Hi all,
At the end of The Last Battle, the Kings and Queens discover that they are in Narnia within Narnia:
Suddenly Farsight the Eagle spread his wings, soared thirty or forty feet up into the air, circled round and then alighted on the ground.
“Kings and Queens,” he cried, “we have all been blind. We are only beginning to see where we are. From up there I have seen it all—Ettinsmuir, Beaversdam, the Great River, and Cair Paravel still shining on the edge of the Eastern Sea. Narnia is not dead. This is Narnia.”
...
You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream.”
Later, Lucy and Mr Tumness discover that there is also an England within England:
...
And when she had fixed her eyes on one particular spot of it, she at once cried out, “Peter! Edmund! Come and look! Come quickly.” And they came and looked, for their eyes also had become like hers.“Why!” exclaimed Peter. “It’s England. And that’s the house itself—Professor Kirk’s old home in the country where all our adventures began!”
“I thought that house had been destroyed,” said Edmund.
“So it was,” said the Faun. “But you are now looking at the England within England, the real England just as this is the real Narnia. And in that inner England no good thing is destroyed.”
In The Magician's Nephew, The Wood between the Worlds leads to many different worlds. I had assumed that each (or at least most) of these worlds would have a 'real' version.
But I do not fit Charn into this scheme. I cannot imagine a 'real Charn'.
Do you think there would be a 'real' Charn just as there was a real Narnia and a real England? Why / Why not?
The term is over: the holidays have begun.
The dream is ended: this is the morning
I think there definitely would have been a real Charn as part of Aslan's country. To me, there's plenty of credible evidence that points in that direction and none that points the other way.
In the hall of images in Charn, as Digory and Polly look at the faces of the past kings and queens, we're given the impression that the rulers were "nice people" in the early era of Charn's history — that they were kind and wise. Gradually they become more solemn, and then more and more corrupted by evil, until of course they culminate in Jadis, who destroyed everything living thing but herself with a single word. We don't know anything about how and why that world's history unfolded as it did, or how different it might have been if those rulers (and presumably other people too) had made different choices down the centuries. But the implication is clear: Charn didn't start out evil.
More to the point — as we all know, the Chronicles of Narnia are written from a Christian basis. There is only one Creator / God in that worldview. In other words, Charn can only have been created by Aslan. And as we discover in LB, the mortal versions of Narnia and of our world were or are "only a shadow or a copy" of the "real thing" in Aslan's country.
There is no other logical conclusion, then, that the "shadow" version of Charn (which fell into utter corruption and was destroyed) must have its real, and entirely good, original counterpart in Aslan's country. Otherwise, that means there was at least one world that was created on some different basis — that didn't echo some part of Aslan's country — or that was made by some creator other than Aslan. Neither of those options would be acceptable from Lewis's religious standpoint.
Also, there's the scene near the end of MN where Aslan warns the children that their (our) world is "growing more like" Charn and that "It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things." (Obvious reference to nuclear weapons there.) That, I think, tells us two things:
1. Just because a world may become so overrun with evil that "some wicked one" manages to "destroy all living things", does not mean that that world doesn't have its entirely good and eternal version within Aslan's country. As we know from LB, our world does.
2. When it comes to the thorny questions of fate vs free will, Lewis clearly didn't believe in fate in the absolute sense. Even Aslan can't say for sure what our world's fate will be and whether or not it really will go the same way as Charn. Free will and human choice obviously play some part. And that in turn is more than enough indication to me, at least, that Charn too was not absolutely foreordained to become as thoroughly evil as it did and to end the way it did.
So, no, I don't have any hesitation in imagining Aslan's country as including the real Charn — as it was truly meant to be, without any trace of evil. I very much doubt Jadis ever got there, though, considering not only what she did, but also her attitude towards Aslan himself!
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)
I am definitely inclined to think there would be a "real" Charn within Aslan's Country - just like the other "real" worlds within and jutting off from Aslan's Country. I think as @courtenay has given a very good answer as to why - so I'm not going to go too much into detail, but essentially, just like the other worlds in the Narnia books, there were good or "nice people" in the world too. It seems to me in keeping with the Aslan's nature or (who He is in other worlds) is in keeping with Him accepting what is good and right etc in each world, and what is evil being destroyed and cut off. Also for me - there is the fact that Aslan has good knowledge of Charn - knowing what happened when Digory & Polly were there and knowing its state etc - suggests that He had some sort of intimate knowledge of the world too and possibly even was there with another name too, just as He was in our world.
*~JESUS is my REASON!~*
@courtenay that's an excellent (and rather profound) response to the question!
There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."