White Witch and Aslan are enemies

The White Witch and Aslan are the two supreme, opposing powers in Narnia, and their enmity forms the central conflict of the story. The Witch, who calls herself Queen of Narnia, has held the land under a spell of endless winter for a hundred years, while Aslan, the great Lion and the true King, is the only force that can break her dominion. Their confrontation is not a battle between equals but a clash between a usurper and the rightful sovereign, a struggle that plays out across the entire narrative and determines the fate of every creature in Narnia.

The Nature of Their Opposition

The White Witch's power is rooted in fear, deception, and the "Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time," which gives her a legal claim over all traitors. She rules through a secret police force, turns her enemies to stone, and has made it "always winter and never Christmas." Aslan, by contrast, is described as the "King of the whole wood" and the "son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea." He is not safe—Mr. Beaver warns that "'Course he isn't safe. But he's good"—and his presence brings the thaw that breaks the Witch's winter. The Witch's magic is based on compulsion and death; Aslan's authority is based on sacrifice and life.

The Confrontation at the Stone Table

The most direct and dramatic encounter between the two occurs at the Stone Table, where the Witch comes to claim Edmund's life as a traitor. She confronts Aslan directly, demanding her legal right under the Deep Magic: "every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill." Aslan does not deny her claim. Instead, he negotiates privately with her, and afterward announces that she has "renounced the claim on your brother's blood." The Witch departs with a look of "fierce joy," having secured a different, more terrible agreement: Aslan himself will die in Edmund's place.

The Sacrifice and Its Aftermath

The Witch's triumph appears complete when she and her followers bind, mock, and kill Aslan on the Stone Table. She shaves his mane, muzzles him, and drives a stone knife into his heart, believing she has destroyed her enemy and secured Narnia forever. "Now who has won?" she taunts. But the Witch's knowledge of magic is incomplete. She knows only the Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time, not the "Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time," which decrees that when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor's stead, "Death itself would start working backwards." Aslan's resurrection shatters the Stone Table and reverses the Witch's victory, turning her greatest triumph into her ultimate defeat.

The Final Battle and the Witch's Death

In the final battle, the Witch fights with her stone knife, having already used her wand to turn many of Aslan's troops into statues. She is locked in combat with Peter when Aslan arrives, flinging himself upon her with a roar that shakes all Narnia. Lucy sees the Witch's face "lifted towards him for one second with an expression of terror and amazement" before the Lion and Witch roll over together, with the Witch underneath. Her death is instantaneous, and with it, her army collapses. The enmity between the White Witch and Aslan thus ends not in a negotiated peace but in the complete destruction of one power and the full restoration of the other, fulfilling the prophecy that when Aslan comes, "wrong will be right" and "winter meets its death."