Prince Caspian was an exciting story to read with my five- and six-year-old sons. It brought back the Pevensie children, featured Aslan prominently, and introduced lots of wonderful new characters. We read this one over only a few bedtimes and talked about all sorts of motifs like Time, Change, and Mortality. It was great fun, but it also got a little heavy at times—even more so than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’ll explain why after I summarize the story.
THE STORY
Prince Caspian begins with Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie standing on a platform waiting for a train that will take them back to school for the Fall semester. Suddenly, a strange magic takes hold of them and whisks them back into Narnia. Only they don’t know it’s Narnia at first.
The land is so changed with time, they don’t recognize it. Even their fair castle of Cair Paravel has fallen to ruins. All that is left of it are a few crumbling walls and a treasure room that somehow remained intact. When they discover Peter’s sword and Lucy’s vial of healing potion, among other items from their once glorious reign, they realize they are back in Narnia but that some hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years have passed.
They set out to solve the great mystery of Narnia’s transformation and happen upon soldiers in the act of drowning a dwarf. Susan shoots at the soldiers with her bow, causing them to flee, and the children rescue the dwarf. His name is Trumpkin. The children introduce themselves as the High King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy, but Trumpkin does not believe them, not least because the Golden Age of their reign is so long past. Nevertheless, Trumpkin explains that Narnia has never been the same since their royal family left because it was soon invaded by the Telmarines. They have controlled Narnia all these years, making life bitter for the “Old Narnians” like himself and sending them into hiding.
Now, however, they have risen up under the leadership of Caspian, an orphaned Telmarine prince whose right to the throne was subverted by his evil uncle, the false King Miraz. Happily, Caspian wants to bring back the Golden Age of Narnia complete with the liberties it entailed. A decisive battle is now underway. In a final act of desperation, they had blown Susan’s magic horn: legend held that it would bring help.
The Pevensie children are, of course, that help, but Trumpkin finds that too incredible to be true. They’re just children, after all, and they should be dead all these years later! Susan attempts to prove her royal credentials by challenging Trumpkin to an archery shootout. Dwarfs are well-known for being excellent archers, so Trumpkin is caught much off guard (and feels quite embarrassed) when Susan beats him. Though he accepts their help and begins to believe they really are the royal family of old, he refuses to believe in Aslan. At best, the Lion was a hero from the past, but it is just as likely that He only ever existed in the imagination of the people.
They set off for Prince Caspian’s camp, which is located at the Stone Table now called Aslan’s How. Edmund and Peter steer them along a course they believe to be a short-cut, but the terrain is so changed that they find themselves twisting and turning in unexpected ways. Luckily, Lucy spots Aslan and realizes He wants to lead them along a different route. The others look but see nothing and dismiss Lucy’s sighting as a wishful vision. With Peter and Edmund still in command, the party continues along its original course and eventually has to double-back because they run right into Telmarine forces.
Soon after Lucy again sees Aslan. Though she is still the only one, Edmund takes her side and convinces the others to go along with her. The way seems impossible, but it actually offers them just the entry point they need to reach Prince Caspian’s camp. Edmund eventually sees Aslan with his own eyes, followed by Peter, and Susan last of all. Susan later admits that she hadn’t really wanted to see Aslan at first, and we know that something has changed in her. Nevertheless, Aslan speaks kindly to her and all the children. Trumpkin alone is still unable to see Aslan, but he follows Peter’s orders because he now fully believes in him as the High King.
Next, the girls set off with Aslan to gather reinforcements. Meanwhile, the boys follow Trumpkin into camp headquarters to present themselves to Prince Caspian, but they stop short when they realize the prince is in the midst of a contentious war council. They listen from a distance and learn that another dwarf named Nikibrik has enlisted the help of a witch and a werewolf. Nikibrik’s plan is to call on the White Witch to defeat King Miraz. Caspian is not persuaded. For him, there can be no true victory if it is gained with evil. A fight thus ensues, and Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin quickly join forces with the prince. When it’s all over, Nikibrik, the hag, and the werewolf are dead.
After some friendly introductions, Peter suggests challenging King Miraz to a sword fight in order to settle the war. Two of King Miraz’s men, who secretly desire power themselves, goad King Miraz into accepting the challenge despite the fact that victory is otherwise nearly assured for their side. He and Peter face off in a close sword fight with Narnians and Telmarines gathered around. One of the treasonous advisors kills his own king in a moment of confusion, and a full-fledged battle ensues from there. Thankfully, Aslan, Susan, and Lucy return just in time with reinforcements and win the day for Prince Caspian.
In the aftermath of the war, Aslan places a door frame on the field and offers the Telmarine people a chance to leave Narnia by walking through it. He explains that their people were not originally from Narnia or even Telmar but had accidentally found their way in from Earth through a magical passageway, one that no longer exists. The door frame will take them back to start a new life, if they so desire. Most of the Temarines do not trust Aslan, but one brave soldier steps forward and accepts Aslan’s offer. For doing so, Aslan proclaims him king in the new land to which they travel. The Telmarine king walks through the door frame and vanishes, setting an example that most others follow.
Prince Caspian is made King of Narnia, and the Pevensie children must say farewell and go back to the train station. Peter and Susan, as it turns out, must say goodbye forever. Aslan has told them they are too old to come back to Narnia. We are left to assume that Edmund and Lucy still have more adventures to follow, which do indeed play out in the next story.
REFLECTION
In Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis forced my sons and me to think about the nature of Time. That’s not something a little child often thinks about beyond marking holidays and birthdays. Of course, they get excited about “being bigger,” but it takes a special sort of sensitivity to realize that it is also related to getting older and changing and ultimately moving toward death. I don’t shy away from talking about death with my sons, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a tough topic.
One of them beams when we talk about Heaven. The other gets teary-eyed.
They had the same sort of reaction when we read about the near death and renewal of Narnia. The changes that it had undergone were sad and mysterious and exciting all at the same time. Then we had the change in the children themselves to think about. Peter, Susan, and Edmund couldn’t even see Aslan at first! What a mess everything seemed. But what a beautiful teaching moment it was for me as a parent.
I used the story to explain to them that while the physical things of the world will die away, the spiritual things will not. We saw this most readily in the structure of Cair Paravel, which I used as a metaphor for the Pevensie children themselves.
Cair Paravel
Cair Paravel stands as the symbol of Narnia, both with regard to its worldly power and its spirituality as an Aslan-centered state. Since it is in ruins when Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy return to Narnia, we see just how low the kingdom had fallen. “Narnia” as the place and ideal it had been during its Golden Age is bankrupt; belief in Aslan is nearly extinguished.
Yet, despite having been completely abandoned, the treasure room of Cair Paravel remains intact. “How?” my sons and I wondered. “Why didn’t someone steal it?”
Of course there could be any number of hypothetical answers to this question, but it seems to me that the treasure room remains because it represents the very heart of Narnia, almost like a soul. Just as God marks His children with the waters of Baptism and claims them for Himself, the treasure in Cair Paravel is a sign of Aslan’s indelible mark on Narnia. Even if someone had wanted to steal it, it would have been impossible.
The Pevensies
Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy could claim the treasure, however, because it was theirs all along. With their prized swords and such in hand, they set out next to reclaim Narnia. The only problem is: all but Lucy have forgotten what the treasure means. It’s more than a testimony of their kingship and queenship. It’s even more than a sign of their duty to save Narnia. It’s first and foremost a sign of their duty to serve Aslan.
Lucy alone remembers this, and that’s why she is the only one to see Aslan when He first arrives. He wants to help them, but He can only do so if they cooperate with His will. Peter and Edmund have their own ideas about how to get to Aslan’s How, and Susan doesn’t seem all that committed to any particular direction.
When they do finally see Aslan one by one, they realize they hadn’t exactly wanted to see Him. We don’t know the specific reasons for this, but we can infer that something has changed in their lives over the last year in London. Maybe they feel too old to believe in Aslan. Maybe they’ve acted in ways that Aslan would not approve of. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. In any event, they had let the “Cair Paravel” of their lives begin to crumble.
Thankfully, Aslan had preserved His mark on the children just as he had preserved the treasure room of the castle. With help from Lucy, the older Pevensie children’s souls rekindle, and they remember their duty to serve Aslan. Only by putting that duty first are they able to save Narnia in the end.
What’s more, they realize Aslan is their only defense against the destructible hand of Time. Their own mortality, though not fully challenged until the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia, is very much at stake in this one. If they are ever going to gain eternal life, they must follow the Lion.
FINAL THOUGHTS
When I finished reading Prince Caspian to my sons, I paused to reflect on why it felt a little heavier than the other books, even than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I realized it was because my sons saw themselves as the Pevensies. Young though they are, they had somewhat taken it for granted that Aslan could defeat the White Witch just like Christ could defeat Sin and Death. Yes, Aslan’s sacrifice on the Stone Table was scary and powerful to read about, but they knew Aslan would be okay, not least because I could tell them that with certainty.
We couldn’t, however, take anything for granted when it came to the children. We knew every decision they made was of consequence to the success of their spiritual mission, and that kept the pages turning faster than ever.
It was also a little sad for my sons to learn that Peter and Susan would not go back to Narnia. Since I had read all of The Chronicles, I was able to assure them that Peter’s adventures would continue, but in a different way—a way consistent with the treasure that is Heaven. But for Susan, I had to start bracing them for a tough storyline, one I’ll talk about more in the final post of this series. I’ll save most of those thoughts for now, but suffice it to say, the implications of choosing to follow Aslan (or not) were very much on our minds as we prepared for the next book in the series.
