Narnian Time Formula

King Tirian

King Tirian

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Has anyone figured it out? The formula that relates the time spent in Narnia vs. our world. For example, in LWW, like 15-20 years passed while in our world, only a few minutes. I think there was another example in Voyage of the Dawn Treader and...can't think of anymore.
 
Indeed, Edmund figures that out in Prince Caspian, when they return to Narnia and find about 1000 years gone, though only a year of earth time has passed. Furthermore, it's totally random - when Lucy and Edmund end up back on the Dawn Treader, another earth year later, only three Narnian years have passed.
 
I guess the time may also be determined by which time Aslan wants things to take place such as when Susan's horn was to be blown and whenever he wanted the Pevensies to "visit" Narnia, the time would be totally irrelevant to Earth's time because of Aslan's will. Aslan's will also makes Narnia kind of like a different dimension than ours because our Aslan equality doesn't walk our world as Aslan does his world.
 
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At first I thought that one second of our time was equal to twelve hours of Narnian time but when I finished reading the Chronicles I realised that theory was codswallop! So I adopted a diagrammatical method involving two lines on a 2-D plain. Both lines a wavy in shape but the amplitude varies. So for example, between LWW and PC, about 1000 Narnian years pass whilst only one year has elapsed in our world, in which case the amplitude of the Narnian time-line would be far greater than ours. Then between PC and VoDT, three Narnian years pass in the time of one of our years so the ampllitude of the Narnian line would be quite a lot smaller. It's a bit confusing but it's CS Lewis so I guess he wants it to be a bit enigmatic!
 
I think that's granting Lewis a bit too much there - my theory is that he just didn't think it out clearly enough to have any kind of formula to correlate the two timelines. Aslan just dropped the visiting humans into Narnian time whenever He needed them.
 
Exactly! That's even part of a strong theme that runs through all Lewis' writing: God transends time. Time is for us, not God. He's above it.
 
Hmm...that's probably right - I think having read Tolkien, I expect a full answer, explanation (including formulae and chronologies) rather than just putting in there so that everythin will fit! Maybe it's Lewis' sneaky way of disguising some major blip in his work and making people like me look for answers that aren't there!
 
I'm going to move this to "The Chronicles of Narnia" Book Section, as it is more suited there.

iMove to "The Chronicles of Narnia" Book Section.
 
Yeah, try to make a formula out of these conflicting time ratios:

Narnian Time/England Time (times approximate--in years)

MN--1000/60--LWW--1000/1--PC--3/1--VotDT--70/0.25--TSC--200/1.5-6--TLB

There is no formula to handle all of those time differentials. The only thing that need be known is that time in Narnia equated to no time on Earth. They went to Narnia when they were needed, fated, or destined.

MrBob
 
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Normally Narnian time seems to run faster than in our world, but there is one interesting exception. In LB only a few seconds passed for Tirian between his vision of The Friends of Narnia and the arrival of Eustace and Jill. But for them it had been over a week. I've always wondered if that might have something to do with the Narnian world approaching it's end
 
Hermit of Archenland said:
Normally Narnian time seems to run faster than in our world, but there is one interesting exception. In LB only a few seconds passed for Tirian between his vision of The Friends of Narnia and the arrival of Eustace and Jill. But for them it had been over a week. I've always wondered if that might have something to do with the Narnian world approaching it's end
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As has been posted before, I believe Aslan arranges the time differences, which would make sense in this case, as he needed time for Eustace and Jill to sort out getting the rings and getting on the train, he didn't need Tirian to do anything, so it was a longer time in earth than on Narnia.
Does that make sense?
 
ABright5 said:
As has been posted before, I believe Aslan arranges the time differences, which would make sense in this case, as he needed time for Eustace and Jill to sort out getting the rings and getting on the train, he didn't need Tirian to do anything, so it was a longer time in earth than on Narnia.
Does that make sense?
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You're probably right, I've just always found that difference intruiging. Another point about that is that for the only time the difference in time between the two worlds is observed by a Narnian istead of someone from our world. But again I expect that's just my order obsessed brain trying to find a pattern where none exists
 
Another thought is that the temporal displacement is the same when Digory and Polly were in the Wood between the Worlds, although in the Wood time seems to both stand still and go faster so that no one knows how long they are there. Digory and Uncle Andrew talked for a bit before Digory went after Polly, yet when they all go to the Wood before going to forming Narnia, and then back to the Wood before going back home, no time passes. So the Wood seems to be out of the time continuum and out of our dimension.

Does it ever say how long Charn time is in relation to Earth time? I doubt it was a one to one ratio, but I think at least some time passed between Digory's disappearance to go find Polly and their return with Jadis.

MrBob
 
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