The Donkey, the Lion and the Wardrobe

[altariel]

I have no idea whether the bit about Mithraism is true or not (I'm sure someone can tell me), but I loved this piece of Narnian revisionism (from here):

"The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side. If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory. A powerful lion, starting life at the top of the food chain, adored by all his subjects and filled with temporal power, killed by a despised evil witch for his power and then reborn to rule, is a Mithraic, not a Christian, myth."

Another piece of Narnian retelling that I adore is the bit in Perdido Street Station where Benjamin Flex opens up the back of the wardrobe to reveal a printing press. Love, love, love it so much! Almost enough to forgive the author for the death of Flex, but not quite.