The Narnia Change That Concerns Me The Most: The Timeline Of The Magicians Nephew

The world of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia novels is returning to the silver screen, though several Narnia fans are not happy with what has been shown in the trailer. Greta Gerwig’s upcoming adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew has brought up discussion among fans questioning the direction the film is taking whether it’s the choice to cast Meryl Streep as Aslan, or rock music being played and other obvious changes. In this piece I’m going to discuss the largest inconsistent change that Gerwig has made that worries me.

The Timeline Change

While, The Magicians Nephew was written after The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, chronologically, The Magicians Nephew takes place before the World War II storyline with The Pevensie Children in The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe. The Magicians Nephew would take place in Edwardian England in 1900. Professor Digory Kirke from The Lion the Witch And The Wardrobe, is a young boy & the main character in The Magicians Nephew along with his friend Polly Plummer. Greta Gerwig changes Digory Kirke’s childhood timeline from the 1900s to the 1950s.

Why The Timeline Change is a Problem

The problem with changing Digory Kirke’s timeline is how it will effect the events of The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe if The Magicians Nephew does well enough. In C.S. Lewis’s The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, Digory is an elderly professor living in the English countryside and he meets the Pevensie children when they are evacuated to the countryside like most English children are during World War II for Operation Pied Piper. It is at Digory’s home where Lucy, the youngest Pevensie sibling, discovers the wardrobe as a gateway to Narnia. The wardrobe has a connection to the events of The Magicians Nephew which made the two stories connected despite the decades between them.

Digory’s childhood in the events of The Magicians Nephew, is moved from Edwardian England in 1900 to the 1950s. This arises a huge problem however, because by the time Digory grows old enough to become the Professor we meet in The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, The Second World War will have been long over for several decades. That begs the question, will Greta Gerwig move the Pevensie Children’s storyline to a later decade? If that is the case, they are going to have a huge problem with how to have The Pevensie children and the Professor encounter one another. World War II basically forces the Pevensies & Professor Digory, to encounter one another and for Lucy, the youngest Pevensie sibling, to find the wardrobe leading to Narnia.

Changing the setting and timeline of a story has huge consequences when it comes to continuity connecting characters from older to newer books. For readers who have enjoyed the Narnia series for decades, preserving the connections matter. An adaptation can bring new things to an established story, but it needs to consider how some of the largest changes will affect any authors work whether it is C.S. Lewis or a more contemporary author.