Philosophy of Law and Pop Culture

Submitted by

GOKUL SURESH NAIR

Reg. No. BCO190013

Name of the Guide

Mr NIDEESH KUMAR T.V

Assistant Professor of Law

TAMIL NADU NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

(A State University established by Act No. 9 of 2012)
Tiruchirappalli
Tamil Nadu – 620 027

MAY 2021
INTRODUCTION
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, directed by Andrew
Adamson, is superior to most of the contemporary films in many ways: it has a storyline, an
unambiguous confrontation, and a didactic intent, both of which are lacking in almost every
classic literature and films. Anything one can think about the substance of any one of the three
items, its presence is undeniable. Their appearance elevates the film from the jumbled
mindlessness of lots of others, which lack a clear message and sense and mixed with gratuitous
gore, sex, and cursing.
STORY PLOT
Because of World War II bombings, four siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy from the
same family must flee their hometown. The kids are brought to their home by a woman and a
professor. Lucy, the family's youngest member, finds a wardrobe to hide in while playing hide-
and-seek with her siblings. She returns to the wardrobe several times and discovers the land of
Narnia. The four children go in together for the last time after going in twice before. They battle
wolves, meet talking birds, meet a wicked white witch, and meet Aslan, a majestic lion.
In the magical land they are forced to fight against the evil witch otherwise they would not be
able to survive. Here Aslan the lion comes to their help and also makes huge sacrifices for them.
In the end the story ends in a happy mood when aslan comes back to life and finally the children
are able to escape from the magical land only to find that the world outside has not moved an
inch since they entered the magical land of Narnia. After coming outside they also realised that
they will only return to Narnia at an least expexted time.
ANALYSIS
The story behind this film is inspired by a fundamental dispute : four children and the everlasting
law of the magical land imposed upon the land of Narnia against an oppressive ,brutal, and
animalistic Evil White Witch who has captured the throne and maintained her rule by coercion
and implementation of violence and force with flagrant disregard for the land's higher absolute
law. When the White Witch is viewed as the archetypal dictator, and the rule of Narnia is viewed
as a Lockean variant of natural law – free of its supernatural connotations – a suitable moral
lesson emerges: dictatorship ignores natural law, and tyrants are held responsible to natural law.
This natural law stems from the fact that men (or, in this case, all volitional conscious beings,
including centaurs and talking animals) are independent moral agents who must depend on their
own judgement to comprehend and behave responsibly in truth. All persons has his own innate
rights, under the natural law philosophy, that are provided by the nature , reason or god rather
than by laws. Natural law theory also includes "theories of ethics, governance, civil law, and
religious morality." Natural things that arise in humans are regarded as divine orders because
they are given by god. From a natural standpoint, everything must be in. It claims that food,
housing, fertility, and other natural processes are not replicated artificially. It happens to any
creature that God considers to be a sacred order.
A dictator stifles the chance of free judgment, stifling man's own driving power. That is the
reason why the victims of the magical Witch are literally transformed into nonliving pieces of
stone; when a person's liberty is taken away, he becomes their equivalent. He cannot act in a
fully human manner until he has complete freedom of conscience and accepts full responsibility
for the consequences of his decisions. Under natural all forms of destruction of life is not
allowed even contraceptives are viewed as a sin in the theories of natural law so in this film the
witch turning a living man to a non living stone is simply taking away the person's life and his
freedom.
Edmund Pevensie is an allegory for the all the common people who are seduced by dictatorship
and the illusion about the control over others which accompanies with joining a tyrant : a
promise seen in the White Witch's promises to make Edmund King of Narnia. Her sugar bribes
are comparable to dominant regimes bestowing preferential favors on associated political groups.
The strength gained by surrendering to dictatorship, though, is magical and short term. Edmund
on his own will works against justice when, even after seeing the witch's army destroying
Tumnus's house because of the information Edmund obtained. Edmund continues to enter the
palace of the white witch and attempts to demand certain helps from someone whom he believes
to be a threat to other people’s natural rights. Edmund's betrayal does not result in improvement
with the Witch; instead, he is imprisoned, humiliated, also shamed in her underground cell.
Supporters of arbitrary authority, like Edmund, are deprived of all their esteem as a result of the
power's arbitrariness. According to natural law philosophy, humans have an inherent sense of
right and wrong that guides our reasoning and actions. People have logic, and the Laws of Nature
can be discerned from human reason, according to this viewpoint. As a result, people have a
legal obligation to use their logic to figure out what the rules are and then behave in accordance
with them. Here the actions of Edmund do not seem to have a proper reason and also which is
immoral . Hence by doing such an activity Edmund goes against the natural law theory.
Edmund is the forgiven later, till he understood , bore the consequences of his own mistake. I
don't have a problem with his pardon because life has already disciplined him well for his
offence, and the penalty has persuaded him to alter his ways. Also I disagree with the morality of
self-immolation when it pertains to conditions surrounding his mistake being forgiven. Aslan ,
The Lion offers the immolation so as to please the witch and the laws of Narnia, that stipulates
that all the offenders must die at hands of the witch. The only possible way Aslan can get around
this rule was to sell his body and soul to the witch, which will, provided the mobility of the
Narnia universe, will free edmund from his enslavement. In a brutal Dionysian orgy, Aslan
accomplishes the said sacrifice and is prosecuted by the witch and her group of moral less
disciples. The guiding principles of natural law are somewhat contradictory with this self-
sacrifice of Aslan. It is a law that states that each person is responsible for his or her own actions,
with no legitimate way of getting out of it by exploiting the suffering of others. One person's loss
will never be another person's redemption; it can only magnify the financial and spiritual loss
caused by the other person's initial transgression. It has no explanatory relationship to either the
deterrence of evil or the reform and salvation of those who have done wrong. In fact, the only
way to be "forgiven" for one person’s transgressions is to boldly face the logical consequences of
those transgressions and repair the damage they cause. Edmund accomplishes this, and in fact, he
does not need lion sacrifice in addition to his personal retribution for his wrongdoings. Another
thing to be noted is that here aslan by offering his own life again goes against the natural law
principles of death of a person. He is willfully inviting his own death in ways other than that
suggested by the natural laws.
Also when the witch executed people , it again violated natural law principles . You are not
saving life, but rather killing it, as you execute someone. You don't know what the person will do
in the future, so killing them is not a better solution rather an imprisonment would be better
because it protects their lives and the lives of the victims. They are therefore reluctant to obey
the principles of natural law like that, "to reproduce children and perpetuate the Human race," by
killing the offenders. The death penalty is used as a form of retaliation, which philosopher
Aquinas would consider unnatural and therefore unjust.
After his sacrifice, Aslan returns to life and guides the siblings to their victory over witch,
leading storyline of novel towards more a happy ending, which often improves the quality of
every film. The values of this novel, though, can not be projected to our real world, because real
life is not a Narnia land , and no innocent immolation will truly make up for someone else's sins.

CONCLUSION
The Chronicles of Narnia is an amusing and thought-provoking film in both form and substance,
and is thus widely recommended as a cultural antidote to the mainstream cultural void. It has
promising consequences in the areas of justice, democracy, and natural law. The director of the
movie has tried to bring out many philosophical points through this movie. At various points in
the movie we could see the characters going against the natural law philosophy. In my opinion,
the rule of Narnia should have been kept more in line with the law of life, insisting that the
innocent be saved and the accused be given punishment more so by reality than by most men.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
WEBSITES :
1. Gennady Stolyarov, NATURAL LAW AND THE IMPROPRIETY OF SELF-
SACRIFICE, ( Apr 7 2019)
2. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" . American Film
Institute. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
3. Eric Estevez, Natural law, investopedia ( Sep 29, 2016)
(https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/natural-law.asp#:~:text=The%20theory%20of
%20natural%20law,times%20of%20Plato%20and%20Aristotle.)
SUBMITTED BY ,
GOKUL SURESH NAIR
BC0190013