“Great Lion” – Callum Quinn, © 2022
When I was younger, I was always surprised to hear that some religious families refuse to let their children read The Chronicles of Narnia.
My immediate response was always one of confusion. What could possibly be “dangerous” in these children’s novels about talking animals and faraway lands? I could easily grasp their hostility for the Harry Potter series, which takes place in a universe full of good people fighting evil, but with god-like powers on their side. And I could even understand how some were fearful of the Star Wars franchise, which is a trilogy that follows good people fighting evil with a god-like power on their side. But I never understood how the Narnia series, a set of timeless classics featuring good people fighting evil with a higher, god-like power on their side, would cause alarm for families invested in the biblical stories of good fighting evil with the power of god on their side.
As I grew up, the reasoning (more or less) fell into place. As blatantly based on lessons of Christianity as those stories are, there is a heavy amount of magic inter-woven with every plot, character, and situation. And, ultimately, many religions consider the very idea of magic “blasphemous.” But as time went on, and I became more involved with the stories and their religious implications, I ended up uncovering even more details within the Narnia series that actually evoke very non-Christian philosophies, further driving home the realization that, perhaps, it is not so far-fetched that Christian parents would be wary.
The supreme irony of this realization is that the bulk of the details suggesting non-Christian themes within this series are centered on the great lion himself: Aslan. But how, you might ask, could the very obvious Christ-figure of the Narnian universe diminish Christian faith in young minds instead of develop it? Well, though they may hold the same ideals and represent the same religious system overall, the ways Aslan the Lion and the god of Christianity administer their rules and beliefs are vastly, and importantly, different.
First and foremost: Aslan is a lion. What’s not to love about that? But the fact he is a lion also adds a sanctity to animal life. In Genesis it is made perfectly clear that humankind has superiority:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground” (Genesis 1:26).
In the land of Narnia, however, man was not even part of Aslan’s creation. Man was pretty much there by accident—never Narnian-born. It is the animals that arise from the earth, and the animals that Aslan gives the power to speak. And he tells them:
“The dumb beasts whom I have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently, and cherish them” (The Magician’s Nephew).
Further into the story he dubs regular country-folk Frank and Nellie as the first king and queen of Narnia. But even as he establishes humans as rulers he makes it clear to them that the position comes, not with superiority, but responsibility:
“You shall rule and name all these creatures, and do justice among them, and protect them from their enemies when enemies arise” (The Magician’s Nephew).
Further still, Frank begins to protest being made king, proclaiming that he does not have the right skills to rule, whereby Aslan asks:
“Can you use a spade and plow and raise food out of the earth? …Can you rule these creatures kindly and fairly, remembering that they are not slaves like the dumb beasts of the world you were born in, but talking beasts and free subjects? …And you wouldn’t have favorites, either among your own children or among the other creatures?”
This respect for the beasts of Narnia encompasses both those that can talk and those that cannot. Such a structure provides not only a sense of unity among Narnian citizens, but also a deep connection to nature. This connection with and power of nature can be further demonstrated by the tree—a powerful symbol within nature spiritualities—that is grown in The Magician’s Nephew, and meant to protect Narnia from the White Witch. Add that to all the dryads and naiads and other mythological entities running about, and you find yourself in a setting that rings truer of pagan ideals than Christian principles.
On that note, another attractive quality of Aslan as a spiritual figure is the fact that magic is not something evil in his world. In fact, some of the other beings he created possess their own magical abilities. First of all, there is the wizard, Coriakin, whose island they visit in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He, in fact, seems to have a very close relationship with the lion, in spite of owning a large book full of spells for every occasion. There is also the centaur, Roonwit, from The Last Battle, who reads the stars. And while some may argue that reading the stars is not necessarily a “magical ability,” it is still an aspect of nature spirituality that most monotheistic faiths tend to shy away from.
But more importantly, Aslan also expects his subjects to reflect on, and thereby, take responsibility for, their own actions, in a way that suggests a kind of karmic intervention. For instance, in The Magician’s Nephew, the character Diggory is single-handedly responsible for releasing the White Witch into Narnia. And somewhere along the way he administers physical harm to his friend Polly, who tries to stop him from ringing the bell that wakes the witch from her slumber. When he approaches Aslan for the first time, the Lion makes him confront the damage:
“Son of Adam, there is an evil witch abroad in my new land of Narnia. Tell these good beasts how she came here.”
“I—I brought her, Aslan.”
“For what purpose?”
“I wanted to get her out of my world back into her own. I thought I was taking her back to her own place.”
“How came she to be in your world, Son of Adam?”
“By magic… [We] met the witch in a place called Charn. And she just held onto us when—”
“You met the witch?”
“She woke up. I mean, I woke her… I think I was a bit enchanted by the writing under the bell.”
“Do you?”
“No. I see now I wasn’t. I was only pretending.”
Aslan already knows all there is to know about the situation, yet instead of turning his wrath on Diggory for his wrongdoings he asks Polly if she has forgiven him for “the violence he did [her]” on Charn, and furthermore makes Diggory responsible to fetch the apple which will grow the tree which will protect Narnia. He assigns this task under the proclamation that, “As Adam’s race has done harm, Adam’s race shall help to heal it.”
But the more karmic side of Aslan’s law is best observed in The Horse and His Boy, a couple books further into the series. In this instance, the Tarkeena, Aravis, has escaped her arranged marriage by drugging her stepmother’s slave and running off into the night. As the story goes along, Aravis and her travel companions find themselves pursued by, what they think is, a normal lion. As they race into Archenland the lion catches up with her and slashes its claws across her back. She survives, of course, and it is later revealed the lion who pursued them all along was Aslan.
He asks her, “Do you know why I tore you?” and when she replies that she doesn’t, he explains:
“The scratches on your back, tear for tear, throb for throb, blood for blood, were equal to the stripes laid on the back of your stepmother’s slave because of the drugged sleep you cast upon her. You needed to know what it felt like” (The Horse and His Boy).
To many eastern cultures and pagan spiritualities, the idea behind karma is that every action we make causes an equal reaction from the universe, i.e.: doing good draws good things to us, and likewise with the bad. Some even believe that our actions result in reactions that are threefold, or three times the size. Lucky for those who do good; a well-deserved pain for those who have done harm.
Aslan’s insistence that Aravis feel the same pain she’d caused is extremely reminiscent of the idea behind karma. Even in The Magician’s Nephew, he states that though the witch will inevitably cause harm to Narnia, “Evil will come of that evil,” hinting again at the prospect of a karmic reaction.
— CO
This Study in Character will continue next month with Part II: “Wait–There’s More.”
