Jadis is a fictional character and the main antagonist of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) and The Magician's Nephew (1955) in C. S. Lewis's series, The Chronicles of Narnia.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe she is identified by a character as a descendant of giants and Adam's first wife (Lilith): She'd like us to believe [that she is a human], and it's on that that she bases her claim to be Queen.

She was the last of a long line of kings and queens, who were good in the beginning but grew evil over many generations and conquered the entire world of Charn, ruling it as despots.

On the point of defeat, Jadis chose not to submit, but instead spoke the Deplorable Word, a powerful spell which destroyed all life on Charn except her own.

Digory, seeking to correct his mistake, attempts to transport her back to Charn, but they end up instead in the world of Narnia at the moment of its creation by the lion Aslan.

As Aslan approaches, she attacks him with the rod of iron she has torn from a London lamp post with her great physical strength; when this has no effect, she flees.

She is now known as the White Witch, and is served by various races including Wolves (who make up her secret police), Black Dwarves, Giants, Werewolves, Tree Spirits that are on her side, Ghouls, Boggles, Ogres, Minotaurs, Cruels, Hags, Spectres, People of the Toadstools, Incubi, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Orknies, Sprites, Wooses, Ettins, Poisonous Plant Spirits, Evil Apes, Giant Bats, Vultures, and creatures that (as Lewis writes) are "so horrible that if I told you, your parents probably wouldn't let you read this book."

Many good Narnians who have objected to her rule have ended up being captured by the Witch and her forces and turned into stone in the courtyard or the interior of her castle, which stands isolated between two hills in the north of Narnia.

She first meets Edmund Pevensie while riding on her sledge through the land of Narnia, enchants him with magical Turkish delight, and tempts him to betray his siblings by offering to make him her heir.

In the meantime, her Secret Police had captured Tumnus the faun, who had harboured Lucy on her first visit to Narnia, after discovering that he had disobeyed the Witch’s orders to hand over any humans to her.

When their fight against the Telmarines gets off to a bad start, a black dwarf (Nikabrik), a hag, and a wer-wolf (to use Lewis's spelling) plan to resurrect Jadis to fight for them, as they consider her a lesser evil than the current ruler, King Miraz, despite Caspian’s insistence that the Witch was far worse than Miraz, and his tutor’s insistence that the Witch is dead.

On the orders of Aslan and the newly-crowned King Caspian, Narnia is now a land in which humans and talking animals are encouraged to integrate and have equal rights.

[2] In The Silver Chair, 1,356 years after her death, Jadis is described as one of the "Northern Witches", along with the Lady of the Green Kirtle - a new enemy to the good animals and humans who now inhabit Narnia.

Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole reach the underworld with their guide, Puddleglum the marshwiggle, and rescue Rilian - who kills the Green Lady before they return to Narnia.

An extraordinarily beautiful, tall, and imposing woman, Jadis enchants Digory Kirke, Andrew Ketterley and Edmund Pevensie on first encounters.

The voice of Jadis was provided by Elizabeth Counsell in Focus on the Family's radio drama versions of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew.

In the 2005 Walt Disney Pictures feature film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, she was portrayed by British actress Tilda Swinton.

BBC film critic Stella Papamichael wrote:[4] As the cold-hearted White Witch, Tilda Swinton sets the tempo for this bracing adventure.

She is a pristine picture of evil, like the spectre of Nazism that forces the children out of London to the sanctuary of a country manor.Tilda Swinton was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for her performance as the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but lost to Hayden Christensen for his performance as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.

In a departure from the novel, Nikabrik and his fellow conspirators (a hag and werewolf) use the White Witch's retrieved wand to conjure an apparition of Jadis within a mystical wall of ice.

She tries to coax Caspian and then Peter into offering her a drop of their blood so that she can come back to life, promising to lend her powers to their fight against King Miraz once she is made whole.

In 2011, the White Witch was one of eight British magical figures, which included the wizards Merlin (from Arthurian legend), Albus Dumbledore (from Harry Potter) and Rincewind (from Terry Pratchett's Discworld), commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.