Always Keep Trees in Reserve

My wife and I saw Prince Caspian on the big screen this afternoon. It was worth a matinee, and it’s cool to see the special effects team that brought the Middle Earth trilogy to life use their talents to realize a series that always been closely related, at least to me. In Narnia, as in Middle Earth, the first rule of warfare is to make sure the forest full of sentient, angry oak trees is on your side.

Aside from the slightly wooden performances from the children who play Narnia’s kings and queens in exile, it was an enjoyable film that will probably ensure that the franchise makes its way to at least the fourth or fifth book. The Last Battle is unlikely to ever make it to screen due to its relatively grim and disjointed apocalypse theme, but A Horse And His Boy would still be pretty cool.

One of the only real difficulties in watching the film, though, is the realization that Lewis’ desire to cheer on faithful Christians was a huge shaping force in the narrative. Prince Caspian, at its heart, is a story about a nation of atheists who don’t believe in Aslan (Lewis’ Christ-figure) being shown up when he returns to defeat them with huge feats of power. The film’s fundamental tension is not “Will Aslan save us,” but “Will the good guys keep the faith?” It’s a question with a lot of resonance for Christians, but when the film itself is studied without the supporting struts of its allegory, it feels… well, pretty forced.

The creatures of Narnia who lost faith in Aslan did so for a reason. He left Narnia 700 years ago, allowed it to be defeated and subjugated by another nation, and allowed the sentient creatures that inhabited it to be slaughtered en masse. This campaign of genocide was so thorough that most of the country’s new residents think the old inhabitants are nothing but fairy tales. Now, though, things are about to change: the old kings and queens (the stars of the first movie) have arrived back to save Narnia, and they’re ready to rumble.

The biggest threat to their cause, though, is not the occupying army, but doubting Aslan. The all-powerful lion doesn’t appear for the bulk of the film, leaving it to the characters to figure out the best course of action. At a critical point in the story, they have an opportunity to strike a decisive blow against the occupying army. The youngest of the four, Lucy, says that they should wait for Aslan. Her brother replies that they’ve “waited for Aslan long enough: it’s in our hands now.” It’s a statement that most Christians immediately recognize as a terrible, terrible move: everyone knows that God will come in to save you at the eleventh hour, and the worst thing you can do is lose faith at 10:30. True to form, the elder brother’s decision is a mistake and the Narnians pay for it in blood. If only they’d waited!

Even with the polish of a fairy tale, though, Lewis’ great allegory of Christianity can’t remove the uncomfortable burning question: How long must one wait for Aslan? He’s been gone for seven centuries, after all. If he was planning on stepping in to stop the genocide, any time over the past millennia or so would’ve been great. Awesome, in fact. Did the countless Narnians who died believe Aslan would bound in at the 11th hour to save them, too? Did they not believe enough? Or were they mistaken?

Even in Narnia, the problem of evil exists. When he does finally show up to save the main characters, Aslan’s answer to the question is simple, if inscrutable: “Things never happen the same way twice.” And then it’s time for Lucy to hug his mane. The dilemma is one that Narnia can’t overcome without betraying the orthodoxy that’s woven deep into the fabric of the story.

I’m reminded of Lewis’ lesser known but profoundly beautiful book, Til We Have Faces. Rather than weaving a fairy-tale into a Christian allegory, Til We Have Faces is a retelling of Greek myth: in particular, the story of Cupid and Psyche. It’s tragic, moving, and ambiguous. Free of the need to make a character like Aslan conform to the demands of orthodoxy, the story’s Cupid is complex and ambiguous. Alternately intriguing and monstrous, Cupid is always just out of sight and frightening for it. In comparison, Aslan is nothing more than a lion who cuddles with good people but eats bad people.

I wonder sometimes if the Narnia series is really the story of imagination chained to rigid orthodoxy.