susan was kept from the real narnia because she was too feminine / a woman / an adult.
send me a misconception you think people have about my character and I’ll explain if it’s true or not : (accepting)
haha wow you knew just the question to ask to distract me from returning to my reading! :) this is the misconception of all misconceptions and it drives me BANANAS. susan was kept from the real narnia because her story isn’t over - - because she wasn’t on the train when it crashed - - because she’s still alive, and still has time to get there! nothing is KEEPING her from returning to narnia (at the right time) but HERSELF by the time we see her again. and the “too feminine” thing drives me to distraction, we don’t see OTHER women kept out of narnia simply for being “foo feminine” or “for being a woman,” (and i mean, heck, PETER is more an adult than susan by the time he reaches the real narnia, the professor even more so!) and susan’s attention to nylon and lipsticks and invitations isn’t in itself the issue. the issue is that she’s putting the world, putting the material, over narnia. she’s rejecting narnia of her own free will, pretending it doesn’t exist and trying to bully her siblings into the same way of thinking. (and driving others to sin is a pretty great sin in itself, which is…pretty much what she’s trying to do, to be honest, with full knowledge of what she’s doing). susan is angry and hurt and mourning, but those things in themselves don’t give excuse or reason.
if susan had returned to london and kept faith in narnia and kept faith with her siblings AND liked lipsticks and nylons and invitations (but not more than such things should be liked in any healthy way, not in a way that makes them a PRIORITY in the way they’re a priority for susan) she would have been involved in the events of TLB and on that train and entering aslan’s country with the rest of them. but all of those elements - - the nylons, the lipsticks, the invitations - - are also more symbols than they are objects. they’re symbols of susan willingly trading one world for another, throwing herself into being what she believes an adult should be. essentially worshipping the things of the world as false idols - - a parallel to putting something before god, which is in defiance of the first commandment if we want to get biblical with these arguments.
no, susan wasn’t kept from narnia for being feminine or interested in pretty things, or going to dances, or smoking cigarettes, or wearing lipstick. she was kept from narnia because she still needs to find aslan in her own world because she’s being given time to see the end of her redemption story.
