S6E20 – OSP 18 – “The Martian”

Ransom comes face-to-face with Oyarsa.

S6E20: “The Martian” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Drop-In

• Rev. Malcolm Guite

Quote-of-the-week

‘We think that Maleldil would not give up utterly [your world] to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange counsel and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One in Thulcandra. But of this we know less than you; it is a thing we desire to look into.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

Easter Greeting

• Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! (English)
• Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti! (Greek)

Episode Movie Title

Chit-Chat

• Matt
  • The pfifltrigg-like creature Matt was thinking of in the previous episode was the mole in Atlantis: The Lost Empire:

Toast

• Drinks
  • Matt was drinking Kirkland Speyside Single Malt 18
  • Andrew was drinking Caol Ila 12 (not Macallan 12)
  • David was drinking “a good cup of tea”, something Ransom very much wanted in today’s chapter
• Foreign language “cheers”
  • “Skål!” (Swedish/Danish/Norwegian)
• Patreon toast
  • David toasted the listeners, thanking them for messages sent after announcing that he had lost his job. He will now be working remotely as a developer for PartySlate, which is based out of Chicago. For his toast, he stole it from Pope Benedict XVI:

Thank you for this friendship… Thank you for the communion in joys and in troubles. Let us move ahead, the Lord said: “courage, I have conquered the world”. We are on the Lord’s team, hence on the winning team… And let us raise our glasses.

Pope Benedict XVI, at a lunch with the Cardinals (21st May 2012)

Story Recap

Philologist Elwin Ransom is abducted by two men in order to be handed over to someone on Mars. When they arrive, the Philologist escapes and finds refuge among the race known as “hrossa”. They encourage him to seek help from someone on the planet named “Oyarsa”, but Ransom is too scared.

While hunting a great water creature, Ransom is again told to go to Oyarsa, but this time by an angel. Unfortunately, they delay, and one of their number is shot by Ransom’s abductors. This killing finally prompts Ransom to travel to the island of Meldilorn and speak to Oyarsa…

The story so far…

Discussion

1. “The Lakehouse”

Humour

At the Guest House on Meldilorn, Ransom struggles with the humour of the different creatures:

…but even when he understood all the words he could not see the points. He went early to bed.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

David commented that the different hnau laugh at each other because they love each other, as it mentions in The Great Divorce:

…no people find each other more absurd than lovers

The Great Divorce (Chapter 13)

Matt compared it to the talk about friendship in The Four Loves:

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.

C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves, Chapter 4)

Till We (Eventually) Have Faces

Shockingly, it took Andrew 15 minutes to mention Till We Have Faces!

2. “Paging Dr. Ransom…”

Nerviousness

After being woken the next morning by an eldil, Ransom is nervious about meeting Oyarsa and feels the need for a good cup of tea:

His old terrors of meeting some monster or idol had quite left him: he felt nervous as he remembered feeling on the morning of an examination when he was an undergraduate. More than anything in the world he would have liked a cup of good tea.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Andrew mentioned Lewis’ diary, All My Road Before Me, and alluded to this passage on fear:

Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told ‘There is a ghost in the next room’, and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity The Problem of Pain (Chapter 1)

Judgement

David referenced the judgement scene from Till We Have Faces:

“Why, yes, child. The gods have been accused by you. Now’s their turn.”

“I cannot hope for mercy.”

“Infinite hopes — and fears — may both be yours. Be sure that, whatever else you get, you
will not get justice.”

“Are the gods not just?”

“Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were? But come and see.”

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Part II, Chapter 4)

Humility

David alluded to these passages from the Bible:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:7

3. “The Grove”

Poetic Writing

Matt delighted in the description of the scene as Ransom journeys to the Grove at the top of the Island:

The bluish smoke was rising from the lake and the sky was bright behind the jagged eastern wall of the canyon; it was a few minutes before sunrise. The air was still very cold, the ground-weed drenched with dew…

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Standing before the crowds

Ransom is intimidated by the crowds gathering in the Grove:

We’re told he stood there motionless like a man on parade… He might, when the time came, be pleading his cause before thousands or before millions: rank behind rank about him, and rank above rank over his head, the creatures that had never yet seen man and whom man could not see, were waiting for his trial to begin.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

This has echos in Till We Have Faces, which was read by Andrew:

Then from every crack and hole in the mountains there came out dark things like men, so that there was a crowd of them all round me before I could fly. They seized on me and hustled me and passed me on from one to another, each shouting towards the mountain-face, “Here she comes. Here is the woman… Bring her in… To the judge, to the judge.”

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 18)

The unseen hand

Matt noted how Ransom seemed like he was guided by an unseen hand, indicative of Ransom’s transformation from his time on Malacandra:

Without being told, he knew that it was his business to go up to the crown of the island and the grove.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

4. “Ransom’s Fear”

Oyarsa Arrives

The creatures rise to meet Oyarsa, who asks Ransom why he’s afraid:

The merest whisper of light—no, less than that, the smallest diminution of shadow—was travelling along the uneven surface of the ground-weed… too slight to be named in the language of the five senses, moved slowly towards him… ‘What are you so afraid of, Ransom of Thulcandra?’ it said.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Andrew compared the inability to accurately describe Oyarsa from this section of Ezekiel:

As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of a chrysolite; and the four had the same likeness, their construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel.

Ezekiel 1:16

The fear of something different

Ransom explains why he’s afraid, but Oyarsa doesn’t think it’s a good reason:

‘Of you, Oyarsa, because you are unlike me and I cannot see you.’

‘Those are not great reasons,’ said the voice. ‘You are also unlike me, and, though I see you, I see you very faintly. But do not think we are utterly unlike. We are both copies of Maleldil. These are not the real reasons.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Andrew connects this to the traditional Christian theology expressed in The Four Loves:

God has impressed some sort of likeness to Himself, I suppose, in all that He has made. 

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 1)

The real fear

Oyarsa tells Ransom that he knew he was afraid from the beginning of his journey:

You began to be afraid of me before you set foot in my world

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Oyarsa Calling

Ransom discovers that Oyarsa has been trying to get Ransom to come to him ever since he landed on Malacandra:

 I stirred up a hnakra to try if you would come to me of your own will. But you hid among the hrossa, and though they told you to come to me, you would not. After that I sent my eldil to fetch you, but still you would not come. And in the end your own kind have chased you to me, and hnau’s blood has been shed.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Andrew compared this to Eustace and Jill’s constant failure in The Silver Chair.

5. “Earth has fallen”

The nature of eldila

When Ransom asks how he knew what happened on their journey, Oyarsa explains about the eldila and the Heavens:

‘But Malacandra, like all worlds, floats in heaven. And I am not “here” altogether as you are, Ransom of Thulcandra. Creatures of your kind must drop out of heaven into a world; for us the worlds are places in heaven. But do not try to understand this now. It is enough to know that I and my servants are even now in heaven; they were around you in the sky-ship no less than they are around you here.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

The Silent Planet

Ransom assumes that Oyarsa knew what happened on Earth, but discovered that no message comes to him from beyond the moon (the translunar boundary) since Earth is “The Silent Planet”:

[Earth] alone is outside the heaven, and no message comes from it.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Ransom discovers that our Oyarsa of Earth (Satan) fell from grace and attacked Mars:

…but then He became bent…  It was in his mind to spoil other worlds besides his own. He smote your moon with his left hand and with his right he brought the cold death on my harandra before its time.

…we drove [Thulcandra’s Oyarsa] back out of the heavens and bound him in the air of his own world as Maleldil taught us.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

What happened on Earth afterwards?

Oyarsa wants to know what happened after Earth was put in quarantine:

We think that Maleldil would not give it up utterly to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange counsel and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One in Thulcandra. But of this we know less than you; it is a thing we desire to look into.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

The repeated phrase of “we desire to look into”, seems to be alluding to St. Peter’s First Epistle:

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

1 Peter 1:10-12

Happy Fault?

The co-hosts had a discussion about providence and free will, in which David referenced Chesterton’s essay The Advantages of Having One Leg:

Andrew alluded to Psalms 16:11, which is also quoted by Uncle Screwtape:

He’s a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a façade. Or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are “pleasures for evermore”.

The Screwtape Letters (Letter 22)

Andrew also referenced Orual’s craving nature:

It stank; a gnawing greed for one to whom I could give nothing, of whom I craved all.

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Part II, Chapter 1)

Ruler of the King of the Air

There is another Scriptural allusion in this section, when Oyarsa describes the binding of Satan “in the air”…

…we drove [Thulcandra’s Oyarsa] back out of the heavens and bound him in the air of his own world as Maleldil taught us.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

…which connects to the Scriptural assertion that Satan is “the ruler of the kingdom of the air”:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

Ephesians 2:1-2

6. “Oyarsa’s point-of-view”

Ransom explains what people like H.G. Wells have conditioned us to fear aliens:

The tellers of tales in our world make us think that if there is any life beyond our own air, it is evil.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Oyarsa explains what happened with Weston and Devine on Mars before from his point-of-view…

It would have been easy to take them; but though we saw they were stupid we did not know yet how bent they were, and I did not wish to stretch my authority beyond the creatures of my own world. I told the sorns to treat them like cubs, to tell them that they would be allowed to pick up no more of the suns’ blood until one of their race came to me. When they were told this they stuffed as much as they could into the sky-ship and went back to their own world.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

He explains the misinterpretation Weston and Devine appear to be under:

They thought I wanted one of your race to eat and went to fetch one. If they had come a few miles to see me I would have received them honourably; now they have twice gone a voyage of millions of miles for nothing and will appear before me none the less. And you also, Ransom of Thulcandra, you have taken many vain troubles to avoid standing where you stand now.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Matt alludes to a song, which was perhaps Brandon Heath’s Give Me Your Eyes. Andrew quotes The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to demonstrate how story changes us:

“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s OK. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”

“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.

“Are—are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.

“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chapter 16)

7. “What does Oyarsa want?”

Two things

Oyarsa wants to know two things: (1) why they came to Malacandra and also (2) what happened to Satan on earth:

…that is a thing we desire to look into

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Question 1: Coming to Malacandra

Ransom explains that he was brought by force, and that Devine wants gold (“sun’s blood”) and Weston wants to colonize:

…I have come here because I was brought. Of the others, one cares for nothing but the suns’ blood… But the other… would destroy all your people to make room for our people… He wants our race to last for always, I think, and he hopes they will leap from world to world . . . always going to a new sun when an old one dies . . . or something like that.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Oyarsa doesn’t think much of Weston’s plan:

‘Is he wounded in his brain? Does he think Maleldil wants a race to live for ever?… If you were my own people I would kill them now, Ransom, and you soon; for they are bent beyond hope, and you, when you have grown a little braver, will be ready to go to Maleldil. But my authority is over my own world. It is a terrible thing to kill someone else’s hnau. It will not be necessary.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Question 2: What happened to Satan

As they turn to the second question, Oyarsa notices that Ransom has become nervious again. His fear comes from the fact that the fall of Satan took place so long ago, but that he saw the events earlier depicted in stone. Ransom’s recognition of the passage of time yields this complement from Oyarsa:

‘I see you are hnau after all… The picture has begun to crumble away and been copied again more times than there are eldila in the air above us. But it was copied right. In that way you are seeing a picture that was finished when your world was still half-made… My people have a law never to speak much of sizes or numbers to you others, not even to sorns. You do not understand, and it makes you do reverence to nothings and pass by what is really great…’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Andrew says that Lewis gets this from MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, where the grandmother is tiny. He also points to Prince Caspian (“Aslan…you’re bigger”). David pointed out that we also learn this lesson in Star Wars:

Size matters not! Look at me! Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm…

Yoda, Return of the Jedi

Andrew compared Ransom’s attitude with Christ’s in the Garden of Gethsemane:

 But I am here now and ready to know your will with me

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)

Wrap-Up

Concluding Thoughts

–

Question-of-the-week

What was the toughest interview you ever had?

How do you think this story would have played out if Ransom hadn’t stopped at the house, and Weston and Devine had instead brought Harry to Malacandra?

Question-of-the-week

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