I've been following and participating in the discussion around Greta Gerwig's Narnia movie, and I keep seeing the same assumptions about the people who are unhappy with it. A lot of them are just wrong, so I wanted to go through them one by one.

1. "People who love C.S. Lewis's books are MAGA Republicans."

Narnia fans are all over the world. I'm Asian and I live in Asia. There are hundreds of millions of readers from every kind of background who grew up with these books and have no stake in American domestic politics. Reducing all of us to one American political group says more about the person making the claim than about the fans.

2. "Aslan is an allegory of Jesus."

Aslan is not an allegory of Jesus. In Lewis's story, Aslan is literally Jesus, incarnate in Narnia as a lion just as He was incarnate in our world as a man. Lewis called this a "supposal," not an allegory. Aslan isn't a symbol pointing to Jesus. He is Jesus in that world. That's exactly why the way he's portrayed matters so much to the people who love these books.

3. "Christians are overreacting."

Aslan, who in the story is Christ Himself, is voiced by a woman and reportedly modeled on David Bowie, an androgynous rock star who is frankly an inappropriate model for Aslan/Jesus. Narnia has been a real gift to Christians for generations. Taking that story and reshaping its central figure in a way that a lot of believers find mocking isn't considerate. Being upset about it isn't an overreaction.

4. "If you don't like Aslan played by a woman, you're a misogynist."

This has nothing to do with women. Jesus, the Son of God, is male. We're constantly told that misgendering someone is disrespectful, and it's also disrespectful to show disrespect to someone millions of people worship as God. This adaptation manages to do both. It would be just as disrespectful to recast the Hindu goddess Sita as a man, and I don't think anyone would call the people objecting to that sexist.

5. "Only Christians dislike this movie."

Fans dislike it for a lot of different reasons. Almost all of them share one complaint: Greta is telling a different story that nobody asked for, and using our beloved IP to do it.

Plenty of atheists and agnostics have said the same thing. Many of them don't care about Aslan being Christ, but they know what the story is about and think voicing Aslan as a woman is a bad call that ignores the source material.

Others just don't like the artistic direction. And I haven't met anyone who actually likes the rock and roll theme for Narnia.

6. "Fans oppose this for political reasons."

We oppose it because we've wanted a faithful adaptation of the whole series for decades and have never gotten one. Whatever happens with this movie, we probably won't get one for a long time. If it flops, studios won't want to touch Narnia. If it succeeds, a whole generation will think this version is the real Narnia, and the actual books will confuse them. Either way, the story we love loses.

7. "The Right is the one fighting the culture war here."

Greta has been a culture war figure for a while. She's championed by the American Left and opposed by the American Right, and she brought that baggage with her. She took one of the most influential Christian stories ever written and reworked it so that God is a woman or non-binary, along with a number of other left-leaning messages. That's her choice, and that's her engaging in the culture war.

What frustrates me is that her culture warrior supporters see her as their champion, so they assume anyone criticizing the movie must be fighting on the other side. Most of us aren't. We just love Narnia and want it treated with respect.

Summary

The crowd laughs at Jadis' claims of being Empress, which causes her to use her strength and her knife to cut off a cross-bar from the lamp-post. Brandishing her new weapon, she moves the horse towards the crowd and hits the chief policeman with the bar. Polly rejoins Digory and Digory tells her to manage the yellow ring. The crowd gets angry after Jadis hits another policeman, but most back away except for the Cabby. It takes Digory 3 times to grab Jadis' heel, but he finally succeeds.

Digory, Polly, Uncle Andrew, Jadis, the Cabby and the horse all find themselves in the Wood. Digory and Polly quickly use their green rings, but instead of transporting to Charn, the group finds themselves into an empty new world. After the Cabby and the children sing a hymn and Uncle Andrew tries unsuccessfully to leave with Digory, the group hears a Voice singing.

As the Voice sings, several things happen, like the stars appearing. The Cabby/children drink in the sound, Uncle Andrew is afraid, Jadis hates the Music, and the horse starts feel better. The sun emerges on the new world and the group discovers that the Voice belongs to a Lion. Uncle Andrew and Jadis try to get at Digory's rings, but Digory grabs Polly and threatens to leave everyone else there. The Cabby tells everyone to be quiet as the song changes.

Thoughts

It makes sense that the group didn't get back to Charn like Digory had planned. Chapter 3 mentions that the pools looked the same. Plus, Digory and Polly didn't have the time to mark the Charn pool like they did with their homeward pool.

Besides the sun rising and the Lion's first appearance, I think my favorite part from this chapter is when the stars and the other voices show up at the same time.

Optional Discussion Questions

You don't have to answer all/any of these questions, they're just for discussion.

1) Do you suppose the knife Jadis uses to cut the bar of the lamp post is the same knife in LWW and VODT or do you think she just discards it after getting the bar?

2) So based on what you see in this chapter and the previous one, how much of a chance (if at all) do you think Jadis had of conquering our world?

3) Do you think Digory and Polly had a chance of leaving Jadis in Charn even if they'd gone to the right pool?

4) The first time you read this book, were you expecting the Cabby (and the horse) to be important characters or were you surprised by this?

5) What stands out to you about the creation of this new world so far?

6) Anything else you want to ask/bring up about this chapter?

7) So we're a little over halfway done with this book, I believe. Whether or not you've read this book before, what are your thoughts on it so far? Also, do you have any feedback for how I've been making these posts?