The Last Battle | Chapter 8: What News the Eagle Brought

Chapter Summary:

The horrid stench is coming from a figure that is drifting through the nearby woods. Puzzle runs into the tower and Jill covers her eyes. The figure moves like smoke, but has a body like a bird and the look of a demon. As the figure passes out of sight, the sun comes back out. Tirian identifies the figure as Tash himself; Shift has called for Tash, and Tash is moving toward Stable Hill.

Everyone recovers slowly, and then a decision needs to be made. Either they will go to Stable Hill to reveal Puzzle to everyone and overthrow Shift and the Calormenes, or they will march to meet Roonwit the Centaur and the army he leads from Cair Paravel. They decide on the second option. Tirian, Eustace, and Jill remove their Calormene disguises and then they, along with Jewel, Puzzle, and Poggin, leave the tower and journey to meet Roonwit.

During that journey, Jill speaks with Jewel the Unicorn. Jewel tells Jill about all of the hundreds of thousands of years of peace in Narnia, and tells Jill about many of the historical figures of Narnia that Jill had never heard of before. Jill comes to understand that Narnia is generally a place of great peace, and that mankind only comes to Narnia when there is trouble. Jill wishes aloud that Narnia could go on forever and ever. Jewel says that this is impossible; all worlds must end, except Aslan's country.

Suddenly, the journey stops and everyone's eyes go to the sky. There is a Talking Eagle flying above them, circling in for a landing. When the eagle, named Farsight, lands he hails the King and said that he has seen two things that Tirian must know. First is that Cair Paravel is filled with dead Narnians and living Calormenes--the castle was taken from the sea the previous night. The second sight was Roonwit the Centaur, dead, with a Calormene arrow in his side. Farsight says that he was with Roonwit as he died, and Roonwit sent this message to the King: "Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy" (p. 489).

Tirian says that Narnia is no more.

Reflection:

There was a familiarity to the scene with Farsight the eagle that I couldn't put my finger on for a moment, and then suddenly it came to mind. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the wedding, and the warning immediately before the death eaters attack: "The Ministry has fallen. The Minister of Magic is dead. They are coming... They are coming..."

This chapter brings to us, in my opinion, the two most haunting and disturbing scenes thus far within TCON. The first is the appearance of Tash. Until this point in the series, Tash has been somewhat paralleled with the Baals that we hear about in the Bible. As a reader, we are led to believe that Tash is some sort of fictional god that the Calormenes have created for themselves--but never once are we really led to consider that Tash might actually be real. And then beyond that, even more disturbing, is that not only is Tash real, but Tash is by no means a god--Tash is actually more like a demon than anything else, the sight of whom is enough to darken the hearts (and literally, the surroundings) of anyone it comes near to. 

And then, of course, the second scene comes at the end of the chapter, in which the eagle brings the news about Cair Paravel and Roonwit the Centaur. By now, the message should be clear. The Last Battle is not just about the final battle of Narnia--it is about the end of Narnia itself. Roonwit's final message to Tirian says exactly that. And we know that we can trust the words of Roonwit, because Roonwit has been reading the stars, and he knows what is coming. He is not saying that the end of Narnia might be coming--he is saying that the end of Narnia is coming, and that there is nothing wrong with a noble death within that situation. 

So here we are, brought to the darkest time in Narnia. The kingdom has fallen, and traitors have overtaken it. The King is now an exile, and the prediction of the end of Narnia appears to have come to be. But still there is hope; Aslan has not yet come. We don't know where he is, but we know that when he has shown up before, things turn out for the better. But this time, we will see. 

By now, you can of course see that The Last Battle is not going to follow the patterns that we have seen in the other six TCON novels. Sure, there is adventure, danger, hope, and friendship, but the plot itself is by far different from the other six novels we have read so far. As the final book in the series, this is not too surprising, but it is neat to see how C.S. Lewis has completely reconstructed the prototypical Narnian tale to bring us this final installment. Which, by the way, we are halfway through. Only 8 chapters (and therefore 8 blog posts) remain after today.