Aslan and the crossing of the Rush

[jack]

In Prince Caspian, there's a bit where the children are trying to find a way across country to join Caspian before his army is overrun, and their way is blocked by a steep gorge.

They conclude the only sensible plan is to follow the river downstream to the conflux with the great river, where they know there's a crossing quite close to where they're trying to go. However, Lucy sees Aslan in the distance and realises He wants them to go upstream.

When I first read it, I just glossed over this bit confused, but now I think it's an obvious allegory for people knowing what God wants them to do, but not living up to it.

However, even now, this just doesn't seem to make sense with the context of the book.

* Forget "which way along the river". Even if only Lucy saw him, whether the others find this suspicious or not, why don't they rush to where he was in case he's still there? That seems the immediately obvious thing to do, whatever he was trying to tell them.

* If you follow the geography, you realise that what they really want to do was find a place they can cross the river, which is what they eventually find, but (partly my fault), I didn't quite get this from the dialogue, so I couldn't see why they would ever go up the river if they've just said down is the way to where they're going.

* If they want a crossing place, is there any reason other than divine revelation why it's more likely to be upstream than down?

* Later on, one of the older Pevensies makes a comment implying they saw going downstream as "easier", implying they made that choice because they didn't have the determination to go upstream. But if they were tired, I couldn't see why they'd wrongly prefer to go downstream: when I'm tired is exactly when I'd want to take silly risks like "go upstream in case there's an easy crossing place that will take us right to our destination" instead of "go round the long but safe way".

It may not make much difference practically, but the difference seems to be, were the Pevensies supposed to know that upstream was better even without Aslan? Or to know deep down that it was better, but not have the moral fortitude to follow through with it, for some reason?

For that matter, Aslan never says that He's leading them to a way across. For all they know, Aslan is leading them to something else entirely, letting Caspian et al die.

Now, they know Him well enough to trust him at this point. I may not agree with the Narnian theology in the real world, but I think I know that according to the narrative, the "right" thing to do is always to trust Aslan. But "trust in God" encompasses a wide variety of difficult choices.

Is this supposed to be a case of "you know you should do X, but you're scared it won't work, or you'll be embarrassed, or you'll let everyone down" and God tells you to do X? I think that's what most revelations are supposed to be. Or is this supposed to be like Abraham and Isaac, "do this apparently horrible immoral thing because God says there's a good reason for it but won't tell you what it is"?

I think people disagree about the latter even within Abrahamic theologies.

I don't think that's the choice Lewis is trying to present, but because there's not enough logistical and geographical explanation, it feels like it might be, even though I think Lewis intended a simple "they knew that was the right thing, but failed to do it anyway" parable, he just failed to give them a reason to know it was the right thing.

Comments

[ptc24]

It's been a long long time since I've read the book, and the relevant bit doesn't stick in my mind. But two things:

1) Rivers tend to get narrower upstream, although this may be irrelevant on the scale described.
2) How much of this is about trusting Aslan, and how much is about trusting Lucy?

[jack]

Rivers tend to get narrower upstream, although this may be irrelevant on the scale described.

Good point. I think that does make upstread more likely than downstream to find a crossing place, but I think it's a mistake for the book not to mention it.

2) How much of this is about trusting Aslan, and how much is about trusting Lucy?

Very good question. The book presents it as purely a "trust Aslan" thing, and even though I was puzzled, I certainly never seriously thought Lucy was mistaken.

There's a similar point later in Silver Chair, where Aslan says "the first person to ask you for something in my name will be Prince Rillian". He doesn't say "and you should automatically grant the request even if it seems like a bad idea", but the book implies that that's the only sensible choice. Although that's somewhat counterpointed in The Last Battle, where people are presumably not supposed to follow the donkey-dressed-as-Aslan when he says to do bad things, even though normally you are supposed to do what Aslan says.

On the other hand, they all say they would trust Aslan if he was there, even if they didn't understand what he wanted, so apparently they do think the only question is "is Lucy reliable"? But later on, Aslan doesn't act as if they should have more faith in Lucy, but more faith in Him, so apparently they were supposed to be able to tell somehow that because Lucy referenced Aslan, she must have been right.

[ptc24]

Very good question. The book presents it as purely a "trust Aslan" thing, and even though I was puzzled, I certainly never seriously thought Lucy was mistaken.

I'm wondering now if the issue isn't a reliability thing, but an "emotional oomph" thing. Normally, you can subtly hint to someone you'd like something done, or say it directly, or shout, and maybe if you're too forceful people will get annoyed with you for being aggressive and if you're too subtle people might genuinely fail to get your meaning, but apart from that, the more forceful you are the more effect you're likely to have on someone. Now if the Pevensies are treating Aslan as being merely Very Important rather than Infinitely Important, then if Aslan drops a very subtle hint via Lucy, then it might just not have enough oomph to overcome "I've got a plan and I'm sticking to it".

[andrewducker]

Interesting. My memory is that it's a test of Lucy's faith in Aslan, and everyone else's faith in Lucy.

But it's been a few years.

[naath]

"easier" > upstream might be up hill as well; also if they *know* there is a crossing downstream and don't know there is one upstream then "upstream" might mean "walk upstream for a day, find that there is no crossing there, walk all the way back". Then the moral appears to be "sill children should have known the geography of Narnia better" or perhaps "you should try difficult things that might work before easy things that you know will work" or something.

[jack]

"silly children should have known the geography of Narnia better" or perhaps "you should try difficult things that might work before easy things that you know will work"

It does seem a bit like that. But surely Lewis can't be suggesting people just always do things the difficult way.

Susan: What are you doing?
Peter: Ing t'ying to bour the cereal ushing on'y 'y teesh
Susan: Why don't you just use your hands?
Peter: Pfah! Away, foul temptress, don't you the easy path is the one to HELL?

And they were doing fairly well on geography: they found their way to the right point, and any of the alternative routes would have been much worse, and the only thing they didn't know was that the river had carved a gorge in the last 1000 years, which they had no way TO know :)

[simont]

Peter: Pfah!

+ sound of cereal scattering spectacularly all over the floor

(FTFY)

[jack]

LOL. I couldn't bring myself to type another sentence in mouth-closed language, so I tried to choose an exclamation that would work for that line without context as a general noise of disgust, or work with the previous line as a "peter disgustedly drops cereal packet back onto the table" noise.

I envisaged him close enough to the table that it might fall over, but wouldn't automatically spill all over the floor.

But unsurprisingly, I wasn't precise enough to avoid pedantic comments :)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think they were supposed to know without Aslan. I don't think it's an allegory about moral foritude and doing what you know deep down is right; but about trusting and obeying when you're doing something that seems sensible enough and God tells you to do something else. (Which I guess makes it less generally applicable, since that happens less often.)

Vaguely like Abraham and Isaac, but "apparently foolish or pointless thing" rather than "apparently horrible immoral thing." Like, I don't know, being called to plant a church in some cynical and unreceptive place.

Although I should probably re-read it to be sure.

[jack]

about trusting and obeying when you're doing something that seems sensible enough and God tells you to do something else

You're right, I think that's the best fit.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Sorry, the anonymous was me (Rachael). DreamWidth confuses me.

[atreic]

I think thinking too hard about Narnia is a bit doomed to failure, but I always saw this bit as 'be aware that God might speak to you through others, even if they're smaller than you, and even if you're not in the mood to hear them, and if you do listen to them things will be Better for it'. I think it's a cautionary tale about assuming God will always manifest directly to you because You're the Most Important.

[jack]

a cautionary tale about assuming God will always manifest directly to you because You're the Most Important.

Ooh, that's an interesting point. And yes, I think that's basically right, that regardless of the reason, they're supposed to have listened to the one who Aslan showed himself to.

Although as a message it's a bit undermined because Peter may be In Charge, but Lucy always had a Special Connection to Aslan, so it might actually have been more of a reversal if Aslan had revealed himself to Edmund or Susan, and the others would have had good reason to doubt -- He never really singled them out before -- and learned to trust each other a lot more.

Although I guess, they didn't trust Lucy, and Edmund's speech about how they should do showed they apparently were dismissing her as a Serious Person because of her Littleness, so I guess that is the message, even if I think it might have been more interesting to the reader the other way[1].

[1] See also the speculation that the last battle might have been more interesting if it had been Peter or Lucy who stumbled in belief rather than Susan (who'd always been committed before, but was somehow the "default" choice to be at the wrong age at the wrong time, neither Important Peter, nor Reformed Edmund, nor Special Lucy).

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, although we have a biblical history of Small But Important Prophets who say things and then don't get listened to but should have been, and have a fairly reliable connection to God. So while it is a bit rubbish as a literary device, it fits the tradition quite well that it's Lucy.

[jack]

Good point. Yeah, that does make sense.

[jack]

thinking too hard about Narnia is a bit doomed to failure

Hm. I agree lots of these questions don't have answers other than "the author didn't specify that", but I feel like that is an answer.

As in, however hard you think, you're not able to deduce a logically and theologically consistent universe Lewis had in mind, because he didn't have one[1]. But you ought to be able to say this bit is clearly a reference to this bit of text, this is clearly an allegory to blah, this is clearly a coincidence that doesn't mean anything, this bit is uncertain, etc, without assuming in advance that everything has a role in the world or an allegorical meaning.

After all, I'm fairly sure Lewis intended the message of this bit to what it obviously is, but I was honestly not certain what the "obvious" meaning was, and many of the alternative interpretations have turned out to actually be really interesting, even if non-canonical.

[1] Which definitely varies, and not just "consistent is always better". Harry Potter is awesome in many respects, but questions like "how many people are there in the magical world" aren't answerable, because Rowling wasn't able to establish a non-contradictory answer to work from, even though she did a good job of making each individual part of the world seem consistent. Other stories deliberately have a more metaphoric approach to the nature of the world. But then there's something like Name of the Wind, where I would never have thought that you could look at all the background snippets of foreign language and bits of linguistics and geography, and deduce the protagonists undisclosed location from them, but you can.