Alright I'm thinking about Edmund Pevensie again. I'm thinking about the nerve-grinding way society doesn't give him enough credit.
I'm thinking about the way his intelligence was used against him to enable his abuse.
You see, people forget that Edmund is an extremely smart character and he takes pride in that. It becomes central to who he is as an adult. He becomes the strategist amd diplomat. His hobbies are chess and playing politik. If we look at how he behaves in the beginning of LWW, he appears to be a classic case of gifted kid superiority complex. He's very bright, a bit of a shithead, but naive-
Because he's a child. And the thing about children is they tend to give people the benefit of the doubt unless or until they learn the hard way not to. Smart kids tend to feel like they have an almost "plot armor". But real life isn't like the movies, where villains give off all the signs and hints from the beginning a smart kid knows to look for. Also, these kids are not aware how much malice there is the world and the sneaky thing about abusers is they hide their red flags and maltreatment until you're emotionally or situationally trapped/entwined with them. But the thing is, even if an abuser shows some red flags early on, a kid is going to overlook those- as are many adults, but especially children, because they're vulnerable and confused by inconsistency. So when the White Witch momentarily snaps at him on their first meeting Edmund clocks it, freezes, but then she reorients her mask and his as-of-yet untraumatized by abuse brain autocorrects the interaction to have been misconstrued in his own mind. After all, villains are always evil. They don't save you from a guy with a knife, invite you on their sleigh to get warm, give you treats for no reason (because of course, he doesn't know her ulterior motive), and offer to make you a prince. Except yes, they do, but the intricacies of grooming are not known to most children, especially in the 1940s.
So when people say "he sold his family out for candy!" they're forgetting the whole plot by refusing to see the situation from Edmund's perspective as C. S. Lewis intended.
From Edmund's perspective, he's a kid being traumatized by the air raids, torn away from both his parents, experiencing behavior completely typical of "acting out" due to a situation in life they have no control over. Then he meets a magical, maternal woman in the woods who is nice to him and asks him to bring his family to meet her- not even really a favor, it seems, a completely inocuous request. When he makes the connection that Peter would be royal if he was, and of higher rank, she implies they could be made servants almost jokingly to assuage him of worry that their arrangement would consist of typical rules that would continue to render him a middle child chafing under Peter's somewhat authoritarian grip. Even if he truly believes he can make Peter wait on him, he's likely imagining ordering Peter to bring him things and fantasizing about being allowed to do what he wants or make decisions without his older siblings chastizing or pulling rank on him. Not like, whipping him while laughing maniacally. Is it nice? No. But it's certainly not EVIL.
And of course, it helps that the candy was enchanted to be as addictive as crack, not that a literal child who has never done drugs and was not told that would realize that.
So then he gets to the Beavers' and they talk about the White Witch as some vile, evil sorceress which directly conflicts with his personal interactions with her, plus Mr. Beaver unintentionally making him feel stupid for not knowing anything Narnia or the prophecies. That hurts his pride for his intelligence yet again, so to make sense of it, he writes it off as untrue because he's still pretty confident in his abilities. Then he decides to just go back to Jadis himself, since she was nice and more pleasant to be around than all this secret police, secret revolution, ancient prophecy shit.
And is completely and totally blind-sided when she turns on him.
So how exactly did he sell his family out? When she yells at him he instinctively blurts out where they are not so that they'll die and he won't, he still doesn't conceptualize the danger yet. He blurts that as a child attempting to assuage an adult that is angry at him, which is exactly what children are TAUGHT to do- acquiesce, obey- especially back then. At least in the movie it is painfully clear he doesn't grasp the true danger until he is brought down to the dungeon at knife-point and hears her set the wolves out. THAT is the moment he realizes he has totally miscalculated and now he and his entire family are in grave danger.
So he gets humbled real quick- by being held against his will in inhumane conditions, beaten, starved, continually threatened and manipulated, a literal PRISONER OF WAR as a CHILD. Then everything he does in captivity from that point is in attempts to protect those around him and minimize the violence he is unintentionally causing (except he's not causing any of it, the responsibility lies entirely with the abuser, but his initial mistake has completely rocked his ego and left him questioning every thing he does while drowning in ever-mounting shame).
But back to his intelligence. After being rescued, he is determined to reorient his intelligence with the new knowledge of evil in his mind, and use it for good. And wonderfully for him, he succeeds by clocking and carrying out what will be the decisive blow on Jadis with her staff. And he even barely lives to tell the tale! And presumably use this intellect time and again during the Golden Age as well as the entirety of Prince Caspian.
Interestingly, though, I would argue this same intelligence is once again wielded against him by the force of evil mist and Jadis in VOTDT. He comes back to Narnia without Peter, where he should now have seniority (and after all that character development, now totally ready to take the reigns!) and he's immediately shelved by Caspian. And Caspian, bless him, has a great heart and is a great leader, but is a little bit of a himbo and is deeply insecure. So the devil gets into Edmund again because his intelligence is being held against him by the narrative always giving him opportunities to use it- and he now knows from experience he can use it well- but not the authority to exercise it at will. See the entire Midas pool scene.
In addition, he's put in charge of Eustace, who is soooo much like he was at that age (and frankly worse). Here you have another prideful, very intelligent and deeply naive, sometimes selfish kid. And it grates on him severely because he is so hard on himself, and thus hates that which feels a bit too familiar, but also you can see he desperately wants to prevent what happened to him from repeating with Eustace. But he can't. Because only Eustace can control that, and he has to learn the hard way just like Edmund did. When he does, Edmund is pretty devastated.
Edmund's final confrontation with the witch- and evil itself- is the most painful reminder of what he's actually been through to those who don't want to pay attention or completely ignored the undertones in LWW. Jadis' "temptation" for Edmund is this:
"I can make you my king. I can make you a man. Give in."
Ewwwwww. But anyway, this reveals so so much about his mind and his relationship to that woman. Edmund is terrified of her. Her offer of kingship no longer tempts him, it disgusts him. He's both terrified of power and terrified of being without power. Being in control and forced to carry all the burdens is terrifying and stressful, but not being in control and being vulnerable is equally horrifying. Jadis is both the thing he fears and admittedly extremely powerful, so a part of him recognizes that her ability makes her capable of protecting him, making him more powerful, and taking away the burden of being in charge himself. But choosing her also means not being in control, not having any power, being permanently victimized by her. It's a catch-22.
So one final time, Edmund's intelligence is his trap. Someone without his intellect and pragmatism (and trauma) wouldn't even be tempted by Jadis in this scenario. They would see nothing of use there. But Edmund does see it, because he's been a strategist and a king.
And he's been a victim and a plaything.
So one last time, his intelligence saves him, and lets him save the world. He sees through her false bargain and knows the hideous reality it hides. He knows that no matter how scary it is to take charge and face his fears and all the danger around, it's better than the alternative. And he's strong enough to handle it.
Lastly, it's who Edmund becomes despite everything he endures that makes him such a fascinating, impressive, and three dimensional character. He's the most human one out of the bunch: a contradiction of crippling anxiety, lust for power, desire for protection, and a mind so sharp it gouges himself as often as it mangles others.
Intelligence is a weapon, but it cuts both ways. What better weapon for a dual wielder than a double-edged sword?
