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metonomiaI missed yesterday (well, I could have done it, but I was tired.) so I'll be doing two days today! It works out pretty easily, actually, because Susan.2 and Susan.3 are HHB and PC, both of which have dramatically less Pevensies than LWW.
The Horse and His Boy (aka That Ass Tries To Make Susan Look Lame But Alas She Is Too Wonderful)
This really isn't Susan's story, any more than it is Edmund's and rather more than it is Lucy's or Peter's. She's in two chapters and only speaks a handful of times, and it can be seen as pretty problematic. But I'm going to endeavor to prove that no matter how much artful scolding and tearbending and handwringing she is doing, Susan is still basically the most awesome ever.
We meet her, as you all know, when Edmund drags Shasta back to the Narnian guest house in Tashbaan, mistaking him for Corin. Susan appears thus: "the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: 'Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. And what should I have said to thy royal father if I came home without thee? Would have been a cause almost of war between Archenland and Narnia which are friends time out of mind. It was naught, playmate, very naught of thee to use us so."
And so once again we have Susan the pretty one who mothers people a lot. And really, I see where people want to critique either Susan or, more commonly at least amongst my flist, Lewis, for boxing her and generally all ladies into such stereotypical and problematic roles. And I do plenty of that myself. But, especially now when I am focusing on the love for Susan, I think it can be as problematic to conflate issues with Lewis' portrayal of women with any sort of inherent wrongness in Susan's character. She is treated poorly by other characters and by the author (more on that to come tomorrow), but she herself is just plain awesome.
She, a young girl thrust into a strange world and a throne, befriends this little boy who has lost his mother. She has, by all hints, helped raise Corin, which not only helps Corin, but helps Lune, who has lost both his wife and Cor.
And furthermore, she's not only scolding him but teaching him here, demonstrating, albeit in a less than grave situation, a very strong political sense - losing Corin would not only be sad to her, but would be a horrid international problem. "Sorry, Lune, I lost your son. Lol kthxbye." No. Susan's not stupid; she sees the world simultaneously in emotional and practical terms, and she takes care of both personal friends and her entire country.
Which brings us to Rabadash.
It's very difficult to decipher, from the few lines it gets, what's up with that. Edmund calls him Susan's 'dark-faced lover,' and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_songsmith played on that in her NFE fic recently in a way which I really liked - Susan was totally sleeping with Rabadash (maybe for political reasons? maybe because she really did like him for a time? maybe because he was good looking and she wanted some sex?) but never intended to marry him.
It's hard to say what Lewis intended. Well, no - I'm pretty sure Lewis intended it to read as it's given; silly, pretty Susan with the gentle heart liked this man because he was brave and gallant in Narnia, but now she sees her 'folly,' as she puts it.
I can't accept that in fanon, and from reading her bits in LWW, I can't actually accept that from the text, either. It's perhaps eisegesical reading, but when I see Susan, Sallowpad, and Edmund all discussing how in Tashbaan they now see Rabadash's true colors, I cannot see anything but a Queen who has, for whatever complicated political and personal reasons, been interested in the heir to another country, and now is not. And that is such a very normal romantic development!
Susan, no matter how much interest she may have shown in Rabadash, no matter what mistakes she might have made in dealing with him, IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR RABADASH ATTACKING ARCHENLAND. The Narnians' discussion in Chapter 5 makes it very clear that no matter what, Rabadash is volatile, violent, and likely to attack them.
[I LOVE, by the way, how outraged Susan gets that Rabadash might try to marry her by force. NO WAY, she basically says. WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS. ]
She does blame herself, and hey, I would too, but that only makes her even more real to me, that much more understandable and pitiable. She just wants HOME. The Moles were planting an orchard. I love how attached Susan gets to home - Cair Paravel, that is - particularly given how much we saw her wanting to go home to England in LWW. I think it's one of the strongest and most important of her characteristics - she just wants to be settled, and safe, in a place she is happy, and there can be no fault in that.
And then Susan's bit in HHB is over. It's definitely sad that her distress and self-castigation and sorrow is only a tool to advance the plots of Shasta escaping and Shasta saving the North from a great threat, but all the same, I can find a lot to love in Susan from her brief appearance, and I only love her all the more when I take into account that her appearance could be read as weak and unlovable.
The Horse and His Boy (aka That Ass Tries To Make Susan Look Lame But Alas She Is Too Wonderful)
This really isn't Susan's story, any more than it is Edmund's and rather more than it is Lucy's or Peter's. She's in two chapters and only speaks a handful of times, and it can be seen as pretty problematic. But I'm going to endeavor to prove that no matter how much artful scolding and tearbending and handwringing she is doing, Susan is still basically the most awesome ever.
We meet her, as you all know, when Edmund drags Shasta back to the Narnian guest house in Tashbaan, mistaking him for Corin. Susan appears thus: "the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: 'Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. And what should I have said to thy royal father if I came home without thee? Would have been a cause almost of war between Archenland and Narnia which are friends time out of mind. It was naught, playmate, very naught of thee to use us so."
And so once again we have Susan the pretty one who mothers people a lot. And really, I see where people want to critique either Susan or, more commonly at least amongst my flist, Lewis, for boxing her and generally all ladies into such stereotypical and problematic roles. And I do plenty of that myself. But, especially now when I am focusing on the love for Susan, I think it can be as problematic to conflate issues with Lewis' portrayal of women with any sort of inherent wrongness in Susan's character. She is treated poorly by other characters and by the author (more on that to come tomorrow), but she herself is just plain awesome.
She, a young girl thrust into a strange world and a throne, befriends this little boy who has lost his mother. She has, by all hints, helped raise Corin, which not only helps Corin, but helps Lune, who has lost both his wife and Cor.
And furthermore, she's not only scolding him but teaching him here, demonstrating, albeit in a less than grave situation, a very strong political sense - losing Corin would not only be sad to her, but would be a horrid international problem. "Sorry, Lune, I lost your son. Lol kthxbye." No. Susan's not stupid; she sees the world simultaneously in emotional and practical terms, and she takes care of both personal friends and her entire country.
Which brings us to Rabadash.
It's very difficult to decipher, from the few lines it gets, what's up with that. Edmund calls him Susan's 'dark-faced lover,' and
lady_songsmith played on that in her NFE fic recently in a way which I really liked - Susan was totally sleeping with Rabadash (maybe for political reasons? maybe because she really did like him for a time? maybe because he was good looking and she wanted some sex?) but never intended to marry him. It's hard to say what Lewis intended. Well, no - I'm pretty sure Lewis intended it to read as it's given; silly, pretty Susan with the gentle heart liked this man because he was brave and gallant in Narnia, but now she sees her 'folly,' as she puts it.
I can't accept that in fanon, and from reading her bits in LWW, I can't actually accept that from the text, either. It's perhaps eisegesical reading, but when I see Susan, Sallowpad, and Edmund all discussing how in Tashbaan they now see Rabadash's true colors, I cannot see anything but a Queen who has, for whatever complicated political and personal reasons, been interested in the heir to another country, and now is not. And that is such a very normal romantic development!
Susan, no matter how much interest she may have shown in Rabadash, no matter what mistakes she might have made in dealing with him, IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR RABADASH ATTACKING ARCHENLAND. The Narnians' discussion in Chapter 5 makes it very clear that no matter what, Rabadash is volatile, violent, and likely to attack them.
[I LOVE, by the way, how outraged Susan gets that Rabadash might try to marry her by force. NO WAY, she basically says. WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS. ]
She does blame herself, and hey, I would too, but that only makes her even more real to me, that much more understandable and pitiable. She just wants HOME. The Moles were planting an orchard. I love how attached Susan gets to home - Cair Paravel, that is - particularly given how much we saw her wanting to go home to England in LWW. I think it's one of the strongest and most important of her characteristics - she just wants to be settled, and safe, in a place she is happy, and there can be no fault in that.
And then Susan's bit in HHB is over. It's definitely sad that her distress and self-castigation and sorrow is only a tool to advance the plots of Shasta escaping and Shasta saving the North from a great threat, but all the same, I can find a lot to love in Susan from her brief appearance, and I only love her all the more when I take into account that her appearance could be read as weak and unlovable.
