Oh, right. :smack:
True…but I stated it too firmly. A slightly more proper response would have been, “Cite?” i.e., did Lewis ever actually say that Aslan knew he was Jesus? If so, of course, I’m wrong. This is just something I’d never heard before (and I’ve been a member of the Mythopoeic Society, at least on and off, for forty years.)
I don’t think Chronos meant it that literally - he was just trying to illustrate the difference between the character actually being another character, and just being a symbol for another character.
I’m pretty sure that Aslan says to one of the Earth-humans something along the lines that “You will come to know me in your own world as well”. One assumes that Lewis meant for this coming to know to happen at church, not at a zoo.
And in the world of the author says it is, but I don’t quite see it: I never really thought Aslan as a Jesus figure very Jesus-y. I didn’t even see it until others pointed it out, even though I knew Lewis was an evangelist of sorts, and I did well in religion classes. (Yes, I am quite dense, probably equivalent to neutron star matter.)
Even though I’m not the brightest bulb, in my world, Lewis wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t getting through. And even though I know the author disagrees with me, I like the story better without the Jesus (umm, don’t want to get involved in the “allegory or not” debate)…perspective? If I read it while watching for the parallels with Jesus, it’s as boring for me as his more heavy handed works. If I read it without looking for them, it’s a nice light fantasy story.
So, I guess my point might be: How does the creator being ineffective at getting their point across figure into this? Conversely, how does the creator being blindsided by the obsessions of others work with it (e.g. Georgia O’Keeffe)? Ridley Scott might have insisted that Deckard was a replicant, but a unicorn dream is a damn vague way to try to communicate that.
And hey, I think I can be forgiven for not seeing it. Isn’t Aslan a bit violent for a Jesus figure?
Well, I’m bewildered here… (scabpicker just said he was kind of dense… I’m also a member of that club!)
If Chronos has said that Aslan was also “Christ,” I might go with it, as “Christ” or “Messiah” can be a role as much as an identity. But when he said “Jesus,” that’s a specific identifiable person. So…
I don’t know what exactly is being claimed… But…does anyone have anything from Lewis himself on this? He must have written at some length on this point.
(Recently, I was noting that, to me, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was allegorical about…gin. It’s strong drink that turns a nice man into a monster, as so horribly often in real life. I honestly have no idea whatever if Stevenson had that in mind, but I can’t read the story without seeing that as a sub-text. If Stevenson had heard of it, and denied it emphatically, I couldn’t say “He’s wrong.” But, for me – anyone else? – the story is a moral lesson against distilled spirits.)
Aslan isn’t a Christ symbol, any more than the fictional character of “Abraham Lincoln” in “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter” is an Abraham Lincoln symbol. I mean, the author of ALVH didn’t think that Abraham Lincoln actually fought vampires, but he’s supposed to be actually Abraham Lincoln. Aslan and Jesus are the same person. In the same way The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are the same person.
Aslan is flat-out Jesus-y. Did anyone read the part where he willingly goes to his death, in substitution for the sinner Edward? And where he, you know, rises from the dead? And stuff?
Here’s a quote:
Also:
In Dawn Treader:
““It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are -are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” "
I met Frank Langella- improbably- in the small town in Orange County, NY where I used to live. Apparently his parents lived nearby and he took them furniture shopping. How could I NOT approach ??
What I said was something like, " I’ve enjoyed your work ever since ‘The Twelve Chairs’ ". He BUSTED up laughing. I said, " You expected ‘Dracula’, right? " He said yeah, everyone just says “Dracula”. He was quite well-humored since I’d caught him by surprise with the reference. I left him be after just a few moments, but there was a real twinkle in his eye. How many people remember your second movie? ( His first was “Diary Of A Mad Housewife” ).
As to the OP. I think a lot of artists are more fond of the stories that are built up around their body of work than they are sure of the original inspiration.
The Muse, she’s a sneaky gal she is. Difficult to define and describe to those non-creatives. Better to have a good tale at hand instead. Aside from the Muse aspect, I do wonder about things like Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Why deny??
Sorry, didn’t mean to confuse you further. What I was trying to say is that yes, Aslan is literally the person Jesus, who after being killed on Earth as a human, decided to spend time on Narnia as a lion. I thought you were asking if Aslan knew he was also Jesus, which isn’t entirely clear in the books. As others have pointed out, he knew he had different forms in different places, but the extent of his knowledge of those lives isn’t clear. If you called Aslan a Jesus to his face, it’s not clear that he’d know what you are talking about.
I’m pretty solidly wedded to the “death of the author” and reader response approaches to art, where the artists intentions are disregarded in favor of an examination of what the text itself says, and not what the author says the text is supposed to say. So if viewing Jeckyll and Hyde as an allegory works for you, then it’s an allegory for you, regardless of how Stevenson felt about it. But the idea that Aslan is NOT an allegory is actually baked into the text. There really not a lot of room to interpret the passages just quoted to mean anything other than “Aslan is literally Jesus.”
That’s why most of us say he is a Christ symbol. Christ wasn’t a Lion, right? Aslan represents Christ. That’s what makes it an allegory.
Aslan is “Jesus-y.” (Lovely word for it.) But he isn’t “Jesus.”
(I’m fairly sure that Mary would not have survived giving birth to a lion cub.)
Let me ask you - according to Christian mythology, when Christ is reborn, will he be an allegory of Christ, or will he actually *be *Christ?
Along the same lines,a conservative columnist I like says he once approached Brent Spiner at a store and said, “You were great in Independence Day.” Spiner laughed and said, “Thanks- I love Star Trek, but it’s nice to hear something else.”
I don’t know of a Christian mythos that includes an idea of Christ being reborn.
(There’s the interesting image in Galations: “My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you…”, but I am pretty sure that’s not what you meant. 
)
Interesting. In the Episcopal service is a reading said by all that says," Christ died. Christ was reborn. Christ will come again. "
No. Aslan is Jesus, full stop. Not an allegory, he’s the actual dude.
Jesus was not a lion. Abraham Lincoln didn’t fight vampires. Winston Churchill did not have Dalek servants in his headquarters. That doesn’t mean that the characters of Aslan in the Narnia books, Abraham Lincoln in ALVH and Winston Churchill in Doctor Who aren’t supposed to be the actual historical figures in a fictional setting.
And there’s no indication that Aslan was born, the first time humans encounter him he’s creating Narnia out of the Void.
Aslan is how God chooses to appear in Narnia, just like Jesus was how he chose to appear on Earth.
Follow-up: I just read the one about Roger Ackroyd, and, while he’s obviously having a little fun, he has some mighty damn good points. His explanation actually makes a little more sense than Christie’s!
So much so, in fact, that it makes me wonder if Christie could conceivably have been playing a joke on us, and had this alternate ending in mind, throwing out very subtle little hints to support it.
(Without giving away too much…Bayard notes that the purported murderer, in the “confession” scene – never actually confesses!)
I won’t say this was an “excellent” book. Too much time was spent on detailed Freudian analysis. (Didn’t bother me; I’m a Freudian.) The book is really pretty heavily padded. Would have made a damn fine essay. But it was certainly the kind of book that makes the reader think!
Thank you, lamia, for calling it out!