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This is one of those Here In Siderealand things.

I read in publication order, and – I'm surprised nobody else mentions this – had a grunch of exclusion when I got to Father Christmas in LWW. I kind of sighed over it and rolled my eyes, and figured (I was about 9 at the time) that the author must simply be so religiously provincial it didn't occur to him that Christmas was a holiday specific to Christians. I mean, my literal first thought was, "Oh, come on, Narnia has Jesus in it? Do they have their own Jesus or did the one in this world suffice to die for their sins? *eyeroll*"

Also, apparently unlike everybody else, I didn't think Aslan's sacrifice in LWW was notably Christ-like, because I was already well-aware that self-sacrificing deathless kings are not a meme owned by Christianity. Also, Aslan gives up himself to save one person, not many, which did not seem at all analogous to me.

But I eventually got to the end of the VotDT, the bit with the Lion and the Lamb, and like a lot of people, had a lightbulb go on.

It's just that in my case, it was a slightly different lightbulb.

I thought: "Holy crap, Lewis thinks Aslan's supposed to be Jesus... and he's wrong."

It took me a very long time to get the language to explain the incongruity I was observing. Adulthood really. But what I was twigging to was that the archetypes don't match.

Lewis thought he was channeling the Christian savior into the character of Aslan. He was channeling a god, alright. Just not that one.

You know that bit about good Tash worshippers actually being unwitting Aslan worshippers? Just like that: people, including Lewis, who think that in adoring Aslan they're adoring Jesus, are actually adoring some other god. Some older, quite pagan, god.

So, that's when I knew that they're supposed to be about Christianity. But where was I when I understood that the Narnia books are about Christianity? Oh, I haven't ever understood any such thing.