Heartwarming / The Magician's Nephew

• When Narnia has first been made, Aslan tells Frank the cabbie that he'll be the king. While Frank is flattered, one of the reasons he refuses the position is because he doesn't want to leave his wife, who's still in England. Cue Aslan magicking her there, to be Narnia's first queen. Aw!
  • It's kind of sweet that the narration notes that she's actually much prettier in her regular day-to-day clothes than she would have been if she'd had the forewarning to change into her fancy ones.
• Not to mention Strawberry the cab horse, who goes from mute urban drudgery to full sentience and freedom, to winning the Superpower Lottery and becoming Narnia's first pegasus!
  • When Strawberry first starts talking, Frank comments that he always knew his horse was smart, showing how much he cares about him.
• Digory approaches Aslan to ask for something to help his dying mother. As he breaks down, he looks at the Lion's face... and sees that he's crying as well.
  Aslan: My son, my son. I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this world know that yet.
• Jadis suggests that Digory use the Apple of Life to heal his ailing mother. Digory is confused, and the witch suggests that, to make sure no one knows of his treachery, he should leave Polly behind. Digory refuses to consider abandoning her, and reasons the witch has an ulterior motive. Polly, who is watching, remains silent the whole time, believing that because it was his mother who needed that apple, not hers. Thus, he needed to make the choice.
• When they arrive back in Narnia, Aslan tells Digory he's done well. The apple grows into a tree complete with apples of its own in a matter of minutes, and Aslan tells Digory to take one to heal his mother.
• One of Aslan's ironclad rules throughout the series, one of his most common refrains, is that "no one is ever told what would have happened." And yet he makes certain that Digory truly understands that he made the right choice by resisting Jadis' temptation. By contrast, in all the other instances someone made the wrong choice and asks what would have been had they made the right one. There, Aslan refuses to do anything but explain why the action in question was wrong. Here, Aslan affirms the courage and honesty it took to make that right decision, by laying out the devastation that would have been caused by Digory giving in to selfishness and trying to heal his mother with a stolen apple. He does this despite knowing perfectly well that he's going to give Digory an apple as a gift anyway; there's no need to explain the alternative, except to make sure that Digory never feels any doubt in his own character or judgement, or carries any guilt about what-ifs. (Jadis, after all, accused him of being both foolish and uncaring for not, say, stealing a second apple or prioritizing his mother's life by just running home with the apple in the first place.) Aslan breaks one of his own rules for no greater reason than to comfort a grieving child.
• Digory's mother being healed is more heartwarming when you know what happened to Lewis' own mother. Lewis gave Digory the chance to save her that he never had.
• After his traumatic adventure in dimension traveling, Uncle Andrew gave up sorcery and became nicer... though he liked to tell the occasional visitor about Jadis—proof (by fridge logic) that being breathed on by Aslan did the old magician a lot more good than initially apparent after all.
• After Andrew sends Polly off to God-knows-where, Digory barely even considers abandoning her. His major moment of hesitation happens when he thinks about the possibility that his mother will ask where he's gone, and even that only lasts a few seconds once Uncle Andrew points out that only he can get Polly back.
• Aslan sends Digory to get the Apple of Life so that Narnia can one day be saved from Jadis. It's only at the book's end that we find out exactly how: Digory plants its seeds in our world, and after growing up into Professor Kirke uses the resulting tree (which had fallen in a storm) to build the wardrobe that will ultimately send Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy into Narnia and create its new Golden Age.

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