I dunno if I have any actual ideas, but I do certainly have thoughts, and you're welcome to any of them if they end up being at all inspirational. To address the story directly, first, I don't know if anything actually needs to be said that hasn't already, certainly. I mostly just think it would be intriguing to have Lucy and Eustace interact on this account. And I don't know - would Lucy defend Aslan? My sense is that she would also understand what Jill does, that this is between Eustace and Aslan, and that they can certainly discuss their experiences, physical and transcendent, and their different issues and beliefs, but I don't think Lucy would here feel any need to defend Aslan. Maybe it's a bit of a cop out, but I think she would have an answer, she simply wouldn't give it. Idk if any of this makes sense. I guess my point is - Lucy would have a defense of Aslan, but she would also understand that that comes from her own personal experience with Aslan, and doesn't necessarily apply to Eustace's own problems.
Going broader:
I do really love the application of the Gandhi quote to Lucy's position. Mostly because that is a lot of my own issue right now. I find plenty of the sacred and the good in the Christian tradition (and really, the Abrahamic tradition, I guess - what I'm shying away from here is the word 'tradition' because that implies a lot of the codification which I disagree with) of understanding the divine, but I find myself more and more at odds with the Church as an institution.
I like your elucidation of Eustace's disappointment with/distrust of Aslan. You can believe the existence of a divine being without necessarily finding them worthy of/needing worship, or just without seeing them as all good. Which takes me to places different than Eustace's story, I'm pretty sure, because it takes me to a place of I don't even know, evolutionary quasi-theism or something wacky, whereas I like what you are projecting with Eustace, a theism in Narnia and an atheism on Earth. I like the implication that he can find Aslan and Narnia here, too, but that doesn't necessarily mean finding a Divine Being here.
And I LOVE that idea from Paladin of Souls. Bujold's gods are ones I particularly like - they do, in a sense, work for good, but it's a good focused on balance, not on making humans' lives easy or just. While the testing sort of god yeah, isn't necessarily satisfying, I think it does in a sense work well with some of your vision (or, Peter's and Willa's and others' vision) of Aslan being there, doing what he can, but expecting others to keep on without him, to do their part too.
Another thing for me in reference to Narnian faith is the physical presence of Aslan, at least for the main characters. It's hard to talk about in-story belief and doubt when, in story, Aslan IS. The nature of his divinity can be debated, doubted, critiqued, but he's there, for sure. Whereas we the readers have a somewhat broader - or just different - range to wrestle with, from differing beliefs within theistic belief all the way to different ways of seeing transcendence in the world but maybe outside of religious traditions, and out to total atheism. Which, again, is an allure of having Eustace, particularly as you write him - and his sort of Narnian-theism, Earth-atheism.
I don't know if any of this makes any sense or is even helpful to your writing, but it's an interesting convo, anyway.
no subject
Going broader:
I do really love the application of the Gandhi quote to Lucy's position. Mostly because that is a lot of my own issue right now. I find plenty of the sacred and the good in the Christian tradition (and really, the Abrahamic tradition, I guess - what I'm shying away from here is the word 'tradition' because that implies a lot of the codification which I disagree with) of understanding the divine, but I find myself more and more at odds with the Church as an institution.
I like your elucidation of Eustace's disappointment with/distrust of Aslan. You can believe the existence of a divine being without necessarily finding them worthy of/needing worship, or just without seeing them as all good. Which takes me to places different than Eustace's story, I'm pretty sure, because it takes me to a place of I don't even know, evolutionary quasi-theism or something wacky, whereas I like what you are projecting with Eustace, a theism in Narnia and an atheism on Earth. I like the implication that he can find Aslan and Narnia here, too, but that doesn't necessarily mean finding a Divine Being here.
And I LOVE that idea from Paladin of Souls. Bujold's gods are ones I particularly like - they do, in a sense, work for good, but it's a good focused on balance, not on making humans' lives easy or just. While the testing sort of god yeah, isn't necessarily satisfying, I think it does in a sense work well with some of your vision (or, Peter's and Willa's and others' vision) of Aslan being there, doing what he can, but expecting others to keep on without him, to do their part too.
Another thing for me in reference to Narnian faith is the physical presence of Aslan, at least for the main characters. It's hard to talk about in-story belief and doubt when, in story, Aslan IS. The nature of his divinity can be debated, doubted, critiqued, but he's there, for sure. Whereas we the readers have a somewhat broader - or just different - range to wrestle with, from differing beliefs within theistic belief all the way to different ways of seeing transcendence in the world but maybe outside of religious traditions, and out to total atheism. Which, again, is an allure of having Eustace, particularly as you write him - and his sort of Narnian-theism, Earth-atheism.
I don't know if any of this makes any sense or is even helpful to your writing, but it's an interesting convo, anyway.