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.
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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 |
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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.
