rthstewart: (Default)
rthstewart ([personal profile] rthstewart) wrote2011-09-02 10:11 am

Nobody Dies, Everybody Lives

Given the enthusiam for something other than everyone dies in TLB, I thought we could use one place to play where everything everyone was creating could be collected in one spot.  So, I went ahead and just created a community. The Last Battle AU Community. [livejournal.com profile] last_battle_au
If you want to play, create, or muse on alternatives to death by fiery train crash in 1949, you can post, link and cross link over there!!!  I think I set it up so it is nice and wide and open.  LJ is again be screwing so I'll tinker with the profile in a bit.  You should be able to join and post without approval and do so anonymously if you want.

autumnia: Central Park (Default)

[personal profile] autumnia 2011-09-02 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
You read my mind. I was thinking we may have to go down this route of madness given how much commentfic there was to the commentfic. :-)

[identity profile] intrikate88.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh thank jeebus. I'm glad to not be the only one to have divorced TLB anymore.

[identity profile] anastigmatfic.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
TLB? What TLB? I don't know what those words mean la la la JUST THIS ONCE ROSE EVERYBODY LIVES

[identity profile] intrikate88.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)
la la la JUST THIS ONCE ROSE EVERYBODY LIVES

LOLLLLLLLLL omg ILU.

Yeah at first I just decided that TLB made no sense thematically, and yes I get that Lewis was all mopey over his wife and decided to kill off all his characters over it, but w/e, Lewis. If he's going to disregard his own characters I'm going to disregard his whole damn book. SO THERE.
cofax7: climbing on an abbey wall  (Default)

[personal profile] cofax7 2011-09-02 04:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I love this idea!

[identity profile] snitchnipped.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Personally, I think the nickname "Let's Fix What Lewis Broke" for the community has a nice ring to it...

[identity profile] elouise82.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
The thing that's great about this - I actually love The Last Battle, because it fits so beautifully with the message that Lewis was trying to convey (naturally) - they had a task to do, and when it was completed, they moved on to new and greater adventures (except Susan, who took a little bit longer to figure out and finish her tasks, though I wholeheartedly believe she got there in the end).

BUT the message that's getting conveyed with these sorts of AUs is also beautiful and valid and one, I think, of which Lewis himself would have approved, and that is that the task continues, and that there is great valor in staying the course to the end (kind of what he was showing through the Space Trilogy, and also to a certain degree in Till We Have Faces). So I LOVE this, where we get to look at two sides of the same coin - we know what happens when they die young, because Lewis showed us that, and now we get to see what it would have been like if they hadn't, and both are truly awesome stuff.

[identity profile] h-dash-h.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
I actually like The Last Battle as well, and agree with you about it being consistent with Lewis's points. I just *also* like the idea of exploring these characters further. As I've said elsewhere, I got sucked into all of this because Rth was exploring the notion of what happens *after* the adventure, and how do you apply that to the rest of your life? A topic seldom contemplated in this genre.

I still need to read the Space Trilogy. I never read them when I was younger for some reason, and was sufficiently turned off by Lewis' religious overtones for many years as to not be interested in his other work. These days I see it as just another philosophy that adds a particular context and depth without me needing to agree or disagree with it (and as versions of Christianity go, I rather like Lewis's anyway).

[identity profile] snitchnipped.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 06:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Though it's been awhile since I've read them, I LOVED the Space Trilogy. But that's all I remember... I do need to read them again one of these days, but I'm happy to have them on my shelf at the ready! I'm not big on religious tones, but am on spiritual tones (if that makes any sense) and just remember really enjoying the language, the philosophy Lewis used.

[identity profile] h-dash-h.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not big on religious tones, but am on spiritual tones (if that makes any sense)

That makes *perfect* sense. I think figuring out the difference is what allowed me to enjoy Lewis again without feeling odd about the specifics.

[identity profile] elouise82.livejournal.com 2011-09-02 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
The Space Trilogy is very big on philosophical themes, just as much or more than theology (well, except for Perelandra, which is heavily theological, but also presents plenty of philosophical food for thought). I read it first when I was about twelve, but I didn't really start to appreciate it more fully until I re-read it as an adult.
cofax7: Three women: Leia, Starbuck, Zoe (Three Women -- Body)

[personal profile] cofax7 2011-09-02 11:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm. I like TLB until the point where you realize all that struggle and terror Tirian, Jill, & Eustace are going through is wasted. That there never was a chance of saving Narnia, and nothing they can do will change that. In which case, why send Jill & Eustace there at all?

But I love the story there, about Tirian fighting off a very underhanded Calormene invasion, abetted by treacherous Narnians playing on religious belief. Unfortunately, although that's the story I wanted to read, it was not the story Lewis wanted to tell.

And, frankly, it goes back to Narnia being not even a secondary world, but in some ways a tertiary creation--it didn't deserve the chance to live out its own history. To me, it feels like Lewis didn't consider the Narnian characters to be as real or important as the English characters, so when the Pevensies et al. had learned all they could from Narnia, then woops! let's shut the box and put it in the closet. No more pocket world for adventures. And I think that short-changes the world and the characters who inhabited it.

But then, I'm far more invested in story and world-building than I am in Lewis' messaging.

... I appear to have ranted. My apologies.

[identity profile] elouise82.livejournal.com 2011-09-03 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, see what I take away from TLB is the importance of fighting for the truth, and giving it all, even in the midst of hopelessness, and that even when it seems evil has triumphed, good still does overcome it all. In some ways, it's just LWW on a grander scale - in LWW, the Witch kills Aslan and seems to have triumphed, but Aslan overcomes death to make Narnia yet more beautiful. And in LWW, it seem again that Narnia has been destroyed by evil, yet Aslan overcomes even the death of Narnia itself to remake the land into something more beautiful, a Narnia that will never fade or be tainted by evil.

One of my friends loves TLB for the sense of hopelessness in it (he was always very into futile last stands when we were kids, also inevitably picked the losing side to cheer for, not because he liked an underdog but because he liked the idea of fighting against hopeless odds and still losing, but never giving up the fight), but for me, it is the hope that triumphs at the end that I love - that no matter how bad things are, there is Something Better on the other side, even if that other side is post-death.

[identity profile] snitchnipped.livejournal.com 2011-09-03 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
Ooh, I agree with everything you just said here. I haven't given the overall themes of TLB much thought, 'cause the last time I read it... oh, 20 years ago (yikes), it was too traumatizing for the sensitive kid I was.

It just didn't seem fair, 'cause sure, maybe the Pevensies learned all they could from Narnia (OK, maybe a good 3/4 of them... that's good enough, innit?), but that was enough to end it all? What gets me the most is the ridiculous short time between PC and TLB. Narnia was barely saved a second time, and the benefits are reaped for just a blip of time in comparison to MN-->LWW and LWW-->PC.

Perhaps Lewis meant that as a reflection of human progress on Earth, how we've achieved more in the past 100 years than several centuries prior combined. But still, it just doesn't sit well. And it really didn't sit well as a young kid.

Especially since the whole point was that the Pevensies were to learn of Aslan in their own world... which, we never even see in the books. But apparently, we're left to believe that Peter, Edmund and Lucy achieve spiritual wholeness their late teens, early twenties. And Susan was not a friend of Narnia because she hadn't at the ripe old age of 21.

And there's MY rant. Nyeah!

ext_418583: (Default)

[identity profile] rthstewart.livejournal.com 2011-09-04 05:35 pm (UTC)(link)
There are times when I'm just going to sit back and say Wow and Thanks and nothing else. Because truly, Res ipsa loquitur - the thing speaks for itself.