I don't know... it's hard to see what actually happens in the video!

If Jadis can use magic in our world, that makes her rampage a much higher-stakes thing than it is in the book. Are the film-makers doing it on purpose for that reason, to make the episode a lot more dramatic and frightening rather than just comical?

On the other hand, in the book she doesn't have a wand. Glumpuddle mentions something in the comments thread under the news article that he's suggested before on Talking Beasts: when she became the White Witch in Narnia, did Jadis start using a wand as a sort of "work-around" that enables her to use magic again in worlds where her original powers don't work? If so, could she have discovered how to do this while in our world? Slightly complicated, but not impossible...

The elephant in the room with this (so to speak) is the fact that in Charn, at least in the book, Jadis's powers include the ability to destroy every living thing in an entire world with a single word. Plus the ability to reduce solid material objects, like iron doors, to dust. The idea of her being in our world with those capabilities is... something that could take this way outside the realm of what most people would say is suitable in a children's story.

Maybe it turns out that she still has magic powers on Earth but they're much weaker or more limited — for example, a "blast" that would have pulverised people in her world just pushes them away in our world? That's a reasonable compromise that would make her still scary and dangerous without being utterly terrifying, and could add a bit of comedy with her frustration as people and things she's trying to destroy only get shoved aside a little way. I could live with that as a change from the book that still sticks with the spirit of the original story pretty well.

Or we could be misinterpreting an unclear moment from a single video and it could turn out to be quite different in the finished product!! We probably won't know for sure until we see the actual movie. 

I agree the video is quite hard to see exactly what happens, especially when viewing on mobile, but when zoomed right in, there are probably a few key takeaways you can assess:

• Jadis reaches down and grabs *something* from somewhere. It is unclear if this was on her person or attached to the horse.
• Jadis extends her arm straight outwards towards the crowd on one side.
• An individual in the crowd is shot backwards, presumably attached to a stunt leash. He does not merely fall over as if struck by a blunt instrument.

Putting that all together, and giving the eye witness on the ground the benefit of the doubt that his interpretation is likely to be better informed than ours, and also given the context of this being Jadis, I think the Wand theory is most plausible.

Though I could also buy the idea that she is utilising the lamp-post cross bar, and it's merely her super strength that causes the man to fly backwards so violently... But it doesn't really seem like she is swinging her arm in a striking motion, and the man would surely be struck into the ground, not flung backwards in that situation.

It looks to me like the police are played up for comedy. Could be wrong, but in the video where Jadis may use a wand, it looks like the man who gets thrown is a policeman who bars the way in front of Jadis. She flippantly throws him to the side for his trouble. The police following on bikes and on foot also look helplessly and hopelessly underprepared for what they are facing. I am very hopeful that this scene could combine stakes with humor.

I had wondered if there would be a magic component to Jadis in London after seeing her costume (looks like something she might have magic'd up out of stuff she found around; not already made like that). I know she's not meant to have any magic in our world, but if she had something that was small stakes compared to the power she had in Charn and later Narnia (i.e. the ability to do very simple things, more smoke and mirror type stuff) I could live with that.

The idea of Jadis bringing her wand from Charn to Narnia is interesting. I know there's always been an unanswered question from the books of how she got her wand. But this is a potential change that as of right now I just don't care for. Here's why....

I don't like the idea of Jadis having magical powers on Earth. But let's say that Jadis's wand's power is significantly reduced at least, to the point where all she can do is fling people off to the side. What happens then when everything comes to a head and she uses the Deplorable Word (which doesn't work)? If she has a working wand, why doesn't she just whip that out and start casting spells? What point is there for her to rip off the lamppost bar and start using that as a weapon? 

I suppose it's possible the wand here isn't THE wand in LWW, but that seems a bit silly too. 

So we'll see, but this change hits on the dislike side for me right now. However, I'm also open to the possibility that maybe they'll make it work in a way I haven't thought of. 

On the subject of the poor guy flung to the side....

Spoiler

Screaming dude.

Was that a Wilhelm scream I heard?  

I don't like the idea of using a wand before Jadis is supposed to have one. Nor to be using it to do magic in our world.

I haven't given up hope of its being part of the lamppost, or taken/broken from something else. 

What about one of the more underrated scenes in the series, the confrontation with Letty? Some magic working in our world and some not could end up confusing for newbies without a good explanation of the mechanics.

@Bismdweller, I think you're onto something with the confrontation with Aunt Letty and Jadis magically throwing her across the room as opposed to physically. That's a really good idea.

Could that actually be a wand or just the crossbar from the lamp post? I could see how the two could possibly be confused.  

Posted by: @glenwit

Could that actually be a wand or just the crossbar from the lamp post? I could see how the two could possibly be confused.  

Here's a close-up of the item Jadis is holding... certainly looks more like a wand!

Honestly, right now I am just hoping the wand is being used only for physical strength situations. If it does not work any other way but to push people out of the way, I would not mind it so much, although I would prefer her not getting her wand in this movie at all. Having the wand being able to do other things in our world besides pushing people out of the way or for other physical strength situations could lead to a lot more problems.

Copying some posts over from the Jadis's Rampage through London thread.....

Posted by: @col-klink

Jadis having the same magical powers in this world that she had in Charn, on the other hand, I fear that might be taking "Hollywoodization" too far for my tastes. It's not just taking dynamics that already existed in the book and exaggerating them but outright flying in the face of the book. 

Posted by: @pete

Interesting point @col-klink, and I think I am for the most part I am inclined to agree with what you wrote in your most recent post I am quoting from.  I have one question for you regarding the above statement though - would you be open to Jadis having some powers in London - much (to her surprise) more limited than in Charn and Narnia however?  And perhaps even her struggling to find out what how much power she does and doesn't have in London?

For me (as I wrote in another thread), I am open to her having some (although severely limited) magic powers in London, as, although it goes against the words of the book, I think it could do two things (1) make Jadis and these other worlds Charn & Narnia etc not appear too otherworldly to the extent that it comes across like the world of Oz (in the movie The Wizard of Oz - just a dream) or Wonderland.  (2) Jadis having some (limited) powers in London, would help maintain the fact that although she is not as powerful as in her home country - she is still very much a threat, and Digory & Polly have good reason to want to get her out of there.

Posted by: @col-klink

@pete I'd have to see it to say for sure. I feel like having some of Jadis retain some of her powers in London but not others would (ironically) work better in a book than in a movie though. In a book, the author could just say, "Jadis's powers in our world were weakened but she still had them." In a movie, it might seem more like a continuity problem. 

I feel like Jadis's strength makes her scary enough for this part of the story even without magic. (Plus, in the book, the readers know Jadis doesn't have magic in this world, but Digory and Polly don't.) 

I am strongly suspicious that they're going to move the moment where Jadis realizes she's lost all of her magic power from the attempted use the Deplorable Word in London to the moment where she confronts Aslan in Narnia. Because if she has some magic power in London, then there's a possibility that she could legitimately take over our world. Even if they step it down from full magic power in Charn, to some magic power on Earth, to zero magic power in front of Aslan, it's going to set up Jadis's great fear of Aslan in future stories. And this may have the affect of making Aslan even more powerful because it's only around him that Jadis's magic power fails. I'm not necessarily opposed to that line of thinking if that's what the filmmakers are going for. 

My biggest concern with Jadis having magic on Earth (and I think I said this before) is that it gives her no real good reason to grab a piece of lamppost. Unless she can't use magic fast enough and has to start dual-wielding. (Didn't Tilda Swinton do that too in Walden|LWW?)

Posted by: @fantasia

I am strongly suspicious that they're going to move the moment where Jadis realizes she's lost all of her magic power from the attempted use the Deplorable Word in London to the moment where she confronts Aslan in Narnia. Because if she has some magic power in London, then there's a possibility that she could legitimately take over our world. Even if they step it down from full magic power in Charn, to some magic power on Earth, to zero magic power in front of Aslan, it's going to set up Jadis's great fear of Aslan in future stories. And this may have the affect of making Aslan even more powerful because it's only around him that Jadis's magic power fails. I'm not necessarily opposed to that line of thinking if that's what the filmmakers are going for. 

Now that's something I hadn't thought of before, and while it's not exactly true to the book, it's true enough to the spirit of the book that I could almost certainly get behind it as well, if that's how they're going to do things. It would certainly emphasise Aslan's all-power, as you say, and Jadis's powerlessness in front of him.

And as @Pete said in the post you've quoted above, giving Jadis some (limited) magical powers in our world would help to underscore the reality of these other worlds beside our own, and to make her more of a definite threat, increasing the stakes of her being at large in London and the urgency of Digory and Polly taking her back to her own world. (Or, as it turns out, out of ours, at least.)

I can imagine this is possibly the way they're going with it. In Charn, presumably we'll see Jadis magically shattering iron doors to dust as she does in the book, or some similar act(s) of near-effortless destruction. I'm guessing the wand will be something she has with her all along (non-canonical, but where would she get a working magic wand on Earth??) and we see her pointing it at things to "blast" them to smithereens. Then when she gets to Earth, maybe we'll see her confronting Aunt Letty and soon pointing the wand to "blast" her as well — very tense moment for viewers who haven't read the book. And instead of reducing Letty to ashes, it simply throws her into the air a little way or sends her stumbling backwards, like the policeman in that brief video we've seen — either way, she lands unharmed (perhaps on the mattress she was mending, as in the book). That gives us a similar result to what happens in the original story, but without Jadis having to pick Letty up physically and throw her, which could look very awkward on screen and possibly get audiences complaining about elder abuse...  

That aside, this would then give us a great moment of horror for Jadis as she realises her magic powers are not nearly as effective here as they were in her own world, and conquering this new world may be a lot harder than she expected. But there's still enough of a threat there to make her rampage exciting and scary without it going above a level that wouldn't be appropriate for a children's story.

My biggest concern with Jadis having magic on Earth (and I think I said this before) is that it gives her no real good reason to grab a piece of lamppost. Unless she can't use magic fast enough and has to start dual-wielding. (Didn't Tilda Swinton do that too in Walden|LWW?)

Thing is, it could be precisely because her magic powers are (we assume) severely limited that she decides she needs a weapon as well. If all her wand can do now is push people away from her, but it can't actually hurt them — and it probably can't fend off lots of assailants when they're coming from multiple directions — then it's quite reasonable for her to decide to grab an iron bar for striking anyone who manages to get too close to her.

I'm almost certain you're right about Tilda Swinton's White Witch wielding both a sword and her wand in the 2005 movie, and of course that was a wand that had the power to turn people and creatures to stone, but she's portrayed as apparently wanting or needing a weapon as well. So I don't think it would be too outlandish for her to do something similar in this movie.

@coracle, except that we have the video @impending-doom posted above, plus the witness's comment that implies that's not the case. The guy goes flying in the video. Pretty potent for just a stick. And if she's going to bother having a wand (and we've seen clear pictures of that), then having it do next do nothing would be pointless. So to me, it's pretty clear she's going to have some level of magical power while on Earth. But how much? Dunno. 

I do agree the crossbar is crucial, hence my point above.