Narnia and the seven deadly sins

My brother Mitch East recently floated a theory: that each of the Narnia books is concerned with one of the seven deadly sins. So far he has written up three books:

• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe —> gluttony

• The Horse and His Boy —> pride

• The Magician’s Nephew —> lust (=curiosity)

That leaves four books, and here is where he and I have landed for now:

• Prince Caspian —> envy

• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader —> greed

• The Silver Chair —> sloth

• The Last Battle —> wrath

Keep reading Mitch’s Substack for further exploration of these four. We’re both open to evidence for and against. It’s mostly just a fun exercise. And it’s his pet theory, I’m just along for the ride.

As an extra bonus, see how the books and sins line up with the seven planets of Michael Ward’s theory (I’ve not read the book, but here’s a helpful post with a great chart I’ve cribbed from):

1. LWW —> gluttony —> Jupiter/Zeus —> geometry, joy, joviality, royalty

2. PC —> envy —> Mars/Ares —> music, war, courage, cruelty, the sword

3. VDT —> greed —> Sol/Apollo —> arithmetic, generosity, liberty, liberality, clarity, light

4. SC —> sloth —> Luna/Selene —> grammar, lunacy, confusion, inconstancy, doubt

5. HHB —> pride —> Mercury/Hermes/Odin —> dialectics, quicksilver, haste, language, union, marriage

6. MN —> lust —> Venus/Aphrodite/Ishtar —> rhetoric, sex, love, beauty, creativity, springtime

7. LB —> wrath —> Saturn/Chronos —> astronomy, time, death, disaster, silence, old age

Some of these, it seems to me, clearly fit: LWW, VDT, SC, and MN. I’m torn on envy and wrath for PC and LB or vice versa. I leave that question to Mitch and to others. Perhaps readers have toyed with this theory before us! Let us know.