@waggawerewolf27 I have a suspicion that there'll be Spoilers popping up in lots of articles, with clever (not considerate) writers spreading the Digory/Professor connection,  and really spoiling it for new watchers. 

So, I suppose I want this production/series to be different by not giving all the secrets away before the audience gets to see it!

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

  @ Courtenay: ... Hopefully this wasn't meant to imply that his worsening hearing loss is directly connected to nearly 54 years of being married to your unapologetically Australian accent.

Who? Moi??? Didn't you know I was supposed to be a librarian for much of my working life, running around telling noisy students to keep their voices down in the library, of all places?   I'd end up telling these so-called nice, quiet, accounting students that if their voices were raised any higher, their conversations would entertain passengers as far away as Central Station, a good 40 km away.

"It's a joke, Joyce" (to quote one of my dad's favourite sayings), but I'm sure you realised that — I was just having some fun with the way you phrased that earlier sentence.   Not meaning to be flippant about your husband's hearing loss, either. It's a difficult thing to live with (often both for the deaf person and for those around them), as I know from experience. My late gran was increasingly deaf in her senior years, but absolutely refused to admit it and would never even get her hearing tested, let alone consent to wear hearing aids (and as she couldn't see well either, lip-reading wasn't an option). So when she didn't hear what someone said to her, instead of asking them to repeat it, she'd just go "Mmm-hmmm, yes..." and pretend she'd heard, which didn't fool anyone.   But she never went through anything as tough as what your husband survived, bless him.

  

But back to the subject: I do agree with much of what you say about regional accents, and about what you say about the beavers as well, despite all those rude media comments about Western Sydney English accents, when their own North Shore accents aren't really any better.

I won't comment, having an ABC newsreader / Melbourne private school accent myself. (Don't worry, mate, I can bung on the broad Strine as well as anybody when I feel like it or I need to avoid sounding too posh.)

The trouble is with reading the books in publication order, that many people, who find LWW so identifiable, have never gone as far as reading MN, or HHB, for that matter, which is rather a pity. It is then a bit too much of a surprise, when after reading The Silver Chair, the next book in time order would have to be the Last Battle, where the Professor, whom we last saw in LWW, turns out to be a Narnia traveller, himself, as well as Polly Plummer, giving her opinion of Susan's 1950's style alleged debutante-style follies which created so much debate about Susan in literary circles. It was still a shock to me to find out in MN, the very last book I actually got around to reading as a child, long before the films were even thought of, that Digory Kirke was actually LWW's Professor Kirke, after all. 

Hmmm, yes, I never thought of that — if anybody misses out reading MN, then LB in particular doesn't make nearly as much sense.

For the record, I read LWW first (although I think it was my mum doing most of the reading, as I hadn't started school yet), and then a few years later, when I found out there were other books in the series, I read the rest of them in chronological order — MN followed by HHB, then PC, VDT, SC, LB. That actually worked very well, as I enjoyed all the "Oh, so that's where that came from!" reveals in MN for things I already knew from LWW, and then the rest of the series works fine in that order.

In some ways, as long as you've also read MN, The Silver Chair followed by The Last Battle (which is how I read them) is a great way to end the series. It's the two "Jill and Eustace" adventures back to back, and at the end of SC there's actually a fair bit of foreshadowing for the finale of the whole series. Jill and Eustace are actually in some part of Aslan's country (even though they haven't died), and they see Caspian brought back to life, and then comes this exchange:

"Oh," said Caspian. "I see what's bothering you. You think I'm a ghost, or some nonsense. But don't you see? I would be that if I appeared in Narnia now: because I don't belong there any more. But one can't be a ghost in one's own country. I might be a ghost if I got into your world. I don't know. But I suppose it isn't yours either, now you're here."

A great hope rose in the children's hearts. But Aslan shook his shaggy head. "No, my dears," he said. "When you meet me here again, you will have come to stay. But not now. You must go back to your own world for a while."

So we already have it signalled very clearly that death isn't the end, that those who love Aslan will find that his country is truly their own country, and that Jill and Eustace will "come to stay" there some day too — which is exactly what we discover in more detail at the end of LB. And indeed, the endings of VDT and SC and LB, when read in that order, give a progressively clearer revelation of who Aslan is and what his country is. That's another point in favour of the chronological reading order, which looks like being the order in which the whole Netflix series will be made (if they do get around to doing all seven books).

[@waggawerewolf27:] I expect that Magician's Nephew could still keep that surprise until the ending of LWW when they go back from Narnia to his old-fashioned home, which no doubt cost a fortune to keep in order, especially after the war when repairing larger buildings falling to ruin was rather low on UK Government agendas.

Yes — I take it you're meaning the surprise that Digory Kirke from MN is actually the Professor from LWW. That's an interesting point to think about. Should the (presumably) upcoming adaptation of MN make it clear, at the end of it, that young Digory grows up to be the Professor, or should that be left till the ending of LWW? That would avoid one of the big "spoilers for LWW" in MN, at least. But they would have to show the Pevensies talking more with the Professor at the end than they do in the book, or else throw in something in that final scene that gives it away that the Professor is actually Digory from the first film. It will be interesting to see how they handle that aspect.

By the way, by the time the Pevensie children get to the Beaver domicile, in LWW, only two of them were on their first visit to Narnia, when Edmund met the White Witch on his first visit, which he lied about. 

Ooer, yes, you're right, my mistake — thanks for that, Wagga. I've edited my earlier post to correct that detail.