Talk:Emperor-Over-the-Sea

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Novels: Narnia

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Please mark spoilers

Though a stub, this article contains a few spoilers and they need to be marked. I'm about halfway through reading the books for the first time and I didn't want to read anything about the end of Narnia.--Butters 06:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Title of article

As I always remembered it, this unseen character was named Emperor-Over-the-Sea, not Emperor-Over-Sea. Can someone confirm it and change this article's title? I don't have the book before me, and I don't know how to change the title. I could probably find out, but as I don't have the book to be sure, and because I'm not positive that Joe Schmo can do it, I leave that to someone else. --D. F. Schmidt (talk) 07:22, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see now in my brother's copy of the Chronicles in one volume (ISBN 0060598247) that he is called Emperor-beyond-the-Sea on page 282, the last page of chapter 11. I'm not certain how to change the name of the article. Can someone else do so? -- D. F. Schmidt (talk) 21:30, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now I see that he's called Emperor-over-Sea on page 475 of the same volume. Oh, my! -- D. F. Schmidt (talk) 21:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

God in Narnia

This article does not give the whole picture. Lewis wrote in his letters that his works were suppositional, not allegorical. This would mean that Aslan does not represent Jesus, as the article says, but Aslan actually is Jesus in a differant form. This also means that his father, the Emperor, is not mysterious at all. He is the God of Christianity. This is further supported in Dawn Treader when Aslan tells the children that they may know him in Narnia only for a short time so that they may know him better on earth. 129.252.69.19 22:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just because Lewis said it doesn't make it true. It's not the author's intent that makes a work allegorical or suppositional or whatever, it's the nature of the work itself. The Chronicles are clearly allegorical in many aspects. Aslan and The Emperor obviously share the same relationship and fulfill the same roles as Jesus and God. Applejuicefool 16:51, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In many cases you would be right, an authors work speaks for itself. But in deciding whether a work is allegorical or suppositional, the authors intent is the deciding factor. Yes, Aslan does fulfill many of the same roles as Christ, but this is because they are the same character, not because Aslan is a representation.

Here's an analogous way of looking at it.

In the film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Sean Connery plays Allan Quatermain, the outdoorsman hunter of many adventures. The Allan Quatermain in the movie is not an allegory of the Allan Quatermain in the original books by H. Rider Haggard. On the contrary, the Allan Quatermain in the movie is supposedly the same character, if he co-existed and interacted with other literary characters from the same era. It brings the existing character into a new fiction, and in that regard is suppositional.

On the other hand, the fictional actor Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen's character in Galaxy Quest) is an almost perfect analogue of the real-life actor William Shatner; he is a new character imbued with the same characteristics as the existing person, designed by the authors to function in the same manner as the original, while being a different character than the original. Jason Nesmith is an example of an allegory.

For the sake of argument, assume C.S. Lewis believed in the existence of God, the existence of Jesus the Christ, and the historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts. In that case, from his point of view he was placing a historical character within his work of fiction. The character Leonardo da Vinci in Dan Brown's da Vinci Code is a similar situation. Dan Brown's Leonardo is a fictionalization of our universe's Leonardo, and again is a suppositional work.

The difficulty seems to lie in the use of different names. One might suppose that different names make different characters, and thus The Emperor Beyond The Sea is an allegory for God the Father, and Aslan an allegory of Jesus the Christ. However, within the stories, Earth, Charn, and Narnia are different worlds in parallel universes within a single multiverse. In that fictional Earth universe, God The Father and Jesus the Son presumably exist, with the same names and presumed history as the ones believed to be in this universe by the author. One assumes this is not a separate Jesus for Earth and an Aslan for Narnia, but rather one Logos (Second Person of the Trinity) for the entire multiverse. (This is implied when Aslan tells an Earth child that He is known by a different name "... in your world.")

I can quote you chapter and sentence from the books if you want, but I hope this interpretation of the text makes clear the difference between supposition and allegory in this particular case. --BlueNight 08:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]