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
The Word for World Is Forest not only links the Athsheans to their environment, but gives primacy to the forest over the rest of the natural ecosystem. The Athsheans' clans are named after trees, and their highly decentralized social structure is constructed in a way that resembles their ecosystem. To the Athsheans, being a mentally healthy person is equivalent to being in touch with their roots, which are closely linked to their ecosystem. In contrast, the Terrans' behavior, such as rape and murder, is attributed to their leaving "their roots behind them". In the Athshean language the word for "forest" is also the word for "world",