Who Am I Actually? Why We Hide Who We Are (Till We Have Faces Ch. 18-19)

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Today, Adalyn, Esther, and I are diving into chapters eighteen and nineteen of C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, and things are getting wild. 

Here’s what we’re unpacking today:

• That Virginity Metaphor: We break down that super dark, shocking line about the duel. Was Lewis getting at a deeper identity shift, or is Orual just completely messed up? 
• The "Queen" Facade: Orual is literally dividing herself into percentages (75% Queen, 25% Orual) and damming up her emotions. We talk about why this is such a toxic view of yourself. 
• Entitlement & Fake Marriage Fantasies: From dreaming about being Bardia's wife to expecting the entire world to be married to her, Orual’s codependency is hitting an all-time high. 
• Are the Gods Actually the Good Guys?: Orual keeps blaming the gods for everything, but Esther makes a great point—didn't Orual kind of ruin Psyche's life all by herself? 
• Pastor Arnom: Why the new priest feels way more down-to-earth than the old creepy one. Like, could you actually invite this guy over to play Uno? 
• Our Final Predictions: We lay out our bets on who lives, who dies, and whether Psyche gets her happy ending (because if she doesn't, I might just have to write my own book!). 

Read up on chapters 20 and 21, and we’ll see you next time! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the June Toe Podcast, where we discuss classic books. Today I'm with Adeline and Esther, and we're talking about C.S. Lewis's book Till We Have Faces, chapters 18 and 19. C.S. Lewis brings up some very interesting topics for us today, like identity, fragmentation, love versus logic, and the strangest quote in the whole book, which compares killing a man to losing one's virginity. It's a very interesting topic. Also, today we have a new freebie for you. We wrote down our list of top ten favorite books and compiled them together into one list, including why we love them. And you can get that freebie at Growing Fruitfulfamilies.com under the Classic Book Podcast link. So let's get into this very interesting conversation. Adeline, will you tell us what happened in these chapters? Okay, so there's this duel, like kind of in the background for the whole first chapter. Like that's this preparation behind it. While they're looking through all this armor, they're ravaging through the king's personal armory. The king dies. And the fox is like, Oh, well, he's dead. And they're all they just go back to looking at, they're like, Oh, so sad. Give us one second, we'll be out of here, and the people can prepare the body. And they're very just unfazed. Then in the next chapter, this duel happens, and she goes out and she fights Prince Argan and wins, and she kills him. And the way she phrases it was crazy. It was like she wondered if this is what it felt like when women lost their virginity because she lost a part of herself. And I was like freaked out. Me too. So it's like, whoa, what does that mean? I it took me a like a solid minute or so to get past it. Oh, anyways, so then there's this big feast, and she gets drunk and kind of is happy about her sadness. I don't know how else to phrase that. And she says that she killed uh Prince Argan, and so she needs to kill Arul too. And now she's the queen. So I can't believe that she said the last and happiest time of her life was right before she got drunk. Everyone is going back to the castle and was happy about her. And then Bardia's wife went into labor, and a servant came up and told Bardia, Hey, your wife's going into labor. Will you come? And he's like, Oh, sorry, Queen. Uh basically the day's work is done, and so can he go home and take care of his wife while she's having her baby? And Arul gets really mad about that. Because she's like, That's all I am. I'm just a piece of work. I was so mad at her. Oh my like, are you serious right now? The man wants to go home because his wife's in labor and you're mad about it. She's messed up. Also, her little fantasies. Oh, if only I was Bardia's wife, and then I would be mother to uh our child would be psyche. It's this crazy messed up fantasy. Yeah. When I started reading that, I was like, oh, is she drunk? And then the next line was I was drunk. I mean, you were clearly not thinking. The fantasy is so bizarre because it's a fantasy of what could have been maybe in the past, not even like seeing a single man and be like, what if we get married and have a baby? It's seeing a man who's already married, thinking about having a child who's already been born. I don't know what she wants in life, but I think she wants everybody to care about her. But she thinks horribly about marriage in general, but yet she fantasizes about it all the time. And don't understand it. Because everyone in her life that she thinks should be caring about her is married to someone else and thinks about them. To like Bardia to his wife, Psyche to her husband. Okay. Um even the fox. She frees the fox from slavery and he is very excited to go home to Greece. And apparently he has a family. But Arul is like, why would he ever want to leave me? He was the only thing I have. And the fox eventually comes back when he sees that she's upset, and he's like, Oh no, I I just won't go because it's been so long. My daughter's probably married off, and my sons don't even remember me. So what's the point in going back? And Arul says she's very selfish and being very happy because instead of say uh encouraging him to go, she just accepts him back. She thinks she should be spouse to the world. Almost to everyone should only care about her. Right. Okay, though that's not true. What's annoying is people actually do love her, but in a sensible, reasonable way, but just not enough. You know? When she sets the fox free, and he's not immediately like, no, I'm not gonna go. He's at war within himself, and her thoughts just spiral. She gets on this whole thing, like, oh, nobody really loves me. Because Bardio would go home to his wife every day, and the fox is about to leave, so who am I? He never loved me. He only loves Heike, and it just gets worse and worse. And that is so realistic. Everyone does that, but I just wonder why we do that. Where it's like you want to be sad and want to be offended. She's definitely a princess, she's a spoiled child. Which is that's surprising since like the whole world has been set against her. But she still always gets what she wants. Except the love of the people. Exactly. You don't want to talk about the phrase the uh I wonder if this was what it was like for a woman to lose her virginity. Oh, yeah. Like when she killed somebody. Like that was, you know, it was such a hope not. I know, it was such a dark thought. That's twisted. That isn't actually very twisted. It's supposed to be like when a woman gets married, it's a good thing, right? Yeah. It's supposed to be a representation of God and man. We talked about this before, coming together. And she's twisted it like that into being exactly like murder. Yeah. I don't think that life is like that. Shh. No. I wonder if she's thinking of like rape. I wonder if that's what it is that has something to do with it. Yeah. But not true marriage. Right. When it's your decision, you want to get married to this person. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good thought because if she's comparing these two negative things. I I think the reason why I took the phrase as a bad thing was because she had had her virginity thrown in her p face in the past. She has this like already negative view of it, especially with uh Psyche, what she thinks of her situation, like this rascal kind of thing. Maybe her just experience with it made her view on it bad. The situation you're bringing up makes me think I remember that she does have a terrible view on marriage, period, because um she doesn't respect Bardia's marriage in any way either. And then even when she realized Psyche is very happy with the brute. And here's the line, I'll read it. It's exactly what you guys were saying. Yet I felt of a sudden very weak and my legs were shaking, and I felt myself changed too, as if something had been taken away from me. I have often wondered if women feel like that when they lose their virginity.

unknown 7:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And the taking away. Yes, it does remind me of rape too. But the way that I read it, which I think it was too shallow now having this conversation, was just that virginity is an identity where you're a virgin or you're not a virgin. And she was not a killer and now she's a killer. So she feels like something inherent has changed in her, but it does seem like a very negative thing. So I think it's more than just, well, now I am a killer. Virginity is a super part of your core identity, I guess. But I never really considered virginity until I read this book. I was like, yeah, whatever. You know. I mean, I never really thought of it being that crucial to life. Really think of it that way either. But in Greek mythology, it's brought up so much that whoever follows Artemis, they are a virgin. And that's part of who they are, which it if that's your identity, not just a um temporary position that you're in because you're growing up or whatever, it means I am committing myself to not be married. When you break your virginity, it's a huge deal. Yeah. A metaphor of virginity is a very intentional thing to say. Yes. And so I feel like C.S. Lewis definitely was getting at something deeper there. Yeah. And shock value. Like that's not like a common no a common thing. You're supposed to be like, what? And why? Yes. It's weird. I mean, I don't yeah, it's just I don't know. Yeah. I mean, when people get engaged, they're not commit they're not committing to a duel to be killed. It's very different. But yeah. I don't know. It'll be interesting. I think since the comment came from Oriol, we don't think, well, this is true. We think, is this true? Because she's messed up on a lot of things and she's probably messed up on this one. No. So what makes Arnon different from the old priest? Yeah, I wondered the same thing. Because she likes him. Which I know there was a part where she said that when he came into the room or dressed up as the priest, she didn't fear him because he was just plain old Arnon. He didn't have the scent of ungat, is what uh she said. He gets along with the fox, too. I like what you're saying. He's not really otherworldly, he's more like a down-to-earth politician, is what it sounds like. Definitely see, but I don't think he's best for a priest. Like you know, but uh especially once you see this old haunting priest, then you're like, oh, that's what that priest should be like. But he's not. He is just this normal guy. He seems more like a pastor to me. He's not like an oracle or something, yeah. Or even like the apostles, like how they were very set apart. They had seen Christ, you know, in the flesh. And that seems so out of reach. Right. A lot of times. Yeah. But your pastor is just your pastor. Someone you can have over for dinner or play a card game with. Right. You were definitely that with that priest. Honestly, it seems like you could. Oh, yes. Definitely. But the first priest, yeah. Hey, do you want to play Uno? I want to kind of talk about the insignificance of the king's death. Oh, yeah. Like we were all prepared for this. Finally, he's dead. Now we can actually rule this kingdom greatly. He just died, and nobody cared that much. But I would expect some sense of respect, some royal funeral. Yeah. Even if you have a very broken relationship with your dad, when he dies, you'll be very sad, even over the brokenness in your relationship. It's never like, okay, moving on. And they even call him a thing. Yeah. Thing on the bed. Is that how you talk about your dad? Uh nope. See, I'm wondering why did the king died when he saw a girl go through his treasury? Basically, he died because he didn't like girls and he was scared of them. What is the face of death? And how will she see this throughout her life? So what where does it come out from? So, Argon, whenever she's fighting him, his face changes and she sees that he knows that he's gonna die. His face looks a certain way, and I want to know what that face looks like. And she said, I've now come to know that it's the face of death. And I was wondering how many other people she's gonna kill. But she said he looked frantic for life. So it's just a ferociousness. Like, if I don't do something, I'm gonna die. And the desperation, like an animal backed into a corner, I think is the face of death. It's the instinct taking over. It's a fight or flight kind of instinct. A few years ago, I read the book The Art of War, and it's like a really old book from China, thousands of years old. Yes. And one of the things he said was basically never back your enemy into a corner because they fight so hard when they know they're dying that they will conquer you. So you basically want to surround them but give them a way out. I thought that was a really interesting strategy. You don't you actually don't want to lock them in because it riles up this instinct to live? You want them to have one way out so that you're you win, but they can escape. Do you think she's gonna be a butcher queen to her people? Has Oriel become the villain? Yes, she has been the villain the whole time. And I used to love her. Yeah, I know. She was it's a tragedy, you know, she had a fall. So she takes on this role of I am queen, I'm not Oriel. What does that mean to her? Aru is kind of like killing her old self off slowly, and she's becoming this character, she calls herself the queen. She'll say, like, oh, Arule was really coming out in that part of me, you know, and or this was fully the queen saying this. In her moments of passion, she refers to herself as Oru. She thinks the queen is unfeeling. She's this uh strong tower of defense, she's not gonna let anybody in, and it's this very strong figure, but Oriel is not. It reminds me of her saying, like, she did wasn't gonna sweeten the waters, she was gonna dam up the bitter waters. So maybe the queen is the is the damned up of emotion. I do not like how she divided herself into parts. I was like 75% queen and what 25% Oriol. And I think it's a very unhealthy view of yourself. I agree. So maybe would you say it's emotion versus logic? The queen is not logical. In any way. She's just pure selfishness. Well, she's very diplomatic though. She was making decisions as a leader. Remember when the priest and Fox and Oriel were talking about the piece of land, and Oriel realized, oh, very quickly, that I could make peace between the priests and the kingdom. This is a good thing. I need to make a good decision. That's queenly thinking in strategy and diplomacy. So I don't think she's just selfish. I really think she works for the good of her people. That's what she thinks the queen should do. It may be for selfish motives. I'm not saying she like loves people because she clearly doesn't. But I'm guessing maybe queen to her means that logical strategy and Oriel is her true feelings. Your emotions come into your logic a lot. Yeah. Because it changes the way you are logical. Right. And I guess it may not be logical to run and face an enemy while your rest of friend's dying. It's an interesting question to say, is logic emotional? I've always viewed it as uh something that is pure factual and not feeling. So based off of all of this data, what is the next step? That would make the most sense. Yesterday, when we read the myth about Euryalus and Nysus and Urialius is the young is a young man. He is about to be killed. So should Nisus go and complete his mission or should he should he go and try to protect the young man? And he decides, I'm protecting the young man. So it's interesting, was that a logical decision? And in some ways you would say no, but it depends on your logic. Because if your logic is it is my duty to protect my friend over my mission, oh that's logic too. So what I'm trying to say is our emotions do determine our logic. Or may emotions might not be the right word. It may be like our values. I don't know. It's very interesting to think. You really can't separate logic from emotion or loves. Logic versus loves. You can't do that. Because you have to have an original thought. Right. What are you basing your logic on? On your selfishness, on your selflessness, on your value for people. What is it? Right. So I guess to be logical would be to do the best strategy for the end goal. But what that end goal is is determined by something else, not logic. Yeah. By love. I f I feel like she's trying to separate logic and feeling where and it's not gonna work. Like that's why she constantly is trying to maintain this queen facade and a rule comes out because she does have this feeling behind the logic. Yeah. And so no matter how frustrated she gets with herself by doing that, it's not gonna uh work to stuff all those emotions down. Right. Because then she can't make a decision at all. Yeah. The way forward is not to ignore Oriol. And you she needs to be the queen Oriole, you know, like one person. That reminds me, Becca, of the topic of her getting drunk and how she viewed her thoughts during that time. I think that's fascinating. Yeah, that is what I have heard. It's not that when you're drunk, you don't feel sad. It's that you feel justified if your sadness. So it's like a balm to your soul, a really unhealthy one. It's like a band-aid wouldn't need a bandage, you know? I've never been drunk, but good job. 14-year-old. Oh, I know. Oh, it's so awesome. Yeah. So I've never been drunk, but her view is not what I would have thought. I would have thought that you just fell asleep or your head started spinning and you couldn't think straight. Or I don't know what. Or in being numb, like you don't feel as much, but it doesn't make you happy. Sometimes that has the opposite effect. It makes you very sad. Right. The sinus is there. I guess it helps you but feel more like more of a victim and in like a poetic way. Why don't we be happy that Barty is having a kid? Well, I am concerned about that because oh dear. He said she was entering into labor early. Oh. And so I'm like, oh no, I bet she's gonna die. Well, baby very well might die. See, if she had the proper view of her relationships, she would appreciate Bardia's work and his loyalty to her and then be like, go over to your wife. My goodness. I mean, she does give him the ring. Yes, she does. Uh the ring of protection as an offering to unget him. So yeah. But her heart's not in it. Like Esther said, I mean, she kind of wants everyone to be married to her. Yes. And it's ruins the relationship. Yeah, I was very surprised actually she had emotional feelings for him because I thought he was old. I do too, but he's having a kid. I know, so I guess he's actually not old. I imagined her like 20s, probably, and he's like 40s up there, too. Because he's got a wife and he's got a kid. So I guess he's more like 30s, probably. Maybe Psyche and her husband are like the opposite of a rule with all her relationships. So maybe they'll be the happy love story. I love you no matter what. But I don't think it's gonna we're ever gonna see them again. What? Like I don't think so either. Maybe she'll go back and see Psyche all happy again, but they're gonna have like some major falling out still. Or she'll never meet Cupid or the Shadow Boot, and she'll never like actually have this happiness. And that's why the book is so sad. That's why she's accusing the gods. That's terrible. I'm persuaded that the gods are not that bad. Because she keeps waiting. But she's not looking at what she's done. She thinks that it's all the gods' fault because the palace came down, but she was the one who stabbed herself and made Psyche go and see for who her husband was. Right. And that probably ruined Psyche's life for at least a little while. It's all a rule's fault. Yeah. Yeah, she's all of it. Right. She's accusing the gods, but it's not their fault. No. The gods have been merciful. They gave her Psyche.

unknown 20:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

They gave her a queenship. And she's not doing what's right with it. And they even gave her a vision of the palace. Yes. That she ignored. I thought it was very ironic when the fox he apologized for getting emotional. And he was like, Love has to be free. I'm sorry. He said, I was wrong to weep and beg and try to force you by your love. Love is not a thing to be so used. And that's literally what Oriel did. Use Psyche's love to make her do something she didn't want to do. It's hard for me to read a book where the main character is so wrong. It's a really good way of um getting into the psychology of humanity is having your main character kind of turn south. And we it's from her perspective, so we get her thoughts, and that's what is so fun to think through. I've read books like this before, and so I think I enjoy them a lot more. But this psychology, the how do we go from this good life or this more good uh mentality or morality uh into this like terrible person? Yeah, exactly. How does that happen? Yep, and then I'm sure Psyche is supposed to be an opposite from the beginning. Remember, Psyche is not saying, what if the guards aren't real or what if the gods are evil? But she's saying, What if the gods are actually there and they're good? And which is the big change, one of the big differences between she and her sister. Any other ideas on why the title is Till We Have Faces? Because she has no face. She's got the veil now. Yep. I think so too. And I'm sure Neo wants us to see her face really bad. He doesn't know what he's getting into. Yeah, you should wait till you get married first. Oh dear. I wonder if one day she will take that veil off. Because it's till we have faces, not till we veil ourselves till the end of the club. Questions or predictions? I I'm gonna predict that Psyche and her husband reunite, and he is shown to be the man we've all been looking for, and it's gonna be amazing. And if that does not happen, I'm gonna write my own book where that does happen. Fox is gonna die. What? Says so in the first beginning of the book. Oh, yeah, nobody loves me. Nobody's alive. You know what? I mean, she's old though. Maybe everybody lives, and she just doesn't think anybody loves her. Because that's kind of how it is. No one loves me, nobody cares about me. Poobies gonna die. Oh my goodness. She's so nice. She's so cute. And Mama thinks that Bardia's wife andor baby is gonna die. Yeah. It'd be terrible if they both die. Yeah, but that's likely. I think Adeline's correct. That was fun. You never know what will come up when you talk about books, right? Don't forget our freebie. You can get the list of our favorite books at Growing Fruitful Families.com. Next time we'll come together to discuss chapters twenty and twenty one. So we'll see you then.