It seems potentially problematic to have not one or two main characters... but four in a novel. However, I believe each of these characters hold great importance in the overall plot and messages of this story, Edmund especially. Lucy is our innocent curiosity, Peter is our bravery and self-importance, Susan is our practicality, but Edmund holds a lot more complexity to his character.
It seems like for the first half of the novel, Edmund is a "typical" young boy - mean and spiteful toward his older siblings and to his little sister. Peter calls him out by calling him a "beast" in the fifth chapter, and states that Edmund is always this bad-natured when dealing with those younger than him in school. It seems like bullying is a weakness for Edmund. When she meets him, the White Witch plays on this nature of resentment and spitefulness. Edmund may have betrayed his brother and sisters, but he is not evil. The narrator even makes this distinction himself: "You mustn't think that even now Edmund was quite so bad that he actually wanted his brother and sisters to be turned into stone. He did want... to pay Peter out for calling him a beast." (9.3)
Edmund isn't unforgivable, but it takes a bit for him to get to the point of being tolerated. His feeling of sympathy and remorse when the Witch turns the animals to stone shows his potential to be reformed. This is his biggest importance and greatest difference between him and someone like the White Witch. Where the White Witch will always be bad, Edmund always has a choice (and he at first struggles with that choice).
Without Edmund, this world of fantasy would be a "humans against pure evil" type novel. However, because of Edmund's struggle and redemption, this novel is deeper than others. Though the Witch is always bad and Aslan is always good, Edmund wavers, falls, and needs to be redeemed. Since he is one of the protagonists, it connects the reader to his character and faults in ways in which the other protagonists may not provide.
By rereading this novel, Edmund has easily become a beloved character to me.
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