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I could be wrong but is it not just because Susan stopped believing in Narnia? Lucy still shows up for The Last Battle.
EDIT: So do Jill and Polly! This seems a little reductive of Susan's role in the story as an example of lack of faith and how maturing brings you to focus on your surroundings and lose your inner child.
lol, I love it.
C.S. Lewis - "I'm going to make the single most catholic fairy tale ever. This thing will be such catholic, woah, watch out, catholic comin' out of your ears with this fairy tale."
The Gays: Smiling, rubbing hands together, menacingly
What the hell is going on with these reply dates
It's the beauty of Tumblr. Old posts resurface, get new comments, gets passed around, fades into obscurity. Rinse and repeat
Time moves differently in Narnia
They were literally in the closet
Is "The Problem of Susan" some incel Narnia fanfiction?
Technically, it's a short story by Neil Gaiman. Practically, it's definitely Narnia fanfiction except just legally distinct enough Neil Gaiman didn't get sued for it.
It's basically shorthand for, "it's kinda fucked up that they left Susan Pevensie out of Narnia towards the end just because she liked lipstick and dudes now."
Especially when Peter was more than happy to sell her off for political gain in A Horse and His Boy, until he found out the slavers weren't Christian slavers.
Gotcha! It's been a long time since I've read the Narnia books so I wasn't sure if the "lipstick and boys" was from the books or this short story.
IIRC, it wasn't that "she liked lipstick and dudes" but essentially that her thoughts of Narnia became "oh, that funny game we played as kids".
It's not her gender or orientation, it's that she lost her belief in an effort to become more "adult". The lipstick and boys bit is more to emphasize this.
Narnia is apparently like Neverland in this regard. You stop believing and the magic is gone.
The faith of children is also a recurring theme in the Bible.
Matthew 18: 2-4, for instance
^2 He called a child, whom he put among them, ^3 and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ^4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
1 Corinthians: 13 (one of the most-quoted chapters in the Bible, and a beautiful description of love even if you don't have faith) also compares the difference between childishness and adulthood to the difference between the partial understanding of the universe we have now to true understanding.
13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
In order to see the magic of Narnia, childishness is required, because to see it as an adult is to see beyond the fantastical. In understanding, the ability to see the magic is lost.
Wow, I didn't realize that C.S. Lewis was riffing off of 1 Corinthians: 13 when he wrote (emphasis mine)
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
If you enjoy dystopian CS Lewis fanfic, check out the book/TV series "The Magicians".
Bonus: it is very gay
You had me at gay....which was, admittedly, the end of your comment.
It’s so gay, and the show is gayer. They got to the point where the later seasons each have a musical episode
In fairness, he did state that one of the reasons that he never wrote Susan was that he believed that he couldn't do her justice, and invited readers to come up with their own theories/stories.
okay, this is definitely how I'm going to think of Narnia from now on.
Theres no problem with susan. C.S. Lewis was using narnia as a very christian metaphor, for... come to think of it, lots of things. Included in that metaphor was a Peter Pan esque commentary of childhood. Susan grew up too fast. Thats it. Flawed as it may be, thats the bit. Misogynistic as is seems on reflection, i dont think it was intended that way.
Boys never grow up. If you have full grown man in your life, you already know this.
If you dont, you are missing out. Want to have a child without actually having a child? Make guy friends. Everything will make sense after that.
You had me in the first half but boys will be boys is a dangerous slippery slope, not an excuse
I'm sure glad we don't reduce genders to stereotypes around here because that would be very silly.
Included in that metaphor was a Peter Pan esque commentary of childhood. Susan grew up too fast.
One of the reasons The Last Battle soured me on the series was the way in which they applied these increasingly unpleasant purity tests to the accumulated cast of characters.
Boys never grow up. If you have full grown man in your life, you already know this.
One of the messages of "The Problem with Susan" was that pain is the source of maturity. You tend to see this in older people because they've experienced more of it.
Grown men who don't act particularly mature are ones who have led relatively charmed existences. But there are plenty who have a sobriety and seriousness about them. You'll inevitably find some kind of trauma behind each of these folks.