Which Narnia Cover is the Best?: THE FINAL FOUR!
It has all come down to this! We began with over 200 Chronicles of Narnia covers voted on by NarniaWebbers, and now it is finally time to crown a champion.
Watch this video: https://youtu.be/EE7zs16wle8
Watch the complete Marsh-wiggle Madness series.
Bonus video: Final thoughts from Glumpuddle and Gymfan, including covers they wish had made it into the tournament.
Thanks, everyone! We hope you enjoyed the ride. Post a comment below and let us know what you think about the winner!
Audio only:
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I’ve been looking forward to the finale all week and I’m very pleased with the winner, which was my favourite of the final four (though I don’t think I would have been too upset if one of the others had won instead). My own set of the Chronicles of Narnia is very mismatched so I didn’t think I’d be drawn to any particular editions but it turns out it’s very easy to get overexcited about certain covers.
This has been really enjoyable so thank you!
The Magician’s Nephew was the first book I read in the series. I actually got it as a birthday present for my 10th birthday. So happy that it won as the best cover overall.
That was an unexpected, but not undeserved win!
The point about Tumnus’s ace being hidden made me realize what I love about the “minimalist” covers so much. Almost all of them have hidden faces (pun maybe intended?). Jewel, Rilian, Tumnus, Digory are all turned away from the “camera”. Even the Dawn Treader’s prow is turned away. It suggests something just out of reach… like when you’re chasing after someone in a dream but you can never quite reach them. It’s a mood that fits Narnia very well.
This was really cool thanks for putting it together! I’ve been enjoying each of these as they come out. ! 🙂 I personally would have picked the Tumnus cover to win of the final two for sure, but they were both valid choices and it was still a deserved win
The cover of The Magician’s Nephew is very good and has kind of a mystery about it. I would have chosen the 50th Anniversary of The Lion. the Witch, and the Wardrobe as the best of all Pauline Baynes’ covers. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the Wardrobe covers are same as the blurbs on the books that I own. I like them, but I wish that they had used Pauline Baynes’ artwork on the the dust jacket since her wonderful pictures are inside the books.
Wow, the win was a bit of a surprise, but an enjoyable one to be sure!
I have to say the LWW cover was definitely a favorite for me, mainly because it’s the image that started it all for Lewis. Nevertheless, I still like the MN cover for all the reasons given in the podcast.
There should definitely be a Narnia fanart cover contest sometime!
I thoroughly enjoyed this tournament – it is so fun – and refreshing – to see such good quality Narnia video content. There has been a dearth of that until recently with the Into the Wardrobe channel. (On the topic of ItWardrobe, I still need to watch all the videos – Have watched about half. I loved TLotGK and the Tash ones – and the Timeline ones.)
To have this epic longform Narnia video content was amazing! Thank you! 🙂
As for the covers, I predicted those as the top 2, for obvious reasons – because you two were more excited about these ones in the previous videos. But I am surprised, but pleased, that the cover won that did. I also love it! And glad to see we Knights be honoured all throughout!
I like Number 2 better than Number 1, mainly because I like the backgrounds in that series more than the character designs. But Gymfan does have a great point about Number 1 being more interestingly weird. A big part of the reason I love Number 2 is that I know and love The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and that picture really captures the spirit of it. (Well, the spirit of one particular section that doesn’t usually get a lot of focus in the covers.) If I knew nothing about Narnia and were just casually looking for a book at the library, I’d probably just glance at Number 2 and then keep looking, or at least I would if I were in a hurry. Number 1 would probably catch my interest more.
Number 2 (the second Number 2) is actually my favorite Narnia book cover ever! (Or at least it was. I’ve recently been considering giving that honor to the first Number 2 instead.) But, again, Gymfan’s argument gave me pause. Number 1 is a lot more interestingly weird and specifically Narnian. While I love Number 2 for all the reasons Glumpuddle gave, if I hadn’t read the book, I probably wouldn’t be too intrigued by it. I imagine there are lots of books about kids exploring mysterious old houses. Fauns with scarfs and umbrellas in snowy woods are rarer.
But I’m still thrilled by the winner! It was the one I loved most when I was voting, but I didn’t expect it to make Number 1! In general, my favorite Narnia covers are the ones by Chris Van Allsburg and Pauline Baynes and it was gratifying to see them so well represented, even if the rankings don’t necessarily reflect Gymfan and Glumpuddle’s personal opinions, being based on a combination of them, the Knights of Narniaweb and the voters in general.
Thanks for doing this video series. It’s been very interesting and entertaining. I kind of wish you could have talked about the back covers of the 50th anniversary covers since they add a lot, but I understand that would have too much to ask when most editions of the books don’t have any images on the backs.
This was so cool! I haven’t been following this series too closely as I’m not a Knight of NarniaWeb (yet) and I don’t do Facebook. *However*… I must say I’m not at all surprised about the winner, or who the Final Four were. For one thing, 3 out of 4 were from a collection I owned, and they were always my favorites. I read the paperbacks in the 6th grade (not the first edition, but the ones with the color pictures in white archways); I really liked those covers, but then I got the the hardcovers as a teenager and was in awe of the realism… and yet it left a lot to the imagination, as they said. And the runner-up (the “classic” LWW cover) was always my favorite of the seven. But I loved the others too. The SC cover was an interesting one, like “who’s this guy with the sword, and why is he about to destroy this chair?” It would almost seem silly, if you didn’t already know Narnia (and just seeing the guy with the sword, I would want to read more). As for the champ… I’m all for “bracket-busters” but I mean come on… a *First Edition* with kids exploring, drawn by the original illustrator? Hard to top that in terms of what best represents Narnia. I love that LWW cover with Tumnus, but I kinda feel like Glumpuddle’s reasons for voting the way he did were right-on. Doesn’t get any more classic than the original. But that Tumnus cover is awesome and I’m glad it made it to the finals. 🙂
I was really praying that the magicians nephew would win. But i acknowledged that the majority really loved the Mr. Tumnus one because as you could see it was the number one cover on arguably the most popular book in one of the most iconic moments in the whole series but overall i left happy.