Edmund's an aspie. It just hit me-- I've always had a problem with the books, but never figure out why until just now. Edmund has Aspergers, and the others hate him for it. Well, Lucy's nice, but could Peter and Susan be more sanctimoniously NT?
No offense to fans of the books. But I always felt like C.S. Lewis hated ME, and I think it's because I read Edmund, who is over-sensitive, quarrelsome, and just out of step with the others as having Aspergers, like me. I think Lewis really intends Edmund as version of himself, but builds the first book around the idea that Edmund could really be just as blandly sunny as the older kids if he chose to.
Maybe that's one of the reasons I object to religion in general: it blames me for having a mind that works differently from the norm. The concept of free-will gets a lot trickier if you have autism. Or maybe it gets clearer-- for me to exercise my will, I cannot behave in ways that always make NT people comfortable or that pretend that everything's nice when it isn't.
Anyway, Peter and Susan, who I will always visualize as Fred and Daphne from Scooby Doo, just became symbols for me of the great crushing drive to smiling NT conformity.
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Landon Bryce
www.thAutcast.com
a Blogazine for the Aspergers and Autism Community