Charn (city)

See Charn (world) if you are looking for the World of Charn

Charn was a martial empire forged on a world separate from both Narnia and Earth, which is called the world of Charn here. It was destroyed by it's last Empress, Jadis, who later ruled Narnia as the White Witch.

The little known about Charn comes from the brief accidental visit by Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer long after it was destroyed, and the few remarks Jadis made about it. Charn was a populous empire, the 'superpower' of it's world; the capitol city which Digory and Polly landed in went on 'as far as the eye could see'. It was ruled by a line of magically adept emperors and empresses, descended from Djinn and giants, of which the last was Empress Jadis. In fact, magic may have been widely used by the Charn culture; Jadis referred to the common use of magic carpets for transportation.

There are indications that Charn had originally been a benevolent country, but by Jadis's time it was an aggressive empire which had conquered and destroyed the other nations of it's world. Jadis mentioned three of them; Felinda, Sorlois, and Bramandin. It was an absolute despotism whose rulers regarded the population as their property.

The entire population of Charn was destroyed, along with all other living things on the world, by Jadis, during a war with her sister for control of the empire. The war was extremely brutal, and when the sister eventually won, Jadis used a magical 'ultimate weapon', the Deplorable Word, to destroy all living things on the planet except herself. Jadis claimed she had offered to spare her sister's life if she surrendered, so the resulting distruction was the sister's fault.

Afterward, since Charn was uninhabitable, Jadis put herself into suspended animation in her palace to await possible rescue by chance visitors from other worlds.