Original Series
I don't know about you, but if Tash, the evil bird god, suddenly appeared and snatched me under its arm, I'd be terrified too.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- "Always winter... and never Christmas!" The idea of eternally being withheld from a ceremony of hope is horrifying.
- The statues in the White Witch's fortress, which turn out to have been enemies turned to stone by Jadis.
- Aslan's prolonged sacrifice in which he's bound, shaved, jeered, and killed by the White Witch's minions, who in all adaptations look like the hell spawn, which is thematically appropriate given the White Witch's inspiration.
- The Truth in Television premise of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—being separated from your family (one parent left in a civilian danger zone and one of which is directly fighting a war) because your enemies are raining bombs on your home every night—The Home Front.
- For Paranoia Fuel there's the fact that not only are trees in Narnia sentient and capable of observation (such as listening), but some of them work as spies for the White Witch. Granted, we're told most of them are good, but in an country as heavily forested as Narnia..."There are the trees," said the Beaver. "They're always listening. Most of them are on our side, but there are trees that would betray us to her."
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- The Island Where Dreams Come True. While the name initially sounds like a paradise, this island is anything but one. Arriving within a cloud of darkness, the Dawn Treader crew end up finding Lord Rhoop swimming away in fear. The crew comment on the name and how pleasant it sounds, until Rhoop clarifies the true horror: On this island, your dreams come true, not your fantasies. And when have most of your dreams either made much sense, or been particularly pleasant?"Fools!" said the man, stamping his foot with rage. "That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams — dreams, do you understand, come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams." There was about half a minute's silence and then, with a great clatter of armour, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just that half minute to remember certain dreams they had had — dreams that make you afraid of going to sleep again — and to realize what it would mean to land on a country where dreams come true.
- Goldwater Island, later renamed Deathwater Island and for good reason.
- During exploration of a then uncharted island, Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, and Reepicheep discover discarded equipment that is Narnian make, likely meaning one of the seven lords they're seeking is nearby. Further exploration reveals a lake close to them, but in its depths is a statue of a golden man. However, they soon learn that the water is cursed to turn anything touching it into pure gold. This becomes massive nightmare fuel on its own as implications of this set in. The kids could have drunk or touched the water at any moment, and were about ready to, Edmund himself even remarking that he was lucky he wasn't barefoot as the toes of his boots were touching the water and became the indication of the water's curse. However, as they point out, the gold statue shows that someone, later deduced to be Lord Restimar, wasn't as lucky...
- It gets worse! Even once the water's cursed properties become known, and a test made to be positive, Caspian declares the island Narnian property and demands secrecy about it from everyone else on pain of death due to the enormous wealth the island presented. Edmund however takes massive offense to this due to being one of the Four Lords from the past. Both of them nearly draw swords on one another with Lucy growing angry over their actions before Aslan appears on a hill and everyone suddenly becomes lucid. Reepicheep notes that not only is the water cursed, but the whole island itself seems to be under one. Accidentally dying due to the water's curse is bad enough, but turning on your friends and family due to the curse on the whole island is a different one altogether...
The Silver Chair
- The Silver Chair has the scene when the heroes find out that the giants killed and ate a sapient stag, and are planning to do the same to them at the Autumn Feast. Complete with a possible Shout-Out to Damon Knight's story "To Serve Man" note when "Man" and "Marsh-wiggle" show up as entries in the giants' cookbook.
- Also in The Silver Chair, Prince Rilian's abduction and imprisonment. The poor man was bewitched to forget his own identity. Perhaps even worse, the enchantment lifts every night, but he can't do anything while lucid. See, during the day, he's convinced that he'll go berserk and turn into a monstrous snake if he's not restrained at night, so he has himself bound to the silver chair before his mind returns. Plus, the villain forced him to marry her, so try not to think about what she might've been doing to him all this time she's had him under her control. And keep in mind that he had to endure all this for six years. Additionally, the villain who did all this is a Diabolus ex Nihilo, which adds an air of Nothing Is Scarier to the whole situation.
- The underground kingdom from The Silver Chair gives off a lot of just... quietly creepy vibes. It's very dark, only lit by dim lamps. The gnome guards repeat themselves often, giving an uncanny effect, and they're completely under the witch's thumb. Then there are all the sleeping people and other creatures, who have been trapped there for who knows how long, and the gnomes claim will never leave.
The Magician's Nephew
- Many of Jadis's actions are nightmarish, but the fact that she exterminated all life on her original homeworld (other than herself, of course) with the Deplorable Word, and displayed no sign of remorse or regret over it, might just be the most horrifying.
- The dying world of Charn itself. The sky is dark, the sun is near the end of its life, and there is no life anywhere. The city is full of immense ruins. Oh, and there are images of its sequence of rulers, starting out kindly and wise and then slowly degenerating into cruel tyrants over the generations.
- All of this is also echoed in a warning that Aslan gives to Digory and Polly before returning them home as he takes them to the Wood Between Worlds one final time. Here, he shows them a dried up water-hole that the children had used as a gateway to Charn and warns them that though their world (read: OUR WORLD) hadn't quite reached the evil Charn had, it had enough in it to start heading in that direction and that someone may also learn either the Deplorable Word or something akin to it. Aslan is warning that should things continue, our world would vanish out of existence just like Charn did. Keep in mind that this was published in 1955, at the height of the Cold War.
- The Wood Between Worlds is depicted as a bright-yet-quiet forest, completely devoid of animal life. As far as can be seen, the floor of the forest is dotted with many large pools of what is supposedly water, and each pool serves as a portal to a different world, with a dead world's puddle represented by a shallow, wide, dry hole. In spite of not showing anything explicitly horrific, the eerie silence, the implication that the Wood is essentially the physical manifestation of the multiverse, and the lack of life, invoke a silently creepy and unsettling atmosphere.
- Even worse, the longer you remain in the Wood Between Worlds, the more you forget, and the less motivated you become to do anything. As the Wood itself isn't tied to any specific world or Universe, it contains none of the purpose of a specific world or Universe. If you don't re-enter another pool quickly enough, you will eventually lose all memory and all motivation to act, ensuring that you will remain trapped in a silent, sterile, self-similar plane of existence, outside of time and space, forever.
- As all of the pools look nearly identical, and none are given any identifying markers, getting lost in the Wood is incredibly easy. You may quickly travel from your own world to another, but when you return to the Wood to re-enter your pool, you could exit the other pool from the wrong direction. Then, to your horror, you would discover that there's no way of knowing which of the infinite number of other pools is your own.
- You may also exit your world, enter another, and then return to the Wood, only to find that your own pool has "dried up". As this indicates that your own world (and everyone, everything in it) is simply gone from space and time, you would now never be able to return home.
The Last Battle
- Tash, the God of the Calormenes:
- Tash in general is simply a nightmarish creature. He's only briefly referenced throughout the series in very, VERY minor and obscure points, almost like an afterthought, but The Last Battle not only brings out more of his supposed character, but reveals him in his horrific glory. His first appearance is marked by Eustace remarking on the stench of death long before Tash's presence is even noticed. When he's seen, not only is he seen as what's illustrated, but it remarks that even the grass dies at his feet as he walks, his arms stretched out as if to snatch up Narnia. The kids feel relief when they make a decision that leads AWAY from the horrible god...
- The illustrations of Tash, it's a four-armed, bird-faced creature in Mesoamerican garb, who resembles a Skeksis, with Tash being a visual predecessor that inspired the look.
- What Tash is in the narrative. While the White Witch is a stand-in for the Devil, Tash is is the opposing opposite force to the point that any noble action done in Tash's name is actually in Aslan's and visa-versa. Being so evil that nothing good can be done in its name and any evil done in the name of good is actually in its service.
- The fate of Ginger the Cat in The Last Battle. What he saw in the stable didn't just drive him mad, it reduced him from a talking cat to a madly insane ordinary cat. The rough equivalent for a human would be something so traumatizing that it regressed the mind to earliest childhood, or to behaving like a non-human primate.
- In the haste of the final battle, Shift ends up being thrown into the tent to be devoured by Tash. Asshole Victim he may be, one can imagine the horrors he might have gone through considering what happened to Ginger just by looking at him.
- Father Time crushing the Sun, after it swallows the moon, like an orange is more ambiguous (especially because he only does it on Aslan's direct orders), but one has to wonder just how big he actually is to be able to do that.
Films
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- Aslan walks willingly to his execution, surrounded and jeered by his enemies. The Witch, relishing every moment of this triumph, orders her enemy humiliated. And just to twist the knife, she tells him privately that once he's dead, she will exterminate his followers anyway.
- Additionally, her relatively normal irises briefly become larger, and pitch black- giving her an inhuman look, which looks not only unnatural juxtaposes her looks, but also shows she's not truly human.
- Anytime the Witch turns some poor creature to stone. She even did it to a butterfly, a FREAKIN BUTTERFLY!
- Despite the kickass armor Jadis wears to the battle, it doesn't take long for the viewer to realize she's wearing Aslan's mane as a part of it.
Prince Caspian
- The hag that tries resurrecting Jadis with the wolfman and Nikabrik. Unlike the books where she's more or less a human, she's this garish, bald, bird-like humanoid with a beak.
- The minotaur being crushed under the gate and all the other Narnians being trapped.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- The Sea Serpent. At first it just seems like a regular (if mildly scary) Sea Serpent but then partway through the battle... it's torso opens up to reveal hundred and hundreds of insectoid legs, all writhing around. It not only effectively combines several Primal Fears - fear of drowning at sea, a huge foe, and a fear of insects - it turns the Sea Serpent into something just plain not of this world.
- The Dark Island. In the book it's a vaguely creepy location that is never mentioned after it is visited. In the movie, it is a Genius Loci Eldritch Abomination that wants nothing more than to swallow up the whole world with its own fears, and it is never explained where it came from or even why it exists, and it created the aforementioned Sea Serpent.
- During the scene where people are being sold into slavery, the people who aren't get sacrificed to the Green Mist. It covers the boats and they're suddenly gone without a trace.
- When Caspian's initial landing party arrives at the Lone Islands (which isn't bearing any Narnian flags), the whole area is strangely deserted. Before the crew have taken a few steps onto the shore, suddenly there's a massive DONG! that makes them jump, and Caspian warily raises his crossbow... yet nothing else follows but more silence. In an instant, they and the audience now know that something's majorly wrong, but they don't know what.
- Eustace goes into battle as a dragon and ends up getting stabbed by one of their allies, a man so insane he mistakes Eustace for an enemy. Eustace gets better thanks to Aslan, but by that point, he'd been turned into a strange creature, forced to re-learn how to do a lot of everyday stuff, and then forced himself to be brave enough to fight a Sea Serpent. If he died, he wouldn't even have been himself.
