Does Puzzle the Donkey have an allegorical relationship with any entity in the Book of Revelation or the Bible at large?

Question

C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia are a great children's series which present an allegory the New Testament and Biblical history. That said, Lewis sometimes put in things that don't necessarily reflect traditional Christian beliefs, such as his inclusion of the character Emeth who through his good deeds alone (not his belief in Christ/Aslan) stirs deep controversy.

The Last Battle is a stirring story that is similar and style and feel to the Book of Revelation. There is a character, Puzzle the Donkey, who although good follows what he knows to be incorrect and evil. He is ultimately forgiven by Christ/Aslan, but not before being told something that "that made his ears go down, and some more words that made his ears go up".

Is there a corresponding group or entity in Biblical history that has a similar fate as Puzzle?

Answer 1

Yes and no.

Yes because he resembles the great prostitute in the way that he misguided the whole world.

But no because most of the characters in the Chronicles of Narnia don't primarily represent their biblical archetype but rather, as in Lewis' The Screwtape Letters the different ways human psychology can go to. That's because Narnia was indeed written to be understood by children and I think the strong idea in Puzzle is that if he was born into a fine Narnian donkey family, he could have a beautiful life but instead, he became the worst of the worst. There is a very little of the "evil evil" in this world.

Moreover, the construction of the Last Battle is very different from the Revelation's because C. S. Lewis and as it's clear from his concept of the origin of life in The Problem of Pain, wasn't much into literalism. I think the concept he sketches out in the Last Battle is much closer to what most liberal Christians would imagine the end of the world like than to the mythological battle in the Revelation.