I mean, that's true and Lewis WAS a child of his time, but I am a child of mine and I don't want to perpetuate that dichotomy.
Her Aslan is more cruel than my Aslan. We were discussing the shape of our Aslan angst once, and how her issues are influenced by Greek/Roman myth and mine by a Judeo-Christian upbringing (specifically Islamic). In Greek/Roman myth, the gods pretty much have human desires and motivations, and they're just humans with superpowers. Me, I wouldn't call Aslan cruel per se. (And now for a bit of edited copy-pasting:) His decisions may cause a lot of devastation, but because he is a god and ineffable, I can't assign the usual human emotions, motivations, and logic (especially logic) to him. He is not a tame god?! If anything, maybe Aslan is a little bit like the forces of chaos; he's unpredictable, arbitrary. It is easy, and even a responsibility, to make an enemy out of a cruel god, but my Aslan is more like a force of nature, and how do you fight a hurricane?
So what do you do? You throw your hands up in defeat and figure that maybe there's a reason for all of god's mindfuckery, at best. You hope that your submission to his will is worth something. (The word Islam means "to surrender".) You reason and you analyze, and still faith and love bring pain. You realize trying to come to a conclusion without the filter of providence and heartbreak is like saying, "If these damned walls weren't in the way, we would be able to see what's holding the roof up."
You tumble out of wardrobes and your former lives and figure that, if you can't forgive the Lion now, you trust that you will in the future. Through faith and love you become acquainted with the disintegration of your own self, but if you are lucky you also learn how to put yourself together again.
Oh Lewis. Dredging up the Judeo-Christian angst I thought I had long put to bed.
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Her Aslan is more cruel than my Aslan. We were discussing the shape of our Aslan angst once, and how her issues are influenced by Greek/Roman myth and mine by a Judeo-Christian upbringing (specifically Islamic). In Greek/Roman myth, the gods pretty much have human desires and motivations, and they're just humans with superpowers. Me, I wouldn't call Aslan cruel per se. (And now for a bit of edited copy-pasting:) His decisions may cause a lot of devastation, but because he is a god and ineffable, I can't assign the usual human emotions, motivations, and logic (especially logic) to him. He is not a tame god?! If anything, maybe Aslan is a little bit like the forces of chaos; he's unpredictable, arbitrary. It is easy, and even a responsibility, to make an enemy out of a cruel god, but my Aslan is more like a force of nature, and how do you fight a hurricane?
So what do you do? You throw your hands up in defeat and figure that maybe there's a reason for all of god's mindfuckery, at best. You hope that your submission to his will is worth something. (The word Islam means "to surrender".) You reason and you analyze, and still faith and love bring pain. You realize trying to come to a conclusion without the filter of providence and heartbreak is like saying, "If these damned walls weren't in the way, we would be able to see what's holding the roof up."
You tumble out of wardrobes and your former lives and figure that, if you can't forgive the Lion now, you trust that you will in the future. Through faith and love you become acquainted with the disintegration of your own self, but if you are lucky you also learn how to put yourself together again.
Oh Lewis. Dredging up the Judeo-Christian angst I thought I had long put to bed.