Thanks for the clarification, @impending-doom.

I would also definitely interpret "lead character" as having more weight than "important character" — that's why I don't find it credible that the boy with a British mother and Indian father, described as the "lead character", could be anyone other than Digory. Again assuming that this really is The Magician's Nephew (or rather, a rewrite based on it) that they're filming!!

Here's my logic:

• The original casting call went out with a pair of roles, both described as important.
• This casting call also.has two roles described as important (Boy 2 and Girl 1).
• The original casting call was linked to two role codenames - Frannie and Isadore.
• The audition dialogue for Frannie and Isadore feels much more like a Polly and Digory scene that a "Polly plus Other" scene.
• We've not seen anyone of British-Indian descent apply for, or audition for, the role of "Isadore" - we have seen plenty of white kids.

Overall, to get to the conclusion of Boy 1 being Digory, I'd have to accept the premise that they put out the original casting call for the primary recruitment, and didn't include Digory.

I'd also have to conclude that Isadore is not the codename for Digory, which seems weird if you read the dialogue, and that they would base their entire child audition process around evaluating the paired dynamic between Polly and "Other" or weirder yet, that they are using "Isadore" to test for two completely different role profiles, or that Nina Gold forgot to mention she was looking for two boys and that one of them has a very specific ethnic profile.

I'm not saying any of that can't be true, it just doesn't feel like a plausible explanation of how casting processes work, and requires a lot of.leaps in logic to explain - simple is usually better.

Therefore to me, the simplest explanation is that the original casting call was for Frannie/Polly and Isadore/Digory... And that they have now re-issued it to highlight an additional role they require, which is Boy 1, since he's the new top priority right now.

Or to summarise it even more simply:

• We have good evidence to suggest that "Isadore" = Digory 
• We have even better evidence to indicate that White Children have directly auditioned for the role of Isadore.
• But we only have conjecture to link Boy 1 with Digory.

As always, I'll happily change my opinion once the evidence changes, but at the moment all the genuine evidence is pointing in a different direction.

@rose No, I doubt that Jadis would have any children of her own. Remember, she killed all her sister's people after her own side was slaughtered, after all.

As for an Anglo-Indian lineage, in Victorian times before the Raj, there were plenty of Anglo-Indians in the old East India Company, very like the Dutch VOC, based after 1619 in Batavia, now known as Jakarta, & still the capital of Indonesia. Both groups grew wealthy as a result of their trading etc., and military service in the British Army, especially in what later was called The Raj, was also something that could run in quite upper-class families. Digory's father doesn't have to be Indian, when he, himself, may be the one who was Anglo-Indian, rather Digory, himself. Even Princess Diana was said to have such an ancestress on her grand-mother's side. 

Posted by: @icarus

Here's my logic:

• The original casting call went out with a pair of roles, both described as important.
• This casting call also.has two roles described as important (Boy 2 and Girl 1).
• The original casting call was linked to two role codenames - Frannie and Isadore.
• The audition dialogue for Frannie and Isadore feels much more like a Polly and Digory scene that a "Polly plus Other" scene.
• We've not seen anyone of British-Indian descent apply for, or audition for, the role of "Isadore" - we have seen plenty of white kids.

I do get the logic there, and I'd be totally in agreement, except for this intimation that Boy 1 (of part Indian background) is the "lead character". That's what's got me completely puzzled about this whole thing.

If the new casting call was for two "important" roles, a boy and a girl, and now a "secondary" role of a boy of a specific ethnic background, it'd be only logical that the pair of important roles are Polly and Digory, the "Frannie and Isadore" of the audition script, and that the new role is some other character that they're adding to the story for whatever reasons. But from what we've seen, the new casting call places the Anglo-Indian Boy 1 as more important than the pair of boy and girl roles.

If this really is The Magican's Nephew, that's just bizarre. (I think I've used that word about 10 times in the last few days to describe things to do with this film project, or rather the snippets of it we're hearing about.) Whatever they're actually doing, I think it's safe to say this film won't be very faithful to the original book.

And as I've already argued, although Digory and Polly are both important to the story, Digory is notably more central overall than Polly is. And of all the existing characters in MN who could be given some kind of non-white ethnic background — as is pretty much standard these days if film-makers want to avoid accusations of not enough diversity in their casting — Digory is the only one who, canonically, has some connection with India, thanks to his father being there. And sure enough, the new casting call is for a boy with specifically a British mother and an Indian father.

That to me just screams "Digory reinterpreted as half-Indian" — despite the original casting call, which we did all assume was for Polly and Digory, not mentioning anything about ethnicity and coming with an audition script that does strongly suggest a Polly-and-Digory dynamic under different names.

There's really no answer to this that I can see until we have more information. If the Girl and Boy 2 are Polly and Digory, who is the half-Indian boy who is apparently the "lead character", implicitly with a bigger role than either of the two known ones? Or if Boy 1 is Digory with an ethnic makeover, who is Boy 2 who is apparently on a par with Polly?

This whole thing really is doing my head in...  

I don't care all that much about Digory's ancestry, but I definitely don't like the idea of some kid tagging along and ringing the bell like someone was considering in another thread.

I'm not sure about making the boy a random Charn resident, why would the Deplorable Word spare him? Weakening its power wouldn't be the worst change they could make, but that would turn the world into something other than the Charn of MN in my mind.

Making him Jadis' son makes a bit more sense, but convincing me that she would spare anyone other than herself would be a hard sell. What are they even going to do with him after the movie? They probably won't kill him and people would expect him to have a role in LWW if he goes to London with them. Will he perhaps be a replacement for Frank's son or the father of the Calormens?

I'd prefer to him as a younger Andrew. I could also live with him being a voice actor for Fledge, even if I always imagined an older voice for him.

Posted by: @courtenay

And sure enough, the new casting call is for a boy with specifically a British mother and an Indian father.

This is the part of the casting call I don't understand. Why so specific? I don't have and don't claim to speak for people who do have mixed heritage, but I don't think that there would a significant difference appearance-wise whether the mother vs the father is of a certain background. Not a geneticist though, and genetics especially for skin color and hair color are especially complex. So if anyone has any thoughts about this, I'd love to learn more. 

The description's specificity makes wonder if the directors are looking for some of type of lived experience angle to inform the acting. While having a British mother/Indian father vs. a Indian mother/British father might not make a large difference appearance-wise, cultural factors would absolutely impact a child's upbringing depending combination of parental heritage.

If the boy is not Digory and is a new character, maybe his heritage will be a large part of his arc. Maye they are looking for a boy who has the experience to draw from being not only of mixed heritage but also having the particular cultural influence of each parent?

They cannot have a third child main character. That is not something that they can change. I don't know who the actor is that they are talking about for Jadis, but she seems way too young.

@wanderer This is the part of the casting call I don't understand. Why so specific? I don't have and don't claim to speak for people who do have mixed heritage, but I don't think that there would a significant difference appearance-wise whether the mother vs the father is of a certain background. Not a geneticist though, and genetics especially for skin colour and hair color are especially complex. So if anyone has any thoughts about this, I'd love to learn more. 

As Digory tells Polly, in Magician's Nephew, his father was fighting in India, so for the sake of diversity in casting, they are therefore trying to play up that connection, so it would seem. My only beef with their making such an issue of doing so is that because of the British East India Company's extensive trade in spices, in India, since 1600 AD, there had been whole generations of wealthy Anglo-Indians building up in UK, even before that organisation was disbanded in 1874, so that by 1900, when events in MN took place, an Indian paternal grandmother (much more likely, in my humble opinion), would not be anywhere near as much of an issue today, as having a purely Indian father, fighting in the British Army in what is now known as the Raj. I've linked to Wikipedia's account of the East India Company (EIS) where we are informed:

Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and later, opium. The company also initiated the beginnings of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent.

Historically speaking, the British trade in spices etc was competing against the French & especially the Dutch, whose own Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Aka VOC) did much of the exploration of the Australian coastline, from 1606, and which was based in the Dutch East Indies, which, since 17th August 1945, is now called Indonesia. By that time the Japanese had surrendered their military occupation of the area, & WW2 had finished. Captain Cook charted the previously unmapped East Coast of Australia, which the Dutch had called New Holland, from Point Hicks in the south (on the now NSW/Victorian border) to the tip of Cape Yorke Peninsula, where he reached the limit of Dutch exploration (by Abel Tasman (1644) & Willem Janszoon (1606), in Torres Strait.   

At the end of MN, Digory's father finally returns home to be with his family, having inherited the house where forty years later, the Pevensies spent their time in the country, during the WW2 evacuations. Though Digory's family may well have been of Anglo-Indian descent, over generations because of that spice trade & thus well able to afford such a large house, it does not follow that his father, himself, would have been one of the native sepoys of the Raj.  As Professor Kirke was to say in LWW, "What do they teach (about history) in these schools!?!"

When I first started thinking about Boy 1 being related to Jadis, my brain immediately went in a "tragic backstory" or "villain origin story" direction.

Maybe he is her son or beloved younger brother, and his premature death made her care about nothing except revenge against the universe. Or perhaps (and this is easier for me to imagine, because I have a hard time thinking of Jadis as having a tragic backstory) his life was the "terrible price" that she paid to obtain the Deplorable Word.

Maybe his memory/ghost continues to haunt her throughout the film, adding a motive for eating the silver apple so she never has to face him in death (and all of the other people she has destroyed). It also might add an additional layer to her dynamic with Digory, especially if he seems to echo the son/brother in his words or actions.

But would such a character be described as a lead in a casting call?

Posted by: @rose

. Or perhaps (and this is easier for me to imagine, because I have a hard time thinking of Jadis as having a tragic backstory) his life was the "terrible price" that she paid to obtain the Deplorable Word.

FWIW, I'm more open to the Magician's Nephew Jadis being interpreted as a tragic villain than I am the LWW Jadis, mainly because of this bit. 

"Oh — Aslan, sir," said Digory, turning red, "I forgot to tell you. The Witch has already eaten one of those apples, one of the same kind that Tree grew from." He hadn't really said all he was thinking, but Polly at once said it for him (Digory was always much more afraid than she of looking a fool.)
"So we thought, Aslan," she said, "that there must be some mistake, and she can't really mind the smell of those apples."
"Why do you think that, Daughter of Eve?" asked the Lion. '
"Well, she ate one."
"Child," he replied, "that is why all the rest are now a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after."

"Oh I see," said Polly. "And I suppose because she took it in the wrong way it won't work for her. I mean it won't make her always young and all that?"
"Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always workaccording to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it." 

I interpret the "length of days with an evil heart" thing to mean that Jadis could conceivably have repented of her wickedness before she ate the apple but afterwards, she was "bad all through" in Mrs. Beaver's words. I wouldn't want an adaptation to go too crazy with this notion since the book stresses that Jadis doesn't display anything like guilt before the apple. Still, it does seem like C. S. Lewis intended there to be some tragic implication with that passage.

Not sure I like the idea of creating a whole new character just to make her more tragic though. I prefer other suggestions that have been made like Boy 1 being young Uncle Andrew in a flashback or another Narnian protagonist in a framing device, hearing the story from Prof. Kirke or Miss Plummer. 

@Col Klink   I interpret the "length of days with an evil heart" thing to mean that Jadis could conceivably have repented of her wickedness before she ate the apple but afterwards, she was "bad all through" in Mrs. Beaver's words. I wouldn't want an adaptation to go too crazy with this notion since the book stresses that Jadis doesn't display anything like guilt before the apple. Still, it does seem like C. S. Lewis intended there to be some tragic implication with that passage....

This is a woman who went against whatever she learned from her already compromised family. She not only rejected their caution but researched how to find The Deplorable Word, & how to use it. And she even admits in this story that when all her troops were finished, & when her sister was advancing up the palace steps to the terrace, leading her victorious troops, that is when Jadis unleashed The Deplorable Word, which destroyed not only her "wicked" sister but also everyone else in Charn, except herself. At the beginning of the last chapter, Aslan warns Digory & Polly: 

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. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man & an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants, who care no more for joy, justice & mercy than the Empress Jadis....

If Jadis was going to take sibling rivalry to such an extent, why on earth would anyone think she'd ever have had a son in Charn? He'd only be an encumbrance to her egotistically ruthless ambition, like so many tyrants we did see in the 20th century & the 2 millennia beforehand. Chances are, if she did have a son who preferred his aunt, her sister, it would make him utterly loathsome to her.

Yes, we heard what she told Edmund in LWW, when they first met, about how she would have liked a son, ha! ha! Yes, Jadis could write the textbook about sibling rivalry, and could read Edmund like a book, & thus, Digory & Polly as well. Thus, she saw her chance to escape her ruined world and took it. And yes, she was already a fallen woman before she even got so far as eating the apple. Likely she sneaked back to eavesdrop better, before nicking off to go and get this apple of youth, after learning so much hair-raising stuff from her sojourn in London, like that she wasn't as powerful in London as she was in Charn. 

@Col Klink  Not sure I like the idea of creating a whole new character just to make her more tragic though. I prefer other suggestions that have been made like Boy 1 being young Uncle Andrew in a flashback or another Narnian protagonist in a framing device, hearing the story from Prof. Kirke or Miss Plummer. 

I couldn't have agreed more.