White Witch

Did You Know?

• In 2011, the White Witch was one of eight British magical figures commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.
• Jadis is identified in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a descendant of giants and Adam's first wife, Lilith.

Character history

Jadis was the last Queen of Charn, a city in a world entirely separate from Narnia. Her line of rulers began as good but grew evil over generations, eventually conquering the entire world of Charn and ruling as despots. Jadis, a powerful sorceress, fought a war of rebellion against her sister. When defeat was imminent, she spoke the Deplorable Word, a spell that destroyed all life on Charn except her own.

She then cast an enchanted sleep upon herself, awaiting rescue. Many years later, the children Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer arrived in Charn's ruins through magic. Digory rang a bell Jadis had left, awakening her. She transported with them to London in 1900, but her magic did not work there.

Digory attempted to return her to Charn, but they instead arrived in Narnia at its creation by Aslan. Jadis attacked Aslan with an iron rod from a London lamp post, but it had no effect, and she fled. She later ate an apple from a garden on a mountain west of Narnia, believing it would grant immortality. The apple bleached her skin white and caused her eternal misery.

Unable to stand the sight of the tree grown from that fruit, she stayed north of Narnia, developing her magic. Narnia remained untroubled by her for many hundreds of years.

Characteristics

Jadis was extraordinarily beautiful, extremely tall at seven feet, and imposing. She enchanted Digory Kirke, Andrew Ketterley, and Edmund Pevensie upon first encounters. After eating the fruit of eternal life, her skin became as white as paper. A natural-born sorceress and cunning strategist, she was arrogant and cruel, viewing others as tools or obstacles.

She demonstrated her callousness by using the Deplorable Word to destroy all life in Charn rather than submit to her sister, and she felt remorseless pride in that act. Her magic disappeared when she left Charn, but she rebuilt it in Narnia's world, becoming a formidable sorceress though still outclassed by Aslan. She usurped Narnia's throne and cast the land into perpetual winter with her magic. Her wand could turn people to stone, and she decorated her castle with petrified remains.

On Earth, she retained phenomenal strength but no magical power, once wielding a cross-bar from a lamp post against Metropolitan Police. That cross-bar later grew into the lamp post Lucy Pevensie encountered.

Portrayals

Elizabeth Counsell voiced Jadis in Focus on the Family's radio dramas of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew, and made a cameo as a lamb in The Last Battle; the BBC later purchased distribution rights. Rosemary Martin played the White Witch in an earlier 1988 BBC radio version. Elizabeth Wallace portrayed her in the 1967 British TV series The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. In the sixth episode of The Young Ones, Justine Lord played the White Witch in a Narnia scene.

Beth Porter voiced the White Witch for the 1979 animated television adaptation; for the British release, Sheila Hancock's voice was dubbed in. Barbara Kellerman played the White Witch in the 1988 BBC miniseries season 1, and was retained as the hag in season 2 and the Lady of the Green Kirtle in season 3. Tilda Swinton portrayed her in the 2005 Walt Disney feature film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Swinton was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for that performance.