I remember reacting along the lines of "....what the heck is that?!" and wondering why in the world would people want to worship that thing lol. Like the book just felt like it got darker and darker as it went along, and Tash showing up in the flesh was definitely one of the incredibly dark moments. Rishda's expression in the illustration though... my opinion he looks pretty horrified, which makes the scene even more scary!

Posted by: @kokoro-hane

I remember reacting along the lines of "....what the heck is that?!" and wondering why in the world would people want to worship that thing lol.

CS Lewis may have had got an inspiration of Tash from gods of ancient religions. In Assyria, one of their gods was Nisroch, who had head of an eagle. Many of the Hindu gods and goddesses were known to have four arms.

Posted by: @kokoro-hane

Like the book just felt like it got darker and darker as it went along, and Tash showing up in the flesh was definitely one of the incredibly dark moments.

While the six other books had dark moments, The Last Battle is perhaps the darkest out of all seven books. There's themes of manipulation, trees cutting cut down that are killing dryads, Narnians being sold as slaves to Calormenes, Cair Paravel being ransacked by Calormene navy, the Battle of Stable Hill, Tash showing up.

Posted by: @kokoro-hane

Rishda's expression in the illustration though... my opinion he looks pretty horrified, which makes the scene even more scary!

I always thought it was a scowl, because he is the bad guy. He could look horrified, too. He has been playing with fire, calling on Tash, though he doesn't believe in him. I don't know if the expression makes the scene more scary, though.

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

 

I always thought it was a scowl, because he is the bad guy. He could look horrified, too. He has been playing with fire, calling on Tash, though he doesn't believe in him. I don't know if the expression makes the scene more scary, though.

Haha it could be either. I find it makes the scene more horrifying, in my opinion, due to the fact that he's being dragged away who-knows-where and who knows what Tash is planning to do to him. Kill him, for sure, but how he kills him is another story. And to me, that is what makes the scene extra chilling.

Posted by: @kokoro-hane

 Haha it could be either. I find it makes the scene more horrifying, in my opinion, due to the fact that he's being dragged away who-knows-where and who knows what Tash is planning to do to him. Kill him, for sure, but how he kills him is another story. And to me, that is what makes the scene extra chilling.

I actually don't want to think about that. Of course, Ginger had seen Tash "off-screen" (what I mean is that we read about Ginger going into the stable, but we actually don't see him in there). Then Tash eats Shift off screen. We kind of get a glimpse of Tash when he's coming to Narnia, we actually don't see him fully until he shows up in the stable.

Okay, it may sound a bit redundant but the slow set up of Tash almost reminds me of the slow set-up of the raptors in Jurassic Park. I mean, that was what Steven Spielberg was known for. He did the same with Jaws, having a slow set up for the shark.

Anyhow, I actually don't want to think about what Tash did to Rishda afterwards.

If you catch the latest Talking Beast Podcast episode, 6 Darkest Moments in The Chronicles of Narnia,Tash in the stable, and talking to Rishda was brought up. I actually expected it to be, because it's really dark. In fact, when we read that moment, it's really dark even for a children's book. If you were like three years old when this was read to you, and you didn't know anything about a vulture or any other bird of prey before, you'd probably stay inside for a while.

So even though I wasn't traumatized by Tash in the stable, when I re-read it fairly recently, I actually realized that it's kind of dark for a children's book.

If I was ever to do a top Narnia monsters list, Tash would certainly be on the list!

Anyhow, I'm sure a scene with Tash in the stable would give kids nightmares for a long time!