Does Susan go to the "New Narnia"?/Whatever happened to Susan?

Most replies on this subject mention that Susan was very much alive in "our" Earth at the end of TLB, and had a lifespan of perhaps another fifty or sixty years ahead of her to reconsider her decision. As Lewis might have put it, she needed to mature enough to grow out of her fear of being thought childish. :)

Btw what does "Pround" mean?
 
Malacandra said:
Most replies on this subject mention that Susan was very much alive in "our" Earth at the end of TLB, and had a lifespan of perhaps another fifty or sixty years ahead of her to reconsider her decision. As Lewis might have put it, she needed to mature enough to grow out of her fear of being thought childish. :)

Btw what does "Pround" mean?
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Where the heck have you been, Malacandra? I was just going to send you a PM to ask if you were alive... :D
 
Oh, I'm still about the place... not changing my username to confuse people, and not posting obsessively 30 times a day (get a life, woman!). :p

Y'all still got my email, feel free to use it. :D
 
Susan

I think susan was forgiven for what she did Aslan forgave her but she was always the one that wanted the tried and true and she was always the skeptical one I think we all turn out to be like her at one time in our lives where we give into fear and doubt and we all tryto grow up to fast which is what sue always tried to do. I think she eventually came around and relized waht she did was wrong and she learned never to doubt again we are not meant to know wht could have happened or should have happened I think Cs Lewis let theat up to our own intrpretation
 
I believe that Susan would Have used the rings too, but I do not think she would need to mark the "home pool" because the Wood-Between-the-Worlds was an unchanging place and the mark from Polly And Digory would still have been there.
I would hope that while in a different world, Susan would meet with Aslan and he would set her straight.
As for her parents dying with the rest, C.S. Lewis may have been trying to use this as a catalyst for her return to the sheep fold.
 
"If you're playing a game, it has to be possible to lose"

Mr. Lewis did not believe in absolutely guaranteed eternal security. Neither do I. But Lewis and I would both say that God will keep after a straying person's conscience. The Bible says He is not willing that any should perish, and He has many ways to draw us back to Him; yet He does give us free will.
It sticks in my throat to imagine Susan ending up in Hell; yet it is _possible_ for someone to be so obstinate in rebellion, against better knowledge, that they become like the "ghosts" in "The Great Divorce," unable to benefit by Heaven even if they _were_ placed in it.
 
I know Susan represents those who beleive and fall away, but she may also represent those who beleive, but say they do not as too not look foolish. I beleive she finds her way back to Narnia, and comes to beleive some time, at least thats what I want to think, I'd hate to think she didn't go to the real Narnia. :(
 
Susan and the Loss of Her Family

Has anyone, besides myself, ever wonder what it must have been like for Susan when she got the news that her entire family - father, mother, Peter, Edmund and Lucy were all killed in a train accident? As we read the last chapters of The Last Battle, we are happy for Peter, Edmund, Lucy, and all the others like Jewel, King Tirian, Caspian, Rilian, Digory, Polly, etc. I cannot imagine the weight of the loss upon Susan. Does this tragedy drive Susan further from God/Aslan or will it drive her towards Him?

I have wondered if Lewis was a person who theologically believed in what has come to be known as "Once saved, always saved." There appears to be a hint of that in Aslan's pronouncement upon the coronation of Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy when He says, "Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia."

What are some of your thoughts on this?
 
I've often wondered about that, and Susan's reaction to the loss of her family has been the subject of innumerable fanfics. I guess it could really affect her either way.

Lewis was certainly no Calvinist and I don't believe he held to a doctrine of eternal security. Aslan's words at the coronation are often misquoted; the actual words are "Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen" (italics mine). That has a rather different meaning and I don't think we can assume from them that Susan is certain to get to Aslan's Country in the end.
 
If the Lewis estate were allowing new books--and if I could get in ahead of the other twenty thousand writers wanting to do the same thing--I would write what Douglas Gresham casually calls a "Saving Susan story." My version, to be titled "The Last Queen of Narnia," would show Susan trying to find in romantic love the joy she had forfeited. Not once, but twice, she would find marriages ending in divorce, not entirely by her fault; and by about age 47, she would be an alcoholic, fallen very low indeed.

That's where one last vestige of the Narnian world would reach her. Somehow I would devise it that the two guinea pigs who were left behind in the Wood Between the Worlds would be awakened, given the attributes of Talking Animals, and sent to Earth to meet Susan. Having to care for these intelligent but vulnerable creatures--having to care for SOMETHING outside of herself--would be the start of redemption for Susan. (Our therapeutic society tells us that everything is about loving ourselves, but actually it's loving OTHERS that heals us.) Aslan IN THE FORM of Aslan would not be seen in this novel; but as Jesus, He would certainly make His presence felt.
 
I just went and read it! It is indeed marvellous. Not to give away too much, it's great how Malacandra wove in so much this-world folklore. As for the post-Narnian life he imagines for Susan, it's not far in character from what I imagined.
 
You know I have always concidered Susan's heartbreak with loosing all that she held dear a conduit for God's mercy to come in. Maybe she realized how frivilous she had been when her family died and mended her ways. Loosing all of one's family, including her cousin and a people she concidered in an Aunt-and-Uncle-type relationship, and being forced to live with the real Aunt and Uncle, whom she had never liked and who themselves were grieving from the loss of Eustace, is a lot worse of a rock-bottom situation than any twice failed Marriages, alcholic situation could ever be. It is there that a true conversion of heart would seem hardest and yet would be a great comfort to her. Besides, in Susan's weird way, she was too sensible to throw herself into a marriage because of greif, all that she was would have revolted against it.
 
Yes, and I have written elsewhere that I feel that Susan leaned on her Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold just as they did with her. The only difference is that Susan understood what was going on (at least that Eustace and Jill were trying to get back to Narnia) but could not tell anyone.

I think that was a major influence in her grief, knowing that they died trying to get back while she was preening herself and trying to concentrate on looking perfect. Had she been more accepting, she would have been there with them. So she would have a serious survivor's guilt complex in not only being the last of her family alive, but in knowing why they died (at least her cousin and siblings).

About the quote about being a king/queen in Narnia, there are actually two quotes. The first one, as Hermit pointed out, is from Aslan and goes, "Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen." However, the Professor does state at the end of LWW ""Once a king in Narnia, always a king in Narnia."

So while the word is "in" instead of "of", the meaning does change with the addition of the last phrase, "In Narnia".

MrBob
 
I reckon I will have to go and check out Malacandra's story then and see what it is all about.
 
Copperfox said:
I just went and read it! It is indeed marvellous. Not to give away too much, it's great how Malacandra wove in so much this-world folklore. As for the post-Narnian life he imagines for Susan, it's not far in character from what I imagined.
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::blushes::

I've used John Henry a few times before, characterised almost exactly as in this story. It seemed like a job for him. :)

I was amused, looking back, to see where some symbolism crept in here and there that I didn't exactly intend. The Force must have been with me.
 
For my part, I worked for years on a graphic novel (artwork my own) about the legendary Russian knight Ilya Muromets; but I never finished it, because my first wife's illness and death knocked that and many other things aside, and now my second wife has her own complex though non-fatal medical problems.
 
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