Flipping through the movie options recently, looking for something not Christmas, I found Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Sea serpents, wizards, and a painting run amok definitely rank as not Yuletide-y, so I watched, mesmerized as a ship of sea salty sailors and misfits rowed, sailed and fought their way to an island-sized heart of darkness.
Before they could get there, though, a selfish, fear-saturated, vitriol-spewing boy had to steal from a dragon. And become one. His name was Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and in one of the best introductions in literature, C.S. Lewis says, he almost deserved the name.
I do, I have, I will always hold Eustace in a special place. I loved him as a brat (and Dear Lord. Was he. Miley Cyrus could take lessons.) I loved him as he journaled his selcouth experiences through cynical, cowardly glasses. He was charming and perfectly logical to me when he talked to a seagull. I loved him on a boat, swatting a bad guy with an oar into the moat (by accident) and hoping he hadn't just knocked the British Consul into the drink.
I empathized with him as a dragon, breaking the mast of the ship with clumsy, powerful claws.
But here's a secret: I couldn't understand why no one else liked Eustace.
He plays pivotal roles in two Narnian books (Treader and The Silver Chair), and is more than mere background in the grand finale/rebirth-of-all-things, The Last Battle. He speaks his mind, no matter what others think, and he knows how to react to keep himself safe in a battle (even if it is just to run away like something small and woodland). Even later, being open and vulnerable, Edmund, his cousin tells him, "you were only an ass, but I was a traitor."
What did it matter when he changed or why? Why did it matter, given the story was written and it was all going to work out anyway, that he change at all?
Yeah. Looking back, even my own arrogance and apathy (which reads worse than ignorance and apathy) is, well, blinding.
If Eustace never changed as a character, he wouldn't have seen Aslan's country, made friends with Jill Pole, or been at the grand, epic, world-ending battle (which everyone knows is the entire point of any story).
His story, instead, would have wrapped with an unfinished boy rambling around the space of a dragon's body, claws lashing harshly; tears falling, drowning out the wisdom of a noble mouse offering comfort during his dark night of the soul.
He would have been background. Spending the word count he existed, looking through beauty to see flaw, things weighed, measured, and found wanting. Things would break around him, he would wonder why, not knowing how to fix them. And eventually, he'd convince himself it doesn't matter anyway.
Worse, maybe, after grace returned him back to a body which fit, he'd've clung to the ideas of a dragon. Blustering, blowing fiery criticism and spewing bitterness, he may have continued just as he had before, allowing arrogance to bind his ability to speak good into any situation.
Toying with this idea brought me back to reality - to songs about elves, ads for chocolate, and jingling bells on my dog's ruffled, furred red & green collar. And the hope a baby born to an unwed mother in a barn on the opposite side of the world thousands of years ago could save my soul.
Eustace and I are dragons of the same flight. Things like the P in psychology and the truth in theology bother us. We prefer the order of things, rather than the way of things. But such a structured existence disallows the power of wonder and whimsy. Such a life leads to winter, but never Christmas.
So although there's a certain, familiar protection in dragon skin, it must be scraped away. And in those scratches may be found glimmers of hope, of a far, greater country. And I want to meet Eustace there.
Before they could get there, though, a selfish, fear-saturated, vitriol-spewing boy had to steal from a dragon. And become one. His name was Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and in one of the best introductions in literature, C.S. Lewis says, he almost deserved the name.
I do, I have, I will always hold Eustace in a special place. I loved him as a brat (and Dear Lord. Was he. Miley Cyrus could take lessons.) I loved him as he journaled his selcouth experiences through cynical, cowardly glasses. He was charming and perfectly logical to me when he talked to a seagull. I loved him on a boat, swatting a bad guy with an oar into the moat (by accident) and hoping he hadn't just knocked the British Consul into the drink.
I empathized with him as a dragon, breaking the mast of the ship with clumsy, powerful claws.
But here's a secret: I couldn't understand why no one else liked Eustace.
He plays pivotal roles in two Narnian books (Treader and The Silver Chair), and is more than mere background in the grand finale/rebirth-of-all-things, The Last Battle. He speaks his mind, no matter what others think, and he knows how to react to keep himself safe in a battle (even if it is just to run away like something small and woodland). Even later, being open and vulnerable, Edmund, his cousin tells him, "you were only an ass, but I was a traitor."
What did it matter when he changed or why? Why did it matter, given the story was written and it was all going to work out anyway, that he change at all?
Yeah. Looking back, even my own arrogance and apathy (which reads worse than ignorance and apathy) is, well, blinding.
If Eustace never changed as a character, he wouldn't have seen Aslan's country, made friends with Jill Pole, or been at the grand, epic, world-ending battle (which everyone knows is the entire point of any story).
His story, instead, would have wrapped with an unfinished boy rambling around the space of a dragon's body, claws lashing harshly; tears falling, drowning out the wisdom of a noble mouse offering comfort during his dark night of the soul.
He would have been background. Spending the word count he existed, looking through beauty to see flaw, things weighed, measured, and found wanting. Things would break around him, he would wonder why, not knowing how to fix them. And eventually, he'd convince himself it doesn't matter anyway.
Worse, maybe, after grace returned him back to a body which fit, he'd've clung to the ideas of a dragon. Blustering, blowing fiery criticism and spewing bitterness, he may have continued just as he had before, allowing arrogance to bind his ability to speak good into any situation.
Toying with this idea brought me back to reality - to songs about elves, ads for chocolate, and jingling bells on my dog's ruffled, furred red & green collar. And the hope a baby born to an unwed mother in a barn on the opposite side of the world thousands of years ago could save my soul.
Eustace and I are dragons of the same flight. Things like the P in psychology and the truth in theology bother us. We prefer the order of things, rather than the way of things. But such a structured existence disallows the power of wonder and whimsy. Such a life leads to winter, but never Christmas.
So although there's a certain, familiar protection in dragon skin, it must be scraped away. And in those scratches may be found glimmers of hope, of a far, greater country. And I want to meet Eustace there.
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