one of my patreon perks is that certain
patrons can suggest episodes of stuff
you like that they would like to see and
then other patrons can vote and the
first selections have been small gods
which is coming later and the lion the witch and
the wardrobe. so can we just clear up this
whole Susan Pevensie thing before we go any
further?Too long; didn't watch: Susan
Pevensie:
it's not about the lipstick. So at the
end of the seventh Narnia book the last
battle basically everybody dies the
professor and polly Peter Edmund and Lucy
Jill and Eustace and even the Pevensie's
parents because coincidentally they're
all on the same train and the train
crashes and so they die. Because the
Pevensies are dead they can now return to
Narnia before going onto Aslan's country
because dead people are allowed to do
that for example in the Silver Chair
King Caspian who just died in Narnia is
allowed to go briefly into our world
before going on to Aslan's country
there's precedent is what I'm saying. But
Susan isn't there and Peter says that
Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia
and Edmund says that she doesn't want to
talk about Narnia anymore and says it's
all pretend. These are the important
parts. And then Jill mentions lipstick and
nylons and invitations and Polly says
something about wishing that Susan would
grow up rather just pretending to be
grown up and everybody loses their minds
So first, Susan Pevensie, as of The Last
Battle doesn't believe in Narnia anymore
and mocks her siblings when they talk
about it. Thus she is not at the
meeting with the friends of Narnia thus
she's not on the train and so she's not
dead yet. Second, as to whether or not
Susan gets into Aslan's country in the
end CS Lewis said in a 1960 letter to a
child who'd written ask that Susan isn't
there "not because i have no hope of
Susan ever getting back 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?" so two thumbs up
for encouraging fic writing CS Lewis!
Third Susan Pevensie is a character to
whom CS lewis give something closest to
his own arc. Lewis and Susan are both
childhood believers and then adolescent
atheists but Lewis became a theist again
at the age of 30 and then a Christian at
the age of 32 so there's that as well.
and if you're going to pick a Pevensie
to have this arc then Susan is the
obvious choice
Peter is the High King Edmund is the
traitor redeemed Lucy is the one who
gets us into Narnia and the person for whom
the books were written in the first
place
Susan frankly has a much less defined
role than the other characters, in
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe at
least. She picks up some more character
traits by prince caspian. And fourth:
lipstick and nylons and invitations are
probably more about the superficial
materialistic trappings of growing up
rather than about sex or the awfulness
of wanting to look pretty. Jill pole
likes her beautiful Narnian clothes so much
that she smuggles them home and wears them to a
fancy-dress party.
it's not pretty clothes that are the
issue it's the desire to act grown up
without really stopping to question what
that means.
Lipstick and nylons and invitations
are the superficial trappings of
adulthood rather than the thing itself.
Plus nylons are a thing that CS Lewis
would have really disapproved of not
because he hated tights on women or
something but because he was very
concerned about materialism and
disposability. He served in the trenches
in the First World War and then in the
Home Guard in the second world war he
lived through two world wars and
rationing didn't actually end until nine
years after armistice at the end of
world war two. All of that make do and mend
stuff as well as a suspicion of becoming
too attached to earthly things was
something that Lewis was quite cognizant
of. I mean he wasn't even a fan of zips
because unlike buttons you couldn't mend
a zip at home when it broke
I always wondered about the ending of
the last battle, and I get that the treatment
of Susan's a hot-button issue for people.
But even with death of the author and
'interpret things however you want' i
figure it's important to ask what the
author was going for
- and then if necessary critique how they
did it - rather than just being annoyed at
what I think he means 60 years later
without trying to understand the context.
To sum up then let me quote the man
himself on the subject of being adult:
"critics who treat 'adult' as a term of
approval instead of a merely descriptive
term cannot be adults themselves. To
be concerned about being grown up to
admire the grownup because it is grown
up to blush at the suspicion of being
childish
these things are the marks of childhood
and adolescence and in childhood and
adolescence they are in moderation
healthy symptoms young things ought to
want to grow but to carry on into middle
life or even into early manhood this
concern about being adults is a mark of
really arrested development when i was
10 i read fairytales in secret and would
have been ashamed if I had been found
doing so. Now that i'm fifty i read them
openly when I became a man I put away
childish things
including fear of childishness and the
desire to be very grown-up."
Oh and lastly I would like to take this
opportunity to apologize to ink-splotch
on Tumblr because I collected my tweets
about Susan Pevensie and put them on
there and people keep tagging her and I
imagine it got a bit annoying after like
the fourth time so sorry.
anyway thanks for watching if you'd like
to support the show I have a patreon
page obviously because otherwise how
would patrons vote on things; if you like
listening to me ramble i have a twitter
@JillBearup and if you're a Narnia
fan look out for my review of the lion the
witch and the wardrobe which will be
coming soon!