What Do you think could have happened to Susan?

gair said:
it's funny how susan for all her flaws- maybe because of her flaws- captures people's imaginations and attention far more frequently than any of the other characters
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Maybe because we feel sorry for her? Maybe because as "the only one left out" we try to "figure her out"? Maybe because we can't figure out WHY she is the way she is. (umm, was:rolleyes:) Maybe so we can avoid her mistakes and NOT miss out on Aslan's Country! :)
 
human because she isn't perfect.

(I was thinking about this while I was doing my music practice)

I think she is most like ordinary people. Worldly, materialistic and easily seduced as you put it.
The other children(? - I'm never sure what they are once they go into narnia again) are admirable but distant. Something to aspire to rather than relatable.

*sigh* roll on the new term then I won't have to literarise on a forum. Or make up new words.
 
well i think susan would be able to go back. if one person is saved but stops believing in heaven, the person is still going to heaven no matter what. that is what happened to susan in my opinion.
 
Aslan'sLittleGirl101 said:
well i think susan would be able to go back. if one person is saved but stops believing in heaven, the person is still going to heaven no matter what. that is what happened to susan in my opinion.
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No thats not true. If you stoped believeing in Jesus your not going to Heaven. You have to believe in Him in order to go to Heaven. You have to confess that your a sinner and repent in order to go to Heaven. Jesus will always love you sinner or not. But you have to ask him into your heart in order to live forever in Heaven. If sue confess that she is a sinner and asks Jesus into her heart she will see her family again and be with them and all her Narnian friends forever.
 
Two discussions at once here.

1. If Susan in our world is a believer in Christ, then we know she is going to heaven. What we would like to believe, and what Jack said he believed happened, is that she also rediscovered the reality of Aslan/Narnia and reached Aslan's country, too.

2. Whether a person who once accepts Christ as Savior remains saved forever, no matter what they do or come to believe later. This is a discussion better moved to the "Narnia and Christianity" forum with its own thread. Let's don't pursue it any further here, because this is mainly about Susan. And we do know that, in her case, "Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen in Narnia."
 
Yeah but Susan (at least temporarily) abdicated her throne. (that is all I am going to say about it).


We need a clarification as to what the purpose of this thread is, is it "What could have happened to Susan if she had not stopped believing?" or is it "What do you think happened to Susan after the end of TLB?"

I already put my two cents in about what could have happened to Susan if she hadn't stopped believing so now I will go into one of my pet theories as to what did happen after TLB:

Susan (dressed in black) goes to the police station to collect her family's personal effects. Very little is left but she has the contents of the boys' pockets, a little bag with Lucy's journal, as well some of her parents things, she is quite numb by the thought of them being dead but she spends the afternoon going through their stuff. By and by she gets to the rings in the one of the boys' pockets (probably Peter's). She vaguely remembers that there was something supposedly spectacular about the rings but completely forgets what they are very pretty though so while carefully hugging Lucy's Journal which she had located a while back she puts her hand in the pocket to try on one of the rings. The bedroom that she was sitting in fades away and she is standing in the Wood Between the Worlds. Near her are two depressions that were once ponds and also the pond that she just came out of. She sits there in the calm and decides to read Lucy's Journal which has the accounts of all of the adventures in Narnia save the one that just started. As she reads a ginger-colored cat starts playing with her side, eventually she comes to the part where she finds that none were going to Narnia anymore she finds Lucy's struggles to get over the fact that she could no longer be with Aslan in person and then reads through where Lucy finds the truth to be that Aslan was Jesus and he is always with her. Finally she finishes the book with a better understanding of her sister and a little ashamed of the part she played in making her sister's transition from being a Narnian Queen to being an ordinary English woman difficult. Then she notices the tawny cat that she has been unconscienciously petting this whole time. The cat is purring and she just wants to hug it. She eventually leaves and goes back to England and picks up her life but she always goes back to the calm place that we know as the Wood between the Worlds as a place of solace and always the cat is with her when she is there. Gradually she needs it or her heart is not at peace during the week. She starts having vivid memories flood back into her mind about her adventures in Narnia helped along by Lucy's Journal and those of her brothers which she found in their rooms. She grows to realize how silly she has been (especially when she reads Peter's journal and finds how bothered and worried he was about her) and starts trying to foster really meaningful practices in her life. One day after several years of this weekly routine, she goes to the Wood Between the World and instead of her small feline companion there is Aslan standing in all his glory and he takes her to his world.
 
OK after reading to page 3 I could hardly contain myself
I LOVE ALL YOU PEOPLE!!!!

Out of all of my friends I was/ am really the only one who goes past being upset about Susan. I try to figure out WHY ON EARTH would she stop believing after reading several good opinions I shall now state my own

In reference to those that said Lucy & Aravis were "better than"Susan because of their different and rather tougher personalities I say to you AMEN!

To those which said that she became materialistic i also say AMEN!

I just seriously like agree with all of you.

Now my thing is this In TLB Aunt Polly & i think Lucy said about Susan that she was now a brat who only cared about being populer(e.g. invitations) :mad:looking pretty(lipstick):mad: and being not just girly but umm how would i say this trying to impress people:mad:(nylons etc.. dont ask me how this is what i got out of it. Use your imagination..)

OK the thing about Lucy and Aravis is that they are TOTALLY (REPEAT) TOTALLY different from Susan and if you remember in HHB Lucy and Aravis become like best friends. I agree that Aravis' friend and Queen Pruna(however you spell it) They are um how would I say... You know those like books about knights and kings how the girls always just sat about and did nothing? only cared about their appearance and what people thought about them?

Well Susan reminds me of someone like that. When she comes back from PC she is so worried what her "friends"will think about her if she tries telling them at school that by the time she is confronted with Narnia she totally has BRAINWASHED herself into believing it started when:
1) they were at the Professors bored on a few rainy days they made up this imaginary world where animals could talk and they became Kings and Queens.

2) they were on the train staion platform waiting for the train. Started talking about "their old game"and that was all.

Now fast forward to VODT she is going to america because
her parents think that shes the prettiest one she should umm go.... proves that sometimes they(parents) make no sense(no offense to anyone but COME ON!


So now she is like oh, I am better than Lucy and Edmund. She doesnt want this game as she calls it that she played to affect her life and her plans. Totally forgetting the thigns aslan went for her and her family (LLW)

So I really have come to the extent so far Iw ill type about her after TLB when my fingers have had a chance to recouperate.

xD thank you all for your time

LONG LIVE ASLAN:)
 
We love you too. :)

I like your analysis. I will, of course, draw a spiritual conclusion from what you said:

Just as Susan convinces herself that Narnia was an imaginary game because she doesn't want the lessons she learned there to impact her pursuit of (silly) pleasures in this world, sometimes we as believers in Christ are mightily tempted ot succumb to the temptation to put aside the lessons we have learned from Jesus when we realize they may interfere with some (silly) pleasure we want to pursue.

When I was a younger woman and wanted to live a wild lifestyle, of course I still had in my head all the Sunday School lessons and even the personal closeness I had felt to Christ growing up, but I convinced myself that it was sort of imaginary, that Jesus wasn't all that interested in me and what I was doing as long as I wasn't hurting anyone ... and so I sort of "forgot" about Him and pursued what seemed good to me at the time.

It was like the way Susan forced herself to "forget" about the True Narnia so she could ignore the lessons she had learned there.
 
inkspot said:
When I was a younger woman and wanted to live a wild lifestyle, of course I still had in my head all the Sunday School lessons and even the personal closeness I had felt to Christ growing up, but I convinced myself that it was sort of imaginary, that Jesus wasn't all that interested in me and what I was doing as long as I wasn't hurting anyone ... and so I sort of "forgot" about Him and pursued what seemed good to me at the time.

It was like the way Susan forced herself to "forget" about the True Narnia so she could ignore the lessons she had learned there.
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yup.



also, I was re-reading 'The Problem of Susan' and it talks about resenting a god that could leave one person of a family behind from a train wreck.
Does anyone think that an event like that could completely shatter an already tenuous belief?
here's a link to the story if you're intersted http://www.impalapublications.com/b...396-The-Problem-of-Susan,-by-Neil-Gaiman.html
I think i mentioned it earlier in the thread.
 
Yes exactly inkspot. Couldn't0 have said it better. I am sorry I didn't point it out. My sister started crying.:eek: It is true that happens to people, they just need to how would you say it? Wake up and realize what they are doing is wrong
 
gair said:
yup.
also, I was re-reading 'The Problem of Susan' and it talks about resenting a god that could leave one person of a family behind from a train wreck.
Does anyone think that an event like that could completely shatter an already tenuous belief?
here's a link to the story if you're intersted...
I think i mentioned it earlier in the thread.
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If this is the same one you posted before, gair, I'll remind the readers that it was a bit graphic. I'm 23 and was disturbed by the some of the imagery. I felt a lot of it was completely unnecessary to Susan's story.

As for your question, gair, I think it's complicated. What would I do if my entire family died together in an accident and I alone was left? I truly don't know. I know what I HOPE I would do. And that is what I will say here. While it is quite possible to allow your pain to lead to bitterness and to resentment, it also does nothing to make anything better. It solves nothing. A person who allows pain to cause resentment to grow in their hearts (and it is something you allow, not something that happens without your knowing) will only be in MORE pain and the pain will heal less slowly, if really at all.

Death in a family is always a tragedy--my church family is experiencing that pain today after a car accident. Yet I still believe it causes more pain to allow resentment than it does to run to the arms of a loving God who will walk with you IN your suffering.

To connect this to Susan, yes she is alone. Yes her entire family is gone. YES, this is INCREDIBLY traumatizing. I can't recall why the Pevensie parents were on the train, and I can't recall where Susan was at the time, so I don't know WHY she may not have been on the train...Maybe she was on a trip, Lewis doesn't really say. But I still think he was making a significant point by NOT having her there.

I have never connected with Susan as a character--not when I was 10, 12, 14, 18, 21, or now at 23. She may be the most "human" to some readers, but I usually just wanted to shake her. Honestly, until joining this forum I never gave a thought about what happened to Sue.

So I agree its tragic. I hope she came to rely on the Only One who could help, instead of falling into despair. I hope she DID come to realize what she missed and regain some of it. I hope she DID eventually make it to Aslan's Country. I sincerely hope that she did NOT begin to resent God, just as I hope that others who share her grief do not let resentment grow in their hearts.
 
She could have become bitter, yes, but I still like this idea that I posted earlier today:

Susan (dressed in black) goes to the police station to collect her family's personal effects. Very little is left but she has the contents of the boys' pockets, a little bag with Lucy's journal, as well some of her parents things, she is quite numb by the thought of them being dead but she spends the afternoon going through their stuff. By and by she gets to the rings in the one of the boys' pockets (probably Peter's). She vaguely remembers that there was something supposedly spectacular about the rings but completely forgets what they are very pretty though so while carefully hugging Lucy's Journal which she had located a while back she puts her hand in the pocket to try on one of the rings. The bedroom that she was sitting in fades away and she is standing in the Wood Between the Worlds. Near her are two depressions that were once ponds and also the pond that she just came out of. She sits there in the calm and decides to read Lucy's Journal which has the accounts of all of the adventures in Narnia save the one that just started. As she reads a ginger-colored cat starts playing with her side, eventually she comes to the part where she finds that none were going to Narnia anymore she finds Lucy's struggles to get over the fact that she could no longer be with Aslan in person and then reads through where Lucy finds the truth to be that Aslan was Jesus and he is always with her. Finally she finishes the book with a better understanding of her sister and a little ashamed of the part she played in making her sister's transition from being a Narnian Queen to being an ordinary English woman difficult. Then she notices the tawny cat that she has been unconscienciously petting this whole time. The cat is purring and she just wants to hug it. She eventually leaves and goes back to England and picks up her life but she always goes back to the calm place that we know as the Wood between the Worlds as a place of solace and always the cat is with her when she is there. Gradually she needs it or her heart is not at peace during the week. She starts having vivid memories flood back into her mind about her adventures in Narnia helped along by Lucy's Journal and those of her brothers which she found in their rooms. She grows to realize how silly she has been (especially when she reads Peter's journal and finds how bothered and worried he was about her) and starts trying to foster really meaningful practices in her life. One day after several years of this weekly routine, she goes to the Wood Between the World and instead of her small feline companion there is Aslan standing in all his glory and he takes her to his world.
 
Elentari said:
If this is the same one you posted before, gair, I'll remind the readers that it was a bit graphic. I'm 23 and was disturbed by the some of the imagery. I felt a lot of it was completely unnecessary to Susan's story.

As for your question, gair, I think it's complicated. What would I do if my entire family died together in an accident and I alone was left? I truly don't know. I know what I HOPE I would do. And that is what I will say here. While it is quite possible to allow your pain to lead to bitterness and to resentment, it also does nothing to make anything better. It solves nothing. A person who allows pain to cause resentment to grow in their hearts (and it is something you allow, not something that happens without your knowing) will only be in MORE pain and the pain will heal less slowly, if really at all.
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It was an unnecessary piece - honestly, it seems like it was written for shock value by a consistently disappointing writer. He clearly knows the books, since Edmund is the only one who mentions being in any pain in the accident - feeling a blow to the head, and he writes about the applewood wardrobe, and I find it horribly sad that "The Problem of Susan" is what he takes from them.

I could never see her letting it go and calling it a freak accident. Even if she wants to keep playing pretend, the rings will be among Peter and Edmund's personal effects - they will not work but she will know what they are, Jill and Eustace will not be found since they did not die on the train, and she knows what links all of them and Lucy hardly seems the sort not to plead with Susan to come with them. Instead, I think she gets the chance to make things right, and tell Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold what happened and where their boy is.
 
She had lost her whole family in a horrobly way, n she's lost her fate, but i believe that she'll find her own way to believe again n go to Narnia when she days.
 
lizardy said:
She had lost her whole family in a horrobly way, n she's lost her fate, but i believe that she'll find her own way to believe again n go to Narnia when she days.
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Welcome Lizardy! I did not see you post before. I agree with you.
 
Let's all have the right tools to solve this puzzle, shall we?

FIRST OFF Susan stopped believing in Narnia. Nowhere, even in The Last Battle, did it say Susan stopped believing in God or in life after death. If the books are to be taken as true accounts of a real place, then let's go by the rules of reality. Only a few dozen people on Earth ever believed in Narnia. That doesn't mean only a few dozen people on Earth are going to Heaven when they die. Even the Apostle Peter didn't have any idea Narnia existed.

SECOND this whole idea of Narnia Heaven, as if it were an exclusive place, reminds me of an old Porky Pig cartoon where he got a powerful spray guaranteed to send those pesky termites straight to Termite Heaven. He put the jet into a hole in the baseboard but it blew back into his face. Moments later we see him rising above the clouds with a harp and a halo, surrounded by a ring of termites with little harps and haloes. Come on folks, you aren't separated from your loved ones for eternity if they choose to go to a "different Heaven" from you. It's not like she'd have to swim the Rio Grande at night to see her brothers and sister again. And yes, of course, when she died her parents and siblings would come to see HER no matter where she appeared. All the "lands" of Heaven are connected.

Now go for it. The truth is out there.
 
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