By the way — I'm genuinely curious — why do you keep spelling "slave" as "sl@ve"? It's not a swear word in any form of English that I know of, and it definitely isn't a banned word in this forum.

I hope everyone here appreciates the hard work and discretion of our NarniaWeb moderators.  

Back to our subject.  

Here's a puzzling one. In THE LAST BATTLE, what happened to the Magic Rings?

We know that Peter and Edmund collected them. We suppose that the Rings were in some sort of Container (box? pouch? purse? jewelry box? paper bag?). Then Peter and Edmund (standing on the platform) are struck by the incoming train.

ONE: The Rings remain in the Container, and the Container remains on the body. The "crash scene investigators" collect the bodies and send them to the morgue. The Container is treated as personal effects, and handed over to Susan... unopened. (This requires the professionals to fail to perform an inventory. An inventory is customary.)

Footnote to ONE: apparently a popular theory else-web is that the Container was buried with Peter. It doesn't address the question of why Susan never opened it. But maybe she got the tingling, the shivers, when she touched it, as Uncle Andrew had felt so long ago, and just wanted it gone.

TWO: The Rings remain in the Container, and the Container on the body, but the professionals open it to perform an inventory. Someone touches a Yellow Ring, and vanishes. If the professional had the Container in hand, then that would relocate all of the Rings to the Wood Between the World. The professional takes a nap, and that's the end of the Rings running around loose, so to speak.

THREE: The Container breaks, scattering Rings over the crash scene. Dozens of persons might notice a Ring and try to pick it up ... crash scene investigators, ambulance/hearse personnel, dazed survivors, disaster-tourists, and even some homeless persons living in or around the station. Up to a dozen people touch a Yellow Ring and vanish into the Wood Between the Worlds. They take a nap, and that's the end of the Yellow Rings. (The fate of the Green Rings remains unknown.)

FOUR: Peter and Edmund are struck by the engine, specifically. A fireball erupts. They are incinerated and the Rings melt. Of course, if a fire that "cool" could melt supernatural rings, Peter and Edmund could have been instructed by Aslan, or even the Professor Kirke, to visit a steel mill and melt them like the Terminator Two.

Then again, if Aslan wanted the Rings removed from our world (now that their guardians are leaving said world), he could have asked them to bury the Rings around a tree in the Wood Between the Worlds.

My guess is that Number Three is the most likely. But I would be interested to hear alternate possibilities.

@the-old-maid I've always assumed possibly no. 2 happened even though it's kind of depressing. It just seems the most likely and doesn't require any leaps of logic. 

Hey, people with excellent imaginations:

This thread could easily stray into fan fiction. It is well known that I don't like fan fiction, and it is not allowed on Narniaweb. 

So please will you stay on the right side of the line, when you write your scenarios? Thank you🦁

My apologies if I contributed to that. I was just puzzled that Aslan would permit (either Ultimate Will or "just" Permissive Will) the unearthing of the Rings. They weren't 100-percent safe at a house the Seven Friends no longer owned, but they were far less unsafe there, than at a crash site scoured by hundreds of people. I just was hoping someone might know what C.S. Lewis or his family said about it.

@the-old-maid I've never seen any comments on this question from the Estate, including Mr Gresham.

(This didn't reach fanfiction, merely 'what if's)

There may have been comments from Lewis scholars in the past especially from the Wade Centre. Does anyone know?

I would like to know what happened on Ramandu’s Island after the Dawn Treader and is crew left.  I don’t remember that Ramandu or his beautiful daughter was mentioned again after their departure or that it was referred to in any of the other books. I can’t imagine that the Narnians would not have talked about it in their history of the voyage.  Edmund and Lucy might have spoken of the intriguing place after they returned home.  But Lewis said little or nothing of it after the voyage was over. It is a little disappointing after he created such a wonderful place. 🙁

Posted by: @narnian78

I don’t remember that Ramandu or his beautiful daughter was mentioned again after their departure or that it was referred to in any of the other books.

We are told a bit about Ramadu's daughter.

@davidd 

I didn’t remember that reference to Ramandu’s daughter. Thanks for pointing it out.  I wish that Lewis had said more about Ramandu and his island.

Unfortunately she never was given a name.

so ... a scene we never saw ...

from THE SILVER CHAIR:

(I won't ask why Regent Trumpkin didn't send a Talking Bird or a Mermaid to catch his king, given that Aslan did in fact address Caspian's question of the succession: he sent the two children. The characters only missed each other by less than an hour. But Trumpkin's oversight, while real, is a scene that never happened.)

Instead ...

In a true scene, Regent Trumpkin is informed that two children have arrived (as a critic once described), On a Mission From God . Trumpkin displays the highest hospitality in the form of a royal banquet, music, and professional bards telling the Bree-and-Cor story. The missing scene I'd like to see (but it would interrupt the flow of the story):

Trumpkin wakes up the next morning and they are gone. Didn't even leave a note! If we know Trumpkin, we know he made a big scene . That's a scene I'd enjoy to see. Especially if they could get Peter Dinklage to return as the character.

Was the creation of Narnia ever hinted at in any of the other Narnia books?  It is true that The Magician’s Nephew is the sixth book in publication order, but I wonder if Lewis had any suggestion or reference to the idea in any other Narnia.  We are told that Narnia was good before the White Witch arrived, but there isn’t too much detail given on how it was created before The Magician’s Nephew, which gives us a complete account.  It does make one wonder why Lewis waited until the sixth book to tell us the creation story of Narnia, but I guess he had his own reasons for doing it. 

@narnian78

As I understand it, the writing order of the Chronicles of Narnia is very difficult to ascertain 100%, but it is different to the publishing order.

He definitely wrote (and published) "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first".  I have heard many times that he then began writing "The Magician's Nephew" next, but had a lot of difficulty with it and continued writing the other books in parallel (though other's say he didn't start "The Magician's Nephew" at this point.

He then wrote "Prince Caspian" and "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" which were published in that order.

Next, he wrote "The Horse and His Boy" (which may have an indirect reference to "The Magician's Nephew" in it when Shasta speaks to Duffle:
"
“Now, Stranger,” said Duffle, “I’ll show you the lie of the land. You can see nearly all South Narnia from here, and we’re rather proud of the view. Right away on your left, beyond those near hills, you can just see the Western Mountains. And that round hill away on your right is called the Hill of the Stone Table. Just beyond—”
").  If it is a reference, it is pretty subtle.

But before he published "The Horse and His Boy", he wrote and published "The Silver Chair".  (The Silver Chair also contains a reference to "The Horse and His Boy" in chapter 3, when Eustace and Jill supp in Cair Paravel:
"
And when all the serious eating and drinking was over, a blind poet came forward and struck up the grand old tale of Prince Cor and Aravis and the horse Bree, which is called The Horse and His Boy and tells of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands between, in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Cair Paravel. (I haven’t time to tell it now, though it is well worth hearing.)
")  I am guessing he published "The Silver Chair" first because it contained Eustace (and so was indirectly continuing the story of the Pevensies and their relative), before telling a story about two completely new characters.

Again, I have heard two further claims as to the writing order.  One is that Lewis next completed "The Magician's Nephew" and then "The Last Battle" which he published in the same order.  The other claim is that he continued to struggle with "The Magician's Nephew" and finished "The Last Battle" followed by "The Magician's Nephew" but he published "The Magician's Nephew" first.  (If this is true, I suspect he published "The Magician's Nephew" first because "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "The Last Battle" form bookends for the series as hinted at by the fact that both their original editions contained the subtitle "A story for Children by C.S. Lewis" - which is not the case for any of the other novels in the series.

When Digory and Polly ride on fledge, there are a couple refences to "The Silver Chair" and "The Horse and His Boy":

"
All Narnia, many-colored with lawns and rocks and heather and different sorts of trees, lay spread out below them, the river winding through it like a ribbon of quicksilver. They could already see over the tops of the low hills which lay northward on their right; beyond those hills a great moorland sloped gently up and up to the horizon. On their left the mountains were much higher, but every now and then there was a gap when you could see, between steep pine woods, a glimpse of the southern lands that lay beyond them, looking blue and far away.

“That’ll be where Archenland is,” said Polly."
"

"The Last Battle" of course has a large number of references to "The Magician's Nephew" between the rings, "Lord Digory" and "Lady Polly", "the two who came into Narnia at the very beginning, the day all the animals learned to talk", the Western Wild that Digory and Polly had visited long ago, etc.

All that to say, I could be wrong, but C.S. Lewis may not have waited to tell the origin story (instead he may have struggled to write it). If the timeline where Lewis began writing "The Magician's Nephew" 2nd, but completed it last is true, then he delayed this story because he did not finish it in time to be published sooner.

On the other hand, if he wrote it more or less in the published order, than I have no idea why he waited so long.  The first four stories seem to be focused on the Pevensies (or Eustace as related to them) until he changes directions with 'The Horse and His Boy' and makes the primary characters have little relation to Peter Susan, Edmund, Lucy and Eustace, after which writing a prequel about the Professor made more sense (as he was no longer shackled to the Pevensies).  I dunno - this is a disappointing and boring explanation, but it seems likely to me.

Posted by: @davidd

But before he published "The Horse and His Boy", he wrote and published "The Silver Chair".  (The Silver Chair also contains a reference to "The Horse and His Boy" in chapter 3, when Eustace and Jill supp in Cair Paravel:
"
And when all the serious eating and drinking was over, a blind poet came forward and struck up the grand old tale of Prince Cor and Aravis and the horse Bree, which is called The Horse and His Boy and tells of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands between, in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Cair Paravel. (I haven’t time to tell it now, though it is well worth hearing.)
")  I am guessing he published "The Silver Chair" first because it contained Eustace (and so was indirectly continuing the story of the Pevensies and their relative), before telling a story about two completely new characters.

So CS Lewis was referencing a book he hadn't published yet when he wrote that...I never once made that connection.  That's actually wild.

@davidd 

I am certain that Lewis had thoughts about a creation story long before The Magician’s Nephew. He may have just decided to say little or nothing about the creation before he wrote the sixth published book.  It may be that he was deciding on how to write the story, but he didn’t want to make it public.  He wrote fragments of the Magician’s Nephew but apparently wasn’t satisfied with them.  So the completed story was delayed.  It doesn’t really matter that much when he wrote the story, but that he completed it was more important.

Here's one:

THE SILVER CHAIR ... I would like to have seen the creation of the land of Bism.

I assume that the location was created at the same time as the rest of the planet, which by itself would be delightful to watch. But I wish I could watch if it was peopled at the same time ("earthmen" and "salamanders")..