Hello Folks!
I was watching "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Prince Caspian" yesterday and it suddenly hit me that the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are massively inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia.
It's something acknowledged by Donaldson, as I recall some GI question which raised the Tolkien parallels, and Donaldson mentioned in his reply how surprised he is that people see this but don't see the Narnia influence.
But I never thought there was much to it, aside from the very obvious parallels of people from the "real world" being translated into a fantastical land, and the way time runs faster than the "real world" in both Narnia and the Land.
But now it strikes me as a huge inspiration, and so I searched on here to find what the Watchers had to say on it. Glad to see someone else has picked this up.
Now I write this having read Narnia and 1C and 2C decades ago, and owning none of them, so please pardon my defects in memory!
And I'll say up front, that the inspiration of Covenant has loads of sources of course (even though I think that the Narnia ones are striking). And obviously Covenant has very different themes, and a very different impetus. It seems clear to me, though, that reading Narnia as a child, has inspired Donaldson in conceiving the Chronicles.
This is what I've picked up on:
Susan comes to disbelieve in Narnia. She prefigures the Unbeliever. Susan disbelieves in it when she's not there, and Donaldson innovates with a story based on a character who disbelieves whilst he's right there in the midst of it!
Edmund enters Narnia in LWW, and royally mucks things up for everyone from the start. In this he clearly prefigures Covenant. Near the climax of the book it is discovered that his traitorous actions lead to events which threaten the "deep magic" on which Narnia is based, and if the White Witch is prohibited from taking his life, Narnia will collapse and end. In LWW, Aslan saves both Edmund and Narnia by sacrificing himself in Edmond's stead. In Donaldson we get to see the alternate scenario - as there is no Aslan in the Land, we get to see what happens when the "deep magic" (read "Law, Law of Death, Staff of Law, Law of Life) actually is broken. This echo is the clincher for me, because both events are absolutely central to both stories. They are indeed the pivot on which they both swing. In Lewis's case it is the pivotal story as it parallels the salvation story of Christianity. In Donaldson, it's what the whole plot swings on!
And in the LWW movie, in the climactic battle with the White Witch, Edmund redeems himself by breaking the White Witch's pointy-wand weapon with which she turns the Narnians into stone, saving his brother Peter. If this happens in the book, then this prefigures Covenant redeeming himself, by destroying the Illearth Stone, the tool of Despite, saving the Land. (The physicality of the Witch's wand being broken, prefigures the physical breaking of the Staff of Law as well).
It has to be said that initially Covenant does better than Edmund, as he tells Foul where to go right at the start. (But then he mucks up anyway!)
Seeker of Truth wrote:The main characters of Narnia also died in their real existence (train crash I believe) just like Linden etc being shot just before translating to the Land.
I also picked up on this. Initially the kids go back and forth between the "real world" and Narnia (and ages pass in Narnia between their visits). But then they get killed in the real world, and then get to stay in the fantastical realm forever (in this case, its heavenly realm). Just so for Covenant. He initially goes back and forth, with ages passing in the Land between his visits, and then he gets killed in the real world, and gets to stay in the Land (in 2C) permanently (or so it seems at the time). And of course, this happens with Hile Troy immediately in 1C. This parallel seems very striking. And the beginning of the Last Chronicles, and the Last Battle, are both blood-baths in this fashion.
The Last Chronicles, The Last Dark, The Last Battle - the title inspiration is obvious.
I think Lord Foul reflects the White Witch more than Sauron. The coldness and soulnessless of Foul's Creche echoes the White Witches castle, and her coldness.
The Witch's winter, obviously an inspiration for Foul's winter in "The Power that Preserves".
Seeker of Truth wrote:at the end of the Narnia books, Narnia was destroyed by "Father Time" who extinguished all the stars including the Sun .... a bit like the Worm eating the stars in the Land!
Yes, and I wonder whether the name "Father Time" did not inspire the creation of the "Time Warden".
I think it can be successfully argued that the destruction of Fleshharrower's army in Garrotting Deep by the aroused trees echoes the events in "Prince Caspian" more than the events in "The Two Towers". In "Prince Caspian", Lucy goes on a solo mission to Aslan, who bring the trees to life which then turn the battle against the Telmarines. In "The Illearth War", Hile Troy leaves his army, and begs help from Caerroil Wildwood, The Forestal, who bring the trees to life. (In "The Two Towers", do not Merrry and Pippin, essentially bump into the Ents by accident? My memory is very hazy here). By the way "Prince Caspian" was published in 1951, three years before "The Two Towers". So Lewis preceeded Tolkien with this!
What else?
I think there is plenty more! I'm just trying to remember now what has occured to me .... oh yes!
The Deplorable Word : a direct inspiration for the Ritual of Desecration, I think, which is so central to the set-up of 1C.
Oh, and what does Lewis do in a sequel? Send the heroes on a quest at sea! What does Donaldson do in a sequel? Send the heroes on a quest at sea! The Voyage of the Dawn-Treader >> The Voyage of Starfare's Gem!
And then there's the names!
Who
doesn't hear the echo of Cair Paravel when they read Caer-Caveral?
One of the principal horses in "The Horse and His Boy", is called
Hwin.
Ranyhyn echoes this, as I believe do the actual names of the horses in the Last Chronicles (as a more faithful reader than I will have to confirm - I don't have the books!)
I've got to wonder why Donaldson has talked about his Narnian inspiration more! And I suspect it might be because it is still active in "The Last Chronicles"! And in this regard I've got to say that Narnia has got to be a
conscious influence on Donaldson (he has talked about "unconscious" influences a lot!)
There are some subltle inspirations for the Last Chronicles. In the Silver Chair (which is getting near the end of the Narnian story), Caspian's
son is stolen away by the Big Bad of that book, and held somewhere unknown. The heroes quest to find and rescue him! (
"Lord Foul has my son!"). And note thate Caspian is the protagonist of Narnia's first sequel, just as Linden is the protagonist of the Covenant sequel. Now there's a parallel I didn't see coming. Well I guess they both had parent-issues! (In Caspian's case, step-parent issues!). Caspian's son is held under an enchantment which makes him demented, and he is made to believe he must be bound to a silver chair during his nightly psychotic episodes. This, albeit slightly, echoes Jeremiah's condition.
Actually, "The Silver Chair" is the one Narnia book I don't have any real memory of, and I've depended on Wikipedia to get the plot. Michael Ward, who discovered the
Narnia Code, says this of the Silver Chair :
[In "The Silver Chair"] Aslan only appears in person in his own high country above the clouds and has to be remembered by way of signs and in dreams below in Narnia, where the air is thick. The structure of the book reflects the great lunar divide that existed in medieval cosmology between the translunary realm of certitude and the sublunary realm of confusion.
This prefigures Kevin's Dirt. In the early Narnia books, Aslan actually is in Narnia, (albeit always ariving at the last moment!), and is actually huggable, just as in the First Chronicles, the health of the land is palpable.
[ Source :
touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php? ... z1iu5YqEIW ]
And another echo with the Last Chronicles. Lewis wrote seven Narnia books, and before writing the closer - "The Last Battle", he wrote and released a prequel for the whole series "The Magician's Nephew", which shows how Narnia is set up in the first place. Donaldson's time travel to the time of Berek in the Last Chronicles - seeing how things began before showing the big climax - also echoes Lewis's sequence.
I realize that these Last Chronicles links are somewhat tenuous, but given the solid ones for early in the series, I don't think that they can be ignored!
And finally, never forget, in the 1C, as in Narnia, there are
GRIFFINS!
Völuspá furthermore teems nicely with serpents and wolves, both of which we see aplenty in the Last Chrons.
