# The Narnia Books: "Racist, Mysoginistic, Reactionary" and Devoid of Love **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 19, 2005, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899 "2005-10-19T14:31:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![SlowMindThinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@SlowMindThinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlowMindThinking)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/101 "2005-10-21T14:29:42Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#): > > I remember a while back hearing Pullman criticize the Narnia books. I think his problem with Susan being excluded from Narnia for her grown-up habits, was not so much that it suggested that loss of ‘child-like wonder’ would exclude one from the good life, more that it was portraying the loss of ignorant childish naivety (and thus the attainment of adult rationality) as a Bad Thing. > > As an atheist/humanist, Pullman preferred the idea that children should aspire to be knowledgable and rational, leaving behind the ‘fairytale’ of Christianity, amongst other things. > > I have no cite I’m afraid, I just remember thinking he had a reasonable point - though I can’t myself remember finding the Narnia books intrusively religious… Pullman and Lewis would clearly never have gotten along, for more reasons than mere Christianity (pardon the pun). Lewis, and his friend Tolkien, valued fairytales and myths deeply. One reason Lewis disparaged the educational reforms of his day was their devaluement of fairy tale, myth, and legend, and the corresponding emphasis on the rational. The Narnia books state this pretty clearly, especially in the description of the school Eustace and Jill attend. (As a physicist, I value the increased emphasis on math and science, but I still can’t help feel that something of value was lost.) ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/102 "2005-10-21T14:47:01Z")
> [@](#): > > (As a physicist, I value the increased emphasis on math and science, but I still can’t help feel that something of value was lost.) I would agree. moreover, I think that education nowadays (maybe always, I don’t know) is awful precisely because it leeches the wonder out of everything. Learning is treated like a chore, and made as unpleasant as possible. I got virtually nothing out of high school math, and only enjoyed English, Science, and History because I studied them on my own as much as in class. Think about it: they manage to make English, the class of reading great stories and fiction and so on, so unpleasant that at least half the class thinks only of doing other things. What does that tell you? And people wonder why boys don’t want to go to college, or why no one seems to want to study science or engineering anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/103 "2005-10-21T14:53:24Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > What Susan did was to trade childlike innocence and the considerable personal privilege of having known Aslan himself for the gaudy vapidity of cocktail parties and boyfriend-dangling. Damn these sluttish heathens! > [@Malacandra](#): > > And the sticking point, of course, is whether Christianity is indeed a fairytale; and if it isn’t, then so far from it being a mark of knowledgeable rationality to leave it behind, it is the height of folly. (Not wishing to corner you and force you to defend Pullman’s views, you understand.) I can’t speak for Pullman, but I do see Christianity as a fairytale with some fine morals to be learnt from it, and see disillusionment as a good thing (though less fun than a world of friendly lions/multiplying fishes…). ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/104 "2005-10-21T15:07:52Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#): > > Damn these sluttish heathens! Oh, I hope she escaped damnation (see above). But the point is that you can’t advance sluttish heathen-ness as an equivalent to “aspir(ing) to be knowledgable and rational, leaving behind the ‘fairytale’ of Christianity, amongst other things.” Can you? There’s nothing especially knowledgable or rational about a seventeen-year-old in the Fifties passing herself off as twenty-one in order to guzzle Singapore Slings in the company of sneering Hooray Henries, with the intention of continuing to do so while her youthful appearance and good looks hold out, which is roughly what I interpret the news in “The Last Battle” to mean. It’s just giving up childhood innocence in order to immerse herself in debauchery, which anyone genuinely devoted to “adult rationality” ought to regard as no kind of a triumph. > [@Staggerlee](#): > > I can’t speak for Pullman, but I do see Christianity as a fairytale with some fine morals to be learnt from it, and see disillusionment as a good thing (though less fun than a world of friendly lions/multiplying fishes…). As you like. Personally I never hope to see a friendly lion or multiplying fish in this vale of tears, but I don’t dismiss the latter, at least, as _absolutely_ impossible at all times in the past. The laws of physics aren’t graven in stone such that the Universe must obey them; rather, they’re derived from observation of what the Universe actually does, with the highly reasonable expectation that it will do so in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/105 "2005-10-21T15:20:10Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Oh, I hope she escaped damnation (see above). But the point is that you can’t advance sluttish heathen-ness as an equivalent to “aspir(ing) to be knowledgable and rational, leaving behind the ‘fairytale’ of Christianity, amongst other things.” Can you? There’s nothing especially knowledgable or rational about a seventeen-year-old in the Fifties passing herself off as twenty-one in order to guzzle Singapore Slings in the company of sneering Hooray Henries, with the intention of continuing to do so while her youthful appearance and good looks hold out, which is roughly what I interpret the news in “The Last Battle” to mean. It’s just giving up childhood innocence in order to immerse herself in debauchery, which anyone genuinely devoted to “adult rationality” ought to regard as no kind of a triumph. > > As you like. Personally I never hope to see a friendly lion or multiplying fish in this vale of tears, but I don’t dismiss the latter, at least, as _absolutely_ impossible at all times in the past. The laws of physics aren’t graven in stone such that the Universe must obey them; rather, they’re derived from observation of what the Universe actually does, with the highly reasonable expectation that it will do so in the future. I apologise - my flippancy is directly proportional to the weight of the matter at hand. For all it’s worthlessness, I suppose Susan’s behaviour can still be read as a signifier of adulthood, but it is a bit suspect… I really can’t recall the details of the books themselves, and took it for granted that Pullman (as a children’s writer I can bear) was making a valid argument. More fool me perhaps. Cheers though **Candi** \* \*may I call you that? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/106 "2005-10-21T15:38:40Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#): > > I apologise - my flippancy is directly proportional to the weight of the matter at hand. For all it’s worthlessness, I suppose Susan’s behaviour can still be read as a signifier of adulthood, but it is a bit suspect… I really can’t recall the details of the books themselves, and took it for granted that Pullman (as a children’s writer I can bear) was making a valid argument. More fool me perhaps. > > Cheers though **Candi** \* > > \*may I call you that? I’m much the same way, and I’m enjoying the discussion very much. Susan’s behaviour isn’t really _adult_, that’s the sad part - more a case of aping the worst excesses of adulthood without assuming the responsibilities. It’s sort of like going from barbarism to decadence without an intervening period of civilization. Susan didn’t have a single coherent argument to marshal as to why she shouldn’t believe in Aslan or Narnia any more; she just dismissed it with a vapid giggle as the stuff they used to pretend when they were children… despite knowing darn well it was no pretence. If ya gotta abbreviate, I’ll run with **Mal** - the other is an illiteracy, though I’d have to educate you in the Martian language to explain why. (Note that “illiteracy” in the preceding sentence is a functional description, not a pejorative term.) 🙂 (Also I have had to work hard enough to get people to realize that **Malacandra** is a male name, and **Candi** would just put me back to square one on that issue.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/107 "2005-10-21T17:49:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, LionW&W is the Gospel of Narnia, The Magician’s Nephew its Genesis & The Last Battle its Apocalypse, but Prince Caspian, Dawn Treader, Horse & Boy & Silver Chair don’t have such neat Biblical parallels. I’ll grant that there’s not so much in _Prince Caspian_, but _Voyage of the Dawn Treader_, _The Horse and his Boy_, and _The Silver Chair_ have quite a lot of Christian (specifically Catholic/Episcopalian) theology in them, even if it’s not directly biblical. Even as a child, I remember picking up on the baptism scene in _Dawn Treader_, for instance (though I had a Catholic upbringing; it may not be so obvious to others). ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/108 "2005-10-21T17:55:26Z")
(First, I’m sorry I keep getting behind on this thread, I have not had as much time to read as I usually do!) > [@Malacandra](#): > > The problem with Susan was not that she had grown up - indeed, Peter was older than her, and it’s not suggested that he was infantilised in either body or mind - but that she had focussed on one particular shallow, silly and ephemeral stage of adulthood. She was so fixated on it that she had been determined to get there as early as possible and, once there, to _stay_ there as long as possible. What was more, despite having known Aslan face to face and getting a pretty good idea of what he really was, she was prepared to turn her back on known facts in order to pursue her obsession with fashion, dating, and partying, and even dismiss what she had seen with living sight as nothing more than children’s games. > > I like to think that Susan repented later in life, possibly when her outstandingly good looks had finally faded. She’d possibly been through a disastrous, but financially rewarding, marriage or two, and reached old age in a very genteel nursing home, where she was considered strange for her habit of talking nonsense to herself and may have been a little too fond of the sherry without actually becoming a disgrace. There’s a piece of fanfic that I’ve been telling myself to write for many years, but I don’t know that I ever will. 🙂 I’m glad people feel the possibility for her to repent is present, I’ve always hoped so myself! Have you read “The Problem of Susan,” by Neil Gaiman? He shows us an older Susan, although I’m not sure if she repented. It’s a … puzzling … story for me, because the concept is good, and I want it to be better than it is. It feels too short, I think, to really dig into the problem of Susan. Even though Lewis is criticizing Susan for being silly and shallow, if I were to sit down with him for a discussion about child development, I would be sure to argue the point that an interest in lipstick and stockings is a normal and healthy thing in many teenage girls, and more often that not, it passes without becoming anything alarming. As an adult reader _now_, I get that her exclusion from Narnia is more complex than lipstick and stockings. When I was a child reader, it was very confusing and troubling to me, and compounded my worries about being more childish than some of my peers, who were early bloomers. I even kept _The Last Battle_ on a different shelf than the other Narnia books, because I liked to pretend it didn’t happen (which is not a bad plan in a literary sense, either). ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/109 "2005-10-22T05:21:15Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > (First, I’m sorry I keep getting behind on this thread, I have not had as much time to read as I usually do!) > > I’m glad people feel the possibility for her to repent is present, I’ve always hoped so myself! So have I. Frankly I do agree that Susan’s treatment by Lewis was harsh. Then again, in the Battle of the Pevensie sisters, I always liked Susan more than little miss perfect Narnian Lucy. Maybe it’s that I prefer underdogs – Lewis makes it so damn clear that Susan is the Lesser Narnian of the two. There was always such an air of disapproval in the way Lewis spoke of Susan, mainly since so much of LWW and PC take place through the eyes of Susan’s admittedly jealous little sister. We’re supposed to dislike her because she behaves too much like a grown-up in LWW; can’t she be forgiven that behavior, since the kids have been sent away from their parents during a war and she _is_ one of the oldest of the siblings? What’s Lewis saying there, that older siblings shouldn’t behave responsibly towards their younger ones _even in an emergency_? Then in PC, when the foursome are swept back into what turns out to be Narnia, poor Susan is forced to into the role of grumpy disbeliever that Edmund abdicated in LWW. How I hated when Aslan took Susan to task for daring not to believe the wondrous prophet that is Lucy! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Susan resented Lucy’s special place in Aslan’s heart. I don’t mind a deity having favorites … but does he have to be so freakin’ _obvious_ about it? Speaking of that big lion … boy, he’s kind of an ingrate, isn’t he? Susan did her best to help free him before his Resurrection fer pete’s sake! Anyway, back to Lewis’s final dispensation of Suze in LB. Did her oh-so-awful crime of being a tad shallow really deserve such a bitter comeuppance? I’m not even talking about not seeing Aslan at the end – one can fanwank that she does end up in heaven/Narnia eventually – but rather, the horrific tragedy of losing her entire family at once. None of her siblings do much more than shrug at the thought of Susan’s having been left behind to mourn alone … not even the supremely compassionate Lucy. (Okay, yeah, I guess I have Lucy issues of my own. Proper little Aslan’s pet.) ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/110 "2005-10-22T05:36:02Z")
> [@choie](#): > > Anyway, back to Lewis’s final dispensation of Suze in LB. Did her oh-so-awful crime of being a tad shallow really deserve such a bitter comeuppance? I’m not even talking about not seeing Aslan at the end – one can fanwank that she does end up in heaven/Narnia eventually – but rather, the horrific tragedy of losing her entire family at once. None of her siblings do much more than shrug at the thought of Susan’s having been left behind to mourn alone … not even the supremely compassionate Lucy. The problem is that, well, Apocalyptic stories **are** a bit hard to deal with. Everybody’s dead, and you’re supposed to be _happy_. :dubious: On the other hand, while I agree Susan is being hit with a pretty hard blow in LB, it’s not the same fate, nor permanence, that, for example, the dwarfs who refused to ‘accept’ Aslan faced. Which was mourned, IIRC. If I may extend a biblical metaphor: the Pevinses, Eustace, and Jill Pole are all arrived at the great feast, do they then refuse to enjoy it becaue some of the other guests are late? That’s always been the impression I’d had about Susan whenever I’d read LB. She’s simply late, not abandoned. It may be my own nature forcing that interpretation onto the bones of the story, but I don’t think it’s all that far from it, either. Just my $.02. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/111 "2005-12-01T07:40:25Z")
Update: an interesting [article](http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=84bgxkbbzvqrch10g3kbwp5g8kv3ccbn) from the Chronicle of Higher Education looking at Pullman’s ever-more scathing criticism’s of the Narnia books (apparently he hasn’t let up). It argues many of the same points people argued here before, but it’s still an interesting article. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/112 "2005-12-01T11:33:23Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > The problem is that, well, Apocalyptic stories **are** a bit hard to deal with. Everybody’s dead, and you’re supposed to be _happy_. :dubious: > > On the other hand, while I agree Susan is being hit with a pretty hard blow in LB, it’s not the same fate, nor permanence, that, for example, the dwarfs who refused to ‘accept’ Aslan faced. Which was mourned, IIRC. If I may extend a biblical metaphor: the Pevinses, Eustace, and Jill Pole are all arrived at the great feast, do they then refuse to enjoy it becaue some of the other guests are late? That’s always been the impression I’d had about Susan whenever I’d read LB. She’s simply late, not abandoned. It may be my own nature forcing that interpretation onto the bones of the story, but I don’t think it’s all that far from it, either. > > Just my $.02. Well, as the thread’s been bumped: Why not be happy? So far from being dead, everyone’s just begun to be truly alive for ever - and since they all knew on some level that they would die sooner or later, they can count themselve blessed to have experienced it so easily. As for Susan, whether late or delayed is no longer the concern of the Pevensies et. al. This issue (or one like it) is addressed towards the end of _The Great Divorce_, and the thinking goes something along these lines: There comes a point at which those who insist on staying out in the cold can no longer compromise the happiness of those who have gone into the warm. Those who, in effect, use the pity of others as a weapon against them must find themselves disarmed. If all that was wrong with Susan was a little shallowness and flightiness, she had the rest of her life to turn aside from it. Possibly the tragic loss of her family was the enormous kick up the behind that she needed. Or possibly she went into a giant life-long sulk. Who knows? Upon checking the link - the author royally pwns Pullman, imho. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/113 "2005-12-01T14:19:50Z")
I don’t think it is surprising that every author writes a little bit of he believes in into his story. I think good stories come about because authors feel an overwhelming need to express themselves - what they believe is good about the world, their wishes, frustrations and desire. Hence, to me it is not surprising that _Chronicles_ and LOTR has Christian overtones. Both men who wrote the story are Christians. Take for example, HP. Lovecraft. He believes that religions are silly, the cosmics are there that there is and we men are insignificiant. His stories reflect that view. C.S Lewis, for instance, fought in World War I. When he has Father Christmas saying that it is an ugly thing when women fight, it might be something from his personal observations which has sunk into him. As for the racisim, standards for racisim change all the time. Chronicles is written decades ago and I don’t think it is fair to judge it with today’s standards of what is politically correct. Or are racial parallels only acceptable when that culture has ceased to exist or gone into obscurity? For example, in A Song of Ice and Fire, the Dothraki are plainly the Mongol Hordes. Is that a valid ground for complains? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/114 "2005-12-02T15:18:48Z")
The _Chronicle_ article has several good points. First, that Susan is just a fictional character. In the TLB, she’s used as a stand-in for _Lewis_. It’s a good point that Lewis was actually talking about his own failing in the transition from childhood to adulthood. If it makes anyone feel better, Lewis (and presumably Susan) grew out out of those pretensions. As for _The Problem of Susan_, it’s not really more of a problem than for anyone else. Everyone dies, and we all lose people - quite a lot of them in most cases. Sometimes, it’s pretty horrible. The problem is not that Susan lost people, or that’s she’s been “denied Narnia,” but that she goes out and blames Aslan (God) because British rail managed to smash a coupla hundred people into meatcakes. And it’s not like she didn’t have personal experience with Aslan being less-than-impressed with mortal screwups. It’s not like Aslan didn’t take the same pain on himself. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/115 "2005-12-02T15:35:22Z")
Though of something. People have commented about the general distate in both Lewis’ and Tolkein’s books for, essentially, Arabs. They are not depicted very pleasantly, it is argued, and this is racist. I neither know nor care whether they were racist. It’s irrelevant to me. However, I would note that England has never had a very pleasant relationship with ht Middle East (and Northern Arfrica); it has pretty much always been hostile on some level, and this goes back a millenium. It would be very unusual to expect Britons to _not_ be less-than-pleasant about the Middle-East, at least in their histories, fiction, and “collective consciousness.” This is, in fact, roughly true of most of Western and Southern Europe as well (not Italy so much). This goes back to the Crusades; despite persistent beliefs to the contrary, it was an ugly affair with nasty deeds on both sides. Certainly the Third Crusade (pretty much the first meeting of English and the ME ever) involved some rather vicious executions on both sides. Other “relationships” would have involved dealing with African pirates, other African pirates, and more African pirates. It might not be _fair_ to lump them in with the Middle East, but I suspect the English did. So, the point is that it would not be unusual for English or European authors to have a certain distaste for swarthy south-easterners. As a matter of fact, I think we ought to give Lewis kudos for not playing them too stereotypically. (They don’t really occupy any important place in Tolkein’s book, so we never get a sense of them except as soldiers). ---
**Author:** ![YaWanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/bbce88/32.png) [@YaWanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaWanna)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/116 "2005-12-02T19:55:26Z")
> [@choie](#): > > We’re supposed to dislike her because she behaves too much like a grown-up in LWW; can’t she be forgiven that behavior, since the kids have been sent away from their parents during a war and she _is_ one of the oldest of the siblings? What’s Lewis saying there, that older siblings shouldn’t behave responsibly towards their younger ones _even in an emergency_? > > Then in PC, when the foursome are swept back into what turns out to be Narnia, poor Susan is forced to into the role of grumpy disbeliever that Edmund abdicated in LWW. How I hated when Aslan took Susan to task for daring not to believe the wondrous prophet that is Lucy! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Susan resented Lucy’s special place in Aslan’s heart. I don’t mind a deity having favorites … but does he have to be so freakin’ _obvious_ about it? Suddenly, upon reading this, I was struck with the notion that Susan and Lucy _could_ be parallels of the NT sisters Martha and Mary. FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/117 "2005-12-03T00:51:26Z")
The Calormenes are vaguely Turkish, with perhaps a bit of Persian thrown in. Also idolators of Tash, who is a mysterious “bad god” (though good & well-meaning devotees of Tash are excused for following the god of their culture, interestingly enough). Not really Arabs as such. > [@Malacandra](#): > > The bit about “outdated fears of sexuality” is laughable too. Given that all the protagonists (apart from the White Witch, I guess, and Father Christmas) are children or animals, I’d be, like, _really_ worried about people looking for sexual subtexts. > > Someone else can talk about how “Turkish Delight” is a metaphor for another kind of forbidden fruit, if they like… Well, Turkish Delight is just candy. The Emerald Witch’s use of sex in her domination of Rilian is a pretty strong subtext. It’s only in like, the last week, coincidentally, that it’s occurred to me that I misinterpreted that as a child. It’s not that the Emerald Witch represents sexuality itself, but someone who uses sex (otherwise a good thing) for evil. So yeah, there is an unfortunate tendency for misinterpretation there, which is reinforced by all that misapprehension of the Narnia books as allegory (_they are not_) rather than fairy-story (_which they are_). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/118 "2005-12-03T01:02:13Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > You must understand that in the Christian view, _all_ good flows from God. _Everything_ worthwhile. To an extent, the beliefs of men are irrelevent. Not wholly of course; the major distinction is that Christians believe that we understand more of what we worship than others. Actually, far from being “the Christian view,” that’s Lewis’s view. Glad to see he convinced you. Go forth & convert more of your co-religionists. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/119 "2005-12-03T02:23:20Z")
Lewis’s idea of love is rather removed from many modern people’s, although not, I would suggest, so far removed from how it’s been understood for the best part of the past two thousand years or so, at any rate, by philosophers and others who have made it their business to reflect on such things. The idea of love (merely) as a feeling is given short shrift by Lewis. It’s more a matter of making the choice, against your own interests typically, to do what is right in any given situation, whether that be to ask forgiveness of God or other people, to simply obey God’s commandments or to set aside what you want to do to do what you know you should do. The feelings will grow as it were on the framework constructed by these acts of obedience. In a wartime letter to a woman who was considering being a Christian, Lewis addresses the severe picture of Jesus presented by the Gospels, which was seemingly troubling the woman as it had once troubled Lewis: "My own experience in reading the Gospels was at one stage even more depressing than yours. Everyone told me that I should find there a figure whom I couldn’t help loving. Well, I could!..Some of his behaviour seemed to me open to criticism, e.g. accepting an invitation to dine with a Pharisee and then loading him with torrents of abuse. Now the truth is, I think, that the sweetly-attractive-human-Jesus is a product of 19th century scepticism, produced by people who were ceasing to believe in his Divinity but wanted to keep as much of Christianity as they could. It is not what an unbeliever coming to the records with an open mind will (at first) find there. The first thing you really find is that we are simply not _invited_, so to speak, to pass any moral judgement on Him, however favourable: it is only too clear _He_ is going to do whatever judging there is: it is we who are _being_ judged, sometimes tenderly, sometimes with stunning severity…The first real work of the Gospels on a fresh reader is, and ought to be, to raise very acutely the question, ‘Who - or What - is This?’ For there is a good deal in the character which, unless He really is what He says He is - is not lovable nor even tolerable. If He _is_, then of course it’s another matter: nor will it then be surprising if much remains puzzling to the end. For if there is anything in Christianity, we are now approaching something which will never be fully comprehensible." ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899/120 "2005-12-04T15:25:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, far from being “the Christian view,” that’s Lewis’s view. Glad to see he convinced you. Go forth & convert more of your co-religionists. Heh. Well, I’ve been trying to convert a great number of people, without any apparent success. But one never knows. I think Lewis (and Tolkein’s) expressions of love are also more brotherly (or sisterly) than most are comfortable with today. Brotherly love is not something which usually gets attention, romantic and sexual love being all-consuming in the media nowadays. This may even be why Pullman thinks of it as being “devoid of love” : there isn’t anything he recognizes. Yet, there is a clear showing of this kind o love throughout the books, and friendship. I think both of these are important because of Lewis’s (and Tolkein’s) experience in WWI. Even memoirs about war often have a similar focus on heroism, sacrifice, and comradeship, so I can see how the experience of the War to End All Wars might have had a similar effect on two grunts in the trenches. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narnia-books-racist-mysoginistic-reactionary-and-devoid-of-love/326899.md?page=7)