Calormen’s conquest of Narnia turns the Ape’s false claims of reform into military subjugation. The Calormene takeover is prepared through secret dealings with the Ape, made visible in the fall of Cair Paravel, and set against a larger ending in which the old world gives way to Aslan’s judgment and a new beginning.

Deception as a political prelude

The Ape presents the new order as a settled agreement between Aslan and the Tisroc. He announces that horses, bulls, and donkeys will be sent to Calormen to work, while digging animals, including moles, rabbits, and Dwarfs, will be sent to the Tisroc’s mines. When the Beasts protest that Aslan would never sell them into slavery, the Ape denies that this is slavery: their wages, he claims, will be paid into Aslan’s treasury for everyone’s good. A Calormene chief affirms the plan in the Tisroc’s name, lending the lie the appearance of diplomatic authority.

The promised proceeds are to bring Narnia oranges, bananas, roads, cities, schools, and offices—but also whips, muzzles, saddles, cages, kennels, and prisons. The old Bear objects that the Beasts want freedom and to hear Aslan speak for himself. The Ape answers by claiming that true freedom means doing what he tells them. In this way, the announced labor policy and the justification for Calormene rule are joined to a direct attack on the possibility of dissent: the Ape claims to speak for Aslan while forbidding others to challenge him.

When a speaker denounces the Ape’s lie, Calormenes strike him and kick him down. The Ape orders him taken away and tied to a tree, falsely presenting the detention as justice that Aslan will later deliver. The episode shows how the conquest’s political groundwork operates: claims of divine authorization are backed by silencing and physical coercion, not by Aslan’s own word.

The invasion and the fall of Cair Paravel

The military reality becomes unmistakable when Farsight reports what he has seen at Cair Paravel: the city is filled with dead Narnians and living Calormenes, the Tisroc’s banner flies over the royal battlements, and Narnian subjects flee into the woods. Twenty Calormene ships had reached the city from the sea under cover of darkness two nights earlier. Cair Paravel has been taken, and Narnian rule has collapsed at its royal seat.

Farsight brings a second report as well: Roonwit lies dead from a Calormene arrow. In his final hour, Roonwit left a message for Tirian that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure no one is too poor to buy. The news makes the conquest more than a change of government: it has cost Narnian lives and reaches even those who remain faithful to the old kingdom. Tirian’s response is stark—Narnia is no more.

The conspiracy and the resistance’s last prospect

After hearing Farsight’s report, Jewel concludes that the Ape’s plans were laid deeper than they had realized. He suspects that the Ape had long been in secret traffic with the Tisroc and, after finding the lionskin, sent word for the Calormene navy to prepare to take Cair Paravel and all Narnia. The account connects the deception at Stable Hill to the invasion: the false authority established through the Ape’s claims has been working alongside a military plan for conquest.

Jewel sees no remaining course but to return to Stable Hill, proclaim the truth, and face the adventure Aslan sends. Even if the small group defeats the thirty Calormenes with the Ape, a much larger force is expected to march from Cair Paravel. Tirian agrees, but tells Jill and Eustace that they should return to their own world, believing they have done what they were sent to do. The exchange marks the resistance’s narrowing horizon: the immediate fight may still be attempted, but the fall of the capital has made recovery of the kingdom appear impossible.

From conquest to the end of the old world

The struggle at the Stable is framed by a further threat from Rishda Tarkaan, who orders his soldiers to capture the defenders alive and force them into the Stable as an offering to Tash. Farsight understands the order as an attempt by Rishda to win Tash’s pardon for his unbelief. The conflict thus carries the conquest from political domination into religious violence: captives are to be sacrificed under the name of a god, even as the supposed alliance between Aslan and Calormen has been used to justify the Ape’s rule.

The political defeat does not end the story. At Aslan’s command, the Door opens, and he calls the stars home. The emptying sky reveals that the stars are falling from the old world; later, as the sun and moon burn together, Aslan says, "Now make an end." The giant extinguishes the sun, and the old Narnia is brought to its cosmic close. The conquest is therefore absorbed into an ending larger than any human victory or restoration: the defeated kingdom is not simply returned to its former political order.

At the Door, the creatures face Aslan and are divided by their response. Some look on him with fear and hatred; Talking Beasts among them cease to be Talking Beasts, and these creatures pass into his shadow. Others look at him and love him, even when afraid, and enter through the Door. Roonwit, Jewel, Farsight, Poggin, and other figures believed dead are among those reunited with Tirian and his companions. This judgment distinguishes the fate of individuals from the fall of the Narnian kingdom.

Aslan finally reveals that the railway accident was real: the children and their parents are dead. He describes the end not as a final defeat but as a transition from the old world to the beginning of the real story. Calormen’s conquest marks the end of Narnian sovereignty, but the book’s resolution places that loss within the end of one world and the opening of Aslan’s enduring country.