The Last Battle | Chapter 1: By Caldron Pool

Going to get caught up today. Here's post 1 of 2 coming today.

Chapter Summary:

In the final days of Narnia, there lives two friends--a talking ape named Shift and a talking donkey named Puzzle. Though Shift and Puzzle are friends, Puzzle acts much more like Shift's slave, and Shift rules over Puzzle like his master. They live in the wilderness of western Narnia. One day, they are walking by Caldron Pool, and Shift sees something yellow in the water. Shift manipulates Puzzle into going into the water to retrieve the yellow thing. 

Puzzle jumps in and retrieves the yellow thing from the very cold water. It is a lion skin. Shift tells the exhausted Puzzle to go to the market and get some oranges and bananas. While Puzzle does so, Shift goes home and sews together the lion skin so that it can fit like a coat onto Puzzle. 

When Puzzle returns from the market, Shift manipulates Puzzle into trying on the lion skin against his will. Puzzle is concerned that he is being disrespectful to lions, and therefore to Aslan. Shift then speculates out loud that Puzzle can, with the lion skin on, pretend to be Aslan, while Shift tells Puzzle what to say. 

At that moment, there is a large clap of thunder and the ground shakes as with an earthquake. This terrifies Puzzle, but Shift says that he was just about to say that if Aslan approved of this plan, he would send them a thunderclap and an earthquake. 

Reflection:

This is such a peculiar way to begin a TCON novel. Now that we have come to our seventh and last beginning chapter, there are some highly notable differences between this first chapter and the others that we have seen before. Right off the bat, there's the bombshell--the first six words: "In the last days of Narnia" (p. 456). Before anything else, we know what this novel is about, and it's probably not going to be pretty. Immediately thoughts of the book of Revelation should be coming to your mind, and many of the guesses that you immediately assume are probably going to be correct. This novel is not just about the last battle, it is about the end of Narnia.

Beyond that, there's another very peculiar thing about this chapter. It is, I believe, the first chapter we have come across in which human characters are not at the forefront of the conversation. There is no Digory or Polly, no Peter, Susan, Edmund or Ludy, no Shasta or Aravis, no Caspain, no Eustace, and no Jill. The beginning of this story is about two talking animals and what happens to them on what appears to be a normal, uneventful afternoon in Narnia. What this tells us is that this story was never about the humans at all, even if the story brought humans into picture to accomplish certain tasks within Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia is about the Talking Beasts--not the humans that come along every once in awhile to interact with them. Sure, they may be the Kings and Queens of Narnia, but the natives of the land are the Talking Animals themselves, and they are the ones who ultimately rule it, through the highest king, Aslan. 

And finally, the story that the chapter opens with is not a pleasant one at all. It is one that kind of makes us wonder what is going awry in Narnia. We have a manipulative ape named Shift who goes out of his way to ensure that his friend (servant, more like) Puzzle does absolutely everything he asks. We know that Shift is bad news, and we know that Puzzle is a pushover. And we also have a pretty good idea that Aslan himself is not going to approve of what's happening in this chapter. Because indeed, we have another new feature within this chapter--for the first time, Aslan will be impersonated by an impostor. You should be thinking of Mark 13:6--"Many will come in my name, claiming 'I am he,' and will deceive many" (NIV). I think that's exactly what we are starting to see here, but time will tell.