Especially in the first book, none of them seem to miss their parents while they're in Narnia, nor do they spare much thought about how much worry they're causing everyone who knows them on Earth. Fortunately, Narnia Time keeps this from being an issue — but they don't know that until they're home again, which for them isn't until years later. This is partially justified, though; if they spent all their time angsting over their family and the world they left behind, they wouldn't get much done.
For that matter, they also don't seem to be particularly bothered by being yanked out of the lives they've built in Narnia or by being reverted to children after having lived as adults, which in reality would probably be a traumatic experience beyond anything imaginable in the real world.
It is centuries in Narnia time before they get back, but Susan seems to be the only one at all sad that their friends and subjects are all dead.
Very few of the children that are sent to Narnia seem to show much reaction to killing other sapient beings for the first time.
Base-Breaking Character: The Pevensie siblings. Fans of the latter books say that Lewis started writing more interesting protagonists as the series kept going and tend to consider the siblings to be boring, uninteresting characters in comparison to the protagonists from the posterior books. On the other hand, they are still very popular characters in the fandom, especially Edmund, who is the most popular character in the series.
Susan is particularly divisive thanks to the events of The Last Battle. Many feel like she was being a jerk for making fun of her sibling's stories of Narnia, while others think she was just trying to be mature and is slut-shamed by the narrative for caring too much about "lipstick and nylons and invitations." Many also feel like her being left outside of Aslan's Country was either justified since she denied his existence or way too cruel for leaving her with all her family dead on Earth.
Crack Pairing: Tirian/Lucy has some following because of Tirian mentioning that once he heard Lucy's voice "he wanted to keep listening to her" even though this is the only exchange they share in the series.
Common Knowledge: Despite the fact that it would be impossible for anyone who has read the books to miss the fact that Narnia is one country out of many in the other world, many people think that Narnia is the other world itself.
Jadis, the White Witch, was born in Charn. Fighting with her sister over her universe, she employed the Deplorable Word, killing all life in it aside from herself. Putting herself into a slumber out of boredom, she is found by Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, the former who she seduces and both of whom she threatens to physically harm, forcing them to take her to London. Finding herself powerless, she decides to commit petty crimes like theft until she is dragged into the nascent Narnia. There, she eats a silver apple, restoring her powers, and seduces Digory again, first with promises of power and then with the ability to save his dying mother. When this fails, she mocks him and leaves to the north, where she spends centuries amassing magical power and creating a tradition of evil witches that would plague Narnia much later. She then marches south and wipes out human beings from Narnia and forbids any from coming there. Installing an Endless Winter, Jadis formed a totalitarian government where dissenters would either be turned into stone or killed outright. On coming across Edmund Pevensie, Jadis seduces him with Turkish Delight as means to rat out his siblings; when he does, she takes him prisoner and even attempts to kill him once she learns Aslan has returned. When Edmund is saved, Jadis appeals to an ancient law stating that traitors are her property, prompting Aslan to sacrifice his own life. Jadis responds by setting up an excruciating and humiliating execution, immediately reneging on her deal.
The Silver Chair: The Lady of the Green Kirtle, or the Green Lady, is a powerful witch with a specialty in Mind Manipulation, a desire to rule over Narnia, and not even an ounce of morality. After arriving in the country, she assassinates the beloved queen. When Prince Rilian comes to avenge his mother, the Green Lady captures him and mind rapes him for six years until he is nothing more than her brain-dead servant and forced husband-to-be. In addition, she performs the same dark magic on gnomes from the Deep Realm, forcing thousands of otherwise good people into being her slaves who are allowed to do nothing but build her underground castle for years. When the heroes arrive in Narnia to try to rescue the Prince, she misdirects them into a pack of man-eating giants, fully intending for the three heroes, two of whom are children, to be brutally murdered and eaten. After the heroes manage to escape and confront her in her lair, she attempts to brainwash them too, only to go ballistic when the hypnosis fails, at which point she tries to kill them and thousands of gnomes and other innocent creatures living underground.
The Last Battle: Shift convinces his "friend" Puzzle to wear a lion skin so he can pass Puzzle off as Aslan. When Calormen invades, Shift is too eager to switch sides and sell out Narnians to mass slavery. Helping to facilitate Calormen, Shift is responsible for the deaths of countless Narnians, including the massacre of the dryads, while plotting to see all of Narnia rot under Calormen as long as he profits.
Prince Caspian tends to be regarded as Sophomore Slump but fans debate to what extent. Some think the book is still great, enjoy the calmer narrative, and think the Caspian flashbacks and the final chapters make up for the weakest parts of the books, others find the book to be dull, takes too much time to get to the plot, and that the Caspian flashbacks fail to create an interesting background or a compelling character.
The Magician's Nephew is either one of the best novels (if not the best) for building on the Narnian mythology, including a beautiful passage on the Creation of Narnia, and being of one of the most character-focused Narnia books, or it relies too much on Fanservice in place of excitement and is inconsistent as a prequel. Aslan is credited with Narnia's creation rather than the Emperor Beyond the Sea as a separate entity, the Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time on the Stone Table is ignored outright, Jadis is a tyrant from a dead world she destroyed rather than a part-giantess, part-djinn pretender to the throne (though the royal family is theorized to have some giant blood even there), the Wardrobe possesses special magic linking it to Narnia, etc. There's also some division about the Christian themes and whether or not they are heartfelt or too on-the-nose and lacking in subtlety compared to prior stories.
Crossover Ship: Some Fan Fiction authors have paired Susan with Maglor Makalaurë, due to both characters being "lost souls" of unknown fates and the sole survivors of their respective families, both being archers, and both having a sort of musical connection (Susan's horn and Maglor being a great singer).
Epileptic Trees: Scholar Michael Ward argues that there is a thematic link between the seven Narnia books and the seven major planets (see Lewis' other best-known work, The Space Trilogy).
Lewis has taken a lot of flak in recent years for his Values Dissonance-laden statement in LWW that "battles are ugly when women fight". But other books do show that Susan and Lucy and Jill Pole are capable fighters and can hold their own in a battle. Consider that the U.S. Military didn't allow women in combat zones until the 1990s, and not in direct combat at all until 2013. Lewis's statement, written in 1950, merely refers to situations in which wars are so terrible and invasive upon the civilian population that women, who would only have been in the civilian (not military) population, are forced to fight for their lives. Replace the word "women" with "civilians" in your mind and it conveys more closely what Lewis actually meant but in a modern context.
Similarly, many have commented on the unfortunate racial language that gets used whenever the Calormines show up, with the generally good and fair skinned Narnians being described as more attractive and the dark skinned Calormines usually being bad guys. This was par for the course for a series written in the 1950s, but modern readers will often miss how "The Horse and His Boy" includes an interracial relationship between Aravis and Shasta that is portrayed as completely normal and positive.
Fanon: A large number of fans believe that the Lady of the Green Kirtle from The Silver Chair is the same person as Jadis the White Witch. Much of this comes from a character sketch for Jadis in later editions of the books (which were not written by Lewis himself) that describes the character as "completely evil, even in The Silver Chair"). For what it's worth, not much is known about the Green Lady's backstory and the only text in the book says that she was one of the "Northern Witches". Another part of the confusion comes from Barbara Kellerman playing both characters in the BBC adaptations of the books. This is ignoring the fact that several other actors doubled up and played multiple characters in different adaptations - and that Kellerman also played the hag in Prince Caspian.
Friendly Fandoms: With fans of The Lord of the Rings, due to both being fantasy written by authors who were close personal friends and both had an intensely Christian worldview (which influenced their works to varying degrees). Interestingly enough, Tolkien, despite his friendship with Lewis, has stated his dislike for Narnia, calling it an illogical pastiche of mythical elements (Lewis, by contrast, was full of nothing but admiration for Tolkien's work).
Gateway Series: Prior to the 2000s explosion of young adult fantasy literature begun by Harry Potter, this series was a routine entry point for fantasy fiction readers in the English-speaking world, and still has a pretty strong presence in the genre.
Glurge: For some readers, the Esoteric Happy Ending of The Last Battle is this, especially concerning the fate of Susan, who ends up losing all her loved ones in one train crash.
Hard-to-Adapt Work: An odd case in that, while several of the individual books have been successfully adapted, and the premise as a whole seems easy enough to adapt on paper, adapting the entire series is actually a lot easier said than done than such a task might look at first glance. For unlike other fantasy works like Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings that have a clear cut protagonist to follow throughout the entire narrative, the narrative of Narnia follows the point of view of multiple different protagonists across multiple books, with some of them appearing as teens or young children in some installments before appearing as adults (and in one case as an elderly man) in other installments; which naturally means that maintaining a consistent straightforward narrative around any one protagonist is difficult. Further not helping matters is that a lot of the primary narrative focus is generally on the world of Narnia itself as opposed to any specific character, which results in a lot of the POV characters either not having any clear arc to their character or having any arcs they do receive fairly swiftly resolved by the end of one or two books, which led to the people behind the film adaptations of Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader forced to try to create brand new arcs for some of the characters in order to prevent them from coming across as Pinball Protagonists.
Harsher in Hindsight: In "Prince Caspian", Susan is generally much more skeptical than in the first book and is also the last of the four siblings to see Aslan (Lucy being the first). This hints towards her eventual denial of both Narnia and Aslan later on.
I Am Not Shazam: In a location variation, Narnia is the main country the stories take place in, not the name of the world itself, although even the characters sometimes get that one all mixed up.
Karmic Overkill: Even those who agree with the narrative about Susan becoming shallow, feel that leaving her behind in Earth with all of her family dying in a train crash was way too harsh of a fate.
Some assume Susan was left out of Heaven due to pursuing "nylons, lipstick, and invitations", i.e. maturing, rather than the fact that she isn't dead yet. Furthermore, In-Universe Jill's and Polly's (and by implication, Lewis's own) opinion was that Susan's notions of "maturity" were, in fact, immature and shallow, as Susan thought "growing up" meant going to parties and gossiping.note In Polly's words, "Grown-up, indeed. I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that way. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of ones's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can." Aslan makes it clear in Prince Caspian that growing up and actually maturing (even leaving Narnia behind for living on Earth) is a good thing. Word of God in a letter from Lewis to a worried reader was that Susan was still alive in England and 'might very well get back to Narnia in her own time and her own way'. In other words, Susan was meant to show how one could turn one's back on Grace. But once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen. Given Lewis's personal history, it's probably safe to say that, to his mind, those who turn away from Aslan get the chance to turn back.
Some fans blame Aslan for not preventing the train crash in The Last Battle or even think he caused it. Others point out that there's no indicator he caused it and that he merely took Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Digory, and Polly at the moment of the crash so they could win the Narnian apocalypse for good and end up in Heaven without enduring the painful, deadly injuries the crash would've inflicted.
Offending the Creator's Own: Despite the series being consciously written as a child-friendly story containing key Protestant Christian concepts, some hardline Protestant critics accuse it of being "pagan" and "occultist" because of its depiction of magic and because supernatural beings from Classical Mythology are depicted sympathetically as members of Narnia's population, such as fauns, centaurs, nymphs, and the other gods like Bacchus and the River God mentioned in addition to Aslan/Jesus.
Once Original, Now Common: Like that other fantasy series written by Lewis' friend, the books nowadays seems like a lot of other books you have probably read in your life: Kids discovering a mysterious pathway to another world, finding their arrival to this strange new world to be predicted in prophecy, some of the residents are pleased to find them, while others want them all dead, and soon everyone embarks on a large adventure to save the world... Many many fantasy novels for kids and even adults have these elements. There is even an entire genre of Japanese media dedicated to these tropes. And as for Biblical references; it's hard to find a modern work that doesn'tdraw fromThe Bible.
Overshadowed by Controversy: Whenever the series, more specifically The Last Battle, is mentioned today, nine times out of ten it'll be about Susan's exclusion from Narnia in that book and little else.
Yes, it's all very wonderful for Peter, Edmund, Lucy, etc. that they get to go to heaven with Aslan and live forever in paradise. But Susan (ignoring any discussions on why) has just had her entire family, including her parents, killed in a horrific accident. May also double as Fridge Horror.
A meta-example is that Lewis wrote The Magician's Nephew so that he could, in fiction, do what he was tragically unable to do in real life: save his mother.
Caspian and Rilian's reunion, as the former lies on his deathbed.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: There are a lot of fans who are very disappointed with how Susan is dismissed from the narrative at the end of The Last Battle and wish that Lewis had followed up on how it would affect her to have her sister, brothers, cousin, and parents killed in the train crash. All Lewis ever said on the subject that we know of is a comment in a letter that she "might find her way into Aslan's Kingdom in the end." He didintend to write one more novel supposedly called Susan of Narnia which would have concluded her story, but nothing came of it before he passed away.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Susan, infamously. While there is more going on with her absence from the ending of The Last Battle than simply an interest in makeup and parties, many readers feel that her failings are not as bad as Lewis intended, and that losing both of her parents and all three of her siblings in a train crash (and the fact that nothing in the book acknowledges how this will affect her) is a disproportionately cruel ending to give the character.
Lewis' attack on secular education in the form of Experiment House may also come across this way to some readers. Though given the nature of the real-life experimental schools on which it was based, whose ideas proved unsuccessful, it's not so much the existence of the school itself as Lewis' particular criticisms of the same (such as mixed-sex education).
In general the series' overt portrayal of Christian themes has prompted something of a backlash in these more skeptical times, as an attempt to "push religion" in the form of popular children's literature. Conversely, whilst Lewis is usually well-regarded in modern evangelical circles, some more fundamentalist typesequally object to aspects of Lewis' theology and pagan elements included in the Narnia stories. The poor man can't catch a break either way.
Some of the central Christian allegory within The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has Unfortunate Implications from a Jewish perspective. The Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time, carved into the Stone Table, condemns every traitor to die by the White Witch's hand; this evidently represents the Law of Moses, carved into stone tablets, and its "eye for an eye" teachings as traditionally understood by Christians. After Aslan (Jesus) sacrifices his life in Edmund's place, the Stone Table cracks, representing the end of the "old covenant" with Christ's sacrifice on the cross. The very idea that the Law of Moses is pitilessly harsh and legalistic, and that Jesus made it irrelevant, has been the basis for centuries of Christian antisemitism, so to see it here, even veiled in allegorical fantasy, can be a serious turnoff for Jewish readers.
Calormenes are a Culture Chop Suey of "Middle Eastern" stereotypes who worship polytheistic Hindu-esque gods (whose main god, Tash, also doubles as the Satan figure to Aslan's Jesus), talk like characters from a flowery Arabic verse translation, and live in a joyless Ottoman-inspired empire whose real-world approach to government and economics is threatening to crush all the fairy-tale joy out of Narnia, all filtered through a British university professor in the tail-end of the Empire. They aren't meant to be completely unsympathetic, but there's no way anyone could get away with creating something like them today without a whole bunch of controversy.
The Professor's assertion, "Oh, you can make your minds easy about that. One has only to look at her and talk to her to see that she is not mad", comes across as uninformed about mental illness, especially the "looking" part. However, during the time the work itself is set, it would have been an almost uncontested medical opinion that the insane had tell-tale or giveaway behaviors. Also, the Professor is implied to be something of an Omnidisciplinary Scientist, and the including of the conversational bit means that he is going off more than just looks. Of course, Digory Kirke has very good reason to know that Narnia is quite real.
The bashing of Harold and Alberta for being vegetarians, non-smokers, and teetotalers. This is considered to be a healthy lifestyle in the 21st century, and at least the first two are completely normal and unremarkable in today's society. Of course Lewis can be interpreted as not so much criticizing those choices, but how the Scrubbs are more about holding to certain fads because they're trendy and lack any real belief in them.
Subjective tropes for the BBC series adaptation as a whole:
Awesome Music: The beautiful theme music, and background animated map of Narnia.
Memetic Mutation: Sophie Wilcox, who played Lucy in the BBC series, says she got lots of comments about being chubby in the first season. She was also described in a 1988 letter to the viewer feedback program “Points of View” as looking like the daughter of Mister and Mrs Beaver because of her buck teeth.
Narm: The first series attempts to turn Aslan's death into a major Tear Jerker. The build-up is sad, but the death sequence is ruined by The White Witch's acting (and the...shall we say, less than stellar animation).
Can't Un-Hear It: Liam Neeson as Aslan was such a perfect casting that it's nigh impossible to reread the books and not read Aslan in a deep, northern Irish-accented voice. Also, Tilda Swinton as Jadis the White Witch.
Mr. Tumnus. He lures a little girl into a small dark cave, lulls her to sleep with a flute, and when she wakes up, he's crying and saying he's been doing something bad.
The White Witch. Wrapping Edmund in her fur with her, being all close, asking Edmund to come to her castle, and to bring his siblings too. Jeez lady, and to only up the creepiness with Edmund, in the third movie, constantly whispering almost seductively, "Edmund, I can make you my King... and much more." Not helped by the out-of-universe fact that Tilda Swinton apparently subtly hit on Skandar Keynes to make Edmund suitably uncomfortable with Jadis.
"Do not cite the deep magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written!" ExplanationA Badass Boast Aslan gives to Jadis after she tries to condescendingly explain a ritual to him. Often quoted in reference to things like continuity debates or rules lawyering. Especially so if it's a Long Runner in question and the user has seniority on the topic
The Lion, The Witch, and the audacity of this bitch. note A reaction image of the the movie's cover and this quote is used whenever someone does something rather disrespectfully bold.
Edmund infamously sells out his family for some Turkish delight, a type of dessert. It's not common or well-known in the US, so when American children read the story or watched the film for the first time, they often assumed it was extremely delicious (if not a made-up magical food) to be worth so high a price — then when they tried it for the first time and learned it was mildly sweet at best, they were horrified at how low Edmund was willing to stoop for such a mediocre treat. note They often forget that the Witch's candy is magically addictive, and that she also promises to adopt Edmund and make him the future king of Narnia if he brings his siblings to her.
Jesus Christ is a lion, get in the Wardrobe! explanation A version of the "Jesus Christ, it's a lion! Get in the car!" meme, but since Aslanis a lion, the line is changed to refer to the wardrobe entrance to Narnia.
Take That, Scrappy!: In the 2005 version, Susan lampshades it makes no sense for Father Christmas to be present on Narnia.
Without knowing he was going later be resurrected, Aslan's death scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The great, proud cat being bound and getting his mane hacked off, knowing he is sacrificing himself for love shows simply how realistic and emotionally well done the death scene was. The parallel too.
The final scene in Prince Caspian when the Pevensies leave. Throughout the movie you see the devastation the four of them have suffered at being ripped from Narnia and back into the normal world. And now they've finally come home again they have to leave. It's utterly heartbreaking and you realize that no matter what anyone says, or how old they grow, they're never going to recover from losing Narnia.
And when Lucy glances back, Narnia's just...gone.
And the music doesn't help either. The lyrics are simultaneously perfect and horribly bitter.
"I'll come back...When you call me...No need to say goodbye...No need to say goodbye...
On a similar vein the end of the The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Lucy and Edmund just look at each other and at the painting, suddenly realizing that's it. No more adventures, no more Aslan, no more magic: they're trapped in the normal world forever.
The end result of storming the castle in the Prince Caspian film is absolutely devastating - particularly the moment in which Peter looks back through the portcullis at the trapped Narnians, and at least one voice is clearly heard calling for him to save himself.
You see the Narnians at the gate, all screaming and trying hopelessly to get out, and you know that each and every one of them is dead. And the look of anguish on Peter's face as he realizes the same thing, and there's nothing he can do about it...
Props also to the brave Minotaur who held the gate open for as long as he could, only to be shot and crushed under its weight - a Heroic Sacrifice which saved many of the heroes, made even more poignant when one remembers that Minotaurs were "evil" in the first movie.
Lucy's goodbye to Aslan in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Made especially more poignant, when you remember that Lucy was the first of those siblings to find Narnia.
Eustace's goodbye to Reepicheep. Considering the development their relationship has had throughout the movie, that scene was heartwrenching.
The simple line from Eustace's narration - "When the war ended and my cousins went home, I missed them"
Unpopular Popular Character: Edmund Pevensie is the biggest example. He's the black sheep of the family in the first book, The Unfavorite and the villainous sibling from the main four, as he betrays his siblings to the big evil and torments and bullies Lucy. He easily becomes most fans' favorite character by the end of the second book and movie. Of course his Heel–Face Turn helps.
Unfortunate Implications from a Jewish perspective. The Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time, carved into the Stone Table, condemns every traitor to die by the White Witch's hand; this evidently represents the Law of Moses, carved into stone tablets, and its "eye for an eye" teachings as traditionally understood by Christians. After Aslan (Jesus) sacrifices his life in Edmund's place, the Stone Table cracks, representing the end of the "old covenant" with Christ's sacrifice on the cross. The very idea that the Law of Moses is pitilessly harsh and legalistic, and that Jesus made it irrelevant, has been the basis for centuries of Christian antisemitism, so to see it here, even veiled in allegorical fantasy, can be a serious turnoff for Jewish readers.
and actually tries to lure her into becoming the most powerful person in the world along with him.
