For the Weekend: UrsulaV: Puddleglum in Heaven
UrsulaV: Puddleglum in Heaven: "@ 119 - 'It's all very well for us,' said Puddleglum gloomily...
...'but what about everyone else, eh? Not exactly sunny skies and eel-pie for them, now, is it?' He gestured vaguely, presumably in the direction of Earth, or the now-defunct Narnia. 'Great crashing train wrecks--whatever a 'train' is, though I'm given to understand it involves a lot of metal and steam and boilers and fantastic speeds and you can't tell me THAT was a good idea, whoever came up with it--and some poor sod's got to go picking through the wreckage, don't they?'
He sniffed and picked up his fishing pole. 'I'm not saying anything bad about Aslan, you understand. I'm with the Lion, through thick and thin. I'm just saying someone's got to clean up the mess back... wherever you humans come from. Not much fun for them, now, is it?'
The eels were biting. In Heaven, the eels were always biting. Whether or not they were actual living eels was a matter of some theological debate among marsh-wiggles, though they didn't want to trouble Aslan with it. Probably eels didn't actually die in Heaven, but they made quite a good pie and acted as if they were dead, and that was the important thing.
'Don't get me started on all the things that got frozen to death,' added Puddleglum, after a few minutes with the eels. 'I'm not saying they didn't deserve it, I'm just saying that if you twisted your ankle on the run in from the Lone Isles and were a little bit slow coming in, you might find yourself in the outer darkness with a bunch of crawling bat-thingies.' He sighed. Presumably the Lion had thought of all that, the way he'd thought of the eels.
There was a strain of marsh-wiggle philosophy that held that Narnian Heaven was actually a Hell for particularly bad eels, but they didn't say it anywhere that Reepicheep might be listening.
Also: Neil Gaiman: "The Problem of Susan"
