It is pretty clear that first Peter and Susan and then Edmund and Lucy are getting to the Anglican/Lutheran age for getting to know Christ in our world : the age of confirmation and first communion (Catholics have since Pius X first communion at 7, though still usually confirmation same age as Anglicans and Lutherans).Swanwhite wrote:Now obviously Narnia is not Neverland. There are lots of grown ups in Narnia and the surrounding lands. Lots of people even go to that world as grown-ups, the Telmarines, Frank and Helen. Though those are people who are meant to stay for some reason or other.
Another funny thing is that the Pevensies themselves have grown up in Narnia, but that didn't make them too old for Narnia while they were reigning.
Frank and Helen did not need to go back for that, in their case it was not Narnia that was their lesson for knowing Christ in Our World, it was Christianity as practised in our world which was their preparation for knowing Aslan in Narnia.
Four Pevensies had an option of same thing, possibly missed it by Susan not marrying and the rest not marrying either, and had to get back to England. They did not get any second extended reigns growing up there again. I could imagine Susan getting back as Swanwhite - alone, once she was widow after a husband in England (in that case it would no longer be Susan Pevensie but Susan NN coming to Narnia) and AFTER having very much learned to know Christ in Our World, and to a Narnian age where she would not by physically recognised as identific to Susan. On the other hand that would be against the words of Aslan as given? Perhaps still? Or shall one take "you will not return" as "you will not both return"? Or was there a passage preventing that, some time since I read books?
Frank, Helen, Telmarines are all (except the Telmarines who returned to the Island!) meant to make their salvation in the Narnian world.
And since usually, before the 16 year age limit got introduced in 18th C. as a first desperate means of limiting the outlawed practise of bride auctions, which themselves started late 17th C., marriage was licit once you were confirmed, the reason for this age of confirmation is that the minimum age of marriage was basically puberty.