Narnia

[Teen_Catholic]

I remember when my grade three teacher read “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” to our class, and I remembered just loving it. Luckily for me I got all the books at Christmas, so I finished the book a day or two before the movies came out. I was really suprised that they stayed so faithful to the books, even taking whole lines.

One thing that’s been bothering me is the scene where Peter has to clean his sword. They cut it down to a line, but in the book there seems to be a great significance on cleaning his sword. Am I just crazy or is that an allegory to something or another?

 

[javelin]

JGeorge:

The second level of symbolism I see deals with Edmund and his relationship with Peter. I think Peter is not just a representation of the apostle Peter, but also of the Papacy. If Peter represents the Papacy, than whom does Edmund represent? At the beginning of the movie we see Peter’s mother giving him “authority” over his brother Edmund. Throughout the movie Peter is annoyed by Edmund’s unwillingness to obey him. There are several times in the movie where Peter turns to Edmund and says, “Why won’t you listen to me?” I’m wondering if Edmund, and especially his betrayal of his family, might represent the Anglican split from the Catholic Church. Edmund betrays his brother for Turkish delight and the promise of being King of Narnia. He betrays his family for “sweeties”, as the witch puts it. This reminded me of King Henry, who left the Catholic Church because he wanted to fornicate with his mistress and divorce his wife, and later declared himself supreme head of the Church in England.

I also think this is a stretch, and can even work the other way. I don’t recall the specifics, but when Edmund essentially saves everyone by destroying Jadis’ wand, I believe he went to challenge her against Peter’s wishes. In that case, it was shown to be a good thing that he disobeyed Peter and followed his personal conscience.

I do think that Peter was symbolic of the Papacy (Aslan certainly gave give pre-emminence, making him “High King”), but just not sure about the Anglican part you were were thinking of.

Peace,
javelin

 

[JGeorge]

Contarini:

Sorry. But I attend the meetings of the New York C. S. Lewis society and get a lot of this kind of thing (not that the C. S. Lewis Society is only made up of Catholics. And Cardinal Dulles spoke to the Society’s 35th anniversary and had some excellent things to say. So I’m not bashing Catholic Lewis fans!). Catholics need to accept that not everyone they like is on the path to conversion. Just as Protestant fans of St. Bernard of Clairvaux or any other great Catholic writer need to stop trying to portray their hero as a crypto-Protestant. (I heard a lot of that growing up.)

Part of genuine ecumenism is a generous acknowledgment of the good things to be found in each other’s traditions while allowing them to be what they are–different and other.

Edwin

Agreed. I hope nobody took my post too seriously. I actually tried hard to give the impression that I was stating my thoughts rather than “facts”. However, I should apologize as well. Looking back on my post, some of things I said probably sounded confrontational from an Anglican point of view.

Most of what I know about Lewis came from discussions I heard on EWTN. Not that I’m blaming them or anything. EWTN is a great network, but maybe they were a little bias in their analysis of Lewis.

 

[rocklobster]

Della:

The difference in names comes from the difference in the American and English versions. Yes, they actually published separate versions for us in the “colonies” from those for the “homeland.” Goodness only knows why. After all, why should we Americans care what the wolf’s name was? It’s a puzzlement to me, but it’s true.

Probably for the same reason we gave some of Agatha Christie’s novels different titles (e.g. Thirteen at Dinner =Lord Edgware (sp?) Dies; And Then There Were None =Ten Little Indians; The Mirror Cracked =The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side
I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m definitely buying the DVD. Can’t wair for *Prince Caspian * and Voyage of the Dawn Treader , because I’ll get to see my favorite character: Reepicheep! I suggest they have Chiara Zanni (English VA of Hamtaro on Hamtaro , a super-cute Japanese cartoon about hamsters) play him. When I first heard that voice, I thought it’d be a great one for Reepicheep.

 

[WanderAimlessly]

I just looked out on Box Office Mojo and Narnia is either #1 or #2 in box office receipts for Christian movies based on whether you are talking US or Worldwide gross box office. Narnia is #1 in Worldwide while The Passion is #1 in US gross. The numbers work out as follows:

Narnia: 282,115,900 US 638,134,799 Worldwide
The Passion 370,782,390 US 611,899,420 Worldwide.

PF