narnian bible studies
narnian bible studies: or good beast/bad beast
ok there are dozens of spots in the chronicles of narnia where you think EXCUSE ME just what kind of xtianity does mr clive staples lewis think he is propagandisin FOR plz thkyou, eg in last battle alone the death of the dryad, or the sudden high-speed appearance and extinction of dinosaurs or whatever
but the point that always annoyed and saddened me - it’s in tolk too but less freighted with a DO-YOU-SEE message maybe - are the “species-ist” assumptions about animal goodness and/or badness
i. mice, beavers, badgers, horses ALL GOOD ALL THE TIME
ii. cats and apes and “the people of the toadstools” bad
iii. bears can go either way (corin thunderfist, as a grown-up, anecdotally battles a bear who reverts to beastliness in “horse and his boy”)
iv. cf tolk, where spiders are AGELESS EVIL EMBODIED: but WHY?
i mean i know why: “animals i heart” = GOOD by defn, “animals that creep me out” = BAD by defn, but this is surely very poor theology!! (cf the moment when the taliing beasts who fail to get in through the stabvle door lose the power of speech as they vanish: so narnia-heaven has no real actual ordinary animals (or trees) in it? everything in anrnia-heaven talks and has a soul? csl’s platonism is as bonkers-ass as his faith!! (etc)
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FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on November 8th, 2008
corrective addendum to the above: cats are not always bad — aslan disguises himself as one among the tombs in “the horse and his boy”