S6E23 – OSP 20 – “War of the Worlds”

Weston explains his plan for Malacandra.

S6E23: “War of the Worlds” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Drop-In

• Dr. Diana Glyer

Quote-of-the-week

‘I see now how the lord of the silent world has bent you. There are laws that all hnau know.. and one of these is the love of kindred. He has taught you to break all of them except this one, which is not one of the greatest laws; this one he has bent till it becomes folly and has set it up, thus bent, to be a little, blind Oyarsa in your brain…’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Episode Movie Title

We have several choices for today’s episode title. Since Ransom spends much of today’s chapter translating, we could have gone with The Interpreter, a 2005 movie starring Nicole Kidman, an interpreter at the United Nations who overhears an assassination plot. Independence Day (1996), starring Will Smith was also a contender, but we put it to our Slack channel and the winner was…

Chit-Chat

• Matt
  • The Slack channel made the right choice!
• David
  • Spring is in full force here in La Crosse and I’m really enjoying my new job, so life is good!
  • One of our Patreon supporters, J Reese Bradley released Book IV in the Brumbletide series: Brumbletide and the Queen’s Doctor’s Story.
  • Murphy Thelen has finally released the final part of his movie adaptation of Out of the Silent Planet, with voice acting from two C.S. Lewis podcasters…
• Andrew
  • Working on Owen Barfield homework
  • Going to visit his wife’s family shortly
  • Had a fun discussion recently with a fellow Episcopal priest at a British Pub.

Toast

• Drinks
  • In honour of Weston’s speech on Meldilorn, David was drinking a bottle of Goose Island, 312.
  • Matt was drinking Kirkland 18 Speyside Single Malt
  • Andrew was drinking Glen Moray 15
• Foreign language “cheers”
  • “Saúde!” (Portuguese)
• Patreon toast
  • Todd Frazier

Story Recap

Ransom is kidnapped by Weston and Devine, brought to Mars as a sacrifice, and after escaping from his captors and learning the local language, both Ransom and his abductors are brought before Oyarsa, the angel-like ruler of the planet.

Oyarsa hears the story of Ransom’s kidnapping. Weston makes a fool of himself, trying to intimidate and bribe those present. Oyarsa sends Weston away to be dunked in cold water. Then, a funeral is conducted of the Martian natives killed by Weston and Devine, and our last episode ended as a bedraggled Weston being brought back following his compulsory shower…

The story so far…

Discussion

01. “A douchy report”

Weston’s Wash

The hross called “Hnoo”, returns with Weston, reporting a difficulty they had with washing his head. David initially thought his hat fell off, but came around to Andrew’s theory that it was a toupee:

We dipped his head in the cold water seven times, but the seventh time something fell off it. We had thought it was the top of his head, but now we saw it was a covering made of the skin of some other creature… The creature talked a lot between the dips, and most between the second seven, but we could not understand it.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Connections

Matt referenced an earlier episode where we connected this with the washing on Naaman the Syrian in the Jordan:

And Eli′sha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”

2 Kings 5:10

Andrew connected the washing of Weston with Eustace’s washing, as well as the washing of Uncle Andrew with The Magician’s Nephew:

…the Elephant walked quietly to the river, filled her trunk with water, and came back to attend to Uncle Andrew. The sagacious animal went on doing this till gallons of water had been squirted over him, and water was running out of the skirts of his frock coat as if he had been for a bath with all his clothes on. In the end it revived him. He awoke from his faint. What a wakening it was! But we must leave him to think over his wicked deeds (if he was likely to do anything so sensible) and turn to more important things.

C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (Chapter 11)

David spoke of Peter’s failure to walk on water as a form of baptism:

And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus; but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”

Matthew 14: 28-30

The state of Weston

Weston is looking pretty bedraggled:

Weston’s usually pale face, under the bracing influence of the cold water, had assumed the colour of a ripe tomato, and his hair, which had naturally not been cut since he reached Malacandra, was plastered in straight, lank masses across his forehead. A good deal of water was still dripping over his nose and ears. His expression—unfortunately wasted on an audience ignorant of terrestrial physiognomy—was that of a brave man suffering in a great cause, and rather eager than reluctant to face the worst or even to provoke it

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

In reference to Weston’s toupee, David mentioned the haircare product, Keeps.

02. “Oyarsa’s assessment”

Full of fear

Oyarsa presents his impression of Weston:

In your own world you have attained great wisdom concerning bodies and by this you have been able to make a ship that can cross the heaven; but in all other things you have the mind of an animal… The darkness in your own mind filled you with fear. Because you thought I meant evil to you, you went as a beast goes against a beast of some other kind, and snared this Ransom. You would give him up to the evil you feared. To-day, seeing him here, to save your own life, you would have given him to me a second time, still thinking I meant him hurt. These are your dealings with your own kind. And what you intend to my people, I know. Already you have killed some. And you have come here to kill them all…

…I did not know that the Bent One had done so much in your world and still I do not understand it. If you were mine, I would unbody you even now… But I do not yet resolve to do this. It is for you to speak. Let me see if there is anything in your mind besides fear and death and desire.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Shut up Devine!

When Oyarsa tells Devine to be quiet, he crumples on the ground:

There was an almost imperceptible change in the light, if it could be called light, out of which the voice came, and Devine crumpled up and fell back on the ground. When he resumed his sitting position he was white and panting.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Andrew compared this to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane:

When he said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

John 18:6

03. “Martian translation”

Weston prepares himself

Weston prepares to offer what he thinks to be his dying speech:

He believed that the hour of his death was come and he was determined to utter the thing—almost the only thing outside his own science—which he had to say. He cleared his throat, almost he struck a gesture, and began…

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

David pointed out a similarity with Orual’s judgement scene:

When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words.

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

Weston prepares himself

David paired up Weston’s speech and Ransom’s translation:

Weston	Ransom’s Translation
To you I may seem a vulgar robber…	Among us, Oyarsa, there is a kind of hnau who will take other hnaus’ food and—and things, when they are not looking. He says he is not an ordinary one of that kind.
…but I bear on my shoulders the destiny of the human race.	He says what he does now will make very different things happen to those of our people who are not yet born.
Your tribal life with its stone-age weapons and beehive huts, its primitive coracles and elementary social structure…	He says that, among you, hnau of one kindred all live together and the hrossa have spears like those we used a very long time ago and your huts are small and round and your boats small and light and like our old ones, and you have only one ruler.
… has nothing to compare with our civilization—with our science, medicine and law, our armies, our architecture, our commerce, and our transport system which is rapidly annihilating space and time.	He says it is different with us. He says we know much. [Science & Medicine] There is a thing happens in our world when the body of a living creature feels pains and becomes weak, and he says we sometimes know how to stop it. [Law] He says we have many bent people and we kill them or shut them in huts and that we have people for settling quarrels between the bent hnau about their huts and mates and things. [Armies] He says we have many ways for the hnau of one land to kill those of another and some are trained to do it. [Architecture] He says we build very big and strong huts of stones and other things—like the pfifltriggi. [Commerce] And he says we exchange many things among ourselves and [Transport System] can carry heavy weights very quickly a long way.
Our right to supersede you is the right of the higher over the lower.	Because of all this, he says it would not be the act of a bent hnau if our people killed all your people.
Life is greater than any system of morality; her claims are absolute.	‘He says,’ began Ransom, ‘that living creatures are stronger than the question whether an act is bent or good—no, that cannot be right—he says it is better to be alive and bent than to be dead—no—he says, he says—I cannot say what he says, Oyarsa, in your language.
It is not by tribal taboos and copy-book maxims that she has pursued her relentless march from the amœba to man and from man to civilization.	But he goes on to say that the only good thing is that there should be very many creatures alive. He says there were many other animals before the first men and the later ones were better than the earlier ones; but he says the animals were not born because of what is said to the young about bent and good action by their elders. And he says these animals did not feel any pity.

Andrew referred to Lewis’ “Evolutionary Hymn” (set to the tune of “Joyful joyful”):

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future’s endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

C.S. Lewis, Evolutionary Hymn

04. “Life Force”

God, but without the unpleasant consequences

Weston refers to “Life” as a person. This is evocative of the Elan Vital, an impersonal force guiding humanity, which Lewis mentions in several of his writings, particularly Mere Christianity:

…I ought to mention… Life-Force philosophy, or Creative Evolution, or Emergent Evolution. The wittiest expositions of it come in the works of Bernard Shaw, but the most profound ones in those of Bergson. People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet “evolved” from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the “striving” or “purposiveness” of a Life-Force…

[If it has no mind]… what is the sense in saying that something without a mind “strives” or has “purposes”? This seems to me fatal to their view.

[Such a philosophy is attractive because]…it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences.

Mere Christianity (Book I, Chapter 4)

Mankind rules

Weston continues his speech, explaining his willingness to sacrifice himself for his great cause:

Weston	Ransom’s Translation
[Life] has ruthlessly broken down all obstacles and liquidated all failures…	‘He says,’ resumed Ransom, ‘that these animals learned to do many difficult things, except those who could not; and those ones died and the other animals did not pity them.
… and to-day in her highest form—civilized man—and in me as his representative, she presses forward to that interplanetary leap which will, perhaps, place her for ever beyond the reach of death	And he says the best animal now is the kind of man who makes the big huts and carries the heavy weights and does all the other things I told you about; and he is one of these and he says that if the others all knew what he was doing they would be pleased. He says that if he could kill you all and bring our people to live in Malacandra, then they might be able to go on living here after something had gone wrong with our world. And then if something went wrong with Malacandra they might go and kill all the hnau in another world. And then another—and so they would never die out.’
‘It is in her right,’ said Weston, ‘the right, or, if you will, the might of Life herself, that I am prepared without flinching to plant the flag of man on the soil of Malacandra: to march on, step by step, superseding, where necessary, the lower forms of life that we find, claiming planet after planet, system after system, till our posterity—whatever strange form and yet unguessed mentality they have assumed—dwell in the universe wherever the universe is habitable.’	‘He says,’ translated Ransom, ‘that because of this it would not be a bent action—or else, he says, it would be a possible action—for him to kill you all and bring us here. He says he would feel no pity. He is saying again that perhaps they would be able to keep moving from one world to another and wherever they came they would kill everyone. I think he is now talking about worlds that go round other suns. He wants the creatures born from us to be in as many places as they can. He says he does not know what kind of creatures they will be.’
‘I may fall,’ said Weston. ‘But while I live I will not, with such a key in my hand, consent to close the gates of the future on my race. What lies in that future, beyond our present ken, passes imagination to conceive: it is enough for me that there is a Beyond.’	He is saying,’ Ransom translated, ‘that he will not stop trying to do all this unless you kill him. And he says that though he doesn’t know what will happen to the creatures sprung from us, he wants it to happen very much.’

05. “Bent and Broken”

You may now applause…

Weston concludes his speech and waits for Oyarsa’s response:

Weston, who had now finished his statement, looked round instinctively for a chair to sink into. On Earth he usually sank into a chair as the applause began. Finding none—he was not the kind of man to sit on the ground like Devine—he folded his arms and stared with a certain dignity about him.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Andrew alluded to the essay, First and Second Things.

Maybe Weston isn’t so bad?

Rather surprisingly, Oyarsa, sees a small amount of (twisted) good in Weston:

…though your mind is feebler, your will is less bent than I thought. It is not for yourself that you would do all this

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Loving mankind?

However, Oyarsa is confused as to what exactly Weston loves:

‘Strange!’ said Oyarsa. ‘You do not love any one of your race—you would have let me kill Ransom. You do not love the mind of your race, nor the body. Any kind of creature will please you if only it is begotten by your kind as they now are. It seems to me, Thick One, that what you really love is no completed creature but the very seed itself: for that is all that is left.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Satan’s strategy

Oyarsa diagnoses how Satan has bent Weston:

I see now how the lord of the silent world has bent you. There are laws that all hnau know, of pity and straight dealing and shame and the like, and one of these is the love of kindred. He has taught you to break all of them except this one, which is not one of the greatest laws; this one he has bent till it becomes folly and has set it up, thus bent, to be a little, blind Oyarsa in your brain… a bent hnau can do more evil than a broken one.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Oyarsa says that if he had responsibility for Weston, he’d try to heal him:

if you were mine I would try to cure you

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

The state of Devine

Also surprisingly, Oyarsa regards Devine as being in an even worst state:

He has only bent you [Weston]; but this Thin One [Divine] who sits on the ground he has broken, for he has left him nothing but greed. He is now only a talking animal and in my world he could do no more evil than an animal. If he were mine I would unmake his body, for the hnau in it is already dead.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

06. “Why are you here?”

Colonizing Earth

Oyarsa explains what happened on Malacandra long ago and explains that his people could have left and conquered Earth, but he stopped them:

…the cold death was coming on my harandra. Then I was in deep trouble, not chiefly for the death of my hnau—Maleldil does not make them long-livers—but for the things which the lord of your world, who was not yet bound, put into their minds. He would have made them as your people are now—wise enough to see the death of their kind approaching but not wise enough to endure it. Bent counsels would soon have risen among them. They were well able to have made sky-ships. By me Maleldil stopped them. Some I cured, some I unbodied

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

Overcoming Fear

Oyarsa says that with Maleldil there isn’t the same fear of death:

‘Yes,’ said Oyarsa, ‘but one thing we left behind us on the harandra: fear. And with fear, murder and rebellion. The weakest of my people does not fear death. It is the Bent One, the lord of your world, who wastes your lives and befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end. If you were subjects of Maleldil you would have peace.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

This reminded Andrew of Wordsworth:

Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved.

Wiliam Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey

Andrew quoted the end of the Narnian Chronicles:

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Lucy. “Have you noticed one can’t feel afraid, even if one wants to? Try it.”

C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Chapter 16)

…and David quoted Till We Have Faces so Andrew didn’t have to:

“…Die before you die. There is no chance after.”

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Part II, Chapter 2)

Sympathy for the Devil

Shockingly, Weston says that he prefers Satan to Maleldil:

‘Trash! Defeatist trash!’ he shouted at Oyarsa in English; then, drawing himself up to his full height, he added in Malacandrian, ‘You say your Maleldil let all go dead. Other one, Bent One, he fight, jump, live—not all talkee-talkee. Me no care Maleldil. Like Bent One better: me on his side.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)

07. “Oyarsa’s Ruling”

Earth and Mars are now further away from each other and the Solar Rays are different from those of their outgoing journey.

Concluding Thoughts

Given the full articulation of Weston’s plan and Oyarsa’s critique, I’m reminded of the following like from The Brothers Karamazov, “I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand”.

Wrap-Up

Question-of-the-week

How might you try to argue Weston away from his current philosophy of life?

Question-of-the-week

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