InsaneJournal

The Last Battle pt1
The first line in the last book says “In the last days of Narnia” so it’s very clear that this is, in no uncertain terms, The End. I have a love/hate relationship with this book. It’s well done, except where it isn’t. It’s awesome, except where it sucks. And if you grew up in the world I grew up in, the entire plot has an extra level of scary attached. To make it easiest on myself, I’ll be tackling this book in entries split up by character, group of characters, or theme.



An Ape has found an old lion skin, and convinces his friend Puzzle the Donkey to wear it and pretend to be Aslan. It’s not really explained why the Ape wants to do this, but it seems like one of those awful ideas that just grows and snowballs in a person’s head. It goes that way all the time with people inclined to trickery, especially for selfish reasons (they can justify things very well in their heads). And an Ape is like a person, but without any of those mental checks and balances we’ve evolved. Not that real apes are normally evil, but this is a Talking Ape, so he is close enough to human to have accquired the ability to engage in deliberate evil but not close enough to know enough not to. If that makes any sense. In a previous book there is a quote about being wary of any creature that used to be or is on its way to being, human.

When we see the Ape again, he’s dressed like a human, or attempted to dress like a human anyway and he’s found himself a crown. The Beasts come to listen to him preach about Aslan and beg him to let them have a glimpse of “Aslan”. In return, the Ape berates them, and tells them Aslan is angry, they’ve been Bad Animals and incidentally, he wants more nuts for himself and oh yes, he’s selling them into Calormene slavery. The animals are so frightened and confused that they go along with it, the only news they have of Aslan comes from the Ape and what if he’s right and Aslan is angry because they didn’t obey this prophet?

They don't exactly trust him, but they don't feel as if they have a choice either. They want someone else to tell them what to do. They are even willing to do things they should know Aslan would call wrong, because the Ape said Aslan wanted it.

This is all very familiar. The mice come fearfully to give the captured King Tirian comfort, whimpering that Aslan will be so angry if he finds out. They have forgotten that they're descendents of the mice who chewed through the ropes that bound Aslan after the Witch tortured and killed him.

They are like those Christians who can only timidly agree that maybe the environment *is* an important issue and it's possible that Global Warming is not a gigantic lie. Or that they've thought long and hard about it and maybe Jesus wouldn't exactly approve of torture after all (considering he knows *exactly* what it feels like to be falsely imprisoned and tortured). Or the dozens of little things people get taught to believe that just go against everything we're supposed to believe and somehow, those lies become the only acceptable truth.

“I hear some of you are saying that I’m an Ape. Well, I’m not. I’m a Man.” Wouldn’t you like to have an icon of one of Bush’s stupider facial expressions, with that text?

“There, you see!” said the Ape. “It’s all been arranged. And all for your own good. We’ll be able, with the money you earn, to make Narnia a country worth living in. There’ll be oranges, and banannas pouring in-and roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons-oh, everything!”

“But we don’t want all those things,” said an old Bear. “We want to be free. And we want to hear Aslan speak himself.”

“ Now don’t you start arguing,” said the Ape. “For it’s a thing I won’t stand. I’m a Man and you’re only a fat stupid old Bear. What do you know about freedom? You think freedom means doing whatever you like . Well, you’re wrong. That isn’t true freedom. True freedom means doing what I tell you.”

There are so *many* things you could say about that. So many. I am basically making a hopeless moaning noise and flailing my hand in the direction of like, the entire world.

The Ape takes up drinking and loses control of the situation. He's told so many lies he can't keep them straight anymore. He tries to convince the Beasts that Tash and Aslan are the same being, and calls it Tashlan. The Beasts are not sure of this, but the Cat (who is a ringer in the audience) convinces them that it's true. This is because the Cat has met with certain Calormene partners of the Ape and agreed that it's perfectly okay to say Tash and Aslan are the same person because neither one actually exists. They're going to use the poor stupid Ape to get what they *really* want and so they begin to bully him and force him to say "words that wiser heads have put into thy mouth".