Mirrors, Wardrobes, and Other Magical Worlds

For all your magical world reachable only by a strange portal needs, whether the allegory be religious or mathematical.

 

Spoiler: Relevant

 

Sidenote: Fillory is fucked up.

 

Since this apparently moved to a different thread, I post this here rather than there:

I WILL FIGHT YOU. I WILL FIGHT YOU UNTIL YOU DIE.

But seriously, I don't care about what Lewis said. To steal from another source:

The chronological order is, yes, chronological, but it is not The Right And Proper Order To Be Read, especially not on the first read-through.

 

The alleged King in the Last Battle is an incompetent idiot.

 

If you're reading it as a collection of fairy stories with a shared background, Last Battle ought to be thrown in the rubbish. It is a capstone, and a finale. Without the strict progression of the chronological order, the book changes from a closing of the curtains and a shutting off of the lights to a collection of pointless cruelty and death. Whatever order you want to read the other six in is correct, but if you want to read all seven it must be in the chronological order. I will, however, hear an argument for the written order, presupposing you place Magicians Nephew in the second slot where it had its false start. Strangely enough, this maintains an odd sort of balance between the magic of the fairy story and the structure of the history, much in the same way that watching Star Wars in the Machete Order works.

 

I'm mostly with The MMR on this. Publication order or written order is fine - chronological is right out for the same reason that trying to do Star Wars in chronological order sucks - it gives the game away in Wardrobe due to revelations in Nephew the same way that RotS gives away the twist in Empire. I read the series at around 8-9 years old, and didn't have any problems with the anarchic order of the fifth and sixth books.