In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), Andrew Adamson directs the children in such a way that it flattens Susan’s character to a single, essential trait implied in Lewis’s original story—and it works.

The film’s opening sequence, during which the Pevensey children run for safety during a German blitzkrieg, quickly establishes a clear temperamental difference between the two older siblings. Peter—ever the fixer and (young) man of action—unthinkingly risks his life to save Edmund, while Susan hesitates in order to consider all her options. When no one meets the children immediately upon their arrival in the safer countryside, logic again comes to Susan’s rescue; this time, she reasons that the professor must have known they were coming and sent someone for them—this person just hasn’t arrived yet. When Lucy excitedly describes her first adventure in Narnia to her siblings, Susan unsurprisingly dismisses her sister’s story as “illogical.”

Even when Susan finds herself standing in the snowy fantasy land a few days later, she can’t help but expel a characteristic “impossible!” (rather than the more casual observation Lewis assigns her: “I’m sitting against a tree…”). And, of course, when the equally fantastic inhabitants of this new world start speaking, Susan has difficulty accepting the proof of her ears: “It’s a beaver. It’s not supposed to be saying anything.”

Though I agree with Gayle Thomas’s assessment that the Susan of Lewis’ book is more a prig than Adamson’s incarnation makes her out to be, I think the new Susan’s consistent turning to logic for comfort works as an appropriate shorthand for the original Susan’s unthinking submission to authority. When she wonders what their mother would say as they cross a rapidly thawing frozen river, for instance, she evinces an anxiety about whether what they’re doing is logically safe that dovetails nicely with the book character’s natural inclination to look towards authority in unfamiliar situations.

This distillation of Susan actually makes the allegory stronger for me—a person who depends oh-so-much on intellect in my own approach to life and God. For years I have struggled to know God and to have a relationship with Him, my default approach involving a fairly academic study of the Bible. Admittedly, understanding the historical context of the Scriptures is crucial, and the evangelical culture to which I belong tends to neglect the teaching of our vast spiritual heritage. However, as the saying goes, knowledge about God can never replace knowing God. Unfortunately, in my efforts to meet God in the midst of my busy life, I sometimes appease my mind by checking items off a list of spiritual tasks in a way that recalls Susan’s own reliance on rules and reason.

Having just witnessed Aslan’s death and miraculous resurrection, Susan can only respond, “But, Aslan I saw the knife....” Even in the midst of wonder, she’s looking to understand, striving to control circumstances through her factual knowledge of them. Those familiar with the entire series will recognize the character seeds Adamson is carefully planting here, and anticipate where this is all going . . .

Isaiah 55:8-9
”For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”