waggawerewolf wrote:Maybe not, but it would alter the story significantly. Quite a few times the Pevensies, and others as well, asked what would happen if they died in Narnia, would they also die in Our World as well? I suspect what you would have is a Professor with a dead body in the closet and Miss Jane Marple or Hercule Poirot being asked to investigate him in an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
That's a whole discussion in itself, isn't it? I always figured that anyone who died in Narnia (almost typed NarniaWeb...) would just vanish out of this world. After all, the Pevensies didn't leave their bodies in the wardrobe while their spirits went to Narnia, so why should a body show up back here? But that's a discussion for a different thread I think.
Why couldn't the White Witch kill Edmund when she first met him? She thought about it. And at the time she didn't know that Aslan was on the move, so she really wouldn't be strategizing on how to beat him yet. However, knowing what Lewis believed, I think it would be safe to say that she didn't kill Edmund because she couldn't. Maybe it was the Deeper Magic. (I love how you worded it Narnian_Archer, that there's a mystery to how Narnia works, but we see the overall picture vaguely.) Or maybe it was the power of Aslan as someone mentioned. Maybe those two forces are the same thing. But I strongly believe Edmund didn't die because he wasn't meant to die. (It makes me think of the Pharisees trying to kill Jesus but not being able to until the appointed time.)
Now it might have looked different from the White Witch's perspective. She might have thought that keeping Edmund alive was a brilliant strategy or she might have simply been greedy and prideful, trying to do as much damage as she could as long as there wasn't much risk to herself. I tend to favor the first theory. There was some good strategy involved. By not killing Edmund right away, Jadis was able to find out about Tumnus and Lucy, but in the end, I still believe there was that "Deeper Magic" that kept the prophesy safe, even if a terrible ruler had power for a time. Sounds a bit like our world.
glumPuddle wrote:I really don't think there's any need to explain the Witch's actions with pride.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there. While her strategy was pretty sound for making Edmund into a puppet that eventually cost Aslan his life (temporarily) I think everything she did was motivated by Pride, Like Fantasia mentioned. Hitler may have great strategy in the Blitzkrieg for taking over Europe, but he was still extremely prideful. The truly humble thing for the Witch to do would have been to not take over Narnia in the first place. In the end, her pride and ambition did cost her her life, even if she won some battles.