I wouldn’t exactly call it confusing. Lewis presents the same idea in Mere Christianity.

Thanks so much, K. M.! Zachary was so kind as to post the text of the scene that I was referring to. It was definitely much more confusing to me as a young reader than it is to me now – but I’ve had the opportunity to study and read more of Lewis’ fiction and non-fiction at this point.

As Daeus pointed out, Lewis did not simply throw this into his story without thinking it through. The same argument appears in his non-fictional work as well. It’s been a hotly-contested question for many years (by far more than just Lewis), so it is no surprise that Lewis tackled it in his fiction. He had a tendency to tackle big topics, which is one of the things that I love about his writing. But it just means more is at stake, and more care must be taken.

God help us not to shy away from those questions, though, simply because they are difficult.

Ah, I remember that one now. Thank you, Zachary!

For anyone interested: I found this article to have an interesting take on what that scene means. https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/books/the-salvation-of-emeth.html

I haven’t thought about it enough to see if I agree or not, but I do think it’s an interesting take on it.

Coralie,

I’m glad this has been encouraging and thought-provoking to you. There’s definitely a lot of big ideas here that have been bouncing around upstairs for a while – and it’ll be a continual process to walk the line between self-expression and subcreation.

@karthmin Do you have any resources you can recommend to further learn about and understand what subcreation is?

Hey, Sarah! Glad this article was helpful to you!

Personally, I like Thanos as a villain. Not every villain has to be super round. But when they are, you can do a lot more with the story.

Oh, I suppose he’s not a terrible villain. I’ve just never found him to be particularly relatable, and to me the best villain is the one that has a little piece of him that is so terribly relatable it makes sense as to why they are the way they are. Thanos never had that for me, so I never really was able to connect on the emotional level with him to actually understand his motivations for doing such a thing or why it was so utterly horrible. I feel much more empathy for characters like Scott Lang coming back to find everything different and his daughter grown, or things like Hawkeye vs. Black Widow for the ‘jumper’. Thanos just never struck that cord, so while it makes logical sense to do what he did, it doesn’t really mean as much to me. If that makes sense. 😉

Anyhow, it was an excellent post overall offering a new perspective on villains for me, and I thank you for that. 😉

Thank you so much, Benjamin. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my articles.

That’s a good point you bring up about Hebrews 11. It’s interesting to note the contrast between that passage and how it is portrayed in Exodus 2:14 as a result of fear. At least we can be sure that God had His hand upon him and was using each experience to shape and grow Moses into the leader and savior of Israel that he would eventually become.

You’re welcome, Jessi! I’m so glad I was able to remind you of the reasons why you love the fantasy genre. 🙂

Thank you, Eden! I’m encouraged that you were able to understand why you keep coming back to fantasy. It really is a beautiful genre.

Thank you so much, Ethan!

Thank you so much, Coralie! This is super encouraging. ☺️