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Centered on Aslan
The Great Lion works In Mysterious Ways.
Aslan is Jesus.
Might be going out on a limb here, but it just seems to work.- You're mad! Mad, I say!
- This isn't a theory - this is Word of God. It's made almost blatantly clear at the end of VDT (the book), as well as at the end of The Last Battle. Plus, Lewis did confirm this in his letters.
Aslan is the Devil.
If all good is done to one god automatically and all evil is done to another, the gods are completely interchangeable and Aslan may well be the evil one.- See Mere Christianity and read the part where Lewis considers Dualism before rejecting it. Aslan and Tash may be opposites, but it does not follow that they are equal and opposite; there is a genuine choice to be made between the two.
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Aslan was actually Satan all along
- You see:
- 1- Lions are associated with Jesus, yet they're also connected to Satan in the Bible
- 2- Vultures were actually a divine symbol in Abrahamic theology; it appears that references to eagles in holy texts actually were referring to the Eurasian Black Vulture (most notably in regards to Cherubim; they had four heads, one of them of a bird of prey)
- Thus, Tash is the real servant of God in the series, and Aslan was Lucifer fooling everyone all along!
- There's one more aspect to this WMG; Satan Is Good and so Aslan is still genuinely helping them.
- We could tale the idea of the Calormen a step further, what if Narnia is actually being ruled by a lion-demon named Aslan. That demon is deliberately invoking elements of another religion to ensnare his victims from our world.
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- We could tale the idea of the Calormen a step further, what if Narnia is actually being ruled by a lion-demon named Aslan. That demon is deliberately invoking elements of another religion to ensnare his victims from our world.
Aslan is the Big Bad of Narnia
Considering the fact that he recruits children to fight a war against his nemesis is pretty questionable to start with. However, he is a Villain with Good Publicity and the denizens of Narnia don't speak the truth due to Aslan's ruling with an iron fist. The White Witch was merely part of La Resisstance and as a result had to die in a horrific manner..
More likely, Aslan is the true Creator of the universe, whom the Authority falsely claimed to be.
And Andrew Ketterley's godmother was a witch from Lyra's world... which means Andrew really shouldn't have messed around with that "dust.".
Aslan is an agent of The Authority.
He openly discourages individual initiative in favor of doing what he tells you. Opposing Alsan is believed to be automatically evil, regardless of ends or means involved, even if the opposition simply wishes to live their lives according to their own wishes, without Aslan's mandate. Under Aslan's guidance Narnia's technological and societal progress failed to advance one iota. Independent thought is suppressed; blind obedience is encouraged. But the clincher comes at the end, when Aslan leads everyone to a place that those who trust claim to perceive as Heaven, while others see as something much worse-clearly the World of the Dead, where they will all be trapped until Will and Lyra arrive to rescue those who would be rescued.- Bizarre that a tyrant would give the people he created the ability to "rebel" against him AND sacrifice himself to save someone from receiving a punishment he justly deserved and simultaneously save the world from ending... Jossed anyway because Aslan did create the universe they inhabit! Pullman's Authority actually didn't.
- Or at least he shows up and does something as the world is created and then takes credit.
- This may be the Wild Mass Guessing page, but Occam's Razor probably needs to come out on this one. Why would this lion appear just as the world is beginning, pretend he's singing while walking around knowing exactly the route to take to make it look like things are being formed around him? And then when he gives some animals the power to talk. According to this theory, he's a con man who convinced most of the animals that they COULDN'T talk in that moment (somehow) so that it would look like the ability came from him. Yeah, it's simpler to admit that he did create Narnia in the scene where it LOOKS like he's creating Narnia.
- Why? Because it's the Authority's modus operandi, of course! Taking credit for things that would have happened with or without his involvement is basically half of what he does.
- About the sacrifice: Aslan clearly knew he would come back. So it's possible that to him being "sacrificed" was well worth protecting his Chosen One and winning the confrontation.
- A punishment he justly deserved? For an eight-year-old boy who was lost in a winter forest, lied to by a witch, and fed magic food that put him under her influence? What the hell kind of person thinks that merits death?
- All adding variables to an already-explained situation to complicate it to make it fit a theory.
- Of course! That's what WMG is all about.
- Or at least he shows up and does something as the world is created and then takes credit.
- Or, Aslan is part of The Authority. Which would be awesome.
- Aslan is a vile homophobe, so Apollo and Midnighter would be forced to fight with him to survive. There'd be no stability and The Authority would fall.
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- Aslan is a vile homophobe, so Apollo and Midnighter would be forced to fight with him to survive. There'd be no stability and The Authority would fall.
Aslan and Tash are neither Jesus nor Satan
Rather, they're Ra and Apep. The Christian thing is an unfortunate coincidence, or a ploy that they made to have more worshippers..
Aslan and Tash are another forms of Unicorn of Order and Snake of Chaos
- What makes perfect sense because opposite of a lion is a unicorn, while opposite of bird is a snake.
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Aslan is a zoophilous pedophile
He has a fetish for human children.- No.
- He eats them.
- Well, that's also liking children.
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Aslan is a Time Lord.
This explains why he sometimes shows up and then again not without apparent rhyme or reason, fits his mercurial attitude when dealing with non-Gallifreyans, and even provides an explanation of how he came back from the stone table — he simply traded in one of his reincarnations. He looks like a magical talking lion because he has a really good perception filter in order to fit in among the "native" Narnians. And the wardrobe, of course, was his TARDIS all along..
Aslan is The Cowardly Lion after gaining his courage.
- Aside from the obvious difference in appearance, which could be easily explained as artistic license choices, and discounting any references to the lion that may appear in L. Frank Baum's other works, I can't really think of any reasons for this not to be true.
- On the other hand, there was another lion in TLTWATW who was rather pleased to be helping out Aslan, and making a bit of a fuss over being a lion "just like Aslan", it is not impossible for the Cowardly Lion to want to show off a bit at this time, helping out his fellow in battle.
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Aslan loses at the end
Aslan's forces effectively lost the Last Battle, forcing the lion to Deus Ex Machina the end of the world to not have to face the consequences - he literally ragequit creation.However, he fails even in that: he's left a remnant of the old world, a barn full of angry dwarves with basic tools and provisions. We all know how that's going to go.
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Centered on Tash
For better or worse: the devil you don't know.
Tash is not the devil, but the personification of Death
The only time he directly interacts with the plot is at the literal end, and all he does is eat Shift and carry his Dragon off to...somewhere. Tash does have the ability to wilt grass and flowers simply by standing near them, a trait not uncommon with other Grim Reapers. Also, he simply leaves on the orders from Peter, not Aslan, implying he's not quite as powerful as his followers might want you to believe.
Unfortunately for the poor souls not accepted in Aslan's Country, though, he's the kind of Reaper you SHOULD fear.
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Tash is a Lord of Change, servant of Tzeentch, from the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
He looks like a vulture and has four arms. Being worshiped by thousands comes with the job.- Thus, Aslan is either the God-Emperor of Mankind or an agent of His will (if the Emperor is the Emperor-Over-The-Sea).
- Aslan is one of the missing Primarchs. Narnia is somewhere in the Segmentum Obscurus.
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- Aslan is one of the missing Primarchs. Narnia is somewhere in the Segmentum Obscurus.
Tash is a Skeksis
Tash is a vulture-headed creature of evil with four arms. He probably remains young and strong by feeding on the souls of Narnia's wicked dead.Of course, this would mean Aslan is a Mystic / urRu, which explains how the two of them can be both identical and complete opposites at once.
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Tash is an avatar of Nyarlathotep.
. Tash' pressence nullifies Aslan's magic
- Aslan created the world through his magical song. Whenever Tash goes, everything dies.
- Aslan turned animals into talking animals. A talking animal encountering Tash turns into a normal animal.
- Rabadash gets turned into a donkey by Aslan and has to visit the temple of Tash when his power is strongest (during a national holiday in his name) to get back to human. And if he ever leaves Tash's sphere of influence, assuming Tash resides in the temple, Rabadash will turn back into a donkey again.
This probably works only in Narnia and not in Afterlife.
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Centered on one of the witches
With those Northern Witches, you just never know.
The White Witch is the Antichrist.
Think about it: I highly doubt C.S Lewis would make a Big Bad, and then kill her off in the same book. Honestly, I think she was Tash's Dragon, which would make sense logically..
Jadis taught people magic before conquering Narnia
The Lady of the Green Kirtle is described as "one of those Northern witches", and Jadis is retroactively included in their number. Since Jadis was in the world of Narnia from the beginning, she was probably the founder of those witches. We can probably assume that evil people of various species flocked to her (hence how she has an army in LWW), and if any of them had a talent for magic she might have taught them some of what she knew..
The Lady of the Green Kirtle is Jadis.
She is the devil.- If Jadis is the devil, then what the #$%* is Tash supposed to be?
- The idea of Allah invoked by Islamic extremists (or, more generally, any god used to justify what would otherwise be objectively evil acts). Hence Aslan's "No service that is not vile can be rendered to him."
- That's what Tash is as a sociological symbol. As a metaphysical symbol, he's clearly a devil figure in opposition to Aslan. As is Jadis. Perhaps Tash is Lucifer and Jadis is Beelzebub. Or something.
- Word of God states (somewhere) that Tash is the representation 'false gods' and Jadis is the devil. But 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', so I suppose it's your interpration.
- Jadis was a brutal, practical, and direct warlord. The Lady of the Green Kirtle farts around with an underground army who would have been completely out of their depth if the Lady had managed to lead them above ground, wastes time abducting the mind-controlled Rilian rather than just making him marry her and then secretly murdering Caspian, and relies almost entirely on mind-control, lies, and manipulation rather than force and terror. They just don't seem like the same person to me. (Besides, the Lady of the Green Kirtle mind-controls an entire country's worth of Gnomes; if she's Jadis why didn't she do that to Narnia?)
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The Lady of the Green Kirtle is descended from Jadis the White Witch.
She's a witch from the Wild Waste Lands of the North, where Jadis ran and lived and plotted her takeover of Narnia for a few centuries when the Tree of Protection kept her away from Narnia proper. Characters in The Silver Chair believe the Lady of the Green Kirtle to be "of the same kind" as the White Witch and mention how "those Northern witches" are always coming up with a new plan to get what they want — Narnia. Jadis must have become mother of a race of evil witches (not immortal, since the forbidden apple gave Jadis that quality, and no longer giants after thousands of years). Hopefully for Narnia (pre-The Last Battle), Rilian killed the last one.- But if Jadis was the last of her species, with whom did she reproduce in order to create the race of Northern witches?
- Another Turkish Delight addict, perhaps. Half-Human Hybrids are canon in the books. Rilian of the books is probably half human, half star. If humans can interbreed with Narnian stars, then they can interbreed with Jadis.
- Alternately, it's possible she was already newly-pregnant at the time she went into suspended animation in Charn. Her sister's rebellion might well have been kicked off because her sibling and rival didn't want her to produce an heir. Because her child is shielded within her body, it's not killed by the Deplorable Word (which always spares its utterer). Jadis's pregnancy is put on hold while she's in suspended animation, then resumes its progression in Narnia; when she eats the apple, her unborn daughter is exposed to its effects in utero and likewise becomes immortal, so survives for many thousands of years before being killed by Rilian.
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The Lady of the Green Kirtle isn't Jadis or a descendant, but rather a former underling from the time of Jadis's reign in Narnia.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe described all manner of odd beasties working for Jadis. Whatever the Lady of the Green Kirtle actually was, she wouldn't be too out of place among the White Witch's ranks..
The Lady of the Green Kirtle is Jadis's widow.
. Jadis is the Serpent.
She steals the Silver Apple and creates a traitor by food (Turkish Delight, "delightful to behold"). The Lady of the Green Kirtle turns into one..
Jadis is Death.
See the "Headscratchers" page for details..
The Lady of the Green Kirtle is a yuan-ti pureblood.
. The Lady's green powder is marijuana.
It's green, it creates a pleasant drowsy feeling, and it slows your thinking. Does This Remind You of Anything??- So does that make her a snake in the grass?
Is Man a Myth? (one of the books in Tumnus the faun's bookcase) is produced by Jadis' propaganda department.
It's obvious that not only were humans in the "sons of Adam and daughters of Eve" sense were present in Narnia's history but their descendents are implicitly still living to the south in Archenland and Calormen. So why would anyone write a book called Is Man a Myth? when this is clearly not the case?Well, obviously so the predominantly non-human inhabitants of Narnia will not consider seriously the possibility of humans, and then all those prophecies about four of them one day reigning in Cair Paravel and Aslan and the end of the Witch's reign will seem all the more ridiculous. Makes you realise just how oppressive and crapsack Jadis' Narnia is with pretty much North Korea levels of repression (and hardship probably, given a century-long winter where nothing can grow and food is scarce).
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Centered on one of the POV-characters
Even the most rounded characters need the occasional Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
The Pevensies are related to King Frank & Queen Helen.
Why these four rather than any other sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, including ones living in other kingdoms like Archenland? Even if Frank and Helen didn't leave any children of their own back on Earth, they could have left brothers and sisters with children of their own, from whom the Pevensies could be descended. This connection by blood to the true Narnian royal bloodline (before the White Witch's conquest) is what allowed the Pevensie children to rule on the Narnian throne.- Caspian would then represent a pretty big break from this Narnian bloodline. Unless Frank and Helen were themselves descended from the Telemarines sent back to Earth at the end of Prince Caspian, that is.
- Or the Telmarines were the new rulers by right of conquest; Caspian's right to the throne was through his father, Caspian IX, whose brother Miraz killed him before usurping his (and his son's) throne.
- Given the vast number of pools in the Wood Between The Worlds, it's possible that there's more than one world of human beings out there. If so, then the humans in Archenland and so forth might descend from people who came to Narnia's world from other places than Earth. That would disqualify them as sons or daughters of Adam and Eve, and even explain why Narnians are always so specific about that ancestral tie: humans descended from, say, Alice and Bob on planet Erth/Urt/Eorth wouldn't share any blood with Frank or Helen at all.
- In the movie, Lucy tells Tumnus that her mum's name is Helen. Not that there aren't plenty of women named Helen, but being named after an ancestor is pretty common, so it could be true.
- It would have to be quite a close relationship, given the timeline on the England side of things. Grandparent, most likely, which would make Eustace a descendent of the same line.
- Not grandPARENT, unless you think Frank and Helen left children behind in our world, which is definitely fridge horror and not something I think Aslan would do to his first royal couple (because it makes no sense - if they already have heirs, why not bring them over, too?). Great uncle and aunt or something to that effect, if anything. Also, there's no indication of which one of the Pevensie parents Eustace is related to - or even which one of Eustace's parents is the relation.
- Digory and Polly became quite close with the kids some time between Silver Chair and Last Battle. If the Pevensies had had a great-uncle and aunt (would have to be - they'd never leave kids behind) who had mysteriously vanished and whose names were Frank and Helen, don't you think they'd have made a connection?
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Someone in school overheard Susan and Peter talking about Narnia, and (oblivious to its reality) bullied them mercilessly about it.
This hit both of them hard, but they reacted in different ways. Susan...And her interactions with her own children played a role in breaking down these emotional walls..
Peter is a Time Lord
I suppose Peter's a Time Lord and Narnia's actually Purgatory? .
There was more going on with Susan's abandonment of Narnia than what we were told.
If you think about it, the only people in The Last Battle who ever offer up any reason for why Susan is "no longer a friend of Narnia" are Eustace, Jill and Polly, as in the people who are least close to her out of all of the Friends of Narnia. Notice who aren't exactly jumping to tell Tirian why Susan isn't there? Her siblings, and Professor Kirke, the people among the Friends who were closest to her. It's possible that the latter knew something more about what was going on with Susan than Eustace, Jill and Polly, and that those three, not being in the know, chose to blame it on Susan's most visible change: giving into all the social pressure on young women of the day (the lipsticks, nylons, and general "concerned with looking pretty" behavior), and her choosing to do what they never did, and actually have a life outside of reminiscing over Narnia. Peter is the only one of her siblings who ever speaks at all during that sequence; his shortness during this infodump, and Edmund and Lucy's silence, implies that whatever it was that was going on with Susan, it was a painful topic for them. Peter's behavior just screams "Okay, pal, this is a really painful topic for me; can we please just stop talking about it?"- In Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's mentioned that Susan grades in school aren't that great, and she's more known for being the pretty one of the family. In the first two books, she seemed pretty smart, so perhaps it's not that she's always been bad at school, but that her grades have dropped recently. She's also mentioned to be "otherwise very old for her age" (VDT, 2), which could mean anything, but doesn't really sound like a descriptor indicative of cheerful behavior. My suspicion is that the reason her grades dropped is that she's become depressed. Perhaps it's because of her getting yanked out of Narnia for a second time and this time being told that she was never allowed to go back because she'd gotten too old. Maybe it's because of all the social pressure on her to behave a certain way, because she's a teenage girl in a society that condemns young girls not acting a certain way. Maybe it's something else. And maybe the fact that she's become depressed is the reason her parents decided to take her to America with them over the summer. Susan's mother is to have said that she would "get more out of it than the youngsters" (VDT, 2-3); perhaps by this Mrs. Pevensie meant that she thought the trip would cheer Susan up. And maybe her depression is, in part, the reason she decided to leave Narnia behind.
- I think you're definitely right that something more had to have been up but personally I think it's more likely that Susan might have been sexually assaulted considering how she seems to repress childhood memories and how she becomes very concerned with her looks and parties as well as how she doesn't do well in school despite coming off as very smart, acts older than she is, and essentially has a religious crisis. It's darker and I don't enjoy the theory but it seems very plausible.
Susan will make it to Aslan's country eventually. She wasn't even dead in The Final Battle. She wasn't even on the train. She is still alive and Aslan is giving her another chance.
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Susan in the movies will be left behind in The Last Battle because she's married, or about to be.
It'd avert the Unfortunate Implications many readers see in having her left out, just because she was acting like a stereotypical teenager. The number of years it'll take to finish the film series means that the actress who plays her will be much more mature than how Lucy describes her in the book. And it'd even help reduce the sting of her losing her entire family in a train crash, while adhering to her makeover as one of the most capable and responsible Pevensies.- Susan left herself out! She chose not to play anymore. Lewis' theological point seems to have been that Grace can be rejected. But that doesn't mean she's damned forever - far from it. 'Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen' Susan is still one of Aslan's chosen and she can return to him and become Queen Susan the Gentle again whenever she chooses to do so. Lewis' Word of God is that she may someday get back to Narnia in her own time and her own way.
- Er, I did say "many readers", not that I interpreted it that way, or that Lewis meant it that way. Even if all of the above is true, the film's makers will probably want to side-step the issue by giving Susan more of a life outside of Narnia than just makeup and dating, which would run contrary to her personality in the films in any case.
- Of course; she's married to David Evans, and they are expecting. They will go on to have 2 daughters, who will be named Petunia and Lily. Says so right here
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Edmund was adopted.
He is the only bad sibling and he's quite different from the other ones. Bonus added with the fact that he always felt the Black Sheep of the family.- Of course, by the time you reach The Last Battle, you could make the same argument for Susan.
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Edmund is named after his father.
Let's look at the facts:- He's named Edmund like all of the Blackadders.
- He's a Deadpan Snarker.
- He has black hair, unlike the rest of his family.
- This only works in movie continuity. In the books, it's stated that Susan has long black hair. I don't think that Edmund's hair color is ever mentioned, but it IS stated in The Horse and His Boy that he has a golden beard as an adult. So, presumably, Bookverse Edmund is blond.
- It does not say so in any of my copies of Horse and His Boy (English or Czech). Either this is a case of different editions, or it doesn't say so in the books. Or you mixed him up with Digory in The Last Battle - they are introduced consecutively and I was confused for a while, too.
- This only works in movie continuity. In the books, it's stated that Susan has long black hair. I don't think that Edmund's hair color is ever mentioned, but it IS stated in The Horse and His Boy that he has a golden beard as an adult. So, presumably, Bookverse Edmund is blond.
- He is or was evil. Whether you buy his redemption or not, betraying your family for candy is pretty damn evil.
- There is so far no other known Blackadders of the World War 2 era.
- The Turkish Delight was enchanted and put him under Jadis' influence. Why do people keep forgetting that?
- The question then is, how did this obvious Blackadder get into the Pevensie family? If his father, the Blackadder from Goes Forth, survived World War I (as seems likely, based on Back and Forth), he may have changed his name following some failed scheme to escape consequences and settled down. It's also possible that Edmund Pevensie is only the nephew of Edmund Blackadder, the former being the son of the latter's sister.
- In all likelihood, however, Edmund Pevensie follows in the family tradition of being a bastard son and his mom was already married to Mr. Pevensie.
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Lucy is Haruhi Suzumiya
She got bored at the country house and wanted an real adventure, so she subconciously created Narnia.- So Lucy is Aslan's Mother?
- This makes the most sense.
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- This makes the most sense.
Eustace and his family are Mormons.
Hence why they're "non-smokers", "tee-totalers", and "wear special kind of underwear".- But in Silver Chair, it's stated that neither Eustace nor Jill knew what a character meant when he talked about Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. Wouldn't a Mormon know about Adam and Eve?
- Maybe they were just confused by the phrase? It's not exactly one used in our world.
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- Maybe they were just confused by the phrase? It's not exactly one used in our world.
Professor Kirke is a Time Lord, and the Wardrobe is his TARDIS.
Because we didn't have this one yet..
Digory returned to Narnia and became a king.
At the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Professor Kirke echoes Aslan by saying "Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen." In The Magician's Nephew, it's revealed that he went to Narnia as a young boy and witnesses the coronation of the first king and queen of Narnia. However, that sentence is never said in the book.That, coupled with his insistence that the Pevensies will go back to Narnia, suggests that he too returned to Narnia.
It's possible that he saw another person crowned and heard the words, but no other people from our world are mentioned in Trinian's list. It's more likely that he, and possibly Polly, returned to Narnia and was crowned king.
- Or he simply parroted back a phrase that the children directly quoted, when they explained where they'd wound up after their hide-and-seek game. Aslan's demeanor of authority and grace is such that they probably remembered each and every word he'd said to them, for the rest of their lives.
- Actually in the Last Battle Digory and Polly are referred to as "lord" and "lady" not "king" and "queen".
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The Eight Friends of Narnia represent the House of David
All of the heroes from our the world are closely related, either by blood or friendship. They are the most important group to Narnia. Likewise, the House of David was the most important family in the Bible, both in the New Testament..
Prince Caspian is a werewolf.
Remember he was bitten by one? So shouldn't he have become one?- Only if C.S. Lewis was into horror movies. Being bitten by a werewolf didn't have any special consequences in their original mythology.
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Centered on one or several of the side characters
Your mysterious bystanders can also have a moment in the sun here.
In North America or Europe today, Reepicheep would likely not be in a freak show...
...but would very likely face Thoughtcrime charges (if in a country with speech laws) or else be charged with assault with a deadly weapon after his varying level of play at Chess leads to accusations of sandbagging..
In the film universe, the early Telmarine kings paid lip-service to Aslan
The Seven Lords having Aslan-themed swords looks like a plot hole, but it could be a logical consequence of a history of playing nice with your oppressed subjects.Logically, a group of fugitive pirates who have just stumbled through a hole in reality are not going to be able to conquer an established kingdom where they know nothing and nobody. A period during which they were welcomed by the locals, and were able to learn about the society and geography, can therefore be assumed — the Narnians are a friendly people, and if their new guests preferred to only talk to the human-shaped Narnians they would probably chalk that up as a forgiveable eccentricity. When the Telmarines then seized power, it would not have been so much a bloody conquest (there probably wouldn't have been enough of them for that), but as a coup d'etat, with the transition of power quick and smooth enough for most common citizens to not be concerned enough to get involved.
Having seized power, they would then have to consolidate control of a large kingdom. By this time they would already be familiar with the local religion and, while they might not believe it, they would not be dumb enough to upset their new subjects by simply dismissing it out of hand. Instead they would have made nice by "acknowledging" Aslan in public, at least at first.
Of course, over the following generations things gradually soured, so by Miraz's time most of the old-style Narnians were in hiding from their harsh overlords, but even in the days of Caspian IX there was enough public "piety" on the Telmarine side for some Dwarven smith somewhere to make a nice Aslan-themed present for his seven most honest and decent servants.
- Alternately, the Telmarine swords had lion emblems on them for the same reason that samurai masks often had demonic facial features: because it evoked fear in the superstitious and was intimidating even to non-believers. Aslan was scary to Caspian's ancestors, and weapons are usually intended to be scary too.
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Gael from the movies is a descendant of the Narnian king Gale.
Might be thinking too much, but it could work. King Gale freed the Lone Islands from a dragon. Gael could be one of his descendants, assuming that he had children that remained on the islands..
What did Coriakin do to earn having to babysit the Duffers?
These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. But we really want to know what kinds of faults a star can commit.- There are hints, though:
- First off, the Duffers are close to Too Dumb to Live. Coriakin has to look after them because they are barely clever enough to survive on their own. For example, when a cat gets into their dairy, the entire group moves all the milk - and it never even occurs to any of them to just get the cat out of there and close the door.
- Next, they are very prone to Exact Words and Insane Troll Logic. The Dufflers go about everything they do in this manner, causing Coriakin endless headaches. There is no instruction, argument or even opinion, no matter how clear, that they will not interpret as meaning either exactly its opposite, some random nonsense or nothing at all.
- They're also too clever by half - they wash dishes before a meal to save time afterwards, or plant boiled potatoes to save cooking them.
- Then, going by Coriakin's and Aslan's interaction, we know that it was Aslan who imposed this arrangement:
- He asks Coriakin something to the effect of whether he's tired of babysitting the Duffers yet; and seems satisfied with Coriakin's answer that although they can be endlessly tiring, there's no real harm in them.
- Going by Aslan's usual in all the other books of never doing anything pointless or needlessly cruel (though Cruel to Be Kind and trolling the self-righteous are both certainly in the books) this was likely meant to teach Coriakin how infuriating babysitting someone can be who's too clever by half, prone to insane troll logic and exact words, but essentially too dumb to live.
- Going by who Aslan is supposed to be, anyone else is essentially this by comparisson - so perhaps Coriakin was at the receiving end of just such babysitting, and declared he didn't want to be.
- All of which taken together would make Coriakin's fault Pride, plain and simple.
- This would also double as expecting Viewers Are Geniuses on the author's part; as in Christian theology, pride is also the sin of the devil - two ways of which referring to whom are Lucifer (=light bringer) and Morning Star.
- And the stars in the Narnia books fulfill many of the roles of the angels of Judaeo-Christian mythology, to boot.
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Corakin was a Maia that joined Melkor
- He is doing penance in another world.
- In fact, Coriakin and Ramandu are the two Blue Wizards, who got so lost that they wandered out of Middle-Earth entirely. Because they don't want to have to explain what "Istari" are, they started to call themselves "stars."
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Puddleglum is The Doctor.
Specifically the Fourth Doctor.- Seems pretty pessimistic to be the Doctor.
- It's just because the BBC cast the same actor in both roles.
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- It's just because the BBC cast the same actor in both roles.
- Seems pretty pessimistic to be the Doctor.
Shift the Ape is actually Ahoshta Tarkaan
In The Horse and His Boy, Ahoshta Tarkaan is described as being sixty years old, having a hump on his back, and his face resembling that of an ape. In The Last Battle, Shift is described as "the cleverest, ugliest, most wrinkled Ape you can imagine". In the same book, he claims that he is actually not an ape, but is a man. He goes on to say, "If I look like an Ape, that's because I'm so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old." Obviously, Ahoshta Tarkaan used dark magic to gain immortality for himself, at the price of turning into an ape. This must have happened shortly before the events of The Horse and His Boy, because in that book, he was already beginning to show signs of looking ape-like. By the events of The Last Battle, which takes place thousands of years later, the transformation was complete.
This also explains how Shift was able to use the Calormenes to take over Narnia so easily: he still had connections and influence there.
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Centered on the setting
Out of the wardrobe door, into the wild.
No one knows what it's actually called, but this world is more than a pretty backdrop for the characters to move in front of.
In the 2009 film, there's a portal in Aslan's tent
When he comes out of the tent in the scene where the children see him for the first time, for a split second you can see dark wood panels and the bottom part of a wooden pillar or post (carved with repeated Jerusalem Crosses - each with five prominent knobs representing nails at ends and centre - interlaced with strings of what looks almost like a fishnet) just beside and behind him, as if he's coming out of a door (or a wardrobe) directly behind the curtain.It would mean Aslan isn't coming out of the tent, but from elsewhere. Where would the portal lead, though? As the wardrobe leading to Narnia from Earth is carved with Narnian symbols (a lion, a silver apple tree..), the Christian imagery of the carvings here would suggest this door leads back to Earth.
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Digory Kirke gave Harold and Alberta the Portal Picture in Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
He may or may not have painted the picture, but he definitely made the frame out of wood from the same tree the wardrobe was made from, unknowingly making another portal. It was originally just a seascape; due to it being hidden in a spare bedroom out of sight since Alberta didn't like it, nobody ever noticed the ship sail into the frame. Due to Year Inside, Hour Outside, it took a few days of Edmund and Lucy staying with their aunt and uncle and being teased by their cousin for the ship to sail a few yards, so the kids never noticed the movement until staring at it so intently on the day they fell through the portal..
The Shield Tree fell when the English storm blew over the Wardrobe Tree in the Ketterley's garden
The two trees are said to be connected, and the narration notes Narnian winds blow the English tree about as it's moving in synchronicity to the Narnian tree. It's a reasonable guess that this could work both ways, with English winds also blowing the Narnian tree around, as it would be moving in synchronicity with the English tree. So when an English storm blew the English tree over... .
Narnia's seasons are permanently out-of-synch with those of neighboring countries.
We see how Spring starts up again in the first novel after generations of Endless Winter, but we have no cause to presume that this actually happens in the springtime: it could just as easily have been Summer, Autumn, or (ironically) Winter in Archenland, the islands, and other nearby regions of similar latitude. The odds are actually three to one against it being Spring outside of Narnia's borders when Aslan reappeared, so unless the hundred-year Winter was followed by an other-than-three-month Spring — long enough to delay Summer until it could begin simultaneously with that of the bordering countries — it's likely that Narnia's seasons remained weeks or months out-of-step with the rest of the world, thereafter..
Or the Winter is just a by-product of Jadis' magic, which reverts to the natural norm after Aslan returns.
Makes more sense. Aslan might simply have timed it well..
Jadis's magic was responsible for feeding Narnia during the Long Winter.
- The question has been raised as to how the Narnians could have food, especially grain (for making bread), when Narnia had been held in the thrall of winter for a hundred years. But given the scope of Jadis's magic, it's not impossible that she could allow the growth of specified plants even in the middle of the winter. Moreover, this would provide another reason why she could reign for a hundred years with few major riots. It wasn't just fear of her magic and minions: until Aslan arrived and broke her power, rioting against her would have risked starvation as she cut off the food supplies to districts in rebellion.
- Alternatively, it was grown in mundane greenhouses. Or imported from Archenland and Calormen.
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Aslan, or possibly his Dad, put the bell in the statue chamber to awaken Jadis deliberately. Or just knew about it.
Oh, it's possible that Jadis put the bell there herself; if someone rang it, then they'd be a possible servant, and certainly a sign of somewhere else to conquer. But Aslan seems always to know where things would go, just as the Bible predicts the apocalypse for Earth. So, maybe..?- Aslan is stated to be another incarnation of the Christian God, so he certainly knew about Charn, Jadis and the bell, and how it'd all tie into Narnia. He could probably be given some credit for allowing it, in the same way he allowed Adam and Eve's fall, as part of some cosmic Gambit Roulette that no one else was clued in on at the time.
- Allowed it? Indeed. Sentient creatures are allowed to make genuine choices with real consequences. It's not a plan at all - say rather (and this is gone into in Perelandra) that Aslan's will, or Maleldil's, may be crossed but not ultimately frustrated. Digory's foolish action caused Narnia's Unfallen future to be lost for all time, but Aslan unfolded an alternate future in which many good and beautiful things still happened.
- The Bell and Hammer in the statue chamber, as well as the gates to the garden, were both made of gold and accompanied by poems of warning (albeit in different types of verse and rhyme), so I'm partial to the idea that the same... being... was responsible for both. Also, Aslan didn't sing Narnia into existence until after Digory had struck the bell; maybe his goal in creating Narnia was to restore the Balance Between Good and Evil that Digory had upset by awakening Jadis. Or maybe the bell awoke Aslan too.
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Aslan created and developed Narnia using the imaginations of Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer as a template.
Think about it. Talking animals, Father Christmas, creatures from Greek and Norse mythology, brave knights, exotic dark-skinned foreigners, toffee trees, and even comfortable formal clothes: everything that two imaginative, well-read middle-class 19th century British children would put in an imaginary world if they were to create one. Any discrepencies like animals from a variety of climates living comfortably in a temperate zone and surviving a century long winter, along with sewing machines existing in an otherwise pre-industrial society can be put down to the children not fully thinking things through.- This actually works pretty well with the books. Narnia's creation process picks up on outside influences and incorporates them into its structure: that's how the lamppost appeared, and the caramel fruit tree. It's not much of a stretch to say that the process also picked up on Digory and Polly's thoughts and shaped Narnia's inhabitants accordingly. It'd also help explain why Aslan arranged for them to be there.
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The Beavers' sewing machine isn't an anachronism.
- It's an heirloom that's been passed down for countless generations, ever since a sewing needle fell out of Queen Helen's apron pocket on the day Narnia was created and it sprouted out of the ground. It's a Beaver heirloom specifically, because beavers are naturally very interested in trees, and the first he-Beaver and she-Beaver initially mistook it for a strange kind of metal "tree", cut it down, and kept it as a curiosity.
- Alternately, there's nothing to suggest that the world in which Narnia inhabits doesn't follow an Alternate Techline. It's not beyond imagining for (hand-wrought and powered) mechanical devices to be made in a pre-industrial setting, and the fact that Narnia is ruled by early 20th-century Earth humans who might be aware of the machines is certainly likely to mean they are more easily introduced.
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Narnia only even exists when Aslan/Jesus thinks some British Kids need a Vague But Important Moral Lesson.
It's basically a dreamland that he pulls out for special occasions, and in between visits from the Real World it's not even there — any "Narnian history" connecting said visits is made up on the spot. This readily explains the odd entirely-too-Earthlike setting elements, the timeskips, and why Aslan apparently never actually does anything about problems arising in Narnia when there's no visiting human around to bear proper witness and why even when he does show up he spends easily at least as much time flat-out trolling them as he does actually making himself useful. In this universe, being Jewish means thinking there will be a lion worthy of worship in the future, but Aslan isn't it.
Like how Jewish people believe Jesus wasn't the Messiah. Similarly, being agnostic might mean not being sure if Aslan exists, or knowing he exists but not being sure if he's truly magical.. Centered on a crossover
A world is not enough, but it is such a pretty place to start!
Every fictional universe has a Portal Pool in the Wood between the Worlds.
And some of those pools led to multiverses like in the case of DC Comics and Marvel..
Narnia is one of the Discworlds that appear in The Light Fantastic.
Narnia's a disc..
The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia take place in the same continuity
See this..
Aslan created every single world where there are talking animals
Exactly What It Says on the Tin.So, MLP? Yes.
Zootopia? Yes.
All the others?
Blunt "Yes".
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Narnia is in Westeros
Decade-long winters? Please!.
The wardrobe in the first book is a Vanishing Wardrobe
Like a Vanishing Cabinet, but bigger.- But then presumably they'd be able to pop back and forth between Narnia whenever they want.
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- But then presumably they'd be able to pop back and forth between Narnia whenever they want.
Narnia is Armenia, Calormen is Turkey
All of the Narnian names end in 'ian', like Armenian Names. Narnians worship an elusive Lion, who was killed by evil but rose from the dead, while Calormenes worship an idol that they maintain exclusive access to. Narnians are light skinned, while Calormenes are swarthy.- Actually, Telmarine names do, and not even all of them (see the seven lords Caspian sets out to find in Voyage of the Dawn Treader). Before the Telmarine contest of Narnia, there is no such pattern (in part because we do not meet many Narnian humans, admittedly, but that's actually part of the point - Narnians aren't just humans, so what happens to names like Tumnus in your theory?). And perhaps most importantly, if this is true, then why is the Narnian Lion's name Turkish?
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The Nostalgia Chick is actually a grown up Susan Pevensie
- The Nostalgia Critic eludes to this in Suburban Knights . After her presumed real word death as an old woman, it's not out of line to think she was welcomed into Aslan's Country and perhaps 'stole' a silver apple somehow and made her way back into our world where she continued her 'cursed life' as an internet critic.
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The Deplorable Word which destroyed all of Charn is...
...NI!- Aslan, Tash, Susan, and perhaps some of the Telmarines who resettled on Earth are the only characters with any knowledge of Monty Python.
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The Deplorable Word was an analogy for nuclear war.
From the fact that Aslan suggested that one day our world might come up with something akin to the Deloprable Word which would destroy our world.Since the Narnia books were written in The '50s it would probably be around the time that nuclear weapons were becoming a serious concern. The notion of Mutual Assured Destruction might not have been fully formed yet but the idea that weapons so deadly that they would, if used en masse, destroy the world was surely seen as a possibility. And by this point both sides in the Cold War possessed them.
- This one is also confirmed by Word of God.
Charn was The City in the Sea.
- Poe’s poem describes a vast and empty city “lying alone” somewhere far away. Like Charn, the unnamed city is devoid of living things, with the art and treasures of the civilization that created it lying undisturbed in a state of eerie silence and stillness. There isn’t a breath of wind, and the glowing sea the city borders is as still as a “wilderness of glass”. Poe’s city is described as “dim”, full of shadows, and Always Night, like Charn with its dark sky and dying sun. Poe says the city is so evil Hell “will do it reverence” and the place where Death has his throne, looking down from a tower— which fits as a description of the evils of Charn’s empire and its royal family, and its only living inhabitant being Jadis, who brought death to an entire world (and who does stare down at the city from a tower once awakened). The most notable difference between Charn and the city of the poem is that the city (and perhaps world) of Charn seems to be devoid of water, with its river dried up, whereas Poe’s city is on the edge of its Alien Sea.
- However, Poe describes the destruction of his city as something that will happen but hasn’t happened yet, so it may be that the waters of Charn dried up sometime in the centuries or millennia of Jadis’s Suspended Animation. Poe says that when the city of his poem sinks into Hell, motion will break its stillness and it will be bathed in “a redder glow”— which fits with the events of The Magician’s Nephew, when the sun had turned red and the ringing of the bell was the first sound heard in Charn in ages, awakening Jadis and bringing the world’s final doom.
