My apologies for not posting in quite a while.
While I've been generally happy with our current analysis of the Narnian Creation story I'm hesitating before pushing forward with Aslan's first words, which end with the first command, "Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake." The reason is because following the thought process I've started with this line brings up a point of confusion which I'm not sure what to do about. Let me try to explain...
To what or whom is Aslan's command "awake" directed towards?
I think there are a number of possibilities.
A priori, one may think that the command is aimed towards the (soon to become) Talking Beasts whose creation process we have spoken about in great detail. The problem with that approach is that immediately after Aslan's first words a number of other sentient beings suddenly appear: gods and goddesses of woods, Fauns, Satyrs, Dwarfs, the river god and the Naiads. They respond to Aslan's commands in the same way as do the Talking Beasts. And so their arrival suggests that Aslan's command to awake is focused not (or at least not only) on the Talking Beasts, but on the water and land, on Narnia itself. These new creatures (and presumably others like mermaids) are personifications of Narnia's earth and sea when awoken.
OK, so awake refers to multiple sentient creatures not just the Talking Beasts.
So far so good, except for this. My approach to Narnia, and certainly the implication from its story of Creation is that the Talking Beasts were in place of the humans in our world. True, the Talking Beasts are supposed to be ruled by a Son of Adam, nonetheless, they are the true heirs of Narnia.
Actually, the Beasts appear to have a deep mistrust of humanoid figures. Mr Beaver says it most explicitly, in a conversation with his wife:
"I've known good Dwarfs," said Mrs Beaver.
"So've I, now you come to speak of it," said her husband, "but precious few, and they were the ones least like men. But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."
And the actions of human-like creatures, specifically dwarfs, supports Mr Beaver's claim. The dwarfs (or at least a good number of them) joined the White Witch. After the great battles with Telmar it is the dwarfs who are willing to disguise themselves and assimilate into the victorious Telmarines. Even those who do not assimilate forget Aslan after 10 generations of Telmarine rule. And, of course, the dwarfs rebel against Tirian in The Last Battle and shut off any hope of redemption.
The fact that the dwarfs can mate with humans and are, in the words of Trufflehunter, "As forgetful and changeable as humans," suggests that the Talking Beasts are not the most human-like creatures in Narnia. The dwarfs are! They are called Sons of Earth, just like in our world Adam is called Adam for he was taken from the ground (adamah).
If that is so, why are they not part of Aslan's deliberate, multi-step creation process?
