I think CS Lewis meant for me to dislike Aunt Alberta much more than I do because half of it was just making her a feminist.
I mean think about it. Why do we dislike her?
1) her introduction to her in the beginning. “They were vegetarians, non smokers, and wore a special kind of underclothes” slay, slay, and alright then. Who are we to judge? I wear Edwardian underwear all the time.
He says something about a lot of open windows and very few clothes on the beds, both of which are fine? They’re tidy? They like fresh air? Is this implying something different in the 1950s or is it just that they’re progressive in an annoying way?
2) next it’s the picture of the dawn treader. Aunt Alberta has hidden the painting in a little pack room because she doesn’t like it but it was a wedding present from someone she loved.
An actual asshole would have gotten rid of the painting. And is it a crime not to like cool pictures of ships? You or I would think that slays but she’s almost certainly going for a modern vibe. Let her live. So that doesn’t mean anything either.
3) then we have eustace’s very poor timing. Lucy gets Caspian’s cabin because she’s a girl and Eustace tries to tell Caspian that Alberta says that sort of talk is really lowering girls, etc.
What does that tell us? Aside from Eustace trying to use some very performative allyship for his own gain, it tells us that Aunt Alberta is conscious of the gender bias, thinks it’s bad, and has raised her son to be conscious of it as well, or tried to. It’s the fifties. This is iconic??
4) when Eustace gets home changed for the better, Aunt Alberta is like, where did my boy go and those Pevensie children do it him? But let us remember, what was a weeks long journey for us was like a minute for her.
You’d be concerned too if your son went up stairs with one personality and then came down the stairs five minutes later with a completely different one, which he kept. I’d be worried about a brain tumor, or some sort of mental illness.
Also, she’s probably heard about how changed the Pevensies’ where when they came back from the professor’s. She probably thinks they gave him drugs or something.
Anyway apparently I’ve become an Aunt Alberta defender but I’m not mad at it.
There is this though: her aunt and uncle are the only people Susan has left after her family dies. Is this as bad as we make it seem? Like like obviously her fam dying is bad but there seemed to be a common sentiment in the fandom of those people. Those people are all she has left, and doesn’t that suck?
But realistically, they probably comforted each other Aunt Alberta probably told Susan that she could be anything she wanted to be, and she should do something with her life because she could.
I think she’s a lot cooler than the fandom gives her credit for.
