About Betrayal

One of the essays I wrote for school in 2018/2019

“And now we come to one of the nastiest things in this story. Up to that moment, Edmund had been feeling sick, and sulky, and annoyed with Lucy for being right, but he hadn’t made up his mind what to do. When Peter suddenly asked him the question he decided all at once to do the meanest and most spiteful thing he could think of. He decided to let Lucy down.”

C.S Lewis — The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Betrayal is the violation of a person’s trust, usually by keeping information in secret or spreading it. Betrayal is also when someone is disloyal with their actions and words. Being betrayed is painful because it always comes from people that you trusted. Betrayal can be traumatizing and has a big impact on someone’s life. It makes people hard to trust someone again.

Betrayal comes in many forms. We’ve seen one example of this a lot on the news which is bureaucrats getting caught for corruption. Before being elected, they promised that they will be a good leader thus gaining a lot of people’s trust. But unfortunately, they misused that trust and steal citizens’ money for their benefits. This case has happened so many times that it has made citizens don’t believe in government and isn’t willing to join any political events anymore. Domestic violence is also a common example of betrayal. Your family is supposed to protect you from harm but in an abusive relationship, they’re the one who harms you.

Betrayal starts from something small. It started from lying to people, being insensitive towards someone’s feeling, and the urge to benefit yourself. My favourite series, Narnia has a good example of this. The betrayal of Edmund Pevensie is one of the most memorable moments of the series and the core storyline of the first book and film. He betrayed his sibling, thus risking their lives because he was annoyed by them and he wanted to be the prince of The White Witch. This betrayal didn’t come up suddenly. It started at the moment I quoted at the very beginning. When he first came back from Narnia with Lucy, he denied what his sister said to their older siblings. Lucy was hurt so much that the person she looked up to is making her sounds like a lunatic. It is not an exaggeration when the narrative said that it was the meanest and most spiteful thing.

The world will be a lot better if there is no such thing as betrayal. There won’t be any person dealing with the trauma of being betrayed. No one will have problems to have a sincere relationship with anyone.

Edited and was originally written in 2018/2019.