Two questions ...

"With regard to Q2 (about dying in Narnia), it is discussed by Eustace and Jill in TLB ch 9, but they don't reach a conclusion. Eustace suggests that they might vanish, or wake up back in England, or that their bodies might be found in England - but they are speculating and don't resolve the question."

Peep, as I mentioned already in this thread, people who die in Narnia die in Narnia. Frank's body isn't suddenly found in the middle of the street outside Andrew's house. Neither is Jadis' body. Helen's body isn't found at her house. The pirates' bodies aren't found in the cave after they die. People die where they die. Their bodies stay where they died.

"But they were dead in England, so by the reasoning above they should be dead in Narnia too."

They weren't dead yet. Aslan took Eutace and Jill from the train right before they died. They were talking about the fact that they felt like it was a train crash, as it was, but since no time passes in England when they are in Narnia, as soon as they went back, which was as soon as they went past the threashhold of the stable doors, they went back to the train, died, and were in Aslan's suburbs :p (just outide his country). That was why they were dressed in such amazing clothes when Tirian next saw them.

MrBob
 
Fair points, MrBob. I'm not sure that the bit about Eustace and Jill not dying and then doing back momentarily to die is supported by the text, though. Doesn't Tirian have renewed clothes when he goes through the stable door?

Peeps
 
Eustace and Jill are not killed in England and then appear in Narnia. They also don't return to our world after they are thrown into the stable to die here and then go to Aslan's country.

Eustace and Jill were sent to Narnia by Aslan right before the train crashes and when they are thrown into the stable, they just end up in Aslan's country, just like Tirian.
 
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On the penultimate page of the book Aslan tells them all that they are dead. We could dispute about whether he is talking to all of them, and about whether they died in England or Narnia, but the most natural reading of the text, to my mind, is that they died in the train crash.

Peeps
 
Alright on this subject I'm going to bring up a new point;
If New Narnia represents Heaven then the kids, Tirian and everybody else there would never die. So going on that point they never did really die.
 
There are people mentioned in the Bible who didn't physically die but were just taken. (Enoch and Elijah.) Maybe this could be a parallel to that.
 
Mozart

Aslan tells them that they are "as you used to call it in the Shadowlands, dead" - in other words, from the perspective of life on earth they are dead, but the experience of dying and being 'dead' is completely different from what they had expected while they were 'alive'.

Peeps
 
"I'm not sure that the bit about Eustace and Jill not dying and then doing back momentarily to die is supported by the text, though. Doesn't Tirian have renewed clothes when he goes through the stable door?"

Peep, I'll give it to you that Tirian's clothes also changed. But if Jill and Eustace didn't die on the train, that'll be two more missing people in England. Would Aslan have just taken those two only?

Aslan tells Lucy that there was a train crash and all of them are dead. I would just assume it was all of them who were on teh train or at the station.

"There are people mentioned in the Bible who didn't physically die but were just taken."

Zella, there were a lot people who were like that. The first one was Emeth. The next ones were the dwarfs. Risda Tarkaan orders his men to take them alive. Eustace and Jill are the next two we later hear about that are taken to the stable alive. Then Tirian. After that, all inahbitants of the world of Narnia enter.

MrBob
 
MrBob

I think you're agreeing with me. I think Eustace and Jill did die on the train before coming to Tirian's aid. That's why I raised it. If it works that way round, then why not the other way round? ie. that if someone died in Narnia they would still be alive back in England.

Peeps
 
"I think Eustace and Jill did die on the train before coming to Tirian's aid. That's why I raised it. If it works that way round, then why not the other way round? ie. that if someone died in Narnia they would still be alive back in England."

Peep, we're not agreeing. They could not have helped Tirian if they were dead in England. If they were to die in Narnia, they couldn't go back to England.

As soon as someone dies, they go to Aslan's Country. The only deceased person (as far as we know) to have left Aslan's Country was Caspian, with Aslan's permission, when he helped Jill and Eustace put things back in order at Experiment House. He didn't stay for long, though and Aslan was there with him.

When people go to Narnia, they physically go to Narnia. If they die, they die. They can't be both dead in Narnia and alive in England or vice versa.

MrBob
 
ok for me...

1. It was a river god

2. if we are on the point that they did die on england that means that they went to heaven, and in narnia heaven is Aslan's country so they did die physically, it doesn't mean they died spiritually
 
MrBob

I've looked back over the relevant sections of TLB, and I think I now agree with you that Eustace and Jill didn't die in the train crash, but were thrown into Narnia just as the crash was beginning. Edmund describes being hit by an object, and then feeling different, and Digory says he and Polly felt different, whereas Eustace and Jill just feel a jolt which Eustace thought was the beginning of a railway accident.

Accepting that, I think that means that their bodies must have been nowhere to be found in England - they had just disappeared. In an earlier post you suggested (if I understood you correctly) that, when they went through the stable door they went back to the train, died, and came back to the New Narnia. What is the evidence in the text for that? They don't describe that happening to them, and Tirian is dressed in new clothes just as they are, so I think they all must have 'died' in some sense when they went through the stable door.

Also, what point were you making when you said, "But if Jill and Eustace didn't die on the train, that'll be two more missing people in England. Would Aslan have just taken those two only?"?

Peeps
 
"I've looked back over the relevant sections of TLB, and I think I now agree with you that Eustace and Jill didn't die in the train crash"

I'm glad you see it my way, Peep :p

"when they went through the stable door they went back to the train, died, and came back to the New Narnia. What is the evidence in the text for that? They don't describe that happening to them, and Tirian is dressed in new clothes just as they are, so I think they all must have 'died' in some sense when they went through the stable door."

My evidence is all circumstantial. We know that the stable door was the exit from Narnia. Every time before that, whenever anyone from England left Narnia (or Aslan's Country), they returned from the exact place from where and whence they originally left. That would mean for both Jill and Eustace, they would return to the train and then back to Aslan's Country.

As for Tirian, and others who never officially died, who knows. Lewis never explained that sufficiently.

"Also, what point were you making when you said, "But if Jill and Eustace didn't die on the train, that'll be two more missing people in England. Would Aslan have just taken those two only?"?"

Peep, I was asking whether Aslan would have just taken Eustace and Jill alive, never allowing their bodies to go back to England and confusing their parents and not take any of the other Friends. Why keep them alive only? If Aslan could have saved all of them from the train crash, why wouldn't he have?

MrBob
 
MrBob said:
Peep, I was asking whether Aslan would have just taken Eustace and Jill alive, never allowing their bodies to go back to England and confusing their parents and not take any of the other Friends. Why keep them alive only? If Aslan could have saved all of them from the train crash, why wouldn't he have?
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I guess because the others were too old to come back to Narnia, so there was no need to keep them 'alive', whereas Jill and Eustace had work to do in helping Tirian and so they needed to be kept alive to come into Narnia. I guess Frank and Helen's friends and family must have experienced the same kind of confusion as Eustace and Jill's. Maybe that part of the train caught fire in the crash and all the bodies were destroyed anyway so no-one knew.

Peeps
 
I don't know - I've a hard time believing that Jill and Eustace were transported bodily and still alive in the split-second just before the train crash. It's difficult to extrapolate from prior Chronicles because the circumstances of Battle were so unique. Remember what Aslan says to all of them at the end: how they didn't have to go back, that it was a real train wreck and that meant they all got to stay. Aslan knew when He arranged all of their "transportation" to Narnia that this time it was going to be a one-way ticket for all of them. There's no reason to suppose that Jill and Eustace had to be treated somehow differently because they had to struggle with Tirian while the others just got put behind the Stable Door.

It's also hard to draw any hard-and-fast rules about what the Stable Door meant, and what happened when one went through it. It was like a gate of death, yet not quite - some who went through came out again (e.g. Ginger the cat, the Calormen assassin). I don't think you can make a case that passing through the Stable Door automatically equated to bodily death, and therefore you don't have to try to figure out how Jill and Eustace's passage through related to their bodily death in this world. My guess is that their bodies were found amidst the wreckage of the train, just as all the other Friends of Narnia.
 
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