Okay, I need to settle an argument here… and of course, I came to this board, filled with the educated, the incisive, and the knowledgeable.
I REALLY don’t think that Jadis (from The Magician’s Nephew) and the White Witch (from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) were the same witch. I seem to recall that C.S. Lewis revealed through something one of his characters said that they were distantly related, but that was it. Apparently, however, Wikipedia claims that they were one and the same. But I don’t think so… does anyone know??
I read the books a few months before I saw the movie so it is somewhat recent for me and I am pretty sure they are one in the same. I seem to recall Jadis having learned some sort of magic that basically made her immortal… well, immortal up until the point when a huge lion rips your throat out.
When Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy return to Mr Tumnus’ cave and find that he’s been arrested by the Witch’s secret police, isn’t the note signed in the name of Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Empress of the Lone Islands etc? That would seem to suggest that even as early as *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe * CS Lewis had the name Jadis in mind for the “evil witch” character.
There is a reference along those lines somewhere. Is it in The Silver Chair? After Prince Rilian has been rescued? And one of the older dwarves says something like “these evil northern witches are always after the same thing and each time they just try something new to achieve it”.
Actually, I don’t want to give too much away. Nor, to be honest, to get into what would be a convoluted explanation. Suffice to say that Jadis does something that turns her skin chalk white and makes her immortal, but, as Aslan is quick to point out, at a terrible cost. It’s not a matter of “learning some magic”, but just one action.
This. Is why. You’re supposed to read them. In publication. Order.
And while we’re on the subject, there’s one (chronologically ordered!) edition of the Narnia series that claims that the White Witch from Wardrobe is also the Lady of the Green Kirtle from Silver Chair! Not even! They may be related, as Cuncator suggests, but they are not the same person.
Wikipedia says the White Witch of Wardrobe is the same as Jadis of Nephew, but only possibly from the same northern realm as the Lady of the Green Kirtle in Silver Chair (after the events of Nephew, when she leaves her homeworld of Charn). No mention’s made of any relation between the two.
C.S. Lewis really has a thing about witches. :dubious:
What, you mean the way most of the villains in the book series are male? :dubious: [sup]2[/sup]
Yes, Jadis of MN is the White Witch of LWW - and events in MN explain how she had the necessary longevity to be still in Narnia centuries after she arrived there (and also why she couldn’t cause problems for hundreds of years after Narnia’s creation). But despite much wishful thinking, evidence for the Green Kirtle witch being Jadis is highly dubious.
I can see it all now-- I’m going to have to go back and read each and every one of the books again, because otherwise I’ll NEVER be satisfied that the MN witch and the LWW witch are one and the same. From all my HP analysis, impressions just don’t cut it for me anymore-- I need exact quotes! That being said, I really appreciate everyone’s responses.
