Where They Messed Up

[Peepiceek]

Just for your use of the phrase "the Narnian equivalent of Pelagianism", I love your post and have decided it is probably right

 

[SunshineRose]

I've probably mentioned this before at some point but I just can't help repeating it again.

I was fine with the LWW film up until their meeting with Father Christmas. Some may have objected to the softening down of Lewis's apparently hard line stance against girls fighting but this did not bother me. No, what angered me was the explanation for why Father Christmas had finally arrived. In the book he says 'Aslan is on the move. The witch's magic is weakening.' But in the film this becomes 'The hope your majesties has brought is weakening the witch's power.'

In one breaking the witch's power, symbolically breaking the power of sin is the result of Divine intervention, in the other the result of human action. This is in fact the Narnian equivalent of Pelagianism.

It's not surprising the film went downhill from there.

Good point, Hermit, about how the film scene seems to set creatures up as their own saviors instead of affirming, as Lewis did in his book, that creatures need divine intervention and a Savior outside of themselves. Lewis definitely did not embrace the modern notion that the filmakers seem to have that we are our own saviors, and it's good to remember that the modern heresy that we save ourselves, rather than God's grace saving us, is indeed nothing more than a rehashing of the ancient heresy of Pelagianism.

 

[CORIN THUNDERFIST II]

They get ahead because they create an ILLUSION of progress, and people don't pay enough attention to notice the difference. If you read the Perelandra Trilogy, a.k.a. the Space Trilogy, you'll see in the third volume how the villains likewise create an illusion of progress.

In Doctor Who, "Genesis of the Daleks" there is a very good example of this. Davros, the arch-villain and creator of the Daleks, in conversation with Doctor Who, "justifies" the terror, genocide and enslavement of vast numbers of innocent beings on countless worlds which the Daleks will "achieve" by stating that in so doing they will bring peace to the universe, and that wars will end. He even claims that they will not be a force for evil, but for good!