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I always knew. I was raised in a CofE household, and attended Holy Week and Easter services from an early age. To me, Aslan's sacrifice in TLTW&TW was an obvious allegory for the crucifixion, and from quite early on it bugged me that 'Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time' was an unsatisfying characterisation of Atonement theology. (The search for an actually workable theology of the Atonement has continued to be a major feature of my Christian life, and a much more distinctive point of difference between me and most evangelicals than anything about ritual.)

I loved TMN, and gained renewed respect for it when I read Dante's Divine Comedy, as I felt that the garden where the healing apple is found was probably inspired by the Earthly Paradise - a good mirror of the fallen Eden. Lewis, with his love of classical pagan syncretism, was probably thinking at least as much of the Garden of the Hesperides, but still.

I really don't like TLB, and not just for Susan-related reasons. The business about Tash, while not an actual Voodoo Shark non-fix, is still a pretty crappy (and creepy) approach to unfamiliar religion. But more generally, the apocalyptic feel which begins to creep in after leaving the final island in VotDT, and which pervades TSC, is stifling in TLB. I like apocalyptic literature, but it doesn't make for good YA novels, especially in such an uncritical treatment.