In part 1, we introduced the sinister situation in The Last Battle – the created crisis, the prevailing atmosphere and the thin veneer of tyranny.  Now let’s continue our list of thoughts and ponder matters of authority, tyrants and how subjects are treated.

7. True authority is always kept out of reach.  A Boar asked the Ape about seeing Aslan properly and talking to him.  But it was not allowed.  In a truly free modern society, the authorities serve at the pleasure of the citizenry.  Ultimate power lies with the people, not in a palace, nor a secret government discussion.  In a dictatorship there is really no access for thinking subjects, only a carefully staged presentation that will have an impact on the crowds.  The Roman Caesars would go into hiding and then appear in a spectacular show of splendour.  “He is a god!”  The crowd would cry. But it was all staged. 

8. Tyrannical authority always knows better than you.  Accused of being an Ape, the Ape declares,   “I’m not.  I’m a man.  If I look like an Ape, that’s because I’m so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old.  And it’s because I’m so old that I’m so wise.  And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the only one Aslan is ever going to speak to.  He can’t be bothered speaking to a lot of stupid animals.  He’ll tell me what you’ve got to do, and I’ll tell the rest of you.  And take my advice, and see you do it in double quick time, for he doesn’t mean to stand any nonsense.”  Notice there is no reasoning, no discussion, no debate.  The tyrant knows better than you and so you must obey.

9. The subjects of tyranny are always necessarily treated as stupid.  Since the authoritative council of stakeholders is made up of experts, it means those under their rule must necessarily be treated as stupid.  “Stupid animals!”  They are to take what they are given and do as they are told.  It has always been true in every dictatorship down through history.  When you can smell disdain from on high, know that tyranny approaches again.

10. Freedom is turned into slavery.  Some of the horses were speaking about getting the work done quickly, in order to return to freedom.  “Well, you can get that idea out of your heads at once.  And not only the Horses either.  Everybody who can work is going to be made to work in future.  Aslan has it all settled with the King of Calormen – The Tisroc . . . All you Horses and Bulls and Donkeys are to be sent down into Calormen to work for your living – pulling and carrying the way horses and such-like do in other countries.  And all you digging animals . . .”  The Ape had no intention of releasing control and letting the Beasts run free again.  When freedoms are taken away, they are seldom returned without a struggle.

11. Slavery is described as for the common good, but it isn’t.  When the Beasts howled about being sold into slavery, the Ape snarled back, “None of that! Hold your noise!  Who said anything about slavery? You won’t be slaves.  You’ll be paid – very good wages too. That is to say, your pay will be paid into Aslan’s treasury and he will use it for everybody’s good.”  The repeated commonality in coups across the globe is the utopian vision of the betterment of society.  It is for your benefit!  Yes, there will be some work involved.  There must be, to make things better.  But your slavery, that is, your work, will make you free!  The Ape made promises to the Beasts of Narnia.  The Nazis put that assertion over the gates at Auschwitz.  The Communist Party always promises a collective utopia beyond the struggle.  And yet, who benefits?  It is never the common man and woman.  It is always the ruling elite.

12. The goal of the common good is described as a form of utopia, but the cover always slips.  The Ape described the goal of their newly imposed future.  “And all for your own good. We’ll be able, with the money you earn, to make Narnia a country worth living in.  There’ll be oranges and bananas pouring in – and roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons – Oh, everything.”  Actually, Narnia was pretty good before slavery was imposed.  The future only seemed to mean added restrictions and silencing for the subjects, but luxuries and control for the ruling elite.  Oh, you will own nothing, and you won’t be able to go too far, but you will be happy.  Utopian dreams with revealing slips.

13. The new and false freedom is defined by the tyrant.  “You think freedom means doing what you like.  Well, you’re wrong.  That isn’t true freedom.  True freedom means doing what I tell you.”  A truly free society is a rare commodity on this earth.  Even in Narnia it seemed easily lost.  When tyrants take over, they get to set the rules.  And when they do, the people suffer.

Next time, we will continue our list. . .

I feel sorry for the last book in a collection.  While many may enjoy the first, and probably the next couple too, not all readers will complete a series.  This was certainly true in my case.  It is only now, with my last pair of children, that I have finally cracked open The Last Battle and journeyed back into Narnia one last time.  What I discovered felt like a commentary on devilish and despotic democracide.  I had to check the publication date.  Was this written in 2023?  Obviously not, for it treads on far too many sensibilities for our day!

However, The Last Battle, the final chronicle of Narnia, remains eerily relevant.  I am sure it was to its own day, a day of reflection on the atrocities of National Socialism (Nazi-ism) in Germany, and a day of growing suspicion of the murderous evil of International Socialism (Communism) in the East.  Like all great stories, The Last Battle remains eerily relevant today, too.  “Narnia faced its fiercest challenge,” the back cover explains, “not an invader from without but an enemy from within.”  Indeed, so often the greatest threat to society lies within its own ranks.  And that threat does not always come from the most intelligent enemies of the state.  Often the mind behind the evil is devilish, while the actors used are less than impressive.  His antagonism to all that is good lies behind the puppet leaders used to enact the sinister effort to transform a safe society into something so much more malevolent.

By the time we reach the third chapter of The Last Battle, we already know that a self-serving Ape and his hapless Donkey have stitched up a lion’s pelt for some nefarious purpose.  We also join King Tirian and his Unicorn, Jewel, as they discover that Aslan has returned and ordered the felling of the holy trees and the murder of their dryads.  Arriving at the newly cut gash in the Narnian landscape, they discover Calormenes who are mistreating a Narnian talking horse.  It is all too much and they kill the two foreigners in a fit of rage. 

Struck by their noble consciences, they determine to surrender their fate to the justice of Aslan.  Whereupon we encounter “The Ape in its glory.”

I know that this is not directly related to biblical studies or preaching. But if you will indulge me as I share a brief series of reflections on a prescient work of fiction, here are twenty-two eerie parallels to ponder – parallels between Narnia, C.S.Lewis’ day, and even perhaps, our own.

1. A crisis was created and used by the leader of the coup.  The felling of trees, the gash in the landscape, the sale of noble tree trunks to the Calormenes, the profound upset of Narnian peace – it was all created by the one who now used that same crisis to wrest control of the territory and to serve his heinous purposes.

2. Death is in the air.  In the first chapter Shift cunningly manipulates Puzzle with the notion that he “shall probably die” if he tries to fetch the lion pelt from the pool.  Puzzle retrieves it and is “almost tired to death.”  In the second chapter the dryad is killed, then two Calormenes.  This is a story of death after death so that by the end, all the characters are dead.  Multiple characters state that it would have been better to be dead than…, and later on, we see Cair Paravel “filled with dead Narnians.”  Death becomes an everyday conversation when societies are taken over by tyrannical forces.  Lewis may not have known how accurate his picture was in the Communist east.  We may not know all that is swirling in our world today, but it does feel like the subject of death is hanging in the air.

3. Everyone is saying the same thing.  The King is struck by the fact that “the Horse said it was by Aslan’s orders. The Rat said the same.  They all say Aslan is here.”  Even though he had been warned that this was a lie, everyone was repeating the same message.  There is a strange power in a common story.  It will grow its own legs and generate its own credibility.  Sometimes a coup will take over a land by force, but not always.  Sometimes it is by stealth and the subjects will carry the tale of their own downfall willingly as if what they say is true.

4. For those that see clearly, it was clearly a charade.  There in the clearing, at the peak of the hill, “there was a little hut like a stable, with a thatched roof.”  But for those who could not see clearly this charade became their focal point.  “On the grass in front of the door there sat an Ape.  Tirian and Jewel, who had been expecting to see Aslan and had heard nothing about an Ape yet, were very bewildered when they saw it.”  As readers we can see through the whole charade – don’t believe what he says, he is a fancy-dress ape with a dressed-up donkey prop!  It is frustrating when others cannot see what is plainly before them.

5. Tyrants always look silly.  When the Ape, chewing his supply of nuts, was handed the king’s sword with its belt, “he hung it around his own neck: it made him look sillier than ever.”  Did the German population wonder about the short, shouting Austrian tyrant?  Did the bigger moustache of Stalin command the respect he may have thought it should?  And what of the potential tyrants in our day?  If you look carefully, they always look silly.

6. Tyrants are always self-serving.  “Now listen to me, everyone.  The first thing I want to say is about nuts. . . . I want – I mean, Aslan wants – some more nuts.”  The squirrels had already given the Ape more than they could spare.  That’s the thing about tyrants: they take everything from the people and lavish luxuries on themselves.  Beachfront villas, fine foods, private jets.

Next time we will continue our list . . .

(Illustration by Pauline Baynes)