The Creation of Narnia Was Surprisingly Thirsty
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- čas přidán 16. 12. 2021
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Returning to The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis. The Magician's Nephew proves he was ahead of his time when it comes to simping for 7-foot tall women.
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I love how the animals are so confused by Uncle Andrew that they decide he's a tree and that the reason he's fainted is because he's wilting, so they plant him (fortunately feet-first) and then water him.
Wasn't there a debate about weather or not his head or feet were the roots?
They then decide that he's a pet, and name him "Brandy" after the noise he makes the most.
The third joke! The third joke! The third joke!
@@Beacuzz Yes, he has wild grey hair which some animals think looks like the roots of plants, but they ultimately decide that his feet are like tree roots.
They tried!
Dom cosplaying as Jadis walking through the crumbling castle scene was chef's kiss of awesome.
Pausing to put on shades was PRICELESS
Oh i loved it so much
Yeah, but that lipstick does nothing for him
I love every scene of him cosplaying as Jadis, I mean I can’t blame him, Jadis is one of the most bad ass villains.
@@theloverlyladylo9158 look, lipstick is hard
I'm with you, Dominic, the message of "Unquestioningly Obey Kitty-Jesus" flew over my 10 year old head when I read this series and I was left with an overwhelming impression of "Be Brave, Be Independent, Santa Will Give You A Longsword As A Reward"
He did manage to install in me a healthy skepticism of boarding schools though, for which I am grateful.
The message tends to become blurred because the pov characters are children, children are expected to obey grown - ups, and Aslan is a grown - up.
@@alanpennie8013 Aslan may have been a "grown up", however as a kid he didn't strike me as such because he didn't seem to talk down as obviously. I mean, it was more like a king to his subjects versus an adult to children. (Which in retrospect, kind of leans into "Jesus is King" territory.)
I've always loved how Polly was just happily single all her life despite having a best friend who was a guy. More power to her!
*insert "Good for her" meme*
Need more exclusively platonic man-woman relationships in fiction
@@WiseSageBum can I ask whenever someone says they want more platonic relationships with men and women
are also the same people who say same sex romantic relationships in fiction?
@@reynellfreeman8761 Usually yeah
I mean, I'm bi and don't see nearly enough man-man relationships
Not saying there should be fewer straight romances, but it would add more variety to have more hetero platonic and queer romantic relationships
@@reynellfreeman8761 Because variety is good and both those things are lacking. You'll really see a gay couple in a book or movie that aren't written specifically to be the gay characters, and you'll never see male and female best friends that don't hook up.
The Horse and His boy is the most interesting of the books, in my opinion because the story is entirely around people FROM the world of Narnia (different countries, same universe) so we get some great lore in there.
Plus as a woman of colour, when I was a kid I really loved that there was a brown girl at the centre of the story as a protagonist. That was pretty rare for children’s books at the time.
I love Aravis. She's one of my favorite characters in the whole series.
I love Aravis as well. She is a really well rounded character, who is admirable, intelligent, and goes through good character development.
I also love Lewis's quip at the end that Shasta and Aravis got so used to quarreling and making-up over and over that "they got married, in order to go on doing it more conveniently."
Agreed, Horse is easily top 3 Narnia in my eyes with the Silver Chair and Dawn Treader. Yes I'm aware that's an odd combo, but they were the three I preffered as a kid thanks to the villain of SC and the creative island hopping that was the One Piece of its time that was DT. Then it's Lion, then Caspian, which are varying degrees of still pretty good, and then there's Last Battle which is just outright awful. Didn't mention the prequel as while I'm sure I read it I think I was so entirely lost by it at the time that everything Dom said was entirely new to me.
@@stryke-jn3kv I actually (Mostly) like the Last Battle. It's not perfect but Last Battle and Silver Chair blew my little mind growing up as a highly religious kid between 'Hey, what is your morality like, without the promise of heaven?' in Silver Chair and 'Being a good person is independent of your faith', which are not things religious kids are normally encouraged to think about.
@@ikiry0830 Plus The line Lucy says, “where we come from, a stable ones contain something larger than our whole world.“
In regard to healing Diggory's mother, that was probably a form of wish fulfillment because Lewis' own mother died of cancer when he was young in the way that some authors write what you might call a fix fic for reality in their stories (in their minds at least).
+
I do get the impression that Diggory was closest ta an author avatar of all the Chronicle characters.
It also stuck with me how Aslan explains that he still would have despaired - "If you'd stolen the fruit and given it to her, it would have healed her, but then it would turn out that things would have been better had she died." Even with the miracle cure, he has to believe that there was a reason things turned out the way they did - which is vital, since Lewis said that it was losing his mother and God not helping that was the catalyst for him losing his faith as a kid, and he probably needed to temper his wish fulfillment with "it could have been so much worse."
That's heartbreaking! I don't blame him!
@@Logitah Friendly reminder: Even Dominic is a Fan of Hbomberguy, as he once said.
No mention of the actual guinea pigs that the guy sent into the in between world with the yellow rings on their backs and just chilling and eating grass? I always found that bit kinda amusing.
I liked when the kids were like, "...yeah they've got it MADE, let's just leave them."
40,000 years later the Wood Between The Worlds has evolved into the Warp and guinea pigs into the Chaos Gods.
I came to the comments specifically looking for the guinea pigs.
I love how mad Digory got with uncle Andrew for sending those guinea pigs and Polly to do his cowardly deeds.
I remember being scarred by Andrew's blithe comments about the horrible fate of some of those guinea pigs ("some of them only died, some of them exploded like little bombs"). I had a pet guinea pig, I had absolutely no sense of humor about that.
Should we be worried that Dom felt that the doom-laden bell that resurrected the Satan-like White Witch was the perfect allegory for subscribing to him?
...considering that Dom liked my above comment, I think we should worry. 😱
Well, technically CZcams seems to push ringing bells on to creators at the risk of their videos not reaching subscribers so really the villain here is the algorithm ;) /light hearted.
I lost it at "It's working! Switch!" "Cheerio, a****!" to the Star Trek transporter sound effect, and his 'Well, I.. NEVER'. LOL!!
I swear that was one of the best Dom Skit Inserts XD
Beam me up, Aslan
The only reason I didn’t burst out laughing out loud was because I was watching this in my work’s breakroom
But yeah, one of Dominic’s best sketches EVER
@@katherineperrin4817 I did and had to pause it, then go back and listen to it a few more times before I could get it out of my system and move on. Same with the White Witch rap. I am officially adopting, "Cheerio, a***!"
Friendly reminder: Even Dominic is a Fan of Hbomberguy,
as he once said.
The funny part: according with the rules of the land, the White Wich was deemed unworthy to rule because she was too "soft" for the role.
Let me rephrase that, the White Wich, who pretty much became another world's analogue to the Devil, was "the good sister", one can only imagine how the standard for evil was actually like.
Well, everybody was dead in that world.
Reading Lewis' autobiography now and can confirm he had a miserable time in boarding schools, and these were contrasted with his childhood in the country of Ireland.
I'd encourage people to read Roald Dahl's autobiography, _Boy_ and _Going Solo_, where he had a similarly terrible time a decade or so later. Plus, they're fantastic, particularly the latter.
@@hjalfi TIME TO REMOVE THEM TONSILS !
@@DecoyBlackMage I'd forgotten that bit. Er, thanks?
Apparently there was a lot of this going around boarding schools at the time, but yes, Lewis had an absolutely hellish time at one boarding school where the headmaster was physically abusive and another where it was basically Lord of the Flies, but the adults were there thoroughly approving of the older, stronger boys running roughshod over anyone they could bully.
@@NinjaGidget That latter practice was actually the philosophy behind British boarding schools of the time, and fairly widespread. Its called "f**ing" (yes, the same word as the slur)
Imagine if they made a Magician's Nephew adaptation today. We would be awash in Jandrew smut, and memes of Jadis surfing a speeding carriage, dripping in stolen jewels ("When Karen is convinced you're her Uber.")
Damn, I woulda loved that. Truly we live in the darkest timeline.
Someone really needs to take another shot at the Narnia books and adapt the entire series this time.
I don't usually like books with religions undertones, but C. S. Lewis really just said "fuck it I'll make Jesus a main character" and that is honestly so funny, I can forgive the religious messages.
Well, it's better than Empress Theresa. Speaking of which, would you rather have Dom reread the entire Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, or read Empress Theresa, the bane of fellow CZcams book reviewer Krimson Rogue?
Maybe it's because Lewis is a better writer, maybe it's because he lived a life having been both a devout Christian and Atheist that he can understand, or maybe it's because Lewis knew he was writing in a very jaded, cynical world that had endured 2 world wars and as such found a way to make the religious message stick without being a bungling hamfisted propagandist like so many other religious authors
@@Tadicuslegion78 or a hypocrite
I agree for the first 4 books, but _The Last Battle_ was too preachy and mean-spirited for me to enjoy it.
@@MalloonTarka Aslan: Now Susan, even though you’re being a perfectly normal teenager in post war Britain, I cast you out of my country and you don’t get to die in a train wreck with everyone else
The singing Aslan part cured my depression, watered my crops and cleared my skin. The BossBitch montage also got a ripe old giggle out of me.
You are seriously one of my fav channels on youtube, Dom! Thank you for all the hard work making these amazing videos
Interestingly, that is how the indigenous people of Australia explain the creation. The geographical features are "songlines," left over when the creator-beings sang them into existence. A walkabout is meant to follow the songlines. I do not know if Lewis was aware of their mythology.
I bet C.S. was shooting ideas with J.R.R. at the pub with that one. 😛
Lewis’s mother died of cancer when he was a child. It’s likely that he had Diggory’s mother recover as he had wished had happened in his own life. (He was also sent away from the country into a miserable boarding school after his mother’s passing)
That is actually quite sad, it makes this plot point very bittersweet.
That might explain the beginning and ending of the silver chair on the boarding school bit
I understand that he was very close to his mother.
I liked how the creation magic was so thick in Narnia that anything you planted would just start growing. Diggory planted some toffees he had in his pocket and they grew into a toffee fruit tree 🌳
Remembering that now actually made me hopeful. Thank you.
I also remember when some coins fell out of Uncle Andrew's pockets, they grew into a silver tree and a gold tree, which Aslan used to make crowns for the new King and Queen.
@@TellyKNetic Silver and gold trees at the beginning of the world? Sounds quite similar to the Silmarillion.
@@LordVader1094 considering CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were best friends, it might not be just a coincidence
@@LordVader1094they probably exchanged notes.
You forgot my favorite lines in the book. A goose or a duck asks "can I make the first joke" aslan the savage then tells the creature "you are the first joke"
The talking animals are particularly delightful in this book. I also ADORE the discussion they have where they decide Uncle Andrew is a tree and have trouble deciding which way up to plant him.
I can't. I can't. Aslan singing just killed me. It's been five minutes and I'm still laughing. :D
That was also my fave part of the video!!
Same! I haven't even FINISHED the video! I have been stuck at this point for about 10 minutes 😂😂😂😂😂💀
Omg SAME, I was/am cackling XD
The power of Vitas…
I think Lewis might’ve borrowed that one from Tolkien. (Yes, Middle-earth is also sung into existence.)
Actually, the reason for Aslan giving Diggory a magic apple to save his mother is really depressing: Lewis' mother actually died when he was a child from cancer, and so this scene is basically Lewis intentionally indulging in some wish fulfillment over getting his mother back.
I remember Andrew being by far the most entertaining character in the book. He's a pretentious egomaniac whose entire role is to get humiliated in cartoony fashion over and over and it never stops being funny.
My favourite part was when the animals thought he was a new plant species and tried tending to him as such
Him getting planted headfirst in the ground because the Narnian animals thought he was a tree absolutely slayed me.
And all of the animals thinking of ways to help him like a bear giving him honey and I think a donkey gives him a thistle
@@tenkenroo And there are still bees in the honey which sting him I think
@@annamidkiff2460
You are correct.
It isn't actually stated that Andrew got stung in his face but it's definitely implied.
4:28 It's occurring to me that there's a fair bit of stranger-dangering in the Narnia series. Uncle Andrew and Polly, Jadis and Edmund, even Tumnus and Lucy even though Tumnus turns out to not fundamentally be a bad dude. All things considered, telling kids that they shouldn't trust adult strangers who try to sweet-talk them and give them presents and possibly-drugged food is a pretty good moral for a children's series to have.
And in the silver charge with the snake lady and prince Caspian's son
That was probably the intent, but I fear kids might get the wrong idea and see stranger danger as an inciting incident for cool adventures to be had, which is pretty scary to think about XD
The problem is that stranger danger tends to get widened out to "don't talk to people you don't know period" which is a really shitty and possibly dangerous message to give kids. Not talking to an adult if a kid gets lost is kind of dumb, for example. It also demonizes people who have done nothing wrong and would not, in fact, pose a danger to the kid. I got lost a handful of times as a kid, and ended up being okay on a number of occasions specifically BECAUSE I ignored the whole stranger danger message and talked to an adult.
In second grade while reading to my class Lion/Witch/Wardrobe, my teacher actually name-checked "stranger danger", though I can't remember if it was for Edmund or Lucy.
@@frankm.2850 that is definitely something to consider but you can't know how well meaning a stranger can be, if you're unlucky enough to ask help to the one molester around you're a prime target for kidnapping or some shit.
The White Witch decided to reign free around London, causing as much chaos as she could and also has plenty of sweets at her disposal, or at least conjures them out of thin air. In this context, she sounds quite similar to an alien invader. Or Doctor Who.
I mean Doctor Who does invade places all the time. He just usually leave fairly quickly an nobody really notices.
@@morganrobinson8042 I'm not sure "invade" has quite the right connotations. He's more like the proverbial mother-in-law inviting herself round for tea.
@@rmsgrey Jadis *does* seem like a pretty archetypal Doctor Who villain, though. Down to coming from a dying, apocalyptic world.
Dude now I'm thinking of that old William Hartnell serial (that was originally shown at Christmastime!) in which at one point, the Doctor is just like "F*CK it" and flat out tells people: "I'm an alien time traveller. These are my companions, they travel through time with me" and I'm just dying on the floor... It was SO REFRESHING! (The episode is "The Feast of Steven", from 1965.)
@@rmsgrey Are you saying a mother in law inviting herself over doesn't feel like being invaded?
One of my favorite things about this prequel is that one bit from Lion, Witch and Wardrobe fits in PERFECTLY with this. When Aslan allows the White Witch to execute him and then resurrects, he explains to Susan and Lucy that the Witch’s knowledge goes back only to the Dawn of Time. But there is a deeper magic from BEFORE the Dawn of Time that gives him a handy out clause. Here, we see that’s exactly what happens - Jadis arrives at Narnia’s birth, not before. That’s a really nice touch.
I couldn't care less about everything after Dawn Treader but I would dearly love to see a Magician's Nephew adaption complete with Tilda Swinton Jadis and Liam Neeson Aslan. Bonus, so no actor age difficulties; no returning kid characters, Aslan's CGI and Tilda Swinton hasn't aged in 30 years.
😆😆😆
She really hasn't 🤫😂
I would watch the HELL out of that. :)
They were going to do an adaption of it in 2011 probably for the reasons you described [and they did shoehorn Tilda Swinton into the other 2 Narnia films] but it was cancelled the same year. I imagine any new Narnia adaption would be a complete re-boot of the whole series with a new cast but you never know.
And Neeson's voice ages like a fine wine
I am a Christian, therefore if I die laughing over "FLOOF JESUS," it is totally ok. 10/10 approved, even. Best way to die. XDDD
As a post-christian, this could be what turns me on to christianity again. Lol.
We will go to heaven, and he'll show up in a lion hat because he INVENTED a sense of humour
@@Midorikonokami Why does that sound familiar
@@Midorikonokami Chortling like an idiot at this comment! :D
A fluffy, huggable Christ allegory? Yes please!
When Aslan started "singing things into existence" my soul officially left my body. I'm still crying from laughing so hard.
It worked for Tolkien in The Silmarillion, so why not?
@@NotoriousLightning Apparently the Magician’s Nephew also had gold and silver trees lol
I bet he was singing "Crazy World"
A God figure sings into existence the universe, I wonder where I've heared that before.
I laughed so hard I think I spat out a chunk of a lung
"I don't think the Horse and his Boy is GOING anywhere." was such a sick burn
I mean, would anyone really be upset if he didn't do it?
@@ZakanaHachihaCBC yes. It's the best one
I know I've read it, beyond recognizing the title and a vague recollection of the cover, don't recall a thing about it though
@@ryuj7693 I have quite the opposite for that.
It’s like super uneventful from my recollection. All I remember is the horse and the boy are getting up to Narnia, and the boy being a body double for a prince who is actually a long lost twin.
Voyage and Last Battle are more memorable and better IMO.
@@ZakanaHachihaCBC voyager had zero staying power for me, literally can only remember it exists because of Dom. And Last Battle was a hot mess that has the sole redeeming feature of not being The Silver Chair.
The Aslan singing Narnia into existence gag was solid gold
Doing the books out of order is no problem whatsoever. They weren't written chronologically, and most of them only exist as spinoffs of the first one because Lewis' fans demanded more Narnia.
Can't believe CS Lewis started the MCU
I'm afraid the last bit cannot be true; Lewis had written at least four of them by the time _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ hit bookstore shelves.
@@danielcopeland3544
So it appears.
Seven chronicles in seven years.
Lewis certainly had no trouble coming up with stories about Narnia.
He wrote a book for every planet, symbolically, it is said, and started with his favourite planet, Jupiter.
Maybe much more of a plan than many credit him for.
@@Amsayy Technically he created the NBU (Narnia Book Universe).
The edit of Aslan singing the world into was so f*cking hilarious, well done sir 👏👏👏
What is the song, been trying to find a short that uses it.
@@peacemaker63604
I think it might be out of Shrek
Edit: or any other animated movie :/? (Rio)... I don't know and hope I didn't threw you of the trail
"I don't think The Horse and His Boy is going anywhere." I don't know why, but this made me laugh out loud. Also, I remember as a kid really digging the creation magic stuff like the lamp post. The idea of planting anything and it immediately growing was so cool to me.
"Growing up as a young lamp post".
So happy to have a forum to talk about the unadapted Chronicles.
turns out, most of the book is them going to a place
Oh, me too! And to realize it was THE lamppost was incredible. This is why those dingbat publishers who put it first in the series make me so angry.
@@grumpyotter
Putting the sixth Chronicle first was very Star Wars.
@@alanpennie8013 ROFL! Shortly after ROTS came out, I did a double-take when i saw a guy who looked like George Lucas. He saw me notice him and said, "You're about to ask me why I ruined Star Wars, aren't you?"
I read this book in middle school, and I did not remember it being that wild. Also I would watch a whole hour of "It's the White Queen Bitch"
I had forgotten all about it but things quickly came back to me as I watched and the comments brought up more. I might have to reread this one and The Horse and His Boy sometime soon. :)
Diggorys curiosity killed the cat, but being literally Jesus brought it back
"I've put something way more subtle in the thumbnail"
Jokes on you Dom, Giant women are all the rage these days ever since Lady D entered our lives.
and since this is the internet, she's presently hotter than hotcakes
That’s the joke, yes
Giant women were always all the rage, RE:Village just made them mainstream.
I think this was my favourite book in the series! The idea of a dying world full of monumental ruins but completely devoid of organic life with an old, red sun casting its last rays... it was so captivating it stayed with me for decades.
Some souls are not human.
They remember if even in glimpses like a flitting dream, past lives on worlds beyond.
Mine i have seen the purple grass, and the crystal towers shining like gossamer needles the sky so blue it looked like a painting.
I saw how that world died.
Me too!
I really like the scenes in Charn; Jadice's description of the war and what she did to end it is chilling stuff, and it's such a stark and striking world.
I also liked the note that once Polly, Diggory and Jadis leave the pool dries up, as with Jadis there there's nothing left living in that universe and it presumably ceases to exist.
That is totally one of the parts of that book that stuck with me the most. Not only is everything crumbling and the PEOPLE (almost) all dead, but THE WORLD ITSELF. Like, the sun was going red giant and everything. It feels like suddenly you got your sci-fi in my fantasy, and actually I'm just fine with that. :)
My only gripe is I wish we had gotten more of its history. The scenes never felt rushed but it always left me wanting to know more about The cities, the People’s, the magic, and the warfare that give rise to the best evil lady.
Judin
An allegory for atomic weapons.
Aslan points this out pretty explicitly at the end.
I loved it when she tries using the Deplorable Word at the aunt, but Charn's magic doesn't work outside of Charn, so the aunt just thinks she's some drunk crazy person Andrew's dragged in.
I haven't read this book in well over a decade, but the Wood Between the Worlds and the ruins of Charn are still such vivid images in my brain. This book served as the inspiration for a lot of paintings I've done over the years. I always liked the ambiguity about the bell, too. Digory says he thinks there's some magic over it that will make them go mad with curiosity if they don't ring it, and Polly's like, "Shut up, you're just making up BS because you want to ring it." But like, he could be right?? We don't really know, but putting a curse like that on the bell definitely seems like something Jadis would do.
Yep. I still remember the descriptions of the Wood Between Worlds being this immense and utterly quiet forest with an infinite number of ponds and trees. And how the kids almost forgot about their lives and just fell asleep at that place because it was so peaceful.
And Charn had this old, dying sun that shone over a world that was equally decrepit and full of ruins. Truly post-apocalyptic. And the magic word Jadis used to kill everyone in her world is basically a WMD, with I think Aslan saying that humans should be careful because they were toying with powers just as dangerous. The book was published in 1955, well after the invention of the atomic bomb so draw your own conclusions there.
@@fpedrosa2076 we must all he’d the warning. World War II and the threats of even more destructive weapons were always in the back of the mind when reading several of the books in the series.
Aslan later guides Digory to reveal that there wasn't any magic in the bell, and Aslan confirms this is true. But I think it IS a kind of magic. What if they hadn't rung the bell and had left Charn to go visit another world? Millions of readers would have been screaming for his blood at not revealing what would have happened. It's the "magic" of curiosity. Or curse, if you like.
The giving the apple to his mother thing hit me so much harder after i learned that CS lewis lost his mother early on as well and this book is basically, but what if i was able to get a magic apple that could have saved her life?
Especially since the nice professor, aka Diggory, was his self-insert in the books. The books go as far as saying that Diggory never married, something Lewis hadn't done either when writing this book. It's very interesting. In both the story and the meta, he becomes the reason the Pevency children are able to enter Narnia for the first time.
This! It makes the temptation of Diggory on the mountain of the apple orchard more poignant too - you can just feel Lewis' childhood pain in D's struggle to stick by his promise & not just take what seems like the easy way out...
@@Javajavajav I hear he loved his short-lived wife very fiercely. It's very tragic. He seems to have been a lovely person, judging from his books and treatment of his goddaughter
Your description of books is just a joy to listen to.
Nice profile pic
Dom casually strutting through a collapsing CGI building while dressed as the White Witch is not something I ever would have thought that I needed in my life. I guess you learn something new every day.
Dom rocks dresses way more than he should and I love it every time he dresses up.
Walking down the hall way to the rap song, donning shades, made me swoon
Yes , i wonder if a new romance category will come up 😃
That walk and those shades were something I didn't know I needed in my life until now!!! And that bite of the apple ;)
I love the progressively angry statues he did, it was hilarious!!!
I love how the dom doesn't take himself to seriously...
@@zSpirall I KNOW I was totally gonna shout out the statues part in my own comment but I figured it was long enough. All the White Witch stuff he did in this was amazing, from the sassy badass walk to the "surfing a carriage like this is an Edwardian Teen Wolf". XD
@@robinchesterfield42 same about the shout out. I usually like to just go where everyone already appreciate the comments I was to write as well. (Great minds and all that.) ;)
And yes those picture of him as the white witch. I feel like if he isn't cast in the movie if this book I'll riot, we need him to do a movie! I'm so invested!
I feel like it's important to point out that the spell Jadis used to destroy Charn was called "the Deplorable Word" which is pretty badass. The White Witch knew the single word which could end the world AND how to survive it:
DIVINE AUTHORITIES HATE HER!
Learn this one simple trick for defying the laws of God and man for personal profit!
Well, if I remember correctly, the deplorable word was specifically designed to destroy all life except for the one who spoke it. So it’s not like she had to do anything, her living afterwards was just part of how it was designed.
@@BLZ231 Ecological collapse does a lot to reduce one's life expectancy.
@@Zahaqiel true, but that’s probably why she turned herself to stone to wait for someone from another world to wake her up.
@@kathrineici9811 Yup and the spell she used tp turn herself to stone was the only thing keeping the remains of her world together and once it was gone Charn finally expired
It's funny if you have read the Silmarillion and/or some norse mythology. The apples clearly sound like Idunn's apples, and Illuvatar also did the whole "singing the world into existence". It's not only christianity he's referencing.
Also, I just realised - magic rings. Cute parallels.
Uhhhh...Illuvatar is very much based on the Christian god. Like Tolkien was a devout catholic.
@@axeltenveils6816 But Lewis liked Tolkien's mythology (what he knew about it) and even referenced it directly.
@@AntediluvianRomance yes but one who studies both authors cannot deny that both are getting the same story from the same source.
@@longforgotten4823 These things aren't mutually exclusive.
@@AntediluvianRomance Considering that the Silmarillion came out posthumously in 1977 thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, I would definitely disagree on those points. I would not doubt that they discussed the book of Genesis and it’s influences. When making claims about authors works, the source material has to at least back up your claim. People can come to similar conclusions about literature without communicating. Especially when they have similar backgrounds. They also apply the ancient texts in completely different ways and different sections of their books.
I guess its a testament to how Lewis was really good at bringing imagery to life in his books because when I read about the wood between the worlds, Charn and The garden, it felt like I was right there with Polly & Digory feeling almost uneasy with the locations. The Wood has a content but eerie silence that stretches on forever where all you heard was the trees growing. Charn had a dead silence that had no life. The Garden was a "happy place, but very serious"
Oh, the Magician's Nephew. The origin of Narnia stuff is interesting enough if you've been reading the rest of the series but DUDE, THE SCI-FI STUFF. Multiverse, but done in a magical fairy-taleish way! Dead world with bloating, dead red-giant sun! To this day that image is one of the first ones that always comes to mind whenever I think of a "dying world", and Jadis cheerfully talking about how the rivers ran red with blood...
And the chance to actually SEE the White Queen doing all the hilarious stuff she does in London! I was just dying laughing. (FLOOF JESUS omg...)
Also the timing of the "ring the bell icon" was AMAZING. XD
I love that the cabby and his wife become the first king and queen of Narnia. There is something just wonderful about this chill, salt of the earth, working class dude becoming royalty.
Also, fun fact of the "no evolution in sight" thing. In Perelandra, there is a brief moment where the protagonist, who is on a pre-fall paradise planet, spies creatures in the water that resemble people, and briefly ponders if they might have been the ancestors of the people he has met.
As a Christian with no issue with evolutionary theory, I always appreciated that moment, as it seemed to show that Lewis was broad minded about how to read Genesis.
Mere christianity would be a good book for you then. He actually lays out his vision of how evolution and Christianity are not at odds.
@@longforgotten4823
Lewis was a contemporary of the once famous (now I think forgotten) mystical evolutionist ( and professional paleontologist) Teilhard de Chardin.
It would be interesting to know what he thought of him.
@@alanpennie8013 that would be fascinating.
@@longforgotten4823 Lewis was one of the most intelligent Christians in recent history, at least among those who had a strong public presence.
This just about killed me.🤣 I haven't read this since I was a kid and it sounds... wilder than I remembered it. Also, my theory is that once you've been a cab driver long enough, nothing phases you.
He's a wonderful character and I feel like Dom was a bit dismissive for humor's sake. He thinks they've fallen and they can see nothing, so he encourages everyone to stay calm. That's basically what he's doing--telling everyone to stay chill. And singing a hymn would be a less-stressful way than yelling to let everyone know you're down there.
@@grumpyotter
He definitely demonstrated qualifications for leadership.
I read it looong time ago and my memories are quite heazy :
- the dead world of the witch had a "dying sun" which was about tp go supernova, and as such was enormous and red and everything around was red too. It always stuck with me as a realistic, scientific point that i liked. (Looking back, it's a bit weird that he included this science point in it...)
- that world was so close to dying that when they exit it, the pond that held it is completly dried up
- and i think other ponds had different sizes too ?
- the kid admitting that he was just pretending to be bewitched by the bell. I was impressed and also disturbed by it since... well it's a fairytale and he just said he was enchanted ! They can't lie about it ! It's against the rules ! But also it showed suprising maturity
It's an interesting point.
He likely was enchanted, but Polly definitely wasn't so there was an aspect of his personality which made him susceptible.
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Dominic's performance was the best depiction of Jadis in any live action medium. Tilda Swinton included.
This is it. My favorite Narnia book. So many interesting ideas that stook with me. The fascinating concept of the forest between words, the old red star of Charn, the deplorable word, the birth of Narnia in song, Jadis herself. I read every book in the series, but this one I still remember the plot of to this day.
Okay, it's kinda hilarious that decades ago, CS Lewis used Uncle Andrew to ask "If evil, why hot?"
I am loving these Narnia recap videos. I’ve never met anyone in real life who’s read all the books so it’s fun to hear other perspectives! The small snippet of Aslan singing was awesome.
I think I read some of them at one point when I was younger.
But I mostly got through the stories via this audio drama series that Focus on The Family produced. I think these were made between 1999-2002.
Pretty sure i have read them all. Seem to remember them dipping in quality each book.
Of you are curious about the song he used
I believe its called vitas
By a very flamboyant russian singer
Or is vitas the singers name? I forget
Edit: singer is vitas, song is the seventh element
I read them all but over 20 years ago when I was a kid.
I read them all in 6 grade but it’s been a while so I only remember the plots of each book
Funny enough, Lewis based Diggory (the older version) on his friend Tolkien, who himself was Catholic but that never interfered with their friendship.
Does that make Lewis Polly?
1:51 I don't think Lewis was being literal about Sherlock Holmes existing as a real person. I think he was just being metaphorical with the time. Like at the time Digory and Polly were kids would've been the time Sherlock Holmes was being published and if he were a real person as the would've been living on Baker Street during that time.
Yeah, that's my read of it too - though both the Bastables and the Great Detective himself were sufficiently low impact on the world that they could easily each be in the other's background without anyone noticing, though the events of the Magician's Nephew might have caused Sherlock some difficulties, since explaining them correctly requires that you do not eliminate the impossible after all.
It's a fun thought to play with, but I really don't think it's what Lewis was meaning.
@@rmsgrey it’s more setting the time the kids were growing up rather than flat out saying when.
I’m disappointed that the horse wasn’t just Dom in a Halloween costume
It's not all heavy handed religious allegory, there is also the heavy handed nuclear weapon allegory.
Underlined by Aslan at the end in case the analogy escaped any reader.
I feel like the kid's character arc would have been stronger if he had originally thought ringing the bell/resurecting Jadis could help heal his mum despite the warning signs, instead of just a "I dare you" note. That way Aslan's test at the end would actually involve him resisting the temptation he originally gave into that caused the problem. Like maybe the plaque actual says the bell will resurect her, but there are murals on the walls showing her and/or the other rulers doing magic so he is like "maybe she can fix my mum".
Also would have been kinda neat if the talking horse thing was reversed. Like if the horse got the ability to speak from breathing the air in the woods between wolds and him then being in Narnia while it was created is why talking animals is a thing in Narnia, but not in our world.
Also the woods between worlds are cool and underused and of all the things to become endlessly reused fantasy tropes I'm sad that's not one of them.
Oh, the wood between the worlds was like my favourite thing. DUDE. FANTASY MULTIVERSE. Who _wouldn't_ want to explore that a lot more...?
The fact that Diggory's first key mistake came from ego & showing off to his friend (pretending he wasn't scared of the warning on the bell) feels more real-life to me, esp. for a guy of that age...?
Painocus.
Good idea about linking the bell to Diggory's anxiety about his mother.
That would have strengthened the story.
@@alanpennie8013 I don't understand--why would he think ringing the bell would help his Mom? I don't see how Lewis could have made that plausible.
@@anna_in_aotearoa3166 It also showed that he was at risk of falling down the same slippery slope as his uncle, toying with magical artifacts that should really be left alone. I think that aspect is even specifically pointed out once or twice in the text.
Tilda Swinton will always be the definitive White Witch. But Dom Noble is a close second.
What I think is one of the great literary tragedies. Is that Lewis died before Susan's story was told. Since Susan more than likely inherited those rings. And more than likely tried to find her family.
Now *there's* a book I'd like to read. Lewis could have created some really fascinating stuff with that premise.
A Multiversal Journey, she begins to seek her family and finds much, much more.
This was my fav of the series and I was SO sad we never got a film, I said to multiple people a the time "I can't freaking wait for The Magician's Nephew!"
This is always the book I want to see adapted and I never get it 😂😭
@@Vi_Vi_1 Ikr it would be so amazing we are so deprived XD We need a series that goes in chronological order (jk, I read them in publication order as a wee one and anything else would be super weird)
@@hanagara1907 agreed!! Dreaming of a streaming service picking it up to turn into a series or something. With examples like Arcane they could even go animated
@@hanagara1907 I've always recommended people read the series in publication order, too, because...why would we CARE that much about the backstory of a world _we haven't even met yet_ ? Origin stories are for when you already like the character! Or in this case, land.
@@Vi_Vi_1 I feel like I heard Netflix are, although I also feel like I been hearing that for years so maybe it's better not to believe that until it's like here XD
I always felt a bit sorry for Jadis. From being on the verge of becoming God-Emperor of Charn, she eventually ended her days in a giant igloo ruling over a handful of people all of whom smelt like wet carpet.
Exactly!!! If I was a god emperor without a beautiful castle or lair of doom that looks and smells lovely and rich, I would break the world as well.
@@mzgreenjeansapproves
She could have made it Christmas every day if she wanted.
Admittedly everyone would have died young from over - indulgence, but they would have died happy.
@@alanpennie8013 but if it was Christmas every day then her subjects would forget the most important thing in her eyes,😏 herself.
@@mzgreenjeansapproves
She could rechristen it Jadismas and fill up a big chunk of the day with her Jadismas broadcast to the magical TV sets she has thoughtfully given The Narnians
@@alanpennie8013 that's a d@mn good idea! Also from a strategic point of view if her subjects are happily partying then no rebellion. This IS the fatal flaw of villain dictators, (other than hubris of course) they make everyone miserable and who wants that?
I'm honestly surprised someone hasn't adapted this work into an Isekai anime.
There is actually a fanmade manga that's really good, and as far as I read followed the book pretty closely!
"The dude must have had such a miserable childhood to be still working through this six books in."
*cough* Roald Dahl. *cough*
*cough* Charles Dickens *cough*
Kingsley Amis once lightly suggested that people wrote fiction to address unresolved childhood trauma.
He may have had a point.
Part of the reason this book ends the way it did was because Lewis lost his own mother at a very young age and it drove a wedge between himself and his father. It was essentially a bit of wishfulfillment on Lewis' part, that while he couldn't save his own mother Digory could save his.
My acting debut was playing a guinea pig in my primary school's production of The Magicain's Nephew!
How did I forget the guinea pigs??! That's fantastic.
I wasn't that fond of this book - except every scene with Jadis which (ironically enough) was FIRE! I'm still upset we haven't gotten a live action adaptation with a giant woman riding a horse drawn cab swinging a lamp post at the police in early 20yh century London.
The rap song by Il Neige was ah-MA-zing!
She's one of the best characters in the Narnia series. It's a shame we only got to see her there. If only Lewis had written this one first... In _Wardrobe_ they claim she's a Jinn descended from Lilith, and not a Daughter of Eve, but, that could just be vilification. The Charnites do seem to be regular humans and at least the early emperors seemed like decent people. Then again, Lewis isn't very consistent with his cosmology here: really, only the Sons and Daughters of Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and so should be able to choose to be good or evil. But Narnia's full of Talking Animals, nature spirits, dwarves etc who clearly have self-directed moral compasses, and Aslan just made them up. (There are plenty of Always Chaotic Evil monster-types, too. It must really suck when God makes you evil and then punishes you for being evil.)
@@hjalfi It could easily be that she's not a daughter of Eve because while she's human-enough, she's not from Earth.
@@hjalfi
Well this is the guy who hardened Pharaoh's heart so he could punish him (and all the other Egyptians) for being hard - hearted.
Ethical consistency isn't his strong point 🎉
MariaVosa.
Love "A Seven - foot Grinch" as a description of Jadis.
Isn't that still in the 19th century? At least I always picture it that way.
I kept hearing Janice instead of Jadis and continuously imagined Janice from Friends as the White Witch and this will be the world I live in now.
Honestly, I'm beginning to think that this series would benefit from a deeper background in the Bible and in Christian theology. The current approach of "This plot element is kind of weird and it's just here because Lewis was super into Christianity and/or because the same thing happens in the Bible" is actually just, kind of inaccurate. Lewis wasn't just subtly proselytising generic Christianity to kids, and he wasn't just parroting the Bible. Lewis was developing his own specific theological positions and including Biblical references in order to comment on and interpret the original stories. It's a bit like saying that Satan is a character in Paradise Lost because Milton was super into Christianity. It's technically true, but it's reductive and dismissive and does almost nothing to explain what Paradise Lost is about, why Milton wrote it, why it was/is significant, or why he focused on Satan. Tolkien and Lewis should be read in the same vein, with an eye towards the specific theological, social, and political points they're making.
Counterpoint:
They most definitely should not.
Go read sermons, or theological treatises, if that's your bag.
@@alanpennie8013 But that's what I'm saying: Narnia IS a theological treatise. It IS a sermon. That's the whole point of these books, and if Dom doesn't want to seriously engage with that from an academic religious studies perspective, he probably shouldn't be doing this series. If you summarise and analyse a work in a way that neglects its central point, you have failed to summarise and analyse it. So if Dom is not capable of or willing to talk about those elements, he simply shouldn't try to discuss these books.
Now that's not to say he has to agree with Lewis or argue from a theological position. I actually think it would be best that he avoid that. But he should at least take an academic religious studies perspective and seriously discuss what Lewis is trying to say and what Lewis believed.
@@Salsmachev That's an interesting take, because Lewis used the indigenous Australian creation stories (songlines) for describing how Aslan created Narnia. Was he trying to incorporate/unify different world religions?
@@grumpyotter Interesting! I'd only ever seen Narnia discussed from a Biblical angle. This is yet another reason why I'd love a more serious look at the religious studies side of things.
@@Salsmachev I imagine some PHD students have probably done just that!
Not gonna lie if a seven foot tall Tilda Swinton told me to corrupt the world by eating an apple, and a talking lion telling me he was Jesus told me not to, I'm baking Tilda Swinton an apple pie. XD
Also fun fact, The Magicians Trilogy by Lev grossman explicitly references the forest of pools as a sort of way between worlds, only in The Magicians said forest is paved over with a city
Sounds interesting! Haven't read, but now I want to...?
My favorite Christian allegory that didn't get mentioned: The sound of the lion. At the start of creation they couldn't see Aslan, and while Uncle Andrew could hear the song, it made him very uncomfortable. When they did see Aslan, he convinced himself the lion couldn't be singing to the point that he only heard roars, even when Aslan spoke. I believe this is what leads to him fainting.
Because, as we know, people only disbelieve because they deny god- I mean- Aslan and convince themselves he doesn't exist against all evidence.
See also Puddleglum's Crowning Moment of Awesome speech from The Silver Chair, where he says that he'll believe in Aslan even if Aslan doesn't exist because make-believe Aslan is better than the real world any day...
@@hjalfi That’s kind of depressing ngl
@@theonegoldengryphon Well, it's Puddleglum.
@@hjalfi Yeah, toxic mentalities all around. Fun and inspirational as a kid about a world where you know Aslan exists, kinda disturbing when you know it's referring to a view of the real world.
@@lief9100 His theology was... kinda uncomfortable. There's a passage in _Perelandra_ (which is a fantastic book, and Dom should totally cover the Space Trilogy; so much better than the Narnia series) where the hero gives up on using reason on the Satan-figure there and instead resorts to beating the crap out of him instead. Because destroy what you cannot reason with, or something?
So what you’re saying is, if Narnia was a video game, a certain Markiplier would be fanboying over the final boss something fierce.
“It’s about the POWER”
I would like to see Dom cover CS Lewis' Space Trilogy. Those are some pretty good bits of sci fi by a fantasy author
Oh wow. Mental pictures pretty vivid there! 😳 I think Dom would definitely have a field day with the weirder SF elements of the series, as it mixes fantasy/folklore & science fiction pretty thoroughly? (Particularly in the last book.) The 'Silent Planet' series is definitely an interesting read, but the misogyny & anti-lesbian sentiments definitely have NOT aged well I'm afraid😬
I would love to see him review the space trilogy just for his reaction to the high levels of WTF-ery the books devolve into by the end XD
Magucians nephew was my childhood I wish we got a movie version
Hopefully it gets a Disney+ adaptation. I've seen off and on from fan blogs it's still in the works. I stopped checking and kind of gave up hope a while back. Waiting to be surprised if and when they give it another go.
The singing lion joke... gave me a serious spit-take XD
I literally choked on my tea at that part as well. ☕️
The Magician's Nephew is just _brimming_ with such cool imagery, a part of me is disappointed it was never made into a movie, but the other part wonders if Hollywood would even do it justice at this point
It is now the duty of everyman to make actually good fanfilms.
Hollywood hates Christians so they would butcher the story. We were lucky to get The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader before their hatred for Christians reached its peak. They wouldn't be so faithful to the source material if they adapted it now.
Ah, some fine British sounds to soothe this splitting headache after work. Thank you Mr Noble.
Apparently Tolkien made a bet with Lewis that he couldn't put something as ordinary as a lamp post in a children's fantasy story and make it interesting and Lewis basically was like "challenge accepted" and that's how we got the lamp post in Narnia.
But was it interesting? I propose it was not.
@@epiccollision It may not be a major player in the whole book franchise but the two books that it appears in it has significance. firstly the witch throws it a lion Jesus and it bounces off of him and it becomes the lamp post as we know it and then It is the first thing that Lucy gravitates towards on her first trip to Narnia. It is the thing that guides Lucy and the other Pevensie siblings back home from Narnia too. Lewis fulfilled the brief and won the bet. He put something as ordinary and innocuous as a lamp post. something we all walk past on the street day in day out and put it in a magical land and somehow made it feel like it belongs there.
@@lucypreece7581
I always liked it.
It looks very cool on its first appearance in Pauline Baynes' drawing casting its light over the snowy landscape surrounding it.
Oh ho ho ho Dom! I caught that mistake. 😅 You mentioned a king being "coronated". As I used to tell people in University, a king is not "coronated", a king is "crowned" in a "coronation". A king is not a chicken 😏
1.) Magician’s Nephew was always my favorite in the series
2.) The fact that the closing song mentions Jennifer Coolidge because she played Jadis the White Witch in the spoof film Epic Movie is a deep cut I was not expecting, but really appreciated 👏
I sincerely hope I'm correct that the white witch swagger wearing shades bit was a nod to Crowley in Good Omens - because you captured that moment perfectly.
Talking about how thick the air is with life that it made them get high immediately pulled me back to the commentary from The Magicians about Fillory's air containing opium, with especially high concentration in the Flying Forest which must have meant the kids were high as kites, lol. A reference to this book, I'm sure.
_"Oh, my god. The Chatwins were like ten when they came through here. They must have been blazed the entire time."_
The author wanted to use the actual Wood Between the Worlds in Magicians, implying that Fillory and Narnia were both reachable but his editor wouldn't let him. Instead he created the Neitherlands and lightly implied that they used to be the Wood Between the Worlds before it had been paved over and each pool turned into a fountain to mark which world it went to.
I have never heard of this series and had to google--sounds amazing!
The spell Jadis/White Witch used to kill her entire universe; "The Deplorable Word" as it is called, has stuck with me so much since I listened to this as an audiobook as a child. Such a cool and terrifying concept! Though I must say I prefer the norwegian translation of the spell; "Det sorgtunge ordet", which translated back to english means something more along the lines of "The word heavily burdened with grief"
That translation evokes much more emotion than the original English imo. As a kid I think I thought of the Deplorable Word as just a bad word that I didn't know. But "burdened with grief" - that connotates so much - raw anger, immense sadness, hollow numbness, despair, hopelessness, inability to progress/move, and even seeing the world with less color. It lends a new dimension to Jadis and what she did.
I'm going to have to go listen to the book again now; thanks for sharing that tidbit 🤗
I would love to see a whole reenactment of the book series just like that with all the sarcasm.
The Magician’s Nephew is still my favourite of the series. The world building is just amazing.
The Magician's Nephew is by far my favorite Narnia book, and I say that as someone who really couldn't connect with the rest of the books. The depiction of Charn and how Jadis brought to its downfall were absolutely haunting.
I knew The Magicians was inspired by Narnia but I didn't realise how much
Same, I literally went *oh so that's where those rings came from* cause they just kinda appeared out of nowhere in the book.
This was the first book in the Narnia series I ever read as a child, and I remember absolutely adoring it. The World Between Worlds was probably my favorite part, it sounded like such a beautiful and interesting place to visit.
I need a ten hour long loop of Aslan singing, make it happen Dominic! XD
Honestly, the world between worlds and portals to infinite realms is such a cool setting. Looking forward to The Realms of Narnia, coming to Disney+ in 2023.
Welcome to the Narnia verse.
Oh no, please no, they'll hire JJ Abrams . . . ARGHHHHHHHHHH!
In the intro to the screwtape letters, (amazing book, btw, that deserves its own video,) Lewis observes that people gravtate towards two extremes with regards to the spiritual. You have the magicians, who are completely devoted to the spiritual and will believe anything, and the materialists, who will only believe their senses, (incidentally, there's a great depiction of these two extremes and their presumed middle ground in Prince Caspian by way of Trumpkin, Nikabrik, and Trufflehunter.) Jadis and Uncle Andrew are meant to represent these two extremes, (keep in mind Andrew's techniques could be more accurately described as alchemy, he's trying to apply the scientific method to the unknown,) and how they horseshoe around towards the same ugly methodology of the ends justifying the means.
Good point! In the book, Diggory thinks he discerns a similarity in their faces when they are interacting - I guess the shared 'magician's mark' in this case could be said to metaphorically/spiritually represent their total selfishness, & willingness to use any means to achieve their ends, even though they come at it from different angles of investigation...?
@@anna_in_aotearoa3166
Agreed.
This is one of my favorite books of all time, and I loved your video. Just hearing your brief, somewhat silly recap of Aslan singing Narnia into existence gave me chills all over again. And the scene with Jadis leaving Charn was just…perfection.
I was one of those dense kids that was shocked to learn, many years after first discovering the Narnia books, that Aslan was supposed to be Jesus. The heavy handed allegory still doesn’t really bother me, because the storytelling is so beautiful and CS Lewis gave me such an intense love for fantasy. I’m going to go get the audiobook collection right now.
When I was a kid I had this book of fairy tales that felt like out of body experiences. Even the more involved ones felt like everyone was floating, and I remember getting that vibe from this book too.
Choked on my tea at the singing part. I haven't expected that.
Makes sense that the lamppost had roots in the first Narnia movie, since it literally few from the ground. A good few Magician’s Nephew nods in that movie, actually.
I am thoroughly enjoying the alternative animal names for aslan. See; "holy chonk" and "floof".
🤣
I really enjoy your Chronicles of Narnia recaps. I read the book a really long time ago and only remember fragments of some of the stories. So it's always fun when you jog my memory, esp with your hilarious scene recreations
Would definitely recommend them for a re-read at any age! 😉 The era they were written in is def. showing in certain respects (esp attitudes towards femininity/masculinity & women in general) but they're still funny, wildly creative, and a fast-paced read.
"King Frank the very relaxed"
Best noble title ever
The dramatic reading of the warning about the magic apples being abruptly interrupted Jadis loudly crunching into one was also a great gag.