hansgeorg wrote:First of all: Happy Easter, Christ is Risen!
Indeed he is risen!
Yes, Happy Easter.
Christ is Risen!
He is risen, indeed
As for Eustace, when we read the book, Lucy and Edmund had been sent to Eustace's place to stay, whilst Mr & Mrs Pevensie took Susan on their trip to USA. Eustace had been eavesdropping on Lucy and Edmund discussing the painting of a very Narnian-looking ship. He entered the room, tried to make fun of them, and wouldn't leave the room when asked to do so.
Eustace also tried to discuss the painting to show off what he knew about art. When the painting started to respond to Lucy and Edmund's longing for Narnia, Eustace then grabbed the painting thus being the first to enter Narnia.
It works something like the rings in Magician's Nephew. If Eustace had not eavesdropped, if he had stepped outside when asked to do so, and if he had not persisted in butting in when not wanted, then he would not have ended up on the Dawn Treader. So I don't see it as a kidnapping at all, whatever he said. It was his own choice that Eustace went where he did. The question is why did he keep butting in on his cousins?
Basically, Eustace was a gatecrasher. However, if he didn't like the cooking at the Dawn Treader party, to which he had not been invited, he couldn't complain to the management or try another restaurant. He had to remain and learn that if he can't pay his own bill, he has to help with the washing up. Just as well for him that Drinian didn't make him walk the plank.
Before he was undragoned I daresay that Eustace would have also envied Susan her luck in having the advantage of more comfortable accommodation in modern ships. However, this was in World War 2, only a couple of years after the Pevensies were evacuees at Professor Kirk's home in the country. Don't forget that up until USA entered WW2 Dec 7th 1941, that U-boats routinely patrolled the Atlantic to torpedo British and even American shipping. And Paris at the time, as you well know, had been taken over by Nazi troops with orders in 1944 to burn it down. Susan couldn't complain about being sunk and Paris residents couldn't complain about Nazis turning them out of their own homes either.
At least on the Dawn Treader Eustace didn't have to contend with that sort of danger.