Deplorable Word word itself, and had vowed that none of them, nor their descendants, would seek to discover it. Jadis said she had "learned it in a secret place and paid a terrible price to learn it". The book does not say what that price was, or give further details on the Deplorable Word. Lewis does not explicitly link the Deplorable Word to any specific weapon of mass destruction, but he alludes to the power of humanity to destroy life. Writing in 1955 in the midst of the Cold War, Lewis has the lion Aslan say to the central characters from the
Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back in Africa. One night, he and the other lions are awakened by the sound of a gunshot. All the lions run away, except for the young lion, who is confused when one of the lions tells him that hunters are coming because he doesn't know what a hunter is. However, he thinks he likes the sound of the word "hunters," so he hides in the tall grass to spy on the hunters as they pass by wearing red caps and carrying funny sticks that make loud noises (obviously guns). The young lion likes their looks, so when a solo hunter