Inklings Week 2025: Who We Are and Who We Can Be
Guest Post from Wesley H!
It’s that time of year, where we celebrate all things Inklings for the annual Inklings Week and International Inklings Day on May 11th! This year marks the 10th year of Inklings Week (I don’t know how that is even possible, because WHAT?!) and is the 99th anniversary of when Tolkien and Lewis met. We have a great set of posts this year and even a giveaway, so be sure to subscribe and not miss a post. You can find all the posts here. And don’t forget to enter this year’s giveaway!
Wesley is one of the OGs of Inklings Week and I’m always so thankful that she continues to say yes and join us for Inklings Week! Here’s another fabulous contribution to Inklings Week 2025 and I hope you are as encouraged as I was.
It’s not often that a book starts out by dragging one of the main characters of the book you just opened up. But not The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, this book comes out swinging for Eustace.
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
There’s no mincing of words when it comes to talking about what kind of person Eustace is and that is backed up by his actions and what he himself says. It’s not one of those situations where you think a person sucks but everyone else thinks they are great and you don’t know if the problem is you and your bad attitude or if you are just better at reading people then everyone else. What you see is what you get with Eustace…OR IS IT?
Here are some of my favorite early descriptions of Eustace:
- Eustace gets called out for “not having read the right books” a couple of times. The right books are adventure books, detective books, books about dragons. All of these would have been prerequisite reading for time in Narnia. What was he reading? Books about imports and exports.
- The first thing he thought when he saw the dragon’s hoard wasn’t like “oh wow I always wanted a chalice” or “Wow I hope that crown fits”. He thought “oh I bet they don’t have taxes here.” First of all, no sense of wonder there, Eustace. Secondly, how do you think Narnia maintains the roadways and harbors? Someone has to pay for that! Unless maybe the royal coffers are very full? I don’t read books about finance like Eustace.
- There’s a stretch of time on the Dawn Treader when there’s no wind and that makes for desperate times for our sailors. It includes rationing food and water but Eustace seems to be lacking the “well we must make sacrifices so everyone can survive even though none of us feel good and would like to be eating and drinking more water” sensibility. So much so he sneaks off in the middle of the night to try to find more water for himself, in total disregard for everyone else on the ship. No personal accountability, ugh.
Also, I do feel like we need to give Eustace a little bit of grace. He does get sucked into a random painting and finds himself suddenly transported into a different world with a sword wielding, talking mouse among other things where his two cousins that he thinks are maybe more than a little delusional are being referred to as royalty. Of course, the smarter move in that situation would be to say “okay, so this is all very strange and I might be hallucinating, but wherever we are, my cousins seem to kind of know of what is happening and people seem happy to see them so maybe I will just follow their lead”. But no, he’s out here picking fights and asking where the British embassy is. MY GUY WHAT??
Eustace doesn’t stay this little turd for the whole of our story with the crew of the Dawn Treader. After changing into a dragon (not a metaphor) and an encounter with everyone’s favorite Lion….
What is the thing that is at the core of Eustace’s transformation? I will give you a hint,
it’s the same thing that has transformed so many others in art and literature - from The Grinch to Kylo Ren to the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. It’s someone believing that you are (or can be) better than who you are at your worst and encouraging you to be that Person. Eustace doesn’t even know Aslan, but that doesn’t stop Aslan from helping him.
Change like this comes slowly - we are told that Eustace slipped up occasionally still.(Apparently when the weather was bad for a long time or he lost too often in chess to Reepicheep. But let’s be honest, who wouldn’t be cranky?) We ourselves might lash out in anger, be quick to judge, or struggle with jealousy despite the efforts that we make. But none of the efforts that we make to improve are in vain.
It’s easy to be complacent. “I am who I am, I’ve always been this way, it’s fine. People will just have to deal with it.” It’s especially easy to be that way when it feels like the world is falling down around you - what good is self improvement when no one else is even being a DECENT human being? But this kind of improvement isn’t a competition between us and other people, it’s between us and our conscious and our Maker.
So take it from the new and improving Eustace—no matter what else is happening—try to lead with kindness, be open to change, and read a few books about dragons so you are prepared for any situation.
Wesley is a reader and blogger extraordinaire. Be sure to follow her for plenty of book recs and bookish chatter. You can find her at http://libraryeducated.blogspot.com/, on Twitter at https://twitter.com/whoffs, and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whoffs/.
© 2025 Jamie Lapeyrolerie