Which Narnian villan is the best representation of Satan?

[wolfloversk]

Hmm... well Tash certainly had some characteristics of the Anti-Christ, in that the Calormenes believed he was a God... and later it was claimed that he was Aslan. Also Peter did state:

Begone, Monster, and take your lawful prey to your own place: in the name of Aslan and Aslan's great Father the Emperor-over-the-Sea.

One can only assume his place is meant to be Hell.

Granted Jadis is a much more physical representation of evil, but I don't think she'd be as good as Tash as a representation of Satan, because on Earth Satan seems to me to work more like Tash, behind the scenes, and unbelievers wouldn't even realize they are under his influence.

Jadis I would see more like a pawn of evil, perhaps more like the Romans who actually killed Jesus. Or like Feverstone/Devine, and Weston in the Space Trilogy. Possibly even a lesser demon, but I need to be more convinced than I am now to agree...

[LUCYOFMIDDLEEARTH]

I dont think any are an exact representatation of jesus/god... Tash is the most relatale characteristicly to satan as he is worshiped by the calorments and i only defeatable by aslan. To me tash seems more of like a demon than a exact satan... he seems like a demon because he is a representation of a demon of fear and all demons are evil. jadis has some factual simmilaritys to satan, was the evil in narnia befre it was formed...

[Anfinwen]

I would have to say the Lady of the Green Kirtle is the most like Satan.
Tash is how Satan would want to appear, so obviously evil. It would be hard to be taken in by Tash because the moment you saw him you would be so revolted. Referring to Satan, one would think "I would never do something really wrong." But, the Lady of the Green Kirtle was sly, she looked good, everything she said sounded good, and she confused the mind so that what was wrong seemed right. She even reasoned away Aslan himself and made all that was good and pure seem a fairy tale, a figment of the imagination. To me, this is much more like Satan who wants to twist the truth and make people believe a lie.

[Lady Courage]

I agree with Booky on this: None of Lewis's villains are meant to represent Satan. Each of them have an aspect of evil, and are certainly associated with Satan, but none of them so fully fulfill the role of Satan as Aslan does Christ.

Since in all the stories we have one steady Jesus (Aslan), it seems to me that if Lewis wanted a Satan in his stories he would have given us one steady Satan, and not a whole cast of villains so very different from each other.

[Narnian_Archer]

I agree with Lady Courage and Bookwyrm on this one in that I don't believe any one of Lewis's antagonists were meant to, on their own, be a seperate portrayal of Satan, but rather were representations or aspects of evil and Satan. Lewis points out in his Preface to the 1961 edition of Screwtape Letters,

The commonest question is whether I really "believe in the Devil".
Now, if by "the Devil" you mean a power opposite to God and, like God, self-existent from all eternity, the answer is certainly No. There is no uncreated being except God. God has no opposite. No being could attain "perfect badness" opposite to the perfect goodness of God...
The proper question is whether I believe in devils (emphasis added). I do. That is to say, I believe in angels, and I believe that some of these, by the abuse of their free will have become enemies to God and, as a corollary, to us.

Judgind by what he said, I think it extremely illogical to assume that Lewis would have ever tried to create one evil being that would completely and independantly represent a "Satan" of Narnia. I think it much more likely that through various characters he was showing different sides if evil and of the Devil and devils and how they affect us.

Like the oldest Dwarf says in The Silver Chair

"And the lesson of it all is, Your Highness...that these Northern Witches always mean the same thing, but in every age they have a different plan for getting it.

I take this to mean that there is not one great terrible evil, but rather a host of evils all sort of working together, with some more powerful and some less powerful, but all subject and less powerful than Aslan and always trying to work against His creation (if you look at it parallel to our world, then it means they are devils subject to and less powerful than Christ working against us). At least, that's how I see it.

[Louloudi the Centaur]

After reading the books more, I realized that none of the villains are really fully Satan, as opposed to an early vote done by me when I first joined the forum. Each are evil in their own ways, and not all of them have been present at the very same time throughout the series.

However, I definitely do not think Miraz to be any sort of Satanic representation or demon thing. He is only human, and sinful like all the other things in Narnia.

[Narnian_Badger]

Drat, the poll closed before I could get to it. I am a bit surprised that Miraz was included but Rabadash wasn't... they seem about as plausible as the other.

Anyway. If I could vote (which I can't), I'd pick none of them. I can still give you my reasons why.

Miraz represents Satan in a very minimalistic way--yes, Miraz is the Usurper, the coward; Satan attempts the former title and wholly succeeds on the latter. LotGK is the silent attacker, the snake that hunts the weaker and more inexperienced Christians. Jadis is the Master Temptress, for she preys upon the weak and the strong, using their own will against them. Tash... Tash is probably the closest figure to what Lewis intended the devil to be in Narnia. His stronghold on Calorman culture, I think, is meant to represent his choke hold on human nature (like in The Screwtape Letters), just in a more literal way.

In the end, of course, it doesn't matter which villain is Satan--Aslan, the Christ figure, beats them all anyway.

[wild rose]

In a way, I think all the evil characters resemble Satan in one way or another. Like each book has it's own Satan. Of course, to me, Tash is perhaps the most resmebling of Satan, but then again, if you look at the White Witch for example, you can see so many parallels in her. I find it hard to choose which one of the many evil characters resembles Satan the most, because each, in his own way, resembles him. Tash is the heathen god of the Calormenes and he obviously is a really evil creature, something very real, and something very evil, you get this creepy feeling when you read about him and when I first read the books, I thought, aha, this is the represantaion of Satan, just as Aslan is the representation of Christ. But then, when I actually read the books again, it seemed to be that there is no one representation of Satan, he is revealed in different forms in different books. At least that is the way I see it

[puddleglum32]

To me both Tash and Jadis seem to be the most like Satan. Jadis tries to spread fear and chaos. Thats what the devil does in our everyday lives. Tash is just pure evil. And in the Last Battle shift plays with supernatural forces "called tash." Some people said that satan is Gods enemy. To me thats far fetched because an enemy is someone who tries to harm you. God is all powerful and satan is no match for my creator.I mean in the the book of Job, the devil comes to God to get his permission to tempt and put Job through trials.