I answered that I already knew the lion was Jesus, but I didn't really; what I knew was that there was all of this imagery in there that I recognized from church (the lamb turning into the lion was the big tip-off for me), and so I went O I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, C.S. LEWIS! and felt myself very clever to have spotted it. But I didn't really spot the underlying allegory for a good while. I just thought it was, I dunno, little references like Easter eggs (yes, I do see the irony of this sentence) for readers to spot.

I didn't believe in Aslan per se either, though. I hoped for magical countries, but I imprinted on the genre of magical adventures much more than on Narnia in specific. My backyard was Sherwood Forest much more often than it was Narnia -- helped, no doubt, by the fact that my brothers and I didn't get along half so well as the Pevensies -- and I played at suddenly developing magic power or telepathy much more often than I played at being transported to another world.

Edmund is probably my favorite nowadays, though I have a soft spot for all of the later children, but in my childhood I preferred on Susan all through. I always did imprint on older sisters and goody-two-shoes, and Susan was both. Polly and Digory I liked all right, but Magician's Nephew never really fit with the rest of the books for me, and I rarely reread it.