Are the Emerald Witch and the White Witch the same person.

Regarding author intent:

While we can't necesarily take author intent as canon as Animus mentioned, we also cannot ignore it. Using Rowling as the example, when she revealed the shocking aspect of Dumbledore's hidden life, the reader must take that as canon and add it into the personality of Dumbledore.

But author intent has a drawback, only the author can give what he/she intended in a book. Debating the author's intent, especially after the author's death, is useless. No one will be able to definitively state whether Lewis intended for the White Witch and LotGK to be the same person or different people. All we have to work with is canon--what is written. We have no intent in this argument.

Now we all have our canon-based arguments for the topic. That's all we can argue--that is unless you are reincarnated as Lewis and can provide us with his thoughts :p

MrBob
 
See, I don't think we have to take JKR's intent into account when she reveals something like that now -- if it were critical to the book, if we absolutely have to believe it or the story doesn't hang together, then she should have put it inthe book. The books stand on their own without someone informing you of what you must believe, or else they aren't complete or well-written. I find the HP books complete and very well written, and I don't think we have to take JKR's word about any character now. What she has presented in the books is what stands. She could as easily have said Dumbledore and Mcgonagal were dating all that time; would we have to believe it, as there was no indication of that in the text and it would make no difference to the story? Of course not. Same with the "revelation" she did make. She has no right to make these arbitrary calls after the fact except as an aside of what she believes -- we are not required to believe it.

CSL, for instance, said he believed Susan would eventually return to faith in Aslan and find True Narnia ... but as he did not present that in CON, we are not required to believe it. It may have been his intent, but all he put into the work, which stands alone, is that her fate is unsealed. So we may believe either way we choose on that count.

The problem with proposing that the Green and White Witches were the same purpose, and basing your proposal on the fact that there is nothing in the text which contradicts it, is: there is nothing in the text which contradicts a lot of things! You could propose that Susan had a dozen engagements that she broke when she lived as a young adult in Narnia -- there's nothing in the text that contradicts this, but then why would there be? It's not an issue.

If you want to posit that the Green and White Witches are the same person, then you have to find something in the text which supports this. You can't just say it is so based on the idea that nothing in the text refutes it. Where is the support for this idea?
 
I always thought they wre two different people. If the green witch was also the white witch, she would have been referred to as Jadis. Also, why would they be made out to be two different people if they weren't. Just my thoughts. ;):)
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While I don't take author intent as gospel canon, I think it ought to be considered, when known, unless what is written in the text explicitly contradicts it. The things Jo said afterward about all of the characters (Dumbledore's "secret," that Ginny played pro quidditch, that Harry became head auror, and that Neville married Hannah Abbott after possibly dating Luna for a time) aren't canon. But they certainly add interesting layers to the things that are, because there is subtext and foreshadowing for almost all of it. I mean, shippers called Neville/Hannah from pretty much the beginning. While I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that an author has "no right" to release background information about characters or the story (the author OWNS the characters and story, after all, and they ought to know everything about the world even if it's not relevant to the plot), Inkspot is correct: extra-canon material is not necessary for the understanding of the story -- it merely adds more detail.

Take Dean Thomas as an example: Originally, Jo wrote a sub-plot where Dean Thomas, who was raised by his Muggle mother and step-father, eventually learns that he's not Muggle-born, but a half-blood, and that his father didn't abandon them, but left to protect them from Voldemort and got killed for refusing to join the Death Eaters. Now, all canon says about Dean's background is that he's a half-blood. That's all you need to know to understand why he's on the run. But his resistance in book seven is so much more powerful when you know what he went through off-page, and what he lost because of Voldemort.

Here's my hierarchy of consideration (though I only consider the first two items canon):
~The published text.
~Offical guides, encyclopedias, and spin-off books (such as Jo's Beedle, Fantastic Beasts, and Quidditch, Tolkien's Lost Tales, or Meyer's Twilight Guide).
~Things said by the author in interviews after publication of all the books in a given series, so long as they don't contradict things published in the first two items.
~World-building and outlining notes, earlier drafts (these come nearly-last because they are "in-progress" so to speak).
~Claims made by the author's executor (if there is one), such as Douglas Gresham and Christopher Tolkien, based on things the author told them or notes they have in their posession.

I suppose this is why, even though it's not offically canon, I'm willing to go with Lewis' assumption that Susan eventually found Narnia again. Is it important to the story? No, but he thought it was possible, so I have to at least admit that she's not lost to Narnia forever -- that she could have come back if she'd wanted to.

But, where the Witches are concerned, as far as I know, he said nothing about whether or not they could have been the same Witch. Thus, all we have is canon text and, like Inkspot says, you have to actually be able to support it, not just say the text doesn't explicitly refute it.
 
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I honestly don't think that the White Witch and the Green Witch are the same. If they were, then that would mean that Aslan hadn't really defeated the White Witch, that He didn't have power to truly end her, and that they would be interlocked in a continuous good versus evil battle until the end of time.

I remember reading somewhere on here that in a Russian version of the book, someone found a typo that said that the White and Green witches were one and the same. They wrote to Doug Gresham, and while he said that he acknowledged the typo, he didn't intend to change it. That is a very good example that the White and Green witches aren't the same, having Doug Gresham say that the book saying that they are both the same was a typo.
 
Let me clarify my statement, if an author always had a thought about a certain character while writing a book/series but never specifically put that aspect in the books for whatever reason (including irrelevant facts) but later gives away the hidden character aspect, that is the kind of info that should be thought as canon. If an author wanted to change something or just added a character aspect that was irrelevant to the story or even confusing to the story, that cannot be thought as canon.

Now anything Rowling put in the epilogue should be considered as canon, but the other future scenarios that she just mentioned can be thought as either.

If none of the above makes sense, it's not just you :cool:

"CSL, for instance, said he believed Susan would eventually return to faith in Aslan and find True Narnia ... but as he did not present that in CON, we are not required to believe it. It may have been his intent, but all he put into the work, which stands alone, is that her fate is unsealed. So we may believe either way we choose on that count."

Inky, the thing is that Lewis never did state as a fact whether or not Susan made it to Aslan's Country. He stated that he believed she would, or something to that effect. He was, probably intenionally, vague about Susan's fate so that the readers could decide on their own.

BTW Meg, I agree with your canon hierarchy, with second-hand information and early drafts being the least worthy of canon.

MrBob
 
PrinceOfTheWest said:
If he'd intended the Emerald Witch to be the same person as Jadis, don't you think he would have left a few more indications of that? He knew how to do that, as Nephew demonstrates. I submit that the very lack of evidence tells a story all its own.
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I don't see why this has to be the case? The white witch was defeated at the end of the LWW. For her to come back in White Witch form would require a lot of explanation and tediom. To have her come back in a new form creates the air of mysterious connection that sparks this lively and fluctuating debate. I think its a masterpiece on his part. I bet he's giggling looking at us down here trying to work it out...

pianoplayer888 said:
I honestly don't think that the White Witch and the Green Witch are the same. If they were, then that would mean that Aslan hadn't really defeated the White Witch, that He didn't have power to truly end her, and that they would be interlocked in a continuous good versus evil battle until the end of time.
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I also disagree with this. Defeat and destruction are NOT the same thing. Yes, she was defeated, but this does not mean destroyed. I know it doesn't really strengthen your argument to refer to Christianity because Narnia's not an allegory but I will do so for explanation's sake.

When Christ died on the cross he defeated Satan forever, but didn't destroy him - that's left for the final judgement. Similarly in Narnia, could it not be that a form of evil that rears its ugly head in different forms could persist as a defeated being until LB? I mean think about it. The White Witch has power over Narnia in LWW but Aslan defeats her and Narnia is restored. All the evil characters in the books following never have near that level of power... could that be because of Aslan's defeat of evil in LWW but not yet destroyed? That to me suggests that Green Lady is a later form of White witch.
 
I think PoTW is correct on this one. In TMN, we meet Jadis -- a woman never referred to as the WW, but all the same, we know that she will, in time, becomes the White Witch. It is very clear who she is -- Lewis had the skill to make that plain. Yet when we meet WW in LWW there is no indication that she will become the Green Witch, and when we meet the Green Witch in SC, there is no indication that she is the WW. If Lewis had intended for us to believe her to be the same person, he certainly knew how to make us believe it -- just as he made us believe Jadis and the WW are the same person. Did he go out of his way to leave this question open? Of course not. It just simply never occurred to him that anyone would think they were the same person.
 
The connection between LWW and MN is more than just his skill -- Lewis very definitively and obviously named the White Witch Jadis. She signed Mr. Tumnus' arrest warrant with her name. And then Lewis used that same name again later when he explained in MN how she got to Narnia in the first place.

The Lady of the Green Kirtle, however, has no name. One could argue that she stopped using it because it was too well known, but since her manipulative mannerisms and MO are completely different than the forceful seduction employed by Jadis, it still seems to be stretching.

Additionally, and this is a small detail, Lewis makes a point of talking about Jadis' bare arms in both MN and LWW. I don't recall any such detail in SC, and I think that he would have included that if he'd concieved of the Lady and Jadis as the same person.
 
(Um, I apologize for totally failing to reply for days. School has just started up again, and it is being like hit by a truck, or something. So I hope I answer things, because this is such an interesting discussion.)

Re: author intent and canon and such. I generally hold canon about like MRW does--with the core books first, and then auxiliary books, and then interviews (most recent to least recent). Notes written during the writing process or anything edited and published by someone else after the author's death I don't count as canon at all (like JKR's class list--interesting and cool, but not canon). And anything subjective ("I always considered Character X to be a nice person") isn't canon either, and of course no one who is not the author can establish canon (this from some traumatic experiences with later Oz books when I was little). And I wouldn't consider speculations as to what an author might have intended to be really relevant, except maybe as a bit of extra evidence somewhere. [And I do certainly love hearing extra bits about the characters from JKR, but they occupy a sort of weird space in canon in my head--I consider them canon but I don't think a writer needs to be compliant with interview canon to be canon-compliant, so to speak. And she's got every right to tell us, especially as she's generally asked by fans.]

inkspot said:
The problem with proposing that the Green and White Witches were the same purpose, and basing your proposal on the fact that there is nothing in the text which contradicts it, is: there is nothing in the text which contradicts a lot of things! You could propose that Susan had a dozen engagements that she broke when she lived as a young adult in Narnia -- there's nothing in the text that contradicts this, but then why would there be? It's not an issue.

If you want to posit that the Green and White Witches are the same person, then you have to find something in the text which supports this. You can't just say it is so based on the idea that nothing in the text refutes it. Where is the support for this idea?
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Actually, all I require for fan theories is that they be compliant with canon (I guess it might be helpful at this point to say that I usually look at this sort of thing with fic-writing in mind); if someone can sell me on the idea that it fits in with canon, I am all for it! In fact, there's a VotDT AU where Lucy stays with Caspian that's been started on ff.net; the opening scene is, I think, meant to be the point of divergence but I actually think it falls very well in with canon. There's no evidence at all that it happened, but it doesn't change the story to think it did. [This is sort of complicated, because there are always disagreements over what fits in with canon and what doesn't--is it easier to believe that Lucy never had a maid/lady-in-waiting/some female companion on VotDT because we never see one and *surely* we would have, or is it easier to believe she must have, because in a country that concerned with chivalry surely she would have, and surely someone would have told Caspian it was a bad plan to let her sleep unchaperoned in his cabin?]

With that having been said, I wouldn't bother arguing about the witches if I didn't think one witch was a valid interpretation (I don't think it's the only interpretation; I like them both and I go back and forth on which one I like at a particular time. I don't have any sort of personal canon here). I think that the combination of Jadis's immortality, the hag offering to bring back the White Witch and being taken seriously, the similarities in their methods (which I see, but I am totally okay with being the only one here) and sort of...maturation of their powers, and the similarities in their motivations to look at them as one person.

I also think it's entirely possible that Lewis would go, "What? Of course they aren't the same!" or that he would go, "Well, yes, they are," or that he would say, "Pft, I've no idea. I wanted to leave it open to confuse you/to give myself more options for TLB/just because." I certainly don't see why he would necessarily have to tell us outright if he wanted them to be the same; plenty of authors throw in weird little things that they don't bother to explain or don't have the space to explain or whatever. (And I don't think it's particularly relevant anyway; I see enough evidence in the books themselves to support it.)
 
By all means, if you are writing fan-fic, you can go in any kind of direction you want. But the BBC version of CON wasn't fan-fic; it purported to be a production based on the books, and yet they had the same actress play both witches. That was beyond fan-fic, and I think it was a mistake because it still seems clear to me that nothing in the books supports the idea of their being the same person. All we have is a lack of anything saying they are not.
 
inkspot said:
By all means, if you are writing fan-fic, you can go in any kind of direction you want. But the BBC version of CON wasn't fan-fic; it purported to be a production based on the books, and yet they had the same actress play both witches. That was beyond fan-fic, and I think it was a mistake because it still seems clear to me that nothing in the books supports the idea of their being the same person. All we have is a lack of anything saying they are not.
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I think there is actually a great deal more evidence than simply a lack of anything specifically contradicting it! (I, uh, could go into it? But it is already scattered through this thread and I don't want to bother people with repeating it unless people are curious.)

But I agree with you, actually; I think that the books leave it very much open to either interpretation and I am, in principle, against movies shoving interpretations in where they are not needed. Obviously you do need to do it sometimes, with movies; you have to get actors of certain ages and looks, you have to decide in what tone of voice they say things, what the Narnians and Narnia look like, whether there are four thrones of equal size or if they are different, and so forth. But I don't think that it's necessary with the movies (I, um, have not seen the BBC versions, though, so I'm not sure what they were up to with that--was it just the same actress? Did they specifically say, "They are the same!"? Was it budget concerns or something?) to go into the identity of the Lady of the Green Kirtle; it's left open (IMO) in the books and it should be left open in the movies as well. I actually feel this way about fanfiction as well; I feel that you should stick to canon and leave things open to interpretation as much as possible, so long as it works with your plot. YMMV, of course.
 
I haven't seen the BBC SC (the only one I haven't seen yet), but I seem to recall that it was entirely a budget concern to recast the same actress as both Witches. Given how closely the BBC series stuck to canon, there's no way they could have actually CLAIMED they were the same witch and gotten away with it.

AW, I would say that it doesn't really matter, that it's merely a matter of interpretation, if there wasn't still the possibility of a new SC movie. As much as I love Tilda Swinton, I'll probably scream in the middle of the theatre if I get there and see her cast as the Lady of the Green Kirtle.

Additionally, whether Jadis and the Lady are the same person or not makes a huge difference in how I view Aslan and the final events of LWW. Aside from the omniscient narrator that says the Witch's army saw her die, having her survive lessens the power of what Aslan did. If Jadis can kill Aslan (even though he did come back), but he can't actually kill her, that weakens him significantly, and despite what the characters in PC thought, I'm not entirely convinced that the hag could have resurrected Jadis to full power.
 
I don't think I could see her cast as the Lady of the Green Kirtle--don't they look different? (For that matter, Jadis and the White Witch look very different in my head; I'd want different actresses for them too. Because the movies should follow the way I picture the characters, OBVIOUSLY. :p) I wouldn't worry about it--if they get to the movie, I can't imagine they'd decide to go with one interpretation so strongly.

I've always pictured Aslan as being all-powerful but constrained by the rules of his own universe (the Deep Magic, specifically, but also the natures of things--the apples, the tree of protection--and his refusal to tell people what would have happened or other people's stories). I think he could have done a lot of things (say, refusing to give Edmund up or to sacrifice himself), but at the expensive of breaking his own rules or suffering consequences he put in place. So his defeating but not destroying the White Witch has never been an issue for me, especially when taken in conjunction with the "endless days like a goddess" comment--then he defeats her and stays true to what he said, so to speak. (I do think that the end of LWW and the hag's comment in PC have multiple interpretations, but you know that already.)
 
inkspot said:
I think PoTW is correct on this one. In TMN, we meet Jadis -- a woman never referred to as the WW, but all the same, we know that she will, in time, becomes the White Witch. It is very clear who she is -- Lewis had the skill to make that plain. Yet when we meet WW in LWW there is no indication that she will become the Green Witch, and when we meet the Green Witch in SC, there is no indication that she is the WW. If Lewis had intended for us to believe her to be the same person, he certainly knew how to make us believe it -- just as he made us believe Jadis and the WW are the same person. Did he go out of his way to leave this question open? Of course not. It just simply never occurred to him that anyone would think they were the same person.
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Forgive me--I haven't read the posts since this one. :eek: Something here caught my eye, and I wanted to reply---

Here is where the order in which the books were written makes a great deal of difference. LWW was written first, as a stand-alone book. The overall history of Narnia was not in Lewis' mind at the time. When he wrote MN he worked things together skillfully, but one can tell LWW wasn't written with everything that develops later in mind. It's for that reason (forgive me) that LWW has never been near the top of my favorites list (of the CoN, that is). :eek: At any rate, I doubt that Lewis had thought one way or the other about bringing the WW back when he wrote LWW, so it does add some difficulty to any implications he might have wished to make. Doesn't prove anything, but good to keep in mind. I am awfully curious as to what he would have changed if he'd had the chance to do the rewriting he meant to do. I wouldn't be surprised if that would have clarified the identity of the LotGK.
 
Regarding the BBC version, I think they had Barbara Kellerman do both Jadis and LotGK for budgetary reasons. The series was made in the late 1980s with special effects that were used at least 5-10 years earlier--hardly state of the art.

Warwick Davis was another actor that played more than one role. He was Reep and Glimfeather.

MrBob
 
I was just listening to the audio version of the magician's nephew and I noticed something, so I checked it out. I don't remember the exact page and all that but check out the quote. "Think of me boy, when you lie old and weak and dieing. Think of how you threw away the chance at endless youth, it will not be offered you again!"

This I interpret to support the idea that the fruit gave her no NATURAL death, that is from aging. but that still doesn't discount outside forces killing her. Besides, why you make anything that can't be killed? Aslan knew this would happen and planned accordingly.
 
That's the point I've (repeatedly) made, NG - that the "immortality" conferred by the stolen apple did not apply to violent death. It would prevent her aging and dying, but could not prevent her being killed.

You find the same idea in Tolkien's mythology, where the elves were naturally immortal, but could be killed. In fact, even the gods of mythology could be killed (e.g. Baldur), though they were by nature immortal.
 
And that's certainly a valid interpretation, but it is still an interpretation. (I feel like one of those "militant agnostic" bumper stickers--I don't know and you can't either! :p In all seriousness, though, I think this comes down to personal interpretation.)
 
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