The Last Battle (1956)

Here we come to the end of The Chronicles of Narnia.  While it certainly pulls out all the stops for the final saga, it’s not one of my favorites in the series.  Despite some interesting characters and intriguing ideas, it doesn’t quite come together for me (to be fair, endings are ludicrously hard, and it seems that, the longer your series goes on, the harder it is to end in a satisfactory manner.)  A few spoilers.

When a crafty ape named Shift discovers a lion skin, he gets the idea to dress up his gullible and easy-led friend Puzzle (a donkey) and pass him off as Aslan, the better to gain power.  Dark days quickly descend on Narnia, with Shift forcing Narnians to bend to his selfish will and opening the doors to further abuses from Calormen.  King Tyrian, along with Eustace and Pole, try to fight the influence of Shift’s false Aslan and return Narnia to as it should be, but this is a war not easily won.

The idea of a false Aslan and an opportunistic creature handing Narnia over to Calormen for profit is a good one, and there are some interesting ruminations on the nature of gods and belief.  The allegory runs deep here, mingling Narnian lore with end-times notions throughout.  I also enjoy Eustace and Pole’s interactions with Tyrian – it’s a neat dynamic, how he’s a seasoned king but he clearly understands their place in Narnian history, fully believes it, and treats them with due respect.

Unfortunately, with the return appearance of Calormen is the return of Lewis’s racist depiction of a nonspecified Middle-Eastern-like society.  He resumes the constant unfavorable comparisons between the two countries, with everything Calormene being inferior to its Narnian equivalent, and a few minor characters actually use racial insults, calling the Calormenes “darkies.”

The story also supports the argument I made quite a long time ago about the series supporting imperialism.  Shift is the first non-humanoid ruler of Narnia we see, and what happens as soon as control is out of the hands of a human?  He immediately uses his power for his own gain, starts strip the country of its resources, and sells his fellow Narnians into slavery.  (Granted, the White Witch and Miraz prove that humanoid rulers haven’t always served Narnia well, but its first Narnian ruler is both cruel and incompetent, quickly losing control of the whole thing and ceding power to the Calormenes.)  It’s up to the human Tyrian and two human children to put things right.  Meanwhile, while there are some heroic Narnians like Jewel, many of them are portrayed almost like helpless children, easily manipulated and desperate for someone to tell them what to do.  I still don’t know how much of it was intentional on Lewis’s part, but it sure feels like the poor, uncouth Narnians need the civilized (English) humans to handle the business of governance, because they can’t be left to their own devices – not cool.

Warnings

Violence, thematic elements, scary stuff, and racial insensitivity.