I waited until I was on my laptop to answer this, because this is such a lovely and thoughtful review, and I wanted to do it justice in my reply. Thank you for being so kind! I'm so glad you loved this. <333 (I, too, am a sucker for the "Lucy and Caspian having children" trope, and something about making Rilian their son makes Silver Chair so much more interesting to me.)
Thank you for the compliment about Susan! Your paragraph about her made perfect sense. I often find her difficult to write, but this time it was surprisingly easy. I also struggle with the "Aslan is an asshole" headcanons, because in many ways he is, but I also appreciate the analogy to God's manifestations, such as it is. And in the previous story I think I sort of settled that with myself by having the worst of Aslan be the Aslan who is under the Enchantress' control, and so within the frame of the story, it's not actually him doing these awful things to Lucy and Caspian (although, I also ended up having his father interfere and basically dictate to Aslan, which tells you something about my level of certainty that Aslan would have let them be happy).
And I didn't originally intend for all of that to come back in the way it does here, but - because Lucy is grieving, because she's been torn away from her husband and son, because she has been forced out of Narnia, she's having her own crisis of faith. She knew their time was limited, but she feels like it's Aslan who has done this to all of them, in the cruelest way possible. And Edmund, who has already been there, holds her steady, and she reaches out to Susan, who (she thinks) has no faith left, because maybe it's easier not to believe, when your whole world has shattered.
Then Susan comes back with the letter, and you said it so beautifully - that maybe she won't ever be a "Friend of Narnia" again per se, but will find peace in her own truth. Her articulation of the idea that Evil is its own sustaining force that operates regardless of Aslan was really important to me, because it means Su can separate things like what happened under Jadis, what has happened because of the Enchantress, etc., and recognize that these are not pre-ordained things that Aslan condones, but things that happen because Evil has its own will. And so her contention with Aslan is not that he allows all terrible things to happen (because really, then, why would we bother to have a concept of divinity at all?), but that he doesn't change terrible things that are under his purview (e.g. tearing them all out of Narnia the first time, without a proper chance to say goodbye, and then bringing them back to Narnia to help Caspian and rubbing their faces in what happened because they left, when their leaving was his doing in the first place. And I'd be willing to bet there's a list of things that happened while they were still in Narnia that she hasn't forgotten, either). And her anchor in all of this, her point of gratitude, is that Lucy is alive. What I hope is clear in Lucy's flashback is that it was the Enchantress who was magically holding her hostage, keeping her from trying to save Rilian and literally trying to kill her, and that she falls back into England because Aslan saves her from drowning - takes her back through the painting before she can die in the tide. And that is Lucy's other point of fury and grief, is that Aslan saves her and not her son - and yet here is Su, saying that maybe she can find a foothold with Aslan again because Lucy is alive.
That got much longer than I intended for it to be! :) But I also love thinking about how each of the four of them contends with their own faith, and what might be the point at which each of them really questions it, and what they find that helps them return to it, or to their own truth in Susan's case. And I just love Eustace so much. I think the thing that is going to help me the most, when I finally get to the point of redoing Silver Chair, is thinking about how Eustace's approach to all of it will be different, because he knows from the start that it is Lucy and Caspian's son that he's saving, and he's doing it for them. (And I think he is going to have his own bone to pick with Aslan - I love the idea that is under the surface, here, that he's silently but totally loyal to Lucy and devastated on her behalf, and on Caspian's behalf as well.)
It is sooo interesting. The idea of this being Lucy's crisis of faith (of course, way more painful than anyone else's because she's the only one who could possibly bear it). I love the idea of Susan's "return" acting as a sort of confirmation for Lucy that she might still be on the right track. And I wonder how involved Lucy will be in Eustace's plan to go back!
But ugh the idea of Eustace wanting to go back to Narnia not just to see his friends again as in SC, but with an URGENT TERRIBLE MISSION -- that's so powerful. And I wonder if he scopes out Jill ahead of time to see if she's a worthy teammate for a challenge of this complexity. He would totally think as many details through as he could!
I wonder about Lucy and Eustace's plan as well! I don't know that part yet. And yes - I feel like this is an awful, painful crisis for Lucy to have, and so much worse because she has always had so much faith.
And yes, it also hurts to think about Eustace not just going back to Narnia in SC because he wants to, or to escape Them, but because he has this urgent terrible thing he has to do. I'm not sure what he will do about Jill, but you are totally right - he's so detail oriented that I think he would try to plan for as much as possible!
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HarmonyLover Fri 11 Jun 2021 01:15PM UTC
Last Edited Fri 11 Jun 2021 01:32PM UTC
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nasimwrites Fri 11 Jun 2021 04:56PM UTC
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HarmonyLover Sat 12 Jun 2021 02:12AM UTC
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