Susan Pevensie goes up to the counter, but the barista won’t let her order any coffee because she is wearing lipstick.
oh my god
Actually, it’s more like Susan Pevensie won’t go up to the counter because she’s stopped believing coffee is good or wanting anything to do with it, despite all the efforts of her family and friends to remind her coffee is delicious. Besides, the cup would smear her lipstick, and she’s on her way to a party.
Strangely enough, however, people keep insisting that the only reason Susan doesn’t have coffee is because the barista is mean and judgmental and her family and friends don’t love her enough. Apparently it’s their job to hold her down and pour hot coffee down her throat? Or something?
hmm, it has been a long while since I read The Chronicles of Narnia, but I always thought the way “people keep insisting that the only reason Susan doesn’t have coffee is because the barista is mean and judgmental and her family and friends don’t love her enough” is not really about what people think the characters in the book should have done but about how C. S. Lewis chose to treat Susan.
It could have been any character who stopped believing in Narnia, but he chose to make it Susan and he chose to make it because she preferred traditionally feminine things and he chose to have her siblings resent her for this. And a lot of people have had an emotional reaction to that, so there have been a lot of posts about how this can be seen as misogynistic and upsetting. It’s certainly what I remember most from the last book. If I reread it then I certainly may come to a different interpretation, or find other details that make it seem less so, but I think the thing people are fixated on is that the way Susan was cut out was done in a way that it overshadows whatever other reasons there may have been.
Add this to the fact that I believe the new version of Narnia was supposed to represent heaven or something? and it kinda looks like Susan was kept out of heaven bc she… liked makeup. or whatever.
but then again, i haven’t read it in a while and don’t plan to.
So I went and found the passage where they talk about Susan not getting to come back to Narnia in the end and I’m so mad. “No longer a friend of Narnia” when Narnia turned its back on her twice, made her a queen and an adult and a heroine and then sent her home to be a child again because that’s “just the way things had to be”. She ruled as High Queen of Narnia, with all the diplomacy and bureaucracy and management that entails and if Jill thinks that she went home and only cared about fashion and parties than she clearly doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Or she was enjoying the childhood she didn’t get to have because an all-powerful lion decided to place the responsibility of a country on the shoulders of children. She spent her formative years up until her first adulthood, plus some of that adulthood, under all the stresses of leadership and duty. Maybe she wanted to enjoy it this time around.
“Wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now” Are you kidding me? What adult wants to be shoved back into childhood, with no choice in the matter, and have to go back to listening to their parents and doing schoolwork (that is either pointless or that they already know) and having very little independence? She used to be able to ride from the mountains to the sea if she wanted to and now she has to ask permission to visit the next town over. Of course she wanted to be an adult again. And what the hell was she wasting, when she spent her school time wanting to be an adult? School was wasting Susan’s time, not the other way around.
“Silliest time of one’s life”? And I suppose, Polly, that you were silly at that age? Tell me, is it Susan you disapprove of, or do you just have some self-loathing going on of who you were at that age? Was Susan silly at that age when she ruled Narnia? Were the “parties” at Cair Paravel silly? Why do you think that she couldn’t do something just as worthwhile at a party in England as she could at a ball in Narnia and why don’t you understand how socializing plays into political maneuvering?
Do you know what I really like about Sterling? Another show, another time, and he’d be the protagonist. I mean he’s often not wrong, he’s incredibly clever, he’s pretty much the prototypical white dude who is cranky but somehow has a heart of gold. The reason he such a great antagonist for the team is that he can genuinely almost outthink them, genuinely almost beat them. And he’s alone on his own. It’s not just that he can outthink Nate sometimes, its that he’s prepared to deal with all five of them and again, in another show he would win.
I can almost hear his fourth wall breaking frustration most of the time. “I’m supposed to be the good guy! I work hard, I follow the law, sure sometimes I bend it but it’s always in the service of greater justice.” He is exactly the protagonist in every extraordinary white dude crime show on TV today. And yet because he stumbled into this weird, amazing, found family criminals as good guys story, it turns out he has to somewhat lose at every turn. Not enough to put him in real danger. Not enough to make him actually fail. Just enough that I think it’s clear to him somewhere in the recesses of his brain, that he’s not the protagonist of the show. And it drives him absolutely bonkers.
As it turns out, grammar does matter, and Hugo knew it damn well. Something has always bothered me about this sentence, and now I know why. The difference doesn’t exist in English translations, because both “à” and “en” translates to “in”, hence Grantaire’s “I believe in you”. But it isn’t the case in French :
“Je crois à toi” isn’t grammatically correct. In French, you don’t believe “à” someone, you believe “en” someone. “Je crois à” is restricted to things and fictional beings, as in :
Je crois à la Petite Souris (I believe in the Tooth Fairy)
Je ne crois pas à la Révolution (I don’t believe in the Revolution)
There are a few exceptions (because otherwise grammar wouldn’t be grammar) but one thing is certain : “à”can not be used to introduce a noun or pronoun referring to a real person :
Je crois en lui (I believe in him)
“Je crois à lui” sounds wrong, as wrong as “I believe to him” sounds
Then, why does Hugo use both? Because Grantaire knows the difference as well. Grantaire is good with words and proves it more than once. Remember this quote : “Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles?” ? Grantaire says it drunk. DRUNK. If this man can be that lyrical while smashed to high hell, why would he forget fundamental grammatical principles, all of a sudden? Answer : he wouldn’t. He does it on purpose.
He’s mirroring Enjolras’s speech :
“Tu ne crois à rien.” “Je crois à toi.”
This may sound insignificant and, yes, considering the length of the brick, it may be but bear with me. Grantaire is having a laugh, in this passage. Yes, he is serious, he does want to prove his value to Enjolras, but at the same time, he’s Grantaire. He can’t help himself but to play with words. And my best guess is that he’s teasing Enjolras, hence the “Be serious” “I am wild” that comes soon after.
Then what about “Je crois en toi”? Well, it’s a question of context. Look at the description preceeding Grantaire’s declaration :
“Grantaire,” [Enjolras] called, “go and sleep your wine off somewhere else.
This is a place for intoxication but not for drunkenness. Don’t dishonor
the barricade.”
The sharp rebuke had a remarkable effect on Grantaire, as though he
had received a splash of cold water. Suddenly he was sober. He sat down
with his elbows on a table by the window, and looking with great
sweetness at Enjolras called back:
“Tu sais que je crois en toi”
“Go away.”
Grantaire is serious this time. This isn’t a joke anymore. This is real declaration he’s making here. Enjolras is yelling at him, and yet, Grantaire’s attitude is all but belligerent. I would even argue that “great sweetness” is far from the reverent and loving “inexprimable douceur” from the French text.
Unfortunately, Enjolras is so used to his lack of faith and seriousness that he dismisses it. Grantaire has disappointed him more than once by that point in the brick, so his attitude is understandable. But if Grantaire lacks faith in the cause, he doesn’t lack any in Enjolras. The tragic thing is that Enjolras doesn’t realise it and Grantaire’s serious profession of faith is dismissed. One last nail in your coffin? Look at what comes after :
“Grantaire, you are incapable of believing or thinking or willing or living or dying.” “You’ll see,” said Grantaire gravely. “You’ll see.”
eirenical17 