Susan is not consulted about the plan even though she is older than Edmund and more mature; she is regretfully the wrong gender for such worries. The boys decide that robins are all “good,” so it is fine to be led around by one. Having entire species be good or bad is also a theme of these books.
The robin takes them to a Beaver (always capitalized). This Beaver tells them, “Aslan is on the move—perhaps has already landed.” At the very name of Jesus, oh, I mean Aslan (ahem), the children all feel the deepest of feels. Here the character of each child is revealed: Peter felt brave, Susan felt delighted, Lucy felt excited like it was Christmas morning, and Edmund, who was in the throes of the Witch, felt a mysterious horror. I personally felt an eye-roll, and Little Bit, when asked what she felt, shrugged, “I’ll wait until I know more about this Aslan guy.” Smart girl.
Mr. Beaver takes them home and introduces them to Mrs. Beaver, described as a she-beaver who was both working at a sewing machine but also in the middle of making dinner. The author of this story had no trouble imagining that womenfolk can do these things simultaneously. What stopped her dinner efforts was a lack of fish that she could not retrieve for herself because of gender roles, so she had to wait for her husband to do it for her.
The Beavers’ little home is described in detail; the best detail of all is that Mr. and Mrs. Beaver slept in bunk beds. Not kidding. The lack of a sex life was probably one more point in their favor showing their purity. In future books it says there are no more Beavers. Well no kidding! That would take some bed-sharing!
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapter 8
“Nope to all of this. You can’t be both unsafe and good.”
“Agreed.”
***
The Beavers finally start answering the children’s questions and one of their first questions is about Aslan himself. The theology of Aslan is just a bit of a tug and stretch from the original Christian cloth. Aslan was the King of Beasts who had been A.W.O.L. for generations. Sound familiar? He was the son of the Emperor, who had never been seen, and he was prophesized to be coming back. All of Narnia has been buried in endless winter for a hundred years and Aslan had not been bothered about it until now. How did they eat without harvests and why didn’t this wreck the ecosystem? I don’t know, probably like how a world-wide flood didn’t kill all fresh-water fish. It just works out magically with magical magic.
Aslan’s people were hurting, being turned to snow, freezing to death, controlled by a dictator, and suffering for generations. But Aslan was busy, okay! He’s still super powerful and great, just… you know, busy.
Upon learning that Aslan is a lion, like an actual lion, the children are understandably curious if he mauls people. When they ask if he’s safe the answer is a clear no. Bitsy piped up at this point and clarified, “No? So he is dangerous and might eat the children?” I continued reading to where Mr. Beaver assured the kids that even though Aslan was not safe, and was very much dangerous, he was also good because he was the king. “What?” countered an incredulous Little Bit.
Peter then says he wants to meet Aslan even though he is frightened of him and Mr. Beaver encourages that kind of self-risking devotion. At this point Little Bit is not having any of this. “Is Aslan the bad guy? Does he make people want to be eaten by him?”
I am relieved to know my girl, who just turned ten, can yank her hand out of an author’s grasp if he starts to take her where she does not want to go. I hope it means she’ll avoid an abusive relationship one day. She has the good sense to see that someone who makes you feel scared cannot also be good.
When I was her age reading this description of Aslan, I loved it. I interpreted “dangerous” and “unsafe” as powerful. Aslan, like Jesus, would kill other people but not his own followers. Unfortunately, my belief system included the doctrine that all humans were supposedly inherently evil. The Bible verses I was raised on included: “The wages of sin is death,” “All have sinned,” “The Lord chastises every son,” “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him,” “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” “The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” etc. This leaves children “in the hands of an angry God,” as American preacher Jonathan Edwards would say, and not feeling very safe. That right there is why Aslan is scary to the children. Lewis considers this a good thing. Pious readers are supposed to as well.
We also get the prophecy from the Beavers about how Narnia needs to be ruled by humans but not by any of its actual inhabitants. This is because of the hierarchy we’ve seen previously; Lewis was very clear about it:
“I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast.”10
It must be nice for Lewis that his place in the hierarchy is at the tippy top. Convenient even.
The Narnian prophecy also says that once humans sit on the throne that the evil time will be over and done. Spoiler: The next book takes place after humans have sat on the throne, but pirates still come into Narnia to kill everyone. This evil act even requires an additionalsecond coming of Aslan. Perhaps Lewis didn’t have sequels in mind when he wrote that bit.
Eventually endless exposition turns to talk about the White Witch. Her height is explained to be the product of the union between angels and humans that produced the giants—which comes directly from the Bible.11 Mr. Beaver explains the Witch is a descendent of Lilith, the character believed to be the first wife of Adam until she rebelled against his authority, was replaced by Eve, and became a demon—in that order. Female agency: causing either demonic changes or the downfall of the entire world since men took over religion.
Lewis keeps biblical stories at the heart of his tales and assumes believers would be familiar with this one. I cannot speak for all Protestants, but Lilith was certainly not a character I was ever taught in Sunday School. It’s true that Lilith is in the Bible, mentioned by name,12 but finding her story in the Genesis account takes some creative reading and knowledge of contemporary ancient religions.
Lilith has traditionally been inserted into the Genesis story to smooth the conflicting account between chapters 1 and 2. Contradictions in the biblical books are common due to competing oral traditions being written side-by-side. Here, in chapter 1, man and woman are created simultaneously and equally. In chapter 2, man is created, then plants, then animals, and finally woman, but only as a complete afterthought when God sees how lonely man is. She’s created after beasts. Although some see these two accounts as complimentary—one is the summary of how people came to be and the other explains the details—that does not satisfactorily solve the contradiction. The conflicts are better smoothed if we consider the two accounts as pertaining to two separate women. The first woman was simultaneously created as a golem with Adam as an equal to Adam. This eliminates the contradiction in Genesis 1. This woman is Lilith. The second woman, created from Adam, tied to him as a submissive replacement once Lilith left, was Eve. Adam was lonely because Lilith left him to pursue her career in demon-ing.
The White Witch’s claim to the throne is dependent on her humanity—the idea from Genesis that only humans rule over beasts. Yet her connection to Lilith undermines that claim. She is a demon.
Lilith’s name and story predate ancient Israel. The creation story and flood story of the Bible are heavily plagiarized from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian poem which preceded Hebrew Scripture by many years. The accounts aren’t simply inspired by this poem; they are a blatant copy and paste job with the local Israelite god injected into them. Lilith is a character in the original epic. She was the demon who took over the tree belonging to the goddess Inanna. Gilgamesh had to chase her out into the desert. This is copied into the Bible: “Desert animals will meet hyenas, the goat demon will call to his friends, and there Lilith will lurk and find her resting place.”13
Eve is the good, submissive woman whom all future women from her line will be. When Mr. Tumnus called Lucy a “Daughter of Eve,” he was referring to her goodness evident in her submissive nature. Lilith is the equal of Adam. All women (if you can even call them that) from her are bad.
***
After explaining the history of the White Witch, the Beavers dive deep into xenophobic racism. It’s explained that the character of a person is evident by how they look. Anything that looks human, but is not human, is obviously evil. Mrs. Beaver counters with, “I’ve known good Dwarfs,” which prompts Mr. Beaver’s retort, “But precious few, and they were the ones least like men.” His advice when seeing someone who isn’t quite human was to, “Keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”
Little Bit’s reaction to all this blatant ignorance was, “Nope.”
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 9-13
“Is Father Christmas a bad guy?”
“Him too, huh?”
***
Disgusted by the blatant prejudice of the previous chapter, Edmund sneaks off. Just kidding, he was just going to betray them all. Mr. Beaver says he could tell by Edmund’s eyes that he was treacherous and had the look of someone who had been with the Witch and eaten her food. So, to get this straight, Mr. Beaver proceeded to tell him critical information that would benefit the Witch and put their lives in danger because…? What good is judging books by their covers if you have to wait for their actions before condemning them? Prejudice seems like a lot of wasted hate before the fact.
Now Edmund is off to the Witch to get what’s coming to him. It’s quickly explained that Edmund’s motivation for the betrayal was that he was so dumb he believed things he didn’t really believe. If this sounds utterly confusing, it is. The book describes a belief “deep down inside him” where “he really knew that the White Witch was bad and cruel.” If this does not ring entirely true, it’s because cognitive dissonance doesn’t quite work this way. Pushing an uncomfortable truth aside to pursue a selfish course of action is a genuine thing people do all the time, but believing a lie you know is false? That’s pure lunacy. No cognitively-typical person does that.
There’s no conflict within Edmund; he’s not struggling with the truth. He acts on his beliefs and those beliefs are supposedly acknowledged lies. How would this work? Lewis failing to understand how human internal processes work would be baffling to me if I didn’t already know the Bible falsely claims this is how unbelievers and apostates think. (Because it’s easy to write about the motivations of people we disagree with or don’t understand.)
Those who aren’t convinced that the Abrahamic God is real, according to the New Testament, are actually (surprise!) convinced that the Abrahamic God is for sure real and are just too stupid to confess this.14 Lamentably, since this is direct from Christian holy text, it’s almost impossible to convince a true believer otherwise. To them, atheists don’t really exist. Everyone is either a good believer or a stupid, evil one. We are never the arbiter of our own experience.
Why would atheists claim not to believe when they really do? Rebellion theory would claim it is so they can sin without consequence, but that does not pan out in any simulation. Do people also stop believing in taxes by genuinely buying into the lie that they don’t exist? Only to be completely flabbergasted when the consequences come? Is that the level of stupid the Bible is putting on unbelievers?
When I was young, unbelievers baffled me. I only knew their motivation as the strawman I was presented by my church. I had a great deal of pity for them. Of course the point of the biblical author’s argument was to convince people to become believers by saying God was obvious, that godlessness was the same as wickedness, and that atheists are “suppressing the truth.”15 Unbelievers are not just dumb, but wicked and deceitful! I’m surprised they didn’t say ugly, too.
***
Edmund goes back to the Witch to rat out his family and is treated badly. No reader feels bad for him. Back at the Beaver home, they all make ready to run for it. Everyone gets mad at Mrs. Beaver who slows them down by packing food for the journey that will literally keep them from starving in the next chapter. She does all the mental prep while they stand there lecturing her about how they must leave. When she wonders if she can take her sewing machine—what I imagine is Lewis’ way of showing that women are ridiculous instead of practical—Mr. Beaver puts his foot down so they can leave. We’re all thankful a man finally put an end to this silliness!
“That’s sad. It was like her best thing she owned probably,” adds Little Bit compassionately.
They make it to a cave to hide in and Mrs. Beaver gets upset that she didn’t pack pillows. She then hands around what is probably hard liquor as it makes the children cough and burns their throats. It works and they are all out like an underage drunken light.
The children wake up the next morning to meet Father Christmas! Because why not! He gives killer presents. He gave Peter a sword for stabbing people with, Susan a bow and arrows for piercing people with, and a horn to call for help, Lucy a dagger for, well, you get it. Santa informs the girls, “I don’t mean you to fight in the battle.” When Lucy protests that she’s brave enough (and certainly armed enough) to fight, Father Christmas replies, “That is not the point. Battles are ugly when women fight.”
“He did NOT just say that because they are girls! Like, why give them weapons?” Bitsy blurted out in slight shock.
“They took that part out when they made this into a movie,” I assured her.
Mrs. Beaver lectures Peter and Mr. Beaver about playing with the new sword, which is “just like men” she sighs, and makes sure everyone knows how wise it was of her to bring the butter knife. Her emphasis on the over importance of kitchenware is a joke. Readers are supposed to know that the realm of womanly responsibility is not really all that important compared to battles.
Meanwhile Edmund and the White Witch set out to kill Edmund’s siblings, which horrifies him but also, we’re led to believe, is what he truly deep down thought would happen. (Those crazy unbelievers and their incoherence!) On the way, the Witch ends up turning some animal children to stone for celebrating Christmas, which has been illegal since her dictatorship began. Why does Santa give the people of Narnia gifts that makes the Queen furiously kill them? What did he think was going to happen? I assume Aslan did not save those stone creatures as it describes one sitting with “its stone fork fixed for ever half way to its stone mouth.” Unless “for ever” is code for “a few days” when the others are turned back to normal by Aslan.
At this point the other three children and Beavers travel to Stone Table, a clearing with a giant stone altar, and meet Aslan.
“People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.”
The narrator repeats this line as if it’s not utter baloney. The children were so frightened upon seeing Aslan that they trembled and couldn’t look at him. Peter asks Mr. Beaver to go first, but Mr. Beaver answers, “No, sons of Adam before animals.” Right, hierarchy. Aslan finally welcomes them each by rank and gender, first sons of Adam, then daughters of Eve, and lastly “Welcome, He-Beaver and She-Beaver.” We’re getting very tired of the ranked order of folks.
Aslan asks where Edmund is, and is disappointed in the children for letting their brother betray them. (Clearly the victims’ fault when this happens.) This is the first time I realized that Edmund is Judas. This probably makes Peter, Saint Peter. Is Lewis saying it was Peter’s fault Judas made bad choices? I guess the gospels could be interpreted that way. Peter was Disciple #1, in a way, and Judas did get away with a lot under his watch. No time to think about this because wolves are attacking the girls inside the camp with Aslan right there.
While in later books Aslan is said to read minds, here he doesn’t seem to know what’s going on around him. He was the one who sent the girls off directly to the wolves lying in wait to kill them. When Susan calls for help with her horn—which is said to sound like a bugle, but in the next book becomes way more fierce-sounding and awesome in the hands of a boy—Aslan orders the warriors in the party to stay back and let Peter fight alone and earn a knighthood. You know, while Susan is in mortal danger and forced up a tree. (Gee, thanks for that Aslan. Girls must be so important to you.) Peter kills the wolf and gets covered in its blood and fur.
“Is this book appropriate for children?” Bitsy asks at this point which makes me laugh. She is not okay with violence, and I failed to recall just how violent these books were.
While Peter is fighting, the White Witch is making plans to kill Edmund with a knife. She laments not being able to slaughter him on the Stone Table, where our party is, as that is its “proper use.” I declined to go into animal sacrifice in the Bible with Little Bit as she detests cruelty to animals, but it’s clear this Stone Table is supposed to be the stone altar right out of the Old Testament designed to appease God’s bloodlust. It is worse to consider the animals are people in this world, as if sacrificing them to a deity wasn’t awful before.
Not to worry since a group of animals save Edmund and bring him to Aslan. The lion and boy have some wonderful conversation no one is to ever know about because it was that special. Then Aslan informed the other children that there was no need to bring up the past with Edmund ever again. This was probably an allusion to God’s promise to “remember sins no more.” I guess never mind the consequences of his actions, or repairing the relationships, or attempting to understand why the betrayal happened in order to prevent it in the future.
The White Witch shows up and meets with Aslan, demanding she get her prisoner back. The law Aslan’s father, the Emperor, put in place when he first created magic in the land is on her side. Aslan feigns ignorance of his own father’s laws and magical rules. The Witch sets him straight.
At this point Bits has a theory that the White Witch is married to the Emperor. At the very least she works for him. I agreed that they are on the same page as far as evil laws go. The Emperor gave the Witch “a right to a kill” if a person is a traitor. Fun guy, the Emperor. What’s next? Letting one of your fallen angels lead people to Hell for all eternity?
“Unless I have blood as the Law says, all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire…”
The Emperor, or God if we’re being literal, decided that one person breaking the law should mean all their neighbors should burn in fire. Gosh, at least the Witch only turns them to stone. She’s kind by comparison.
When Susan (of course Susan) asks if there is anything that can work against the Emperor’s magic, Aslan snaps at her and “nobody ever made that suggestion to him again.” Sure, let’s not discuss that the Emperor’s magic is immoral or unjust. That’s off limits apparently.
The White Witch and Aslan haggle over who gets to kill or control Edmund and they come to a secret agreement.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Chapters 14-17
“That’s so cool that Aslan was willing to get really hurt for Edmund.”
“Yeah, he died.”
“But he didn’t really die. It doesn’t count if he came back to life the next day totally fine like he knew he would.”
“What if it took three days?”
“What?”
***
Now we come to the Jesus-esque death of Aslan scene that likely inspired the entire story. Little Bit had been told the Gospel story many times in detail when she was younger, but she had forgotten a lot of it. I tried to point out the many similarities between the two tales: The death happened on behalf of someone else; it was inspired by the blood laws of God/the Emperor; it appeased the “Deep Magic” (God’s bloodlust); evil people jeered, tortured, and humiliated Aslan/Jesus while he remained silent; the Stone Table/Temple Veil is struck in two; and the resurrection was witnessed by grieving women/girls who wondered what had happened to the body and who had taken it.
Aslan even claims to have been around before time began, following a Johannine theology. Aslan’s supernatural abilities and credentials will expand as the series continues the same way the biblical god starts out having limitations in knowledge16 and power17 that, after enough time and stories, morphs into a being of ultimate omnipotence and omniscience many of us were taught in church. The point is, as in any hyped-up series, the further along we get, the more supernatural abilities get added.
The way Aslan is portrayed as dragging his mane almost to the ground and being very tired and sad as he approached the alter was deeply compelling. His need for comfort from the girls was understandable, but their presence meant they had to witness his murder. Not very selfless of him, but we can never expect that of anyone who desires worship. He even positioned them in a place of “very great danger” to view his death. To test them, he refused to tell them that he would be coming back to life the next morning, leaving the small children grieving all night long. If he is omniscient as the books later imply, all his actions are horrible, self-serving, and particularly cruel.
After the Witch and her minions torture and kill Aslan, they run off to do battle with his army. The lion uses this time to pop back to life. The girls are overjoyed when they realize he is not dead anymore, yet he acts in ways that frighten them. Lucy did not know if she was “playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten” when celebrating his return since he vacillated between fun and terrifying. When Aslan roars, his face is described as so terrible the girls are too frightened to look at it. Fun guy. Why’d we miss him again?
An abuser’s mood can be similarly hot and cold causing a lot of unease for the people around them. Aslan has terrifying moments, not only to his enemies, but also to those he loves. This mirrors a Jesus who says to love one another in one passage and to take a sword to one’s family if they do not follow him in another.18 The Lamb of God who gathers children to himself is heartwarming; the Lamb of God who releases the four horsemen of the apocalypse to kill other children, heartbreaking.19 When thinking of Jesus, most people I know imagine some good or gracious individual, and I can pick out verses to support such a Jesus just as I can pick out choice lines that show a pretty picture of Aslan. Yet it is incomplete. If the Narnia series included a story of Aslan having a sharp sword coming out of his mouth that he used to kill people of every nation (an actual description of Jesus in the Bible20), I think some parents might take issue with it.
Jesus’ story includes threatening merchants with a whip,21 lying about attending a party,22 and calling a woman a dog for being the wrong ethnicity.23 As a biblical studies student in college, I read whole papers defending Jesus’ words and actions. I know the apologetics, and I was motivated by faith to accept them, but it would be dishonest to claim these things were an example of perfect goodness. (The whip thing was kinda cool though.) The popular Western version of Jesus eliminates the darker side of his character by ignoring certain verses completely and largely reinterpreting others. I love peacenik Jesus, but Lewis gets it closer to the original.
***
Aslan takes the girls to the White Witch’s castle and breathes on all the stone statues, making them animals again. In Luke, Jesus says, “[God] has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free.” Breath of life is a reference to the life force that once animated the first human golem. Once more we find ourselves deep in allusions to Lewis’ religious traditions.
After the creatures were turned back to normal, the giant among them is asked to smash the gates. It’s quickly pointed out that giants are not smart, which Little Bit cannot help but see as a mean thing to say of an entire group of people. Then Aslan and all the others rush to join the huge battle that has been taking place between the White Witch’s army of evil creatures and Peter’s army of good creatures. First thing Aslan does is pounce the Witch to death. Couldn’t he have done that earlier? A hundred years earlier? No?
In the end, lots of creatures are violently slaughtered. At least Edmund was redeemed by being a bit heroic. The book explains how Edmund had “begun to go wrong” after attending a local school, but now he’s reborn in glorious battle. We can assume, based on Edmund’s cousin’s school experience in a subsequent book, that Edmund’s school was probably less traditional, didn’t rely on the Bible, and did away with corporal punishment. Education and religion are not always harmonious, and this is not the only time this series will vilify progressive education. The old Professor often remarked to Susan and Peter, “What are they teaching you in that school?” How to be bad, apparently, but after happy murder times, Edmund becomes a good guy. The transformative power of killing-for-Jesus will be a theme throughout the series. Onward Christian soldiers!
Aslan magically provides food for the huge company, another allusion to Jesus, and a couple days later the children are crowned kings and queens of Narnia. This is not some equal crowning, oh no, Peter becomes the High King and leader over all the Church, er, I mean Narnia.
After the coronation, Aslan sneaks off and is gone. That’s Aslan for you. The four newly-royal-ified children spend the next several years hunting down their enemies and killing them. In the end “all that foul brood was stamped out,” says the book that obviously doesn’t know those same creatures are back in the very next book. Always assume you’ll be writing a sequel, author!
It’s icky that entire groups are killed off by our heroes. Sure, we can say those species were “evil” and defend it that way, but it’s usually not great practice to justify genocides. When I was a student of the Bible, I remember hearing about how God ordered the murder of children. I was told God knew they would grow up to worship other gods. If I were an all-powerful God, having my followers murder everyone would be a huge failure of ingenuity on my part. I feel like my God-Brain would have come up with something better than that. I mean, my human brain certainly has several alternatives in mind. But at least it all worked out and there are no people of other religions worshiping other gods in the world today. (Hard look at camera.)
Our royal children are considered good rulers who, “liberated young Dwarfs and young satyrs from being sent to school.” School must be stopped! They also took on Libertarian policies by stopping “busybodies and interferers” and letting people “live and let live.” No social programs in their kingdom I imagine, just how God wants it.
The children grew up in Narnia and we get a summary of how they turned out. Peter and Edmund are given quality characteristics and said to be wise. Susan and Lucy are simply praised for their looks and marriage prospects. Peter was courageous and noble. Susan? Susan had long hair. Edmund was brave and a warrior. Lucy? She had lots of men who liked to look at her.
Eventually the four protagonists find the original wardrobe and fall back into the real world where they revert to children and find no time has passed since they left. It’s fine though; they don’t seem overly interested in the lives they abandoned or the friends and suitors they left behind. The Professor finds out they’re back and warns them not to talk about Narnia except to others who have been there. (Don’t tell your parents, kids!) They ask how they would know who else had been there and the Professor tells them by “their looks,” because of course.
The last sentence spoken in the book is the professor saying, “Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?”
