Headscratchers / The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Why doesn't she just stab him?

Why doesn't Jadis just kill Edmund on sight? The prophecy states 2 sons of Adam and 2 daughters of Eve will take the throne. If she eliminates one, the prophecy can't be fulfilled and it would have made hunting the others easier because she is curtained to win whether they live or die.

• She might not be sure if they're the ones the prophecy refers to. She wants him to lure the whole group to her so can eliminate them all and be certain it's done with.
• But that still doesn't answer why she doesn't just kill Edmund. The prophecy states 2 human males and 2 human females. Her rule cannot be undone by anything less that that. If she kills Edmund, she has the upper hand whether or not they are the ones the prophecy speaks of, because in the event they are, they have already lost. By doing things the way she did, there is always the chance Edmund could escape and reunite with the others and end her rule. If he is dead, that is no longer a possibility.
• If she kills Edmund at once then she risks the other three coming at her in revenge. Remember that Jadis had been defeated in a brutal civil war back in her home world of Charn, and in Narnia she had no Deplorable Word to play as a trump card. We know the other Pevensies are just children, but Jadis knows nothing about them. If Edmund delivers all his siblings, then she can have them all killed at once and eliminate the threat.
• Plus killing Edmund might result in a Prophecy Twist, Edmund's death would have still had in a role in her defeat by inspiring his siblings to take revenge, and if they succeed, one could indeed say that "Two" Sons of Adam and Two Daughters of Eve will defeat her.
  • The prophecy doesn't say the four humans will defeat the Witch, it says that when they sit on the four thrones of Cair Paravel, it will be the end of her reign and life. Killing Edmund would pretty definitively prevent him sitting on any throne. Indeed, she does realize this later and tries to kill him, but too late, as he's rescued just then. Still, for all she knew, the Pevensies would have brought a boy friend with them — the prophecy doesn't say the four humans will be related, either.
• In the 2005 film at least, Edmund mentions Aslan's name pretty soon. So Jadis knows that the other three have Aslan's help or are planning to get it. She takes Edmund out with her to possibly use him as a bargaining tool to stop them from getting to Aslan. Once she knows they're with him, then she decides to kill Edmund because she knows she's as good as lost when they have his help.
• Also if Jadis kills Edmund, she doesn't know where the other three are. Or how many reinforcements they have. Keeping Edmund alive for now is the smart option, because having him will draw the others out into the open.
• From Jadis's perspective, there's no reason to think that three remaining humans can't go find a replacement Son of Adam. Nor is there any reason to believe the three remaining humans will just give up because a prophecy they may not even have heard of doesn't match the numbers. And if there's one thing that's common to evil tyrants everywhere, they're convinced (and not always wrong) that everyone is plotting against them. Kill Edmund only, and from the tyrant's perspective, you've just about guaranteed the existence of a dangerous plot to take you down. Killing all of them is the only real way to ensure your own safety, and using Edmund as bait is the best way to get them all in one place.
• Mr. Beaver even lampshades this when Peter asks why they can't go rescue Edmund, in the book at least. He says that Jadis would keep Edmund alive in her arrogance that she could use him as bait to lure his siblings into a trap. Turning Edmund to stone or sacrificing him would be the logical course of action, but Jadis has been ruling Narnia for so long that she wouldn't consider that option as long as the other three are around and Aslan is nowhere in sight.
• Edmund tells her early on that Lucy told him and their siblings about her first trip to Narnia, though they didn't believe her. She's certainly aware that there's an entire world full of humans, any of whom could be the subject of the prophecy. The problem isn't just these four children, the problem is this door that could let more humans in, maybe many of them. To her, it seems like the smart move is to kill the four children who've used it or been told about it, and hope no one else discovers it.
• We are also discussing a setting in which there is at least one example of someone dying then being restored to life. Even if the White Witch killed Edmund, there is no guarantee that he will stay dead.

Human? Never seen one!

Mr. Tumnus and Mr. Beaver tell the Pevensie siblings that they have never seen a human before. In The Magician's Nephew, 4 humans and a horse bear witness to the birth of Narnia and 2 humans (the cabbie and his wife Nellie) are the first King and Queen of Narnia. Digory, a son of Adam, was asked by Aslan to pick a magical apple off a tree and from that apple, a magical tree grew that protects Narnia from Jadis's magic. How can Tumnus or Mr. Beaver not know what humans are when the very species they have no knowledge of were witnesses to the birth of the very land they now live in?

• Jadis has been ruling over Narnia for over one hundred years. Presumably she killed off any human ruler Narnia may have had — she's bound to have exterminated any possible line so she can rule over the land. Tumnus is a young enough faun and we don't know how long the beavers live. They have knowledge of humans. It's just they've never seen one since none have been in Narnia since Jadis took over. One hundred years coupled with species that don't live too long...they're bound to question the existence of humans. They have no reason to believe in other worlds either.
• It's mentioned that Jadis herself claims to be human but really isn't. If she's a fraud, why couldn't the locals (or the author of Mr. Tumnus's book Is Man A Myth?) speculate that they're all fakes?
• Later books in the series reveal that humans exist in that world, but are explicitly banned from the kingdom of Narnia (not that a wolf-guarded, perpetually frigid little kingdom ruled by a trigger-happy evil witch would attract tourists). Archenland and Calormen were already home to human civilizations in A Horse and his Boy.
• One character in a later book notes of Jadis' reign that she "stamped out the Beavers." It's implied that Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are close to the last of the beavers in Narnia. If you're one of the last of a species in a land where there are few to no examples of another species, it's unlikely your paths will cross in your lifetime. Mr. Tumnus isn't the only Faun, but the above-troper's point makes sense. Humans are scarce in Narnia during Jadis' reign.
• There are a couple pieces to this answer: first of all Jadis has been ruling Narnia as a dictator for one hundred years, so not only has anyone who has interacted with a human passed away, she controls who comes in and out of Narnia's borders (not to mention any outside nation doesn't dare try to get in between the eternal winter and the fact that Jadis is a witch) and has likely propagated propaganda that humans are myths in an effort to slow down resistance and rebellion once the prophesied Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve show up. Second, King Frank and Queen Helen's children were the last pure blooded humans in Narnia (one of the sons actually established the kingdom of Archenland) because they would marry Nymphs, and Wood and River Gods thinning the human blood. You also need to remember that Jadis conquers Narnia about 1000 years after its founding. The thinning of the royal bloodline's human blood actually contributed to the Witch's takeover because a human has to sit on the Narnian throne. After 1000 years had passed, the royals really couldn't call themselves Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve anymore.
• And to reinforce your point about outside nations not trying to get in — in The Horse and His Boy when Prince Rabadash is trying to persuade his father to let him invade Narnia, the Tisroc is disinclined to do so precisely because he doesn't want to start a fight with a powerful sorceress. His information is a few years out of date by this point, but it's presumably the same mindset that kept everyone else out for the past century.
  • More accurately, the Tisroc says that he doesn't want to tangle with whatever power unseated Jadis. Because she was a terribly powerful sorceress in her own right, and so whatever took her out and then thawed Narnia must be even stronger.
• What about this: Mr. Beaver say that "there has never been any of [the human] race here before." Doesn't that contradict The Magician's Nephew? I understand this book was written first, but still.
• That was a thousand years ago. King Frank and Queen Helen's children married dryads, nymphs and other Narnian creatures until the bloodline wasn't considered human anymore. Four or five generations of intermarrying would probably do that. Which is only about two hundred years give or take. So maybe the Beavers don't know that Frank and Helen were from our world originally.
• Imagine if a woolly mammoth showed up on your street. Nobody would get too technical with anyone who said, "wow, there's never been a woolly mammoth here before." For all intents and purposes that's true even if at one point 15,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth grazed right on that spot. Humans are similarly thought of in Narnia.

Lost in the basement

How can "Professor Kirke" not know the layout of his own house? Yeah, he may be busy with other matters such as research, but there must have been some free time for him to just wander around his house and check his surroundings.

• He's probably joking about it since he's old and probably isn't able to wander his house all day. Digory was used to a small country house in his childhood so he might have gotten into the habit of only using a handful of rooms and not bothering about the others. Mrs MacReady is the one who takes care of the house and shows all the 'guests' around. In fact, that's probably a big reason why the Pevensies were sent to stay with him. He didn't use so many of his rooms, so he has plenty of space for four children.
• In the 18th and 19th centuries, the upper-class Britons went in for monstrously huge houses (one egregious example reputedly had 365 rooms, 52 staircases and 12 courtyards) to show off their wealth and station. Professor Kirke clearly inhabited one of these places, which by the mid-20th century were rather embarrassingly useless. So in the time period in question, a wealthy man might actually have a partially unexplored house.
• If he had that big a house, why were only four children sent to live there during the evacuations? You'd think there'd be room for a lot more.
• The house is big, yes, but it might not be that big. We don't see all of it, after all. And in the book and series, people can go on tours of it. A lot of children might get in the way. And besides, do you really think Mrs. MacReady would want any more children in the house than absolutely necessary?
• Also, there's only one Professor, and he's somewhat elderly. The evacuations were meant to send children to something resembling foster homes, not unsupervised orphanages.
• It's also meant to be a comment on what a scatterbrained old bookworm he is; he's absent-minded and so focussed on intellectual matters that he neglects practicalities. Such as memorising the layout of his house.

No such thing as mistaken, only lying or crazy

When the Prof tries to convince the three other Pevensies that Lucy is right, he rules out delusion because she wasn't crazy before. Because mental illness is always apparent, and never manifests for the first time "later" in life?

• In the same conversation he also assumes that a person either always tells the truth or lies all the time. If she's not a known liar she therefore isn't lying now. Both of these were things Lewis actually believed (and also that "being mistaken" is not a real thing); it's the basis for his famous apologetics argument "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord".
• Well to be fair, in the 1940s there was still so much about mental illness that wasn't known. But what we do know about mental illness is that it's not sudden. From the perspective of the siblings — who don't forget have been together in close proximity for a long time now — Lucy one day turns around and says she found a magical world in the wardrobe.
• The Professor also points out that if Lucy is lying, why would she act like she'd been gone for hours when no time had passed? She's just a little girl, not some Machiavellian chessmaster. If a child did want to try and fool adults into thinking they'd been somewhere else, they would hide for a while to make the story more believable. And Lucy is said to be a very truthful girl, which presumably her siblings know. And that is the only reason they want to see the Professor in the first place — because Lucy is not the type to make things up, but her story is so crazy that they can't tell if it's real.
• There's also the fact that the Professor knows for a fact that Narnia exists. His point isn't to be strictly accurate to Peter and Susan about all cases of mental illness, but just to convince them that Lucy is telling the truth, yet without revealing how he knows.
• And even if he had not, his point is essentially just a slightly crude version of Occam's Razor. Their choices are either (a) Lucy is lying, (b) Lucy is crazy or (c) Lucy is telling the truth. Any are ultimately possible, but his point is simply that: (a) is unlikely since Lucy, a generally honest girl, is not likely to have suddenly decided to start lying for no reason (and especially not decided to start with such a crude and easily disproven lie); (b) is unlikely since if Lucy had started to go crazy, they would have likely picked up on other signals as well, of which there do not seem to be any; so (c) is likely to be true, or at least worthy of sincere consideration as the truth. Which, granted, is still kind of simplistic, but that brings us to (d) it is a story for children.
• He's an eccentric old person that has probably faced ridicule in his life for saying he went to a magical land as a child. This may be alien to some tropers but it wasn't uncommon in the 40s anymore than it is today for people who allege paranormal experiences to not have a positive view of the mental health industry.
• And what he's advising them is to keep an open mind, since the youngest sister they know very well to be an otherwise truthful girl is suddenly telling such an incredible story. And when she isn't believed, Lucy is mentioned to stubbornly avoid the others, which is again odd and out of character. So simply declaring her to be 'mad' or lying when it contradicts her normal behavior is dismissive (since she sticks to her story even when it looks like there's nothing in the wardrobe) — and he's pointing out they should investigate Lucy's behavior more and find out more. It's just they don't get a chance to because they end up in Narnia very soon after that.

Deck the halls at Cair Paravel: 't is the season not to marvel.

Yeah, kind of a minor point and yeah, it's more of a children's story, but: the spell of the White Witch is described as making it "always winter, and never Christmas" in Narnia. But, there is no religious figure named "Christ" in Narnia—that universe's parallel-of-sorts is a lion named Aslan. So, maybe there'd be a holiday named "Aslanmas"? (One could argue the "many Names of God" concept and say Aslan and Christ are names for the same figure in different worlds/universes, but of course the people (including sapient animals) native to Narnia wouldn't know the "Christ" name.)

• Probably the concept was introduced to Narnia by King Frank and Queen Helen, who need not have included all the Biblical background.
• Yes there's lots of other 'our world' things like tea, a sewing machine etc that were probably influenced by the king and queen.
• You could make the same argument the other way. A Narnian could look at our mythologies and say, “There are no centaurs in the human world. Why would they have stories about them?” The implication being that such stories originated with people who had crossed over throughout time, so that we have a fairly decent idea of what centaurs are like despite never having seen one. They could have named their mid-winter gifting and feasting holiday after tales passed down from human visitors. Father Christmas may have accepted the appellation without protest just out of graciousness, despite not having anything to do with the Christ story in the human world.
• And perhaps Narnian Christmas has some funky traditions that we just don't see — the animals having their dinner outdoors in fact.
• Basically, Fantasy Kitchen Sink. In any case, the whole point of the novel — and later novels in the series — is that it's entirely possible to cross over between Narnia and our world, and that people / beings have done so before and do so since, so it's likely that traditions and festivities can do as well.
• FWIW, the modern celebration of Christmas is supposedly based on a lot of pre-existing pagan / Celtic traditions which were basically all lumped together under the label of "Christmas" and which had some Christian mythology and iconography sprinkled on top. It's entirely likely that the Narnian celebration of "Christmas" takes the name and some of the concepts (such as the sharing of gifts and a nice meal) and applies them to a natively Narnian set of beliefs and practices.
• Picking apart etymology in works with Aliens Speaking English will give you a headache.
• And in King Frank and Queen Helen's first year as rulers, perhaps they realised the good potential of having a worldwide holiday. The reason Christmas is such a successful holiday is that it conveniently divides up the end of the year and allows most people a good amount of time off. So there would be lots of practical benefits to introducing it to Narnia besides Frank and Helen's own nostalgia for it.
• "Christ" isn't just a name. It's also a title meaning "messiah" or "savior", which we commonly append to Jesus to denote how He is the savior of humanity. So, while we may never hear any Narnians refer to him by it specifically, the title of Christ could easily be appended to Aslan as the Narnian equivalent, and therefore by the same token the "Christ" in "Christmas" in Narnia could be referring to him—which makes sense as its very heavily implied that Aslan and Jesus are literally one and the same.
  • Not to nitpick your Greek (it's all Greek to me, anyway) — but to be very strictly accurate, "Christ(os)" is neither a name nor a title, but a declaration of faith: it's not only a Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah (as many people think), but means "He who I believe is the Messiah". So someone calling Jesus by that is declaring themselves a Christian in the process. How this works in Narnia, especially before the whole Stone Table thing — well, as the troper above said: questioning etymology in a world with Aliens Speaking English is a surefire headache in the making.

Splitting loyalty or splitting hairs?

Why is Edmund considered a traitor? He had literally no idea Jadis was evil and had just as much right to trust her as Lucy did to trust Mr Tumnus and on top of that he was essentially drugged, not really in control of his actions and not aware of the facts. Yet he is treated like a total traitor who deserves a good talking to by Aslan and has to learn to be a better person, simply because he was unfortunate enough to meet Jadis first.

• I think on some level Edmund did know that Jadis was evil. The book describes him as being intimidated by her when he first meets her. The Magician's Nephew also shows that Jadis has that effect on men and boys — where Uncle Andrew and Diggory are both terrified of her and awestruck by her beauty. And he wasn't necessarily drugged; the Turkish Delight just made him want more of it. It didn't Mind Rape him into betraying his siblings. Adding to that, things are already very tense between Edmund and the others, and he betrays them after he's been told that Jadis is a nasty piece of work (Mr Tumnus has already been abducted from his home at this point). So when presented with evidence that Jadis was a tyrant, he chose a pretty woman, candy, and the promise of becoming king over his own family. Edmund was tempted by magic yes, but the choice to give into the temptation was his own. The situation is more nuanced than that, but Jadis does have enough of a case that Aslan fears the Deep Magic.
• It's also possible that Aslan already knew he was destined to die to save Edmund's life. Jadis considered him a traitor and was going to execute him as such, but perhaps Aslan was exploiting Loophole Abuse to win the war. If he dies and is resurrected, Jadis believes she has the advantage in the war, giving him a chance to liberate her castle while she's at battle. Edmund had committed enough crimes to be technically considered a traitor, so Aslan pulled a two-fer.
• This troper always saw it this way: the Prophecy that four Children of Adam and Eve are destined to overthrow the Witch and end her reign was always regarded as akin to divine law, as all Narnians knew deep down Aslan would free them someday. Edmund, as one of those Sons of Adam choosing to side with the Witch, the representative of Evil, is the greatest betrayal of all—an attempt to subvert God, or, in the Narnian perspective, The Emperor Over Sea's will. Working against the Emperor's magic, as it were, which is a huge no-no.
• We're not shown exactly what Lucy told the others, but it's quite possible that she explained to them who the White Witch was as part of explaining what Tumnus was up to and why she'd been missing for several hours.
• Edmund knows perfectly well how evil Jadis is. He sees what has happened to Tumnus's house; he hears the Beavers talking about turning people to stone (and sees all the stone statues, too). And he goes to her precisely because he's motivated to get revenge on his siblings and elevate himself above them. He has visions of being made King of Narnia and his siblings as his servants. The book narration even states that deep down he knows that Jadis is evil, but convinces himself to think otherwise. This isn't just a case of him happening to meet a nice lady and being tricked by magic; her magic works because he already has evil thoughts in his head. This troper, by the way, counts Edmund as his favorite Chronicles of Narnia character, but yeah, Edmund's actions in betraying his family can't be rationalized as the mere misfortune of running into the Witch before seeing anyone else.
• Helping matter is that Jadis is a Manipulative Bitch. She drugs a child, and the narrative specifically lists that it's "enchanted food" that makes you want more of it. Jadis promises that he can get some more if he just introduces his siblings to her, and promises none of them will get hurt; on the contrary, they'll be turned into dukes and duchesses! After all, she's not like Fair Folk or obligated to keep her word, and all she has to do is ensure that Edmund betrays his siblings, which he will be bringing them to a known tyrant's location. Narnia doesn't have the same laws about consent or accounting for age that the real world does, and that despite the fact that Edmund is a kid that gives in to temptation, he's still considered an independent party responsible for his actions. As Jadis puts it smugly when talking to Aslan, she didn't break any rules regarding Deep Magic or Narnia politics by giving him the enchanted Turkish Delight and hot chocolate, and Aslan silently admits she has a point.
• Edmund only hears about Jadis after he met her so as far he can see she was perfectly nice to him and the "rebels" are simply talking shit about her and Lucy has fallen for it. Let's not forget Tumnus was originally going to trap Lucy; a sudden change of heart doesn't disprove that the other creatures here can lie and endanger the children. He had as much reason to believe her as the others had to believe the beavers. And it's not as if he was plotting their downfall, as far as he knew his sisters and brother were going to be dukes and duchesses, he didn't know Jadis planned to kill them so it's a little harsh to call him a traitor to the prophecy, especially when he knew nothing about it.
  • The prophecy actually doesn't really factor into it; Edmund is called a traitor because he attempted to sell out his brother and sisters. Which he does, no matter how you try and spin it. Putting aside the obvious religious figure Edmund is designed to parallel in this instalment of the series, the book (and its adaptations) sort of goes out of its way to make sure the audience knows that Edmund is, at the start of the book, a particularly spiteful, selfish and shortsighted little boy who fairly relentlessly picks on his younger sister, refuses to listen to his older sister and actively resents his older brother. His response when Jadis promises to make his siblings nobility is basically "aww, do you have to?" and he imagines them instead as his servants while he gets to be king. The Turkish Delight doesn't actually change him at all, the only way it's enchanted is to make him want more of it. Consuming it doesn't force him to do anything he wouldn't necessarily have done otherwise or remove any substantial degree of agency on his part. His arc then is realising his mistake and making the decision to atone for it. Regarding the false equivalence to Lucy and Tumnus, the thing is that Mr Tumnus actually comes clean to Lucy right in their first meeting about his orders to kidnap her and he then goes out of his way to save her — as it turns out, at great risk to himself (and speaking of that, let's not forget that the story is set in the 1940s and even British schoolchildren would have certain knowledge of the connotations to the phrase "secret police" such as the kind that took Tumnus, all of them negative). Since we're talking about children here, it's likely that this alone would be more than enough to endear Tumnus to Lucy and make her reports of him to the others more likely to trust him and those who claim to be his friends like the Beavers. Everything any of the children hear about Jadis in all the time any of them spend in Narnia is overwhelmingly negative...except that information which comes from Jadis herself and even she starts off the first meeting with Edmund insulting him and clearly threatening to kill him before changing her mind. Edmund himself, as has been pointed out already, fundamentally knows that Jadis is evil but convinces himself otherwise until he witnesses her cruelty to himself and those they come across on their pursuit of his siblings before he's rescued.
• A minor addendum: the talk Aslan and Edmund have isn't so much "a good talking to" as it's Aslan acting (more or less) as a therapist and in a manner of speaking psychologically patching Ed up — and after being first held hostage, badly abused, and then nearly killed by the witch, it's not exactly as if Edmund (who on top of everything else is a child) didn't need any help in that regard.

Stone Cold Jadis

In the book, Mr. Beaver warns the Pevensie children that the White Witch will turn them to stone if they go to her castle to rescue Edmund (or Tumnus). But why wouldn't she just kill them? Aslan later revives everyone who is turned to stone, including Tumnus. Wouldn't he revive them too? (Not saying it was a good idea for them to risk it, but still.)

• Because that's what Jadis does. She turns people to stone, and makes a show of it. Maybe she kills her enemies, maybe she doesn't. But she does definitely turns them to stone. And they might not know Aslan can revive them. For all they know, petrified people can't be turned back or only Jadis can do it.
• It still seems more in character for Jadis to actually kill them. Sure the other people she's turned to stone were her enemies, but she wouldn't consider them as big a threat. It's clear she would do anything to stop the prophecy from coming true, so surely she would finish off the children of the prophecy the best way she could. Also, when she had Edmund with her, she kept him alive for a while hoping to capture the other three, but decided to kill him once she found out they were with Aslan. And she actually tried to kill him, not turn him to stone.
• As Jadis has an entire courtyard decorated with creatures she's turned to stone, so he's assuming that's the logical fate for them. Jadis doesn't appear to be a very hands-on ruler in the books; she keeps her distance and relies on magic. Beaver is just going off her reputation, and possibly not wanting to scare the Pevensies into thinking they face certain death.
• Turning people to stone is killing them. After his resurrection, Aslan says that Death itself has started working backwards, and it's only at that point that he starts un-statueing people. The un-statuing thing seems to be a consequence of the Deeper Magic. So as far as the Witch (or, well, anyone other than Aslan) knew, bringing someone back from being turned to stone was as impossible as bringing them back from any other sort of death. And turning them to stone is the quickest way she has of killing people, as well as giving her a nice trophy.
• I thought the "Death working backwards" thing was simply in regards to his resurrection, and that the reason Aslan was not able to restore the statues sooner was because everything happened fairly quickly. There had been no time to go to the castle yet, but now that Jadis thought Aslan was dead, she and her allies were focused on attacking the Pevensies' camp which left her castle unguarded.

How did Jadis plan to capture the Pevensie children once she caught up to them?

• Off hand I imagine she'd plan to use that handy wand that turns things to stone.
• That's why she sent the wolves out first.
• Jadis didn't plan to capture them. She sent the wolves out with orders to kill them. In the 1979 film she says "go the house of the Beavers and kill whatever you find there". And in the 2005 film, Maugrim actually says to Susan "we're tired and we'd prefer to kill you quickly." She mainly went out herself to use Edmund as bait if the opportunity came — perhaps if they were in hiding, she could draw them into the open and surprise them with her wand once they were nearby.

Deeper Loophole Abuse

Among the laws that were written into Narnia at the time of its creation was the "Deep Magic" condemning Narnia to perish in fire and water if a traitor is not handed over to Jadis to kill. Given that she is an outsider from Charn who only arrived when the creation of Narnia was well underway, why was such a consequential law referencing her (and elevating her importance) even created — did she bargain for it?

• When she arrived, she described the place as "an empty world" and "nothing". While she might have been lying, this suggests they arrived just as the world started being created, rather than after it was "well under way". The fact that Jadis' knowledge goes back to the dawn of time (but no further) seems to confirm this. As to why that law references her specifically...she's the origin of all evil in Narnia. Perhaps those who throw their lot in with evil are made subject to the source of that evil? Something along the lines of Romans 1:18-31, but done in a more concrete way?
• Jadis was the first evil, introduced by Diggory to Narnia. And since she ate the fruit in the garden, she's now immortal and thus the only being in Narnia to have been there at the time of its creation. And out of universe, this book was written before CS Lewis had properly worked out Jadis's backstory (in this book, the Beavers think she's part giant or a descendant of Lilith — but that can easily be given a Hand Wave with no one in Narnia knowing her true history).
• Ignoring the obvious retcon concerning the Witch being the Narnian version of Satan who deals with all the traitors to "God" to being an outsider who stumbled into witnessing Narnia's creation and just declared herself judge jury and queen without any evidence that Aslan agreed to this. Who on earth or Narnia creates an amendment to a contract before the contract itself is written? At the dawn of time a rule about killing traitors is written but before the dawn of time it says "unless of course a willing victim takes their place in which case the table breaks and death is undone". What sense does that make other than as a very flimsy reason for the witch to not be aware of it?
  • Regarding the last point, it's entirely possible that the whole thing regarding an innocent killed in a traitor's stead causing the table to break and the dead party to be resurrected wasn't actually as blunt as that (since it could just be Aslan's way of explaining his resurrection in a way that the girls and the audience could understand clearly) but was instead something of an Exact Words Loophole Abuse Prophecy Twist that Jadis simply never bothered to think about because all she was concerned about was the part about her getting the lives of all traitors and could still be included in the written magic. So say the written rule from the dawn of time is "the lives of all traitors belong to the eternal evil who has been in Narnia since its creation" — using the methods given earlier, this could very easily be interpreted with a meaning of "only the lives of traitors belong to the eternal evil who has been in Narnia since its creation; therefore, anyone killed in a traitor's stead who is innocent shall not remain dead since an innocent life, by definition, isn't hers to take". It's not exactly an amendment so much as merely a deeper interpretation of the magic and one that, yes, would have existed before the rule itself was written because the rule would have to be written in such a way that this interpretation could be applied to it.

Do the beavers hate Mr. Tumnus?

I mean Mr. Beaver list "Mr. Tumnus' arrest" as one of the things that is happening because of the kids. When one of the kids accuses him of "blaming" them, Mrs. Beaver assures them that they are "not blaming" but "thanking" them. So, the Beavers are thankful that Mr. Tumnus got arrested and turned to stone or am I missing something?

• The Beavers clarify that they're thanking the children for coming to Narnia, because it means that the prophecy will be fulfilled and Jadis defeated. And they are thinking of the bigger picture, and don't care as much about casualties like Mr Tumnus, the fox or even themselves in perspective of Narnia being liberated. They also think that Aslan might possibly be able to help those captured by Jadis. They do care that Mr Tumnus has been arrested, but the reason he was arrested is because a Daughter of Eve was seen in Narnia for the first time in centuries — meaning it was ultimately a good sign.

Gratuitous untruth or subconscious saving throw?

Why did Edmund lie to Susan and Peter?
Edmund's plan was to get his brother and sisters to Jadis, since she promised to give him more Turkish Delight if he did so. But when he and Lucy returned to tell Peter and Susan, he lied and said they were just pretending it was real. But all that did was destroy their trust in him and it only made it harder for him to succeed in luring them to Jadis's castle (granted if he had, it would have ended badly for all of them, but you get the point).

• He's annoyed that he was wrong not to believe Lucy about Narnia's existence, and he's embarrassed to have to admit in front of Peter and Susan that Lucy was right. He also rightly suspects that if he tells them the truth, they'll side with Jadis's victims and won't go with him to her castle anyway. So to make himself look better and to spite Lucy for being right, he impulsively decides to let her down by lying. It's not the most rational decision, but Edmund is put on the spot, already in a bad mood, and, lest we forget, just a child.
• As someone wrote on the Fridge page: 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.

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