Peer Pressure

[Benisse]

Last Battle has a lot to say about peer pressure and how ( and how not) to deal with it. What examples of peer pressure do you see in this book, and how do you think it was handled in each case?

[ILoveAslan]

Good point. I thought that poor beleaguered Puzzle fell too easily into peer pressure out of fear of losing Shift's friendship so he did whatever he was manipulated into doing but then toward the end we find him coming into the new Narnia, afraid at first to confront Aslan (though I never thought he was directly at fault, but used and controlled for Shift's power and prestige), so apparently Puzzle overcomes (maybe by observing the events?) peer pressure and sees the one true source of self and happiness - found in at least trying to find and know Aslan and to seek Narnia, where everything is genuine.

[waterhogboy]

Yeh I agree.

You also see indirectly the peer pressure Susan succombed to in the sense that she became more interested in the material things of the world that all her friends were most likely into.

[PrinceOfTheWest]

Consider the peer pressure that Poggin the dwarf must have felt when his fellow dwarfs turned their back on King Tirian. He ultimately slipped away, but imagine if the other dwarfs had ever encountered him.

[MrBob]

You have to imagine the peer pressure felt by Eustace and Jill back at school. We already knew that Eustace after VotDT went from an associate of Them to a target of Them. After TSC, they had each other to rely on as the only people around who had gone to Narnia and had to live with that knowledge.

It was better once they met up with the Pevensies as well as the Professor and Polly. That helped them be able to sustain the lessons they learned as they could discuss their experiences with them. In fact, all of them at the time of TLB had a great peer system. Susan just chose the alternate peers.

MrBob