Revisiting Narnia: The Last Battle

 And so we come to the end.

The book begins unlike any other book in the series: with an Ape and a Donkey. The Donkey's name is Puzzle, and the Ape's name is Shift. They are quite appropriately named, for Puzzle is a puzzled little donkey who certainly believes he is not clever, and Shift is quite a shifty and mean-spirited Ape who changes what is true into a falsehood, and essentially bullies his donkey slave (with whom he pretends to friends) into becoming a makeshift false Aslan. 

Shift manipulates the situation to gain control and power over Narnia, and as it turns out he at some point is discovered to be in cahoots with the Calormenes. Together, they fell Narnian trees and mistreat the Talking Animals, who are misled to believe that this false Aslan is the real one and that he is angry with them and that he has changed the rules. In fact, being in league with the Calormenes, Shift gets the Narnians to believe that his real name is Tashlan, and that Tash and Aslan are the same.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, for Tash in reality is an absurd hawklike menace, but the Narnians are confused enough by the situation. Only a small remnant remain faithful to Aslan, specifically King Tirian and his friend and unicorn named Jewel. These two are mistreated but they escape, and Tirian finds help after he has called on the old friends from our world - having seen Digory, Polly, Peter, Lucy, Edmund, and....  Jill and Eustace arrive. Together, Tirian and Jill and Eustace prepare and travel and find their way and eventually uncover the donkey in the lionskin. This leads the rest of Narnia somewhat disillusioned, and in particular the Dwarfs decide that they believe that all those in power are charlatans.

After a buildup of tension, there are a few confrontations. And the battle actually lasts over a couple days, so the battle in the title is the one that ends with the perspective of King Tirian being forced into a stable in which there resides the imposing and monstrous Tash and in which there seems to be a type of portal through which Tirian enters into a separate realm.

As it turns out, it's quite likely that Tirian died in this moment and that his consciousness transformed from the old Narnia and into the newer Narnia.

In the end, there is quite a payoff, and the last quarter of the book or so is along the lines of traveling further up and further in... yonder into Aslan's country. It is in these last few chapters that it truly pays off to have read all six of the other books before this one. Everybody receives a true resolution. And it is stated poetically, as follows:

|"All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

Overall, The Last Battle is one of the least enjoyable books in the series for a good chunk of it, but the final ending is a stunning resolution, and that is satisfying. This book is like reading Revelation, and indeed, it was intended to be so. There are parallel ideas, for certain, but it also works as a conclusion to the fantasy realm at work in the series, and Lewis's use of Time as a character and as a Motif are as strong here as in any other book.

There is a wistfulness I'm left with at this ending, but there is also a good longing for true restoration and renewal.

Maranatha!

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