The REAL Problem of Susan Pevensie | Narnia Lore Explained | Into the Wardrobe

I just subscribed to your channel. You have great content here! It was a shocking moment when I learned about what happened to Susan's family, but what struck me more was learning about Susan no longer a friend of Narnia. For me, her story is our story. Her journey is my journey, too. Being young and innocent, our faith is unwavering. We believe and live in a world full of possibilities. Growing up, we get caught in tangles of "stuff" that we deemed as more important than family, friendship, and relationship. I may have gone through a path similar to Susan's. A road of partying and spending, and superficial connections, then of pain, suffering, and loneliness. I'm holding on to what was mentioned that Susan's story isn't yet over as ours. We are to write her journey. And I know it's overflowing with hope. Thank you for this video.

The REAL Problem with Susan is that C.S. Lewis did not want to go into it, he knew her story was more complex and she had one of her own that would take the readers right out of the fantasy, but he did not feel like writing it because he knew he would not do it justice, so he didn't. He even encouraged one of the readers that sent him a letter about it to write her story and elaborate on it.

Susan's fate reminds me of a quote from C.S Lewis: "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” I think Lewis was trying to explain that trying to grow up was the most childish thing you can do, but who knows maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm missing something.

From a purely pragmatic perspective, Susan was the only one who did not have a developmental arc in the series. Thus her arc was saved for last, to take place afterwards. As stated, "Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia", so her salvation is assured. Lewis' gift to his readers is giving us the beginning and the end of Susan's journey, and leaving the middle up to us.

Susan was the reader personified. Most of us remember those fantasy worlds we fell in love with as a child, something that felt so real at one time. But like a lot of people, Susan was hit with reality and had to face it, no longer pining for those fantasy worlds or dreams of what was. I would even take it a step further and say that she blamed Narnia for what to her siblings, thus choosing to not be a friend of Narnia and grieving in her own way. Like many people, when something so tragic and sudden happens, we look to blame or justify why it happened. Susan was meant to be the real life anecdote to the fantasy world we were all reading about. I think in time, with much healing, Susan would come to realize that Narnia wasn’t to blame and will cling on to those “child” memories of her and her siblings and that’s how she will be reunited.

I never thought her being into lipstick and clothes and parties and growing up was the thing that was wrong with her. It was that she ONLY cared about those things and lost sight of what was really important. She thought she would find true happiness in the things of the world and saw the faith she once had as childish and silly. She stopped believing. She stopped wanting to go to Narnia. That was her problem, not becoming a woman or being girly or beautiful. It was her unbelief. But I love how Lewis left the story open. Growing up I thought that meant she went to Hell, but now I'm so happy to hear that's not what happened, that she still has hope and it's very likely she will one day return to Narnia.

I feel like people tend to misread the part about Susan's fate. They jump to the lipstick part and completely ignore that Susan is basically wrapped up in a false sense of maturity. She became what she thought was an adult: dressing up, going to parties, and putting away the fairy tales. It's a very childish interpretation of adulthood ironically enough. It's fitting that Lewis had Polly point this out, she had lived as a grown woman before returning to Narnia and saw that Susan wasn't nearly as mature as she believed herself to be.

Susan's story is rooted in tragedy and grief, and it's a story that Lewis didn't feel comfortable writing, given the more innocent and childlike nature of the other books in the series. In a letter to a fan concerned about Susan's future, Lewis had this to say: "I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan ever getting into Aslan's country, but because I have a feeling that the story of journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write."

Without a doubt your best video yet. I would argue that "once a King or Queen..." is part of the Deep Magic and she was chosen because she will find her way. Rather than the 'problem of Susan' we should speak of the 'hope of Susan'.

I always thought it was realistic to have a character who “loses faith.” That’s how life is

I love how C.S Lewis ended Susan's story because it is relatable. There are so many of us that for whatever reason fall away & lose sight of it all. By not finishing her story & leaving the possibility of her return up to her choice it gives hope for us. We might have fallen away or made bad choices but it's never to late to make the choice to return & "become a friend of Narnia". I see Susan's story as relatable & a story of hope.

I always thought Susan's bitterness toward Narnia was from feeling rejected by it and by Aslan, when he said she and Peter were too old and couldn't go back. If I was Susan, I would've been horribly upset over that as well.

I always felt sorry for Susan - losing her whole family in the fatal train crash 😕

I've always had the notion that it wasn't the nylon, lipstick, or parties than were in and of themselves the issue, but her fixation on them. She cannot have two gods in her life, and, in that point of her life, chose one over the other. I do appreciate that Lewis /did/ leave her potential return open, and didn't make it a closed case of her remaining lost forever.

I have always taken comfort in the assurance from Aslan: Once a King of Queen of Narnia, ALWAYS a King or Queen of Narnia. Susan is not lost. She simply has a different story from the others. I for one think it would make a FASCINATING story to read about Susan's journey back to faith and eventually, perhaps as a very old woman surrounded by her children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren, back to Aslan's Country.

Getting to “Aslan’s Country” happens later for some…Who says she couldn’t change later on? She was not part of this story as her story here wasn’t over! No one said she went to hell. We don’t know the full story, like in The Horse and His Boy, we don’t hear another person’s story, just our own. Thanks for the video!

I have given Susan's story a little thought. At first I felt her story was one of falling away from faith. But that does not make sense since she personally knew Aslan and had witnessed his sacrifice and resurrection. It would be harder to completely separate herself from Aslan due to this personal history. Another person mentioned that Susan is the reader personified. This is an interesting thought as then her story becomes our story. At the end of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader Lucy and Edmund are being sent home and are wanting to return to Narnia soon and see Aslan again. Aslan tells them that he is in their world too. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." So perhaps Susan's unfinished tale is how she must learn who Aslan is in her world after her family dies. Perhaps... I read somewhere that C.S. Lewis did plan to write a book about Susan of Narnia, but am not sure this is true. There are collection of C.S. Lewis letters put into books and one letter goes like this: “I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?” What I am seeing from the Narnia books and a couple of C.S. Lewis' letters, is that Susan's focus had changed post Narnia. And she was striving to be a contemporary version of a 21 year old young women with a superficial and selfish existence that lives only for the moment. I can easily imagine her trying to imitate Hollywood artists in her fashion and surrounding herself with other young people like herself. But then the train wreck happens and Susan's whole life is changed in an instant. I imagine that the people Susan had thought were her friends were probably a bit superficial and were uncomfortable with Susan's grief. I imagine Susan ends up feeling very much alone and lost. With grief and pain of this magnitude, she will be faced with a choice of blaming God and turning to Him for strength. Because Susan personally knew Aslan, so I see her ultimately turning towards God and becoming a person of strength for others - especially outsiders and the lonely and grieving souls. I can see her story arch being a bit similar to Edmund the Just. I see her changing her life from a superficial one, to a life of service. I can see her no longer wanting to choose a life of comfort and ease. I can see her having many incredible adventures on earth due to her convictions and faith. Perhaps she becomes a missionary. Or perhaps her adventures are closer to home but she is still an ambassador for Christ. Perhaps she works some as a nurse or a teacher. Susan Pevensie does have a story that is worth being told. I very much see her taking a similar path of having fallen away from faith as an adolescent like C.S. Lewis did and coming back to faith in a stronger way after the pain she goes through. Perhaps she becomes a writer and ends up writing about her childhood adventures in Narnia with her family. I picture her as an old woman responding to letters like Lewis did. And perhaps in one letter she explains how she returned to her faith. Then after writing this letter, she lays down to go to sleep, she appears to start to dream of Aslan, of the Real Narnia, and she sees her family. She embraces Aslan and her family with tears of joy. Then Aslan tells her she will never have to leave again and that she is now home in the Real Narnia. As Professor Kirke said at the end of the Loin, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, "Once a King (or Queen) in Narnia, always a King (or Queen) in Narnia." Susan's story I believe can be one of redemption and hope (much like C.S. Lewis' real life story is).This is how I picture her story.

I always thought, even as a child reading the series, that it was Susan's choice to turn her back on Narnia - not the other way around and I always hoped she found her way back.

They really need to make a BBC miniseries that tells of Susan’s grief of the loss of her family after the train accident, how she coped with her grief, and how it helps her rediscover her belief in Narnia and Aslan. For it to be good though, the producers are going to have to do A LOT of research on this by exploring her character and how C.S. Lewis himself overcame his own grief and rediscovered his belief in God.

I always took it to mean she had grown up and become preoccupied with all the things that were expected of her as an adult, and nothing more. Lucy was still young enough that she could get away, and the boys were men, so they didn't have the same expectations of planning parties and attending social events out of seeming necessity of "social ethics". But Susan couldn't escape those expectations, so she had been swallowed up by the worldly cares that didn't make her an enemy of Aslan, but just estranged from him.