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The Brightness of Aslan’s Mane


I remember the first time I watched Disney and Walden Media’s adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian, released nine years ago in May of 2008. In days leading up to its release, we read the book as a family and enjoyed the tale of the Pevensie children’s second trip to Narnia. The movie was decent, even though it took many (unfortunate) liberties in adapting the plot of the book.
But my favorite part of the experience took place during the final scene. Of course, the filmmakers had added a romance between Susan and Prince Caspian, and in the final scene, the inevitable occurred: they kissed. At this, my brother shouted for all the theater to hear, “That wasn’t in the book!”
And he was right. In fact, Susan and Caspian don’t even meet until several days before the children leave Narnia again! Such a subplot would not have fit in the book at all.
Recently, my wife and I reread Prince Caspian together, and I was struck by something that Lewis writes in one of the last pages of the book:
“At one end of the glade Aslan had caused to be set up two stakes of wood, higher than a man’s head and about three feet apart. A third, and lighter, piece of wood was bound across them at the top, uniting them, so that the whole thing looked like a doorway from nowhere into nowhere. In front of this stood Aslan himself with Peter on his right and Caspian on his left. Grouped round them were Susan and Lucy, Trumpkin and Trufflehunter, the Lord Cornelius, Glenstorm, Reepicheep, and others. The children and the Dwarfs had made good use of the royal wardrobes in what had been the castle of Miraz and was now the castle of Caspian, and what with silk and cloth of gold, with snowy linen glancing through slashed sleeves, with silver mail shirts and jeweled sword-hilts, with gilt helmets and feathered bonnets, they were almost too bright to look at. Even the beasts wore rich chains about their necks. Yet nobody’s eyes were on them or the children. The living and strokable gold of Aslan’s mane outshone them all.”1
In this description of the final scene of Prince Caspian, Aslan is the commanding figure. The battle with the usurper Miraz and his troops has been won, and the children remove their sweaty, bloody clothes from the war and adorn themselves with the shining clothes of royalty. Yet nobody pays much attention to them. All eyes are on Aslan and his shining mane.
Like Caspian and Susan’s romance is absent from the book, so the “living and strokable gold of Aslan’s mane” is absent from the movie (including the lamentable BBC adaptation, in case you were wondering). I understand that this would be difficult to portray on screen. But it shows that film adaptations often fail to be as deep and rich as the books they are based on.
I can’t help but see in this paragraph an illustration for what will happen when Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, returns and sets all things to right. Paul writes that when Christ appears, “you [believers] also will appear with him in glory,” (Col 3:4b ESV). But nobody’s eyes will be on us. All eyes will be directed to the shining face of King Jesus (Matt 17:2).
The Christian’s future is bright, but he is not its central character. Though we will be clothed with a glorious new body, no one will think much of us because all eyes will be on Jesus. His glory will outshine all. There will be no room for envy or pride because Jesus alone is worthy to receive our adoration and praise.

1C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, in The Chronicles of Narnia (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 415.
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