Hi @frozentragedy (and welcome to the forums!),

That's a good question, but as far as I can see, it's one of those things Lewis never seems to have expanded on and quite possibly never even thought about, unfortunately!

I'm pretty sure there's nowhere in The Magician's Nephew (or anywhere else in Lewis's writings) where Jadis's age is indicated, or anything about her life in Charn that would give us even a vague idea. The only thing I can think of is that when she's in London, both Aunt Letty and the Cabby refer to her as "young woman", which is enough of a hint that she looks young, at least to them. But of course that doesn't really tell us much, because, as you say, we don't know whether Charn people (Charnians? Charnese??) have similar lifespans to humans. If she would naturally live much longer than someone from our world, she would presumably age more slowly and could look "young" to us even when she'd been around for many decades.

We do know from Jadis herself that she preserved her life, after she'd destroyed every other living thing in Charn, by the "strong spells" she had professedly already cast on the hall of images in the palace — "that I should sleep among them, like an image myself, and need neither food nor fire, though it were a thousand years, till one came and struck the bell and woke me." So presumably she was in a kind of stasis during that time and she didn't age or change at all; we don't know how long that lasted, whether it really was "a thousand years" or even longer. But obviously it didn't make her immortal in the absolute sense and she started aging again as soon as she was woken, up until she ate the apple.

And there's also no indication anywhere of how old she was when the war with her sister took place, or how long any of her ancestors lived, or whether the lives of the kings and queens of Charn were longer than ordinary people's by virtue of their magic powers, or their royal blood, or anything. So it's really all just speculation! There are some questions about Narnia that Lewis answered outside the books, in letters responding to his readers when they wrote to him, but I'm not aware of anywhere that he tackled the question of how old Jadis actually was and/or how long she would have lived if she hadn't become immortal. It's interesting to wonder, though...  

Hi @courtenay, thank you for the answer and the welcome.

Oh how I would love to talk with Lewis about Narnia, I believe all of us here thinks the same, the readers who had the opportunity to exchange letters were truly lucky.

There is a noticeable change in the way Jadis behaves between The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Like the difference with how she approaches Digory and Polly to how she received Edmund.

Thinking about a young and insolent Jadis makes the entire war with her sister, the search for the Deplorable Word and the destruction of her own kingdom to not accept defeat seem even more palpable.

On the other hand, when I think about all the evil of Charn and how its people were corrupted (plus the magic), I think about how selfish and vain royalty must be and that they spent generations perfecting spells to prolong life in search of immortality and also to always look young, strong and beautiful.

I really like the theory that Jadis is an unreliable narrator, it makes her character even more interesting to me, and her sister could be some kind of tragic heroine. I wish we had a timeline of Charn like we have of Narnia.

I don't know why, maybe it was the dying sun, but something about Charn gives me the idea of ​​urgency. I think in the end, even with all the magic of longevity and beauty, the hatred between the sisters broke out early and they were in their 20s-30s. Maybe the king died an early death, would Jadis be so wicked as to harm her own father to get to the throne sooner? We know she was the most evil in centuries just because she looked for the Deplorable Word.

I think I'm already going on too long on the subject lol, I could be in the field of theory for hours 🙂

Posted by: @frozentragedy

Oh how I would love to talk with Lewis about Narnia, I believe all of us here thinks the same, the readers who had the opportunity to exchange letters were truly lucky.

I reckon we do all probably think the same! There's an excellent book available, C.S. Lewis: Letters to Children (edited by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead), which is a collection of the best examples of his letters to young readers, many of them to do with the Narnia books, unsurprisingly. Along with answering questions about the books and the characters, he regularly gives good advice on writing and encourages his fans to write and illustrate their own stories about Narnia or anything else from their own imagination! It's a delight to read, although as I said, he doesn't seem to have dealt with any questions about Jadis's age or lifespan (or if he did, those letters haven't survived).

There is a noticeable change in the way Jadis behaves between The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Like the difference with how she approaches Digory and Polly to how she received Edmund.

Very true. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that those books were written a few years apart — LWW was the first one Lewis wrote, of course, while MN was apparently the last one he completed. I gather (I read this in a commentary only recently) that he'd finished writing all seven books by the end of 1952, though they were published one by one between 1950 and 1956, at the rate of one per year. (MN was the second-last to be published, in 1955.)

Anyway, there are some quite major discrepancies between LWW and MN — especially in the character of the White Witch / Jadis — that suggest Lewis didn't look back much (if at all) at the books he'd already completed and published, to make sure that there weren't any inconsistencies, or if there were, that there was a good explanation for them!  

On the other hand, when I think about all the evil of Charn and how its people were corrupted (plus the magic), I think about how selfish and vain royalty must be and that they spent generations perfecting spells to prolong life in search of immortality and also to always look young, strong and beautiful.

Yes, that's pretty likely. We're not told exactly what it was that corrupted the royal dynasty of Charn over the centuries, but Lewis drops some hints in describing how their statues progressively go from looking "kind and wise" through "very solemn", then "very strong and proud and happy, but they looked cruel", then "crueller", then "even despairing, as if the people [these faces] belonged to had done dreadful things and also suffered dreadful things."

Like you, I would guess it's quite likely that one of the things they were doing was trying to achieve immortality, or at least to prolong life and youth way beyond their natural span, out of vanity and the desire to hold onto worldly power and riches. Jadis certainly jumps at the chance to become immortal when she gets it in Narnia! And then of course, as Aslan tells the children later, "length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it." 

I really like the theory that Jadis is an unreliable narrator, it makes her character even more interesting to me, and her sister could be some kind of tragic heroine. I wish we had a timeline of Charn like we have of Narnia.

Yes, that would be fascinating! But as Charn is a relatively late addition to the series — again, this was the last book Lewis finished writing — I guess he either didn't take the time to expand on Charn's history, or didn't feel the need to.

It's definitely possible (I'd say outright likely) that Jadis is an unreliable narrator — we only get her version of events, after all, and it's obvious right from the start that she's interested only in herself and in justifying her views and her actions. It doesn't help, of course, that there's no-one else left alive in Charn to give a different perspective, precisely because she killed every other living thing there. And of course, her justification for that is "It was my sister's fault... She drove me to it." 

I don't know why, maybe it was the dying sun, but something about Charn gives me the idea of ​​urgency. I think in the end, even with all the magic of longevity and beauty, the hatred between the sisters broke out early and they were in their 20s-30s. Maybe the king died an early death, would Jadis be so wicked as to harm her own father to get to the throne sooner? We know she was the most evil in centuries just because she looked for the Deplorable Word.

Really interesting to speculate, isn't it? It's probably another thing Lewis would have encouraged his readers to invent their own stories about, rather than him giving us all the answers himself.

Posted by: @frozentragedy

There is a noticeable change in the way Jadis behaves between The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Like the difference with how she approaches Digory and Polly to how she received Edmund.

Can you please expound on this? In both scenes of her meeting those characters for the first time, she angrily demands information of them and expects to be treated like a queen. I don't see much of a difference.

Posted by: @col-klink

Can you please expound on this?

I can try.

When she meets Digory and Polly she tries to make the children fear her.

"Has your master magician, your uncle, power like mine?" asked the Queen, firmly seizing Digory's hand again. "But I shall know later. In the meantime, remember what you have seen. This is what happens to things, and to people, who stand in my way."

When she meets Edmund she tries to manipulate him, trying to grace him.

"Perhaps something hot to drink?" said the Queen. "Should you like that?"

"Yes please, your Majesty," said Edmund, whose teeth were chattering.

[...]

"It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating," said the Queen presently. "What would you like best to eat?"

"Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty," said Edmund.

[...]

"Oh, but if I took you there now," said she, "I shouldn't see your brother and your sisters. I very much want to know your charming relations. You are to be the Prince and—later on—the King; that is understood. But you must have courtiers and nobles. I will make your brother a Duke and your sisters Duchesses."

She changes her approach with Edmund from the moment she realizes he is useful.

But Digory and Polly were just as useful to her, if not more so, as they were her only way of leaving Charn. What guaranteed they wouldn't leave without her? Okay she was holding them, but she didn't know the type of magic they used, what if they didn't need to use their hands? What if the rings only transported one person and not everyone connected?

Posted by: @courtenay  There's an excellent book available, C.S. Lewis: Letters to Children (edited by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead), which is a collection of the best examples of his letters to young readers, many of them to do with the Narnia books, unsurprisingly. 

This should definitely be an interesting read, unfortunately it doesn't seem to have been translated in my country, but I'll try some way to get it in English. 

Posted by: @courtenay  Really interesting to speculate, isn't it? It's probably another thing Lewis would have encouraged his readers to invent their own stories about, rather than him giving us all the answers himself. 

Maybe one day, after speculating so much, my ideas will find a place on paper. You never know, there's no shortage of love for the Narnia universe.

@frozentragedy I'd argue Jadis's behavior is not as different as you imply. Before she tries to trick Edmund, she addresses him indignantly and commandingly and the scene when she does trick him is really the only time in LWW she puts on a sweet persona. In Chapter 13 of MN, she uses similar manipulation and deception rather than force on Digory.

I don't think I've ever really thought about this. I don't think we can know for sure how long Jadis lived in Charn before.

In LWW, Mr. Beaver mentions that she was half-giant and half-Jinn. But then who would he know? In MN, it seems to indicate that she had come from another world, Charn. It may be possible that giants and Jinns have inhabited Charn at one point. But then of course, CS Lewis didn't plan out the series in advance.

It's hard to say how long Jadis would have lived if she had not eaten the apple. There's the Narnia timeline, but it isn't a 100% accurate. Though Aslan does mention that while living in the North, she grows stronger in dark magic.