Through the Wardrobe

by Herbie Brennan

  Lewis can’t resist showing us how much his atoning hero has grown, especially in the context of talking to characters who still have some growing to do. You never see Peter having these private moments with various newcomers. You never see King Caspian sitting around and talking about how deeply he understands someone else’s moments of doubt. That one is all Edmund. And because Edmund cares, over and over, it’s Edmund we care about as well.

  “King Edmund the Just” continues the tradition he has become known for throughout the voyage: protecting his ship-mates from water that can turn you into gold, devising a strategy to deal with the Monopods, and demanding to know the truth about the enchanted sleepers (he even suspects that Ramandu’s daughter is a witch, and Edmund knows from witches). And at the end of the voyage, when Aslan tells him he will never return to Narnia, it was the first time I ever cried for a fictional character. 4 I was heartbroken for Edmund, but also for myself. He and Lucy had been such a huge part of the series. How ever could I accept a Narnia book without them?

  Which was why I was so thrilled to see them return when Lewis “flashed back” to the so-called Golden Age of Narnia in A Horse and His Boy. This grown-up King Edmund has yet to experience the adventures his boyhood self had in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and has, additionally, absorbed some strange, courtly, quasi-Medieval airs in his years ruling Narnia, but he is still the character we’ve grown to love.

  Shasta, the hero of the novel, loves him on sight as well. As the Narnians parade through the Calormene streets, whistling and chatting and looking like the friendliest group of noblemen one could hope to meet, the young runaway sees for the first time the kind of people he wants to be. The Narnian royals are the cool kids in Tashbaan, and when Shasta is mistaken for one of their ranks, he’s alternately thrilled by their treatment (Soft cushions! Sherbets!) and terrified that they’ll discover the truth.

  So while Edmund does his “wise advisor” thing, plotting to save his increasingly silly sister Susan from the Calormene jerk courting her without causing a full-scale war between the nations, Shasta and the reader get ever more impressed by how kick-ass the grown-up Edmund is.5 Still, we ain’t seen nothing yet, as the King doesn’t pull out all the stops until we reach the Fight at Anvard. In a series of breathless, long paragraphs narrated by the Hermit of the Southern March, we learn of Edmund’s battlefield derring-do:King Edmund is dealing marvelous strokes. He’s just slashed Corradin’s head off. . . . King Edmund’s down—no, he’s up again: he’s at it with Rabadash [Susan’s would-be lover]. They’re fighting in the very gate of the castle . . . Chlamash and Edmund are still fighting but the battle is over everywhere else. Chlamash has surrendered. The battle is over. The Calormenes are utterly defeated.

  Later we learn the details of how King Edmund bested Rabadash, which sadly was more due to the latter’s own foolishness than any maneuver of our man. But still, you try leading an army into battle, beheading folks left and right!

  What a thrilling moment that was for me as a reader! Peter, the wolf killer, the main fighter in the series, was out of town, and Edmund finally had a chance to lead his own battle and show that the whole thing with the Witch’s wand hadn’t been a fluke. It’s very telling to me that when Lewis chose to write again about the Pevensies, the character he focused on was Edmund. Edmund—imperfect, redeemed, and eager to offset his mistakes—is a far more complex character than his ideal brother, his shallow sister Susan (who, curiously, has lost all her interest in archery in The Horse and His Boy), and the lighthearted but simple Lucy. Because we are also not perfect, it is Edmund we feel close to.

  Edmund also displays what has become his most dominant character trait: his propensity for understanding and forgiveness of other characters. When Shasta reappears and apologizes to Edmund, swearing that he wasn’t a traitor, the King is all too aware of the child’s failings: “ ‘I know now that you were no traitor, boy,’ said King Edmund, laying his hand on Shasta’s head.” Compared to Edmund’s own betrayal, Shasta’s deeds didn’t endanger anyone.6 Later, he goes so far as to extend his compassion toward the cruel and cowardly Rabadash, saying, “ ‘. . . even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did.’ And he looked very thoughtful.”

  Edmund drops the “T” word a lot in A Horse and His Boy, possibly because penance and redemption are such strong themes throughout the novel. The traitorous Archenland knight who participated in Shasta’s kidnapping is redeemed when he starves himself to keep the infant prince alive on the boat. Aravis is scratched by Aslan as penitence for the lashings received by her stepmother’s slave as a result of Aravis’s drugging. Even Bree has his saddle scared off for failing to trust in Aslan’s Beast nature. And of course we have Rabadash’s punishment. Lewis is really hammering home the idea, so of course he features Edmund, the poster boy for redemption.

  The message is clear: Trust in Aslan and become a king. (Hey, it works for Shasta!) Edmund receives Aslan’s forgiveness in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and pays it forward to everyone he meets, from the accidentally dragon-ed to the orphan peasant boy, and finally, undeservedly, to the villain of the novel—who even Aslan decides is a real ass. Since we never get another scene from Ed’s point of view, this is the closest you ever come to seeing his inner world after the events of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and it hints at the way his personal history may have turned him into the “grave” king he becomes.

  Still, though he always remembers the past, he doesn’t wallow in it. Edmund isn’t the type of guy to wander around his kingdom acting tortured. There are too many wars to fight, too many adventures to have, and most of all, too many people to guide along the path that he has already trod. Edmund is so happy in his skin that he prioritizes helping other people find their faith and inner strength. It’s more valuable to take the experience—however awful—and grow from it than to let it warp your life. Lewis makes an important point with Edmund, and it was one I understood, even at ten.

  Still, I wanted to give him a hug. Why aren’t there any Narnian maidens around offering to give him one? Whither the Dryad looking to dance in Edmund’s direction? After all, Susan and Lucy have a whole host of suitors after them, and the lords of every island the Dawn Treader visits throw their daughters at King Caspian. Even Shasta gets the girl at the end, when he grows up and marries the Tarkheena Aravis. But Edmund remains a free agent. No Countess of the Western March for him. And when I point this out to other fans of the series, they are always agog. Why go after Edmund, they argue, when you could have the High King Peter? Why make eyes at the legendary king from the past, when the current king was on the same ship?

  Why indeed?

  Edmund vs. the Other Narnian Men

  1. PETER PEVENSIE

  High King over All Kings of Narnia. Noble, Brave, Lion-Fearing, Possessed of a Magical Sword, Killer of Talking Wolves. Quite a list. A bit intimidating, actually. The problem with Peter as a crush object is that he’s perfect. Even Edmund is intimidated by the nonstop faultlessness of his older brother. No doubt it is Peter’s superiority in all things that accounts for Edmund’s initial attitude problem. Can you imagine starting at a boy’s school your flawless brother has already conquered? Edmund was probably treated like “the other Pevensie” all year long.

  The only thing Peter does wrong in the entire series is to get lost in the woods even though Lucy asks him to follow her (which—ahem—Edmund wants to do without question). The other problem with Peter is that, given his sheer perfection, he doesn’t have much of a personality. He’s so smooth, so impeccable, that it’s tough to get a handle on him. Where Edmund is logical, clever, understanding, damaged, grave, and quiet, Peter is just perfect. Perfect is boring.

  2. KING CASPIAN

  Sometimes called Caspian the Seafarer. The Boy King of Narnia is something of an adrenaline junkie, don’t you think? Against the wishes of his advisors, who want him to stay home in his newly culturally blended kingdom, defend it from giants a
nd Calormen, and get married, Caspian jets off to points unknown to find a bunch of old men who barely even deserved a mention in the previous book. And then, as if he hasn’t gotten his way enough already, he decides that the whole king business is tired and that he wants to run off with Reepicheep to see the end of the world. (For my money, Caspian might have been much happier leaving the kingdom to his usurping uncle and tripping off to play Magellan. Tough luck for the Talking Beasts, though.) Indeed, during that little episode it’s Edmund who yanks the petulant Caspian back from the brink (literally), even pulling rank, king-to-king, in order to make his point. I wonder if Ramandu’s daughter would have been pleased to know how close Caspian came to abandoning her there on that island? She can take him!

  3. EUSTACE CLARENCE SCRUBB

  Please. I mean, he’s a great kid and all, and he comports himself marvelously in The Silver Chair7 and The Last Battle, but he might as well have “just friends” stamped on his forehead. Jill Pole would back me up here.

  4. PRINCE RILIAN

  Speaking of The Silver Chair, its long-term occupant spends the majority of his page time as a pompous git who reminds Jill of Hamlet and laughs way too much. By the time the enchantment is broken, we’re already a bit turned off, not to mention wary that a guy who has been under a spell that long may have some serious baggage to deal with. Who wants to be the chick he dates after that fiasco? “My last girlfriend was stunning. Positively divine in every way. The Lady of the Green Kirtle. How enchanting! Too enchanting, if I can be honest. She had me under an evil spell for a decade, and then she turned into this wretched giant snake and I had to kill her. So . . . what are you doing this weekend?”

  I think I’ll be washing my hair.

  5. SHASTA

  A.k.a. Crown Prince Cor of Archenland. Now there’s a title to rival the Count of the Western March, and Shasta is a character who’s almost as interesting as Edmund. His growth arc over the course of the novel is a joy to behold, and his happy ending as a prince never fails to make me cheer. But who wants to fight Aravis for him? Remember her giant sword? Mazel tov to you both!

  6. DIGORYKIRKE

  For me, Digory just came too late in the series for any serious attachment to form. But nowadays, kids are reading The Magician’s Nephew first. I wonder how many ten-year-olds start crushing on the kid (after all, he’s got his whole tale of woe, with the sick mother and the abusive uncle and all) before getting hit with the fact that their favorite is immediately shuffled off to the role of the old and crotchety professor who doesn’t even seem to have heard of Narnia when the Pevensies bring it up, let alone lets on that he was present during its creation.8 The crusty old absent-minded Professor? No thank you.

  7. KING TIRIAN

  The Last King of Narnia. Is it me, or is Tirian just Caspian Redux? The only thing I can think of to differentiate the two is that Caspian had a Mouse for a friend, while King Tirian’s best buddy is the Unicorn, Jewel. Jewel is ten kinds of awesome, but Tirian? Eh.

  Clearly, Edmund is the most eligible of all the Narnian bachelors. Plus, given his strong desire to guide other imperfect folks like Shasta and Eustace down the path of Aslan, he would have a vested interest in helping me out, were I ever to stumble my way into Narnia. (And yes, I think I imagined that scenario quite a bit. Come on, you always checked out the back of wardrobes, too!)

  Of course, at ten I hadn’t read a lot of other books, so my pickings of fictional men were slim. It was pretty much the Narnians or that dude who had the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. As my reading tastes matured, so did my acquaintance with a whole host of heroes ripe for literary crushes. However, my early experience with Narnians forever changed my taste in imaginary men. I’d been strongly influenced by Lewis’s vision of what makes a hero, and the more I read as I got older,9 the more I realized that, on some level, I was always looking for another Edmund.

  Edmund Paves the Way for Future Literary Crushes

  Now, one might suspect that a fan of Edmund would be drawn to the bad boys of literature. Not so. I think those people were fans of angsty, bewitched, Hamlet-esque Rilian. If I liked a bit of badness in my boy, it was only what was left after the reformation. I was never into the “tortured” type. No Heathcliffs for me!

  I didn’t like them perfect, either, but if they sat around all day lecturing girls on how they were bad news, I tended to agree with them, and kept my distance. After all, the Narnians were always a forthright lot. Edmund and his ilk told it like it was. And Edmund, however questionable his past, seemed to have pulled it together. He may have been somewhat graver than Peter, but he was still a cheerful guy, overall. Contrast that with the behavior of the aforementioned Heathcliff, or, in modern times, with the much-beloved Edward Cullen of Twilight. (I spent a good deal of that series thinking, “Bella, look at that nice werewolf over there. He seems so much more capable of dealing with his inner darkness, don’t you think?”) Heck, I might be the only Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan I know who liked Riley better than Angel or Spike!

  My next big literary crush was Gilbert Blythe who, like Shasta, comes part and parcel with a love interest who was also the heroine of the piece: Anne of Anne of Green Gables. Gilbert, like Edmund, spends a good bit of time atoning for his earlier mistakes, though Gilbert’s crime was no more serious than a schoolhouse prank (he tugs on Anne’s braids and calls her “Carrots,” a nickname she abhors as much as her red hair). At the time, I thought Gilbert’s teasing of Anne was worthy of her intense and lingering punishment, but now, with age, I wonder why it took her so long to get over it.10 Didn’t anyone ever teach her that the boys who tease you like you? It was the only way I could actually tell when I was in school! Nevertheless, Gilbert reminded me of Edmund, in both appearance and demeanor; he’s graver and more sensible than the fanciful Anne, and his wisdom and quietness only mature as he grows older. And, like Edmund, Gilbert is a listener.

  I got another twinge of Edmund when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. While my high school classmates were still swooning over Heathcliff (a crush that I do not, to this day, understand), I was into Mr. Darcy. Like Edmund, he doesn’t leave you (or the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet) with the best first impression. He’s cranky, rude, unfeeling, and proud. But also like Edmund, he learns that this is not acceptable behavior and makes amends. Yet Darcy is still a reserved man, “graver and quieter” than some of the other men who pop up in the novel. (I later realized that all of Austen’s heroes were Edmunds.)

  Still later, when I read Lord of the Rings, shades of Edmund cropped up in the character of Faramir.11 In Tolkien’s books, it was Faramir’s brother Boromir who represented the fallen and the treacherous, yet Faramir’s personality is much more in keeping with that of King Edmund the Just. He is a scholar who thinks things through before acting, despite the fact that his preferred M.O. (implicit in his close relationship to Gandalf, the “court advisor”) earns him the contempt of his father. Faramir is a tad insecure of his place beside his warrior brother,12 and though he is not known for his abilities on the battlefield, when he needs to fight, he will do so both valiantly and with aplomb. When his father forces him to lead the suicide mission into an Orc-controlled city, Faramir rides off, even knowing it spells certain doom.

  He’s also acutely aware of and empathetic to the plight of other characters in the story. He recognizes the enormous, impossible task that Frodo has been given (getting that ring to Mount Doom), and in the hobbit, sees a kindred spirit. Neither of them have the ability to do what is being asked of them, but they are more than willing to die trying. Later in the book, in the depressed and sidelined Eowyn, he sees another soul who has experienced disappointment and failure, and he will not let it ruin either of them. (Never was I so happy as when Eowyn saw in Faramir what no one seemed to in Edmund. I vividly remember telling my then-boyfriend that Eowyn had to survive her injuries, if only so she could “end up with” Faramir.)

  I could go on and on, but in the end, it all comes back t
o Edmund. I know my literary “type”: the complex guy who has his feet on the ground, a little experience with pain, a head on his shoulders, compassion for others, and a deep sense of loyalty. He isn’t flighty, but nor is he tortured. He’s always a shoulder to lean on in times of trouble, and though he’s not perfect, he’s forgiving of others who are dealing with their own flaws. He likes to solve problems with his brains before he resorts to his muscles, but when fighting is needed, he can hold his own with the best of them. As a novelist, I now write these men.

  In real life, I just married one.

  Diana Peterfreund is the author of the Secret Society Girl series, as well as Rampant and Ascendant, two young adult fantasies about killer unicorns. She was raised in Florida and graduated from Yale University in 2001 with degrees in Geology and Literature. A former food critic and an avid traveler, she now resides in Washington, D.C., with her husband and their dog. Like Edmund, she was scared by the White Witch at a young age and still can’t stand wintertime. Her website is www.dianapeterfreund.com.

  Where will you find St. Brendan in Narnia? And isn’t that King Midas hiding over there? In one of the funniest essays you’ll find in this anthology, Ned Vizzini presents Lewis by logline to bring you the most entertaining analysis of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader you’re likely to read this year.

  Reading the Right Books