@azog-the-defiler it's fine here.

Jadis is not meant to be the single opponent of Aslan. (It's different from belief systems where God and Satan are equal and opposite).

She is a major rebel, using magic/dark spiritual mean, but is different from Satan in that we are not given any suggestion that she once served Aslan (or his Father, the Great Emperor Over the Sea).  He shows different aspects of this sort of rebellion, in the different books.

We need to remember that these stories are not Allegory, where everything has an equivalent in our world. We also need to realise that Lewis wrote them as children's stories, not a theological work. 

Mr Beaver isn't always right! Some of what he says may be his own ideas, hearsay, rumours, etc, and some might be things Lewis just never developed.

After all, he wrote LWW as a stand-alone book, and didn't plan these out as a full set, so things don't all fit together. This is not Tolkien.

Edit: As pointed out by the sensible people replying, I should have checked the book before replying. Must be due to read all the books again!  I've italicised the most incorrect parts, but won't delete it as the replies wouldn't quite make sense. Thank you, @courtenay and @azog-the-defiler for putting me straight!

Posted by: @coracle

He shows different aspects of this sort of rebellion, in the different books.

Whatever she is, she seems to be the original evil (or neevil) in Narnia. If Digory hadn't brought her to Narnia, then it would presumably have remained clean, at least a bit longer than it did. It does mirror the real world in a way; Adam is still the one who introduced sin.

Yes, there are lots of aspects in her that remind us of, or mirror, the evil forces in our world.  Have you read Lewis's comments about 'Supposals' -  where he explains this very well?

Posted by: @coracle

Jadis is not meant to be the single opponent of Aslan. (It's different from belief systems where God and Satan are equal and opposite).

She is a major rebel, using magic/dark spiritual mean, but is different from Satan in that we are not given any suggestion that she once served Aslan (or his Father, the Great Emperor Over the Sea).  He shows different aspects of this sort of rebellion, in the different books. 

Except we are told this explicitly — that Jadis served Aslan's father, the Emperor — in LWW, which of course Lewis wrote first. I don't have the books on hand at the moment and don't want to fill up a post with quotes, but it's made quite clear in the chapter "Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time". It's entirely because Jadis / the Witch does have this divinely sanctioned role of executing traitors, and because even Aslan himself can't "[w]ork against the Emperor's Magic", that she claims Edmund's life as forfeit to her, as the law demands, or else Narnia will be destroyed. Which of course is the reason why Aslan offers his own life in Edmund's place, making the Witch think her greatest enemy has just handed himself over to her, whereas Aslan is in fact invoking a Deeper Magic that the Witch doesn't know about. (Lewis here seems to be basing this largely on the atonement theology known as Christus Victor, but I won't go into that unless others are interested in theological theories!) 

But that's where there is a huge, massive, irreconcilable (as far as I can see) discrepancy between LWW and MN, which Lewis wrote only a few years later. In MN, there's no hint of the Deep Magic being put into Narnia at its very beginning (and nothing about the Emperor at all, who supposedly ordained it) — nothing about the execution of traitors, and most definitely no notion that Jadis is going to be given this role in any way. She's there at Narnia's beginning, but she senses her "doom" there from the start, despises and fears Aslan from the moment she sees him, and after flinging an iron bar at him with no effect, she flees from him in terror. And then she further shows her non-allegiance to him, or to his Father, when she steals and eats the apple and tempts Digory to disobey Aslan himself. 

And of course, the result of Digory's quest is the planting of the Tree of Protection in Narnia, which we're assured the Witch won't come anywhere near as long as it lives. She's banished from Narnia without there being any opportunity (or need) for her to be offered any cosmic-level role as "the Emperor's hangman". There is absolutely no way to reconcile the situation in this book with the situation in LWW. It comes across to me as if Lewis, while thinking up an origin story for the White Witch, completely forgot nearly everything he said about her in the first book. 

All of which is frustrating, but it further proves what you (@coracle) just said above — these stories are not allegories, and Lewis wasn't Tolkien!! It really isn't helpful to try to match Jadis — or any other characters in the Chronicles* — with any supposed equivalent in the Bible or in Christian history. It's just not how Lewis was working, or how he intended the books to be read. 

* With the exception of Aslan, in the sense that he explicitly does represent someone specific from the Bible — but even that, Lewis called "supposal" and made clear this was not the same as allegory. Aslan, he said in a few places, is an imagined answer to the question of what might happen if the same Saviour who came to our world, came to a different world that also needed saving.

(PS. As an odd side note, I'm trying to write this on my smartphone and the autocorrect, for its own odd reasons, keeps turning Aslan into Alan. ) 

Posted by: @courtenay

But that's where there is a huge, massive, irreconcilable (as far as I can see) discrepancy between LWW and MN, which Lewis wrote only a few years later. I

I understood that the Deep Magic was in Aslan's song, and out of the Cabby, Digory, etc. Jadis was the only one who understood it. And I also assumed that the Deeper Magic was put in Narnia while it was still empty. I think that Lewis just portrayed it subtly in MN instead of stating it explicitly.

Posted by: @courtenay

She's there at Narnia's beginning, but she senses her "doom" there from the start, despises and fears Aslan from the moment she sees him, and after flinging an iron bar at him with no effect, she flees from him in terror.

This reminds me of the prophesy when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden. Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." I've understood this as a foreshadowing of Satan striking Christ's heel in the sense of crucifying Him, but Christ crushing his head by atoning for our sin and resurrecting. 

@coracle I don't believe that I have.

@courtenay Ohhhh yes, that's right.

Sorry, that'll teach me to try to be clever without consulting the text!

Mr Beaver calls the witch a hangman, but by the end of the book we see she is an executioner of a different sort - and her ideas of appropriate killing are definitely not hanging. (Did Lewis think 'executioner' was not a suitable word in the earlier chapter?)
In chapter 13, the witch seems to be wanting to kill Edmund to prevent the four thrones being filled, not to punish him. She assumes Aslan will not stay long at the Stone Table, and they can then attack the other three.
But it's the dwarf who suggests firstly that Ed could be kept to bargain with, and then when she says she doesn't want him being rescued, he says they'd "better do what we have to do" at once. Although she elsewhere corrects him for telling her what to do, he seems to play a big part in this plan. This doesn't sound like Satan, nor is there any suggestion that she was once good, and fell from grace by trying to take over Aslan's role.

Perhaps we're not even meant to know who Jadis is supposed to be. We are told in MN that she was growing stronger in dark magic, which could have implied that's how she got the wand that turns people to stone and the bottle that conjures the drink and Turkish Delight that she gives Edmund.

Then again, it may be that we're not meant know who Jadis is supposed to be, Satan or otherwise.

@azog-the-defiler, here's a link to an article on narniaweb, about Lewis's word Supposals.

https://www.narniaweb.com/2020/08/why-c-s-lewis-said-narnia-is-not-allegory-at-all/

Posted by: @azog-the-defiler

I understood that the Deep Magic was in Aslan's song, and out of the Cabby, Digory, etc. Jadis was the only one who understood it. And I also assumed that the Deeper Magic was put in Narnia while it was still empty. I think that Lewis just portrayed it subtly in MN instead of stating it explicitly.

But if so, why did she try to kill Aslan and then flee from him? In LWW, she's not afraid of the Deep Magic. She understands her role under it and is the one who brings it up in the first place, as the reason why she should — indeed, must — kill Edmund. She's basically playing it as her trump card. Aslan confirms that all she says about the Deep Magic is true, and he's clearly aware of the seriousness of the situation, so we can't even say that the Witch is bluffing and making stuff up to justify putting Edmund to death. Unless Aslan is lying as well, which I can't believe. 

Honestly, I've read and re-read that sequence in LWW, where the Witch speaks with Aslan, and tried to think of ways in which what she says there can be reconciled with what we see of her, and of the creation of Narnia, in MN. I just can't come up with anything that makes sense and fits with both books, even at a stretch. I'd love to find a theory that works — I started a whole discussion thread on this topic a while back! — but I've never heard one that even vaguely makes sense. There are just too many things in the two books that simply don't add up. 

 

Posted by: @courtenay

She's there at Narnia's beginning, but she senses her "doom" there from the start, despises and fears Aslan from the moment she sees him, and after flinging an iron bar at him with no effect, she flees from him in terror.

This reminds me of the prophesy when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden. Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." I've understood this as a foreshadowing of Satan striking Christ's heel in the sense of crucifying Him, but Christ crushing his head by atoning for our sin and resurrecting. 

That is the usual Christian interpretation of that verse, yes — although of course it's taken there that "the woman" is Eve and it is one of her descendants (Jesus) who will defeat Satan (the serpent). The same doesn't exactly apply in Narnia, but again, it's not supposed to. 

In MN, Jadis tempts Digory in the garden into taking the apple, similar how the serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit. Though it is not exactly direct, given that Digory doesn't give in to the temptation. Then again, CS Lewis never meant Narnia to be an allegory.

@jasmine_tarkheena the interaction in MN between Digory and Jadis is not related to the exchanges in LWW. It is only related to the events in MN. It would be unwise to suggest that the execution in LWW relates to original sin (it is not atoning for Digory ringing the bell!) - again, these books are NOT theological textbooks, and Lewis is not trying to set up a complete world history.

Posted by: @courtenay

But if so, why did she try to kill Aslan and then flee from him?

Oftentimes, when someone finds something that they're afraid of, they flee from it even though it can't or won't harm them. Spiders and bees are two instances of this. She may not be afraid of the Deep Magic since she can understand it and attempt to use it for her own ends, but she would obviously be afraid of Aslan. Think of it as sin and God's Laws. The Apostle Paul says that he would not have felt covetousness if he had not heard the Command to not covet. The law was good in and of itself, but his sinful nature used it for it's own malicious ends.

@coracle Thanks.

Posted by: @azog-the-defiler

Posted by: @courtenay

But if so, why did she try to kill Aslan and then flee from him?

Oftentimes, when someone finds something that they're afraid of, they flee from it even though it can't or won't harm them. Spiders and bees are two instances of this. She may not be afraid of the Deep Magic since she can understand it and attempt to use it for her own ends, but she would obviously be afraid of Aslan. Think of it as sin and God's Laws. The Apostle Paul says that he would not have felt covetousness if he had not heard the Command to not covet. The law was good in and of itself, but his sinful nature used it for it's own malicious ends.

I still can't see how that makes sense in the context of what we know from LWW. The Witch is afraid of Aslan in that book as well — "If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it'll be the most she can do and more than I expect of her," says Mr Beaver while first telling the Pevensies about Aslan (p. 74), and that is indeed what we see later when the Witch is talking to Aslan face to face: "Not that the Witch looked Aslan exactly in the eyes" (p. 128). And of course, at the end of their private conversation, she "fairly [runs] for her life" when Aslan answers her last question with a roar (p. 131 — this is the Puffin paperback edition I'm quoting from, by the way).

But just before that, when the Witch is talking openly to Aslan about the Deep Magic, she shows extensive knowledge of it, which Aslan confirms is true. There are a whole lot of details she gives, which I can quote now I'm at home and have the book with me...

"Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones of the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the sceptre of the Emperor-Over-Sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill." (p. 128)

Now a lot of this turns out to be throwaway stuff that we never hear about in the books again. Lewis never gave an explanation of the origins of the Stone Table, or what is actually written on it — or what "the fire-stones of the Secret Hill" are (we do of course see a special kind of hill in MN, but it has a garden on it and nothing at all resembling "fire-stones"), or indeed anything much further about the Emperor-Over-Sea, who is referred to less and less often as the series goes on. Also, I believe the early American editions of the book replace the "fire-stones of the Secret Hill" with the "World Ash Tree", which further goes to suggest that Lewis was "pantsing" it a bit here — making things up as he went along, just because they sounded intriguing, but without any of it being really important to either this story or future ones.

But what the Witch's speech does do is to establish the idea that the Deep Magic is something written indelibly in a number of sacred places, and something she definitely knows all about and that gives her a specific duty under the divine law. And yet there's not even the slightest hint of this in MN, the prequel that gives us the Witch's backstory. Nothing at all is said or even implied in that story about the need for a law to put traitors to death, let alone that if this law is not fulfilled, "all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water" (p. 129) — which is the part that Aslan specifically confirms to be "very true" as the Witch is declaring these things in LWW.

The Witch / Jadis is the original evil (or Neevil?) that enters into Narnia at its beginning, but there's nothing in MN about her being granted the right and indeed the duty to kill traitors. She's not presented there as a servant of the Emperor who got a bit too big for her boots and "came to imagine [herself] a Queen — because [she was] the Emperor's hangman", as Mr Beaver words it in LWW (p. 128). That detail in the first book does suggest that Lewis was thinking of her as something along the lines of Lucifer / Satan in the traditional Christian explanation of the devil as a former angel who became ambitious and disobeyed God (Tolkien of course does this more explicitly with Melkor / Morgoth).

But in MN, Jadis isn't even a semi-divine being; she's originally a mortal queen from another world who has mastered terrifying magical powers (to the point of destroying every living thing in her own world with one word) and is seeking somewhere else to rule over. She doesn't even become immortal — initially she's just long-preserved through her own magic — until she steals and eats the apple in Narnia. She's presented as an invader and (it seems) a messer-up of Aslan's divine plan, not someone with an appointed role in that plan. And there's no chance for her to be given that "hangman" job, or for her to find out anything about the Deep Magic. She attacks Aslan almost as soon as she sees him, runs away the moment she finds she can't harm him, and within a couple of days, is prevented from ever coming anywhere near Narnia for centuries (nearly 1000 years, if we go by the timeline that Lewis wrote later).

She never even has a conversation with Aslan and there's no indication that she would or could make any kind of deal with him or with the Emperor (who doesn't get any mention in MN at all), in order for her to gain the status she claims to have, and which Aslan implicitly confirms, in LWW. And with her being unable to re-enter Narnia at any time between her exile at its beginning and her return from the far north as the White Witch a millennium later, how does she know anything about the Stone Table and what is written on it and its proper use? (We're also not told how the Table itself came to be, which is fine for the atmosphere of mystery it has in LWW and PC, but problematic once we get to Narnia's early history.)

In short, there is just too much here, between those two books, that doesn't add up.

Posted by: @courtenay

Now a lot of this turns out to be throwaway stuff that we never hear about in the books again.

Throwaway isn't the term I would choose. There are parts of the Bible that are outside of what we can understand, such as the horrors of Hades and the concept of the Trinity. The Secret Hill and other things that aren't mentioned again hadn't been come across by the Pevensies, but presumably existed.

As for the Witch having a role under Divine Law, it reminds me of Satan's role in the Divine Comedy. In the lowest pits of Inferno, the worst sinners would be devoured by Satan. Perhaps Lewis was taking his inspiration from this. From Wikipedia: "In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is the Devil, referred to by Virgil as Dis (the Roman god of the underworld; the name "Dis" was often used for Pluto in antiquity, such as in Virgil's Aeneid)."

Posted by: @courtenay

And with her being unable to re-enter Narnia at any time between her exile at its beginning and her return from the far north as the White Witch a millennium later, how does she know anything about the Stone Table and what is written on it and its proper use?

That's a matter of whether Narnia has Palantiri or not.

Posted by: @courtenay

Nothing at all is said or even implied in that story about the need for a law to put traitors to death, let alone that if this law is not fulfilled,

I assumed that was a part of Aslan's Creation song, when he set the natural laws for Narnia. Also, the Stone Table may not have been needed early on in Narnia, but it's rather violent use may have been necessary as the world became progressively more evil.

I would like to note that Mr. Beaver is the one who called her a hangman. I don't recall Aslan confirming that. It may have been more of a matter of Aslan disowning traitors, thus, making them her property. That might resemble her "banishment" from Narnia a bit.

(Also, the World Ash is a theme from Norse mythology.)