The Chronicles of Narnia

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Fandom
Name: The Chronicles of Narnia
Abbreviation(s): Narnia
Creator: C.S. Lewis
Date(s): 1950-1956
Medium: Books, with later film adaptations.
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
External Links:
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Canon

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels written by C.S. Lewis. The first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was published in 1950 and is set during World War II. It tells the story of four English children who discover a portal in a wardrobe to the magical land of Narnia. The subsequent novels continue the adventures of both the original cast and new characters in Narnia.

Many television and film adaptations of the novels have been made; the most recent is a big-budget series of films that began with the release in 2005 of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The second film, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was released in 2008. The third film, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader was released in 2010. No more films are currently planned.

Fandom

Narnia fandom is fairly small, with fans producing works based on both the novels and the recent film adaptations, with no obvious separation between the two fandoms. It is often counted as a rarelit fandom, though it is one of the largest.

Discussion often focuses on the works as Christian allegory, which many fans dislike but some embrace, and on Lewis's treatment of Susan, the second eldest Pevensie child, in The Final Battle, where she's excluded from Narnia because she's grown up.

Characters & Shipping

The Narnia fandom has a large number of genfics due to the wide lack of characters the same age as the protagonists who are not their relatives.

The main characters of the Narnia series are siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, their cousin Eustace Scrubb, his classmate Jill Pole, and Narnia's original visitors, Professor Diggory Kirke and Polly Plummer, as well as the Christ figure Aslan.

Much of the fandom's shipping centers around pairing Caspian with all four Pevensies:

The other major contingent of shipping centers around incestuous ships pairing the Pevensies with each other. All 6 possible combos exist, but the main ones are:

Crossovers

Crossovers are common; most notably with Doctor Who, drawing on the idea of the TARDIS and the Wardrobe as boxes that are larger on the inside than the outside, and with Harry Potter, drawing on common magical elements. Doctor Who even has a canon episode, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (2011), which while not actually a Narnia crossover uses numerous tropes from the Narnia books. Other crossovers include the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Lord of the Rings, Merlin, etc. Fanfiction.net lists crossovers with 183 fandoms.

Example Fanworks

Fanfic

Crossovers & Fusions

Fanvids

Fannish Roleplay

See List of Narnia RPGs for fannish RPGs based on Narnia.

Meta

Communities

  • narnia on Dreamwidth - for discussion and all fanworks related to both the books and films
  • narnia icons on Livejournal - icons related to the books and all adaptations
  • narnia fiction on Livejournal - for all FPF fiction related to the books and films
  • narnia fics on Livejournal - gen & het fanfiction for books & films
  • narnia rpf on Livejournal - for all RPF fiction related to the films
  • NarniaWeb - fansite for the movies with news, forums and links to fansites all over the world

Archives

The first three archives list all works as Book fandom. AO3 also has an "All media types" tag, linked above.

Other Websites

Tumblrs:

Zines

References

  1. ^ About Us, accessed January 12, 2010