 Both Lewis and Tolkien were fascinated by the Atlantis legend.The degeneration of Charn's rulers, Jadis's ancestors, from the early kind and wise to the later cruel and arrogant is reminiscent of the similar degeneration in Tolkien's Númenor, the fabled island kingdom that finally sank under the waves due to the sinfulness of its latter inhabitants.The world of Charn was destroyed when Jadis spoke The Deplorable Word, a form of knowledge ancient Charnian scholars feared for its destructive potential.