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Line 1: {{~~trope~~work}} {{Infobox book The seventh and final installment in ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]''. Seven years (on Earth) after the events of ''[[The Silver Chair]]'', Jill and Eustace are summoned back for one last adventure, to aid the current King of Narnia against the treachery of the [[Everything's Better With Monkeys\|ape]], [[The Quisling\|Shift]], and his [[Arabian Nights Days\|quasi-Arabian]] Calormene allies. This time, they fail to prevent disaster, and the world ends, but the "real-world" characters, apart from Susan ([[Agent Scully\|who has stopped believing in Narnia]] and thus [[Missed the Call\|didn't join the gathering of friends]] before they are summoned away), as well as many Narnian heroes of the previous novels, are taken bodily to "the real Narnia," where Aslan tells the assembled characters that Digory, Polly, Peter, Edmund, and Lucy have died in a railway crash and that they have all arrived in "Aslan's country", ''i.e.'', Heaven.▼ ~~[[Category:~~ \| title = The Last Battle]]▼ \| image = \| caption = \| author = C. S. Lewis \| central theme = \| elevator pitch = \| genre = Allegorical Fantasy ~~[[Category:~~ \| franchise = The Chronicles of Narnia]]▼ \| preceded by = The Magician's Nephew \| publication date = September 4, 1956 \| wiki URL = https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia_Wiki \| wiki name = The Chronicles of Narnia Wiki }} ▲The seventh and final installment in ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]''. Seven years (on Earth) after the events of ''[[The Silver Chair]]'', Jill and Eustace are summoned back for one last adventure, to aid the current King of Narnia against the treachery of the [[Everything's Better ~~With~~with Monkeys\|ape]], [[The Quisling\|Shift]], and his [[Arabian Nights Days\|quasi-Arabian]] Calormene allies. This time, they fail to prevent disaster, and the world ends, but the "real-world" characters, apart from Susan ([[Agent Scully\|who has stopped believing in Narnia]] and thus [[Missed the Call\|didn't join the gathering of friends]] before they are summoned away), as well as many Narnian heroes of the previous novels, are taken bodily to "the real Narnia," where Aslan tells the assembled characters that Digory, Polly, Peter, Edmund, and Lucy have died in a railway crash and that they have all arrived in "Aslan's country", ''i.e.'', Heaven. Critics still wonder what Lewis intended for Susan's ultimate fate to be. Lewis issued no definitive statements on her fate, saying only in published correspondence that "perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end." She isn't dead yet, after all -- she's just an apostate for the time being. It is worth noting that this is one of the few cases in literature where the reader gets to feel bad for the [[Everybody's Dead, Dave\|lone survivor]]. {{tropelist}} * [[Action Girl]]: Jill has developed into one of these, being even better than Tirian at woodcraft, and a reliable archer. * [[The Antichrist]]: {{spoiler\|Shift, a literal ape of God}}. * [[Apocalypse Wow]] * [[Ascend to Aa Higher Plane of Existence]] * [[Ass in Aa Lion Skin]]: Literally. Puzzle the Donkey is put into a lion skin by Shift the ape (probably an allusion to [[Aesop's ~~(Creator)~~Fables\|Aesop]]'s ''Fables''). * [[Author Tract]] * [[Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work]]: Ginger, Shift, and the Tisroc were all done away with by {{spoiler\|Tash. He turned Ginger into an un-intelligent animal, killed Shift, and took the Tisroc alive to Hell.}} Line 14 ⟶ 29: * [[Big Bad]]: Shift. * [[Bigger Bad]]: {{spoiler\|Tash}} * [[Bittersweet Ending]]: Even if the children are now happily living in Aslan's country, the realization that they had been mangled corpses on some train platform for the better part of the book is still jarring to the reader. This is because ''The Last Battle'' has the same type of optimism found in the [[~~Book of Revelation (Literature)\|~~Book of Revelation]] -- the end of this world is just the beginning of a [[Ascend to Aa Higher Plane of Existence\|truer existence]]; if you don't buy it, the ending might come off as very dark indeed. ** Hey, maybe Susan was eventually the one who [[Breaking the Fourth Wall\|told the whole story]] to [[CSC. ~~Lewis~~S. ~~(Creator)~~Lewis\|CS Lewis]]? * [[Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs]]: Shift claims that the Narnian's Aslan and the Calormen's god Tash are the same, referring to this combined being as "Tashlan". * [[Bumbling Sidekick]]: Puzzle to Shift, who gets abused and emotionally blackmailed so often that the [[Heel Face Turn]] comes hardly as a surprise. {{quote\| Shift had one friend and neighbour who was a donkey called Puzzle. At least they both said they were friends, but from the way things went on you might have thought Puzzle was more like Shift's servant than his friend.}} * [[Cats Are Mean]]: Ginger. * [[Darker and Edgier]]: By far the darkest of the seven books. It was almost inevitable, because ''The Last Battle'' heavily draws upon the Apocalypse. * [[Didn't See That Coming]]: {{spoiler\|Tash is real and everybody dies and goes to heaven}}. * [[Dragon-in-Chief]]: Eventually, the Tisroc ends up in complete control of Shift, although he keeps up the illusion that Shift is still in charge to manipulate others. * [[Dressing Asas the Enemy]]: Tirian, Eustace, and Jill. * [[Dropped a Bridge Onon Him]]: Susan survives, but is written out of the story. The Pevensie children claim that she stopped believing in Narnia and started dismissing her adventures as childhood games. The effect is [[Anticlimax]]. * [[Dying Dream]] * [[Dying Like Animals]]: Most of the characters are Sheep who are duped into surrendering to [[The Empire\|the Calormenes]] without a fight; Shift the Ape and Ginger the Cat are [[The Quisling\|Snakes]]; Puzzle the Donkey is [[Gullible Lemmings\|gullible enough]] that Shift convinces him to go along with his plans; and the dwarves go off on their own totally unjustified [[Civil War]], before their ultimate fate of [[Flat Earth Atheist]] blindness to anything beautiful in their environment. * [[End of an Age]] * [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]] * [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: After Ginger goes into the stable to speak to "Tashlan", when he comes out, he {{spoiler\|turns into a regular non-talking cat}} * [[Fighting for Survival]] Line 35 ⟶ 50: * [[Gondor Calls for Aid]] * [[Gone Horribly Right]]: {{spoiler\|Summoning Tash}}. * [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard]]: Shift brings the Calormenes into Narnia to help him rule it, they promptly reduce him to a figurehead. Ginger and the Tisroc perpetuate the idea of "Tashlan", and are {{spoiler\|respectively made-unintelligent and taken to Hell by Tash.}} * [[Hollywood Atheist]]: The Dwarfs. And boy do they pay for it. * [[Hollywood Tactics]]: Averted, most notably when Jill and Farsight -- the only ranged combatants -- are sent to flank the attacking Calormenes. Line 41 ⟶ 56: * [[Hope Spot]]: The Talking Horses charging to the rescue, only to be shot down by the dwarves. * [[Kill'Em All]]: Played with. Since the final book deals with the afterlife, the character who gets effectively written out is the one who ''didn't'' die. * [[King in ~~The~~the Mountain]]: Father Time was once a great king, but sleeps underground (some of the characters saw him in ''The Silver Chair''), to wake at the end of the world. * [[Laser-Guided Karma]]: Ginger the cat, who takes over from Shift, loses his voice and his reason after seeing Tash in the flesh. * [[Last Stand]] Line 59 ⟶ 74: * [[Smug Snake]]: Ginger * [[Signs of the End Times]]: Very much like the Biblical signs, in fact. Given that it's a Christian allegory, this should not come as a surprise. * [[Spanner in ~~The~~the Works]]: Shift and his Calormene allies are taken quite off-guard by the fact that the Calormene god Tash actually exists, and will come when you summon him properly. * [[Stupid Neutral]]: The Dwarves refuse to ally themselves with the Calormenes or with the heroes. Then they start shooting at either side to prevent either side from gaining the upper hand. The worst example is their passing the [[Moral Event Horizon]] by killing a whole herd of horses who were rushing to Tirian's aid, then jeering at him before invoking the [[Stupid Neutral]] idea behind their behaviour. * [[Take Our Word for It]]: Lewis ends the story by claiming that the previous adventures were book covers to the main stories that will follow. We'll never read about them, though. ** At least not in ''this'' world... * [[Took a Level Inin Badass]]: Jill has honed her survival skills since her last trip to Narnia. * [[Unicorn]]: Jewel, but [[Good Is Not Nice]]. * [[Villainous Valor]]: The Dwarves, and to a certain extent the Calormenes, when it's pointed out that although they are the enemy, they're still brave and capable soldiers. Line 76 ⟶ 91: {{reflist}} ~~[[Category:~~{{Carnegie Medal]]}}▼ ▲[[Category:The Chronicles of Narnia]] [[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]] [[Category:British Literature]] [[Category:Literature of the 1950s]] [[Category:Fantasy Literature]] [[Category:~~Childrens~~Children's Literature]] {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Battle, The}} ▲[[Category:Carnegie Medal]] ▲[[Category:The Last Battle]]