Quote from Lily of Archenland on August 1, 2013, 06:34.....I'd give equal credit to the possibility that a woman who would go out of her way to uncover a kill-all weapon, is the sort of woman who is interested in taking or maintaining power whether or not she particularly hates the competition.
Definitely, but I get the feeling that she does harbour a deep hatred for her sister, just from the way she talks about her in the scene after Digory unwittingly awakens her by striking the bell. When I read her account of the happenings that led to the destruction of Charn, I can practically hear her deep, strong voice with its booming quality, and in the parts where she talks about her sister, it deepens even further until it sounds like an ominous growl of pure hate that would be enough to send a chill up your spine, with her dark eyes blazing in her face like burning coals.
One of the key reasons for my conclusion is one that every member who has a brother or sister could easily understand. Even in the most friendly sibling relationships there is always an element of rivalry, in fact the closer the emotional bond between two people (whether they're related by blood or not) the more intense it gets when they quarrel and fight! But now I'm starting to digress from the original subject here. I definitely DON'T think that Jadis had a friendly relationship with her sister. As Elanorelle says:-
Quote from Elanorellë on July 18, 2013, 21:19Jadis.....was a cruel and wicked person capable of nothing good nor wholesome.
Therefore, it stands to reason that she would be completely incapable of any feelings of friendship or love, except for the love of power. I think most of us would agree on that. She was willing to do anything to have absolute, total power. So she would have felt the sense of rivalry with her sister but without any feelings of family love or loyalty. Actually, she reminds me of a line from the song sung by the spoilt little girl in the old Charlie & The Chocolate Factory movie (
not the one starring Johnny Depp) about wanting the whole world in her pocket. When she belts out the line "AND I DON'T WANT TO SHARE!" you can practically hear the capital letters. Can't you just imagine Jadis saying that??
Therefore, I'm willing to bet a whole plate of home-made melting moments that the only reason she didn't challenge her father's rule was that he was more powerful than her and he would have put her in her place, if not totally destroyed her. I'm sure that, if his powers had weakened in any way, she would have instantly moved in for the kill. Perhaps she did, or maybe her sister....or perhaps she and her sister plotted to do it?
OK, it's always possible that the sister changed her ways (though personally). I think that might have made her more vulnerable to Jadis's powers, especially if she was growing in evil. It's easy to see just from studying other characters in the Narnia books who may not have been necessarily evil, but just sinners who've taken the wrong path, that it's very hard to change your ways, even with Aslan's help (
you have to put effort in as well!), so it would be monumentally harder for one who is truly evil. Multiply the degree of difficulty by 10 (or more) if you don't have any source of help. I think her family would have reviled her because of it, since anyone who is evil think of goodness as weakness. Even being "less evil" would incite contempt. That's why I think it's unlikely. I think the odds would have been stacked against
any seed of goodness being allowed to sprout, let alone flourish, in an environment where cruelty, ruthlessness and love of power is practically a family trait. Any spark of goodness would have been crushed from a very early age. There's a good reason why people who've grown up in the kind of environment where it's necessary to be tough to survive find it very difficult to get themselves out of that mindset.