#Orual (Till We Have Faces)

[dimsilver]

over the garden wall / till we have faces by c.s. lewis

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[rayless-reblogs]

All the Till We Have Faces reblogs reminded me of this exquisite duet by Tracy Grammer and Joan Baez, sung from the perspective of the tortured queen Orual, longing for her lost sister.

She in her silken flora I in my leather drear She with the grace of Cora Upon the road of tears

And did they see us shining Through winter’s dark decree Those gods of time and dying Who reasoned doom to me

[geryone]

this is such a hard question, i know, but… what are ur Absolute Must Read books? <3

Oh god this is an incredibly hard question!! I’ll give you a short list of books/poetry collections/plays that I hold incredibly dear to my heart & that I think have had a profound and lasting impact on me.

1. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

2. Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

3. Averno by Louise Glück

4. A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes

5. Come the Slumberless To the Land of Nod by Traci Brimhall

6. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare

7. Crush by Richard Siken

8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[daily-rayless]

Orual the veiled queen from Till We Have Faces.

I've wanted to do a companion picture to my Psyche for a while. While Psyche is intriguing as an ideal, I think Orual is one of CS Lewis' most ambitious and psychologically authentic characters. An antagonist who's poignantly sympathetic, a protagonist who's frustratingly weak -- protective and powerful, self-deluding and dependent, deeply loving and endlessly devouring, mythically heroic yet the reader will see many of their own failures in her.

Lewis gets grief for some of his female characters, but with the help of his wife Joy Davidman (who was an actual genius, by the way, and doesn't deserve to exist in Lewis' shadow), Orual feels so believable to me. Faces isn't an easy book to read (and definitely isn't for kids), but I think it's fascinating, and Orual's a big part of that.

[babu-s]

Doesn't the whole land smell of her? Do you and I need to flatter gods any more? They're tearing us apart... oh, how shall I bear it? … and what worse can they do? Of course the Fox is wrong. He knows nothing about her. He thought too well of the world. He thought there were no gods, or else (the fool!) that they were better than men. It never entered his mind – he was too good – to believe that the gods are real, and viler than the vilest men.

Till we have faces - C.S. Lewis

[hobbitwrangler]

Thank you @swanmaids @imakemywings & @aredhels for tagging me!

Rules: make a poll with five of your all-time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. see which character is everyone’s favorite.

I have far too many favourite characters but these are the ones that have been on my mind most recently.

tagging @scyllas-revenge @searchingforserendipity25 @glorf1ndel @lotrlorien @starsuncounted want to do this and haven't already!

[fairtradebananas]

I’m reading Till We Have Faces for the nth time and always noticing and pondering new things. This time, how Orual’s complaint against the gods is based on the notion that they unjustly withhold goodness from her (a good father, a good sister, beauty, etc), while at the same time she’s blind to the gifts they’ve given her that actually answer all of those complaints (the Fox to replace her father, Psyche to replace Redival, the opportunity to behold true beauty rather than possess it). Her complaint eclipses her ability to see the blessings she is constantly being given because they’re not given in the way that she wants them

[giffingthingsss]

I finally read Till We Have Faces. Wasn't expecting it to slap.

I mean I get why it's a little less accessible (pre-greek and greek culture and all that). There's a reason I never tried it.

One thing that surprised me was how much Lewis is Orual. I was expecting to see more Joy coming through, and I definitely think there's stuff in there, but Orual (and to a lesser extent Psyche) is heavily Lewis, imho. (at one point my brain went to Lewis being like 'i would be one ugly woman' which I'm sure has nothing to do with anything but made me laugh)

So there's the spiritual/psychological themes (Orual's thinking and then the reversal of it and her suddenly seeing herself in a different light, etc...) but then there's this middle section that suddenly becomes a girl power novel.

Stuff like the fight and intrigue is legit thrilling. The Fox and Orual's relationship genuinely moved me. The portrayal of the time period is blunt and not sugar-coated. Her father's death scene is so unique and I loved that whole thing.

It's almost legit distracting that Lewis' name is on it. This is the book that should be under a pseudonym or something. It's so different from what you expect him to write that looking at his name at the top of the page throws me.

Joy talked it over with him, and I would love to know (beyond getting a female point of view down) what specifically she helped with, but I think they saw more eye to eye than not and likely generated a kind of feedback loop.

Orual's complex hero/villain status reminds me a lot Joy's Anya novel (which is impossible to find but I managed to get a hold of). She has a very open, frank style, unafraid to show a main character's flaws. The sheer honesty.

Also couldn't help but think of Minto as Orual, her purported possessiveness and resentment of anything that might take Jack away from her. I suppose there's Psyche and Orual in everyone to some extent.

I do picture Joy sitting in the corner during the discussion about Bardia only seeing Orual as a male friend thinking, 'hm. Wonder what that's like?' *stares at Lewis* 'Must suck.'

[dathen]

MARIAN POINT OF VIEW IN WOMAN IN WHITE WEEKLY I’ve been wanting this for SO LONG

Finally!! We’re getting insights into the women’s conversations and feelings after only being able to read them from outside!

Marian and Laura’s dynamic continues to deeply remind me of Orual and Psyche from Till We Have Faces and are making me cry

GOD ABOVE can parents in these books STOP pushing engagements onto their children on their deathbed and guilt them with their dying wish to hold to those engagements!! This is like the Frankenstein family all over again!! I’d say “at least it’s not a weird adopted-wife situation” but then I remember that I strongly suspect Sir Percival is gonna murder or institutionalize Laura for her money and okay that’s even worse

Oh heck I’m as shaken as Marian is to learn how deeply Laura was in love with Walter. I was mainly reading it as “oh the sweet-hearted woman feels guilty about how miserable the pining young man is” for a bit but NO. She is pining just as hard!! She keeps his booklet of little sketches under her pillow and kisses it when she thinks of him and wants to BESTOW HIM A LOCK OF HER HAIR AFTER HER DEATH because then she can’t feel guilty about making her feelings known I AM IN PAIN!!!

This poor woman seeing her wedding day as “an evil day” but refusing to break off the engagement because she feels doing so would be betraying her father, and Marian watching it all helplessly and wanting to tear down the world to let Laura be happy again, and Walter’s life falling apart as the creepy fiancé adds stalking to his broken heart and lost living. I am SO invested in this story rn it’s not even funny

[ncfan-1]

Because I have this sickness called “I connect things I’ve read/watched to other things I’ve read/watched whether they were meant to be connected or not,” I’m kind of fascinated by the parallels between the dynamic between Mae and Osha in Season 1 to the dynamic between Orual and Istra from Till We Have Faces, and the ways that this could potentially have been reversed in Season 2.

In Season 1, Mae is very much the Orual to Osha’s Istra, the loving but controlling and stifling sister determined to, depending on how charitably you look at her, either keep her sister safely under her wing or immobilized under her thumb. The sister who regards her sister as hers to protect and to keep, and who doesn’t particularly regard her Istra as a being separate from her with a will of her own and wants of her own until she is forced to regard her that way, given no other choice but to do so, and who drives an eternal wedge between the two of them as a result.

As far as Mae is concerned before Episode 8, everything was hunky-dory between her and Osha until the Jedi came in and killed their family and abducted Osha, but oh, no, everything was not hunky-dory between these two kids. Osha’s having her growing pains, but the bigger problem is Mae’s clinginess, her bossiness, her unwillingness to let Osha go, and what follows from it.

The fire Mae set may not have killed their family. The fire Mae set may have been an accident, something she never intended to get as out of hand as it did. But still, she did set that fire, and while the reason she ran off once she saw it start to get into her and Osha’s bedroom was to get help putting it out, what it amounts to is that she did leave Osha to deal with it by herself—or be killed.

Osha got out of that room before the smoke or the flames could get her first, but that is by the grace of God, and not anything to do with Mae. If there is anyone Mae did come close to killing that night, it was Osha, and it might have been an accident, might not have been anything she ever intended, but still, if Osha had died, that it was an accident wouldn’t have made her any less dead. And it wouldn’t have made it any less Mae’s fault.

Mae and Osha’s reunion on Khofar goes as badly as it does in part due to the lies Osha was told about Mae, to be sure. But Mae is ignoring the fact that Osha does have a legitimate grievance against her, ignoring the fact that she stifled and clung to Osha when they were children, that maybe the reason it was so easy for Osha to believe the lies she was told about Mae has its roots in the way Mae herself behaved, especially that last night they spent together. In order for them to reconcile in Episode 8, Mae has to apologize for what she did that night without qualifying it, without trying to excuse herself. She has to accept that things weren’t so idyllic when they were children as she chose to believe. She has to let Osha go, and let her do what she wants to do, regardless of whether they’re going to be together or not.

And then, in Season 2, it feels like we could have had Osha as the Orual to Mae’s Istra.

Because now, Osha might be the one thinking that everything was hunky-dory between her and Mae the last time they were together, and that everything would have been fine if the Jedi hadn’t interfered. But would it have?

What we see… isn’t fine. Mae has gone beyond just accepting that she has to let Osha go, that she has to respect Osha’s wants and needs even if they don’t coincide with her own, into behaving as though her own wants and needs don’t matter, that the only way that she can be worthy of Osha’s love is if she martyrs herself to Osha. Because: the memory wipe.

Mae kind of gets railroaded into that. It’s presented as the only real option for Osha and Qimir to get away from Brendok safely, she’s not given time to deliberate it, not given time to really think about whether this is something she really something she wants to do. Having a huge chunk of her memories torn away from her, buried inside of her own head, is something she is made to agree to in the heat of the moment, and Osha, though unhappy about it… lets her. Osha doesn’t really try to protest that there could be another way, that they ought to at least try to get off of Brendok without doing that first. Osha is presented with the idea that the price of her and Qimir escaping Brendok safely is Mae’s mind… and she accepts that price.

Screwing over someone you love and who loves you in turn to secure your own escape with tears in your eyes is still screwing that person over. There was someone among the Jedi who was willing to shelter and protect Mae, but that was by the grace of God, and had nothing to do with Osha. When Osha left Mae behind on Brendok, the very best she could expect was that her memory-wiped sister would spend the rest of her life in prison for crimes she no longer even remembered committing. And considering how badly her trust in the Jedi Order has been eroded, that really is the best Osha could expect. She knows now that the truth of what happened on Brendok was covered up, and doesn’t know just how far that conspiracy reaches in the Order. What if someone decided that Mae was a liability and decided to silence her more permanently than simply tossing her in prison? When Osha left Mae behind on Brendok, a sacrificial lamb left to distract the wolves while she made her own escape, that was a price she was willing to pay. Paying it with tears in her eyes did not make her less willing to pay it.

So were things fine between them? Really?

What I’m saying is that after Mae’s memories were restored in Season 2, we would most likely have had something comparable to the disastrous reunion on Khofar, but now with Osha on the other end of that, met with anger by her sister whom she’s not willing to see had a legitimate reason to be hostile towards her. And the thing of it is, in Season 1, Mae was on her journey to the Light Side when they had that reunion. But Osha spent Season 1 on her journey to the Dark Side, would most certainly have still been Dark Side in Season 2, and the thing about the Dark Side is that it’s self-oriented to an extent actively harmful to those around you. So would Osha have been able to muster the perspective required to see things through Mae’s eyes?

Or would that have been beyond Osha by that point?

(The ironic thing is that what first made me connect this to Till We Have Faces wasn’t actually the dynamic between Mae and Osha in Season 1. It was something that went through my mind when Vernestra decided to shield Mae by scapegoating Sol: to paraphrase the book, she has borne much for you, and now you will bear something for her.

Sol is also very Orual-coded. But despite the quote I paraphrased, Mae is not his Istra. Osha very much is Sol’s Istra, with Mae as the Redival figure, completely dismissed from the place in Sol’s heart where concern lived the moment his Istra came into focus. But unlike Orual or Mae, Sol was ultimately unwilling to confront the truth of his past, or the truth of himself.)

[adapembroke]

You Also Are Psyche: Beauty and the Shadow Self

I was a teenager the first time crop tops and low-rise baggy jeans were cool. In my eyes, everyone in my school was a clone of Brittney Spears, and I felt like a hideous beast. Because I couldn’t go around with a bag over my head, I did my best to hide behind books.

One of those books was Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis. It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of Psyche’s sister Orual. Orual was angry and bitter, and she was actually allowed to wear a veil to hide her face. Best of all, since she was a queen, there was no one to tell her not to write an entire book about it.

Till We Have Faces was the perfect medicine for that time in my life. I drank up Orual’s bitterness like illicit beer. I reveled in her self-righteous anger.

Her life was unfair. And she was allowed to file a complaint with the gods!

As she prepared to present her argument, I cackled with glee, convinced that the gods would see the rightness of her cause and... I wasn’t sure what I wanted them to do, exactly. Just the possibility that Orual might be right was enough.

Spoiler alert.

Orual doesn’t get what she wants, exactly, but she does get what she needs. After she is allowed to repeat her rant at the gods over and over again, she realizes that “the complaint was the answer.” She is not actually the righteous victim. The story (and her involvement in it) was more complicated, and she was (unknowingly) complicit in her sister’s suffering. Then she is taken to receive judgement from Eros. Reunited with Psyche, they look into a reflecting pool together, and she sees identical reflections.

“You also are Psyche,” the god says, and that is his judgement.

Orual receives, not mercy exactly, but a lesson in the interconnectedness of all things. She learns that gods and people “flow in and out of each other,” and, so, justice cannot assign blame to a single individual. The ugly sister and Psyche and Venus are one, and their beauty and ugliness and suffering are experienced by each other in the same way a body feels the pain of its hand or foot.

Psyche as the Shadow

As an adult, I have come to realize that Lewis’s version of Cupid and Psyche is about the paradoxical nature of the shadow. When we say “shadow,” we usually mean something ugly or wicked, but the shadow is anything about ourselves we can’t accept.

The difficulty I had with fashion as a teenager was just an outward manifestation of my inward struggle to see myself in my entirety. For whatever reason, it was (and continues to be) easier for me to admit my faults than participate in beauty. Attempts to put my “best foot forward” and present myself “in the best light” feel disingenuous. Like Orual, I am happy to show off my intelligence, but wearing makeup and fancy clothes and sitting in front of a camera feels fundamentally wrong.

It can be more difficult to accept the beautiful in us as it is to accept the ugly, and I get a lot of support from the spiritual community for my position on beauty. In a landscape rendered flawless by filters and Photoshopping and AI, refusing to participate in the beauty game seems humble and honest, but my motivations are anything but honest.

“If I can’t play the game well,” I say to myself, “I’m not going to play at all.”

For me, hiding from the camera is a subtle way of engaging in spiritual bypassing and, in the process, supporting the position that “only the beautiful deserves to show up” that I claim to stand against.

The Astrology of Psyche (Or, You Are Psyche, Too)

“You also are Psyche” is true in a mythical sense, but it is also true in a more literal sense. There is an asteroid named Psyche, which means the Goddess of the Beauty of the Soul appears somewhere in everyone’s chart.

In my chart, Psyche appears in my 10th house, close to my Midheaven, which means that my relationship with the myth of Psyche is an aspect of my soul that is a highly visible part of my personality--visible even to people who don’t know me personally. Psyche is close to my Mercury, giving me a “way with words” and making it easy for me to own the mercurial side of my nature, but Psyche is “close but not close enough” to my sun and Venus making it difficult for me to identify (sun) with Psyche and see her beauty (Venus) in myself.

Being able to see the astrology of a favorite story playing out in my life has helped me to begin the life-long journey of hiking to Psyche’s reflecting pool and seeing her face in mine, and I would like to help you, too.

If you’d like to learn more about asteroid Psyche in your chart, check out my workshop on Cupid and Psyche, or let’s chat over tea!

[physicsgoblin]

Character Poll Tag

Thank you for the tag, @talesofsorrowandofruin!

Rules: Make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favorite!

honestly I don't know if I just have five so I'm keeping it just to books:

tagging @two-microscopes, @ms-crow-prince, @grier-the-goblin-returns, @triplecreature, @awesomebutunpractical, and anyone else who would like to do this <3 <3 <3

[geryone]

wait omg those are EXCELLENT recs, may i pls request your recommendations for books and poetry that would make someone feel held & whole, or listened to - texts that say, "cunts have always been in power; i know them well, and flourished anyway." or texts that encourage & validate after a great injustice. literary equivalents of, "that's fucked up. i hate your boss. let's be enraged or stubbornly joyful together." without necessarily being explicit about it. i hope i've translated the vibe of what i'm looking for!!

Hello!!

For poetry that makes you feel held & whole & listened to I would recommend:

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound by torrin a greathouse

Water I Won’t Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli

Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee

Also recommend the essay collection A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt!

For texts that encourage & validate:

Any poetry by Ada Limón or Hanif Abdurraqib!!

The closest novel I can think of to what you might be looking for is Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis which might be hit or miss for you!! That novel changed me and made me feel so validated but I can’t promise it will do that for you

[flickeringflame216]

For the book ask game: crimson

This ask is from December 4, 2022. I am sorry! It got buried in my inbox until I cleaned it out very recently. A book that feels crimson to me is Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Crimson is at once the animalistic ignorance of Glome (the sacrifices, the wine, the king's anger, the whole feel of the House of Ungit) and the pain of the Mountain (Orual's confusion and hatred and Psyche's certainty) and the deep and unbearable Answer given at the end, with the "red firelight in the room and the rain on the roof." It feels like such an Orual color to me, but also a Psyche color because they're both so passionate and think deeply about what they believe.

thanks for the ask!

[kkoraki]

every time someone engages with one of my till we have faces posts i wonder again if cs lewis made orual a lesbian on purpose & if not wth he thought he was writing