This is kind of a topic of debate. The argument could be made that the jinn and giants interbred at one time and settled in Charn. They may have human appearance, but as the book says, "Not a drop of real human blood in the witch."

CS Lewis didn't plan out the series in advance. He could have been more clear on this. It's kind of like, "Oh, I should go back and read the series, because maybe there's something I miss."

I got the impression that the royalty in Charn were descended from giants/jinn and the other citizens weren't, but it's hard to tell since only the statues of the kings and queens were preserved. It could be that they actually weren't like Adam and Eve's descendants at all. Similar to Narnia, the kings and queens were humanoid and who knows what everyone else looked like? But that raises the question of why Jadis accepted the idea that Digory and Polly weren't royalty.

The short answer is, it's ambiguous for the most part.  While Jadis and her family have a specific lineage (Jinn + Giants - with the mythical Lillith being their foremother), I think there's actually a decent chance that the royalty was a different species from the laypeople altogether.  Some things stand out to me that point towards the royal family attaining Charn through conquest rather than it being their actual homeworld.

When Jadis went to conquer Earth, the whole set-up from the preservation to the bell, to knowing what information to extract from Digory, made it seem like this wasn't her first rodeo (or at least, her species' first rodeo).  Especially later on when she vowed to subject Earth to misery, slavery and destruction, she said she would make it like "Charn".  Not just like Charn, but also like "Felinda, Sorlois and Bramandin".  Maybe the sons and daughters of Lillith had done this for a while, through magic. Lots of different species, some possibly human. 

I wonder if the people of Charn looked human, but were not really human, and different in some small detail. Maybe they had small tails or something! After all no one ever saw Jadis naked.

@cobalt-jade Of course not... CS Lewis wouldn't do that in a children's book. It's possible at one time the giants and jinn interbreed in another world, then settled in Charn.

Posted by: @cobalt-jade

I know that in LWW Jadis is stated to have both Jinn and Giant blood, so is not fully human. But in MN, the inhabitants of her world, of whom she is descended from, seem human enough, even if Jadis herself has foreign blood. My question is, and this is open for discussion, could the ordinary people of Charn be considered as human as Digory and Polly, or the Pevensies, that is, "Children of Adam and Eve?" Or are they descended from something or someone else, and not human as Lewis would define it?

And if they are NOT Children of Adam and Eve, how would they differ from us?

I'd say it's another of these unanswerable questions caused by Lewis having a gap of several years between writing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew and apparently not paying much attention to what he wrote in the former book before writing the latter...

Seriously, of all the discrepancies and inconsistencies in Narnia, the biggest ones are between those two books. I'm always glad I read LWW first (well, mostly Mum read it to me, as I was 4 1/2 at the time) and then had a gap of about 3 years before I read MN and the rest of the series, so I didn't notice most of the continuity errors the first time around!!

Back on topic for the possible "in-universe" explanations, if there are any... in MN, Lewis does note that "some say there is giantish blood in the royal family of Charn", which suggests he was at least vaguely remembering what he originally said about the White Witch in the first book. It doesn't really explain or account for anything much, though, as the Beavers' account of her in LWW makes clear that she's not merely not fully human — she isn't human AT ALL. They state quite explicitly that "there isn't a drop of real human blood in the Witch" and "that's why she's bad all through".

It could be that the people of Charn were like humans, but not quite the same species as humans on Earth — humanoids, if you like. (To stray into Doctor Who territory for a moment, just like how Time Lords look human but aren't.) We really don't find out enough about the Charnese in general to be sure about anything to do with them.

However, Lewis's description of the statues of the Charnese royal family strongly implies that they were a people who started out wise and good, but gradually became more and more corrupted by evil. The statues go from looking "kind and wise" through "very solemn" to "very strong and proud and happy, but they looked cruel" — and then "crueller", and then "still cruel but they no longer looked happy. They were even despairing faces: as if the people they belonged to had done dreadful things and also suffered dreadful things." And they of course culminate in Jadis, "with a look of such fierceness and pride that it took your breath away." (And as it turns out, of course, she's not actually a statue, but the real person, having put herself under a spell to preserve herself there. After she destroyed every other living thing in her world with a single word, that is.)

So there we have two completely different origin stories for the same character. Either she was descended from Jinns and giants with no real human blood whatsoever, and that in itself is what makes her evil all through — or she was descended from an at least humanlike race of royalty who were good in the beginning but became more and more evil down many generations. I'm racking my brains, but I honestly can't come up with a way to reconcile those two narratives. And we can't even say it's an effect of the Last Great Time War...  (Sorry, Doctor Who reference again. I'm not even a huge fan of that series, but I'm aware that's the stock explanation for all the continuity errors in it!! )

Anyway, that's all we know from the books, as far as I can see... does anyone else have any ideas???

Posted by: @glenwit

I think there's actually a decent chance that the royalty was a different species from the laypeople altogether. 

Like in Narnia, how the royalty (the Pevensies) are humans while the rest of the kingdom is made up of animals. Although, it doesn't mention in the book, I don't think the people in Charn were human. I don't think they were animals as well, like in Narnia. However since the animals in Narnia were based on the animals from our world, but talking of course, I wonder if the creatures in Charn were somewhat like the animals in out world too. In MN it says: 

" Their robes were of crimson and silvery grey
and deep purple and vivid green: and there were patterns, and pictures
of flowers and strange beasts, in needlework all over them." -Magician's Nephew 

The Royalty might've been a mix of Jinn and Giant like Jadis was, but I have a theory that the people actually living in Charn or the Charnese, were animals. 

I can't see them being animals, because at one point in MN Polly says to Jadis "What about all the people? And the animals?" after Jadis says the Deplorable Word killed everything under the sun. If the Charnese were animals, Jadis would have corrected her. Instead she says "They were MY people, to be used the way I wished."

I also don't put much stock in what Mrs. Beaver says about the drop of human blood. She's complaining in hyperbole like how populations complain a tyrannical ruler.