I see a jerk of a God, who would manipulate his loyal subject into believing his son was going to die, just to make sure that Abraham is a good little dog who does what he’s told. I see a jerk of an Abraham, who would kill his entirely innocent and unsuspecting son because someone (even the big Someone) told him to. I feel its extremely damaging to believe that the relationship between Abraham and Isaac and God, as presented in The Binding of Isaac story, is anything if not toxic and depraved. My personal opinion is that the story is twisted, and that the opinion is worth sharing with others, because I don’t want anyone doing anyone else harm just because they’re “supposed” to. I don’t want parasitic relationships like this to be justified and allowed to continue, because to me, it is a very dangerous thing to accept.

So much this. Really, a lot depends on who you’re supposed to identify with in the story. Is everyone a potential Abraham? Do we want people who think they’re listening to God to hurt people, or is faith maybe not the greatest virtue in those instances?

I have to say, having grown up in a Christian Fundamentalist household, Gaiman’s image of God (minus the sexual bit) is very similar to how the faithful adults described God; it’s just that they took this description as an understanding of what Love is. Heaven wouldn’t be blissful – God’s Love would be empty – if one couldn’t hear the cries of torment from Hell. Things like this came up over and over. not only was Abraham a hero of faith, but so was Jephtha: one must be willing to give up everything important to oneself to be faithful, and if that hurts someone else, well that’s between them and God.

I don’t know if it’s possible to read Gaiman this way, but given the regard C.S. Lewis is given in Fundamentalist circles, it makes sense to highlight the fact that the Fundies would likely not see a Problem of Susan at all.

Fair point about a possible parallel with Gaiman. But at the same time it is possible to see this story differently. The Koran apparently attributes this incident to Ishmael rather than Isaac, the favoured son, though it makes not much difference to your opinion of Abraham.

The Bible, as a whole must have been written or even re-written at the fall of Jerusalem when people were wondering why so terrible a fate had befallen them. Disobedience to what they were supposed to believe looms large in explanation at that time. The Israelites were an oddity among nations, and the sheer quantity of idols found in Israeli archaeological sites from that time confirms their worship of God was more in the breach than in the observance. Abraham may well have realised that all these stone images their colleagues of the time worshipped were useless and ridiculous. It doesn’t mean that he would understand whether the spirit he was discussing sacrifice with was good or bad. Child sacrifice connected with Baal worship was endemic at that time in Canaan, Phoenicia etc it would seem. Some of the bad Israelite kings did it too. If Abraham’s new god asked for a sacrifice of his only son, perhaps Abraham would consider this perfectly normal, whereas we wouldn’t. When God prevented him and showed him a ram caught in the thicket to sacrifice, instead, maybe it was to show Abraham that this new God was God and not Baal. Likewise when Jesus died on the cross, it removed the practice of animal, let alone human, sacrifice altogether from Christian belief. You don’t have to accept what I am saying. However, I have long seen Genesis as a decided rebuttal of much Middle Eastern religious belief prior to the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC as well as a precursor to what we believe today.

My personal example is the story of the binding of Isaac. I have heard it said that some people think that God would ask Abraham to kill his own son, just to see if Abraham would actually do it. To a lot of the storytellers, this story is about having faith that in the end God will do you no harm (because he didn’t REALLY kill Isaac, right?) and being absolutely loyal to God is more important than anything else. God was perfectly justified in his request/deception, and Abraham did the right thing by behaving loyally. That’s how the storyteller takes it. They are perfectly sincere and earnest in their story about a God who would never cause true harm to the loyal and the fact that its the right thing to do whatever God asks.

I see something else, which I’m sure has been brought up to death and back, but I feel it’s relevant here. I see a jerk of a God, who would manipulate his loyal subject into believing his son was going to die, just to make sure that Abraham is a good little dog who does what he’s told. I see a jerk of an Abraham, who would kill his entirely innocent and unsuspecting son because someone (even the big Someone) told him to. I feel its extremely damaging to believe that the relationship between Abraham and Isaac and God, as presented in The Binding of Isaac story, is anything if not toxic and depraved. My personal opinion is that the story is twisted, and that the opinion is worth sharing with others, because I don’t want anyone doing anyone else harm just because they’re “supposed” to. I don’t want parasitic relationships like this to be justified and allowed to continue, because to me, it is a very dangerous thing to accept.

I’m not really Christian myself, but I completely respect the idea of God and everyone who believes in him, whatever form that takes. I just A) Hope that if God is up there, he’s the compassionate and benevolent God, and not “OBEY ME, OR ELSE” God, B) Really dislike God #2, in favor of God #1, and C) Hope that more people value the purely beneficial and empathetic aspects of God or gods rather than their wrathful and manipulative aspects. Anyway. Getting tangential here.

What I’m trying to work around to is that I think this is why Gaiman told the story the way he did. He perhaps sees an Aslan who would kill an entire family as a “reward” and leave a sole survivor behind as a “punishment” as a cat toying with a mouse, rather than a just and compassionate person. A God OR a character who would do such a thing, is little better than the White Witch, and can’t be seen as much of anything other than perverse. I understand that C.S. Lewis was being entirely sincere when he wrote Aslan and the ending to the Narnia books, and it pains me to imagine how he might have felt if he had read this story, but it’s important to point out an unhealthy relationship when one is present.

Heck, to bring in another mini-tangent, Tolkien was always trying to reconcile one of his story’s ethical tangles: how can orcs be born evil? It apparently never sat right with him, after he had written in, that orcs are just plain born evil. He grappled with the idea a lot, and it sounds like something he wanted to change rather than justify, in the end. In other words, the story he presented had an ethical dilemma, and instead of writing it off, it was seen as an important question that needed to be addressed and lead to discussions and trains of thought that bring to light some of the base philosophical issues of our lives. Debates like this, internal or interpersonal, enrich our lives.

…all this being said, I could have done with the imagery and bestiality being toned down. Honestly, stuff that’s too gory or just outright nasty bothers me, and I don’t like reading it, and I don’t really think it’s necessary. It brings down some of Gaiman’s work, to me, and in fact brings down many other pieces of other creators’ works I would enjoy more without the severe nastiness. Buut I don’t think Gaiman was out of line in pointing out the ethical dilemma, and I don’t think he was trying to assassinate the character of Aslan or the ideals of CS Lewis: he was just trying to bring a problem to attention. The Problem, of Susan.

“The box,” the rather daffy looking fellow in the eccentric coat repeated, more or less patiently, for the sixth or perhaps seventh time, “is a popular 24th Century children’s toy. Quite out of place here, and a potential souce of dreadful temporal disruptions. No, it must go back.”

“Must and shall, I’m afraid, my old love,” the odd johnny sighed. “Don’t blame me, I’m just doing my job. It’s really all his fault.” An inclination of a bushy eyebrow accompanied that, indicating the old professor, looking neither particularly old nor especially professorial, glaring murderously at the entire tableau from where he was securely trussed up in the corner.

“Please, Professor, don’t let him,” the eldest girl pleaded. She was quite pretty, and doubtless accustomed to having her pleas, at least, when directed at nine out of ten male humans, heeded with alacrity. From the depths of the seemingly endless swatches of green and white fabric wrapping him securely from ankles to elbows, though, the elderly professor ignored her entirely.

“What… what is that, actually?” the younger girl inquired, eyes large with fascination.

“The Secure Containment And Restraint Fiber?” the rather dotty looking fellow responded, fussing with his gloves. “Well, it’s… flexible, I suppose, is the best word. It has many uses. It’s primary occupation, though, is as a Serial Consciousness Amplitude Recollection Focus. It’s sort of an emergency fallback, don’t you see. In case anything catastrophic should happen to the old corpus callosum, as it were.” Here he thumped himself vigorously on the chest, waggling his rather unkempt eyebrows riotously as he did so. “So all would not be lost, should all be lost.”

The children clearly had absolutely no clue what the batty fellow was raving about. “But you can’t take it,” the elder boy said, somewhat truculently now. “Really, it’s just TOO bad. Someday we may have to return. We are great heroes there and may be needed by As–”

The strangely dressed weirdo rolled his eyes, nearly audibly. “Children, children,” he said, gently. “Once again: this box is an advanced toy. When one enters it, the box does a quick brain scan, and then, through direct neural induction, it creates a very lifelike, fully immersive, completely populated fantasy landscape where one can have very intricate, and, as you yourselves have experienced. very authentic seeming adventures.” Once again, he cut his eyes to the fuming, fabric enshrouded figure in the corner. “I rather suspect old Diggs here has offlined the software governors, though, and was planning to utilize it for rather more adult purposes when he needed a bit of rec.” He shook his head. “Although that’s for the Master Bailiffs to determine when they tot up all the charges, really. Not my wicket at all.”

The youngest boy’s brow wrinkled. “So that’s why no time ever seemed to pass outside it!” he said, smacking his left fist into his right hand.

“Indeed,” the interloper agreed. “Even the scientists of your time are discovering that one can dream an entire seeming lifetime in only two or three minutes of rapid eye movement. The neurally induced illusions created by the box take place in even less time than that.” He said a word that none of the children understood; the seemingly infinite length of striped fabric swaddling the professor extended itself, wrapping around the wooden box standing in the corner several times.

“But,” the eldest girl said, quite distraught now, “Surely there must be some mistake. I mean, it doesn’t look like…”

“Yes, yes,” the bizarrely garbed intruder said, “Shapeable plastics, built in holograms… the box’s programmable appearance is one of its most popular features. Fits in anywhere. ” He smacked his hands together cheerfully. “Well, then! We must be off. Stiff upper lip and all that, my dears.”

“Are you going to… erase our memories, or something?” the youngest girl, who was quite the smartest of all of them, asked alertly.

“Oh, no need of that, darling,” the unusual fellow responded. “In your cultural matrix, you could tell anyone you wanted every speck of this, and they’d just think you rather barmy. I’m sure you’re quite wizard enough to have thought of that on your own, though, aren’t you?”

“I don’t like you,” the little girl responded, lower lip stuck out pugnaciously.

“Top hole,” the strange man said. “Ta.” He clapped his hands together once more, and vanished, taking the not so elderly non professor and the 24th Century toy box with him.

Except for the eldest boy’s muted sniffles, all was silent in the mostly empty chamber for several seconds.

Then the younger boy said, apparently to no one in particular, “Well, I guess you lot won’t be able to hold all that over my head any more.”

The elder girl lifted her chin. “Do shut up, Edmund.”

I prefer to think that Susan got to have two adventures. She got to grow up in Narnia, and then do it all over again in our world. I saw a comment on Tumblr (not entirely sure of its source) to the gist of: Susan was left in our world because she was the only one that took the idea of finding Aslan here seriously. She wasn’t turning her back on Narnia, really; she was taking what she had learned there and applying it in another world. While her siblings were still enchanted in the world they had as children, she grew up and put it behind her. She already had one life in Narnia, perhaps she thought it was time to find Aslan and do good here. To that she grew up and put Narnia behind her. Maybe she was the only one of her siblings to; maybe they were never able to let Narnia go so it never let go of them.

And as for her trying to be the age she is now and trying to cling to it for the rest of her life: Sure. Maybe a little materialistic. But Susan was a queen, remember? She had a taste of that power and respect. It would be difficult to go back to being a schoolgirl after that. I’d want to be older too, beautiful and respected. And as for lipsticks and nylons – I think Susan probably liked pretty dresses and jewels in Narnia too. I (no matter CS Lewis’s intention – Death of the Author!) like to think that she used her jewels and dresses and lipsticks and nylons as a means of agency. Maybe it was the way she got people to pay attention and listen to her. Maybe her femininity was her tool, in Narnia as well as this world. And it would be hard to let go of that tool once she got older. Aren’t we all afraid of aging, a little bit? But times would change, and more people would listen to a woman for more reasons than just her beauty, like intelligence. And Susan’s smart, and she would realize and use this, and maybe give other people a reason to listen to her, maybe she would become a teacher or even a professor…

I’ve strayed pretty off track from the discussion (but this was cathartic). I did find that paragraph quite creepy and disturbing, but I think that was the point. I don’t think Gaiman had any malicious intentions – I felt he was going more for a shock instead of a mean-spirited twisting of a beloved character. I feel like the message was that children’s stories are not the same when you go back to them as adults, and that they become twisted by your expectations and experiences and cynicism. They’re not the same. (That’s not Aslan, just as Greta is not Susan, though she ‘is’ in the dream. It’s just what Greta’s mind has made of it.) But Susan dreams of Mary Poppins, not a real story but what she has “always wanted to read”. So maybe within those types of stories are the things that we’ve wanted to find, the things that can heal and comfort us. Susan gets a woman who is outside the rules, not under God in the way the people around her are, different but still valued and important. I’m reading it as Susan not having the same relationship to Aslan as the others who got to see Narnia, but realizing that that isn’t necessarily bad. She’s still had a good life, after all. She seems satisfied in the end.

I’m also fond of the idea that finding Aslan in our world doesn’t necessarily equal Christianity. I think people find God in whatever ways are best for them. For some it’s the organized religion of their parents, for others it’s finding a new religion, for others it’s seeing the good works of others and trying to do those good works themselves. Perhaps Susan found Aslan in the love of friends or partners, becoming a Buddhist and/or starting several charities. I like to think so, anyway.