Posted by: @coracle

I have listened to Doug Gresham in person, saying that the ancient Persian culture, or northern India, were what Jack was describing. Arabs from Saudi Arabia have a different culture. 

Ah, now I've always suspected that Lewis was actually aiming for an "Indian" feel for Calormen, rather than "Arab"! Just from the fact that when he and his brother Warnie were boys, they used to write stories — Jack's ones were about "Animal-Land" and Warnie's were about a fictionalised version of India — that they gradually combined to create the world of Boxen, which became quite elaborate over many years. India was probably the most prized colony in the British Empire by the early 20th century, when the Lewis boys were growing up, and it's where many British people of that era would have got their general ideas of "the exotic" from. So I'm glad to have that hunch confirmed.

Posted by: @coracle

@courtenay  If you are a publicationist, why do you think it's helpful to present spoilers for LWW at the end of a first-adapted MN?  I can't see any justification for it.  If there were no choice but to begin with MN, wouldn't they want the audience for LWW to have the best chance for walking into Narnia with Lucy for the first time, to be special? 

That's a very good point and I get what you mean — I've always been glad that although I first read the rest of the Chronicles in chronological order, the first one I read (or had read to me) was LWW. I was simply thinking from the "series continuity" standpoint — that if MN does come first in the adaptations, then it would be natural to want to link it directly to LWW at the end, which is what happens in Lewis's own narrative at the end of the book itself. I was just toying with how the information we're given there (about how the wardrobe came to be) could possibly be dramatised!

I'm also just thinking of the fact that for many viewers (except really young ones, or those who've been living under a rock or on another planet for the past several decades), there won't be anything new or special about Lucy walking into Narnia for the first time. That original book's early scenes are so iconic — and have been done in so many adaptations already — that most people who know even a little about Narnia will have that image of a little girl stepping into a wardrobe and finding herself in a snowy wood! But I'm guessing far fewer people (unless they've read MN) will be at all familiar with where the wardrobe came from and why it became a passage into Narnia. That, to me, is the big surprise to throw in at the end of MN. It could also be done that way even if the stories are adapted in publication order, which makes MN the sixth out of seven!

As I said, it's just that Lewis himself gives us that information about the wardrobe at the end of the book, and it's an important revelation that connects those two stories, so I should think Netflix would want to put it in somehow too. Otherwise, when are we to find it out, if at all? Maybe if in adaptations of the later books, we have scenes of the Friends of Narnia starting to get together regularly, Digory / the Professor could explain to Lucy and Edmund and Peter that the wardrobe was made from the wood of the tree that he planted in London from a Narnian seed. But that would make that information come out somewhere far removed from the action of MN, which I think makes it have less of an impact. It's hard to say what would work best there, really.

Oh yeah. Probably another I thought of is that between Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, there could be an episode about Caspian X fighting the giants of Ettinsmoor, and how he made them pay him tribute.

@courtenay in a number of places, someone tells a story. 

I like the idea/device of the Friends of Narnia getting together, with the Professor and Polly  telling about their adventure in MN particularly for Eustace and Jill, and then those two giving a full account of their journey in SC. And so on.

Some of the untold stories referred to could certainly get told.

I've been sitting on this thought for a while...after the wardrobe blowup in the first book, as well as Peter and Susan's conversation with the Professor, Peter really had his work cut out for him with damage control.  And yet, by the time they all ended up in Narnia while hiding from Mrs. MacCready and her house party (which could have been anywhere from a few days to a few weeks later), the whole dynamic was changed. 

The matter of the wardrobe had been dropped, and Edmund and Lucy were able to be in the same room without coming to blows (in fact all four of them seemed to be on good terms with each other at this point).  I know that CS Lewis made a note of how Peter really tried to keep the peace within the family, but I wouldn't mind seeing some exploration of how he went about it.  This might help flesh out their characters (or at least, this onscreen version of said characters).  Perhaps Susan deserves some credit as well, but her role in the damage control was more understated compared to Peter's.  That doesn't mean she wasn't also a part of it, or that Netflix cannot portray her as having a major part in it. Either way, these little human moments often make a story more interesting for me. 

(please forgive my ramblings, shift work is no joke).

(no, not that Shift.  Okay I'll stop now).

How about an episodic series about the events that takes place between MN and LWW?

There can be one about the coronation of Col I, the first King of Archenland. There, we see the kingdom of Archenland established.

Then one about King Gale slaying the dragon at the Lone Islands.

Then one about Queen Swanwhite.

There can also be a glimpse of Jadis growing stronger in dark magic in the North. Then the start of the Eternal Winter. A glimpse of the four thrones, and the prophecy voice over- "When Adams flesh and Adams bones sit in Cair Paravel in Throne, the Evil time will be over and done."