The Last Battle

“You know you’re no good at thinking, Puzzle, so why don’t you let me do your thinking for you?”

Shift disparages Puzzle’s intelligence in order to deceive and control him so that he will serve Shift’s ends. C. S. Lewis illustrates Shift’s method of deception in order to warn the reader of the dangers inherent in this type of domination. When Shift convinces Puzzle not to trust his own conscience and rationality—gifts from God in Christian teaching—Puzzle is vulnerable to doing something against his own best interest.

“It would be wrong, Shift. I may not be very clever but I know that much.”

Initially, Puzzle objects to the wrongful act of impersonating Aslan, drawing on his own moral sense of right and wrong. In this passage, Lewis emphasizes that Puzzle’s intuitive wisdom is more trustworthy and valuable than Shift’s cleverness. Shift’s cleverness is worthless because he uses it to manipulate others to attain bad goals.

“I drink first to Aslan and truth, Sire, and secondly to your Majesty.”

Roonwit the centaur’s toast demonstrates his correct priority of loyalties: Aslan (the real God) and truth come before the human monarch. Roonwit’s values prove particularly important when he tells the painful truth to King Tirian that a lie is being spread in Narnia: Roonwit can see in the stars that Aslan has not returned to Narnia as Shift claims. Although Roonwit’s message does not convince the king, the centaur maintains his truthful interpretation.