A review by arubunwritten
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

This was easily the worst book in the series, not a lot happens and it is so mired with Christian messaging that any fantasy children’s plot is lost completely.

In this book, we explore the anti-Christ. An ape convinces a dumb donkey, Puzzle, to dress up and pretend to be Aslan for their own gain. Meanwhile King Tirian, the last King of Narnia, is captured. He discovers the ruse but when he exposes Puzzle, the Narnians are only convinced that Aslan doesn’t exist at all.

The ape also orchestrates an invasion by the Calormenes. Lewis doubles down on his Orientalist, racist depiction of these people and anything that was subtext previously is purely text now.

  • There is a side adventure where Jill, Eustace and Tirian put on blackface to pretend to be some Calormenes.
  • The Calormene god, Tash, appears in this book as a monstrous, eagle-headed four-armed beast who devours his followers
  • Narnia, now totally corrupted, is destroyed and all of the good Narnians go to heaven. One, single, Calormene gets into heaven so only 99% of them are evil.

Apart from the main story being quite dull, the ending is super grim, because, it is revealed in the last pages, that
everyone we have ever known to visit Narnia has died.  King Tirian, captured and looking for help, appears before the humans who have travelled to Narnia. They get together to rescue him but the only sure way to get to Narnia from our world is through Diggory/Professor Kirke’s magical rings. They track the rings down to give to Eustace and Jill, who are on a train to meet with the rest of the group. However the pair just appear in Narnia and can’t figure out why. The reason is, their train crashed and they died.
‘You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.’
Lucy said, ‘We’re so afraid of being sent away Aslan, and you have sent us back to our own world so often.’
‘No fear of that, have you not guessed?’
Their hearts leaped and wild hope rose within them.
‘There was a real railway accident,’ said Aslan softly, ‘your father and mother and all of your are, as you used to call it in the shadowlands, dead. The term is over, the holidays have begun, the dream has ended, this is the morning.’
And the book ends this as a ‘happily ever after’ ending. I understand that as a Christian, you might be happy that you ended up in heaven, but I have no words.


I said everyone dies, not quite, Susan does not, and in turn does not make it to heaven. She is said to no longer be ‘a friend of Narnia’ and treats it as a childhood fantasy. All of the human characters spend half a page having a go at her.
‘Oh Susan,’ said Jill, ‘she’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipsticks and invitations. She always a jolly sight too keen on being grown up.’
‘Grown up indeed,’ said the Lady Polly, ‘I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race onto the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.’
‘Well, don’t let’s talk about that now,’ said Peter, ‘Look, here are some lovely fruit trees, let us taste them.’
So basically Susan doesn’t get into heaven because she’s interested in her appearance and being young. There is some indication that her faith isn’t as strong in earlier books but to lose out on the ‘happy ending’ in heaven feels like Lewis was going for a metaphor but essentially punished a character. I’ve read arguments that her crime is ‘trying to be grown up’ rather than actually growing up, but the text makes it come across as vanity and shallowness. The nylons, the lipsticks, wanting to enjoy being young. This is especially frustrating as, within the text and the mythology of the series, Aslan tells Susan that she can’t come back to Narnia. So, arguably, she isn’t dwelling on a land that she will never be allowed to visit. 
So Susan ends the series, with all of her family dying. Sure, maybe she goes to heaven later but what a grim way to end your final book.

I did not enjoy this book at all.

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