maeve66 | (Reply)

From:

nothings.livejournal.com

He wrote the whole series to lead up to The Last Battle, which is practically the Rapture

Did he actually plan the whole thing out, though, or did he write one and it was successful and then he plotted out the whole thing? I mean, I'm not disputing, I'm just asking. Certainly it wouldn't be the first time somebody planned out a whole thing without knowing whether they'd actually get to do it, but it just didn't feel that way to me. Similarly, the lack of story chronology--of course, he could have started "in the middle" intentionally, deciding that that was the best starting place, but it also could be because he started with a story and then built out from there.

So, I mean, I defer to your knowledge if you actually know this, but if it's just speculation, or if it's something Lewis said after he wrote the first book (when he might then have started planning all the others), it's kind of doubtful.

It doesn't have to be letter-perfect to be an allegory

I certainly agree with that, but if it's such a flagrant mismatch (Aslan's violence), if it's an allegory I don't see what the message is, and I certainly don't see how it can be indoctrinating. tLtWatW seems more to me like it attempts to invoke your existing knowledge of the magic of Christ's ressurection and borrow that wonderment for what happens to Aslan (nevermind that that won't work for kids!) than it seems like it would manage to convince people of either (a) that this really happened to Christ or that (b) that Christ was awfully magical, and if it's not doing that, what exactly is it supposed to be doing that is helpful-to-Christianity?

But yeah, I mostly agree with your response I just quoted in response to something like celesteh's "In the book, the lion afterwards explains that ANYBODY who offeres their innocent blood instead of a traitor's would cause death to be undone. Which is kind of weird, as it's not according to christian theology." Indeed, you can read this as a sort of "anybody can be good" message, rather than a "anybody can be god" message. But then again it does seem to sort of undermine the metaphor.

Oh, and I think Lewis' Christ is a muscular Christian kind of Christ, and also that he draws on the smiting stuff in the Old Testament to justify the violence.

Ok, that's a fair point. It seems weird to me with the namby-pamby Catholic upbringing I had, but I can believe it.

The defining characteristic of Lewis' world view seems to me to be the centrality of properly hierarchical social arrangements: humans above (non Talking) animals; men above women; Kings above commoners; the classes in their right places, etc.

Oddly enough, this is one of the scenes that most stuck in my craw, although I forgot all about it until I read your comment: when the 3 children walk into the, uh, the place where Aslan's army has set up camp and a hush falls over all the, uh, army and they all stare at the children in, well, awe and reverence. Eeeagh lord almighty. (Haha, and I just used that phrase without thinking about the context.)

At the time I think I was finding this more just offensive in the "gah, children's power fantasy, we have to be princes and kings and throw around swords and wield power" but the classist/hierarchical view of it makes more sense. I do remember thinking it was a little jarring that the Pevensies even had family they could be sent to out of London and wondered about the class issues there, but I just ran with it.

I think differing perceptions of literature are what make it fucking interesting, you know?

Wait, did your original comment get lost because of computer problems, or because, uh, somebody didn't want long (contentious?) comments in their journal?