The Deplorable Word

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gunndreams

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What do you suppose it could be? Perhaps in the world of accursed Charn, the Deplorable Word was, in fact, the name of Tash that when pronounced a certain way and combined with a particular ceremony, would have the power to destroy all life under the Charnian sun, save for the one who spoke the word.

Imagine Jadis invoking the name of Tash when confronted by her sister and all her armies. Upon speaking the accursed name, a huge and billowing shadowy form of smoke coalesces above them, high in the sky. The clouds become darker and darker, and they come together to transform into the dreaded demon of the curved beak and cruel claws, with four arms lifted high above its head as if it would take in all of Charn. As Tash moved, everything underneath him would die. When Jadis saw this, even her stony heart leapt with fear within her as her own face turned ashen-white.
 
The deplorable word is "Supercalifragilisticexpealadocious!"

Every time Mary Poppins is shown in theaters or watched on DVD the population of a world somewhere in the galaxy dies. :eek:
 
The word that can utterly destroy complete worlds? Without a shadow of a doubt, it's "fanfiction" ;)
 
i believe it's safe to say that whatever the word was, we can be sure it was a very, very, VERY RUDE word indeed(hence the fact that it's deplorable).

On a more serious note, I imagine that it was a word which causes a sudden appearance of bad things(be it a litany of curses or even the appearance of visions either traumatic or outright scandalous) that cause a break in the fabric of space that is woven by God/Aslan or whatever name He saw fit to use in that universe that breaks that world's covenant of coexistance with it causing it to decay from the very core outwards(talk about a long sentence... i'm out of breath just from typing it :D )
 
It could have been a plain 'ol word as well. Maybe it's just the simple word: die...I dunno *shrugs*
 
What's Tash got to do with Charn? Nothing, visibly, any more than Aslan the Lion has to do with our own world.

Nothing concrete is recorded about the Deplorable Word. It's safe to say that it was hard to pronounce, hard to stumble on by accident (a world in which all life would be extinguished just because a Charnese stonemason hit his thumb with the hammer and swore horribly would not be very fault-tolerant), and widely believed not to exist. Perhaps the existence of the Word in that world would be like the existence of the "apple" tree in the Garden of Eden - if you're foolish enough to ignore the clear warning that you should not mess with this, you deserve the consequences (and the consequences include being responsible for all the innocent parties who suffer by your actions).

But I'm reminded of a passage somewhere in Terry Pratchett where a character reflects that if there was a sign in a cave somewhere that said "End Of The World Switch! WARNING! Do Not Touch!", the paint wouldn't even have time to dry (before someone said "What does this thing do, then?")...
 
Perhaps it was "Avada Kedavra!!!!"

The young lady turned a corner, keeping away from the prying eyes of her sister. That pompous trollop always thought she was up to something. But was it not Emeralda who was constantly jumping from flower to flower, always in need of male attention. Seriously, she thought, that sort of behaviour was indicative of her own insecurity.

Jadis rushed gingerly to the trapdoor, turning her eyes to and fro around her making sure no one would see. She had discovered it a few days ago by chance when she was ordered by her father to scrub the hallways as punishment for some minor infraction. A princess, doing the work of a lowly slave! Well, she planned to get even someday.

The young princess gripped the hem of the door's lid with her fingers, carefully prying it open. The door coughed out a plume of dust, Jadis being sidestepping to the left to avoid it. When the dust settled, she made her way down the stairs that appeared, and began her long descent downwards the dimly lit caverns the stairway took her.

It was obvious no one had been here in ages. A musty smell of dank odors assaulted her nostrils. After her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw carved into the caverns the inscriptions of a warning. But she paid it no heed and continued downward.

After what seemed like an hour, she at last came to the bottom of the stairs, and at the foot of a huge door. On the door was engraved the same inscription that was on the walls all around her. Subscripted was a verse of sorts, written in the ancient language of the Noble Elders. At first glance she could not comprehend it, and cursed herself for not studying harder. Why in the world would anyone want to bother themselves with archaic things that hindered Charnian progress?

Then, as if by magic, the engraved characters liquified and rearranged themselves. The door changed color, from an ashen black to a golden hue. When the characters were done with their transfiguration, they became the language of modern Charn. Jadis was amazed, reading aloud to herself:

Cuttin’ through the darkest night
In my two headlights
I’m trying to keep it clear
But I’m losing it here
To the twilight
There’s a dead end to my left
There’s a burning bush to my right
You aren’t in sight
You aren’t in sight
 
I think of Elmer Fudd in the house of the future sold him by fast talking Daffy Duck. There was a red button in the house marked "PRESS ONLY IN EVENT OF EMERGENCIES!!!!" Of course Elmer pressed it. It lifted the house a few hundred feet in the air on a hydraulic shaft. Then Daffy flew past in a helicopter. "For just $300 I'll sell you a little BLUE button that will get you down!"
 
i know i wouldn't want to find out. cuz if i do, even if i didn't mean to, i'll be soooo tempted to say it just to see if it really was that bad
 
QueenAravis48 said:
i know i wouldn't want to find out. cuz if i do, even if i didn't mean to, i'll be soooo tempted to say it just to see if it really was that bad
Click to expand...

Don't worry, Jadis's magic didn't work on Earth. But on the subject of temptation, there was a computer RPG about thirteen years ago called "Ultima VI". In that game, if you wanted to learn eighth-level spells, you had to prove yourself worthy by finding the will-o'-wisps and learning "The Secret" from them.

The wisps (insubstantial alien intelligences) would happily teach you a sample of their magic. They noted that they first made contact with your world many thousands of years ago, but contact was lost for a long time, possibly through misuse of the sample. This was a simple invocation of magical energy to destroy all life (the wisps, being bodiless, were immune to it) and you spent the rest of the game wondering what would happen if you said it.

...And if you gave in to curiosity, you found that it did indeed work exactly as advertised, instantly and with no fuss whatever, although, unlike the Deplorable Word, the Armageddon spell didn't exempt its caster. :eek:

(As to "Avada Kedavra", pah. It's on record that that spell wouldn't kill a little baby :D )
 
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