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November 28, 2005
Lucy of Narnia, Warrior Princess?
Christopher W. Cowan of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood sent me the following observation about the upcoming Disney film version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:
I just finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my four-year-old son, Zachary.
When Father Christmas presents gifts to the children, he gives Peter a sword and shield. To Susan, he gives a bow and arrows and a horn. He then tells her, "You must use the bow only in great need, for I do not mean you to fight in the battle." Next, he gives Lucy a bottle and a dagger and says, "The dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle."
Lucy responds, "Why sir? I think---I don't know---but I think I could be brave enough." To which Father Christmas replies, "That is not the point. But battles are ugly when women fight."
During the battle at the end, Peter and Edmund---not Susan and Lucy---are the ones waging war against Aslan's enemies.
I have read good reports from Gene Veith that Douglas Gresham (C. S. Lewis's stepson) has sought to keep the movie faithful to the book. I cannot wait to see the film. But I will be thoroughly shocked if Lewis's vision wins out over contemporary feminism (particularly since I have seen clips of Susan wielding her bow). I hope I am wrong.
I am more optimistic than Chris that the film will stay faithful to Lewis (if only to keep from offending Narnia-lovers everywhere), but his point is valid. How strange will such "mere Christian" notions seem to a film audience accustomed to seeing Warrior Princesses knocking the teeth out of their foes?
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Comments
Similar fears arose over the portrayal of Arwen in the LOTR...I was relieved that she was not clad in spiked leather, or doing kung-fu acrobatics. In the end, they did little obesiance to current sensibilities.
Let's hope this film does even less, and that Lucy's question - and its answer - are there in full. Though Father Christmas distributing lethal weapons will be thrilling enough in its violation of PC convention!
Susan DOES use her bow in Narnia, so that's fair. Not strictly in battle, though! If they were to show her hunting, of course, that would open a whole new issue...
Posted by: Joe Long | Nov 28, 2005 3:33:20 PM
I heard that the line was changed to something like "Battles are ugly affairs." On the same NPR piece (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5013120) I learned that Douglas Gresham is a Christian and his brother, David, is a Talmudic scholar. Sadly, the two are not in contact with each other.
Posted by: Juli | Nov 28, 2005 4:45:13 PM
Aren't battles ugly affairs when men fight too?
Posted by: Bob Smietana | Nov 28, 2005 5:53:21 PM
>Aren't battles ugly affairs when men fight too?
Not in the same way...
Posted by: David Gray | Nov 28, 2005 6:21:52 PM
Similar fears arose over the portrayal of Arwen in the LOTR...
They were well-founded. I recall from the DVD material that early drafts of the script did try to "beef up" her role, and had her fighting at Helm's Deep or the Pelennor Fields or both. They gradually backed off of all that over the course of production, fortunately. But still, the scene where she makes her first entrance in Fellowship (with the sword at Aragorn's throat) is one of the most jarringly false notes in the trilogy.
Posted by: Matthias | Nov 28, 2005 6:22:58 PM
Juli, I think so. That's what I always thought when I read that passage as a child (raised as a good little Mennonite pacifist!).
Posted by: Librarian | Nov 28, 2005 6:34:39 PM
Robert E. Lee famously said, "It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it." Many men have an affinity for battle and the kind of heroism that is found in war. It's men who like war movies, who play war as boys, who study battle tactics. So although battles may be ugly, they are sometimes necessary, and it has been men throughout history who have fought them. Women have a different psychic makeup, not to mention less physical ability to fight a battle, and it is an ugly thing to thrust a woman into a position she is not suited for and which would place her in greater peril than if she were a man.
(To forestall the inevitable nit-picking, I suppose I should say that probably women exist who love war and are supremely talented warrioresses, but that does not change the main argument.)
Posted by: Judy Warner | Nov 28, 2005 10:13:24 PM
You might find this interview with Andrew Adamson, who directed the movie, interesting: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=33421
"Andrew Adamson, co-writer and director of the upcoming big-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis' fantasy tale The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, told SCI FI Wire that for the most part he welcomed the involvement of Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson, as the film evolved. Gresham is credited as a co-producer on the film, which represents Adamson's first live-action feature after helming the animated hits Shrek and Shrek 2.
"'He was available to us the whole time and came on set a number of times throughout the process,' Adamson said of Gresham during an interview. 'I generally found it to be very helpful, because he knew Jack [Lewis]. He knew what he was intending. He'd talked to him over the years. So the way I got to use Doug the most was when I was working on the script. I'd say, 'Look, I'm thinking about changing this' or 'I'm thinking about changing this wording. Does that take away [from] what you think Jack intended in the book?' And usually he could answer pretty emphatically, because he'd discussed it enough with C.S. Lewis.'
"Adamson added: 'The only obstacle—I wouldn't even call it an obstacle—the only thing we debated significantly was the sexism of Father Christmas' words, because he says to Susan [Anna Popplewell]—I think it is in the book—'I do not intend for you to use these weapons, because battles are ugly when women fight.' That was a very opposite message to the message that I think I put into the Shrek films of empowerment to girls. It was like saying, 'Yeah, you take your little weapons and go off and play, but the boys will take care of things.' I don't think he was expressing his own beliefs so much as wanting to stay true to C.S. Lewis' beliefs, and he felt like C.S. Lewis had put that in there for a reason. The way I got around that was I basically said to him, 'Yes, but he wrote that before he met your mother.' And if you actually read his later books in the Narnia Chronicles, there are stronger female characters in the later books.'"
Posted by: Strick | Nov 28, 2005 11:23:08 PM
Women have a different psychic makeup, not to mention less physical ability to fight a battle, and it is an ugly thing to thrust a woman into a position she is not suited for and which would place her in greater peril than if she were a man.
Of course, in modern warfare, unlike storybook battles, women (and children) are regularly thrust into that unsuitable position, as civilians.
Posted by: Juli | Nov 29, 2005 8:29:51 AM
I'm not sure what point you're making, Juli. Women are increasingly thrust into battle in the U.S. military, unsuitably I believe. They are victims of war as they always have been. This does not make it right or change the nature of women and men. In fact, I think C.S. Lewis had it right: the girls were given weapons to use as a last resort, and they used them. Women nowadays should learn to defend themselves by learning to shoot and owning a gun, which they should use as a last resort.
Posted by: Judy Warner | Nov 29, 2005 8:39:42 AM
My point is that sometimes those who object to women serving in our military (in combat) don't seem to be as exercised by the casualties that same military inflicts on civilians, including women and children. Women might be shielded or sheltered from war when they life in the conquering nation, but not when they are among the conquered.
Posted by: Juli | Nov 29, 2005 9:24:04 AM
The difference, Juli, is that the women in uniform are there intentionally, while the women and children inadvertently dragged into conflict are present because they are in locations where fighting takes place (often due to the will and direct intent of the enemy, who shelters himself among them -- the act of a coward, by the way). When American and Iraqi forces attacked Fallujah, a known center of terrorist activity, the civilian population was given days to leave before the attack. I don't know what you mean by claiming that our forces "don't seem as exercised" by civilian casualties. I know from personal experience that U.S. forces undergo great risks themselves to minimize civilian casualties, and that our newest precision weapons have greatly reduced the numbers of civilians injured and killed on the battlefield.
Posted by: Dcn. Michael D. Harmon | Nov 29, 2005 9:49:27 AM
(Matthias - yes, that scene was a jarring false note; a shame they had to inject it at all.)
Lewis, a Great War vet, had a view of combat which nonentheless partook of Christian chivalry. The joy of battle is described the Venusian portion of his "Space Trilogy"; his Narnians have powerful senses of duty; Screwtape in the midst of the Second Word War warns his nephew that war can be very bad for Hell as men take a step in the right direction dedicating themselves to something greater than self-interest, and accuses "The Enemy" of unfairness for honoring virtue in the service of bad causes.
Yet Lewis saw a special ugliness in the participation of women in battle...so do I. Many women have the martial virtues to one degree or another - that's not the issue. It is wrong for a man with any choice in the matter, to shelter behind a woman's valor - and as wrong for a woman to willfully make the warriors' task harder, by putting herself where she is most difficult to protect. (Whether or not she is as, or more, capable than the men, true men must protect her.) There is even an unnecessary disservice done to the enemy; to put him in the position of fighting women knocks him down a moral rung unnecessarily.
Finally, a battle involving women will indeed take on a particular ruthlessness. If I were attacked on the street I would defend myself; if I were attacked with my wife on the street, I would do my best to render my opponent "hors de combat"; I would try to strike him "so that he was not able to rise", and an extra strike or two to make certain. The stakes are higher, and if you want to uglify a fight - raise the stakes.
Posted by: Joe Long | Nov 29, 2005 9:55:15 AM
I don't know what you mean by claiming that our forces "don't seem as exercised" by civilian casualties.
I didn't say anything about our forces; I referred to "[some of] those who object to women serving in our military" and was thinking specifically of some who approve the war effort from the comfort of home but believe women should be spared the experience of combat.
The difference, Juli, is that the women in uniform are there intentionally, while the women and children inadvertently dragged into conflict are present because they are in locations where fighting takes place
One would expect that those who are their intentionally - and voluntarily - have less to be protected from than those who just to *live* in a war zone.
Btw, it seems a bit of double-speak to suggest that civilians are "inadvertantly dragged into conflict" because they just happen to be "in locations where fighting takes place." When someone's homeland is invaded, it's a bit of a stretch to say that they are inadvertantly dragged into conflict. If someone breaks into my house for whatever reason and ends up hurting me, one wouldn't say that I was inadvertantly dragged in or just happened to be in harm's way, regardless of whether I was warned and ordered to leave my home.
Posted by: Juli | Nov 29, 2005 10:30:32 AM
. The stakes are higher, and if you want to uglify a fight - raise the stakes.
And all bets are off when a population is invaded and occupied.
Posted by: Juli | Nov 29, 2005 10:36:46 AM
The precedent of Arwen in the Lord of the Rings movies has rightly been allueded to in this thread, but let's not forget another LOTR character: Miranda Otto's winsome Eowyn, "shield maiden of Rohan," the warrior princess (true to Tolkien) whom Aragorn rightly notes has "some skill with a blade."
The Narnia universe has no equivalent for her.
Posted by: Patrick O'Hannigan | Nov 29, 2005 11:18:39 AM
Good point, Patrick. But of course, Eowyn has to go incongito, because the Rohirrim would never stand for it otherwise. They are True Men. She is well-trained and expected to fight at need, but is not put intentionally in harm's way by anyone but herself (and Tolkien's version of Providence, as her presence is needed to destroy the Witch King). I wonder whether Lewis and Tolkien ever compared and contrasted their attitudes...
Juli, military occupations have a wide range of flavors. Reasonably well-behaved occupiers are often welcomed by large segments of the population, particularly when the previous authorities were less than beloved. History is full of successful invasions and military occupations.
Posted by: Joe Long | Nov 29, 2005 12:13:56 PM
Juli says:
"When someone's homeland is invaded, it's a bit of a stretch to say that they are inadvertently dragged into conflict. If someone breaks into my house for whatever reason and ends up hurting me, one wouldn't say that I was inadvertently dragged in or just happened to be in harm's way, regardless of whether I was warned and ordered to leave my home."
And she also alleges "double-speak". In my opinion, the problem with her analogy is that she has left out one of the major characters: The evil-doer who has attempted to take refuge in her home. This evil-doer resides in her home, and in the morning leaves to rape, pillage, and kill her (and his - he lives in her home) neighbors. He returns to her house in the evening. The neighbors patiently wait for Juli to find the courage, the will, and the means to bring justice to her household. They forbear bringing justice (and from this justice, peace) to this evil-doer in large part in consideration of Juli and her "innocence". Juli, for many understandable and tragic reasons, never finds the courage, will, and means to bring order to her household. Her neighbors finally act. During this act, one of Juli's children dies, because the evil-doer intentionally placed the child in front of himself
Juli can not accuse the neighbors of ill will, or doing evil themselves - she understands that the situation could not go on forever. The neighbors acted with all possible restraint, and all possible care for her children, and she knows this. Her cry is to God. Only He can ask why His rain pours forth on the evil and the good man. Only He can ask why the innocent suffer...
Posted by: Christopher | Nov 29, 2005 12:20:26 PM
ooops...in the above the last she read "...only He can answer..."
Posted by: Christopher | Nov 29, 2005 12:22:52 PM
I was speaking of civilian casualties in wartime, not only of Iraq, though the analogy in Christopher's response seems to focus on that invasion. To extend that analogy, though, you'd have to say that the same neighbors who "finally act" helped the evil-doer move into my house in the first place, even bringing him house-warming presents, so to speak. And I still contend that when people are killed in their own homes, it's odd to say that they're "inadvertently dragged into conflict."
Posted by: Juli | Nov 29, 2005 12:32:23 PM
>And all bets are off when a population is invaded and occupied.
I'm sure the Germans and Japanese did not enjoy the experience.
dave
Posted by: David Gray | Nov 29, 2005 12:49:22 PM
Julie says:
"To extend that analogy, though, you'd have to say that the same neighbors who "finally act" helped the evil-doer move into my house in the first place, even bringing him house-warming presents, so to speak..."
Yes yes, the neighbor's are sinners also. Perhaps they brought these gift's out of a sincere and gracious attempt to the evil-doer to the neighborhood. Perhaps they thought him to be no more than the average sinner like themselves. Perhaps they thought him worse, but thought this act of kindness and cooperation would bring peace to the neighborhood without further violence. They were fools, they were wrong, woe unto them, woe unto them. Yet, time moves on. Sin's are forgiven. The evil-doer grows worse, more bold in crimes, and the time for action draws near...
Posted by: Christopher | Nov 29, 2005 1:13:38 PM
"And I still contend that when people are killed in their own homes, it's odd to say that they're 'inadvertently dragged into conflict.' "
Fair enough. Conflict, then, inadvertantly overflowed into their homes (if they were killed accidentally, like a few in Baghdad, not deliberately, like a multitude in Dresden). That the home is an especially terrible place for war and violent death to be, is in harmony with Lewis' commentary on women in battle. Using women and children as hostages is an evident wrong; deliberately sending women into battle is akin to it, though a lesser degree.
Posted by: Joe Long | Nov 29, 2005 1:51:22 PM
Islands of sanity you are, Christopher, Joe, Deacon Michael.
I'd put it this way: the physical battle is not fitting for women, in that it compromises their beauty in a way that it does not, for men. They ought to be seen not only as protected by the men who are fighting, but as above the battle, sacred, untouchable. At least so the Church has taught for a long time, and it fits with their persons and their indispensability. I have written about man's DISpensability, to come out in the March issue, I think.
Even the pagans sensed it; you can find in the Epicurean poet Lucretius an account of how the first human beings entered into a social contract not to harm the women and the children, "as was just."
The presence of women soldiers not only endangers the lives of women, it endangers the men (unless there are women of a species I am unfamiliar with), and it treats with ingratitude the sacrifices of men who must fight, regardless of what the women do. There is no social or military reason for it; and the people who have pushed it have contempt for Christianity in general, and for its teachings regarding sex and marriage in particular. That should at least raise your suspicions.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | Nov 29, 2005 4:59:18 PM
And anyone who went to junior high with girls knows that there's another reason battles become ugly when women are involved:
Women, for the most part, have a better intuition for how the other person feels, and for what hurts them. It's the other side of nurturing. Thus, where men might be more aggressive, women can be more cruel. Men kill; women destroy. Example: the mass rapes in Rwanda were, if I remember correctly, ordered by a woman, because that's how you destroy a tribe at its most basic level of blood ties.
When we are good, we are very good, but when we are bad, we are truly horrid in a way most men cannot be. War, for its mess, may well be cleaner with only men involved.
Posted by: Kate B. | Nov 30, 2005 4:22:51 PM
"And anyone who went to junior high with girls knows that there's another reason battles become ugly when women are involved:... Thus, where men might be more aggressive, women can be more cruel." Very true! And once women start being cruel, innocent women are more likely to suffer, since we never really had the code of not hurting girls and because we do seem to be crueler to each other than to men. (generally speaking, and moin situations like war or high school, which is a battlefield in its own right.) Weren't some of the rapes by Soviet soldiers in Germany at the end of WWII ordered by female commanders? And on the other side of that war, the female SS members were often even more atrociously cruel to prisoners than their male counterparts. Perhaps that's what Mr. Lewis was thinking of?
Posted by: luthien | Nov 30, 2005 10:22:08 PM
It might be a part of it, in addition to a preference for keeping women (and the families and children they represent) out of the line of fire. If memory serves (and it may not--it's been a while), there is one female combatatant in Narnia: the White Witch. Not pretty.
Posted by: Kate B. | Dec 1, 2005 7:42:59 AM
Shades of Kipling:
"And he knows - because she tells him, and her
instincts never fail -
That the female of her species is more deadly than
the male."
Much of inter-male combat consists of posturing - Patton himself said, "It is not the sharpness of the bayonet, but the gleam in the attacker's eye, that breaks the enemy line." Bayonet charges have won a number of battles without actually killing anyone! Casualties are often lower when a posture/submit dynamic starts working; honorable surrender, ego-salving and so forth. Especially if all women are safely distant, both so they're not at risk and so the humiliation of loss can be properly "spun" to them when you get home.
A martial arts instructor of mine used to say that men in a fight are thinking both about winning, and about looking cool - not always in that order. But that women, when reduced to fighting, have already lost the possibility of "looking cool" and generally focus on raw destruction. It seemed very true in high school, which seems to be a common perception of society in its most primal state...
Posted by: Joe Long | Dec 1, 2005 8:15:19 AM
I just happen to be re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia, currently at The Horse and His Boy.
This is an interesting book because it leaps back into the skipped decades of the first book. We see the four children as secondary characters at the height of their rule.
Curiously, in the last chapters of this book we find Lucy as precisely the Warrior Queen.
From chapter 12, "Then came three people riding abreast, two on great chargers and one on a pony. The two on the chargers were King Edmund and a fair haired lady with a very merry face who wore a helmet anc carried a bow across her shoulder and a quiver full of arrows at her side. ("The Queen Lucy," whispered Duffle.)"
Later, we read:
"O what nonsense!" Corin burst out. "Of course I'm going to fight. Why, the Queen Lucy's going to be with the archers."
"The Queen's grace will do as she pleases," said Thornbut.
And in Chapter 13 we read this:
"And where is the Queen Susan?"
"At Cair Paravel," said Corin. "She's not like Lucy, you know, who's as good as a man, or at any rate as good as a boy. Queen Susan is more like an ordinary grown-up lady. She doesn't ride to the wars, though she is an excellent archer."
Lucy is arguably the strongest character in these books, besides Aslan. While the first book does indeed keep the girls out of war, it seems part of Lucy's development as Queen that she participates in the battles, to the point she is an expected part, and Peter must order her not to bring her Gift to all the battles she participates in, so as not to use all the precious liquid.
I am not drawing any conclusions from these passages, however it seems clear that part of Lucy's heroism is represented by her willingness to fight in the battles.
While it may not be part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe battle, having Lucy as a warrior queen seems entirely fitting for Lewis' conception of the character.
Posted by: Patrick | Dec 1, 2005 8:46:08 AM
Patrick's comments bring to mind why I still find myself somewhat bothered by the comments in LW&W about girls in battle. To the extent that it's a fictional Christian epic, it's all well and good. But to the extent that the Narnia series is symbolic or allegorical (as it undeniably is in many places), it seems out of kilter to say the girls mustn't go to battle. I hope my daughters are trained to be warriors in the service of Christ. There's a reason why little Catholic girls love the holy cards of Joan of Arc, St. Martha crushing the Dragon, etc. And how else do we see Our Lady crushing the serpent, without including women in the ranks of Christian warriors?
The Horse and His Boy, being more straightforwardly symbolic (which is why the nonsense about the Calormenes proving Lewis to be a racist is in fact nonsense), quite reasonably makes Lucy more straightforwardly a warrior, and suggests Susan's ladylike abstention from the wars is not so admirable.
Posted by: sharon d. | Dec 1, 2005 11:31:56 AM
A sword welder should appear as calm as a fine lady, but inwardly must be capable of quick action like a surprised tiger. The best sowrd handler melds female and male energies: outwardly calm, but inwardly poised for action.
-Sun Tzu "The Art of War"
Posted by: Megan | Apr 3, 2006 4:20:14 PM
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