Posted by: @silverlily

even though I know the Doylist explanation is often just "Lewis didn't think it through that far."

Hmmm, I didn't know the term "Doylist explanation" (I assume it's a Sherlock Holmes reference?), but I do tend to trot out "Lewis just didn't think it through that far" as a standard response whenever there are debates about unexplained things in Narnia!!   He simply wasn't anywhere near as thorough in his world-building as Tolkien was (nor was he trying to be), and there are definitely some major discrepancies between some of the Narnia books. But none of that spoils my enjoyment of them, or lessens how much they mean to me.

@courtenay Yes it is a Sherlock Holmes reference, in a way! It's also a literary analysis term. The idea is that for a lot of things in a story, there are actually two ways of examining it. There's the Doylist way - what did the author mean by this - or the Watsonian way, which is what did this mean to the characters or how does it make sense inside the story. A lot of times I find a Watsonian view more interesting personally. I start by looking at "what if this were a real thing, how would it make sense in *that* world." But occasionally I like to pull back and take a look at the themes and what the author was telling us.

@silverlily I get the impression that C. S. Lewis intended Aslan to be God the Son in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but had pretty much forgotten or deliberately rejected that idea by the time he got to The Magician's Nephew, though I believe the character gets a brief mention in The Last Battle. Developing the Emperor Beyond the Sea at that late point in the series would have been a nuisance, let alone a third character to be God the Holy Spirit. (Pardon my Doylism.)

I always wondered why Aslan wasn’t involved very much with Charn. There isn’t even anything which showed that he appeared in that world.  It’s like the world was abandoned when Jadis did her evil deeds. Unlike Narnia there were no forces of good fighting with Aslan to save the world and restore the good that was once there. Sadly, it  was a world mostly abandoned to the forces of evil. 🙁

Posted by: @narnian78

I always wondered why Aslan wasn’t involved very much with Charn. There isn’t even anything which showed that he appeared in that world

Well, keep in mind, we know fairly little about Charn, only what can be gleaned from observation and what Jadis tells us. 

Posted by: @narnian78

Unlike Narnia there were no forces of good fighting with Aslan to save the world and restore the good that was once there. Sadly, it  was a world mostly abandoned to the forces of evil.

I don't see anything strange about that. Sounds pretty much like our world.  

A bit late to the debate here, but for what it's worth my interpretation was always a fairly simple one - that God exists universally throughout all worlds, but that he appears in different forms in each.

So our world has Jesus, Narnia has Aslan, and Charn would have had something else.

(Again, this is going with the assumption that the Chronicles are not a direct allegory and not everything has a perfect one-to-one relationship with the theological text.)

@col-klink 

Did you mean that Charn is like our world? I am not sure what you meant by “out world” as you have it typed in you message. I would suggest proofreading your messages before posting them so that they are more easily understood by the people who read them. Writing in clear, complete sentences would certainly make your ideas more comprehensible. 

@narnian78 That is correct. I meant to type "our world" but it came our as "out world." (See if you can spot a subtle joke in that last sentence. )

Posted by: @col-klink

@silverlily I get the impression that C. S. Lewis intended Aslan to be God the Son in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but had pretty much forgotten or deliberately rejected that idea by the time he got to The Magician's Nephew, though I believe the character gets a brief mention in The Last Battle. Developing the Emperor Beyond the Sea at that late point in the series would have been a nuisance, let alone a third character to be God the Holy Spirit. (Pardon my Doylism.)

There are at least two allusions to the Holy Spirit:  the albatross which flies around the top of the Dawn Treader mast, and whispers to Lucy, "Courage, dear heart," and the third "Myself " said to Shasta by the voice in HHB, which turns out to be Aslan.

@coracle - allusions, yes, but in a way which is clearly merged with the Aslan-character, not characterized with a separate name as in the case of the Father/the Emperor. 

@silverlily I see it differently from you. But that's all right.

The Woods Between the Worlds was a place where nothing much happened. It was like a waiting room in an office, which is a place of transition.  There was something beautiful about it since it had all of those magical pools. I think Aslan created it as a place to stay temporarily with something enchanted about it. It did have a purpose as a way to get from one world to another.

Posted by: @coracle

 

 

In MN we read how Aslan sang the land of Narnia into being. We can't base Christian theology on these books, but many people start their understanding of various issues with them.  My own simple answer has to be that of there is one creator, he made all the worlds. 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1

This is especially if you're reading the series in publication order. In LWW, Aslan is Narnia's Savior but when you get to MN, you learn that He is also Narnia's creator.

I wonder if it is possible to picture Charn as a world like Narnia at the time of its creation.  Would it have been something perfect and beautiful to see?  My impression when Digory and Polly entered it that it was something beautiful once that had lost its perfection for the most part.  But according to the book you could see that it once was something much better. And that is one of the clues that Aslan had created it.  If there had been five or ten righteous people living in it (or maybe a few more) like Abraham thought about Sodom and Gomorrah could Aslan have saved it?  I guess we cannot really be certain. 

.

Remember when Aslan tells the children in Voyage of the Dawn Treader that in our world he has another name? Since Charn is a different world, could it be possible that Aslan has another name in Charn as well?