Digory Kirke

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Narnia character

Jim Broadbent as the adult Digory Kirke in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Digory Kirke
Race/Nation Human / England
Gender Male
Birthplace England, Earth
Family
Parents Mr. ? and Mrs. Mabel Ketterley Kirke
Other Andrew Ketterley (uncle), Letitia Ketterley (aunt)
Major character in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Magician's Nephew
Portrayals in Adaptations
1988 BBC miniseries: Michael Aldridge
2005 Disney film: Jim Broadbent

Digory Kirke is a human character from C. S. Lewis's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. He is prominent in two of the seven books: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew. He also appears in The Last Battle.

In the 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he is played as an adult by Jim Broadbent.

[edit] Synopsis

In The Magician's Nephew, the sixth book to be published but the first in the chronology of Narnia, Digory is a young boy. Digory's Uncle Andrew has made magic rings that allow whomever wears them to travel to other worlds by passing through the Wood between the Worlds. Uncle Andrew first tricks Digory's friend Polly Plummer into trying the ring; when she disappears, he then blackmails his nephew into following her with another ring in order to bring her back. After leaving the Wood and arriving in another world, Digory breaks an enchantment and inadvertently releases Jadis, the future White Witch, from her dead world Charn, and accidentally brings her back to London, and soon after, into the newly-created Narnia. While there, however, Aslan sends him on a mission, which allows a magical tree to grow in Narnia which will keep the Witch at bay for nine hundred Narnian years. He took an apple from this tree back to the normal world, and used it to save his sick mother's life; he then buried the core, which grew into a peculiar, and possibly magical, tree in his world.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Digory appears at the beginning and the end of the story as the elderly Professor Kirke; his house is the place where the Pevensie children enter the wardrobe that leads into Narnia. The wardrobe was actually carved from the tree Digory planted, after it had been blown down in a storm. Professor Kirke is therefore the first to believe Lucy Pevensie's stories (probably due to his own experiences), though he doesn't tell them why.

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it is mentioned in passing that he has lost his fortune and had to give up his house. This explains why Edmund and Lucy are forced to stay with their cousin Eustace when their parents go abroad.

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