The Seven Friends of Narnia (Plus One)
(Disclaimer:  taken from Companion to Narnia by Paul F. Ford, so therefore it's his work, not mine--I'm just borrowing it--please don't sue me!)

Peter Pevensie:  The oldest child and son of Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie; Sir Peter Fenris-Bane (Wolf-Bane in the British editions) and High King Peter the Magnificent; victor over the Northern Giants in the Golden Age of Narnia; Aslan's helper in renewing Narnia in Prince Caspian; a student preparing for university entrance examinations with his tutor, Professor Kirke, in Voyage of the Dawn Treader; and one who consigns Tash to his "own place" in the name of Aslan and his Father in Last Battle.  He is the figure of the fine older brother to his brother and sisters, and the paradigmatic king in Narnia.  With very few setbacks, he grows from a thirteen-year-old boy in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to a splendid twenty-one-year-old university student with his heart still in Narnia whe he meets his death in the railway accident that sends the Seven Friends of Narnia and the Pevensie parents into Aslan's country forever in Last Battle.

Susan Pevensie:  The second child and eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie; she is known as Queen Susan the Gentle in the Golden Age of Narnia, and also Queen Susan of the Horn.  As a young, beautiful, black-haired woman, she is so held hostage to her fears and her desire to be thought mature and attractive that she is not included among those who are allowed to enter Aslan' country (this is not to say, as some critics have maintained, that she is lost forever.  Lewis only intends to explain how it is possible to reject the joy that comes from being in Narnia and also to illustrate one way of doing so.  It is a mistake to think that Susan was killed in the railway accident at the end of Last Battle and that she has forever fallen from grace.  It is to be assumed, rather, that as a woman of twenty-one who has just lost her entire family in a terrible crash, she will have much to work through; in the process, she might change to become the truly gentle person she is capable of being).  Her fall from grace seems sudden and, to the extent that this appears so, shows an uncharacteristic lapse of style on Lewis' part.  However, a careful re-reading of her story shows that her fall is much better prepared for than some critics think.

Edmund Pevensie:  The second son and third child of Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie, first a traitor and later King Edmund the Just in the Golden Age of Narnia, who grows from the sensual, difficult, jealous nine- or ten-year-old in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to the handsome and brave twenty-four-year-old king of The Horse and His Boy and the helpful and playful nineteen-year-old youth who is mortally hurt in the railway accident in Last Battle (however, he is not the man with the golden beard and wise face.  The old Collier rack-size paperback edition accidentally omits a line that identifies this handsome man as Lord Digory.  Edmund is not described in Last Battle).

Lucy Pevensie:  The youngest child and second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie; she is known as Queen Lucy the Valiant in the Golden Age of Narnia, is one of Aslan's closest friends, and is perhaps the best developed character in the Chronicles. She is the person through whom the reader sees and experiences most of Narnia in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader; she is absent only from The Silver Chair and The Magician's Nephew, is in the background of The Horse and His Boy, and figures in the last quarter of Last Battle. She is a fair-haired, happy, and compassionate person, deeply sensitive and intuitive, but somewhat fearful and vain.  Her story is one of growth from fear to courage so that she becomes what her cognomen signifies, a valiant person.  It is through her character that Lewis expresses his own religious and personal sensibilities.  Through her, as well, the reader sees the connection between the first hearing of Aslan's name (at the sound of which she has a beginning-of-vacation, waking-up-in-the-morning feeling) and the last words of Aslan ("The term is over: the holidays have begun.  The dream is ended: this is the morning.") From beginning to end, she is concerned about other people: her first question of Aslan is to ask him to do something about her brother Edmund; she pleads mercy for Rabadash; almost her last question is to ask the Lion to try to help the renegade dwarfs.  She is the one who notices how terrible Aslan's paws are and the one to experience their playfulness and caresses.  He shares with her his laughter and happiness as well as his sadness.  It is part of Edmund's "credal statement" (ed. note: see Dawn Treader, where Edmund explains about Aslan to Eustace) that Lucy sees Aslan most often.  To her is given thegift of  healing in the cordial made from the juice of the sun's fire-berries.  Her capacity for instant friendship endears her to Tumnus, Aravis, Reepicheep, her brothers, and even the mysterious Sea-Maiden.

Eustace Clarence Scrubb:  The only child and son of Harold and Alberta Scrubb, and a cousin of the Pevensie children.  He is a victim of his parents' untraditional ways of child-raising and of his schooling at Experiment House, but is reformed in Voyage of the Dawn Treader by being transformed into a dragon (the outer form of his inner disposition) and is transformed again by Aslan himself.  Jill's friend and fellow adventurer in The Silver Chair and one of the Seven Friends of Narnia in Last Battle, he is one of the most memorable characters created by Lewis.

Jill Pole:  She and her schoolmate Eustace Clarence Scrubb are the first products of the modern coeducatioal school system to have Narnian adventures.  It is to escape the harassment of the Gang at Experiment House that she finds a way into Narnia; and it is partly to be strengthened for returning to this situation that she has been called into Narnia.  Her chief failure--forgetting the signs Aslan gives her, by which she and Eustace are to find the lost Prince Rilian--is connected to the fact that she is a fearful person and doesn't like physical discomfort.  She likes the thought of having adventures but not the actual ardures.  Her time in Narnia in The Silver Chair (during which her emotions are the extremes of delight and depression) prepares her for her role in Last Battle (in which she has matured into a steady, reliable guide).

Digory Kirke:  Ther very wise professor in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe who welcomes the Pevensie children into his large country house when they are evacuated from London in 1940.  He is remarkably understanding of younsters for a fifty-two-year-old, unmarried man.  He is later discovered to be the adventurous, curious Digory Kirke of The Magician's Nephew, and the handsome Lord Digory, friend of Narnia, in  Last Battle.  In his anxious concern for his seriously ill mother, he is almost the mirror of Lewis himself, who lost his mother to cancer when he was not quite ten years old.

Polly Plummer:  The first human child to enter the Wood Between the Worlds by means of the magic rings.  She is a very balanced person, a good judge of character, perceptive, imaginative, and filled witht he spirit of creativity.  Her only fault is her womanly vanity, a weakness that stems perhaps more from Lewis' unconscious sexism than from a real character defect.  When she appears for the last time in  Last Battle--forty-nine years after her first appearance--she is unmarried and is addressed as Lady Polly.  Much of The Magician's Nephew is told from her perspective, because she has the requisite childlike perceptions and freedom from the enchantment of exaggerated curiosity and bad magic that afflict Digory.

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