01 June 2008

Heresy In Narnia*

A pop quiz: What do Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy have in common with Osama bin Laden?


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* As presented in the movie, not the books

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Carbon based life forms from our reality?

David said...

I'm pretty sure that P,S,E and L are not carbon based life forms from our reality.

In any event, the answer I'm looking at is hinted at in the title.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Poor military tacticians? I think you've got us stumped.

David said...

They're all trying to imminentize the eschaton. They believe that by putting themselves, or Narnia, or the Ummah in dire danger, they can force G-d (by whatever name they call him) to act.

Anonymous said...

"immanentize"

I don't see that with the 4P. Narnia is already in grave danger when they arrive, it's why they're summoned. I thought they spent a lot more time wondering why Aslan hadn't already shown up. And certainly the assault on the castle wasn't an attempt at immanentization, but a strike for victory without Aslan (and would have worked, if they hadn't been such pansies — don't wound the king, kill him). And the temptation scene makes no sense under that rubric either. I just don't see it.

David said...

Hmmm. I though that this was pretty explicitly Lucy's argument and that Lucy's argument was presented by the movie as being correct. That Peter wanted to go off and capture the castle without Aslan's because he was the High King and Caspian just wanted to hunker down and force a siege but that Lucy understood that they only way they could win was by invoking Aslan. In order to invoke Aslan, they all had to put themselves into mortal danger.

Brit said...

Dammit, I was just about to put "They're all trying to imminentize the eschaton."

David said...

Brit: Because that's your answer to everything.

AOG: Imminentize. They're trying to make the end of days imminent. The people trying to breed a perfect red calf so that the Temple can be rebuilt are imminentizers because they're trying to bring about the conditions necessary for Armageddon in order to hasten the second coming.

Immanentizers are Utopians, trying to make Heaven immanent. Communists and leftists generally are immanentizers because they believe that human society can be perfected by humans, even if you have to break some heads to do it.

Anonymous said...

Imminentize the eschaton? Boy are you people smart. I was sure the answer was that they all like to wear robes.

Anonymous said...

Lucy wants to find Aslan not because the 4P want to immanentize the eschaton, but because that's what Aslan wants. Note that it doesn't occur to Lucy to go off after him until after she sees him. I read it much more as Lucy was the only one willing to follow Aslan's will if it wasn't obvious. Also note how Aslan favors Lucy because she seeks him while the others don't. If she were really trying to immanentize he wouldn't have been so supportive when she succeeded.

P.S. "trying to make Heaven immanent" — i.e., immanentize. Same root as Immanuel. Not imminent, because that means "not here yet".

Unknown said...

If you can't immanentize the eschaton, why not eschatize the immanence?

Hey Skipper said...

If you can't immanentize the eschaton, why not eschatize the immanence?

Better watch it, or Harry is going to charge you for the use of his Random Noun Generator.