Wild Chronicles of Narnia Fan Theory Got Real Dark Real Fast
In case you needed a tragic take on a beloved childhood story, here it is.
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, as well as the movie series, remains one of the favorite becoming-of-age stories for a lot of people. However, the way it celebrates escapism has already spurred many dark fan theories on the saga, and here is one of them that is likely to break your heart.
According to Redditor Pariahdog119, Narnia is not a real magical world with an entrance in a wardrobe but rather just a way for traumatized kids to escape their pain by fantasizing of such a country and telling each other stories about it.
"Narnia is, for the children who find it, an escape from their trauma – from the abuse of Uncle Andrew, from the horrors of war, from bullying," the theory goes.
But it only gets darker at this point, revealing that the entire saga could have been a redemption story of just one Pevensie sibling: Susan.
When Peter and Susan grow up, they eventually stop playing the Narnia game, but while Peter accepts it as a part of his life and doesn't reject it. Susan, however, chooses to dismiss it as childish.
"That's Susan's sin, not "lipstick and nylons." Those are just the things she replaces Narnia with – and not only Narnia. Those are the things she replaces her family with," the theory reads.
However, instead of plunging into darkness, the fan theory assures us that it all eventually works out for her: "for who else is it who tells the story to the author?" There is still a tragic twist to it, of course.
"She's the only survivor who knows about Narnia, and she's dealing with the grief of losing her siblings in a train accident – siblings she'd been alienating because of her fear of their childishness and desire to be very grown up. And so, she deals with this trauma in the same way she did as a child: She returns, one last time, to Narnia," the theory concludes.
Many fans were left disappointed with the fact that Lewis chose to give Susan an open final without making her return to Narnia in The Last Battle. The fan theory offers a headcanon that works much better for the fandom than Lewis' decision to just leave Susan with "lipstick and nylons" and never allowing her to actually "be old enough to read fairy tales again."