Terb’s EXPLANATION
The Chronicles of Narnia is a collection of 7 novels written by C S Lewis, which tells the story of various events that happened in the fictional land of Narnia and beyond. For those who have no idea what the books are about or don’t exactly get the reason behind the titles, here’s a brief explanation and a few relevant quotes. Please note that there are a few spoilers here.
Book 1: The Magician’s Nephew (MN)
The magician’s nephew refers to Digory, the main character in this book, who will become Professor Kirke in the next book. Digory is the nephew of Uncle Andrew Ketterley, a minor magician, who was able to make rings that have the power to bring one to the magical world of Atlantis, which was actually the “wood between the worlds.” From this wood, the children – that is, Digory and his neighbor, Polly Plummer – were able to enter the world of Narnia.
“I am the great scholar, the MAGICIAN, the adept, who is doing the experiment.” – Uncle Andrew, from chapter 2 of MN
“But there’s one thing I jolly well mean to say first. I didn’t believe in magic till today. I see now it’s real. Well if it is, I suppose all the old fairy tales are more or less true. And you’re simply a wicked, cruel MAGICIAN like the ones in the stories. Well, I’ve never read a story in which people of that sort weren’t paid out in the end, and I bet you will be. And serve you right.” – Digory, from chapter 2 of MN
Book 2: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (LWW)
The Lion in the title is of course, Aslan, who is the parallel of Jesus in that world. The witch is Jadis (whom we first meet in MN) who used to rule in the dead world of Charn. At the time of this story, Jadis has been known in all Narnia as the white witch, and represents all that is evil in the world. The wardrobe was the way in which the four Pevensies – Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy – were able to enter the world of Narnia.
And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who ASLAN was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning – either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of ASLAN each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer. – from chapter 7 of LWW
“The WHITE WITCH?” said Edmund. “Who’s she?”
“She is a perfectly terrible person,” said Lucy. “She calls herself the queen of Narnia though she has no right to be queen at all, and all the fauns and dryads and naiads and dwarfs and animals – at least all the good ones – simply hate her. And she can turn people into stone and do all kinds of horrible things. And she has made a magic so that it is always winter in Narnia – always winter, but it never gets to Christmas. And she drives about on a sledge, drawn by reindeer, with her wand in her hand and a crown on her head.” – from chapter 4 of LWW
It was like this. The tree which sprang from the apple that Digory planted in the back garden, lived and grew into a fine tree. Growing in the soil of our world, far out of the sound of Aslan’s voice and far from the young air of Narnia, it did not bear apples that would revive a dying woman as Digory’s mother had been revived, though it did bear apples more beautiful than any others in England, and they were extremely good for you, though not fully magical. But inside itself, in the very sap of it, the tree (so to speak) never forgot that other tree in Narnia to which it belonged. Sometimes it would move mysteriously when there was no wind blowing: I think that when this happened there were high winds in Narnia and the English tree quivered because, at that moment, the Narnia tree was rocking and swaying in a strong south-western gale. However, that might be, it was proved later that there was still magic in its wood. For when Digory was quite middle-aged (and he was a famous learned man, a professor, and a great traveler by that time) and the Ketterleys’ old house belonged to him, there was a great storm all over the south of England which blew the tree down. He couldn’t bear to have it simply chopped up for firewood, so he had part of the timber made into a WARDROBE, which he put in his big house in the country. And though he himself did not discover the magic properties of that wardrobe, someone else did. That was the beginning of all the comings and goings between Narnia and our world, which you can read of in other books. – from chapter 15 of MN
Book 3: The Horse and His Boy (HHB)
The horse in the title should get an award for the longest, most interesting name in all Narnia – Breeny-heeny-breeny-hoohy-ha, or Bree for short. He is a Talking Horse who was captured in his youth and was forced to live and work in the distant land of Calormen. Desiring to return to Narnia, he escaped with a boy named Shasta. The reason why the title is “The Horse and His Boy” instead of “The Boy and His Horse” is that Bree pointed out early on to the proud Aravis, the girl who joined them in their escape, that Talking Horses are free Narnians, and so do not belong to anybody.
“Why do you keep talking to my horse instead of to me?” asked the girl.
“Excuse me, tarkheena,” said Bree (with just the slightest backward tilt of his ears), “but that’s Calormene talk. We’re free Narnians, Hwin and I, and I suppose, if you’re running away to Narnia, you want to be one too. In that case Hwin isn’t your horse any longer. One might just as well say you’re her human.” – from chapter 2 of HHB
Book 4: Prince Caspian (PC)
This is the most obvious of all the titles, and needs the least explanation. The book tells of the adventures of Prince Caspian the Tenth, and how he became the rightful king of Narnia against his dangerous Uncle Miraz.
“I wonder you have never asked me before,” said the doctor, “why, being the son of King Caspian, you are not King Caspian yourself. Everyone except your Majesty knows that Miraz is a usurper. When he first began to rule he did not even pretend to be the king: he called himself Lord Protector. But then your Royal Mother died, the good queen and the only Telmarine who was ever kind to me. And then, one by one, all the great lords, who had known your father, died or disappeared. Not by accident, either.” – from chapter 5 of PC
“This is CASPIAN, sir,” he said. And Caspian knelt and kissed the Lion’s paw.
“Welcome, PRINCE,” said Aslan. “Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the kingship of Narnia?”
“I – I don’t think I do, sir,” said Caspian. “I’m only a kid.”
“Good,” said Aslan. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not. Therefore, under us and under the High King, you shall be king of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Emperor of the Lone Islands. You and your heirs while your race lasts.” – from chapter 15 of PC
Book 5: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (VDT)
The title pertains to the adventures of the Dawn Treader, which was the name of the ship that King Caspian built in order to find the seven lords (his father’s friends) who sailed off to the east during the time of Miraz.
“Well,” said Caspian, “that’s rather a long story. Perhaps you remember that when I was a child my usurping Uncle Miraz got rid of seven friends of my father’s (who might have taken my part) by sending them off to explore the unknown eastern seas beyond the Lone Islands.”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “and none of them ever came back.”
“Right. Well, on, my coronation day, with Aslan’s approval, I swore an oath that, if once I established peace in Narnia, I would sail east myself for a year and a day to find my father’s friends or to learn of their deaths and avenge them if I could. These were their names – the Lord Revilian, the Lord Bern, the Lord Argoz, the Lord Mavramorn, the Lord Octesian, the Lord Restimar, and – oh, that other one who’s so hard to remember.”
“The Lord Rhoop, sire,” said Drinian.
“Rhoop, Rhoop, of course,” said Caspian. “That is my main intention.” – from chapter 2 of VDT
The name of the ship was DAWN TREADER. She was only a little bit of a thing compared with one of our ships, or even with the cogs, dromonds, carracks and galleons which Narnia had owned when Lucy and Edmund had reigned there under Peter as the High King, for nearly all navigation had died out in the reigns of Caspian’s ancestors. When his uncle, Miraz the usurper, had sent the seven lords to sea, they had had to buy a Galmian ship and man it with hired Galmian sailors. But now Caspian had begun to teach the Narnians to be sea-faring folk once more, and the Dawn Treader was the finest ship he had built yet. She was so small that, forward of the mast, there was hardly any deck room between the central hatch and the ship’s boat on one side and the hen-coop (Lucy fed the hens) on the other. But she was a beauty of her kind, a “lady” as sailors say, her lines perfect, her colours pure, and every spar and rope and pin lovingly made. – from chapter 2 of VDT
Book 6: The Silver Chair (SC)
The silver chair in the title pertains to the magical chair which was used by the Lady of the Green Kirtle, also called the Queen of the Underland or the Emerald Witch. She had the enchanted Prince Rilian, who was the son of King Caspian the Tenth, tied down on this chair during the hour when the enchantment was lifted and he returned to his right mind.
“The knight was seated in a curious SILVER CHAIR, to which he was bound by his ankles, his knees, his elbows, his wrists, and his waist. There was sweat on his forehead and his face was filled with anguish.” – from chapter 11 of SC
The instant the prisoner was free, he crossed the room in a single bound, seized his own sword (which had been taken from him and laid on the table), and drew it.
“You first!’ he cried and fell upon the SILVER CHAIR. That must have been a good sword. The silver gave way before its edge like string, and in a moment a few twisted fragments, shining on the floor, were all that was left. But as the chair broke, there came from it a bright flash, a sound like small thunder, and (for one moment) a loathsome smell.
“Lie there, vile engine of sorcery,” he said, “lest your mistress should ever use you for another victim.” – from chapter 11 of SC
Book 7: The Last Battle (LB)
The title pertains to the final battle in the history of Narnia, which was between the Calormene army and the Narnians who fought on the side of King Tirian. It is the darkest story in the series, but has the most beautiful ending.
There stood his heart’s desire, huge and real, the golden Lion, Aslan himself, and already the others were kneeling in a circle round his forepaws and burying their hands and faces in his mane as he stooped his great head to touch them with his tongue. Then he fixed his eyes upon Tirian, and Tirian came near, trembling, and flung himself at the Lion’s feet, and the Lion kissed him and said, “Well done, last of the kings of Narnia who stood firm at the darkest hour.” – fom chapter 13 of LB
Then the moon came up, quite in her wrong position, very close to the sun, and she also looked red. And at the sight of her the sun began shooting out great flames, like whiskers or snakes of crimson fire towards her. It is as if he were an octopus trying to draw her to himself in his tentacles. And perhaps he did draw her. At any rate she came to him, slowly at first, but then more and more quickly, till at last his long flames licked round her and the two ran together and became one huge ball like a burning coal. Great lumps of fire came dropping out of it into the sea and clouds of steam rose up.
Then Aslan said, “Now make an end.” – from chapter 14 of LB
Greetings all, I’m Amin Abdullah. That’s one of my favorite sites in the url field. Having only purchased the last battle late last year and being that I’m looking at it in a different way, I may have missed the point. So as not to spoil it for anyone else I’ll paste in the part I’m referring to and this is the part that most bothers me.
“Then the moon came up, quite in her wrong position, very close to the sun, and she also looked red. And at the sight of her the sun began shooting out great flames, like whiskers or snakes of crimson fire
towards her. It is as if he were an octopus trying to draw her to himself in his tentacles. And perhaps he did draw her. At any rate she came to him, slowly at first, but then more and more quickly, till
at last his long flames licked round her and the two ran together and became one huge ball like a burning coal. Great lumps of fire came dropping out of it into the sea and clouds of steam rose up.
Then Aslan said, “Now make an end.” – from chapter 14 of LB”
True I did not look at this as most would but here goes. Why allow or interfere in the death or annihilation of an object that has been personified? Why personify something that has no chance to live? In 1 way you could look at the sun and the moon as lovers where by the sun calls his beloved the moon and brings her to him but at the very moment that they touch, the force of their bodies coming together makes parts of themselves weaker and thus the ‘fire’ falls out of their combined bodies and neither one is capable of rescuing those lost parts and thus they dye. Then to make it worse, the giant playing the part of the predator couldn’t leave the lovers alone and even though they died together, they had no chance to say goodbye. I also realized that when the ’sun’ and ‘moon’ were young, they never touched, they never came near one another maybe because they were forbidden to do so. Finally, I believe if the living no longer wanted Narnia, then why not give it over to someone who did want it? Why kill it off instead of handing it over to another?
Well these are some of my thoughts but it just makes no sense in ending things in that way. If it were real but of course it isn’t, I would have taken it over and gladly so to spare the world that is no longer needed by others. I would give it a chance to live even though it be devoid of animal, human and other life forms other than vegetation.
This is a very interesting thought, Amin, which I never considered before. Thanks for posting your comment!
Greetings again! Well there’s more to this than I first thought. Looking back, there seems to be a multitude of problems with how things ended. Not only was it anticlimactic but the problem of time, space and energy. If you go to http://www.universetoday.com and look at how supernovas work, their endings are much more spectacular. Colorful explosions, immense energy being released, the power of a trillion suns combined I believe and the heat is very intense. Enough to melt near by planets. If you want to kill off a world, don’t crush anything or make it implode, rather create a massive build up of energy and release it in 1 massive blast or a series of blasts causing a chain reaction. If you still want to compress or implode, create a black hole where heat, light, matter and antimatter cannot escape.
I understand that the sun was actually smaller than the world it shone on and may not have been powerful enough to have hydrogen burning at it’s core thus some weaker material would have had to be used unless magic was combined with that weaker material. I also understand that the sun wasn’t considered to be a star but a planet and the moon was considered to be a planet in it’s own right with a rocky body and the atmosphere of all 3 bodies was encased by a dome. That means, even if you went beyond the narnian sky, you would still be able to breathe. Because Narnia was a magical world, the laws governing that place would be slightly different so it’s possible for that life could be sustained by a weaker sun.
Then time was seriously messed up. What I found was that if time was unaltered, then the end of the narnian world would have taken place in 12 to 24 hours. That means that before that time, the sun still had thousands of years left to sustain life. Also, the time giant didn’t actually do very much except for playing the horn and destroying the sun. At least that’s how it looks like on the surface. So what actually happened there? How did the sun lose so much energy in only 24 hours? According to the book itself, some parts of the ending of the world seemed to take place in a few minutes and other parts seemed to take years. So either time was stretched, compressed and shaped to allow those events to happen in that time frame and the sun was for some reason held back or it really did happen in 12 to 24 hours and the sun just rose in it’s normal time like any other day but the perceptions of the people was changed so they believed that those events took thousands of years. Also I noticed that life and death was significantly sped up so the decaying of the bodies of the strange creatures may have happened over a matter of minutes or even seconds. Also, how did Narnia come to amass so much water that it covered the whole world? The only way for that to happen is if half of it’s water was in it’s atmosphere just like in the bible in Noah’s time. However, it did not rain at that time and unless water came out from under the rock then I have no other way of explaining it.
Another question also comes to mind. In this time distortion stretching period, let’s for a moment assume that it took more than 24 hours for this argument to work. During the span of millennia, it seemed like the sun was being held back from rising at it’s normal time until the water flooded the world and the sun was weak enough to dye. My question is, who or what held the sun back? Where was it when it was being weakened? I understand it also grew in size as well so what was actually happening ‘off screen’ so to speak? Since the world was magical, it could sustain itself indefinitely so someone would have had to actually destroy it.
Aslan did say to his friends that he had some work to do before actually calling to the time giant to wake up. So he was actually the one who destroyed the world but he had to do it in such a way that the others would think it happened naturally! He got the giant to call everyone home. That’s the good part and the only part I’m okay with. He didn’t want anyone to be destroyed and the bad guys fait isn’t known. The part I’m not okay with is when he held back the sun from rising. He intentionally weakened it to make it dye and okay, let’s personify again, the sun had no choice but to commit suicide. Being in love with the moon, how could he not call and bring her over? How could she not comply? They waited so long to be together and this was their chance. Unfortunately, the sun was old and his time was running out. The sun, excited by the moon’s presence, brought her up to him so they could embrace for the last time. They knew however that the moment would be all too brief hence the reason why the sun made everything look red. I would be angry and sad to if I were to embrace my lover for a brief moment only to be ripped away in my final moment. I believe that’s what happened with the sun and moon. Still rebelling, still fighting death even though there was no hope and because they have no souls, they knew they wouldn’t exist after that. There would be no afterlife for them.
So I ask you, what evil is so great that it would destroy love in such a manor? Who would be brave enough to do that and then be able to look at themselves in the mirror later? Is there any justice in the Narnian world? I also understand that the giant was used like a tool, forced to kill mindlessly like a zombie and the thanks he gets? He’s rewarded by not being allowed to enter through the door where all the other people are. He’s forced to stay out in the cold, drab world with nothing to do but kill.
So you can imagine how I feel about all this. Maybe I shouldn’t read too much into it. Maybe I should just loosen up but how can I ignore such blatant cruelty? How can I ignore such horror? If I could do something about it, I surely would. If anyone opens a narnian mud, then please let me know. Mud stands for multi user dungeons like a text adventure but online. Anything, any info would be greatly appreciated. Please also Email me at brotheramin@hotmail.com for a quicker response. My thanks to you all!!!
Hmm… Thanks again for the comment but I kinda feel that you’re missing the point though…
Greetings Rinette, it’s Amin again. Here’s another of my favorite sites in the url field.
I guess I did miss the point but for the life of me, I can’t see past this total lack of compassion or was it compassionate? Please explain further so that I can understand. I’ve read it again a few more times and I still can’t see past this loss and missed opportunity. I wish I could understand.
Tell you the truth, there should be a discussion group on this because now it’s going beyond commenting and turning into a fully blown debate. Anyway, any assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated. Help me to see what you see please. There must be another way but what way is that?