XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   XPost: rec.arts.books, rec.arts.books.childrens   
   From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu   
      
   Quoth hayesstw@yahoo.com in article   
   :   
   > Now that prompts a question, which I might need to re-read the whole   
   > series to answer. At the beginning the faun asks if Lucy is a   
   > daughter of Eve, but presumably all humans in Narnia were sons of   
   > Adam and daughters of Eve (as opposed to the talking animals). It   
   > suggests that either there were no humans in Narnia at the time, or   
   > at least that the faun was unfamiliar with them.   
      
   That's one of the things that always feels like an inconsistency in   
   Narnia to me.  In LWW, as you point out, Tumnus seems entirely   
   unfamiliar with human beings: there are clearly none in Narnia at the   
   time, and Tumnus's bookshelf includes titles like "Is Man a Myth?".   
   (I belive that Tumnus even comments on how no humans have been seen   
   there in ages, if at all.)  The presence of /any/ humans in Narnia is   
   a cause of concern for the Witch.  And there are /four/ empty thrones   
   in Cair Paravel: those are clearly waiting for the Pevensies, not   
   remnants of some earlier human monarchy.  As far as we can tell, the   
   four children are the only humans in that world at the time, and   
   perhaps the only humans there ever.   
      
   In /Prince Caspian/, a special explanation for the presence of the   
   Telmarines (and for their humanity) seems to be required (they came to   
   Telmar from our world).  Again, there is no suggestion there that the   
   Telmarines might have come from elsewhere in the world of Narnia, or   
   that they ever intermarried with others there.  It also seems like   
   they had pretty much wiped out the non-human population of Narnia; at   
   least, the Telmarines seemed to convincingly outnumber Caspian's army   
   (and they had plenty of other resources that they hadn't even drawn   
   upon yet).   
      
   In /Dawn Treader/, we suddenly learn about a bunch of islands out to   
   the East, many populated by humans (do we ever see a talking beast out   
   there at all?).  And you can't just assume that they were settled by   
   the Telmarines, because there are comments that the Lone Islands were   
   controlled by Narnia in Peter's day and before.  I believe that this   
   is the first mention of Calormen, too: there's apparently a whole   
   other human kingdom out there.  But the issue isn't explored at   
   length.   
      
   /The Silver Chair/ starts out with something of a surprise: when   
   Eustace and Jill look at the crowd watching Caspian sail away, I   
   believe that they see that only about 1 in 5 people in the crowd were   
   human.  That's quite a reversal of the massive human majority   
   suggested by /Prince Caspian/; I guess a whole lot of the Telmarines   
   must have decided to leave Narnia, and that the Talking Beasts must   
   have been breeding like rabbits (Talking Rabbits?).   
      
   /The Horse and His Boy/ suddenly turns our earlier impressions on   
   their head.  First of all, we learn that the world of Narnia is   
   absolutely crawling with humans and human kingdoms; only the tiny   
   country of Narnia itself lacks them.  (I guess the White Witch must   
   have had some incredibly effective border patrols to prevent people   
   from Archenland from crossing the easy pass into Narnia, or for that   
   matter to prevent people from Calormen from coming up and kidnapping   
   horses.)  Second, as I recall, the Narnian delegation to Calormen   
   includes a number of humans in addition to the Pevensies: did all of   
   these human advisors come from Archenland, or what?  And why would   
   Narnia adopt so many people from another nation into their government   
   so quickly?  And finally, the whole Archenland thing seems to come out   
   of thin air: there's been no hint of it before, but apparently Narnia   
   and Archenland are best of friends... even though the two nations   
   can't have communicated since the White Witch came to power (and   
   wasn't that hundreds of years earlier?).  (Mind you, everyone else in   
   the world was apparently aware of the Witch, including the   
   Calormenes.)   
      
   /The Magician's Nephew/ injects yet more humans into Narnia:   
   apparently, humans were its first kings (and they established   
   Archenland as well; there's never any indication of where the   
   population of Calormen came from).  It's not entirely clear to me just   
   how human the descendants of King Frank would have been, either (since   
   his children apparently all married non-humans).   
      
   I don't think that /The Last Battle/ adds much to this story, except   
   that there were apparently also humans living up above the great   
   waterfall in the West (who hunted lions, which apparently no longer   
   existed in Narnia at the time, given that nobody there had ever seen   
   one).   
      
      
   I've never been clear on how to reconcile all this.  But it's another   
   reason that I suggest reading the Narnia books in publication order:   
   the contradictions are less glaring if you ease into them as Lewis   
   apparently did. :)   
      
   					Steuard Jensen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)