XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books.childrens   
   XPost: rec.arts.sf.written   
   From: severian22000@nospam.yahoo.co.uk   
      
   On 30 Jan 2006 17:51:18 -0800, nystulc@cs.com wrote:   
      
      
   >Read closely, "Magician's Nephew" is actually fairly consistent with   
   >Beaver's bit of lore about Jadis' heritage (to resumarize, Beaver   
   >claims Jadis is a mix of Jinn & Giant - and mentions Lilith as her   
   >primordial progenitor on the Jinn side).   
   >   
   snip   
   >   
   >Evidently, the common people of Charn are quite distinct from the   
   >nobility.  When Jadis first sees Diggory and Polly, she instantly   
   >determines at first glance that they have no "noble blood."  She does   
   >the same when she meets Uncle Andrew, and is almost surprised that he   
   >is a commoner, yet still has the "mark" of a magician.  Then she   
   >remembered that her own world once had such "dabblers", devoid of   
   >"real" natural magical talent -- they were stamped out by the nobility   
   >a thousand years ago.   
   >   
   >It is not entirely clear that the common people of Charn are human, but   
   >it seems likely that they are.   
      
   That's a plausible argument; I'd not thought of the people of Charn as   
   being divided by race before.   
      
   As an aside, I've always thought of the Charn episode as one of the   
   best pieces of writing in the whole Narnia series. It scared me no end   
   when i was a kid (I think it was the rows of figures in suspended   
   animation, and the way they were described - crueller and crueller as   
   you went along them), and there's the sense of doom and decay, and the   
   moral dilemma posed by that throwaway rhyme written under the bell...   
   very, very well written.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)