Becoming Young Again

Into the Wardrobe

Into the Wardrobe

Friend and Surrogate Mom
Knight of the Noble Order
Emeritus
The Pevensies had an extensive golden age reign in Narnia. They were kings and queens who held authority over many. They were used to being adults and being able to do what they wanted to do overall...and then they went back through the wardrobe...and became kids again.

Was this a blessing or a curse...or neither...or both? How would you handle something like that? How did it change them later? I have thoughts on this kind of thing...but I want to hear some of yours first.
 
For Susan it was probably most unwelcome as she had obtain an age that she wanted to be at. I do not know about the rest, I think it would be both.
 
Mr. Lewis just didn't tell us as much as we'd have liked about the lives the Pevensies lived _outside_ the Narnian world. I agree that Susan would have been disappointed to be reduced to early adolescence again. But I think all three of the others would have taken it well--the more so since they would realize that never coming back would have meant their parents never seeing them again on Earth. And people around them probably would have seen the same improvement in Edmund's character as Jill was later to observe in Eustace after his first time in the Narnian world.
 
Also, it seems their experiences rather slipped away from them, their memories ... we see in PC that they have to be sort of "re-awakened" to their glorious past. As they discover each new reminder of the place where they onces reigned, it's as if flood-gates of memory are opened, and it all comes rushing back to them. So perhaps, in our world, it did seem like something which happened to them long ago, and they could remember it, but did not still feel like grown-ups trapped in children's bodies.
 
inkspot said:
Also, it seems their experiences rather slipped away from them, their memories ... we see in PC that they have to be sort of "re-awakened" to their glorious past. As they discover each new reminder of the place where they onces reigned, it's as if flood-gates of memory are opened, and it all comes rushing back to them. So perhaps, in our world, it did seem like something which happened to them long ago, and they could remember it, but did not still feel like grown-ups trapped in children's bodies.
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Good point Ink. I have a feeling though after their return to Narnia that Susan did feel the angst a bit more. Peter was older so he probably wasn't treated like a kid so much any more after that...but part of me would think that Ed and Lucy would feel that angst more. Maybe not.

Do you think that they remembered more and more after each time they went in?
 
But the "reawakening" was not that they had forgotten their past glories but that they were recognizing that they were back at the scene of them, I think that Lucy, at least, would have accepted it very well because she was at an age where the magic of childhood is easily understood, then to it might have been a relief to not have the pressures of ruling a kingdom on their shoulders.. Still with what we know of Susan, I am pretty sure that she is the one who disliked it the most.
 
I would have thought that adjusting to be children again would be most difficult for all of them, especially Peter since he was High King over Narnia. Yet it appears that they accepted their return to their own world and their roles as children without too many problems. Even with all their memories, I have wondered that since only seconds or minutes passed between the time they entered the wardrobe together to 15 years later when they returned, did Aslan/Jesus make it seem like those years in Narnia were like a dream. This might explain why Susan later in The Last Battle said it was merely a game of pretend. The others accepted the reality of their shared experiences even though it might have seemed like waking from a dream.

Mr. Lewis never let us in on the psychology of the children when they returned. They remembered but accepted their circumstance and that, to me, is a great curiousity.
 
Son of Adam said:
I would have thought that adjusting to be children again would be most difficult for all of them, especially Peter since he was High King over Narnia. Yet it appears that they accepted their return to their own world and their roles as children without too many problems. Even with all their memories, I have wondered that since only seconds or minutes passed between the time they entered the wardrobe together to 15 years later when they returned, did Aslan/Jesus make it seem like those years in Narnia were like a dream. This might explain why Susan later in The Last Battle said it was merely a game of pretend. The others accepted the reality of their shared experiences even though it might have seemed like waking from a dream.

Mr. Lewis never let us in on the psychology of the children when they returned. They remembered but accepted their circumstance and that, to me, is a great curiousity.
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That it is. They hit on the unsure memories a bit when they returned to Narnia in PC. They'd learned to swim in Narnia before but then couldn't really in their own world...so they weren't sure of it upon their return to Narnia. It would have been nice to know more about how they handled those in between times in the human world. Ah well, I guess it will be mere subject material for loads of fanfics.
 
It must have been hard for them to understand at first.As adults,they hardly remembered anything about going into Narnia through a wardrobe,so I suppose they got really confused before they remembered everything...
 
I like how Son of Adam put it: "it might have seemed like waking from a dream." Each time they go into Narnia, it takes them a while to get used to the place. But like in PC, it took them about 24 hours of breathing Narnian air to get them back to being royal again. It mentions that if they had seen Trumpkin 24 hours earlier, they would not have been able to convince him that they were, indeed, ready for battle.

Going back to England, they would breathe the English air, which would seem a lot heavier than Narnian air--and a lot more polluted--and within a day, put it in the back of their minds. Just as they could put their homelife and English life in the back of their minds when they were in Narnia for a lengthy time.

MrBob
 
"As adults,they hardly remembered anything about going into Narnia through a wardrobe,so I suppose they got really confused before they remembered everything..."

Daughter of Eve, what makes this intersting is that Lucy could remember everything about her first entry into Narnia through the wardrobe as late as "Horse and His Boy" as she recounted her tale to Aravis and Cor and the rest of the people in Anvard. And those people, other than Aravis and Cor, had heard it many times.

So I wonder how they could hve forgotten the story if it was such a known story that they were made to tell and retell many times?

MrBob
 
If i were one of the pevensies, my first thought about me changing back would be "crud, I have to go through my teenage years ALL OVER AGAIN!!!" however, they would be a lot more mature than other kids their age because they were basically adults in children's bodies.
 
Into the Wardrobe said:
The Pevensies had an extensive golden age reign in Narnia. They were kings and queens who held authority over many. They were used to being adults and being able to do what they wanted to do overall...and then they went back through the wardrobe...and became kids again.

Was this a blessing or a curse...or neither...or both? How would you handle something like that? How did it change them later? I have thoughts on this kind of thing...but I want to hear some of yours first.
Click to expand...

It was probably both. I think it might have helped them to believe in the "impossible" as Susan put it in the film. It would probably also help them to mature in their personality. I think it'd be cool if I grew up, and then became young again.
 
MrBob said:
"As adults,they hardly remembered anything about going into Narnia through a wardrobe,so I suppose they got really confused before they remembered everything..."

Daughter of Eve, what makes this intersting is that Lucy could remember everything about her first entry into Narnia through the wardrobe as late as "Horse and His Boy" as she recounted her tale to Aravis and Cor and the rest of the people in Anvard. And those people, other than Aravis and Cor, had heard it many times.

So I wonder how they could hve forgotten the story if it was such a known story that they were made to tell and retell many times?

MrBob
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Oopsie! C S Lewis caught in an inconsistency, again. That's what you get when you write a book and it turns out to be so popular that you write a whole series. :D
 
Yes, Malacandra. The trouble with unplanned sequels. The least you can do as an author is to go back and read what you wrote, outlining important aspects of the stories and knowing them backwards and forwards.

We do get to see a little of how Lucy handled reverting to her younger self. In VotDT, she reads through the Magician's Book and gets caught up with two particular spells, the great beauty spell and the spell that told you what your friends really think of you spell.

The great beauty spell, she very nearly chanted despite the dire warnings in the book, all becuse of her jealosy of Susan's beauty.

The friends spell showed how she got back to being a girl with typical girl concerns regarding frienships.

MrBob
 
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