Simply imagining how crapsack Narnia under Jadis must have been. Not only an oppressive regime as bad as the worst our world has produced, complete with secret police, spy networks ("even some of the trees are on her side"), propaganda (Tumnus's book Is Man a Myth? quite obviously must be given how, in later books, man in Archenland and Calormen is quite clearly not a myth even in the same timeframe) but imagine the impact of a century-long winter. In which nothing can grow. In which starvation and the struggle to stay alive surely must be a fact of life.
Later lampshaded in-universe. When the wolves led by Maugrim are sent by the White Witch to kill Peter, Susan, Lucy, and the Beavers arrive at the dam, they find it empty. The narration points out that if the night had remained fine, the wolves would have been able to follow their trail, and would likely have caught up to them by the time they got to the cave where they stayed the night. Thankfully, the snow had begun to fall again, covering up their tracks. Imagine what would have happened if they had still been at the dam or if the snow hadn't started falling again. However, the Witch knows they are due to be heading towards the Stone Table anyway.
It was lucky for Edmund that Jadis didn't decide to turn him to stone for sitting on her throne. The idea was likely on her mind, though, and she may have done it if Edmund hadn't said he'd brought his siblings so close to her castle.
The narration tells that there were "Incubuses" among the Witch's forces — that is, incubi, male devils of seduction from Judeo-Christian mythology. Now consider that there were two underage girls among the heroes, and wonder what could have happened to them had Jadis's side won the battle and captured them alive. Sleep tight. Neil Gaiman's short story The Problem of Susan inflicts this on the boys, who are implied to be turned into incubi while the lion eats the girls slowly.
Aparently, the witch likes a shaved pussy ... and the narration subtly plays up the rapey undertones in the death scene in general (except that Aslan is then murdered instead of ... you know). While the kids reading the story (hopefully) don't realise this, their parents certainly would. She also comes off quite like a sexual predator in her first scene with Edmund (this creepiness is brilliantly portrayed by Tilda Swinton) - and there is a constant borderline violent undertone to everything she says. A What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?Satanic Archetype, indeed.
Most of the casualties in the Walden movie's final battle are brought back to life either by Aslan's Breath of God or the fire flower potion. There was one real casualty, though: the gryphon who is stabbed by Jadis's staff in mid-flight and shatters on the rocks below. Presumably, there were also plenty of combatants on both sides who died of conventional wounds before Lucy arrived with her cordial, as well.note If Aslan did not put the gryphon back together and unpetrify him (which should be noted is not beyond His abilities by any definition of the word, it stands to reason that the gryphon simply died since his body was beyond recovery. And if you look at the other books in the series (namely The Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle), he would've almost certainly ended up in Aslan's country (AKA Heaven) if that were the case. The situation isn't nearly as bad as it first seems.
How horrible would it be to return to being a common child in 1940s England, with all the knowledge of twenty or so years of being an adult King or Queen in Narnia? They have to go through puberty TWICE!note In the books, it was stated somewhere that memories of the real world become faint, dreamlike, when in Narnia long enough, and vice versa. This was not included in the film adaptation of Caspian. Of course, this in itself is fridge horror.
A phoenix sacrifices itself to create a wall of fire blocking the White Witch's path during the battle. We never find out if the presumed defenseless newborn chick is rescued. Also, Jadis extinguishes the fire with her wand, which can petrify living beings. This could have killed the newborn phoenix.
Best case scenario: the phoenix egg is petrified along with the flames, and while it is kicked about a bit in the battle, this doesn't hurt the phoenix as the egg is now made of stone and the new bird is safe inside. The egg is unpetrified after the battle is over along with everyone else, and the phoenix hatches then.
Both Lucy and Edmund trust the first being that helps them warm up, feeds them, and tells them about this strange world. The difference is that Tumnus ultimately couldn't hurt Lucy, while Jadis was more than willing to manipulate Edmund for her chance to get rid of the four chosen ones. What would have happened if Jadis had found Lucy instead of her brother?
It's very fortunate that none of the four ever married or had children (though Susan and Lucy are mentioned as having had multiple suitors, and we see one of Susan's suitors, Prince Rabadash of Calormen, in The Horse and His Boy) or their spouses and kids would have been devastated when they didn't return from chasing the White Stag. If they had stayed in Narnia longer, it's likely that at least one or two of them would have eventually.
On a practical note, it's also fortunate they never had children because of the tangled Succession Crisis that could result.
It makes sense that Edmund asked Jadis for things like hot chocolate and Turkish delight when rations were sparse in England thanks to the war. And why is he asking for sweets instead of other more substantial things that are also rationed? He's a kid; kids want sweets and, if allowed to ask for whatever they want, will ask for their favorite sweet.
The movie actually highlights something that didn't show up in the books that makes the friction between Edmund and his siblings make even more sense. Edmund probably, as the movie shows, has a very high opinion of his father who was away at war and probably resented Peter for trying to replace their father and both Peter and Susan for babying Lucy.
Modern readers frequently comment on how the book seems to gloss over what it would be like for the Pevensies to grow to adulthood as kings and queens in Narnia only to return to their lives as children in England. What's frequently overlooked is that when The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was first published, its readers had just lived through World War II and knew very, very well what it was like to come home battle-weary and matured before their time despite still being in the body of a youth. Lewis (who himself served in WWI) didn't have to unpack this experience in the text of the book, it was a part of the cultural consciousness of the time.
In Prince Caspian, the dwarf Nikabrik states that the White Witch "stamped out the Beavers, or at least there are none of them in Narnia now". She eliminated an ENTIRE SPECIES. And why? Why exterminate a race of basically harmless rodents and not far more dangerously aggressive ones like bears, boars, centaurs and the like? It can be surmised that the Prophecy predicting the fall of the Witch's regime specifically stated that the four human children who enter Narnia would be aided by beavers. Looking to prevent that from coming true, Jadis hedged her bets by not only killing any humans that entered her dominions, she also affected a Final Solution to the beaver problem.
Except that there are at least two around, and Nikabrik is speaking a thousand years later, after another complete suppression of Narnian history and culture. Granted, the thought that the Beaver species eventually died out in Narnia is still quite upsetting.
In the film, when the wolves were attacking the Beavers' dam, Susan asked if they should take jam. It brings to mind the scene where they were running to their bunker during the air raid. The bunker would already be stocked with non-perishable food, like jam, that would last a while. When hurriedly helping Mrs. Beaver gather supplies, Susan was thinking of taking foods with them that would last a long time, as she didn't know if they'd have food where they were going.
The Beavers matter-of-factly decide to rescue the Pevensies when Tumnus gives them his handkerchief and asks them to look out for Lucy. This is despite the fact that Tumnus says all the Narnia citizens are threatened on pain of death to turn in any humans they find. Why do the Beavers become a Heroic BystanderBattle Couple? Because they had hope for the first time, knowing that "Aslan is on the move", and besides which, there are four kids that need protection. Father Beaver reveals he will go for Bullying a Dragon, mouthing off to Jadis despite Aslan telling him "Peace, Beaver".
Jadis's wand turns living creatures to stone. However, she arranges them like some sort of statue garden, rather than smashing and destroying them. It seems rather ridiculous. It's hard to imagine Jadis simply being that arrogant given how many steps she takes in averting or delaying the prophecy. It's because one must remember the Deep Magic: Jadis only has dominion over traitors, and she may spill their blood as well as the blood of forces pledging themselves to her, at her will, but someone who isn't any of those things, Jadis has no claim over. But turning them into statues does not violate the Deep Magic.
When Edmund returns to his own world after his first visit to Narnia, he tells Peter and Susan that he was only playing along with Lucy's "game". It seems another cruel joke at Lucy's expense, and Peter tells him off. Yet, he had specific instructions from the White Witch to bring his siblings to her castle, for which he was to be lavishly rewarded. Even if he plans on bringing them later, would he really delay gratification to screw Lucy over? It's more likely that, though he's under the Witch's spell, deep down he realizes that she's evil and dangerous, and he's trying to stop himself from carrying out her orders.
If so, that would have to be a subconscious motive. The book's omniscient narrator says that Edmund was simply "becoming a nastier person every minute" after having eaten the magic candy, and was annoyed and embarrassed that Lucy was right while he was wrong about Narnia's existence and didn't want to admit it to Peter and Susan.
The reveal of Jadis's backstory in The Magician's Nephew makes her temptation of Edmund all the more fitting. Besides craving more of the magic Turkish Delight, Edmund's motives for joining her are (a) her promise to make him heir to the throne of Narnia, and (b) Sibling Rivalry, with his anger at Peter serving as the last straw that drives his betrayal. The prequel reveals that Jadis once waged a civil war against her sister for the throne of Charn, which she won by using a Fantastic Nuke to destroy their entire civilization rather than lose the throne and let her sister reign over her. Edmund never fully knew itnote Unless Aslan told him during the talk they had - which is unlikely as it's both "someone else's story" and "what would have happened", but Jadis was an evil mirror of himself: the most extreme example of who he could have become if not for his Heel Realization and Heel–Face Turn, and quite a bit of Divine Intervention.
In the film, when Tumnus first met Lucy he wondered if she was “some kind of beardless dwarf.” Did he imply that female dwarfs have beards?
Possibly. Or he thought Lucy was a boy. She does have a short hairstyle and is young enough that she probably could have passed for a boy if she wanted. Tumnus has never seen a human child before, so his first thought is of a species that's naturally short and humanoid.
He might not have seen a female dwarf; do we ever get to see any in the film? It's quite possible they live in seclusion in the underground, or wherever dwarfs live in Narnia, with only the Witch's male soldiers interacting with the forest creatures.
Or he might have just been playing with her. He's a gentle fellow by nature, it wouldn't be surprising if he exaggerated his bewilderment to get her to laugh.
In the 2005 film, the lioness whom Edmund sees as a statue and draws spectacles on is wearing a drawing of just such a pair of spectacles as makeup during the coronation scene - she put it on in his honor for his big day!
Per Word of God, the petrified Christmas party guests were brought back to life "offscreen". It would be a serious case of fridge heartwarming if it happened during the morning directly after Edmund's rescue: seeing them be turned into stone was what sparked Ed's heel face turn, of course he would've told Aslan about them during that talk they had (likely as one of the first things). As a way of telling Edmund "you're better than you think you are" for standing up to the witch on their behalf, Aslan might've taken him along and gone to restore the guests from their statue state right then and there.
Just as heartwarming from the guests' point of view. If being petrified is like being unconscious ("none the worse for having been a statue"), then they wake to find that in the meantime the boy who (unsuccessfully) protested on their behalf has gone to get them help.
Edmund faints when he's rescued and is carried to the Narnian camp while unconscious - it was probably Aslan who woke him to tell him You Are Not Alone. For someone who latched onto the witch basically because it was better even for someone to pretend to care than nothing at all, that awakening is also serious fridge heartwarming.
And then Aslan must have taken several hours to talk to and care for Edmund, who's just been rescued from the witch - no matter that Ed got himself into that one and is de facto the witch's mole, no matter that all the battle planning is put on hold: anything else can wait or is unimportant to Aslan when someone needs him.
