Deplorable Word

The Deplorable Word, as used in The Magician's Nephew, by author C. S. Lewis, is a magical curse which ends all life in the world except that of the one who speaks it. Lewis does not explicitly link the Deplorable Word to nuclear weapons, but he certainly makes allusions to the power of humanity to destroy itself. Writing in 1955 at the height of the Cold War, Lewis has the lion Aslan say to the central characters, who are children from the Victorian era:

It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations of your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice... Let your world beware. That is the warning.

The children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, come to a lifeless world called Charn. In an ancient, almost ruined building they awaken a queen, Jadis. She tells them of a world-wide civil war she fought with her sister. All of her armies were defeated, having been made to fight to the death of the last soldier, and her sister claimed victory. Then Jadis spoke the horrible curse which her sister knew she had discovered but did not think she would use. She killed every living thing in the world except herself to keep her sister from the throne.

The children are shocked by this account, but Jadis has no remorse or pity for all the ordinary people who died. In her eyes, they existed for her to use. The rulers of her race, who evidently had not always been evil, had vowed none of them, nor their descendants, would seek the secret of the Deplorable Word. Jadis said she had paid a terrible price to learn it, though she did not say what the price was. Nor does the book say what the word is, or how it was learned, or what the "proper ceremonies" were that must accompany it. Jadis tried a spell when she came to London, but it did not work there. Apparently, the rules of magic are different in different worlds, and the human world has its own perils.