I like Narnia because it is an allagory of the Bible (LWW)!

1) It's semi-biblical
2) Animals are given major character roles
3) Trees can talk, think, have feelings
4) Those old dreams of walking into a wardrobe and out of our world/ into another.

Great post, DD. I think your explanation is spot on, particularly for believers. Nonbelievers that are fans simply can't realize why they enjoy these series so much. As Paul says, we all have embedded within us an appreciation that there is a God who created everything and who is in control. Until the nonbeliever accepts this, he just won't really get it! He knows he likes the stories but he won't be able to explain it as thoroughly as you have .

Fantasy draws us in becuase there is something in that world, that we don't have here. Everything is different and amazing, and things that couldn't possible happen here,

True. People want to read about something that is out of the ordinary. Someone who escapes their everyday life and suddenly needs to save the world in which there are enchantments, various kinds of magic, dragons, other mystical creatures, and so on. Something about fantasy enthralls us because it is about the unseen, the unknown, the unexpected. A character will live in our world, doing the same day to day thing, and suddenly get transported to another world. I really like the quote you gave by C.S. Lewis.

Narnia has a special quality to it for believers because we know of the stuff behind what Lewis wrote. Some fantasies are just fantasy novels with magic and all the usual elements, but if they lack depth, they just don't seem as worthwhile.

Thinking of the quote from Aslan to Lucy in VDT: "The reason I brought you into this world was so that you could know me better there." This is something I don't usually see in normal fantasies.

As Paul says, we all have embedded within us an appreciation that there is a God who created everything and who is in control. Until the nonbeliever accepts this, he just won't really get it!.

Absolutely! I also agree with Lady Galadriel, so many other fantasies have that fantastical element to it, but they just feel, well, empty. There isn't any truth behind it. It seems so strange that we should find truth behind fantasy, of all things, but it is so true! Readers recognize the lack of something, but they can't put thier finger on why Tolkien/Lewis type authors write better fantasy.

Gilby's Angel do you know the reference for that verse from Paul? I know the one you're talking about but i can't remember where it is!

Wow, do you guys think that maybe this is one of the reasons why the narnia movies haven't been as popular as the books? (not that they would be anyway) But one of the elements that the directors have just not clearly shown through the movies is the truth behind the stories. I don't know if Adamson is a Christian or not, (and i'm not condemning him for not being one,) but maybe he himself didn't understand what sets Narnia so far apart from other fantasies. The movies weren't set apart from other fantasies as much, they were just another fantasy movie. A brilliant fantasy movie, but nothing more. I do think LW&W did a better job, though.

Aslan!

And it is fantasy. And it has strong female characters. Who actually go on adventures and quests.

I like fantasy and speculative fiction in general. But without the Christian angle, it would have been just another fantasy series.

Curiously, I did not like LOTR/The Hobbit- even though it has at least moral undertones if not downright Christian ones as well. But Narnia has totally won me over.

I like Narnia because it reminds me of Heaven. And innocence.

Great post, DD. I think your explanation is spot on, particularly for believers. Nonbelievers that are fans simply can't realize why they enjoy these series so much.

What an incredibly narrow-minded thing to say. As a non-believer, I can articulate perfectly well why I enjoy this series, along with any other fantasy series as a general rule.

A dragon, versus a helicopter.

Both fly, both have been known to carry men, but the dragon is sometimes beautiful, gracefully swooping beneath the clouds, representing the essence of nature and creatures on earth, in sea, and sky. The helicopter, on the other hand, is harshly angled, mechanical, spewing noxious fumes, loudly cracking the air as it rips along.

Travel back in time and describe the dragon and the helicopter to a viking. Which one would he think was real? Which one would he think was a monster?

This is the essence of fantasy. Fantasy is about symbols which represent things in this reality, in this world, and how we desire them. How we desire beauty, grace, and nature over the spiritless artificiality of modernity. It gives us a vision for a better life. If science fiction is meant to be a warning sign for humanity, fantasy is meant to be an instruction manual.

At the height of this genre, there’s a certain kind of idyllic fantasy to which Tolkien and C.S. Lewis belong, written with archetypes from a period of mythological history that seems unshackled compared to the harsh sterility of the industrial world. (Incidentally, this type of fantasy is often deemed out-moded, its quaint medieval fields and figures in shining armor made obsolete by the commercial pulp of towering steam cities and goggle-bearing antiheroes.) Tolkien himself writes in his essay "On Faerie Stories" that to create an ideal world with the inner consistency of reality is at the heart of fantasy, and from that desire (perhaps inadvertently channeling Jung) we glean images from mythology--dragons, unicorns, knights, castles, elfs, goblins--that epitomize on some fundamental level various aspects of that idealism.

This form of fantasy intentionally invokes archaic means to improved ends. Its spirit often hearkens back to the myths of our ancestors and upholds them, knowing the integrity of their messages; it pities any age where ancestral wisdom has become droll, considered useless in any situation where a plastic substitute can suffice, however transient that substitute may be. To save that certain once-known spirit from being lost by ever-collapsing walls, pure fantasy desires to paint an idyllic vision of reality; its dreamlike power and primal imagery breaths forth like an old magic, filtering to the part of our being that unconsciously asks the question: what should be? And answers it.

I think that non-believers can enjoy Narnia just as well as believers- for the story. However, they cannot relate to the spiritual allegory of Aslan dying for the traitor Edmund and Jesus dying for sinful us.
I love Narnia because it is so different from everything else! Awesome!

Berserker,
Dr Laura related the following conversation on her radio program:

A young woman called in and told Dr. Laura that she had always loved children. She managed a Day Care for 10 years and she really, really loved children. Or so she thought...until she had her own child. Then, she truly knew what it was to love a child.

Perhaps this illustrates more clearly the point I was trying to make in my earlier post. I believe my quote was taken out of context. I would never suggest that Believers are the only ones who can ARTICULATE their reasons for enjoying the Narnia stories. That would be silly. Even a 10 year old can explain why he likes a story--though not as eloquently as you did! No, my point, apparently poorly worded, was that since LWW is a Christian supposal, they who have not personally experienced the impact of Jesus' sacrifice and the grace of redemption cannot truly comprehend the depth of feeling/insight this story can ellicit. If that is narrowminded, so be it. I stand by my post.

Destrier, check out Romans, chs. 1 & 2, especially 1:18-20 and 2:11-16.

Perhaps this illustrates more clearly the point I was trying to make in my earlier post. I believe my quote was taken out of context.

Sure. When you said, "He knows he likes the stories but he won't be able to explain it as thoroughly as you have," I took it to mean that non-believers couldn't possibly articulate an explanation for liking the story as well as believers. Thanks for clearing that up.

There are two sides of me, and both are attracted to Narnia.

The first is my godless side, which hungers for fantasy of all sorts, is bored with life, and wants to escape into a more "epic" (pardon the incorrect use of the word) world. Narnia, of course, draws that side of me--and many others like me as well, I would hazard to say. I think the fairy-tale satisfies a longing for the otherworldly that is inherent in humans--because we are not made for this world. That is why Narnia appeals to and attracts people of all sorts, including non-Christians.

The second side is the one that is trying to follow Christ. First of all, The Chronicles of Narnia identifies some of the prime struggles in the Christian walk... or at least mine. ;] I find some solace and comfort in seeing them worked out in the lives of the Pevensies and other characters--for me it's a picture of hope.

On a side, slightly off-topic note... I know a lot of people say that the movies were thoroughly un-Christian, but I found that when I watched Prince Caspian I got more out of it than when I read the books. (which is unusually for me... a serious bookwyrm.) The struggle against one's own self-will, one's own way to do things, and God's way, and our need to depend on him... it all fell together so well in the movie. Even when they changed it (the raid on Miraz's castle), it only accentuated my sense of gosh...they've done absolutely EVERYTHING they could do in their own strength, half-destroyed their own forces... they're at the end of their rope without a shadow of a doubt. And then, when they finally realize it and surrender to what seems reckless and stupid in the eyes of the world ("That's your next big plan? Sending a little girl out in the forest...alone?!"), that is when Aslan comes in. He's been waiting for them, all this time. Just like He's waiting for me.

On a side, slightly off-topic note... I know a lot of people say that the movies were thoroughly un-Christian, but I found that when I watched Prince Caspian I got more out of it than when I read the books. (which is unusually for me... a serious bookwyrm.)

I'd have to say for the most part I agree with you on this. I can't say the movies were un-Christian, I think although there are different concepts there are just as many in the movies as in the books.

As there are in all movies, period. XD