I can envision a situation where Polly has a rocky relationship with her family, which leads her to tell others that she's an orphan. Perhaps we'll see her siblings going out of the house, leaving Polly alone/excluded to go on her own adventures in her "smugglers cave", where she escapes into writing her books. 

If Violet and her siblings are in the script to show that Polly is a bit of a loner, then I think it'll be an alright addition, as those are the vibes I get from her in the book. 

Okay. I’ve always had the impression that Digory and Polly were each an only child, given their reasons to spend some time together, with Digory’s father away in India and his mother being ill to the point of death, and all of Polly’s friends being away on holiday. 

Now it seems like in the new adaptation, Polly will have three sisters. While there are quite a few characters in the series who are siblings or have siblings, I’m not sure how Polly having three sisters would work within the plot. Maybe this could possibly give her another reason besides having all her friends away on Holiday to spend some time with Digory? Again, I don’t know. Though I suppose even with three sisters, she’d still be a loner. 

Remember when it looked like there were going to be two boy characters in the movie, one of them Anglo-Indian? Maybe at some point in the writing process that character changed into a girl and become Polly's sister. 

I commented this on the article too.  But this does not strike me as a particularly big change.  I think people always assume that Polly and Jill are only children, but the books are silent on the families of both.

The only direct reference to Polly's family talks directly about her mother, but uses 'they' - which seems to indicate plural in this instance (as otherwise 'she' could be used more naturally to refer to Polly's mother):

"She had got home late for her dinner, with her shoes and stockings very wet. And when they asked her where she had been and what on earth she had been doing, she said she had been out with Digory Kirke. Under further questioning she said she had got her feet wet in a pool of water, and that the pool was in a wood. Asked where the wood was, she said she didn’t know. Asked if it was in one of the parks, she said truthfully enough that she supposed it might be a sort of park. From all of this Polly’s mother got the idea that Polly had gone off, without telling anyone, to some part of London she didn’t know, and gone into a strange park and amused herself jumping into puddles. As a result she was told that she had been very naughty indeed and that she wouldn’t be allowed to play with “that Kirke boy” any more if anything of the sort ever happened again. Then she was given dinner with all the nice parts left out and sent to bed for two solid hours. It was a thing that happened to one quite often in those days."

Sisters don't add anything to the story. Given that this is 1955 and Polly is 12 (?), she was born during the war. This makes my brain race around thinking of scenarios about her being born in 1943, where her father was and if he came back safely, whether the household is a blended family... dunno. But my best guess is that her father remarried and the siblings moved into the house that Polly knew well - so she escaped into her attic for a personal space. 

I don't really like the idea of giving Polly siblings because I feel like the story already has enough characters in it and, as much as we might wish otherwise, the movie probably isn't going to be three hours so it's not like they'll have time to develop them all. But I am relieved that thing about Polly's whole family being dead in that audition was just an experiment. It always struck me as odd.  

She will at least have an older sister since Violet will be played by a 17 year old, I wonder what the ages of the other girls are. If they are all older, I would prefer that, to younger siblings.

Maybe they're going to age down Frank and Violet is really Helen. That'd be kind of crazy, but I can sort of see them doing it and I like it better than randomly adding a pointless character. 

Posted by: @col-klink

But I am relieved that thing about Polly's whole family being dead in that audition was just an experiment. It always struck me as odd.  

Yes  I saw it as being a chance to show different emotions, not some actual script. 

Posted by: @eustace

She will at least have an older sister since Violet will be played by a 17 year old, I wonder what the ages of the other girls are. If they are all older, I would prefer that, to younger siblings.

If Polly had three older sisters, it wouldn't change her character very much if she considered herself as a loner. If the next in age is already 17, the usual girl-in-the-street at the time in 1955 would have left school and was most likely a typist somewhere, maybe nursing, or even working in a factory if she wasn't up to office work. Usually, middle class girls then only stayed at school until what now is called "O" levels, or intermediate levels in NSW. They changed the rules after 1965, Having introduced the "Wyndham Scheme", which kept students at school longer, 1967 was the first year that students sat the Higher School Certificate, with a lower level at the School Certificate level.

I could really see Polly's exasperation with an older sister interested in little more than lipstick, nylons, fashion, and her social life. Especially if she was "going steady", waiting until she reached the magic age of 21, to waltz down the aisle with some "Teddy Boy", or Surfie or Bodgie as they were called Down Under.   Especially if Polly was the sort of 12 year old interested in adventure books & study, and wanting her mind to be challenged a bit more than doing housework. 

@waggawerewolf27 excellent points ! I hadn't even begun thinking about what an older sister would be like.

Polly, if she's the youngest, could easily have become a loner, who longed for adventure and wrote her own stories. This fits the mid 50s well, with war long over and her the only one in the family who doesn't remember it. 

If Violet is "Sister 3" at 17 years old, then it makes sense to me that Sisters 1 and 2 would be even older still.

I think this would create a clear sense of divide between the 3 older siblings, and the much younger Polly, and thus wouldn't impinge too much on the existing character dynamics.

To me, it would be super weird if Polly had younger siblings who were also of Narnia-going age, but who didn't get to come with her to Narnia, but thankfully that doesn't appear to be the case here.

Posted by: @icarus

If Violet is "Sister 3" at 17 years old, then it makes sense to me that Sisters 1 and 2 would be even older still.

This didn't even occur to me. I assumed they would count up instead of down. Interesting.

Lots of very intriguing speculation on this thread. Clearly everyone is more excited (not necessarily in a good way) by this news than I am. I just shrugged it off. Lol

I guess I'm thinking that you always count children from oldest to youngest... First child, second child, etc.

I don't think I would necessarily ever enumerate my siblings personally, but if I did I would probably go in age order from eldest to youngest 

Anyway, overall I think this would likely be a bit of a nothing story for most people at the best of times, however i feel like at the moment it probably feeds into a lot of the anxiety and uncertainty that people have about this project given the lack of any "official" clarity or context from the production team.