sociotom 's review for:

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

2.0

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This book made me angry, on a few different levels. I'm going to talk fairly openly about this, and there's kind of two tiers to the spoilers. The short version is I had a lot of problems with this book, and rating it 2 stars is pretty much entirely because of scenes like Jill being so good at sneaking through underbrush that she sounds like a special forces soldier or something. Tier 1 of spoilers is me talking openly about stuff in the story, but not about the ending. Tier 2 is a discussion of the ending.

If you don't want spoilers for this book published in 1956, then the take away should be that it is Not Good, and its main redeeming quality is that it's a fast read. If you don't care, then read on.

Also, fair warning: there's swearing by the end.


SPOILERS TIER 1: STORY BUT NOTHING ABOUT THE END

What the hell. Really, CS Lewis?

Alright, here's the deal: in The Final Battle, our heroes are all white, and they are good. The evil people are dark-skinned Middle Eastern stereotypes, who worship a bird-headed multiple armed god. At one point the idea that Tash could be another name for Aslan, but NOPE it turns out that Tash is totally evil and the "opposite" of Aslan, which means the racist caricatures worship the Devil. Also, the main shitty character is a talking ape who dresses up a donkey to be an imitation Aslan/Jesus. That part isn't explicitly racist on its own, but with the entire rest of the book being what it is, it's probably safe to assume it's racist and I just missed an important clue.

Also, the white characters have to go in brown face to hide among the bad characters, and the Dwarves that lose their faith in Aslan (in the story it actually makes sense they would) go around calling these bad guys "Darkies" over and over. To their faces. As a taunt.

What. In the stupid hell.

SPOILERS TIER 2: THE ENDING

So. The heroes - who by this point have done super racist things - die? I guess? It sounds like they get murdered in a fight, and are tossed into a stables to die. But Good News: God...er, Aslan...brings them to Heaven/Narnia, where they reunite with all of the other human ("Sons of Adam/Daughters of Eve") characters who crossed over to that point, and even their own parents. Well...except for Susan. Susan, you see, grew up a little bit, learned to like "lipstick" and dating, and therefore is not allowed in...Heaven, I guess? But it's a little unclear, because all these kids have died in a single massive train crash, which is why they're suddenly back in Narnia, but the Heaven Narnia.

Regular Narnia is lost to the Calormenes, aka the Racist Caricatures, and then the book speeds up. There's a clear implication that these people successfully enslave/murder all the Narnians, nobody is ever saved from this for as long as the world lasts, and then the world FUCKING ENDS AND IS EATEN BY DRAGONS, then a time giant snuffs out the sun, and the souls of all the creatures of Narnia either end up in Heaven Narnia or vanish into shadows, presumably going to Hell (which I think is...Calormene?). But all the characters that we have grown to know - these children and their Aunt and Uncle, everyone but Susan who had the gall to not be a stunted child - die in a fucking train crash.

Thanks for reading all seven books, I've murdered everyone for you!

Fuck you, CS Lewis.