CRACKED FAQ:
The Chronicles of Narnia
What is it?
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is the first in a series of fantasy novels called The Chronicles of Narnia , by C.S. Lewis. In it, four children named Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are transported through a magical closet to the magical world of Narnia, a land of talking animals ruled by a lion named Aslan. The children join forces with Aslan to defeat an evil White Witch.
Wow, that sounds awesome! Is it any good?
Ha, ha, ha! Of course not. The books are over 50 years old. If you haven't heard about it before now, there's a probably a good reason. It's not like Lord of the Rings flew under people's radar for 50 years -- it's one of the bestselling book series on the planet. The Chronicles of Narnia is essentially Lord of the Rings for kids with religious parents who won't let them read good books. It's only even being made into a movie because its producers are hoping every filmgoer who got hooked on watching a Rings movie over the last three years will squint hard at the screen and mistake the kids for hobbits.
Chronicles of Narnia is like Lord of the Rings methadone. Fuck Narnia.
Um. That seemed a little harsh.
Yeah, maybe. I don't know, I'm having some problems with my girlfriend right now and I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I'm a complete wreck, I don't know how I'm going to make rent this month, and now I'm supposed to sit down and write some article outlining the plot of a goddamn kid's movie. Four kids jump through a closet to Talking Lion Land and eat some porridge, alright? They have archery contests and eat honey, It's a magical fucking paradise, take your kids.
Have you even seen the movie?
Would you get off my back? Why are you even asking me about all this? Is your backbone this tiny, you actually need to go online and read about a movie before you go see it? What is this, a NASA launch? Are you researching a second mortgage on your home? It's a two hour time investment to see a kid's film with its plot in the fucking title. Go or don't. Go drink a bag of paint for all I care.
It's just that I heard it was some kind of Christian allegory. Is Jesus in it or something?
No, Jesus isn't in The Chronicles of Narnia. Narnia is a fairy tale about four children who befriend a kindly lion and have exciting adventures. Then the kindly lion is revealed to be the King of Kings and the son of an omnipotent deity; is betrayed his disciples and someone called Jadis; and is publicly whipped and tortured in the street before resurrecting himself several days later.
Bottom line: Anyone looking for similarities between Narnia and Christianity is clearly unable to enjoy the simple pleasures of a lion being tortured without spoiling all the fun by reading something into it.
The lion is publicly tortured? That sounds pretty gruesome. Should I take my kids to see it?
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is a perfectly fine film to take your children to. Don't let the hard NC-17 rating or rumors of full frontal male nudity scare you off. In addition to witches and lions, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe also boasts wardrobes, which experts agree help promote learning and... you know, bone density in children.
The film also offers powerful, life-affirming lessons in sharing, teamwork and, as mentioned, the brutal, highly visualized thrashing to death of a main character, which is perfect if your child's a bit fruity and you're looking to toughen him up a little.
Lastly, remember that the mauling is presented in such a graphic manner that it leaves nothing to the imagination in terms of animal biology -- this could help convince your child to pursue a career as a veterinarian, which is pretty classy.
I heard that C.S. Lewis was a convicted sex offender. Is this true?
No, C.S. Lew-- wait, seriously? Where'd you hear that?
I think I read it online somewhere.
Wow. Not that I know of. Still, maybe, right?
Yeah, you never know. That guy from Ferris Bueller ended up being a pedophile, right?
Who, Matthew Broderick?
No, the principal.
Ohhhh, right. "BUUUUELLERRRR!"
Yeah! Yeah, that guy.
Holy shit. He's a pedophile?
Yeah, they caught him with all this child pornography.
That is so insane. That guy was in Amadeus.
I know, it's creepy.
Yeah. No, totally, that's -- wow. Anyway, where... what were w...?
Oh. Right. Yeah, don't go see Chronicles of Narnia.
You sure?
Yeah, nah, King Kong's out in a week, save your money.
I'm a fan of the series and one of the things I love is how C.S.Lewis(who is humourously confused in this article with the pedo-rumours about Lewis Carroll) used creatures and characters from traditional folklore and beliefs as an allegory on Christian origins...ie: "pagan" characters like minotaurs and dwarves.
ReplyFor me, it shows a refreshing and undogmatic open-mindedness that is one of the lessons that can be taken from this body of work. And purely as a fanboy, I hope that the cinematic series can survive long enough to do The Final Battle...the climactic story with the actual stars falling out of the sky and everything else has always been a fascination for me since the first time that I read it and I'd love to see it realized in full cinematic fashion.
Great article, but "The Magician's Nephew" is the first book.
ReplyOnly chronologically.
Lewis wrote TLTWATW first, so you could argue TMN is a prequal. Like the "first" Star Wars trilogy, and about as crappy.
Guys Seriously? -.-
1st one was the best
ReplyThe Chronicles of Narnia is essentially Lord of the Rings for kids with religious parents who won't let them read good books. actually bro. Randy at teens-4-christ was dssing this series for 'satanic influences' so not even the religious kids are readng these books
ReplyI know nobody's going to see this late as hell response, but come on... King Kong? Great call there.
Replyi see it!!
i see it lol, and i agree, what where the other movies that came out around the same time as king kong?
the ending battle was kinda cool... u know, minotaurs, slaughter, that kind of s**t. ):P
ReplyI would say watching Lost ruins Lost.
ReplyLion, witch, wardrobe is the second book, not the first.
Reply*completely late* It's actually the first, just the second chronologically. The Magician's Nephew was published almost ten years after Lion.
To be fair, the whole series was made into films the best part of 20 years ago...
ReplyAnd they were very good and I was born and raised an atheist. Voyage Of The Dawn Treader was best but I believe they have made a shitty new version of that now.
IIRC, Magician's Nephew is only first in a chronological sense. Narratively, it kinda spoils the published order to read it first. Think CRISIS CORE and (to the extent that it's kinda flashbacky) Metroid: Zero Mission, here. Yeah, they come first, but they rely on a context built by earlier titles.
Reply... or maybe not, I haven't bothered reading the Narnia books, and what little I think I'd caught when my folks were reading them to my sister (dammit, SHE'S supposed to have read them!), it seemed kinda boring (relatedly, the second book in Fellowship was where I fell out of LOTR). Well, at least she's reading the Twilight books herself... *cries*
I was introduced to the series with a collected set that bound them all in one book and ordered narratively with The Magician's Nephew coming first(the others were also set in story order rather than publication date)...it made for a better read imo, because it gave it a definite sense of beginning and ending even if the author didn't really have a master plan for the whole thing from the beginning.
Not really unimportant. The first book describes how the Wardrobe came into existence.
ReplyYes. Really unimportant.
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