Hello readers! We have reached the seventh and final instalment in the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. Given that he called it The Last Battle, he was clearly confident that this would be the last in the series. And if you’ve read it, you’ll understand why.
Of all the Narnia books, The Last Battle really stuck with me. I remember it much better than some of the others, and I still occasionally think about it, well over a decade after I first turned the final page. Having re-read it, the reason is obvious: this book is deeply unsettling. It is many leagues scarier than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and deals with far heavier concepts. It feels very different to the stories that came before, because – for some inexplicable reason – Lewis decided to end his fantasy series for children with a concentrated dose of existential horror.
SPOILER WARNING!
As usual, I will summarise the plot for those unfamiliar with the book. Brace yourselves: a lot happens in this one.
Plot summary
“In the last days of Narnia…”
This is how the book opens. We’re already in the end-times.
In a sudden change from the rest of the series, The Last Battle begins in Narnia, not with humans, but with talking animals. Lewis introduces two new characters: a shrewd talking ape named Shift, and a hapless talking donkey named Puzzle. Shift makes Puzzle work for him like a slave, but Puzzle never complains because he knows that Shift is intelligent, and assumes that he always knows best.
One day they find a lion skin in the river, and Shift sews it into a coat for Puzzle, to dress him up like Aslan. Puzzle has reservations, but Shift talks him into it, saying that people will do whatever he says, and that they could bring about great change in the world. There is a thunder clap as he says this – clearly a warning – but Shift convinces Puzzle that this is Aslan declaring his approval.
Lewis then introduces us to the main protagonist, King Tirian of Narnia. For the first time in the series, he specifies the character’s age, stating that Tirian is “between twenty and twenty five years old” – making him the oldest protagonist yet. Tirian is out at his hunting lodge with his best friend, a unicorn named Jewel, and they are excited to hear about sightings of Aslan, who hasn’t been to Narnia in a very long time.
However, their excitement is short-lived. Roonwit the centaur warns them that the stars have foretold terrible happenings, and says that Aslan cannot have returned – that someone is lying about seeing him. Soon after, a dryad nymph arrives begging for help, saying that trees are being felled in Lantern Waste. She is cut down before their eyes, and Tirian sets off immediately.
They soon discover that logs are being sent down the river to sell to Calormen, apparently on Aslan’s orders. The pair are bewildered – more so when they find Calormenes in the forest, cutting down the trees. When Tirian sees that they have chained up the talking horses and are using whips on them, he flies into a rage, and kills two Calormene men without thinking. He instantly regrets what he has done – particularly as he reflects that the deforestation was on Aslan’s orders. He and Jewel hand themselves in.
They are taken to a stable in the middle of the clearing, where they see Shift, dressed in expensive robes. He proclaims himself to be the mouthpiece of Aslan, who supposedly resides in the stable. The ape has schemed with the Tisroc of Calormen to sell the other talking animals into slavery, and at night, he lets Puzzle out of the stable in his lion costume, when it is dark and the animals can’t see his shoddy disguise.
Many Narnians have gathered around the stable, and they are rightly confused. They want to speak with Aslan, but Shift won’t let them. When they question why they are working with the Calormenes, who worship Tash and have never respected Aslan, Shift tells them that Aslan and Tash are simply words for the same being. “That old idea of us being right and the Calormenes being wrong is silly. We know better now. The Calormenes use different words but we all mean the same thing. Tash and Aslan are only two different names for you know Who.”
Tirian tries to argue, but he is struck down before he gets a chance. The Calormenes tie him to a tree. At night, some rabbits and mice come to bring him food and water secretly, but they are too scared to untie him. They do not want to defy Aslan.
In desperation, Tirian calls out to Aslan for help, and suddenly finds himself dreaming that he is in a bright room with seven strangely-dressed people. A young man jumps to his feet, claiming to be King Peter of Narnia, and he demands that Tirian speaks – but Tirian can’t. He wakes up just as there are two loud thuds, and a pair of children, a girl and a boy, materialise on the ground beside him. He recognises them from the room in his dream.
The children are Jill and Eustace, the same pair from The Silver Chair. Jill explains that Tirian appeared as a ghost as their dinner party a week ago, where Diggory (the professor), Polly, Peter, Edmund and Lucy, had all got together to talk about Narnia. Peter and Edmund immediately went to Diggory’s old house in London to dig up the magic rings, and they were all travelling by train, about to meet and exchange them, when there was a sudden bang, and Eustace and Polly appeared in Narnia, with no need for the rings at all.
Tirian takes the children to an old tower, where they collect weapons and armour, and then they head back to rescue Jewel from the stables. While Tirian is untying him, Jill finds Puzzle in his lion skin – and they soon realise what has happened.
They head back towards Cair Paravel, and on their way they meet thirty enslaved dwarves being led to Calormen. Tirian and Eustace kill the guards, and show the dwarves Puzzle, revealing the ruse. The dwarves are angry at being duped, and they refuse to join Tirian to fight – they have lost their faith in Aslan altogether. Only one dwarf joins them. He tells them that another schemer has entered the fray: Ginger the cat is now working with the Calormene leader, Rishda, and has told everyone that Aslan ate Tirian. Rishda does not believe in either Tash or Aslan.
Suddenly, they see a figure moving through the trees. It has the form of a man and the head of a bird, with four arms outstretched, and it appears to be made of smoke. Tirian recognises it from carvings in temples in Calormen. This is Tash – and he is evidently real.
An eagle flies down to them, bringing terrible news that Cair Paravel has been invaded. Twenty Calormene ships arrived, and many Narnians have been killed, including Roonwit the centaur. The survivors have fled to the woods – but there is no help. The Narnians are outnumbered and there is no chance of victory. (I hope you’re still enjoying the story, children!)
Tirian and the others head back to the stable with Puzzle, to show the other animals that they have been duped. When they arrive, they hear that Rishda and Ginger have invented a new name, Tashlan, reinforcing their message that Aslan and Tash are the same. Shift warns the animals that a donkey is going around dressed as Aslan, and not to believe anything he says. Tirian’s plan is instantly undermined.
Shift says Aslan will no longer come out of the stable. If the animals want to see him, they must go inside, one by one. The dwarves call him out as a liar, saying that he will probably kill anyone who goes through the door. Then Ginger steps up and offers to go inside – as he is in on the plan, with nothing to fear.
He has barely passed through the door when he lets out a shriek and bolts up a tree. When Rishda asks what he has seen, Ginger is unable to talk. He is no longer a talking animal – he is just an ordinary, dumb cat.
One of the Calormene soldiers, a young man called Emeth, asks if he can go in next. Rishda tries to stop him, but Emeth points out that if Aslan and Tash are the same, then Tash is also in that stable, and he wants to see him. Emeth goes into the stable, and never comes out. Tirian grabs Shift and throws him through the door, and there is a flash of green light, and a sound like a bird. They a realise that Tash – the actual, real Tash – must be inside.
There follows the last battle of Narnia, and it’s pretty grim reading. Jill shoots a Calormene soldier and a traitor satyr dead. Three Narnian dogs and a talking bear die in the scuffle. The mice go to free the talking horses, but when they gallop to Tirian’s aid, the dwarves shoot and kill them all. More Calormen soldiers arrive, and the Narnians are cut down. The Calormenes capture Eustace and throw him into the stable to appease Tash. They kill nearly all the dwarves, and throw the survivors into the stable in case Tash needs more appeasement. Tirian fights as long as he can, but eventually he has his back to the stable door. At the last moment, he grabs Rishda’s belt and pulls him in with him. The soldiers bolt the door behind them.
As expected, Tash is waiting behind the door. He picks up Rishda with one of his four arms and asks why he summoned him – and then he vanishes.
Tirian finds himself not in the stable, but in bright light and open air, facing seven kings and queens. Two of them are Eustace and Jill, and then he recognises Diggory, Polly, Peter, Edmund and Lucy. All of them, Tirian included, are in clean clothes. He realises that they are outdoors, and there is a fresh breeze. The stable door stands behind them, closed, looking as if it leads nowhere. But when Tirian peers through the cracks in the wood, he sees the darkness and the bonfire surrounded by Calormen soldiers.
Finally, Aslan appears, and Tirian is overjoyed. Then Aslan declares that Narnia’s time has come.
Aslan roars “TIME” and a huge giant appears on the horizon, blotting out the stars. This is Father Time, whom Jill and Eustace saw on their underground journey in the North. He blows his horn, and the stars rain down from the heavens, leaving the sky black. The stars land on the ground, illuminating Narnia as dragons and worms slide out of the moors and descend into the woods. Thousands of woodland creatures and humans run towards Aslan, who now stands beside the enormous stable door. Those that look at him in fear and loathing become dumb beasts, and vanish into his shadow. Those that look at him in fear and love are allowed through the doorway to join Tirian and the others. Creatures that died come back, including Roonwit the centaur and Jewel the unicorn.
The dragons and worms start chewing up all the trees in Narnia, making it a land of bare rock. The sea swells into a giant wave and submerges everything. The sun rises, but it is huge and red, and it absorbs the moon. Father Time throws his horn into the sea, then reaches out his arm, “thousands of miles long”, and grabs the sun, squeezing the last light out of it, leaving total darkness. Then Aslan tells Peter to close the door.
So, that’s the end of Narnia – but the book is not quite over. Are we sitting comfortably, children?
Only one Calormene is reported to have made it through the stable door, and that is Emeth, the young soldier. Aslan assures him that “all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me”, but he makes it clear that he and Tash are not the same. He says Tash is an evil being. If anyone swears by Tash and keeps their promise, this is a good deed, so really they have sworn by Aslan, and Aslan knows this. Conversely, if anyone swears by Aslan to do bad deeds, then they have really invoked Tash.
Peter and the others wonder how they got here. Peter recalls standing at the station with Edmund, thinking that the incoming train was taking the corner too fast – and he also remembers that his parents were on the train going the other way. The others, who were on the oncoming train, recall the loud bang before they appeared here. Eustace wonders if they were in a railway accident, “smashed up by British Railways!”
As they move west, following Aslan, they realise that this new world looks like Narnia, but better. Everything is larger and more vibrant. Eventually, they reach the walled garden that Diggory and Polly visited in the previous book – and here, a host of familiar faces come out to greet them. First is Reepicheep, the mouse; then comes Tirian’s father, looking young again, and Fledge, the winged horse. Every named character from the previous books is there, even Mr Tumnus and the beavers.
Then Lucy sees that the walled garden is not a garden at all, but another world, bigger and brighter than the last. She can see everything, all the way to the horizon, out beyond the sea, to the huge mountains they once called Aslan’s land. And she can even see beyond the sea, back into our world, to the old house where the wardrobe was, and to her own parents, who are waving back at her.
Right at the end of the book, Aslan reveals what happened to them. “There was a real railway accident. Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead.” I kid you not – this is on the last page. But Lewis assures us that our protagonists are simply “beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on Earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” I guess they all died happily ever after.
So, uhhh… That was an ending.
You know how most stories end by wrapping up the plot? Maybe the bad guy is defeated, or the love interest gets married, or the case gets solved… But, generally, we are left with the vague impression that the world itself continues, maybe in a slightly altered state.
C. S. Lewis was having none of that. Nope – this is the end of the Chronicles of Narnia, so Narnia must cease to exist in the most brutal and dramatic way imaginable. Not even the Earth-born protagonists survive; they all die in a seemingly random train crash. And nothing appears to have been achieved by their efforts. They didn’t save the world. They saw it created, and they saw it destroyed, and did very little in between. Were these stories about the friends they made along the way? Or about the lessons they learnt? And does any of this matter if all of them just end up in the kingdom of heaven?
I guess we can infer that Lewis really didn’t want to write another Narnia book. And who can blame him? If the plot of The Last Battle are anything to go by, his ideas were wasted on children. I certainly didn’t appreciate the complexities when I was a kid. And now that I’m an adult, it all feels a bit dumbed down. Maybe he realised that he was writing for the wrong audience – I guess I should read his adult fiction next.
My thoughts overall?
I actually really like The Last Battle. The reason I remembered so much about this story was because it shocked me as a kid, and really stuck with me. Certain images, such as Tash with his bird head and four arms, and Father Time rising from the depths of the earth to blot out the stars, are impossible to remove from your head. Only now am I realising quite how much this has inspired my own work…
Still, this book is just horrible in places. There is far more death, confusion, and hopelessness than in any of the other Narnia stories. The theological aspects are obviously interesting, and we’ll get those shortly, but the creeping sense of doom that Lewis builds is truly something else. Even the start of the book, with the ape seeing a lion skin in the river, is disconcerting. And then we get to the talking horses being shot to death. What happened to all the whimsy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?! There is zero whimsy to be found here. And I don’t find the concept of heaven particularly comforting, either.
As usual, some sections have aged poorly…
This book contains some very unsavoury stereotypes and explicit racism. We have the first case of white characters using blackface makeup to pretend to be Calormenes. And the dwarves throw slurs at the Calormene soldiers that I simply won’t repeat here. These are just the explicit cases of racism – there is plenty of implicit racism too.
Even so, I think there is still value in pondering Lewis’ ideas, given that he had such a strong influence over the fantasy genre. It’s clear that he held some very racist and bigoted views – but reading his books isn’t an endorsement of those views. Indeed, I think there is a lot to be learned from dissecting them, and seeing how they became engrained in fantasy books even decades after his death.
Um… Where was Susan?
You might have noticed that one character was missing from this story. Three of the Pevensie children come back, but Susan is not with them. Peter says that Susan is “no longer a friend of Narnia” because she is “interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations”.
Furry Jesus give me strength. Lewis’ utter disdain for this character, of his own creation, knows no bounds! Still, at the end of it all, Susan is the only one to survive the train crash. She must be out there in the real world, mourning the deaths of her siblings and parents, while they all prance around Aslan’s kingdom. Do we think she makes it to heaven eventually? Or does Lewis consider an interest in lipstick to be a cardinal sin?
According to Lucy, Susan tricked herself into believing that Narnia was a game the children made up. But… Doesn’t this seem like a normal response to having lived through such a traumatic event? As established in Prince Caspian, this poor girl had memories of an adult life in her head. No wonder she tried to convince herself that it was all made up. And let’s not forget that she lived through the blitz! Throughout this series, I’ve repeatedly asked how none of the children went mad – and now we finally have some details. Poor Susan.
“He is not a tame lion.”
One of the key ideas in this book is that Aslan (i.e., God) cannot always be understood or predicted. When Tirian and Jewel first hear that trees are being felled and dryads are being killed on Aslan’s orders, they are bewildered. They are sure that Aslan couldn’t do something like this – but Jewel is quick to point out that they can’t make assumptions about him. Later, this same argument is used by Shift to dismiss the animals’ concerns. When they protest that Aslan would never do something so terrible, Shift argues that they are in no position to state what Aslan can and can’t do. And of course, they can’t refute this.
It’s a really interesting conundrum, and one to which Lewis doesn’t attempt to provide a solid answer. We know in our hearts that Aslan would never sell the Narnian animals as slaves, but why do we feel this way? This is the same Aslan who eventually destroys Narnia. Clearly, it is wrong for Shift to use the unknowability of Aslan to dupe the Narnians – but this doesn’t override the fact that Aslan is unknowable. So, how are we meant to place our faith in such an unpredictable being?
Lewis seems to suggest that, despite Aslan being terrifying and unknowable, we should still believe in him. I guess we could have faith for entirely selfish reasons, because it’s the only way for us to get into Aslan’s kingdom of heaven. But Lewis also suggests, time and time again, that people who don’t believe in Aslan are simply evil – and I guess the implication is that if you lose your faith, you’ll turn evil too. Neither of these claims are evidence-based, so once again, the best argument Lewis provides for believing in God is just that it feels right. It’s nothing but vibes.
Following your conscience
Throughout The Last Battle, the characters are challenged with reconciling their beliefs, the evidence they see before their eyes, and their personal conscience. Tirian and Jewel initially assume that nobody could lie about having seen Aslan – and that nobody would impersonate him. They also believe that Aslan is all-powerful and beyond question. Therefore, they are horribly confused when they hear that Aslan has ordered the forest to be felled, and for the talking animals to be sold as slaves in Calormen. They have to work out what is true.
When Shift tries to convince them that Aslan and Tash are the same being, again the Narnians are forced to confront their understanding. Intrinsically, they feel that Aslan and Tash are different, but they don’t know why they feel this. And when someone intelligent and seemingly better-informed tells them otherwise, they don’t know where to place their trust.
Lewis seems to suggest that following your heart will lead you to the truth. The animals are only confused and conflicted about Aslan when they try to use logic, whereas if they had listened to their conscience, they would never have believed that Aslan would sell them into slavery. They knew that something isn’t right.
However, I would argue that their beliefs backfired; their fear and respect for Aslan is what caused them to fall for Shift’s ruse in the first place.
To me, the scenario presented by Lewis is an argument in favour of individuals developing their own moral compass, without the need for any prescribed God. The animals only end up being manipulated because they fear and respect Aslan. If they could rely on their own sense of right and wrong – which they evidently possess – they would never have been in this situation. I’m not sure that this was the message that Lewis intended, but he does leave it very open-ended. Clearly, he wanted to suggest that religion can make people susceptible to manipulation. I doubt, however, that he would have proposed atheism as an obvious solution.
Lewis had some opinions about other gods
The idea of Aslan and Tash being the same is very interesting. In the real world, millions of people have different gods with different names – so are they all just worshipping the same shared sense of a hidden, greater power? Lewis clearly believes that this is not the case. Aslan and Tash are both physical beings in the world of Narnia (which, as we know, is an alleg- I mean, “supposal”) and they are unquestionably separate entities. Any character suggesting that they are the same is shown to be stupid or manipulative. Perhaps Lewis viewed real-world deities in a similar way, in that all gods are separate and different? However, he makes it very clear that not all gods are equal.
Lewis’ ideas on this front are served with lashings of religious colonialism. Aslan, the allegory for Christian God, is shown to be the superior god in Narnia. Tash, the allegory for non-Christian gods, is unquestionably evil, both in appearance and manner. When Emeth goes through the stable door, Jewel remarks that he is “worthy of a better god than Tash” – which may well be true, strictly in the context of Narnia. But we all know that this is an allegory, and that Tash is a stand-in for the real-life gods of non-western, non-white cultures. Lewis is clearly judging these other gods to be lesser than his own, even detrimental to society.
However, Lewis then takes this narrow-minded view a step further. He has the gall to suggest that all the homage Emeth (i.e., the non-western, non-white cultures) paid to Tash in good faith has actually been accepted by Aslan all along. Poor ignorant Emeth, thinking he was worshipping Tash, when he was really worshipping Aslan… According to Lewis, all the inherently good people are worshipping furry Jesus, whether they like it or not. They aren’t entitled to their own gods and belief systems. Oh no. They are merely ignorant, and can be educated to mend their inferior ways.
(Heavy sarcasm here. Out of all the unsavoury philosophy in the Narnia series, I find the treatment of non-white cultures the most distasteful.)
Atheists are not treated at all favourably in Narnia
As mentioned earlier, it is easy to read The Last Battle and see blind faith as the cause of the animals’ woes. However, Lewis presents atheism as a root cause of evil, rather than as a means to avoid manipulation. Rishda, the Calormen leader, is openly atheist, and he is the arch nemesis of this book, clearly shown as having no morals whatsoever. The dwarves also lose their faith in Aslan, and soon start killing talking horses.
I suppose that being an atheist in Narnia would be foolish. Most atheists in the real world have arrived at this view because they have never seen any evidence to suggest that god exists. If they were presented with evidence, they would probably change their minds. In Narnia, however, Aslan has appeared on multiple occasions, and there is ample evidence for his existence. So, being an atheist in Narnia is, unquestionably, a misguided decision. Still, given that Narnia is an allegory, we can only assume that Lewis viewed atheists in Narnia the same way he viewed atheists in the real world: as hapless, godless individuals with no morals and inherent evil intent. How kind and forgiving of him.
Now, enough of the theology. On to the important fantasy questions!
How long did Narnia last?
Narnia, as a world, did not exist for long. Tirian is seven generations from Prince Rilian, so we are around 140 years after The Silver Chair, in which we saw King Caspian die. Caspian himself appeared in Narnia over a thousand years after Lucy first came through the wardrobe. We also know that Jadis couldn’t enter Narnia for “centuries” after Diggory planted the apple tree, and that she eventually made it winter for at least a century. So, at a minimum, Narnia only lasted for about 1,500 years! Kind of pathetic actually.
Jill has a purpose! A girl character who does things!
Jill actually gets to shoot and kill people in this book, something which no girl character has managed before in this series. She is also the one to navigate the party through the forest using the stars, as she is apparently “an excellent Guide” (as in Girl Guide). I appreciate the sentiment here, but this is a sudden change in heart from The Silver Chair, where Lewis wrote that “Scrubb was quite right in saying that Jill (I don’t know about girls in general) didn’t think much about points of the compass.” Did she learn to navigate between the books? Or did Lewis forget that he had previously derided Jill’s sense of direction?
Tirian and Jewel were just stablemates
Tirian and Jewel are clearly very close. Lewis says that they have been in many battles together, and would die for one another. But these guys kiss at least three times in this book. Now, I get that Jewel is unicorn, and that maybe it’s okay for humans to kiss unicorns – but he is a talking unicorn, and Lewis has previously suggested that Narnian talking animals have the same rights as humans. This is why they can never be enslaved (even if they can’t be monarchs). So, what are the rules with unicorn-human relationships? Maybe I am overthinking it. Maybe they’re just stablemates.
In summary…
I liked The Last Battle more than I was expecting, although I had to grimace and move past some of the glaring bigotry. I am not a big fan of the Narnia world-building in general, but it turns out that I am a big fan of Narnia world-destruction. The massive giant, squeezing the life out of the sun? The dragons erupting from the ground to consume the last remaining trees? It’s great. The pacing is also pretty consistent, especially considering the amount that happens in this book, and the pervading sense of hopelessness is genuinely powerful. C. S. Lewis knocked it out of the park on this one.
I hope you have enjoyed this deep-dive into the Narnia series! I have certainly gained a lot from revisiting these books which I read as a child. Now I need to decide which formative fantasy series to read next… Happy reading, and have a lovely week!
My Chronicles of Narnia analysis series:
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