The Death of Jadis (End of the Summer of Narnia)

Since it’s the end of another Summer of Narnia, here’s a visual essay about endings … the ending (death) of Jadis!

It’s a scene you don’t find depicted too often. I can guess that it’s too grim.  It’s not an iconic event in the book like Lucy meeting Mr. Tumnus under the lamppost is. It just sort of… happens.

Then with a roar that shook all Narnia from the Western lamp-post to the shores of the Eastern sea the great beast flung himself upon the White Witch. Lucy saw her face lifted towards him for one second with an expression of terror and amazement. Then Lion and Witch had rolled over together but with the Witch underneath …

— The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

No mention is made of her body after this. The unsaid implication is that Aslan devours her and no trace is left.

BUT… there’s also the later line “when those who were still living saw that the Witch was dead they either gave themselves up or took to flight.” Which might mean they saw Aslan jumping on her, the witch disappearing, and assumed the worst.  Or, they saw the body. We don’t know.

I believe the former scenario is the one the Walden movie assumes, whose still of the scene is above. Before, or perhaps just after this scene, there is a shot of Tilda Swinton’s head as she sees Aslan leaping at her and her expression is  just… blank. No anger, no fear, nothing. It’s as if she knew this was her destiny all along, and doesn’t fight it. There might be a little “Oh shit, this is really happening” look in her eyes, but otherwise, nothing. I detect the hand of Disney in this. The villains in their films tend to meet their demise offscreen or in non-graphic ways, usually falling from a great height or into a bottomless pit. Alternately, they are eternally trapped (Alladin, Coco) or sent to hell (The Frog Princess, Hercules). There’s no gore and we don’t get see the body to know they’re truly dead. Such was the case with the White Witch, though to be fair, Lewis wrote the scene that way.

This cover shows Aslan actually leaping on the witch and about to drive his claws into her flesh. But by the time this scene occurs the reader already knows it’s a one-sided battle.

Artwork by Christian Birmingham

The witch shows real fear in this scene and comes across as a little pathetic. Edmund is grinning, but that’s wrong because he had been mortally wounded by them and should be dying on the ground. Remember Lucy saving him with her cordial?

Artwork by Natasha Tabatchikova

I like this one, it’s full of energy and the witch looks at once outraged, surprised, and a little fearful.

From a stage play. Even from this still the denouement looks awkward. The Aslan puppet seems to be trying to entrap the witch between its paws, but the operator can’t get the scissoring action right. It looks like the scene from the Ed Wood movie Bride of the Monster where the villain, who has been thrown into a pit with a rubber giant octopus, rolls around wrapping its arms around him to make it seem like he’s being entrapped.

I’m guessing most plays depict this scene with some stage magic. There’s dramatic lighting, sounds of battle, Aslan leaps on the witch and… SURPRISE! The lighting goes dark and there’s a chord of music. In the next few seconds scenery is shuffled and when the lights back on, everything is resolved.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/10/25: Aslan Cakes (Narnia LXXIV)

AI Art

If you had all the money in the world, wouldn’t you want an Aslan-shaped cake for your next celebration?

 

Aslan Cakes

Royal Roar A red velvet cake sculpted in the form of a three-dimensional lion’s head with interior layers of mascarpone cream. It is covered with yellow and gold fondant airbrushed with lifelike details.
Savannah Sunset Shaped like a reclining lion basking in the sun, this cake has multiple layers of blood orange chiffon and lemon curd. The lion’s mane is formed of candied orange peel ornamented with edible gold leaf.
Jungle King Crafted in the silhouette of a lion’s head caught in mid-roar, this cake blends salted caramel, almond paste, and espresso cream frosting.
Regal Union A wedding cake in the form of a seated lion covered with pure white vanilla cream frosting. Hand-piped buttercream rosettes add detail. On its head is a crown of edible gold leaf. The cake itself is made of champagne-infused vanilla sponge and strawberry silk mousse.
Roary the Birthday Lion This cute lion cub cake is perfect for a children’s birthday. It features fluffy buttercream frosting and facial features made of fondant. Inside are layers of vanilla funfetti spongecake  and chocolate ganache.
Lionheart A heart-shaped cake covered with citrus glaze embossed with a lion’s head. Fresh raspberries line the edges with piped whipped cream rosettes, perfect for a sophisticated dinner party.

 

Summer of Narnia 2025 Fanfic Reviews, Part 2 [Review]

 

Aslan breaks the Stone Table. Artwork by Ulyana Sergeeva.

More reviews of Narnia fanfic I’ve read. All of these are on AOW. Note some may be locked to users not a member of a site.

An anchor in the drift, by booksabouttrains

This story is a HHB AU in which Shasta doesn’t escape with Bree in time and winds up being a slave of Anradin Tarkaan, the red-bearded lord who admired him with the phrase “The boy is fair and white like the accursed but beautiful barbarians who inhabit the remote North.” As with a lot of adult readers (including myself) the author takes this to mean sexual attraction, and so poor Shasta becomes a bed-slave and something of an obsession for the lord. This isn’t described erotically but with a sort of pathetic horror: repeatedly Shasta tries to escape or stand up for himself only to be beaten and isolated even further. If you’ve ever read HHB and wondered about that seemingly throwaway line of dialogue, and what the worst-case scenario might have been, this story answers it in spades.

Eventually Shasta makes Bree’s acquaintance and they escape together, but it’s not as easy or simple as in the original book. Both beings have to really work for it, which was nice and added to the danger. They later meet Aravis and again, that encounter is filled with danger for them, more than running away from a run-of-the-mill lion as in the book, even if he was Aslan in disguise. (Aslan isn’t 100% a good guy in this book, and Tash, who makes a few appearances, isn’t 100% bad, either.) Throughout all of it Shasta copes with the devastating feelings of being a survivor of sexual abuse, which gets better by smallish degrees but isn’t entirely solved at the story’s ending. This was done very true to life and it was agonizing to read.

After they reach Tashbaan events loosely follow the book, but there’s a twist: Rabadash is a good guy and ally, and the lover of King Edmund. It’s Anradin who leads the foray into Archenland.

I enthusiastically recommend this series. The writer is one of the rare ones who could make the move from fanfic to published writing with ease.

The Horse and His Boy

Reports, Rebuilding, and Reconnaissance, by EdosianOrchids901

After Prince Caspian the book ended, there was a lot to be mopped up by the middle school-aged King, such as rogue Telmarines who don’t accept his rule. Reepicheep forms a Secret Service of Mice to serve as royal bodyguards and field enforcers, relying upon Peepiceek to give reports. The story consists of a back-and-forth of their correspondence, written in Reepicheep’s flowery, ink-wasting tone replete with nobility and chivalry. It’s a good pastiche and gives the reader one more reason to hate Reepicheep (as I do) or love him.

Prince Caspian

The Mortal Boy King, by firelilies_and_juniberries

What if Edmund, not Lucy, entered the wardrobe first, and he returns after having lived a lifetime there? That’s the premise of this story, which sadly had been left unfinished since last March. Most of it’s about how the other siblings react to his shellshocked state, and there’s brief glimpse of what may have been a meeting with the White Witch… all very promising, but unfinished. I hope the author gets back to it.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

You’re a Crisis of My Faith, by BookloverForInfinity

Apparently there’s a scene in the movie version of Prince Caspian where there’s a failed raid on King Miraz’s castle leaving all the main players wracked with remorse afterward.  Such scene was not in the book but added in by the screenwriter to raise the stakes for a dull storyline.

Anyhow, before this raid Peter and Lucy discuss the plans for it and wonder if Aslan can be counted on to help, a dicey proposition because no one knows where to find him or how to summon him. Lucy, the sibling of most faith in the books, says yes, while Peter has doubts. The story consists of three scenarios and how they might have worked out: doubting Peter, neutral Peter, and let’s-go-ahead-and-do-it Peter.

The AUs make more sense if you’ve seen the movie (I haven’t) but even so it’s an interesting psychological examination of both characters, fleshing them out from both screenplay and book.

Prince Caspian, Movieverse

The Small One, by Anonymous_Hobbit

Remember towards the end of Prince Caspian when Bacchus and Aslan romp through the Telmarine town, and it’s hinted that some obnoxious schoolboys are transformed into little pigs? With the implication being  little pigs grow up into big pigs who later become sausage, hams and bacon?

That was always my thought, at least. Even when I first read the book it added a moment of horror and wasn’t the first time Lewis flirted with cannibalism. (And I forgive him for that, as such transformation of humans into edibles is par for the course in fairy tales.)

This story is short and doesn’t get that grim, and it does provide a conclusion for what eventually happened to the boys, while keeping the book’s Christian spirit. Recommended.

Prince Caspian

 

Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/3/25: Narnian Commoners (Narnia LXXIII)

Leighton Edmund Blair, Faded Laurels (1889)

A while back I speculated on what Narnian female names might have been like, drawing from names that were given to Victorian-era English girls. Since there’s a paucity of names for human Narnian commoners I came up with another list, shown below.

(This is a sore point with me. I don’t like to be reading fiction set in a made-up fantasy world and come across an Amy, Madison, or Steven. It completely ruins whatever immersive effect the writer has going. There’s actually a passage in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader where the crew, on entering the murky cloud of Dark Island, start talking about their dreams come true: “I reckoned I’d find I was married to Nancy if we landed here.”  “And I’d find Tom alive again.”  Even as an 11-year-old Tom and Nancy didn’t sound right to me, given that there was a Rhince and Drinian… and Puttincream… on the ship.)

 

Narnian Commoner’s Names

Female

Auda

Ernetina

Espory

Genyliss

Hanaflor

Helwyn

Herdra

Ithiline

Limarice

Lothilda

Lunda

Maebuelle

Marella

Marowyn

Meliset

Seranda

Urla

 Male

Antoris

Bertmond

Bornil

Druvil

Egurid

Florsk

Frydolf

Handwin

Hyldo

Indwin

Morbrech

Orfbet

Petran

Rillund

Stefin

Ushar

Winfil

A word about the painting’s artist, Leighton Edmund Blair. He was a Romanticist, related in spirit to the pre-Raphaelites, who as part of his repertoire painted idealized depictions of the past, as in the scene above which is set in Arthurian times. It’s a comment on the fleeting nature of fame as the older bard, on the bottom, finds his audience more enraptured by his younger rival. I picture Narnia as having such costumes and scenes.

An interesting Estonian edition of the Chronicles

I came across these covers on a search today. They’re from Estonia, and different from most covers I’ve seen. The one above is The Magician’s Nephew, but in Estonian, it translates literally as “The Miracle Worker’s Son.” It’s one of the very few covers I’ve seen that depicts Jadis in stasis in the Hall of Images. Not only that, she’s dressed as a warrior-queen, like Boadicea, with shield, sword, and armor. Not sure who the artist is or when it was published.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. I get a Finnish vibe from both of them, not surprising because Finland is across the water.  The White Witch is depicted accurately as per the book, but Caspian on his cover seems older and meaner. Nikabrik and Trumpkin are at lower left and right, looking more like gnomes than dwarves in their stocking caps. (Why is Nikabrik holding Susan’s Horn? )

Below, The Horse and His Boy. Some interesting localization going on. They’re not in the desert, for one thing, but in a wintry forest. Shasta is dressed like a rustic Nordic peasant. And Bree, the fiery Ottoman-coded warhorse, is a shaggy little gray pony.

That Accursed Lion

That Accursed Lion, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1895)

I’ve always thought dead lion paintings like the above and sculptures like this one influenced C. S. Lewis’s description of the bound and dead Aslan’s presence and majesty. Note how the artist’s second name even  means “Lion” in Spanish!

Gérôme is famed today for his Orientalism, that is, paintings that depict everyday life in places other than Europe — Turkey, the Levant, etc. In Orientalism such subjects were depicted accurately for the most part but had the titillation of the exotic and savage, such as a lion hunt or a slave market, for Victorian-era Europeans to simultaneously marvel at and feel superior (read: more civilized) to.

Read more about this fascinating artist here.

Summer of Narnia 2024 Fanfic Reviews, Part 1 [Review]

The White Stag and the Lamppost, MS Paint art by schmidtyart

Here’s some Narnia fanfic I’ve read over the past year.

Modern Narnia: A History, by Twinklestar

This is one of those fics that applies a pseudo-historical tone — and a meta one — to the Narnia series AND Narnia fanfic. It’s written like a textbook intended for a college literature class. An interesting little snippet.

General

Untold, by cofax

There are many, many fanfics about the Problem of Susan that crops up towards the conclusion of The Last Battle, most reacting with outrage or sympathy for Susan’s apostasy, not the scorn that Jill and Eustace give her.  This short fic discusses  that even though Susan turned her back on Narnia, she lived a full life as a human being whereas the other children, for all their fantastic adventures, did not. Thoughtful and compelling.

The Last Battle

From Her Hands A Spill of Blood (how many drops to make it flood?) by Kila9Nishika

A bloody and mythic fic, told from the Telmarine point of view, of how Queen Lucy rescues King Edmund, who’s been imprisoned by a Telmarine Duke. What he doesn’t count on is Queen Lucy turning into a raging, murderous, killing machine who plows through an entire army to get her brother back. A true AU because in the books Lucy, even as an adult Queen, is sunny, cheerful, and brave in battle — but sticks to shooting arrows. In this story, she lops heads with a golden sword.

The author plays around with golden imagery in this story, which creates such a terror in the Telmarines that after the slaughter they forever ban the use of gold, even in their coinage. And actually, it is more of a horror story than an adventure one, though I think the author intended it as a revisionist take on Queen Lucy.

It also implies — which I think is interesting — that Telmar and Narnia had connections in the Golden Age. I haven’t read too many stories about that.

The Golden Age 

The Lion and the Black Gryphons, by HakisakMatys

Prince Caspian is my least favorite book in the Chronicles (and one I lament ever existed at all) but even I admit this AU fic is a good take on it, book and movie both. It takes place before Caspian’s meeting with Dr. Cornelius, while he is still ignorant of Miraz’s treachery regarding his father. It draws on the scenario presented in the movie where Telmarine society is of Spanish descent, though they also retain some Polynesian traits. But for all intents and purposes, they’re 16th century Spanish.

The author introduces embellishments like the Black Gryphons, a group of elite Telmarine warriors, one of which is a character in the story. There are other Telmarine characters as well, and the story is mostly told from their POVs, not Caspian’s, a refreshing change. Also refreshing is that Caspian is an overprotected, daydreaming, bookish sort, and he also suffers from PTSD caused by his uncle Miraz’s upbringing. All this is a promising setup.

My only criticism is that there are too many viewpoint characters to keep track of, but it really was well written and would appeal to fans of the movie who wonder about what Telmarine society might have been  like.

Prince Caspian, book and movie

High Queen Hazel the Wise, by potterhead0928

Many, many fanfics are written about the addition of a fifth character to the Pevensie quartet, sometimes another sibling, sometimes a cousin or a relation of the Professor’s. Usually the character functions as a stand-in for the writer. Not really a Mary Sue, because most of the time there’s nothing extraordinary about them; mostly it’s a way for the author to re-experience the original story with a personalized viewpoint of it A rewriting, if you will, as most of these tales don’t venture far from the original plot.

This story began like one of those, but it’s more melancholy. Hazel is the youngest child, younger even than Lucy, in her teens still when her older siblings vanish through the lamppost. Naturally she’s distraught and searches for them with the magic spyglass given to her by Father Christmas during the events of LWW. But over the chapters hope fades and she realizes she has to get on with her life: she marries, has kids, and goes on living in Narnia.

But then… Aslan causes her to return to England, and unlike her siblings, she remembers all of her life, in vivid detail. The dissonance this causes while she’s in the physical body of a seven-year-old is agonizing, especially because she’s lost her husband and children.

It’s a more nuanced exploration than most stories of its ilk and ends at the beginning of Prince Caspian — with all the Pevensies discovering their former castle in ruins. Tantalizingly, no more has been written since that chapter. But there should be.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Early Dutch Editions of the Chronicles

Note the bell-bottom pants and zippered windbreakers the kids are wearing. That’s Edmund front and center looking every inch the betrayer.

It’s time to look at some Dutch editions of the Chronicles.

The illustration above was painted by Jan Wesseling for a 1976 omnibus edition that combined The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with Prince Caspian. The pic is mainly the latter with the kids wearing modern (mid-1970s) clothing, but the far right features Caspian in his sissy-boy hairdo and a court lady who is holding either a harp or a book in her hands.  The only candidates I can think of for her are Caspian’s old nurse, Queen Prunaprismia, or Miss Prizzle, but none of them seem to fit, and none are major characters in the way Trumpkin, Glenstorm, or Trufflehunter were. Then there’s that weird little witch/chicken hybrid at the lower right, whom Peter is regarding with affection. No clue on that one either.  Aslan stands in the middle between both, providing continuity.

This edition, published between 1976 and 1978, was, unusually, a four volume set.

Volume I featured De betoverde kleerkast & Prins Caspian (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe & Prince Caspian)

Volume II featured De wonderreis van het drakeschip & De zilveren stoel (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader & The Silver Chair)

Volume III featured Het Paard en de Jongen (The Horse and His Boy)

Volume IV featured Het neefje van de tovenaar & De laatste strijd (The Magician’s Nephew & The Last Battle).

Wesseling began his career as a comic book artist and later switched to children’s illustration. I think that’s evident in how the pic is composed and the loose, inked outlines with their washes of color.

These pics were for the dust covers of the hardbacks. The paperbacks that followed used them as well, but in a cropped form.

Overall, they are nice, though dated, depictions with a few oddball artistic choices that add to their interest.

Cover of The Silver Chair from a later edition… a snake with boobies! And boy does she look pissed!

Annemarie van Haeringen is the artist, and she also did the covers for The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, and The Last Battle, which were released 1989 – 1993. In one of those futz-ups so common in the world of publishing, the previous three titles appeared in 1983, but were discontinued. It does seem, though, that van Heiringen also did the earlier covers, going by the similarity of the style.