I keep seeing it repeated over and over that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe portrays a “ransome theory” that Christ’s death paid off Satan, but I don’t think it is true.
The witch claims that by the law engraved in the stone table[ts], that every traitor belongs to her. The beaver immediately exclaims that this must be where the witch received her pretention bot be queen: because she was “the Emperor’s hangman.”
And that sets the entire context. The queen only has a right to Edmund in her office as representative of the Emperor’s own justice. This was a true substitutionary atonement that satisfied God’s justice, not merely a ransom from Satan. I suppose the movie did not include the hangman comment but the book is clear.
I’m pretty I remember Lewis somewhere saying that one shouldn’t attempt to work out a theory of the atonement from LWW. The point is more a matter of shaping people’s imaginations so that the Faith can more readily grasped rather than teaching a particular doctrine that must be believed.
Where Lewis elsewhere speaks specifically of the atonement in his non-fiction, he sees some truth in all the traditional theories, while remaining somewhat Anselmian (speaking of “indebtedness” and such that Jesus paid).
Yes, it is silly to see Aslan’s capitulation to the queen as anything other than “playing along” with her self-enthronement and usurpation over Narnia. He is clearly privy to the gnosis of the deeper magic, and reveals that she was hoodwinked after the table cracks.
For ideas from Lewis regarding atonement being the payment of debt more than receiving a punishment see Mere Christianity pp. 58-59, & MC II 4:6
Just got back from the movie – the beaver does not make the hangman comment.