Aslan is the fictional lion who rules Narnia in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. He is described as the son of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea and serves as Narnia’s creator, king, and spiritual authority.
Aslan appears throughout the series, although not every book gives him the same amount of page time. He creates Narnia through song in The Magician’s Nephew and plays a central role in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where he confronts the White Witch and returns after his sacrifice.
Readers often describe Aslan as an allegorical representation of Jesus Christ, but Lewis preferred to discuss the character as a fictional embodiment of Christian ideas rather than treating the books as one-to-one coded explanations. The character also draws on older traditions in which lions symbolize courage, royalty, and power.
Aslan’s name comes from the Turkish word for “lion.” In the Narnia stories, his authority is greater than that of human kings and queens, including the Pevensie children who rule during Narnia’s Golden Age.