"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Magician's Nephew adds something essential to the Narniad; it is a genesis, an account of beginnings. This is Lewis's version of Genesis 1-2, paralleling Tolkien's creation myth in The Silmarillion. This morning I reread the creation of Narnia (The Magician's Nephew, pp. 105-111); three elements to note. First, the effect of the song. Aslan's Song, the word that creates, is described as "the most beautiful noise" Digory had ever heard. It had the effect of making Strawberry the horse find himself "back in the old field where it had played as a foal, and saw someone whom it remembered and loved coming across the field to bring it a lump of sugar." The primary voice (Aslan) is joined in harmony by a chorus of voices "far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices." Frank the Cabby says, "I'd ha' been a better man all my life if I'd known there were things like this." The song's beauty is so evident, that it effects its hearers. Interestingly, Jadis and Uncle Andrew both respond oppositely to Strawberry and Frank. Second - the Witch in Narnia. By this point in The Magician's Nephew, we know Jadis as the last Queen of Charn, who uttered the Deplorable Word and destroyed all life except herself. She is powerful, proud, and cruel. Aslan's Song hits her in a distinct way: "Ever since the song began she had felt that this whole world was filled with a Magic different from hers and stronger. She hated it. She would have smashed that whole world, or all worlds, to pieces, if it would only stop the singing." When Aslan becomes visible (because He has now sung the Sun into being), she says, "This is a terrible world. We must fly at once. Prepare the Magic." Jadis is a character who hates the good, and her magic is a destructive, manipulative power. Such a magic needs to be clearly distinct from a creating magic organically within the creational order. Jadis does not fit in Narnia. Third - Joy in creation. joy is a key theme in Lewis's work, and it is not an accident that Narnia is contrasted with Charn in terms of age, but also in terms of joy. Lewis does this through the first sunrise of Narnia: "The sun above the ruins of Charn had looked older than ours: this looked younger. You could imagine that it laughed for joy as it came up." The joy of this first sunrise permeates the remainder of the creation scene. Two chapters later, "the First Joke" will be told, and it is a noteworthy event. The first creatures are joyful in their existence. These questions are where the criticism of Greta Gerwig's Magician's Nephew trailer should focus. We ought to ask at least the following questions: Does the music portrayed in the creation scene express the spirit of Lewis's creation narrative? Does Led Zeppelin and the emo scream cause you to say, "I'd have been a better person all my life if I had known such music existed?" Is Jadis a character who cannot live in Aslan's good land? Is this an adaptation that will honor Lewis's vision of the good, where the one who seizes power wrongly (through rebellion and theft) is visibly corrupted in the exercise of that power? Will this Jadis have the correct response to Aslan, such that it makes sense when she tries to murder Him with an iron cross bar (and thus plants the lantern of Lantern Waste)? For the creation scene in Narnia to work, we should ask whether it conveys joy in life? It's one thing to go for shock, awe, and power; a true artistic triumph would involve visually displaying the goodness of creation and the joy that rings through the music of spheres. Watch the trailer one more time, but with Lewis's words from The Magician's Nephew in mind. What affect does Gerwig achieve? How does her depiction of Narnia's creation fit with Lewis's vision? youtube.com/watch?v=gDJ-ini7…