Or the end of the world

On finally getting into rabbits with swords with my kids, and pessimistic hope

South African friends, you can now buy these books here!

At the beginning of this year, a friend and I had the privilege of interviewing children’s author S.D. Smith for Minimoot, our local gathering about the intersection of faith, art, and community. Smith is perhaps most well-known in my circles for his series The Green Ember, an adventerous fantasy world where rabbits with swords fight falcons and wolves to reclaim their forest home and rebuild a a wood where things are mended and new.

My friend has kids a few years older than me, and her children are massive fans. I had cracked the books open a few years ago and realised it was going to be a long, long, time before I read these stories to my sensitive kids, even though I believed in the premise. We had just gotten into The Chronicles of Narnia that year after much pushing and promises that “it really will all be okay” - so jumping into an entire series that is one battle after another did not seem like it was going to happen any time soon.

In the interview, we talked about that tension with Smith - how do you depict evil and suffering in a story, how do you depict high stakes and darkness, how do you write honestly, but without crushing a kid, or dwelling in the darkness too much?

Smith’s answer stuck with me. I had been helping with some research that year on what makes people in our neighbouring community of Sweetwaters hopeful¹, and one of the themes which came out was the idea that the overly optimistic people were not the most hopeful. There was a sort of pessimism that ran through the perspective of the people who were making the most hopeful decisions that impacted those around them for the better. There were people not expecting to get a job, but applying anyway. People planting gardens, although they knew it would probably fail again this year. People saving money for school fees, although they knew it was still not enough for the better school. A sort of, “perplexingly merry and probably doomed,” mentality (to quote Lief Enger) that had them assume it wouldn’t work out, but kept them going anyway.

Smith argued that his books have a lot of darkness in them because the world is dark. Life is hard. “We can shield our kids from a lot,” he said. “But no matter how successful we are at sheilding them from darkness, there’s always death. We can’t sheild them from that. And maybe it’s better to face it in a story first.”

In some ways, Smith’s books remind me of the Lord of the Rings. I’ve always felt the Lord of the Rings is just such a slog at times. They escape one disaster only to walk right into another one. For pages, and pages, and pages. Can they never get a break? In Green Ember, it is much the same. One small victory leads to just a bigger battle. The evil Preylords think up even more evil, betrayals stack upon betrayals.

“I think if kids can face this in a book, it gives them tools to face it in life,” Smith went on. “When you’re reading a story, you are in that world. Your heart rate is racing, you are fighting the bad guy, and when you come through the other side, you have a kind of memory of an experience of persevering and coming out victorious² that can be empowering.”

I think of Tolkien, writing after World War One, and how out of the horror and suffering he witnessed he wrote a story full of darkness, but also full of hope. I think of Samwise Gamgee, and his pessimistic hope that had him trodding forward towards Mount Doom, expecting failure, but going forward anyway (I mean it’s called Mount DOOM, doesn’t get more ominous than that).

“One tiny Hobbit against all the evil the world could muster. A sane being would have given up, but Samwise burned with a magnificent madness, a glowing obsession to surmount every obstacle, to find Frodo, destroy the Ring, and cleanse Middle Earth of its festering malignancy. He knew he would try again. Fail, perhaps. And try once more. A thousand, thousand times if need be, but he would not give up the quest.”

-The Return of the King

Or Puddleglum, perhaps the most pessimistically hopeful character in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, famous for cheery lines like, “Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.” He has a perpetually doleful outlook, and expects everything on their quest to go horribly wrong, yet faithfully perseveres. In his speech against the Green Witch, (after he heroically sacrifices his foot to stamp out her enchanted fire), we get a full glimpse of his pessimitic hope on display:

“I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”
- The Silver Chair

In the Green Ember, there’s an oath that the battling rabbits make to each other as pledge allegiance to the resistance:

“My place beside you
My blood for yours
Till the Green Ember rises
Or the end of the world.”

There is much in the Green Ember about the hope of restoration. The rabbits encourage each other after losses with songs and stories that echo the refrain, “It will not be so in the Mended Wood.”

They are fighting for the return of their king, for what they call the Green Ember rising. But when they pledge allegiance to the cause, they assume they might fail. The end of the world might come. It might not turn out okay.

It’s sort of like Peter, telling the early Christians, “Dear friends, do not be astonished that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

Suffering feels like it’s knocking the feet out from under us, like we’re being whacked from nowhere. And in some ways, I think that is right. We were not made for sickness and pain and death. It will not be so in the Mended Wood. Perhaps it is okay to feel the sting and shock and surprise and strangeness of loss and grief and pain.

On the other hand, the Christian worldview is one where we believe we are in a battle. One where we are in the middle of a story. All things will be made new, but have not been made new yet. And so we cannot afford to be thinly optimistic, astonished as though something strange is happening when suffering comes. We need a robust hope, a perseverance, a view of life that says, “I’ll do the right thing, until everything is made right, or the end of the world³.”

---

Since my husband died, we’ve started reading the Green Ember. It’s maybe still a little too intense, but on the other hand, our kid’s lives just got intense. And maybe there’s something good about standing with a rabbit in your imagination, staring down death while holding a sword. Maybe it’s good to snuggle together on the couch way past bedtime to see what will happen next, and to learn that small battles don’t always lead to happy endings, sometimes they lead to bigger battles.

But to also be reminded — it won’t be so in the Mended Wood.

May you find stories to fuel your pessimistic hope this month!

- Steph

1. Here is a small glimpse of some of the findings, Dr. Thomas is spearheading this research, which is based in part on the idea that we can learn a lot about hope by studying hopeful people who live in adverse and unequal environments - making South African townships a good place to start. Any mistakes in summarizing findings are on me!

2. Smith shared that his books have seemed to resonate a lot with kids going through difficulties like cancer treatment -perhaps due to the sense of agency that kids feel in bonding with the characters and seeing them fight through and overcome.

3. I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the African American church’s resistance to slavery and segregation, and the South African Christian resistance to apartheid were founded on this view - we may not see justice in our lifetime, in fact, things may go very badly for us, but we’re going to keep working for it because we know that ultimately God will make all things right. The testimony of many of these leader’s lives (and songs!) is a huge source of hope to the global church today.