Aslan is the fictional lion who represents a Christ-like figure in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.
Aslan is the creator, guide, and king of Narnia. He appears throughout the seven-book series, sometimes directly and sometimes through reports of his actions. His name comes from the Turkish word for “lion,” and Lewis uses the character to embody courage, authority, sacrifice, and resurrection.
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan gives his life to save Edmund Pevensie and returns to life through an older magic. This episode is the clearest parallel between Aslan’s story and the Christian account of Jesus’s death and resurrection.
Lewis did not intend Aslan to be a simple one-to-one allegorical code. He described the Narnia stories as showing what Christ might be like in a world other than ours. That distinction helps explain why Aslan functions as a character within the story as well as a Christian symbol.
Tash, Reepicheep, and Puddleglum are also important Narnian figures, but none is the series’ lion ruler.