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The Emperor-Over-the-Sea is referenced at several points during the series. The Stone Table, Deep Magic and the Deeper Magic were all set in motion by him, and he is the father of Aslan.

At the same time, he does not directly enter the series; he does not appear to be present in Aslan's Country during The Silver Chair or the events of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and doesn't appear to directly intervene. He doesn't even seem to be present at the creation of Narnia during The Magician's Nephew or the Final Judgment in The Last Battle - the entire country was sang into existence by Aslan.

Given that C. S. Lewis was not a deist, why is this? Why was the Emperor-Over-the-Sea such a remote figure?

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  • I'm not going to post an answer because I know way too little about the theological background here, but could it be that the world of Narnia was sort of Aslan's personal project, something he could handle without intervention from his father? "All right, Son, you've done pretty well with this world. 9/10: just one mark off for that Telmarine period. Much better than your brother who created Charn."
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Sep 20, 2017 at 20:56
  • The Emperor Over the Sea is Aslan's father. Aslan is comparable to Jesus. Jesus' dad is...God the Father, the other part of the Holy Trinity. So, why does he play such a small role? In the New Testament it's all about Jesus, and God the Father doesn't play as much of a part. Likewise, in Narnia.
    – Auden Young
    May 31, 2018 at 0:08

2 Answers 2

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He is a hero of another story.

In works of fiction, it often seems like the world revolves around the Main Characters, that nothing interesting happens unless one of them is in the middle of it. And sometimes that’s true; sometimes the main cast are so important that nothing big can happen without their involvement. But other times, it’s not that the Main Characters are the only ones that stories happen to; it’s that we only see the stories that happen to the Main Characters. It turns out the supporting characters have their own adventures going on off-screen, where they’re the stars and the Main Characters only make cameo appearances. These characters are the Heroes of Another Story: we may not see much of their adventures, but it adds something to the fictional world if we know these people continue to lead interesting lives even when the Main Characters aren’t around.

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    Sorry, but I have to downvote this answer because it consists of nothing but a block-quote from TV Tropes, without any explanation of how this trope applies to the Narnia books or any attempt to explain in your own words.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Sep 24, 2017 at 21:54
  • The answer was edited by Marthin Schroder. Also, check the other question by the same poster that he posted at the same time: literature.stackexchange.com/questions/3594/…
    – jo1storm
    Sep 25, 2017 at 5:49
  • Martin Schroder's edit was just to improve your formatting - what does that have to do with anything? And yes, I've seen that other question, but again it doesn't really seem to have anything to do with the quality of this answer.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Sep 25, 2017 at 10:59
  • You're correct, I didn't see what the edit was about. I was talk ooma sort of speak. The problem was there were two similar questions and I replied to both of them, this answer was shorter but together with the answer on the other question makes one whole.
    – jo1storm
    Sep 25, 2017 at 13:00
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    How can this answer be accepted? It doesn't answer anything.
    – TGar
    Nov 15, 2017 at 20:32
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The emperor-over-the-sea is the Narnian equivalent of the Father of the holy Christian trinity and Aslan is of course the son. The emperor acts indirectly through Aslan and is in that sense extremely active. Aslan is always doing something even if it doesn't look like it and by extension, the emperor is always doing something.

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    Hey, welcome to Literature Stack Exchange! Good answers here always provide some backup for their claims; adding some quotes from the books that support this theory would greatly improve your answer, as well as perhaps some quotes from the Christian sources for those of us who aren't so familiar with them ;)
    – Mithical ♦
    Nov 15, 2017 at 10:03
  • Your answer is 100% correct. It like asking why does Jesus play such a big role in the new testament.
    – fundagain
    May 28, 2018 at 18:21

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