Its been a long while since I’ve read the books or seen the movies, but weren’t they escaping WW2?
Seems kinda… worse than taxes and the subway. “Ah yes, lets give up on this magical world to return to ours to get *checks notes* bombed. Perfect.”
Been a while for me, too, but didn’t they find their way back by accident?
Pretty sure they were also old as hell too, so they got to like regain their youth. Sort of a win if you don’t mind living, well, here. You know, rather than a magical world with talking animals and stuff.
As I recall, they were adults but not old. I think they were riding through the forest, got off their horses to follow some light in the denser trees or something, then fell out of the wardrobe and couldn’t get back.
In hindsight, those horses definitely fled the country or got executed.
Yeah I think based on the later books, Peter would’ve been at most like maybe early thirties but probably only late twenties by the time they leave Narnia. And Lucy would’ve been like early to mid twenties. So they were adults, but certainly not old. In fact, it’s mentioned that Susan was courted by many princes and in The Horse and His Boy (warning: it’s super fucking racist and Islamophobic) she’s genuinely considering marrying someone but it turns out he’s pretty horrible. Right after the events of The Horse and His Boy, the kids hunt the white stag, see the lamppost, dimly remember the Wardrobe and end up back in our world
As for the horses, unlike in the movies, in the books it’s said that it’s very rare for people to ride talking horses bc talking horses are free in Narnia. So in the books they would’ve been riding normal horses that they probably wouldn’t bother punishing
I’m somewhat relieved to hear they were dating other humans
Well… not in Narnia, no. There is a completely separate show (based on different books iirc) called The Magicians which as a concept is like Narnia but darker (also a bit of Harry Potter bc there’s a magical grad school). And in The Magicians they do bring up the matter of human-animal relationships since the animals in the magical world can talk and all
Im not against the human-magicalanimal pairing, it was more relief that they werent dating each other.
Thanks for the recommendation about The Magicians though!
So, are the non-talking horses… Retarded or something like that? Why do they not talk?
So basically in The Magician’s Nephew we see the creation of Narnia and how the White Witch got there. And after creating all the animals Aslan picked out two from a handful of different species and gave them the ability to speak. He also made the small animals, like squirrels, bigger and the big animals, like elephants, smaller (but only the ones that could speak changed size). So the descendants of the speaking ones can speak and the non-speaking ones (which are literally called the dumb ones in the books) can’t speak. Some species can’t talk and aren’t intelligent, like the mice in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But bc the mice in that book chewed through the ropes that bound Aslan on the stone table they were eventually gifted with speech and intelligence which is why Reepicheep and his friends can talk by the time of Voyage of the Dawn Treader
I really hope they instituted democratic elections or at least established a clear line of succession because the power vacuum caused by the sudden disappearance of the entire top level of revolutionary leaders is bad news for everyone hoping for a peaceful couple of decades.
Nope, Narnia falls to ruin after they leave. Boowomp.
That Mr. Tumnus the Fawn guy is definitely sus…
Susan was not the sharpest bulb.
I am worried for how you did the lighting in your house…
I use the light generated by my indoor kerosene heaters.
And occasionally the curtains.
Far more occasionally as I’m running out of curtains.
Okay, you have to tell me what paint you’re using.
I got a really great deal on some cheap paint from India. All off-brand.
She wasn’t the sharpest cheese in the fridge
Or the brightest hammer.
On the other hand, she’s the only one who survived.
By going into denial about it.
Not only that but in the books they live there until they are adults and have forgotten about the real world. They rediscover the wardrobe while hunting. When they leave narnia the become kids again with all their memories intact.
If they were escaping war, they sure did fight a lot in Narnia. And escaping the war has multiple layers in that lots of children were sent away from cities to safer places in the countryside as well as the escapism of Narnia. In the end they also escaped life via train crash, though that’s beside the point.
This will give some of the context for the backdrop of the war.
Good read, thanks for this
they were rich britbongs though werent they? barely in danger
I don’t think they were rich, but they were definitely not lower class.
they had a massive walk-in wardrobe with hundreds of different outfits, in a time before SEA slave labor/modern industry made clothing incredibly cheap…they rich as fuck
That wasn’t their house. They had been sent to the professor’s house to stay as the blitz was going on, so London, where they actually lived, wasn’t the safest place.
If you’re talking about the wardrobe they find Narnia in, that’s not their house. The the house of the old, rich professor they are staying with in the countryside, safe from the bombings during the war. The Pevensies themselves are meant to be like middle class I think
Gentle reminder that slave labor, industrial automation and exploitation of far away lands were not even recent in 1950, and that still today, the vast majority of humanity still doesn’t have the means to own hundreds of outfits at a given time, let alone have a walk-in wardrobe.
It only lasted 8 months and had 40k deaths for the whole country, but that’s why they were sent out to the countryside.
I’ve thought about the isekai genre (ending up in another world) a lot lately and how a big part is usually the characters trying to find a way home. I wondered what percentage of people would actually want that nowadays. I suspect it’s considerably lower than it used to be.
“As for you, young lady, you want to go home, right?”
“No, not anymore. I want to stay here and become the new wicked witch.”
“Nonsense! Now click your big honking boots together three times and wish to go home to Kansas to live in poverty with your dirt-farming, teetotaling aunt and uncle!”
Old isekai had the MC want to go home. Modern isekai has the MC wanting to start over and stay in their new world. You can chart the change based on how dissolutioned young adults are about the Japanese Dream of stable employment and raising a family.
The fantastic book series Magic Kingdom For Sale is basically about this. I started reading what I assumed would be a lighthearted comedy and it literally opens with our main character lost in alcoholic depression because of an awful tragedy. The fantasy land he’s sent to is hostile, but it provides him enough hope to fight for a better world there.
It’s bad when the idea of dealing with a fantasy Dark Lord is more appealing than real life. At least it’s clear who the good and bad guys are.
Well, it’s pretty clear in 2026 normie world too (who the bad guys are). People just aren’t heroes in real life, and it’s too hard to kill the top villains.
Always nice when the bad guy doesn’t know exactly where you are.
I think much of the appeal of these stories, and post-apocalyptic ones, is that they put you in front of problems that are easier to understand and deal with. Needing to find food is a simple concept, even if it can be a difficult task, it’s something we have evolved to deal with.
Emails and taxes, not so much.
I fucking love that series, one of my favorites of all time. The final (currently) book focused on the child was not my favorite - I hope there will be another book focused on Ben again.
Oh wow, core memory unlocked. Haven’t thought of those books in decades.
If I could bring my cat and like 3 other people, I would 100% be like “good luck, losers!” and would never be heard from again lol.
Sword Art Online’s original premise sounded kinda fun to me tbh. Though I have a feeling the whole “society makes sure that the players get life support in the hospital while they are stuck” wouldn’t work as nicely in RL as it did in the anime. But “can’t log out of video game because it’ll kill me if I really try” would be kinda nice for a while.
People were dying because eventually power outages, and people pulling the plug. It was a major plot point.
But uh there’s a reason he goes right back in LMAO
Yeah, I think it was episode 2 that mentioned some people just disappearing to never return and others disappearing temporarily while they were being moved to hospitals and the Nerve Gear having capacitors or something designed to allow it to be unplugged for a few hours before it does the death shock to allow for that.
It seemed like it wasn’t a recurring thing, so most of the players in the game at the end of ep 2 must have been moved to hospitals (or had other life support options).
Campfire Cooking is my favorite one of the newer crop of these.
His super power is basically Amazon Grocery. He immediately hides that fact from everyone, tells the people that summoned him he’s useless, and leaves the country to live “off grid”.
And all that before he even knows how that world works. I’m not even sure he knew he could do other kinds of magic at that point. Natural instinct to GTFO society / authority was something I could identify with
I only wish he would’ve warned the other kids who were summoned with him, as well.
This was me the whole time playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Every character except the main character is MUCH better off in the fantasy realm - the main character’s brother is literally crippled and sick in the real world and healthy and robust in the fantasy realm, and the main character still wants to go back to the “real” world. Didn’t identify with him at all.
That’s why I like villianess stories in otome isekai, it makes sense why they want to go back
This trope has been explored, sure enough.
Recently, I recall the comics DIE, although I didn’t finish it yet. And also the TV show The Magicians. In both cases one of the crew stays to be a king while everybody else goes home. And time runs at different rates on either sides. And then they meet again. Hijinks ensue.
I’m not sure what you mean, I don’t think I’ve seen a single isekai protag try to go back to Earth unless you count the “trapped in VR” ones.
I’m always a little disappointed by how quickly the regular world becomes irrelevant in the story. The intrigue is from how a person from a modern nonmagical culture interacts with a medieval magical culture.
But from the isekais I’ve seen, I’d say you could replace half of them with a person with amnesia and nothing would change.
I don’t think I’ve seen a single isekai protag try to go back to Earth
Wizard of Oz, for one. I’m using a Japanese term because English doesn’t have a succinct one for that particular genre, but it apples to media anywhere.
I don’t think I’ve seen a single isekai protag try to go back to Earth unless you count the “trapped in VR” ones.
It used to be the standard:
- Digimon Adventure (the first series)/Digimon frontier (fourth series)
- Inu Yasha
- Monster Rancher
The only recent example I can think of is Zenshu from last year.
The intrigue is from how a person from a modern nonmagical culture interacts with a medieval magical culture.
Welcome to Japan Ms. Elf might be up your alley: a guy finds out his lucid dreams have actually been him getting isekei’d every night for most of his life when he accidentally brings a friend/love interest back with him. She’s fascinated by modern Japan so they start going back and forth between the real world and magical world together.
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll check it out!
Well they still need the OP’ness
They found the fountain of youth and you call them “fucking idiots”. Go to Narnia, live a full life, leave Narnia with your adult mind in tact, walk out of the wardrobe a kid again, repeat.
So there’s a few problems with that plan:
-
If you leave Narnia, you will eventually forget Narnia. First it’s like a dream, then a dream of a dream, and then you just completely forget ever having gone.
-
The same applies in reverse. You will eventually forget Earth and spend your time in Narnia instead.
-
You can’t go to Narnia without Aslan taking you there. The Professor, who was infact one of the entities present at the creation of Narnia, tells the Pevensies that they won’t be getting back to Narnia through the wardrobe again.
-
Even if you could pass through to Narnia on command, there is a varying degree of time dilation between Narnia and Earth. The entirety of Narnia’s 2,555 year existence is compressed into 50 years on Earth, but the first 1000 years of that existence was compressed into the first 40 years of the timeline, and the remaining 1,555 was in that final 10 years. Also, you can spend 10 minutes in Narnia and end up having been gone for weeks on Earth, so the time dilation goes both way and is pretty inconsistent then too.
This guy Lion, Witch and Wardrobes.
Listen, no one said attaining the fountain of youth would be easy. A properly motivated party has all of eternity to consider and solve these issues. And while the memories might fade - the muscle memory you develop learning skills and other brain development couldn’t possibly be wiped out.
Maybe consider detailed journaling - and once time slips into the modern era, record video recaps. It’ll be like in Severance, an outie getting a video message from their innie and vice versa; or like Drew Barrymore catching up with a video recap of her whole life thus far, as in 50 First Dates. Establish the mental pathways in your earth brain with new memories of LEARNING what happened in Narnia, before you fully lose your Narnia memories.
Believe it or not, muscle memory is one of the first things you forget as soon as you leave Narnia. For example, Lucy learns how to swim in Narnia, but when she goes back to England, she instantly forgets. No muscle memory, nothing, it’s all fresh. The same applies to skills like swordsmanship, archery etc. You won’t remember how to do any of that when you leave, but you will if you come back.
From a storytelling perspective (and arguably Aslan’s perspective), Narnia pulls in people that need to learn a life lesson and are needed for something in Narnia. Aslan doesn’t let you keep everything you gained while there, he only lets you retain information he deems important to your life on Earth… Because despite being literally Jesus, Aslan is a bit of a dickhead sometimes.
I’m impressed with your knowledge of the universe. 😊 I think I only ever read one, MAYBE two of the novels, and I definitely saw and loved the early 2000s films - but only ever saw them the one time in theaters. There’s a LOT of story here that I missed, I should probably go back and explore this series properly.
They didn’t have the same body is why, they were in their 40s and had an entire life when they left and were still children on earth.
-
Wasn’t there also a world war going on in their real world?
(Btw do not check the poster’s youtube channel I remember them being one of the alt-right pipeline figures. Notice the blue checkmark.)
Yes. They were sent to the countryside to get away from the blitz.
Actually he’s pretty neutral-ish, but a little cringy
This has been fun, guys, but there’s no Wi-Fi here, so we’re gonna head back to hell.
Nah, they’re based as fuck. Royalty willingly abdicating the throne to become one of the people should be applauded, not criticized. Though they could have established a new government of the people before doing so…
Ours mysteriously became shorter. It was a full on epidemic of that shit for a time too…
Wait, what? Did you reply to the right comment? I’m confused.
What happened to the last French king?
Ah, now I follow. 😂 Didn’t catch your username.
All so that we can figure out that God is a magic talking lion
Is Aslan a God, or just a very old entity? I haven’t read the books.
He’s 100% an allegory for the Christian God, but idr if he’s the canonical God in Narnia itself.
He’s literally sacrificed as a Christ figure
In the third book, he basically outright says he’s Jesus.
When Edmund and Lucy are told they won’t be returning to Narnia, Edmund asks if Aslan is also in the human world.
“Are you there too, Sir?” Edmund asks. “I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
The whole book series is an allegory for the bible.
- The Magician’s Nephew is an allegory of Genesis
- the Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe is an allegory of Christ
- and the Last Battle is an allegory of Revelations
He says quite clearly that on earth his form is a lamb instead of a lion, and the last book is a straight eschaton.
Spoiler alert: he’s supposed to be God. Or Jesus. In one of the books he tells Peter “I have another name in your world and you need to learn that” or something to that effect.
See, the Narnia books were stealth Christian fables
Well, jesus. I don’t think we ever actually see god in the books.
Moses did! See cause his face was glowing. Which he couldn’t show you.
In narnia, specifically. Was there a moses in narnia?
I preferred Lev Grossman’s version. In his Magicians books and their TV adaptation, the equivalent to Narnia is called Fillory and was created by two gods for their amusement. The rulers are required by divine mandate to be children of earth, specifically because one of said gods is on the southern edge of chaotic neutral and the idea of requiring all rulership to be invaders from a foreign world amuses him greatly.
In the TV adaptation, there’s a whole thing where said children of earth arrange for an election to make things more legitimate and one of them wins by accidentally running on a pro-bestiality platform (stemming from a single comment at a bar) and then learning the talking animals outnumber the humans by a huge margin.
They became adults, which is just childhood without the fun and with more suffering.
Then you die.
What prime material for someone to write an allegorical book about.
Yeah they don’t have family or friends in the real world so definitely no reason to go back. /s
i fucking wish i could ride the subway
I’m also confused about this post’s hate of trains.
Especially since you might be into Beaver people after. https://youtu.be/waKc9C76W14
There’s a few things I wouldn’t want to give up, like electricity and indoor plumbing. But those are solvable problems.
Indoor plumbing is negotiable TBH. I’m not abandoning paradise (compared to real life) just because I have to go in an outhouse, especially if I’m rich enough to have multiple servants.
The real sticking point would be medicine for me. IDK if Narnia had magical healers for everyone, but I definitely don’t want to get old with pre-20th century medicine.
A society either needs taxes or serfs in order to function. One of those systems is compatible with equality.
They had taxes
or ≠ xor
Tell that to Marx. True equality only happens when you move beyond both.
Trump gave mild pressure, but according to your conservative party… 75% of your votes don’t count.
I keep getting reports that you’re posting in the wrong community. My official take on this is for people to downvote it.
Not sure why but yea downvotes are the thing for this no? I was making a political joke on top of the meme’s politics but I could see how looks totally left field.
Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it. Not sure why they care.
