the chronicles of narnia

She is not gentle. She is angry, she is rage, she is the storm itself.

But she is valiant standing alone, when people say her family is survived by her alone.

She is not gentle. She is screaming, she is crying, she is a mess.

But she wants justice and doesn’t feel as though losing her family is just.

She is not gentle. She is falling, she is sinking, she is alone.

The first day back in England, every one of the Pevensie children managed an extravagant fall. 

Their legs are shorter than they should be, but they can’t say this out loud. 

Weeks go by. Eventually, they all relearn how to walk. 

But there are other, stranger things they can’t relearn. 

Like how:

Lucy is eight. 

Lucy is twenty-three. 

She can’t remember how to be small and unimportant, or how to play children’s games. Fifteen years in another world have left her used to being listened to, relied upon. The horrors of war are far less frightening than the horror of ignorance, of tiny uncalloused hands. Or waking in the night remembering the culture, the world she left behind.

Like how:

And Susan is twelve - nearly - thirty.

With small children of her own under her care. She can’t forget the feel of them growing inside her. 

She can’t unlearn the way her ears are always listening for them. Years later she is still celebrating birthdays for people who live only in her memory, only knee high. At night she’d kept awake wondering about the strangers she gave birth too. 

So she keeps trying to forget.

For the boys it is different. But not better:

Peter is thirteen and full of anger. The adults call it puberty. The adults don’t realize the shadow in his eyes is the same shadow in the eyes of returning soldiers. High King Peter, with so many lives under his command now commands nothing, and knows nothing. Responsibility and questions weigh on him. 

But Edmund wakes up one day and realizes that after so many years no stranger can ever go to war with him about a child betraying his family for roses and sugar. His worst mistake weighs only on his mind now. And somehow, it’s this small silver lining that lets him pull their family back from the brink. He is no longer the broken one, no longer haunted by a child he no longer is.

Even so.

The Pevensie’s are adrift in a world of smoke and debris, and the rolling empty countryside. The war here is not fought with swords and fangs, but gas, and fire from above.

A fate worse than death is not being turned to stone. 

There is no Lion coming at the eleventh hour to save them all. No lion except the one they carry inside themselves. 

And that would have to be enough. 

So each Pevensie found a way to matter, to change, to save. 

And a little bit of Aslan crept in around the corners when they needed him most. 

There was a snap and a growl to Lucy her mother had never seen. 

A spine of unyielding stone in Susan. 

A soft listening silence in Edmund. 

And in Peter a flash of fang, and reckless hope. 

The Pevensies are not in Narnia. 

“Yes,” said Caspian with a sob,

They didn’t remember England, or the wardrobe, or their old lives, they were Narnians and they were pushed back, not only into a world that was bound to make them miserable, but also into bodies that couldn’t reflect what they’d been through.

Just imagine Peter, waking up in the morning, not remembering that he isn’t the Magnificent anymore, imagine him subconsciously reaching for something to trim his beard, only to remember that it isn’t there anymore, to expect old battle wounds to hurt until he realises that they can’t because he doesn’t have them.

Or Edmund, who left England a stubborn selfish little boy who only wanted his mummy back, and came back the Just, the redeemed traitor, the diplomat, the man, having to resort to being ten years old and probably not even allowed to peek at a newspaper because he’s just a child after all. He plays chess, incredibly well, he doesn’t mock his siblings anymore and all the friends he knew when he was still a boy are either irritated at his behaviour or too childish, too selfish for somebody who knows very well just what selfishness can do, who has a part of the White Witch in him, always.

Susan forgets, we all know that. She must’ve lain awake at night, remembering just what it felt like to cover pain and viciousness and gore with a smile and a blush, remembering being the Gentle, but never in war. She must’ve cried for all the lost years, for all that she learnt and that she can never forget, for all that she has accomplished, that will bring her nothing in this world that doesn’t feel like hers. So she sits down in front of a mirror, talks herself out of believing, telling herself that it wasn’t real, that it was just a dream, that this Narnia her siblings talk about is nothing but a game. The truth is too terrifying, to devastating to face.

Lucy, little Lucy, who grew up under Mr Tumnus’ smiles and Aslan’s approving gaze, who was loved by all, who did learn how to rule, how to negotiate but who never forgot just what it means to be a queen of Narnia, this girl who matured into a woman, who had a woman’s mind and body and a queen’s grace, she who they called the Valiant, the lion’s daughter, she shrank into herself, into a child, younger than even her siblings. She remembers, clearest of them all, she is the only one who still knows Mr Tumnus’ face, still knows Aslan, but she is just a girl, a pretty little thing who will never be the queen she was, who will never be the woman she was because queenship forms a person in ways no schools can.

Narnia was a place that swallowed 4 children, taking them away from a war and put them in another war that was so much easier to understand.

It gave them a war that was blank and white and simple, and they won it.

And then they grew up.

And slowly that was they can from became a dream, or a dream within a dream.

Have you ever had a nightmare and woken up and just been in such complete panic? The feeling of realizing that it was all a dream is exhilarating, and the relief you feel as the panic drains out of you.

Imagine that in reverse.

Everything had faded.

And suddenly it was back and they were back and everything they had learned and earned in the other world had meant nothing because no one knew, no one would believe them.

The clock had reversed and it was horrible.

And they got to go back is what makes it worse. They had the taste again, they were home! And then it was ripped from them and Peter and Susan got told that they would never get to come back.

Can you blame them for hurting?

It’s like getting a bite when you used to get the whole cake.

And imagine that pain, Aslan saying that their time is up, that they are done.

This number appears a lot in Revelation. Seven churches, seven lampstands, seven seals, seven spirits of God, seven angels, seven trumpets, etc… of course, this is the last book in the Bible. We can see how this means that everything is complete.

So when I was searching for parallels in The Last Battle, the Seven Friends of Narnia stand out. There they are: Seven. The seven friends. The seven churches. The seven lampstands. And it just seems so clear that this is what the seven friends are meant to represent! 

But when these 7 stand there; 7, in completion; I can’t help wondering what about Susan?

So I looked it up. Do you know what the number 8 represents in the Bible? Do you have any idea?

New beginnings. Resurrection. Regeneration. New life.