The Lion was bigger every year
[Look: I love the Narnia books and I know them all like the back of both of my hands and I never let one hand know what the other is doing. If I do this now it means I don’t have to do it later. Everyone does it sooner or later. I am just a little tired of the same third-hand worn-out story about lipsticks and nylons passed around from people who never took any interest in Susan or Susan’s character until it was all over and too late, and who dare call themselves her partisans now. Oh but take it in a gentle spirit, please; you know I don’t mean it really. not really.
A few notes/quotes at the end if you don’t want to take the easy way and trust me, but I could not find the citation for Edmund’s Beard. It is fast approaching 3 in the morning so I let it go. Perhaps there is no Beard. Perhaps there never was a Beard on the face of King Edmund the Just. Perhaps I only dreamed it, like the Sun and the Sky and the world above.
Once there were four children who were sent away from London because of the air-raids, and they got to be Kings and Queens once they got the good strong air in their lungs. The lion was bigger every year because he gets bigger every time you get older, and that’s going to be a problem sometime unless we find a way to stop the years passing, the land won’t hold him.
As for the children, they were Peter first, the hollow crown, made of wheat paste and pencil shavings. He wasn’t good for anything but he was the Oldest and when you are the older brother and the firstborn son you are as good as gold & as good as God. If he said Do something you did it. Or what? Or nothing! You did it, because he was Peter, the oldest brother, and that’s how it was and that’s all. He got a sword for a Christmas present and he killed a wolf with it. Applaud for Peter, won’t you? He’s oldest. It means so much to him, it’s all he’s got.
There was then Susan, no more backbone than a bowl of milk, sentimental as every card in the Hallmark aisle. They gave her a bow to let her do distance mercy-killing and it still wasn’t far enough away for her. Show her an animal and she’d take pity on it. Show her a humiliation and she’d turn her eyes from it so as not to make it worse for the poor soul. Make her play a game and she’d lose on purpose. What if I win and it hurts his feelings? Susan says. His hurt feelings will hurt my tender heart. What if, what if, what if. Anxiety is the enemy of action and sympathy is the mother of anxiety, and a Queen murders the mothers of her enemies if she cares about the dynastic line. DO you care, Susan? Do you care that the four thrones be held by the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve until the sun turns red and small, or would you be happy with a, with a, with a badger and a HEDGEhog as the holy high priest-kings of this land just so long as it meant no killing?
Susan is not listening, Susan is making sandwiches for the Spring festival picnic while the lion leans his paw into Jadis’s chest and breaths his hot breath in her eyes. Susan doesn’t want to look over there and doesn’t care for the question. Susan thinks hedgehogs are darling, as worthy as we are or near enough, and kings are just a little silly, so where would be the harm in relaxing the rules a little: a very grown-up attitude picked up from the romance phonograph and the jazz magazines.
Is there NO way to straighten her spine, Lord? Lord, may she be spared if I induce her to kill just one small thing and feel no pity? Listen, Susan, ‘children are innocent and love justice; adults are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.’ That’s paraphrased, which is a sin. Where is your innocence gone? Your brother’s epithet is Just, because mercy washes away with guilt. Every accommodation, every practicality, every tenderness, every shudder, every time you put your hands in water instead of blood you make it worse for yourself. Will you not even observe while I do the cruelty? Observing is participation. Susan, you are in danger. Oh Susan, Susan, if I put the blade in your hand and force your fingers round it and strap the victim to the altar FOR you and tell you Cut his throat or go to hell, you’d go to hell. Later she went to hell, where the weak ones go.
That would be a lie if we were allowed to lie, but we aren’t of course, we aren’t saying that. That’s only what we think, because we like to think it, it gives us a thrill. We wouldn’t know, here in Forever. Susan we gave you all the chances! Susan if you are a very old lady you will have outgrown all your nagging, all your responsibility, all your talking-like-Mother, all your softness, won’t you have? Susan you are very special to us and if you will throw yourself over the pit we promise to catch you on the other side, but if you look back in sorrow only once to say good-bye you will turn into a pillar of salt and we will send the White Stag to use you as a salt lick and we will not be sorry, we are too good to be sorry. You have never been too good to be sorry, Susan, and we don’t forgive you.
There was Edmund, the Traitor, who grew a Beard when he grew up because repentant traitors are desperately alluring and you got to hide that allure behind a curtain of some sort or the Dryads will get ideas. Who is there for Edmund? For Susan there was to have been Rabadash, but that went badly. The tired-looking girl teaching arithmetic, she and Edmund could have been for each other if they’d met at the right time, but they didn’t, and she might have gone with Bacchus anyway. There isn’t anybody for Edmund in all of Creation. Edmund is the only one of them all who needs to be grown up, and there isn’t anybody.
He needs it because he was a bad Boy but he is a good Man. Susan is his shield, the only one they suspect of liking to be grown-up; they never look behind her to him when they’re in a mood to be looking. But he doesn’t thank her for it inside his head, he isn’t grateful at all. Isn’t that curious!
Then there was Lucy! Lucy was the favorite. Lucy was like iron, no feelings at all, that’s why she went to Heaven on a train. Susan got the horrors when they made her eat a bear but Lucy didn’t mind, Lucy’d eat anybody. Lucy would eat a combine harvester if that lion told her to. Once Lucy had an honest emotion when the lion was watching and he taught her a lesson, so she knew not to do it again. If they’d let Lucy grow up she’d have eaten the whole world starting with the sandy beaches, and then the grassy rolling hills, and with the Lion getting bigger and bigger every year he’s barely got a place to stand and you know he’s got four paws, and then she’d drink up the sea, and the Emperor-over-Sea would have no place to hide himself, and that wouldn’t be appropriate.
No: so they had to send Lucy further up and further in, where the fruit trees replenish themselves as soon as you eat of them. Lucy thinks about eating Heaven down to the ground sometimes. Lucy thinks about eating Heaven to the ground all the time. It used to be just the four of them, and she was Peter’s favorite sister. There’s no one here to be the other sister now, so favorite sister doesn’t mean anything anymore. All that struggle to show no pleasure in being the best, and now nobody’s better than anyone else! You call that a reward? And now every good boy and girl in the world is here, and their parents are here, and the Professor is here, and it’s very crowded.
[Notes:
The Lion was bigger every year.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
—Prince Caspian
every shudder
and Susan (who never could learn to like this sort of thing) shouted out, “Oh do be careful.”
What if I win and it hurts his feelings?
because Susan was so tender-hearted that she almost hated to beat someone who had been beaten already.
What if I win and it hurts his feelings?
“It really wasn’t any better than yours,” said Susan to the Dwarf. “I think there was a tiny breath of wind when you shot.”
all your nagging, all your responsibility, all your talking-like-Mother
“Susan!” said Lucy, reproachfully, “don’t nag at Peter like that.”
all your nagging, all your responsibility, all your talking-like-Mother
“Where did you think you saw him?” asked Susan.
“Don’t talk like a grown-up,” said Lucy, stamping her foot.
Anxiety is the enemy
after an awful pause, the deep voice said, “Susan.” Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. “You have listened to fears, child,” said Aslan. Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?”
—ibid.
Anxiety is the enemy
“I am the cause of all this,” said Susan, bursting into tears….And she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
—The Horse and His Boy
Once Lucy had an honest emotion when the lion was watching
From somewhere deep inside Aslan’s body there came the faintest suggestion of a growl.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lucy, who understood some of his moods. ‘I didn’t mean to start slanging the others. But it wasn’t my fault anyway, was it?’
The Lion looked straight into her eyes. ‘
Oh Aslan,’ said Lucy. ‘You don’t mean it was? How could I—I couldn’t have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I? Don’t look at me like that…oh well, I suppse I could. Yes, and it wouldn’t have been alone, I know, not if I was with you. But what would have been the good?’
Aslan said nothing.
—Prince Caspian
oh god you aren’t still hounding me for proofs & refutations are you? you got to let a woman sleep sometimes. I’m sure all the other evidence is in here somewhere.