Hmm, it definitely is an interesting point, and one that I'm not quite sure has been discussed before now.

As far as the iron bar bit is concerned, I'm guessing that it had to do more with the witch, than with Aslan. First of all, Aslan is described as being a huge lion (taller than a horse in HAHB) so an iron bar being chucked for hundreds of feet might not have even been traveling fast enough to hurt very much to begin with. Plus, there was such a tangible magic in the beginning of the world, that that could have had something to do with it (both in limiting the power of the witch, and strengthening the power of Aslan). I'm not sold on my own argument though. . . so that's bad

I guess I'd have to agree with you that Aslan could never be hurt unless he willed it to be so.

Even human beings fully engrossed in what they are doing, will not feel pain in quite the same way as those who are anticipating the pain, who are focussing on the source of the pain etc, or who are feeling the rejection as well as the pain. It also hurt Eustace to hurt Aslan in SC, by the way - unlike the White Witch, Eustace didn't want to hurt Aslan.

What I think happened in MN is that Aslan, being in full creation mode, would be so filled with life energy that a mere iron bar, hurled by a not-yet immortal witch was going to be a mere bagatelle. No more painful than an annoying butterfly landing on an absorbed butterfly hunter.

I agree that Aslan would will his pain.

In the case of the White Witch using the iron post against Aslan, the WW, in comparison to Aslan, has no power. Not to mention she has a fear of the new world and of Aslan (similar to her losing her strength in the wood between the worlds, so would she in Aslan's country meant to be of good). Once the witch eats the apple that is not for her, she does gain her strength.

In LWW, Aslan saving Edmund and all of Narnia would not work if Aslan had not offered his life- if he had not allowed (or willed) himself to feel pain and humiliation. Same situation with SC and Eustace using the thorn in Aslan's paw- it is Aslan who tells Eustace what he must do, not Eustace who willingly goes for the thorn.

As I'm thinking more on the thought, it seems only Aslan accepts pain when it is for others, to bring others a sense of comfort (well, that's a given, but hear me out). When Aslan gets hit by the iron post, it is because the White Witch is trying to cause him harm- no one else is involved, therefore Aslan needs not to feel it. In the case of the Stone Table, the witch is again trying to do harm, but Aslan accepts because it will save others (not to mention taking the fear away from the other three Pevensies and bringing them comfort). Another example is when Aslan shows the emotional pain for Digory's mother in MN- it provides comfort to Digory to know that Aslan cares about his own mother even more than Digory does himself.

Interesting question, and I puzzled for a while after reading the topic here. A Resurrection Day card gave me what I think is the answer. (Because of its theological nature, if this post needs to go to the Christianity and Narnia section, just tell me ) But the card quoted I believe John 10:15 or 18 where Jesus talked about how no one takes His Life from Him. He has authority to lay it down and authority to take it up. I think most of us can agree that the Narnia books definitely have spiritual parallels, and I believe this could explain the puzzle of Aslan and pain.
Also, I thought the points others have made on this topic were interesting in pointing out that there was always a good purpose to Aslan suffering pain. It seems to me also that He did not inflict pain except where there was a good purpose, either. Obviously, in a fallen world, pain and bad things happen, but that does not mean that Aslan (or God) cause the bad things to happen. He will use them all for greater good, but He grieves for us just as Aslan grieved for Digory and his mother.

Consider Jesus fasting in the wilderness. Satan took him to the pinnacle of the temple and said, "It is said that he will give his angels charge over you, to bear you up lest you cast your foot against a stone." He then asked him if he was the Son of God to jump and prove it. While it was true, Jesus refused to jump. However he allowed himself to be whipped, have a crown of thorns pulled down hard on his brow and be nailed to a cross to die.

We see the same thing with Aslan. For me, no great mystery. Both on the Stone Table and with the thorn, it was time for him to be pierced and he allowed it.

I think one of the lessons A Certain Someone was trying to teach in that infamous episode that many people are still blamed for and made feel guilty for 2000 years later was that the ability to feel pain is a GOOD thing.

Aslan may have had greater resistance to pain than the average creature. But He still had neurons- and those include pain receptors. He may have been aware of ways to reduce the pain that humans may not have discovered yet. But He could still feel pain, temperature, and pressure.

When he was hit with an iron bar he was likely filled with adrenalin that lessened his pain. Some people are known to shrug off severe injuries such as soldiers that get shot but don't notice until they look down and see themselves bleeding. I don't think he has any sort of invulnerability-if the witch pulled out a Desert Eagle he would be done for just like a regular lion.

The Desert Eagle wasn't around in Sherlock Holmes' day. Also, the iron bar likely hurt Aslan but he just didn't react because he was so intensely involved in creating Narnia and the surrounding lands.

I don't think he has any sort of invulnerability-if the witch pulled out a Desert Eagle he would be done for just like a regular lion

Hi SnakeEyes! Welcome to the forum! We really are thrilled to see new members around here.

I have a bit of problem with your logic due to Aslan's symbolic connection with Christ. All medical evidence seems to support the idea that Christ should have been dead before he reached the cross (beaten so badly that his organs were probably exposed, and having the capillaries burst in his head resulting in tears of blood). It is my belief (and several pastors share this opinion) is that Christ would have never died. He was never really "killed" so to speak, but only died when He chose to do so. He said "It is finished" and willingly gave up the ghost.

To veer this conversation away from theology, and back onto Aslan, I think Aslan was much the same. I don't think Aslan could have possibly been killed. I think that the only reason that he died was due to the fact that he willed it to be so. He willingly sacrificed himself for Edmund. If he hadn't wanted to die, I don't think a nuclear explosion could have killed him.

I don't think he has any sort of invulnerability-if the witch pulled out a Desert Eagle he would be done for just like a regular lion

Hi SnakeEyes! Welcome to the forum! We really are thrilled to see new members around here.

I have a bit of problem with your logic due to Aslan's symbolic connection with Christ. All medical evidence seems to support the idea that Christ should have been dead before he reached the cross (beaten so badly that his organs were probably exposed, and having the capillaries burst in his head resulting in tears of blood). It is my belief (and several pastors share this opinion) is that Christ would have never died. He was never really "killed" so to speak, but only died when He chose to do so. He said "It is finished" and willingly gave up the ghost.

To veer this conversation away from theology, and back onto Aslan, I think Aslan was much the same. I don't think Aslan could have possibly been killed. I think that the only reason that he died was due to the fact that he willed it to be so. He willingly sacrificed himself for Edmund. If he hadn't wanted to die, I don't think a nuclear explosion could have killed him.

If he couldn't die then he could have taken over Narnia, come to earth and stopped those darn Nazis (Narnia was set during WWII) and pretty much owned everybody.

The same with Jesus, if he was so unstoppable he would have godmodded everything like a kid that just discovered cheats for their favourite video game lol.

I think he might have had some superhuman (animal?) powers but 100% invincibility was not one of them. If somebody put Aslan or Jesus through a woodchipper they would be a pile of guts and just as dead as anything else. If you use Jesus as an example, could still be cut by normal weapons and needed sustenance to survive just like any other living thing.

I would have a great deal of difficulty responding to your post, SnakeEyes, without delving very deep into my own theological opinions. The discussion of theological issues is not permitted in the Talk About Narnia section of the forum, which is spelled out in our rules:

13.) Please confine extended theological discussions to the Narnia and Christianity section (or the appropriate thread in the Spare Oom) so that these topics can be avoided by those who are not interested or who would take offense.

So I'll stick to Narnia and non-theological discussions of Narnian parallels (as best as I can anyways ).

If he couldn't die then he could have taken over Narnia, come to earth and stopped those darn Nazis (Narnia was set during WWII) and pretty much owned everybody.

He had no need to "take over Narnia." It wasn't his intent in the first place, and he already owned all of Narnia. He created it, and he was sovereign over it. "Owning everybody" was not a priority of Aslan's, nor is it a priority for Christ. Forced obedience, forced love, forced service: All of these are pretty much worthless unless you're a heartless tyrant.

If you use Jesus as an example, could still be cut by normal weapons and needed sustenance to survive just like any other living thing.

That's not necessarily true. Jesus fasted for forty days. The human body starts shutting down after approximately 21 days of fasting. This has a lot to do with protein vs. fat metabolic reactions (which aren't exactly on topic for this thread).

Jesus' capillaries bursting (allowing him to cry blood in the garden of Gethsemenae) is a medical condition that usually results in death. The body is put under so much strain that the capillaries burst, tears of blood fall from the eye, and the person hemorrhages to death within a few hours. Jesus, however, lived to go to trial and execution, which defied physical laws.

Now Aslan and Jesus were both bound by physical laws, this is true. Like King Lune (I think) says, "The King is under the law because it's the law that makes him King." Aslan created the physical laws of Narnia just like Christ created the physical/scientific laws of our world. That is not to say that they (in their role of creator) cannot bend the rules to their will (a process known in our world as a "miracle.")

So would Aslan have died if he got put into a woodchipper (assuming that there was such a thing as a woodchipper in Narnia ). The answer is simple: If Aslan wanted to be chopped into pieces, he would have been, but if Aslan wanted to come out of the woodchipper unscathed. . . he would have. Why? Because the woodchipper is in His world, which means that it's under his jurisdiction, and operates under his laws, which means that it must obey his will.

So Aslan is sort of like Freddy Krueger in a way, in Narnia he's invincible like Freddy is in his "dream" world. Now, this brings me to a new question: If Aslan went to a world like Earth or perhaps another alternate world would he be vulnerable and powerless? If he ended up on Earth would be a mere mortal, vulnerable to everything since he was not the creator and just an alien creature?

That does make him seem sort of sadistic when you think about it. If he was all-powerful couldn't he have just "deleted" the baddies instead of letting them wreak havoc for so long? It would be like Superman sitting back and relaxing as terrorists tear up his city.

If Aslan went to a world like Earth or perhaps another alternate world would he be vulnerable and powerless? If he ended up on Earth would be a mere mortal, vulnerable to everything since he was not the creator and just an alien creature?

At the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lucy clearly states that Aslan is already in our world, but that he has another name here. So the answer is no.

That does make him seem sort of sadistic when you think about it. If he was all-powerful couldn't he have just "deleted" the baddies instead of letting them wreak havoc for so long?

This brings us to the question, "Why does God let bad things happen to good people." Aslan, like Christ, is not interested in making our lives "easy." Therefore, he uses evil (much like God does) to shape and mold the Narnian characters into who they are. What kind of character would Edmund be if there was no White Witch? What kind of King would Tirian had been if he had never been tested? Aslan allowed evil to exist, because He knew that it would result in our characters growing deeper, stronger, and more powerful characters.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that when Lewis wrote The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, he wrote it as a stand-alone story, and at that stage didn't have any sequels in mind; he didn't have all seven Chronicles mapped out in his mind before he started. What's more, the characters in it (the faun in a snowy wood, the queen on a sled, the magnificent lion etc.) stemmed from pictures in his head, not from a desire to write a Christian allegory in a children's story. So I think that, in LWW, Aslan was not meant to "be" Christ, he was simply a character who was giving his life in a Christ-like way, knowing that "the Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time" would bring him back to life. There are references to him being "the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea" but we don't get to find out any more about who this Emperor is; he isn't identified as being God the Father (in LWW at least).

In the later books, it becomes more apparent that Aslan "is" Christ: for a start, he's still alive in Prince Caspian, over a thousand Narnian years later. Then in The Magician's Nephew, he is shown to be the Creator of Narnia, and in The Last Battle he commands Narnia's destruction, and "judges" all the creatures from the Narnian world. But I rather think that, when he came to write the later books, the character of Aslan had grown somewhat in Lewis' mind. The Aslan in The Magician's Nephew, for instance, may have been able to shrug off the iron bar thrown at him by the White Witch without even a twinge of pain. But the Aslan in LWW may not. After all, there are plenty of stories which have characters sacrificing their lives to save another and then coming back to life by all manner of means, without them supposed to be Christ (ET springs to mind).