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 writes that Selver becomes such a god during the events of "The Word for World is Forest", but his interpretation of dreams is a negative one, because it tells the Athsheans how to kill. The Athsheans perceive the Terrans as an insane people, partly because of the disconnect amongst the Terrans between conscious, rational thinking and subconscious drives. The Terrans frequent use of hallucinogens is seen as the closest they are able to get to understanding their own subconscious. The psychological equilibrium which their dreaming gives the Athsheans is portrayed as the reason why they are able to live in