Stand up and fight, and I'll Stand Up with You

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. - William Penn

And I Must Follow if I Can

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. --Lao Tzu

Once a King or Queen of Narnia, Always a King or Queen of Narnia

The preview for the latest of the Chronicles of Narina movies was recently released.  I know it is unfair to judge a movie by its preview, and I for one am still hoping that despite his limited appearance in the preview they have not reduced Eustace's role in the movie.  However, the lack of attention given to the arch of Eustace's conversion and repentance allows the preview to make another point.  The Pevensie's question  why they were summoned to Narina, for they believe that they are only called to fight its wars and so are confused as to their mission now.  In response, they are told they are all about to be tested.  Lucy is presented with the a vision of her deepest desires coming true and Edmund is confronted with the specter of the White Witch.

The later recalls one of the best and worst scenes from Prince Caspian--when Peter and Caspian almost bring back the White Witch and are saved at the last moment by Edmund.  This scene is the culmination of a lot of angst on the part of Peter, who had been petulant through the duration of the movie believing that he somehow was owed something by his previous kinghood.  He fights with people, Caspian and others, trying to reassert his authority.  This is a serious misunderstanding of Lewis's conception of kingship.  It is not an administrative office, especially for those filling the four thrones at Cair Paravel--it is sacramental.  Throughout the books the Peter lives this, he is always described as gracious and magnanimous, the archetype of a true king.  

The one virtue of this scene is in how it depicts Edmund.  He does not succumb to the pettiness of the others and is the only one to react immediately and decisively against temptation--he smashes the ice wall through which the White Witch is communicating with and seducing Caspian and Peter.  Just as the White Witch says he is marked as a traitor in the first book, once Aslan has bought his freedom he is marked as one redeemed and does not renege on his redemption.  

Conversion, grace and redemption are the central themes of each of the Chronicles of Narnia.  And while Lewis's work is not so simplistic that once a character undergoes these changes they are perfect- Lucy is tempted to read the book in the professors library in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, her sin is not a renouncement of the good and a decision to join the side of evil-- a conscious choice to join Aslan never wavers.  While this make be simplistic in the real world, within Narnia once a person makes a decision to join Aslan, a real conversion, they stand strong against the White Witch.

It is precisely this grace which Hollywood does not understand--what Aslan means when he says "Once a king or queen of Narina, always a king or queen of Narnia." 

A prayer

“ May the wind always be at your back, and the sun always upon your face, and may the wings of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars."

--George (Johnny Depp) in Blow

The Men Who Don't Fit In

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha!  He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.

Robert W. Service, The Men Who Don't Fit In

Out with a Bang

“I promise I shall never give up, and that I’ll die yelling and laughing.”

-- Jack Kerouac