Why Aslan is Hard to Get Right

So, while I was washing the dishes, I put on NarniaWeb’s podcast most recent episode (as of
now) and what the lovely people there discussed gave me much to think in regards to the new
Netflix adaptation and just adapting the chronicles in general. The episode did a comparison of
which Aslan adaptation was the best and derived of that what were the elements that made it
so hard to get right, though their analysis was more on the holistic side of things. Which is not
what I’m intending to do here, but it is what prompted this whole debacle. Basically, I’m just
trying to offer my own answer to the question above in the spaces in which I have experience
(spaces which are just acting and storytelling, and maybe perhaps historical analysis), in the
framework of what setting up a new adaptation entails.

(Also, disclaimer: if this at any point ends up feeling like I’m trying to make you convert or
something, I’m so sorry, that is so not what I’m trying to do but it’s. it’s just hard to get my
point across without recurring to my own interpretation of the chronicles and that is just
intrinsically connected to the allegory behind it. Which is super annoying, but, like, inevitable.)

Firstly, and this is just what I personally feel, I think the chronicles in and of themselves are
about the plot of land—and sky and sea and creatures in it, of course—that the song of one
lion brought to life. And by virtue of that, what’s at the core of Narnia is Aslan himself, being
that Narnia ends and begins in him. This is the first reason why it is so hard to get him right:
what is at the core of great things is often a message too simple and large not to be extremely
complicated. To start tearing apart Aslan’s character—and, in a sense, the person that
character is very obviously based on—is an extremely daunting task that cannot be exercised
in a vacuum, and must, instead, pass through the filter of all the years of gathered knowledge
and judgment since its publication and, furthermore, what we ourselves bring of said
knowledge and judgment to the table in regards not only to Narnia itself but to the allegory.
You can see why this is hard (and furthermore, laborious).

Now, I am not saying one needs to read themselves, what, William of Ockham or Thomas
Aquinas. I am also not saying you have to believe in it either. But you cannot skirt around the
topic of the allegory and possibly hope to make a good adaptation. Aslan is God. Quite clearly.
And that in itself merits a certain sort of respect and consideration, and positions you, both as
a performer and as a content developer, inside a certain frame. It is not something you can
cast aside or, worse, make a joke of despite the audiences.

And it just explains so much. It explains so much in the weight of things, in the meanings.
Meanings that are ultimately what conforms the character, what drives their actions and their
reasoning. When they were talking about the performances of the lions in the podcast (CGI
and puppets and cartoons), I think it just came up the fact that making a lion emote is very
hard, and the roars are not quite so good, at times. Half-hearted. And so striking the right
balance between human and animal was elemental. Which in a way, it is, but I was just so
struck by the simplicity of the assumption that he could be something else other than an
animal. Because why would he, in a country of talking animals? Why would he choose any
other form that one that directly relates to the beings he is creating? How—how could he get
that point across? That he is theirs and they are his? Without them sharing this intrinsic way of
just existing, just being? And certainly, Aslan has nine names in Narnia alone, and many more
outside of it, but the character at its core is a lion.