Peter and Susan Pevensie didn’t return to Narnia for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The third installment of the rebooted Chronicles of Narnia movie series, The Voyage of the Dawn Trader sees siblings Lucy and Edmund Pevensie, along with their cousin Eustace, traveling over the seas of Narnia — but conspicuously absent from the adventure are the elder Pevensie siblings, who don’t return to Narnia after being protagonists in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. The first two movies centered on all Pevensie children, giving each of them detailed arcs in the Chronicles Of Narnia movies’ timeline. Peter and Susan, however, only appeared briefly in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader after they were told by Aslan that they would be unable to return to Narnia after their departure at the end of Prince Caspian.
While this was a bit of a shock to audience members unfamiliar with the source material, Peter and Susan leaving Narnia forever was consistent with the events of C.S. Lewis’ novels. However, the specifics of the eldest Pevensies’ inability to return differs between the books and the movies. While the Narnia novels have often been described as Christian allegory, author C.S. Lewis himself rejected this label, preferring to consider them “suppositional,” meaning he believed the purpose of the books was asking, “What if?” rather than presenting direct correlations between characters in the books and Christian theology. That said, among the primary theories for why Peter and Susan don’t return to Narnia are their age and experiences, and the Christian metaphors throughout the books factor into both.
Why Can’t Peter And Susan Return To Narnia?
Despite what Lewis said, the Christian themes in The Chronicles of Narnia books are clear, constant, and — by the definition of many scholars — allegorical. One of these Christian themes is the idea that many adults did have faith as children and merely let themselves grow out of it as they became older, choosing instead to follow the ways of the world and think too logically. As such, adults cannot enter Narnia, though there seems to be no fixed age limit — it’s merely when a person has “grown up,” as Susan and Peter do, that they can no longer enter.
In the Prince Caspian novel, Peter and Susan are told they will not return to Narnia simply because they are “getting too old.” Later, in the final book of the Chronicles Of Narnia series, The Last Battle, Susan is said to be “no longer a friend of Narnia” and “interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations.” She speaks of Narnia as a place of make-believe that she and her siblings conjured during playtime as children. As one who has lost her belief in Narnia, Susan is the only one of her siblings who never truly return.
Peter finally does go back to Narnia at the end of The Last Battle and, upon arriving, asks how it was possible after being told he would never return. Peter is then told that he is in the true Narnia and that the Narnia he knew as a child was “only a shadow or copy.” The movie adaptation-inspiring books never fully explain why Susan is exempted from returning to Narnia and Peter is not, even though he had also presumably become occupied with the “real world” for much of the series.
The Movies Had Their Own Reason For Peter And Susan Staying Out Of Narnia
Aslan comforts the concerned Edmund and Lucy in The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader movie by saying that Peter and Susan won’t return to Narnia — not because they have done anything wrong, but because they “have learned what they can from this world,” and that “it’s time for them to live in their own.” This offers a more optimistic interpretation of Peter and Susan’s absence in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Peter and Susan may even desire to go back to the series’ titular land, but the path that the Chronicles Of Narnia characters should follow is one where they take what they’ve learned from their adventures and use it for the bettering of the world where they now belong.
Though Peter and Susan are clearly told in both the books and films that they will not return to Narnia after their second adventure, the films have left the door open just far enough to conceivably bring Peter and Susan back for either a fourth Chronicles of Narnia film or a continuation in the form of a Netflix Narnia series. This would be a wild deviation from C.S. Lewis’s original novels, but it could be an opportunity to honor these two beloved characters by asking, in C.S. Lewis fashion, “what if Peter and Susan did return to the beloved fantasy series?”
There’s A Tragic Reason Peter And Susan Never Return To Narnia In The Books
The books offer a far less optimistic reason for Peter and Susan’s absence from Narnia when Edmund and Lucy return. Susan, specifically, is mentioned in the novels as having lost her faith in Narnia. Though all four of the Pevensie siblings share the experience of Narnia, Susan grows out of “playing pretend” with her siblings. Lewis’ work calls out Susan for growing up and moving on from her siblings. Her no longer “being a friend” to Narnia means that she no longer has faith.
She visits America with her parents while her siblings are still in England and attends a separate boarding school from the rest of them as well. At twenty-one years old, all three of her siblings and their cousin Eustace are in a train accident. When they are, the group meets Aslan again as they all die. Susan is the only member of her family not to be in the train accident and not to have been mentioned as meeting Aslan in the “real Narnia” as it is explained to Peter following her death. It’s a tragic ending for her character since she not only doesn’t share the belief the rest of her family has but also loses them all in one fell swoop.
Why Did Chronicles Of Narnia Stop?
Since The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader was released in 2010, the lucrative and wildly popular franchise hasn’t seen another on-screen adaptation, but why did Disney stop making Chronicles of Narnia? A movie version of the fourth novel in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, The Silver Chair, was previously announced as being in the works. Unfortunately, such plans have since been halted due to corporate issues. The producers behind the series have changed hands over the years, with Disney acquiring 21st Century Fox in 2017. In addition, as of 2018, Netflix currently owns the rights to the book series, and future content based on its storylines and characters has been publicly promised since the streaming giant took the reins.
At this point, any plans and/or progress surrounding another movie adaptation seem to be on a figurative back burner, if there are still possibilities at all. However, despite the fact that The Chronicles Of Narnia 4 still hasn’t happened yet, Netflix’s proven ability to both produce massive amounts of content, and draw in viewers to consume it, makes the possibility of more Narnia movies or shows seem fairly promising. Especially with more books in the beloved series that have yet to be adapted for film and TV, the seemingly halted plans for The Chronicles Of Narnia 4 shouldn’t make fans lose hope in future franchise installments quite yet.
