I recently came across the following list on Amazon:  “100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime.”

As a fantasy writer myself, I decided to spend the next few years reading every book on this list and record the lessons I learned from each volume on how to be a great writer.

PLOT: NARNIA…the land beyond the wardrobe, the secret country known only to Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy…the place where the adventure begins. Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor’s mysterious old house. At first, no one believes her when she tells of her adventures in the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund and then Peter and Susan discover the Magic and meet Aslan, the GreatLion, for themselves. In the blink of an eye, their lives are changed forever. – Goodreads.com 

WHAT I LEARNED: I was six years old when my dad and I first read Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe together. At the time I thought of Peter and Susan, the eldest of the four children, as the story’s brave heroes. Their youngest sibling, Lucy, was the character through whose eyes I experienced Narnia. That left Edmund, the youngest of the boys, who I dismissed as just a slimy little jerk. Therefore, I was surprised when I re-read this book over two decades later and found that Edmund was my favorite character. In case you’ve never read the book and missed all the movies (both live action and animated) here’s a breakdown of what happens:

• ​Lucy walks through the titular “wardrobe” and finds herself in the magical land of Narnia. 
• She returns and tells her siblings about the adventure (“adventure” = tea with a satyr, which does sound like fun). 
• Her siblings thing she’s making it all up and Edmund in particular mocks her. 
• Lucy returns to Narnia and this time Edmund follows her. 
• While she visits the satyr, he encounters the White Witch who “befriends” him and makes him all sorts of tantalizing promises that will be fulfilled once he comes back with his brother and sisters.  
• When both Lucy and Edmund return to our world he continues to pretend that Lucy was just telling stories (like I said, slimy little jerk). 
• Eventually, all four children enter Narnia and are taken in by a pair of friendly beavers. 
• Edmund sneaks off to tell the White Witch where his family is, hoping to be made a king. 
• Instead, she becomes furious because he didn’t bring his siblings and sets off to hunt them down.
• Edmund realizes he has made a big mistake.  

So yeah, in the first half of the novel Edmund is a bit of an ass, but reading it again he felt more fleshed out than just about any other character. Granted, children may have acted differently back in the early 1940’s England. There was a war raging on their doorstep and kids had to grow up faster than they might in some areas today. Even taking that into account Peter, Susan and Lucy all act a little too perfectly polite. Whether or not it’s his fault, Edmund is the odd man out. I’m sure that it’s just because I’m reading this book with the eyes of an adult but Edmund feels less like a vicious bully and more like a troubled kid who’s in way over his head.

He’s also the only character who displays any true development. Yes, over the course of the book Peter starts off as a young teenage boy, learns how to fight, leads and army into battle and becomes a high king, but who he is as a person changes little. He starts off brave and honorable and ends the story brave and honorable. Edmund, on the other hand, starts off the story as a jerk but ends it in a much more stable, mature place. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is a Christian allegory and Edmund’s story is meant to be that of a sinner who finds redemption. No matter what your faith, that’s more interesting than the story of a boy who is good and brave, gets an army and continues to be good and brave. 

 I doubt that Lewis intended Edmund to be our favorite character. Instead kids were most likely meant to relate to sweet Lucy, beautiful Susan and brave Peter. And they’re just fine, this post isn’t meant to be trashing them…. but they did often come off as just a little too sweet. Throughout much of the twentieth century, Children’s literature was bursting with unrealistically proper children. There are some exceptions but authors had a tendency to write stories about the way they believed kids should act rather than the way they actually do. This does still happen today but as someone who works in a library I’ve noticed there are a lot more books about kids who are frustrated and rude just as often as they are loyal and brave. The way kids behave may have changed, but so has the way we have expected our heroes to act.  

So what’s the big takeaway? Put simply, don’t turn your heroes into perfect angels. Most of us don’t want to write stories with central characters as unlikable as Edmund but that doesn’t mean they can’t act like jerks or be rude every once in a while. Just makes them fleshed out and realistic.

I’ve read plenty of novels by both aspiring and established authors who make the mistake of constructing characters who are more or less  perfect morally and in terms of their jobs and talents. But if your heroes are already perfect they have nowhere to go in their character arch. The reason why we love heroes like Rick Blaine and Han Solo is because they start off deeply flawed but – like Edmund – but they change for the better (that’s right, I just compared Edmund to Han Solo). Obviously you don’t want to go so far as to make your heroes unlikable, but let us see some moments when they are not at their best and then give them something to strive for. Their quest shouldn’t just be about saving the magic kingdom or blowing up the space station it should be about how our heroes change.