The Last Battle pt11


Narnia has always seemed relatively tolerant toward polytheism. There’s Aslan, who’s the big boss, but plenty of smaller gods and demigods seem to exist. They are not the same thing as Aslan either, but their existence is welcomed. However, Tash is unpleasant, he really exists but he’s not…evil exactly but he is a force that takes in all evil doers and evil acts. Apparently.

This is what Aslan tells the young Calormene soldier who ends up in the Stable with Our Heroes.

I’m claiming this is confusing but really, it’s hard to ignore the apparent message here. This makes me more uncomfortable than the alleged “sexism” because I don’t have any evidence that Tash has ever been other than how he’s portrayed here. This is the first time we’ve seen him. It’s an uncomfortable message because it seems to be saying that Narnia can have a pantheon of benevolent lower gods and that’s fine, and the neighbors can have other gods and that’s fine….but these particular neighbors are just plain evil and their god, although he clearly really exists, is a demon. Not anyone else’s gods, just that one. Why? Because they’re…well, because they’re evil? And they’re evil because…he decided they’d be the villains? Because…they’re not white? They come from a culture that is based on one in our world that we like to scapegoat. I was able to come up with explanations that satisfied my curiosity about why he’d create a race of not very nice pseudo Middle Eastern types, but it’s probably easier for me because I’m white and I don’t have to see people who look like me always being the villain.

It seems as though Aslan and Tash have some sort of agreement, like Zeus and Hades, but Tash also seems to have absolutely no control over himself or his followers. He just lets them destroy the world, not seeming to care, or notice, one way or the other. He’s a primitive, animal Thing that doesn’t even really speak. Unlike Aslan, who came fully formed to Narnia, Tash is like one of those gods people made up out of scraps, and built up with their worship, making him amoral because they fed him all their evilness, and then they tried to control him and he turned on them.

There’s an important lesson in there. The Ape, several of the Calormene officers and the Cat called upon Tash, and blasphemed both Tash and Aslan because they didn’t believe either one really existed. Fair enough. And I admit it, I was smirking when Tash actually you know, showed up. Even if I wondered if he was saying that the only way you could believe all gods are one is if you don’t really believe in any of them.

So then he’s saying all these gods are separate but only one is in charge? Okay. I can totally get behind that. So who decided Tash would get all the evil people?

It’s a little demeaning to stack the deck like that, isn’t it? “Oh, well, in that case, anything good you did counts for Aslan’s scorecard and anything bad counts for Tash”. Okaay. Does it work the other way around as well (I mean, if Narnians do bad things, do they go to Tash in the end)? Do Narnians know this? Isn’t it a bit unfair not to mention this to anyone until now?

One disadvantage, I suppose, to a religion with no real priests or formal liturgy. If your god changes the rules, you can’t say “hold up, pal. It says here, in chapter 18 verses 11-13 of the Book of Amphibians, which dates from 1,000 BCE, that you promised you’d never rain salamanders on us again!”

Or maybe all Narnians do know it already. How can we even tell? Lewis is so *vague* all the time. Except when he feels like being really specific.

At least Tash is a male god, so people can’t…you know…have a problem with that on top of everything else.