The Problem of Susan

Don't talk to me about Catnip Evergreen, or whatever. For all my ass-kicking chick-with-bow needs, I'll turn to awesomely named British actress Anna Popplewell as Susan Pevensie in the Chronicles of Narnia films.

Of course, this raises the topic (a sensitive one to all Narnia fans) of the "Problem of Susan," as it's called in a great short story of that title by Neil Gaiman. Alone of all the characters from the books, Susan, as Narnia readers are aware, is left out of the final ascension into Aslan's Country (read: heaven) at the end of The Last Battle, the seventh and final book in the Chronicles. Author C.S. Lewis casts Susan out of the ranks of the saved apparently because, as a young adult, she has become interested in "nylons and lipstick and invitations" -- in other words, because she has grown up.

This has always struck many modern readers of the Chronicles as a little harsh and possibly a bit sexist, and Gaiman's 2004 short story serves as a very thinly disguised critique of Lewis' moralizing toward his own character. In the story, we see how Susan, now middle-aged and (in an amusing touch) a professor of children's literature, has dealt with being the only survivor of the train crash (mentioned in Last Battle) that killed her siblings, as well as her regrets over turning her back on the land of Narnia. The story is collected in an anthology called Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy, Vol. 2, if you're interested.