Posted by: @aslanthelion

If he’s lying down on his belly, it wouldn’t exactly be a straight view of his back like it would be if he was sitting.

Presumably, C. S. Lewis felt it would be too crass to have Aslan say they would only see his rear end.  

Posted by: @col-klink

Posted by: @aslanthelion

If he’s lying down on his belly, it wouldn’t exactly be a straight view of his back like it would be if he was sitting.

Presumably, C. S. Lewis felt it would be too crass to have Aslan say they would only see his rear end.  

Yeah, makes sense. That reminds me of a comment someone made earlier that I responded to, I won’t say what but both had to be taken down because they came across sounding kind of disrespectful—-which wasn’t my intention and I’m sure wasn’t the other person’s either, but I get why the mods removed them.

Posted by: @aslanthelion

“‘They shall see only my back,’ said Aslan.

I don't know if this was the intention, but it reminded me of God allowing Moses to see his back or the edge of his robe on Mt. Sinai. It may have been an act of mercy since sin can't be in the presence of God. As frightened as the bullies were at seeing his back, what would have happened if they had seen his face? Would it have been akin to Nadab and Abihu's fates?

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
²⁶ And after my skin is ^a]">[a]destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷ Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my ^b]">[b]heart yearns within me!

In our sinful state we are unable to approach God. And God can't allow sin to go unpunished because that would contradict His nature.

(*facepalms when I realize that everyone had already come to this conclusion, lol*)

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

I think bullying is a thing that a lot of kids deal with. I haven't experienced any, so I'm grateful for that. Though having been in children's ministry, they had shared prayer requests about bullies in schools.

I don't know if that would be generational. My grandparents, parents, and myself all dealt with some degree of it, but I have the idea that bullying in the past was merely physical, but not relating to social ostracism so much. Nowadays we have the internet which opens up more opportunities for individuals to bully others with fewer consequences. I truly wonder what Lewis would have thought of social media, and it's psychological effects. 

Hello fellow Narnia fans!

As a Brit. Aslan's position is like the lions round Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London - these look majestic even from behind!!  We know that Aslan always obeys his own rules and that he is lord of Narnia but "has another name" in our world.  Therefore he is looking towards his own world and must stay out of ours.  Turning your back on someone is also a form of shunning them from your presence or showing that they are utterly unimportant.  The "back" quoted is Aslan's back half (if you like) not necessarily just his physical back.  I love this passage as we know that all bullies are cowards and just the sight of a lion's back half would be enough to terrify the awful kids at the school.  I always have a big laugh at Lewis' follow-up comments about the Head whose friends saw she was no good in the job, then got her into inspecting other schools (anyone in England who knows about Ofsted will know what he was talking about), and when she was no good at that they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after!!  

Best wishes to all

Helen

Posted by Helen P

 I always have a big laugh at Lewis' follow-up comments about the Head whose friends saw she was no good in the job, then got her into inspecting other schools (anyone in England who knows about Ofsted will know what he was talking about), and when she was no good at that they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after!!  

Best wishes to all

Helen

I always found that extra elaboration to be a very odd inclusion for such a minor character. However I heard maybe it was based on the expirences of someone Lewis knew?  Maybe the source was just confusing a real life person with this, though.

I also heard this speculation about “parliment” being a stand-in word for an asylum, which seems like a pretty dark theory.

@aslanthelion I think it's British humour. TV comedy shows have featured incompetent people getting into important positions. 

Posted by: @coracle

@aslanthelion I think it's British humour. TV comedy shows have featured incompetent people getting into important positions. 

Huh, really? But TV was still in it’s very early stages at the time TSC came out.

@aslanthelion British humour has definitely been around a lot longer than TV (which, in fact, we've had in this country since 1932, although TV ownership only became reasonably common from the 1950s onwards).  

I think @coracle is right, that it's pretty much a "typical British" funny scenario that Lewis is aiming at — a person who's terribly incompetent in her job, at all levels, nevertheless manages to get herself (with the help of "friends") into Parliament where she lives "happily ever after". It's laughing at the idea of politicians who seem to have got their position not by actually being any good at what they do, but by knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time to move themselves up in the world. Which might well describe many Members of Parliament, in Britain and elsewhere.  

Posted by: @aslanthelion

I also heard this speculation about “parliment” being a stand-in word for an asylum, which seems like a pretty dark theory.

No, not at all. Parliament is the legislative body of our government in Britain and other democracies that use the British system (like Australia and New Zealand). It's similar to Congress in the US. There are probably also jokes describing Parliament itself as a lunatic asylum — that is, everyone in there is mad — but that would just be another laugh at the system, not something to be taken literally. We definitely don't use the word "Parliament" itself to mean an actual asylum, so I don't think that could be what Lewis is implying at all.

Possibly a better pointer to what Lewis was thinking of when he wrote that paragraph about the Head of Experiment House and her ongoing career, is actually in a brief, unfinished draft he wrote some years earlier for a (probable) Narnia story that was never completed or published. It's known as the "Lefay Fragment", after Mrs Lefay, a character in it who seems to be an early version of Uncle Andrew's godmother who is mentioned in The Magician's Nephew (but in this draft, Mrs Lefay is the godmother of the main child character, Digory, and she appears in person — and she's implied to be a good person, though a mysterious and eccentric one). But there's also a character in this draft who is almost certainly Lewis's original version of the Head of Experiment House.

Here's the quote we're talking about from The Silver Chair, for reference:

After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after.

And here's the comparable character from this draft for a different story that Lewis started some time earlier and never completed:

Once there was a boy called Digory who lived with his Aunt because his father and mother were both dead. His Aunt, whose name was Gertrude, was not at all a nice person. Years ago she had been a schoolmistress and bullied the girls. Then she became a headmistress and bullied the mistresses. Then she became an inspector and bullied headmistresses. Then she went into Parliament and became a Minister of something and bullied everybody.

(Just in case it's not clear, "schoolmistress" is an old-fashioned word for a teacher in a girls' school, and a "Minister" in this context means someone with a high-up position in the government, not a religious leader.)

I actually think the humour in Lewis's original concept of this character — Aunt Gertrude — is a fair bit sharper and darker than what he later wrote about the Head in The Silver Chair, who doesn't seem to be a bully herself, just not very good at any of the jobs she finds herself in!

(The entire "Lefay Fragment" was published after Lewis's death in a book called Past Watchful Dragons by Walter Hooper, an American scholar who became Lewis's live-in secretary in the last months of Lewis's life — that's where I got the above quote from.)

The idea was put into a song in the (?) late 19th century, by Gilbert and Sullivan. The Admiral of the Royal Navy describes his rise from office boy, in the comic operetta  'HMS Pinafore '.

@coracle Oh yes, of course — the song "When I was a lad" from HMS Pinafore, for anyone who doesn't know it and wants to look it up. In one of Gilbert and Sullivan's earlier comic operas, Trial by Jury, the Judge has a similar "career" song, "When I, good friends, was called to the Bar". In the Pinafore song, I believe Gilbert was specifically sending up a real-life head of the Royal Navy (I forget who) who somehow got the position despite not actually being a sailor!! 

Thanks. Actually one of our UK members has probably performed both of those!

Now...back to Aslan's back!

Oddly enough, I've only seen lions from the front, in real life. I can't recall ever seeing the scary back view of a seated lion.

Posted by: @coracle

Thanks. Actually one of our UK members has probably performed both of those!

Now...back to Aslan's back!

Oddly enough, I've only seen lions from the front, in real life. I can't recall ever seeing the scary back view of a seated lion.

Interesting you mention that - that reminds me, I took my family to the Melbourne Zoo for my wife's birthday in September.  We were all keen to see the lions - my middle daughter and myself (probably) especially!  There were two lions in the enclosure - unfortunately the best viewing area was occupied by a school group I believe - or else was just not available to access at the time we were there.  Not only was the view sadly limited where we were, but they mostly had their backs to us as well and they were very sedentary on that day as well.