rennskye:Of course!For those not aware the rant/word vomit was attached to this post where someone m

rennskye:Of course!For those not aware the rant/word vomit was attached to this post where someone made a (totally harmless and quite funny) comment about how “[Edmund] almost gets [Lucy, Peter, and Susan] killed because he wanted sweets” and can be read in it’s original tagged form… But for you, dear (and of course for Edmund), I’ll make it a bit more eloquent and less dbgask;j fannish.And so, without further ado…Why Edmund is important and you should love himEdmund first comes to Narnia a selfish jerk of a boy. He’s broken after a sense, and has no place for himself. He’ll never be Peter, and he’s had to look at him his whole life and know that he’ll never be as liked, as smart, as talented as his older brother. He’ll never fit that. He can’t relate to Susan at all, and Lucy seems to take his place as the youngest more than anything else - something he obviously resents. He’s not as cute or creative as she is, not as fun. Not as studious as Susan and not as everything as Peter is (because Peter is the ideal of his parents that he’ll never live up to). And then you take away his father when the war comes and Peter (perfect Peter, to his mind) tries to step in and take that role (of course because he’s the eldest and who else is going to do it - but this isn’t about Peter, it’s about Edmund so I won’t go into his life and struggles because really I do love all the Pevensie children). So suddenly he’s fatherless and Peter’s trying to step into a role that’ll never be his and he utterly resents that.And the result is a very upset, cracked, nearly broken child. So he reacts in the way most children do - he lashes out. He becomes awful and mean and sullen and snide. And Peter and Susan, who are the only thing close to a real adult around (because they’re certainly not going to go to the Professor about it) are still only children themselves. They don’t understand why Edmund’s doing what he’s doing, so they berate him for it, they ask him why he has to be so awful all the time. And Lucy’s even younger so of course she’s going to be hurt by it and Edmund isn’t a bad kid, so of course he’s going to be upset that he’s hurt his little sister and that his elder siblings are shutting him out but that’s only going to turn him inward and make him more upset and more angry about everything.And then he goes to Narnia, all on his own (and it seems to poor Edmund that he is always on his own - Peter is trying to be Father, Susan’s trying to be mother and Lucy’s adored and almost seeming to replace him to his mind). And he’s found by Jadis. And she’s powerful and grown up and so very very nice to him. She notices him, pays attention to him, treats him like he’s worth something. And to a kid whose been feeling more and more isolated and shut out that means a lot. So it’s not that he wants more turkish delight (which is delicious by the way, and with an added enchantment I’m sure it’s utterly irresistible), it’s that he wants to please this woman who seems to have finally recognised him as worth something. Whose never known Peter and won’t throw him into his brother’s shadow - who tells him that he’s more than Peter, better than Peter, who tells him everything he’s wanted to hear about himself, who pushes away every doubt that’s been circling like a vulture in his head, ready to tear into his self confidence when he finally lets his shields down.And so of course he goes with her. It’s a terrible mistake, but he’s a child. And the really, truly important thing about Edmund? He learns from that mistake. He carries it with him, not as a burden, but as a teacher. As a reminder to help him through his darker times, so that he never looses himself like that again. He becomes King Edmund the Just for a damn good reason - because he learns that within everyone there is that darkness, and that light and you must look at both of them together to make the measure of a man. Giving into that darkness doesn’t make you a bad person - it’s staying there that does. And I think of all of them, Edmund learns his lesson the most thoroughly - he grows more and takes more from his time in Narnia than any of his siblings. Even Lucy - Lucy who when they return doesn’t carry the faith in herself enough to tell her siblings that she’s seeing Aslan at first in Prince Caspian. Lucy who first found Narnia doesn’t carry the lessons learned from their first lifetime there as well as Edmund does. And Peter looses that same faith, that same rightness in him, even though he gains it back as far as we can tell in The Last Battle when he comes through. And Susan, who looses all her belief in her siblings, forgets all they’ve lived through, gives up the joy and wonder of her youth to trap herself in one life. Susan, whom we love while we hate Edmund when he’s lost his way in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe gives up her childhood so thoroughly that she cannot return through the barn door at the end of all things.But Edmund? He never does. We never once see his faith waver in any of the following books - not during his continued life for the short time we see him in A Horse and His Boy, or in Prince Caspian, or the Voyage of the Dawn Treader - especially not there. That’s when we see how truly he’s owned his error, his time in darkness. Because when Eustace talks to them about being freed from being a dragon and Edmund tells him he sees Aslan… when Eustace apologises for being so terrible… Edmund tells him that “You were only an ass, but I was a traitor,” and we see in him the transformative growth he’s undergone. Because Edmund learns from his mistakes, and grows, and accepts that he wasn’t always good - and he’s humbled by it. He remembers it and holds it close to him - he owns everything he’s done wrong, and comes out so much better for it.It’s so much more than him wanting sweets. It’s him wanting a place, wanting to be recognised, and going about getting it in all the wrong ways - and realising how wrong he was when he’s redeemed. And fixing that about himself, and constantly striving to better himself, and to ensure that he never falls back to what he was. So many people would try to deny that part of themselves, to paint over that bit of their history, but Edmund bears it and is so much the stronger for doing so.well said. -- source link

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