I’m going to start off this third Summer of Narnia with this Pauline Baynes illustration from The Horse and His Boy that I just found. I assume it wasn’t included in the American edition of the books, because I don’t remember it from my childhood. It shows the moment when the Narnian entourage, headed by …
Yes, it’s the start of a new Summer of Narnia! This is the third one. Stay tuned for more Narnian names, essays, worldbuilding, commentary, and artwork, like the marvelous painting above. Which shows the unshowed final meeting of lion and witch, though she’s more resigned than terrified, and looks like she’s rather enjoying it. But …
It’s not too often that you see an illustration of Narnia where the viewpoint is looking into our world through the wardrobe, not the other way around. It also illustrates how odd this is, in a snowy forest filled with pine trees. Naming Narnian beings is fun for me, so here’s a list of all …
The second Summer of Narnia is drawing to a close, so I’d like to share some more images of my fave magic-using evil Queen, Jadis. First is a B&W rendition by comic artist Sebastian Ericson. Long black hair, grasping, claw-like hands, evil sneer, spiky crown… yum. A section of a video art project about The …
What was the language of Charn like? We know it wasn’t English, because when Digory scans the description on the bell in the Hall of Images, the letters re-arrange themselves into something he can read. (Somehow, Jadis has no trouble speaking English!) So, I made up a language for Charn, a little Assyrian, a …
Here’s a scene that is not depicted too often by artists illustrating The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe — Aslan turning the petrified creatures in the witch’s courtyard back into flesh with his breath.
Now that we’ve examined and dissected both Charn and Jadis, I’d like to backtrack a bit. [ You can read previous parts of this essay here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV ] In this post, I speculated, as some Lewis scholars did, that Charn’s name is derived from the word …
Jadis’s sister and her rival for the throne of Charn was never given a name by Lewis. Some fanfic writers have given her one: Jerza, Jade, Cynara, Emeralas, Katilu. In the same spirit, here are are some randomgenned ones, sticking mostly to the Js, and those reminiscent of gems like Emeralas and Jade are. …
Now we get to what is, for me, one of the most compelling features about Jadis and Charn: The war with her sister. [ You can read previous parts of this essay here: Part I, Part II, Part III ] Lewis doesn’t say if the sister is older or younger, a twin, a half-sister …