Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Episode 16 - The Amber Spyglass Chapters 1-3

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

The players move into place as the last act begins. Lyra is napping but more than usual. Will's finding new companions and new skills. Iorek has a friend for dinner. And Roger makes a reprise.  CHAPTER 1 - THE ENCHANTED SLEEPER CHAPTER 2 - BALTHAMOS AND BARUCH CHAPTER 3 - SCAVENGERS --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro: Waltz Of The Skeleton Keys by WombatNoisesAudio | https://soundcloud.com/user-734462061

You're listening to Girls Gone Canon, covering His Dark Materials. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads, the His Dark Materials book series, episode 16, The Amber Spyglass, chapters 1 through 3. I am one of your hosts, Eliana. And I am another one of your hosts, Chloe, and oh my god, it's so sad, it's the third book! I know. Ah! What happened? Hello! Hello everyone! Welcome! We're here. I can't believe we're here. I'm actually really sad to be here for multiple reasons, but it's just, I don't know, it's a fun journey. It's's a book series that i grew up with and to be finishing it again with all of you it's been a fun it's been a fun ride and i'm not ready for it to be over i know it i know we have time but like it feels like the

start of the end which kind of is to be fair it's not really over right if it's in your heart that's true we can always come back to these books. We can. Well, it's been a tremendous 15 episodes with you, Eliana, and I'm looking forward to the next several episodes. We do have it to a science. I think we know how many

episodes it'll be, but we're not going to jinx ourselves. You never know if we need one more at the end. We'll let you know i will say for now three chapters isn't bad to start off with it's a good holy number and you know i will say that our hope is to have it done right before season three of the his dark materials television show starts which is kind of the pace that we've been keeping with the other few books and that would be awesome but who knows yeah and we might pull some crazy shenanigans to make it happen

we might just make it happen i think uh series two we were pretty close we were butt up there pretty close and finishing and series one we like raced to the finish line we were like oh yeah we did oh here's the first couple episodes as we finish the first book and uh start the new series so we'll see what happens this time but i'm confident we'll finish it and you know before we get too far we do want to talk about our spoiler policy for these books eliana read us the riot act the rules well i'm sure that you can all assume that at this point in the book series we are going to talk about everything that happened in northern light slash the golden compass we assume that you've read these if you're at this point as well as also the subtle knife i mean the story doesn't make much sense. You could do it. You could do it.

Just, like, pick it up. But it's not recommended. And we are going to- It's good, but is it that good? Yeah, I just, like, I think it's much stronger, you know, when you've read the first two books. It's a lot stronger of a story. But we are going to try to be as spoiler-free as possible we're we're not good all right we're gonna end up probably hinting at things that happen later in the book but we are going to

you know not we're going to try to keep things that happen in everything that is after these chapters in the discussion and what is a discussion you're asking? Well, if you are new to Girls Gone Canon, let me have my moment, Eliana, my moment to shine. Eliana presents like the angel. She's all here are the rules for you to get into Girls Gone Canon heaven. And I am over here like, hey, kid, want to do drugs? Angel dust.

The angel dust. The angel UCP. No, not Jesus. like hey kid want to do drugs rock and roll uh angel dust the angel does the angel ucp no not jesus we're already doing illicit drugs in the beginning of our first the amber spyglass episode so you can imagine how well this is going to go for the rest of this trippy ass novel uh the dust discussion is where we spoil it all the books of dust the novellas eliana still hasn't finished the secret commonwealth it's an epidemic she'll get with it and uh also the rest of the amber spyglass right so this is where i'm gonna be huffing and holding my breath till we get to the discussion to be like and then because of this thing later and blah blah blah blah blah and eliana's gonna be like blah blah back it's gonna be fun so stay tuned if you want to read at the same pace as us if you're starting this novel for the first time

welcome again as Eliana said we will try very hard to keep it clean I will try very hard to keep it clean yeah we will try to yeah keep it as on dusty as and as well as the discussion you know besides those books there are of course novellas and we are for this month's patreon episode going to be talking about one of the novellas in this universe yeah we'll be talking about the collectors which is really fun it is an audio and ebook only story at this time in 2021, the summer of 2021. But and we will talk about it in this very special Patreon episode that is available for our patrons in the $5 tier and above the stranger tier and above over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon. canon we'll be talking about this novella and the plans for it to become an actual physical copy of a book in the future and much more much more the conception of it and fun stuff in that episode yes so keep an eye out for that this june and then next month we will be back with a song of

ice and fire episode on patreon for those of you who follow our coverage of that series yes and of course you can expect these episodes the Amber Spyglass to release for public on a streaming platform near you make sure you hit subscribe wherever that is

every last Friday of the month so every last Friday of the month if you think about us, you know we'll be thinking about you. Oh, I see. You made the reference to the thing. From different places, we'll be thinking about you. Yeah, we will.

And, of course, if you want to join us, though, in different places and think about one another together, we do have a Discord on our Patreon. And once a month together we do have a discord on our patreon and once a month we do a patreon brunch slash happy hour on discord using their video chat function and if you are listening to this episode the date of release which will be friday june 25th you have a chance to join tomorrow! June 26th, last minute, slip in there if you would like to join Gatecrash the... It's not really Gatecrashing, but whatever. The Discord brunch slash happy hour.

And it's a good time. We're probably going to get sad, you know? I mean, today is the summer solstice, which is significant for this book series. Yeah, it feels right. It feels important that we're starting today is the summer solstice which is significant for this book series yeah it feels right it feels important that we're starting this on the summer solstice or at least recording it recording it yeah it really does to me yes well i i think a lot of the symbolism a lot of the prose of the book even starts off with and even before the story starts right pullman opens it with a ton of poetry we're going to talk about in just a minute it's a beautiful setting fit really well for the summer solstice it is so I mean let's jump into it there's actually different poems I think it seems in different versions of the book that opens us up. Different worlds, you know?

I was just going to say, they mean different things in different worlds. Your world seems to be different from my world, Eliana. Yeah, I have a version of the book that does say, like, you know, copyright published in the United States, things like that. But I've noticed it keeps with some of the British conventions. Like, we don't have periods after the word Mrs. And I believe we have yous in places that I would not expect a U, the letter U, in some spellings. So, yeah. And in my version of the opening of the book, we have this excerpt from Hymns Ancient and Modern by Robert Grant.

And the lines are O tell of his might, O sing of his grace whose robe is the light, whose canopy space, his chariots of wrath, the deep thunder clouds form and dark is his path on the wings of the storm. It's big Metatron feelings.

Yeah, but at the same time maybe Lord Asriel. Oh, also Lord lord asriel i'm over here like stanis barad just kidding wrong series uh yeah it does have some as real feelings especially because something that i think is being driven home so much more when i reread this this is what my third reread i think now and now that i'm rereading it like asriel is presented as another option of not quite good right he's also causing evil things to happen no no side it's not one-sided war is never one side and people bleed on both sides as we talk about in the other series we cover a song of ice and fire asriel is flawed though he is very burdened he's also flawed and i think that does get explored a little better than maybe i felt previously yeah and i'm excited to dig into that this book and i agree i mean like that's so it's so funny that this feels like it can be both of them because i

think you're absolutely right that it does feel very much like Metatron, you know, with the very clearly robe is light, canopy space, angelic language. The chariot. chariots of wrath and then like the storm and darkness and stuff is what makes me think oh it could also be asriel like i i love that it's a little ambiguous the way that he's chosen these poems and we know we know philip loves his poetry i will say something that struck me as interesting from this hymn so this part that's quoted is the second verse of the hymn but in the fourth verse of the hymn is this language of frail children of dust and feeble as frail in you do we trust nor find you to fail

your mercies how tender how firm to the end our maker, defender, redeemer and friend feels pointed frail children of dust in you do we trust indeed lyra well lyra so this is one that i'm also interested in obviously if you have tuned into us before

you've heard us talk about william blake. Sometimes, if you're following us on Twitter, you might see me shitposting, quote, retweeting the William Blake bot account. It could happen. Free Lycra. This is from America, A Prophecy by William Blake. The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations,

the grave is burst. The spices shed. The linen wrapped up. The bones of death. The covering clay. The sinews shrunk and dried. Reviving shake. Inspiring move. Breathing.

Awakening. Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds and bars are burst. Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field. Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air let the enchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing whose face has never seen a smile in 30 weary years rise and look out his chains are loose his dungeon doors open and let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge. They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream, singing, the sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning,

and the fair moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night, for empire is no more, and now the lion and wolf shall cease. Wow, so it's in the Song of Ice and Fire? No, I'm joking. cease wow so it's in the song of ice and fire no i'm joking yeah i think i think it's interesting that it seems like your copy of the book has this pullman chose this yeah for the and i'm reading from i think the uk publication yeah i have a reprint of like later because mine has lantern yours has lantern slides also though i don't know yes but it has different uh mine had a few different ones oh that's right yours when we

checked in remember so it's the same thing different publications and yours has the robert grant so this is only in this uk it's the omni print i have an omni one that is just i think it's just like later and but at the same time has something that was taken out. I don't, I don't know how they decide these things, like the part where there's that human who has a human demon, like in the first book. Anyway, so yeah, I, this one's really, really pointed to be at the beginning of this book in your version. Erica, a prophecy. I mean, the lion and wolf imagery, you joke, it reminds you of the Song of Ice and Fire, and it does a little bit. But Lyra's actually described as tawny in her hair color, like a tawny lion in this first chapter. So I felt that might be even a little pointed to that she's a lion.

And if that comes from her father, who has a other wild cat demon stalmaria leopard yeah and i mean a lot a lot of the language here right even though william blake is sort of building his own mythology it feels very biblical right like about the lion and the wolf laying down with one another and you know what i got from this poem because i went to take a look at it, is I was like, damn, William Blake had some real high hopes for America. And he got let down pretty quickly. He was like, oh. It happens to the best of us, Blake. Yeah, he was like, oh, so wait, they're not going to free the slaves?

Which, as you can see in these very lines that were picked out, clearly William Blake had a stance on that. And no, I'm sorry william blake but as you said mood um but the language is interesting he turns america into this kind of mythology that he's building and channels some of those very explicit ideas of albion which is something that we discussed much more in depth in our coverage of la belle sauvage where that's kind of like woven into the story very explicitly but the language here has like portrays America as this like rebellion which which is not untrue and talks about the 13 angels you know the 13 original colonies that's not how I would ever talk about 13 original colonies but I like I like Blake's imagination and that's why we remember and talk about him all these years later and not me.

And read within just Blake's text, though, the way that he's built up this mythos just channels, I think, that vibe of what Pullman is going for with Asriel, right? Talking about and this sort of glorification of that rebellion and the rebel angels, right? just channels i think that vibe of what pullman is going for with asriel right um talking about and this sort of glorification of that rebellion and the rebel angels right the 13 angels are these rebel angels that's really great even down to like the beginning being all this destruction wrought and this oppression wrought on the land and the people and that reviving shake inspiring move breathing awakening like the angels of old coming to life because they have purpose yeah sorry sorry about what happened william blake and i'm sorry we laughed at it now we're allowed to laugh laugh at it because we're living here

it isn't even american yeah fuck off will off Liam Blake our life's hard enough I'm just kidding I'm sure he's a fine guy he wrote very well yeah and I mean he clearly had his heart in the right place that's why he got let down yeah but I mean there's also I guess that is the hint of the story as a whole

in broad terms too like it is very what we owe to each other very scandlin very like humans believe in the best in each other and sometimes you get let down by a human and that shakes your entire psyche because you want to believe people can do good and people can be good and be more than themselves and selfless and you know special and sometimes you get let down in that and sometimes systemically you get let down in that over and over again for hundreds of years in that sometimes it starts to feel like it's insanity actually and we're going to explore that in this story we are we are i'm fine we're fine yeah William Blake

the next poem in the beginning is actually one of my favorites I love Rilke I love Rilke a lot I've read a lot of Rilke I'm more of a Dickinson girl Rainer Maria Rilke

had a crazy longer name. It's René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke. So Rainer Maria Rilke. That didn't stop. That kept going. No, it keeps going. He was a Bohemian Austrian poet and novelist. He is one of the most lyrically intense German language poets. He was born born 1875

to 1926 that that kind of you know time a little before us a little hint before us uh but he put out in the duino elegies there are 10 elegies total and i'm going to talk about a couple of them but the third elegy is quoted in the beginning of this oh stars isn't it from you that the lover's desire for the face of his beloved arises doesn't his secret insight into her pure features come from the pure constellations so that's from the third elegy it hurt it hurt i mean just letting you all know right off the bat even though if you are here and you haven't read the whole book yet, just know that this has gutted me. You could turn back, you know, I mean. Yeah, you could all stop.

If you are listening now, I just wanted you to know that Girl Scum Cannon pled with you. They were like, please, please don't hurt yourself. Don't do what we've done to ourselves. Don't get sad over this story. We cried. We pleaded. But nope, you had to keep reading. And so did we. I was crying just thinking about the ending today, you know, preparing for this episode so so it's real sad and these poems these elegies are also very sad oh good rilke wrote these about beauty and existential suffering basically so also good also good good exciting the first elegy is about suffering the poet calls to the angels for help and concludes that angels and their power and beauty is beyond human comprehension if he ever encountered one he

would be destroyed by it and then he counters but angels are also terrible but maybe earthly right like they made the things of the earth so they could be great. Man, animal, lovers, these things can console me in the wake of these horrible magical angels. But then the only thing that consoles him, of course, at the end of this poem are songs born out of sadness, which that's also a mood. In the second elegy, the mysteries of the angels transform to the difference between man and angel, difference between man and angel how humans die and how humans get to leave something behind like a gravestone and the idea of love and parting that gravestones symbolize elegy three is the metamorphosis of love boys becoming men leaving home leaving their mother and the love of a good woman keeping a man busy and giving balance to their life right very interesting very interesting

that's a thought and those are just the first three but in the very last the tenth elegy rilke imagines what it's like to die and what it would be like if he died he sings to the angels and discovers why human suffering exists and travels to the city of mourning then to a place called the land of the griefs finally he disappears regretful he can't relate this experience of dying to the living but as he travels down the river of joy he sees a final vision of spring huh a dream of spring that gives him hope i think rilka's elegies are a great way to open this story poetry wise that part of the third elegy is very pointed it's obvious what it's about if you've read the story but at that same time all of these elegies

kind of correspond with a lot of will's role in the story right encountering angels finding solace in friendship with lyra friendship wink wink uh and the underworld and a lot of these different elements and his own land of the griefs that he'll have to face but just like the final elegy after seeing what it's like right in this tragic world he ends up helping others in the end and i think that's what's probably the most important part in that piece of hope that Rilke saw in these poems. Absolutely. And I mean, these sound great. Like, this sounds like a wonderful journey through all of these. And we are going through quite the journey here. And I like how you've talked about like the different transformations and how each of them sort of meditate on a different idea.

Yeah, different aspects. Yeah. And some of them seem, I'll have to check these out. I mean and some of them seem i'll have to check these out i mean some of them seem very pointed right to what we're going to see or like very much like they inspired how some ideas are approached in this book well finally pullman gives us a an excerpt from the ecclesiast by john ashbury fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living the night is cold and delicate and full of angels pounding down the living the factories are all lit up the chime goes unheard we are together at last though far apart. The fuck? What the fuck? It's rude.

It is. It's really rude. This is really a test. This is some fucking fievel somewhere out there. Look. An American tail shit. If you didn't see the signs or the graffiti that we told you about the go back now this is your last chance go back now pain is ahead everything hurts this is rude this is the ecclesiast by john ashbury and there's something interesting here there's a connection even to vapors in the ecclesiast

versus the vapors in the songs of innocence and experience from william blake like in little boy lost little boy found one of the stanzas before this in the ecclesiast is also very haunting and very relatable i feel like we have to bring it in here there is no time like the present for giving in to this temptation once the harvest is in and the animals put away for the winter to stand at the uncomprehending window cultivating the desert with salt tears which will never do anyone any good my dearest i am as a galleon on salt billows perfume my head with forgetting all around me for some days these projects will return the funeral voyage over ice strewn seas is ended you wake up forgetting already daylight shakes you in the yard the hands remain empty they are constructing an osier basket just now

and across the sunlight darkness is taking root anew in intense activity you shall never have seen it just this way and that is to be your one reward what the fuck lots of sorrow yeah lots of sorrow in these poems how we all feeling everyone everyone feeling excited happy not depressed we haven't even started the chapters well without further ado let's start chapter one enchanted sleeper which opens with another poem yeah it opens from with an excerpt you were talking about the songs of innocence and experience and this one is from little girl lost by william blake and it's uh it's pretty straightforward this one's actually very literal to what we're gonna see in a second of while the beasts of prey come from caverns deep viewed the maid asleep because lyra's asleep she's the enchanted sleeper

yes very fanciful very fairy tale mrs coulter had taken lyra somewhere so beautiful feel full of prose a valley shaded with rhododendrons near snow with a milky stream. Sheltered by brush and trees, Marisa and Lyra camp in a cave. Oh, what a great bonding experience for mother and daughter with constant drifting light

and mist coming down through the trees. Yeah, the problem is they weren't fishing. If they were going to go on a camping trip should be fishing but the imagery here it's such a great way like the first page of the amber spyglass is just so good the prose and the imagery are just top-notch and i mean these first three chapters everything about the opening of this book i i find to be really strong but here the imagery is very idyllic right the the land is beautiful and it sounds like

a land of milk and honey right that stream is described as milky it it's very much like a promised land it's very much like eden right and we're about to see lyra sent back to a time of infancy associated with innocence of course and that providence that comes with a mother's care, only if it's all turned on its head. We'll talk about it a little more later, but it's all false. It's like a pantomime of innocence and care that actually comes from stealing someone's choices and free will from them. So you're saying that it's not a fun camping trip that's a spoiler because there's no fish just kidding of course the light is drifting down the light and mist very dusty right we immediately have a

dust metaphor at the top of the chapter i love it and there's also something really symbolic about rhododendrons kind of peppering the path outside of this cave. Rhododendrons are totally a danger beware kind of plant. They were really popular in Victorian times and people are known to get ill from eating honey that were made by bees that fed on rhododendron or azaleas. It's slightly hallucinogenic and also laxative in nature yeah so basically very poison-y right like you would probably feel pretty poisoned if you took it which very symbolic of coulter keeping lyra asleep poisoning her yeah interesting i didn't know that now i know that about rhododendrons and azaleas don't fuck with them admire don't eat yeah see we're camping after all yeah we could survive Now I know that about rodentrons and the salias. Don't fuck with them. Admire. Don't eat them.

See? We're camping after all. Yeah, we could survive. You're like, I don't know. I know us. Mrs. Coulter heats water over and knaps the stove, aka gas stove, when her demon murmurs a warning. A young village girl, girl ama is coming up the

walk she had been visiting and giving mrs coulter and lyra food for a while now watching and lurking for a bit before approaching and when mrs coulter first arrived she told them that she was a holy woman engaged in meditation and prayer i thought this was an interesting play on her part the himalayan range is largely buddhist so i do wonder if this would be like a shamanka or a female practicing shaman or if she's a nun or monastic i don't know how intentional this is on pullman's part to care about exactly what they think so we obviously don't get to hear if they think anything of her and if they think she's more than i mean we just hear that they think she's a medicine woman living in this cave and she's going to bring holy magic to them but there's also like tons of institutional sexism

involved in buddhism for female monasts buddhist nuns didn't actually have a nunnery or an abbey to pray at at first it was kind of a recent development in the last century they were basically segregated and had their share of intense sexism displayed and like to become a nun they had to do eight steps more than what you would have to do otherwise just to be a regular monk and more regulatory rules to the practice and to be a leader in their communities so it's really interesting because coulter is trapped once more under these kind of norms in this cave but because she's on her own that also shows a certain kind of danger we see from how they survey her like she could be dangerous if we cross her i mean i agree she is she could be dangerous and i i think that's interesting. You know, you're saying that, like, yeah, she's still caught in that. And I mean, to some extent, right, that's sort of the point that it's so pervasive, you know, this patriarchal systems in this culture's world, in our world as well.

And what's interesting is that she kind of leans on that same disguise that she's always using. It's just a different version or shade of it. Where Mrs. Coulter is again channeling religion and holiness as a costume to cloak her misdeeds. She did it before with the Magisterium. And now she's like, you know, whatever. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I do think it's, I really love comparing that to mary malone right who was a nun who yes here we have coulter pretending to be a holy woman in the sense of being a nun and then we have mary malone actually later in the book on her journey as an ex-nun that's absolutely true and she's like, that's not for me.

Well, this time the village girl Ama came with her father. He stays outside of the cave and he sends his prayers as well as a bundle of food with Ama that she places at Coulter's feet. She holds out a bunch of flowers, speaking rapidly and pretty nervously in a language that Coulter kind of understands, but Coulter's pretending she doesn't understand, and she motions the girl to watch their demons talk. Yeah, I mean, I feel that. The pretending you don't understand. And the flowers that she brings to Mrs. Coulter are anemones, which in the language of flowers, it has a bunch of different meanings, but some of the most popular ones mean like a forsaken love which interesting um another one is about a love that

has been cut short due to death usually and though it's not romantic for lyra we're gonna see it come up in this chapter right right from the beginning that's kind of what happened with her friendship with roger you love cut short i mean you know the kind of what happened with her friendship with Roger. Love cut short. I mean, you know, the love of friendship. A friendship cut short. Foreshadowing, it feels like. Feels important. Yes and no. I mean, it already happened. I mean, it's his own thing, too.

It's backshadowing. Buttshadowing. What? I don't know. Damn. Mrs. Coulter's monkey demon takes her butterfly demon ama's butterfly demon on his forefinger and brings him to his ear coulter feels a stream of understanding enter her mind and clarity in what the girl meant the villagers are so excited for a holy woman but also it's rumored that she travels with a very powerful dangerous

companion that makes the villagers afraid it's her she's the powerful dangerous companion but it is again talking about those same old tricks from mrs coulter and how she recycles them this is part of that too right and how she's just like consistently this pied piper figure luring children into her web being like oh don't you trust me me nice woman with the cool monkey demon and i think that's part of what i think makes mrs coulter such a fantastic character across all three books right not only is she very well written her character is very just like i think consistent in the way that she's told and her arc is told yeah and even in the other books this chapter so significant right that it's such a change for her character like in in path and trajectory

because she's just confused and she doesn't really know what to do at this time so you find out like you think she's in some evil plot here that she's poisoning her daughter no it's just she's losing her mind it doesn't know what to do right you think it's evil it is still it is evil but this is now like it's so second nature for her that even when she's like losing her mind in some ways. And it's just like, what if we did this? Yeah. This comes so naturally to her. Right.

Absolutely. And I do have to go back to the, the powerful dangerous companion. I think it's so important that the villagers, I mean, I took that, that they're thinking of Lyra, that they hear she has a powerful, dangerous companion.

And if they are so worried with a holy woman i also think that this dangerous companion which she then shows her is just my daughter you know you see that's just my daughter harmless asleep she's ill but that means they know of the prophecy or have heard something of the prophecy and that means they believe in some sort of higher power right it doesn't necessarily have to be the authority god jesus whatever mrs coulter but they believe that there is a higher power and they have heard whisperings and rumors of it yeah and and we do see that a lot of different cultures right i mean the witches right have their different higher powers and religions. And I mean, it's true. She kind of is a powerful, dangerous companion, too.

They're both powerful and dangerous in different ways. It seems that they have their own secret commonwealth. Oh, wow. Well, there's this line of what they're wondering of. They wanted to understand this other being. Master? Servant? Why were they here?

When would they leave and as you were saying right aliens when would they leave well yeah they're like why does ama keep beating them anyways mrs coulter realizes she's like i have an answer for these questions um as she figures out the words and she's like I have an answer for these questions as she figures out the words and she's like oh my god I could tell the truth and some of it she's like some of it at least right

cause as we said her instinct is all these lies she tells that her daughter is under a sleeping spell she's come here to hide from the enchanter so that she can cure her daughter and keep her safe this is the funniest shit ever because she's the enchanter first right second of all she's like wait i could just tell the truth oh my god this is so fun for me i never get to do that anymore this is new this is different this is a different world how funny it's one of the funniest moments the whole chapter yeah she offers for ama to see her daughter and ama's like okay she's kind of

half soothed the monkey's being super soft to her demon so she's like okay okay i'll come i'll follow outside on the path her father kind of starts to step forward but his crow demon rustles her wings so he stays outside the cave but he's very hesitant he's like maybe i should go in after her truly yes if your child is going into a cave with mrs coulter you should go in after your child that's my expert advice i say it as an expert as a professional yeah same yeah same i may not be a parent but yeah go there accompany your kids i think there's some redemption left for her but honey that's not for like 20 chapters so let's keep going coulter lights a candle and brings Ama to Lyra, asleep in the sleeping bag, older than Ama by three or four years.

Her hair is a color Ama has never seen, like a lion's mane. And her mongoose-like demon is coiled against her throat, red gold and fur. The monkey demon tenderly smooths the fur between lyra's demon's ears i didn't realize it till now but ama thinks it looks like a mongoose because pans in his air mine form ama doesn't know because she doesn't have air mines in the himalayas yeah i like that so i didn't think about that i'm like oh duh that's cool because i've kind of always wondered that and and we kind of get that a little in the novella i don't think about that I'm like oh duh that's cool because I've kind of always wondered that and we kind of get that a little in the novella I don't think this is that much

of a spoiler with Once Upon a Time in the North what if you've never like seen an animal before how do you know what kind of animal it is and turns out it happens that you might get it wrong because Lee thought that his demon was the wrong kind of animal the whole time I love that because

later on in Laelle savage no spoilers but that comes up again between a demon and they're human so check that out for sure interesting it's it's something i don't know if pullman's ever gonna answer it answer it because the answer has just been like i don't know you just know you just know you know like how you feel i guess you just might not know the animal you know and well ama's own demon right now ama's demon mouse formed pressed himself close to ama's neck and peered fearfully through her hair which makes sense you should and mrs culture swears ama to tell no one besides her father and then insists there is no evil spirit just her daughter who must be kept safe and she looks at ama with sad loving eyes

and smiles at her with such brave compassion that tears well in ama's eyes and mrs coulter holds her hand and walks her back to her anxiously awaiting father at the cave's entrance. Then she bows to him with her hands pressed together, and they leave amongst the rhododendrons. What a bullshitter. I know. Absolute grifter. You gotta respect

her hustle. Yeah. I respect the hustle, honey. Commitment to the role. Commit to the bit. And again, that rhododendron symbolism is very prominent as Ama and her father leave, bringing that poisoned, sweet, but poisoned symbolism back in. Coulter gives her sickly sweet, award-winning performance. Like, I'm talking, give her all the BAFTAs.

She Ruth Wilson'd that motherfucker. And Amma takes off among the roadie dungeons. Symbolism's neat. She did get a BAFTA, right? Yeah, she did, actually. Ruth Wilson, after us. Give her another one.

Yeah, after all her glamour, give her a BAFTA. Got one. Well, Mrs. Coulter goes back to heating up water, creating Lyra's potion with leaves, petals, oils, stirring and waiting for the liquid to cool. All scattered around the cave are various instruments,

pistols, and equipment from the late Sir Charles Late from the camp. What is he late for high t just kidding life sucker uh man you know if you haven't watched the tv uh the tv adaptation the experience that you can watch on either bbc or hbo which again is is not TV. It's HBO. It's a different whole thing.

Oh my God. But if you haven't watched it, you should. It's a good adaptation. Season one is good, but vanilla in some aspects, but I think it's good. I liked it.

It was a solid, you know, they had to secure the bag for season two and I think season one rocked. Series two was awesome. It was really good. And series three is going to be great, but Charles Latron's performance in series two is also throw a bath to his way you know arianne

arianne becar 69 yeah yep respect f in the chat lads f uh he he was phenomenal though in the show he was absolutely just clever, funny, charming, also creepy and weird and suspenseful. He was great. He was a great actor, and they did some fun stuff. But here, we see Coulter already looted all of his good stuff. I love this detail. It's very minor. It's a background detail, but Coulter has looted all the good stuff

from Latrim's camp. In the next chapter we have Will trying to figure out what's left that he should loot and Coulter's already taken pretty much any scientific equipment weapons but Will is a survivalist and he's thoughtful and he takes food and a new canteen and I speak I think this speaks at the very core of who they are right that Coulter's first go was like, weaponry, equipment, go, let's go. And he's like, I need food.

I need matches. I need this. I need to survive a few days, not just one day. Will's survival, he already has the knife. You know, that's the other thing. He doesn't need weapons, even though they weren't there. And Coulter is a different kind of attack right like she uses her defense as an offense she's hiding she hides to bide her time and energy and strike out when

she's prepared and she's also i mean she was hiding beneath charles latrum the entire previous book kind of hoping that he would protect her in a lot of ways throughout the last book so now that he's gone she's the carrion crow on his body interesting and yes i think that's a great point and a great insight into their characters based on just how they react to the same things and and we'll talk about this a little in the next chapter right when we'll also encounter the same camp and what he takes from it you've talked a little bit about it but that's such a good point like mrs coulter does come at it from a very defensive point of view but i mean that's kind of how she's had to live her life right and she's always needed to project strength in some ways and will has as you said the knife but he has a

different way of projecting strength and we'll talk about that a little when he meets with the angels another thing that I like about this scene is that you get some insight into Mrs. Coulter's character as a scientist like obviously she didn't just fucking have sleeping potion like lying around

and she knows science, right? she's an acclaimed I'm sorry, experimental theologian and knows enough of that that she can make her own she knows enough of human biology and also just plants to do that and the language about heating it there's there's like something about like getting it to the temperature of like blood warm or something like that and i just thought that was really really good really tickles me about that it feels so specific and you better hope it doesn't tickle you too hard that's true right next thing you know i'm like asleep but yeah i and i mean it makes sense right of course

the woman who like was kidnapping children knows how to throw together a sedative of course she does nothing like a woman who makes her own roofies am i right oh dear jesus christ yeah coulter is something else in this like she really is it's just like so funny because we still don't know with where we are in this chapter so far we still don't know why she's doing it and then you find out why and you're like what wait i thought what this isn't in your five-year evil plan question mark this is a sidetrack that's what's so compelling about it you know she's like maybe i'll take off the next few years you know go backpacking eat pray love uh this is that's the choice eat pray love my daughter that I've kept in a coma.

In a box in the TV show. So she pours the concoction into a beaker and her demon joins her. They go to Lyra at the back of the cave where she kneels beside her. And Lyra's about to wake up. Pana Layman is snuggled up at her sweaty breast and moves damp hair off her forehead. The golden monkey's eyes never left Lyra's demon, and his little black fingers twitched at the edge of the sleeping bag. A look from Mrs. Coulter, and he let go and moved back a hand's breadth.

I love this. I like that we're seeing Coulter fighting herself, her demon, right? She's literally fighting herself, especially again, because we don't know her motive right now. She has no clue what she's doing until that interiority is revealed to us. I don't know. I think it echoes really well for her that she doesn't know here. She's just like, no, just don't touch it. Stay away. Keeping it safe until she figures out what the fuck she's doing i i like that insight and it pairs well with everything else that we're seeing going on right of just her trying to exert her will onto everything else including lyra whom she's lifting gently so that lyra's

shoulders are sitting off the ground and lyra's eyes are half open she's murmuring roger where are you i can't see and marisa shushes her feeding her the warm tea and letting it carefully trickle into her mouth until it's empty she lays lyra back down and then pan moves to her neck deeply asleep again she washes lyra with a wet flannel in cool water and combs her hair she unfolds the food bundle from ama flat loaves of bread a cake of tea sticky rice in a large leaf sounds great honestly um mrs coulter doesn't deserve nice food at this moment anyway mrs coulter you know again uh as as said at the top, is throwing Lyra back into infancy. She's living this like really strange, like maternal fantasy of those moments that she lost with her daughter as a child. making Lyra into kind of like her doll in the first book and like again as you're talking about like her monkey demon she's suppressing so many other wills right now especially Lyra's using the

yeah you know sleeping potion that I feel it's administered in this sort of perversion of breastfeeding it it reminds me a little bit of these moments from La Belle Sauvage as Mrs. Coulter, right, is she's this Jungian shadow of the mother archetype, and as opposed to a mother who protects, right, that the mother, when it's, when the mother archetype is functioning, you know, is a protector, supportive, right, has gone to the extreme, and instead of nourishing nourishing right this nourishment is an act of smothering the nourishment administered in the tea and the feeding it's all turned in its on its head this is just like when my cat is holding her baby squirrel doll that's stuffed with catnip and then she like starts tearing at it with the claws and i'm like no that's your baby girl what

are you doing no that's your baby doll stop oh no i'm trying to give her something to love you know i'm like this is your baby doll you have to take care of her it's just like that uh it actually it kind of reminds me of wandavision in that kind of microcosm if anyone of you have seen it uh just that like how when you say like you know those maternal moments that she didn't get to have with lyra and that she's reliving those moments uh she she really is you know like it's that grief that trauma of having this life torn away from you and now you have it back in your hands and and she is at a precipice right like she could turn lyra in and probably, you know, by sacrificing her child, rise even higher in the magisterium, rise up in the authorities' eyes, you know? She could totally just burn it all down and say, fuck Asriel and just sell everyone out.

Or she doesn't know what she could do and she could stay right in this cave right now. Yeah. In this cave, it yeah in in this cave she it's her fantasy it's her own little world her eden that she's created and yes she's built a fire there's a cold at night in the mountains that is quite fierce but the catch is she's starting to run out of matches in naphtha which means that they're gonna have to instead keep fire, the heat going all day long in the cold mountains because then she's not going to have any ways to light it. And not only is energy a problem, but her demon, as you've pointed out, is becoming more skeptical about, yo, what the fuck are you doing? But he doesn't say anything because he doesn't talk.

And she just keeps pushing him away. But it's clearly really starting to affect her and she's starting to think that she might be going mad and the last line of the chapter is the golden monkey was right she wasn't only hiding lyra she was hiding her own eyes drama drama i mean maybe this is the life you can live coulter you know you and lyra out here lyra asleep you know regretfully the whole time but you awake yeah it's a half life so it kind of sucks it's something speaking of those half-lifes, right? Then we cut to Roger and Lyra, which is a device we're going to revisit pretty constantly here. Roger is whispering Lyra's name in the darkness, and shadowy, faceless figures are lurking behind him. And he's blurred and shaded, half-forgotten. Lyra. Lyra.

Where were they? On a great plain, where no light shone from the iron dark sky, and where mist obscured the horizon on every side. The ground was bare earth, beaten flat by the pressure of millions of feet, even though those feet had less weight than feathers. So it must have been time that pressed it flat, even though time had been stilled in this place. So it must have been the way things were. This was the end of all places and the last of all worlds. Lyra. Why were they there? They were imprisoned. Someone had committed a crime. Oh though no one knew what it was or who had done it or what authority sat in judgment. Why did the little boy keep calling Lyra's name? Hope. Who were they? Ghosts. And Lyra couldn't touch them, no matter how she tried. Her baffled hands moved through

and through, and still the little boy stood there pleading. Roger, she said, but her voice came out in a whisper. Oh, Roger, where are you? What is this place? It's the world of the dead, Lyra. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I'm here forever, and I don't know if I've done bad things or what, because I tried to be good, but I hate it. I'm scared of it all i hate it and lyra said i'll scratch you might be wondering how i got here what a device right like what a way to be between chapters i think it's really clever i think taking your heroine out of the very first act of her final book of the original trilogy that's a

bold move extremely bold and he does pull it off in my opinion yeah good job phil in case anyone here thinks i've been too mean to philip pull. Go Phil. And, you know, using that idea of the world of the dead as a communication point for Lyra's subconscious and Roger's to be pit together. It's so clever. We get so much of the world of the dead set up in these first three chapters that in reread, I didn't really realize how much is actually set up. And it's really informing us what to expect as we get to that third act later and this exploration of subconscious and the dead and spirit it makes the final act of the book that much more fulfilling absolutely and and you know as you're saying it's like this meeting point between the worlds and it's interesting that a different state of mind

right her being asleep can be that meeting point between worlds, but also that she's in a cave right now. In a way, the cave is an entrance to underworlds, right? Literally underground. But in general, I was talking about the virtues of the opening of the amber spyglass earlier. And I just love that it opens with this contrast of the lush vegetation and these himalayan landscapes right and it's just so well done and contrasts so well

with this place the land of the dead all of a sudden you go from like beautiful like flowers and stuff to nothing this gray plane and i love the way that the planes are described right as beaten down and how it's shown to be a matter of time and volume rather than strength because everything is so light it's just really really beautifully done and it breaks your heart when you realize how the immensity of what would have caused that yeah it's like watching saturation just leave the land it's really nice it's really good yeah it it is and as you said you know bold move but i mean lyra got her own first book so yeah even she did even it out well that brings us to chapter two and i'm excited for this chapter i know eliana is too balthamos and baruch this chapter opens with a quote from the book of job that a spirit passed before my face the hair of

my flesh stood up yeah so we open up it's will perry our other main character he's just watched his father die in front of him he's lost his girlfriend and these two schmucks here haven't done like shit for him right he's getting annoyed because the gangles want him to follow as the chosen one with the subtle knife and he's like that's not what i want to do and i think it feels quite pointed pun kind of attended with that job line opening up this chapter because it's not just the whole like literal spirits passing before his face but the story of job is very much about a guy who's just like lost everything and will's just like yeah so i've kind of lost everything now and lost a lot of people it's kind of hard to go on yeah after that and the gangles want will to come with them to serve asriel will's dad also was like he need to find

asriel but will's like i don't know about that because i want to find lyra right he's like i think my idea is better he opens lyra's rucksack up that he had taken examining the alethiometer within which that was the classic in the end of the book right that's how you know lyra's in danger she didn't even take her alethiometer yeah true true god will pulls his dad's cloak tightly against him that's a great point that that's how he knows and honestly i think it's kind of remarkable to me like i assume all these people know the prophecy right or something they must have heard something they're supposed to that's the whole point like whether it's like will's dad or the the angels they they must know the prophecy about lyra and they're just like a fucker you know like what what do you not understand about like i don't know eve i do not get about something pointed pointed and maybe it's the storytelling that the TV adaptation has been doing

was really great the broad strokes of series 2 made it so that it was definitely about Coulter's search to get the truth of what it meant that Lyra is Eve right and getting that prophecy and the search for the prophecy so I actually really like the idea

that maybe now that we're opening the worlds up like hog wild to all these different creatures and people and spirits maybe lyra's not everything i'm not saying she's not because she is she is everything to me and everyone in the universe and she always will be but that the angels are so jaded like specifically for them they're so jaded obviously that they're just like okay i've heard a ton of prophecies before i don't know this is the one i know right now and these guys are like we see their jaded uh personalities kind of change by the end of this this chapter right like we see

that change a little uh but baruch's like always he's at a soft baruch is reasonable baruch's like always he's at a soft spot Baruch is reasonable Baruch's really reasonable Balthamos just you know is unreasonable when Baruch isn't near which I understand I understand it is insane though like they care so much about Will as the knife bearer being their end goal but disregard these details right

and free will feels really important and Eve eating the apple and all that jazz like that feels important feels it's gotta happen feels it feels significant we'll find out if it is or not i can't tell you uh i don't know i know the end goal of freeing everyone through this war is big but it feels also very significant that they're ignoring, like, the other half of the whole here. Will doesn't get to his end goal without the other part of the prophecy.

You know, there were two. That's always the Star Wars feeling, and you know, too strong within the Force that must be there to bring balance to the world. Yeah, it also feels like what?

Did y'all not read the Bible? Like there's an Adam and an Eve. You know, it goes like clearly the prophecy's got to have two. Sidebar, to be fair, for them it might be Adam and Steve. True. But clearly there's two. It takes two to make it out of sight. it takes two to make it out of sight it takes two to make it out of sight so anyway will makes the angels swear that they're telling the truth

about azrael's importance and then asks so are you stronger or weaker than me and they explain that they have no real flesh unlike him so they are weaker and he's like good then you have to listen to me and we're gonna get lyra first before we go get asriel and i'm like all right chill out will the rationale of i'm stronger so you have to do what i say so i'm kind of like in my opinion real colonizer mindset but you know whatever yeah yeah i it is an aggressive one he he comes at that very aggressively i was like oh will i i try to chalk up a lot of the beginning like the first quarter of the book to his trauma and grief that maybe that's what pullman is channeling a lot of that anger from but he is a kind of an interesting character at the beginning of the book

he is and i think that part is i guess kind of consistent with some of what we see about willow and liars all like he's very strong you know and like that's like his his one of his defining characteristics but i'm also just like chill out william yeah you know what like you almost lost your fingers then you didn't you're gonna get through this book okay so just settle down yeah what if we just like didn't tell people i don't know there are other ways to reason with people right and clearly for him i guess it's exerting strength for mrs coulter she has a different way she gets people to do what she wants through trickery just kind of what larry does and anyway so and to be fair these angels specifically balthamos

can be testy you know balthamos can be testy that's all i'm saying that's true i relate balthamos and baruch disapprove of will's uh kind of you know going off the beaten path but they're gonna help him find lyra they decide will asks if he will be able to see them better in the daylight and they're like actually we're kind of a lower order so it's harder to see us in daylight will sends them off to find lyra and settles into his father's cloak accidentally taking a very well-deserved nap yes this is the book where will gets to nap which is exciting yeah i mean lyra's already sleeping right maybe lyra doesn't deserve to sleep right now you know some days when i'm like i didn't get

a lot of sleep last night i think lyra did enough sleeping for the both of us that's why she said the world to you i find this interesting that like their luminescence and their visibility is different depending on their ranking. This is a great setup for Metatron coming barreling into the sky soon. He's a very high-ranking angel, as we'll discuss, and his body is, in the Bible, said to be turned and transformed into eternal flame. And it does seem that this is some significant foreshadowing going on here about ah but are angels really that much stronger and better question mark could they be killed question mark i mean we got an answer at the end of this chapter yeah literally yes yes the answer

is yes well will is then awakened from his nap by the ethereal voice of an angel who says that Lyra is nowhere to be found. It's daylight. And also now it's difficult to see the angel amidst the bright sun. And I don't know, I'm a little reminded of, like, the angels in Jesus' tomb being like, I don't know, he's gone now. Goodbye.

Well, no, they were actually very happy about it. Oh! It was an exciting moment for everyone yeah but i didn't think about that like brilliant nope no clue she's gone she's risen but not that she's she's missing she's we don't know where she's not yet we'd let her get taken not yet they searched the entire mountain right like they found no one not a single soul but they did find water and a dead man and an empty vacuous witch whose soul was eaten by a specter so you

know they found some life it's just dead life will identifies the man he's like oh that's sir charles latrum and then he's like hmm mrs Coulter must have killed him I love like last chapter we get all of like these little hints of drawn out plots from Pullman like ah yes Charles Latrum Coulter looted him ah yes Coulter's actually in hiding and isn't evilly

kidnapping Lyra just like sadly kidnapping Lyra in an evil manner but then Will is like ah I deduced all these things in like a paragraph he's so smart yeah absolutely and so he's like all right convenient for me brooke who is balthamus's partner goes to follow mrs coulter's trail because he's like this makes sense we have this uh line of although a brutal beaked carrion crow was tearing at the face of one of them, and Will could see a bigger bird circling above as if choosing the richest feast.

I don't know. Does this feel like symbolism to you, Eliana? Yeah, I think it's foreshadowing for a fourth book in the series called A Feast for Crows. Oh my god. I do love this, though, because it's kind of like it's the metaphor of you guys are staring at the wrong problem right and baruch and balthamos like we said are really really set on getting to asriel when there are some other more immediate concerns right that they need to work through according to will and uh the idea of like he sees one crow tearing at the face of

one of the people and he can see a bigger bird circling above choosing the richest feast so like that bird's not even concerned with the feast that's happening without it and metatron is kind of that bird in this chapter hmm interesting that's that's a great that's a great connection between them. That higher order bird, if you will. The highest order. It's a visible bird, that's for sure. We can see it! Balthamos and Will gaze down at the lake, and Will looks at the bodies. He doesn't recognize the witch, which relieves him, because at least it's not Serafina, Lyra's friend. which relieves him because at least it's not seraphina lyra's friend well it's just cold you know cold ass motherfucker and he calls out to the invisible angel and the angel comes back into view introducing himself officially as balthamos and his absent partner as baruch and of course since

no one can see him will wonders aloud if anyone can hear balthamos and he responds with not if he whispers and they head toward the lake to look for useful items get a drink of water and go from there and as they move will realizes his hand isn't hurting anymore that for the first time in forever because as you'll all remember this was a very very stressful point towards the end of the previous book like he realizes then it must have been the blood moss uh that his father put on his wounds he's like wow the witches couldn't heal me but my father did and the wounds still ache but they seem to be healing and just my my heart yeah i almost kind of forgot about his whole fingers

being off and all that jazz you know and now he's healed he can live a semi-normal life except how do you go back to life after this story anyways right they arrive at the lake and will is too hot to wear his father's cloak anymore even though once he takes it off he's like wow immediately regret that i'm gonna have sunburn he drops his stuff and he like guzzles water from the lake just straight up gets his mouth in there and just chugs and then when he's done he comes back and he like guzzles water from the lake just straight up gets his mouth in there and just chugs and then when he's done he comes back and he's like baldamos are there any specters around should we be worried they don't have anything the specters want though baldamos points out as angel and knife bearer they start to sack through the camouflaged tents which are mostly empty except for the third

tent where Will finds dried meat and a box of matches. Balthamos then points out the tent that the poisoned man is in, and Will goes to sack that too. Sir Charles Latrum, or Lord Boreal, lay dead, his face distorted. Will takes some useful items, thinking his father would have known exactly what to take. He grabs a magnifying glass for fires to save his matches, a reel of twine, a canteen for water, a small tin cup, binoculars, gold coins, coffee, dried fruit, biscuits, Kendall mint cake, and fish hooks in nylon line. He also snags a notebook, pencils a torch again great survival items all mostly defensive where coulter took offensive survival items yeah so you know coming back to that his skill

in what he picks is i think really highlighted because in the previous chapter right mrs culture is all like well shit i'm about to run out of matches nap Naptha. But Will has the good foresight of thinking outside the box. And as opposed to needing to keep a fire completely ongoing, he takes the magnifying glass because he's like, well, this will be able to light fires regardless of if I have matches or not. So I thought that was really cool. I also like that connection of him thinking of how to start fires um and and the matches right even though i i mean his father was all like yeah i know how to light fires not because i'm a wizard but because i fucking use matches

i mean also on that note like there's something even from like a plot narrative that the children are figuring out the sustainable way for survival where the adults are not sustainably surviving or living. Absolutely. And I also think it's interesting that like, you know, what Will is doing here, right, and taking things from Charles Latrim's body, aka Lord Boreal, which we'll talk about in a second, is even though it's not the title of this chapter it ties into the title of the next chapter scavengers he is himself like this carrion bird scavenging the

bodies and speaking of lord boreal's names i'd like that they highlight that he was called charles latrim and will's world but known as lord boreal and lyra's but i like that they use the line specifically is known as right the idea that both ofra's. But I like that they use the line specifically as known as, right? The idea that both of his names were very true, that both were his real identity, regardless of being different words, that Lord Boreal was utterly himself, no matter where he went or what name. Yeah, and Will is learning to embrace that, right? As a person who's walking between worlds with Lyra now

and learning to open worlds and learning to travel between them. And for someone like Boreal, who we learn is able to game the system and game the windows, Will is the absolute foil to him, right? Him actually stealing items off his body feels pretty pointed. These are the things he learned from Boreal, or the things he can take, quite literally take from Boreal's body to get him through his story. But the bad parts of Lord Boreal are what caused Lord Boreal to die. And that's where Lord Boreal is, and he's a thing of the past now. Yep. Indeed, indeed. Whereas, yeah, Lord Boreal, you were talking about sustainability.

Yep. He was stealing things to benefit himself. Yes. Further his own station, and Will is doing it, as you said, for survival. Also contrasted with Marisa Coulter's usage of it for power. Offensiveness. I specifically thought of it when you were talking about her naphtha running out, and it's like, your naphtha's running out and your time's running

out in the story indeed well you know what else is gonna run out Lyra's nap the more on that nap though later anyways

so Will backs it all up he eats a sliver of meat he asks Balthamos if he should get anything else Balthamos responds scathingly with some sense and faculty to enable you to recognize wisdom and Will retorts asking so do you have wisdom and Balthamos is like

more than you I'm Robert your glue he's very mature Balthamos is a sassy bitch. He's a sassy motherfucker. His sarcasm and his dry sense of humor is one of my favorite things in the story. What else should I take? Some sense, Balthamo says.

Amazing. You know, Eliana and I may refer constantly to him in the story as our friend Dylan, because he reminds me of our friend Dylanylan very much that you've also met that is just very dry very like making this very snide comments and if you blink you'll miss them but what was the one earlier there was one earlier that was so fucking funny oh it had me so good where is it hold on i don't know where it is we really aren't even that far how can can I not find it? Anyways, throughout this chapter, they're just peppered throughout.

Balthamos is just real snarky, real funny. Definitely keep an eye out for those if you're rereading this chapter at home, because they get me going. They really do. Will and them go back and forth for a little bit, right? Will asks, are you a man because you kind of sound like a man with that attitude and balthamos is like i was not a man but baruch was

will is trying to comprehend this and understand this balthamos explains people don't necessarily become angels when they die it's very rare. Baruch is actually about 4,000 years old, but Balthamos is much older than that. Wow, age gap. Yeah, it's a big age gap, but I guess after a while, right? After the first thousand years, you kind of even out.

That's my assumption. And they both came from Will's world. baruka especially did he was a human from will's world and will was like i want to understand how you became angels but i was like i don't really understand like why you care about this metaphysical like speculation cutie human he doesn't say that it's kind of the mood and he says that will now has his toys to keep his human mind occupied so they should move on to find will's friend but will has more important things to do and so he sits down to eat three squares of the

mint cake feeling that food will nourish him he looks at the alethiometer and it's 36 icons which still make absolutely no sense to him and he wonders aloud like how did lyra read this to balthamos who was like maybe she made it up most people have to study like years for that crap and will's like no she could like actually read it like she knew how to read the device and she read it truly and i again i'm just like so do they know the prophecy or not like this was a pretty big part of it you know well and even here though they minimize the action right like they minimize well i don't know don't you have to study it for years? Like, she probably made that up, whatever. It's such a fleeting, tiny detail to them. You know, they're like, it's like reading a story about gods. They're these luminescent beings that have lived for far too long. maybe that's the irony of them right like angels are supposed to be and of course they are rebel angels but angels are supposed to in many ways symbolize faith but they're not they're very big

skeptics even of the things that are aligned with what they should believe maybe that's the point yeah i don't know because i'm like, do you not know? Everyone fucking knows. I know. Oh my god. Will remembers the time Lyra told him she has to have a certain state of mind to read the alethiometer. of isahetras or the subtle knife's edges cutting a very small window into the air to gaze down at the landscape of trees and fields in his own world he closes it with his left hand for the very first time and he has a very exciting thought if there were myriads of worlds why did the knife only open windows between this one and his own surely it should cut into any of them i mean i have thoughts on that but yeah the heart wants what it wants will

and the heart if i'm not bad for you then why does my heart tell me that i am will practices what mr paradisi had told him letting his consciousness consciousness join the knife as he cut through the air and the angel asks what he's doing and you know at one point he's like so are you gonna stay here all day and will's like explaining right he's telling him to back up since he can't see him he's's like, so, do you want me to fuck this up and, like, hurt you or not? And the angel, like, probably, as far as he knows, steps backward. This time Will holds the knife out,

feeling for the resistant fabric of the universe. And then he does it. He finds that the worlds, they feel slightly different than the usual worlds. And the ones that he finds at first are a little frail and cloudy. And then he finds ones that are sturdier, more definite same level like literally to walk upon um and opens them like again that desert of rolling dunes and a smoke-laden industrial city with lines of chainsaw and workers trudging

into a factory are you sure that's not your own world will pullman really loves that one right uh no no big spoilers we see it in La Belle Sauvage too and we see it throughout the stories but that whole industrialism ruining the earth Pullman loves to talk about that one in his metaphors there I'm not convinced that's not

a world anyway I mean it is it's his commentary on our world right now and what's happening to it well Will feels dizzy but I mean, it is. It's his commentary on our world right now and what's happening to it. Well, Will feels dizzy, but for the first time, he understands some of the knife's true power. Balthamos interrupts, and Will explains he's starting to understand the logistics of cutting open worlds, and he kind of sees how you could get lost in one forever.

Ooh, a little foreshadowing, eh? Anyway. He definitely thinks that he had gotten lucky between Oxford and Chittagotse, but he tries one more time. This time he's able to open the same place and feel the same resonance as he opens. The ground in

the world he opened is parallel to the ground in this world. He gazes into a grassy meadow with large blue shaggy like bison creatures and he steps through the window he feels with his knife to cut a new window back to his world and he's able to close them and open them he heads back through the window to the lake camp closing the other ones knowing he'll be able to use the knife to hide and go home whenever he wants now dude i love i know we don't i don't think we see them again i love the shaggy

bison with mohawks yes mulefa cousins yeah they're punk rock all right punk rock mulefa love them anyway it's interesting that will is realizing and learning all this about the knife and finding different worlds and how to get back home knowing that he can go home whenever he wants during the same sequence that balthamos is insisting that he and baruch will always know how to find each other wow and it's that innate intuition that he's trusting after learning to wield the knife in a different manner. Yeah. Feeling. Senses. Feeling. Balthamos finally pipes up. He's like, alright, gonna go bother the kid again.

And he's like, hey, travelers are coming. And Will's like, ugh, ugh, car. And he gathers the rucksack and his father's cloak. They head down the trail avoiding the travelers balthamus guiding them yeah the way that he says it he's he's so rude about it too he's just like are you ready now and then i was like i mean i guess i and he's like well you know whatever you do he i'm just gonna read it because we need more balthamus lines all right oh i find whatever you do a source of perpetual

fascination. But never mind me. What are you gonna say to these people who are coming? That's how he explains there are people coming. So rude. So rude. What are they gonna say about your little sword dancing lesson, Will? What are you gonna say to these people coming?

Alright. Well... I do all right i do love i do love uh the sequence though i i think it's so cute the uh just that balthamos is just pestering him like i'm bored what are you doing now i want to annoy you yeah right and medivere will's like so are you there? He's just like, always here. I'm still here. It is, you know, like, in this point, right? If the first chapter is Lyra in pseudo-Eden, this is Will in the wilderness

cast out from Eden, right? His innocence was lost when, you know, his father died right in front of him moments after being reunited. And sad times. They pass Rhododendrons coming down some bare mountains, and after

a while, Will requests that they stop for a water break. But not that kind of water break. Oh my god, Will, you're so close. You're so close, Will. Spiritually. They're right there, the Rhododendrons! The Rhododendrons is a lot longer. You're so close, Will. Spiritually. They're right there, the road to Dendrens. The road to Dendrens is a lot longer. The road to Da Dendrens.

Will fills his canteen, and they make to set off, but Balthamos exclaims and darts off suddenly. He calls for Will to follow, and they come upon a window. It opens up into a flat tundra, and Balthamos says it's the girls' own world where they came through. Balthamos can tell Baruch had gone through to find them. Will is kind of surprised. He's like, how do you know all this? And Balthamos is like, yes, we read each other's minds. Me and you casually.

Yeah, we read each other's minds all the time. Yeah, kind of. And wherever he goes, his heart goes too. And then Balthamo says... We feel as one. That we are two. Yeah, definitely a lot of foreshadowing for the passion, the deep, passionate friendship Will and Lyra have.

Very good friendship. Her special friend, Will. The night is quiet and cold and kind of creepy, so they decide they'll head toward Chibigatse to camp for the night. Will asks if Balthamos can take a different shape, because he's going to need to pass as a demon in Lyra's world. He demands Balthamos show him his power. It's like the funniest line he's written.

It's like, show me your power. Like a little kid asking a Power Ranger to transform or some shit. And Balthamos becomes a tiny black bird at Will's feet. He flies to Will's shoulder and he's like, I shall only do this when it's necessary. It's unspeakably humiliating. I know, it is. He's so, I mean, understandably, I could understand it being pretty humiliating, you know, when you're like an angel.

I get it. But side note. That's an ancient being. Right? Balthavos is the angel whispering in will's ear over one of his shoulders but he's also technically the devil in it too as a rebel angel and i will say you know will request that he take on a blackbird shape and you know we were seeing some of those carrion creatures earlier on and i will say we don't know that it's a raven for sure but i mean ravens are blackbirds

and it reminds me of the demon of another one of lyra's protectors the master of jordan college oh i love that i didn't i didn't even think of that it's a protective raven a blackbird well we get more of that great snarky relationship because balthamos was all like i don't want to do it and will's like well that's too bad you have to so just do it will it's not very kind it's not very kind at all he asks if balthamos has a location on baruch with his weird angel gps and he does baruch is following the woman south and they say they'll go that way in the morning they walk for hours the next day finding nothing but hills and grass ahead there's a darker green that can be seen which looks like a forest with a river nearby when they reach the end of the

forest the sun is low heavy with pollen in the air and they finally see something living a real bird they head toward the stream and make camp and they find a circle of charred stones a fire pit left by someone else will loads it up with wood he cuts the wood with his knife which i feel like kind of uh defeats one of the rules mr paradisi gave him about not using the knife for common purposes but whatever will and then they make dinner i know you would they make dinner oatmeal biscuits dried meat and kendall mint cake balthamo sulks watching will but then he finally reveals he's not sulking because of will it's just because he's waiting for Baruch to come back.

Well, Will offers to share his food, which is very sweet of him. That's a typical Will thing to do. And Balthamos kind of inquires after the candle mint cake. And Balthamos takes one bite to nourish him, and Will watches him nibble quietly, which does make me think of something. I'll bring this up in the discussion, but it's interesting that Balthamos would be tempted

to taste this human food and its sweetness. And it turns out if Will looks at the fire with the angel at the edge of his vision, he kind of sees him better. That's kind of cute i didn't think about that yes so it turns out yes will can see him much better in the smoke in the fire and i think it's kind of interesting that like he looks out of the corner of his eye to see him more clearly kind of like the alethiometer right the way that lyra has to focus on it kind of like the similar way that will opens windows by just using the edge of his vision and it also reminds me of

another story set in this universe in labelle savage which we'll probably talk about that in the discussion yes interesting interesting and reminds me of something also towards the end of this book that we will come to in the discussion but for now will is asking where is baruch and how are they how is he communicating with him and both almost says that he can just feel his presence that he'll be there soon and wing beats come moments later and the angels embrace. And we have this line of Will, gazing into the flames, saw their mutual affection more than

affection. They loved each other with a passion. So, Brooke and Balthamus sit together and Will stokes the fire. He can see them more clearly now in the smoke. Balthamus is slender, wings folded elegantly in a look of haughty disdain, but also tender sympathy. More of that description is,

as if he would love all things if only his nature would let him forget their defects. But he saw no defects in Baruch, that was clear. Baruch seemed younger, as Balthamos had said he was, and was more powerfully built, his wings snow-white and massive. He had a simpler nature. He looked up to Balthamos as to the fount of all knowledge and joy. I just have to add that Eliana before this begged me to be Balthamos in all of the readings so the fact that she just jumped up to read that make your own assumptions about it

make your own assumptions listener no I'm just putting it out there that they should make their own assumptions about Eliana's passion and how she sees no defects in Baruch that was clear I just wanted to be sassy and how she sees no defects in Baruch. That was clear.

I just wanted to be sassy. But you accidentally became the most deepest passionately in love angel. Am I not also that? You know? I'm complex, you know. I have a lot of sides to me. She loves me so much. I am older.

Will asks after Lyra. Baruch reveals that Lyra is captive in a cave in the trees kept by a woman. Safe, but asleep. Dreaming. He makes them a map in the soil, and Will copies it to his notepad. It's a Himalayan valley near a glacier, and the light turns to rainbows near the ice. It showed a glacier with a curious serpentine

shape, flowing down between three almost identical mountain peaks. Serpentine? Beyoncé? It stands out. It stands out. It stands out. It stands out. Could it have anything to do with serpentine? I don't know

the light turning to rainbows does feel interesting right like it's northern lights but in daytime with the rainbows so it makes me wonder if there's a window reflecting there or if the worlds are broken where they're seeing that rainbow it wouldn't be surprising if there was just one like

you know on a mountain why not yeah why not why not it does remind me It wouldn't be surprising if there was just one, like, you know, on a mountain. Why not? Yeah, why not? Why not? It does remind me in some of the extended stories, like La Belle Sauvage, there's certain parts where you can see different worlds from different angles, right? So maybe that's another world over there and we just don't know. Yeah. Somewhere else entirely. yeah somewhere else in tarlet well the second map baruch draws shows the valley the tundra

and mountains allowing will to get a much more precise location it's hard when you don't know gps i wonder if it'll be i guess you won't know gps there either anyway um there's a shrine nearby with a red banner restored by the wind and a young girl brings food to the cave for them baruch explains everyone thinks that the woman there is a saint who will bless them if they care for her again lol they deduce it seems marisa is hiding from the church again real real smart in this chapter they get through all the stuff in the first chapter like snap snap like that good for them good for them i like when people are smart characters well will stirs the powdered coffee into his fire heated water it's a little different it's

actually the exact opposite of a sleeping potion if you think about it and a bird calls in the night suddenly for no reason in will's eye brook and Valtamos freak out the way that Will notices. He thinks of his cat, like, sometimes just turning up and freaking out about something that he can't really see. And they tell Will to put out the fire. He sees nothing, but he does it. Cold strikes his bones, and the clouds begin to glow, which is kind of freaky. I mean, I'm sure if it weren't, like, for them being scared. It's kind of cool.

It sounds like it could be cool. Baruch's murmuring, the chariot? Could it be? And before Will can ask much more, Baruch tells him to take out his knife because something's hurtling out of the sky and into Balthamos and Baruch fights to free him. And then we get this huge action fight scene between

enemy angels and our BFF angels. And it's it's actually pretty cool i don't love most fight scenes this one's fun it's so early on it is it's an action-packed book it's so it's so early on right yeah the action starts really fast this book grips you the entire way through and will gets in on the action himself he tries to cut them a window out of the battle and he holds his electric torch out suddenly to interrupt the fighting he ends up blinding the attacker surprising the attacker and another angel bigger and stronger is being subdued by baruch

that second angel man-shaped calls out and says lord reg Regent, I have them. And he tries to strike into the air, but Will uses the knife then to kill him, reluctantly, remembering Balthamus's words, you have true flesh, we have not. Human beings were stronger than angels, stronger even than great powers like this one. And it was true. He was bearing the angel down to the ground. this one and it was true he was bearing the angel down to the ground i love this uh it's really informational right for all of us reading the book that especially in in the eye of the third act of the novel against metatron i mean humans could survive against these great beings yeah it's some good it's some good uh laying down on ground work. And we discussed the similarities between Jacob fighting the angel during that kerfuffle between Will and his father when it was dark and no one knew what was happening. But now it's actually happening.

There is a sequence of fighting angels. And Will sees the clouds swirling above, like plasma energy flowing through them. It's maybe a little bit like Ghostbusters. I don't know. And Will tries to stop both the angel beneath him that he has subdued, as well as cut them out before whoever he is comes. And a deep tremor comes from the sky, shaking the atoms of the air. It's the Staypuff. And Will watches the clouds part, a figure speeding down.

It really could be the stay puffed man though becoming larger and larger and more imposing both damos and peruk are injured and the angel that they subdue ends up dying dissolving and spreading out like mist you know i loved the addition of this scene it kind of reconfirms and reinforces angels are made of dust, like demons, right? Demons are also made of dust. They have the same deaths there with their dust scattering everywhere. But it also adds this other element again. Heavenly beings are not as different from our own flesh and soul in some aspects.

Absolutely. And I think it was laid out, right? I don't know if it was in this book or the previous one that the angels were created first right and are therefore a little less sophisticated allegedly than humans which is you know feels fun and will passionately declares that he hates killing and when will it stop and interesting but the angels say that they don't have time and that the incoming angel looks terrifying and is raising a spear to kill them this is some night king shit season eight is the last book season eight in this shit this is some seven i'm sorry um fake fan i mean a real fan doesn't care about what happened in the bad show but we got a good show now anyways um will cuts them out of this world just in time closing the

window and feels a shock of air where the spear would have come through one safe both Thomas and Brooke explained that they escaped Metatron who they're hoping to fight against with Asriel and Will asks is he God? and the explanation is no um like no he's the authority

God the creator the lord Yahweh El Adonai the king the father almighty, those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel, like them, made of dust, and matter loves matter, and it sought to know more about itself, and thus dust was formed. I have to say, once more, Philip Pullman outdid himself in this plot. One of my favorite bits of mythos and religious references going on in the story goes hand in hand with Metatron. And the idea that Metatron has faked it till he made it and somehow he's been handed all of this power is so poignant. He is just a pretender, right?

The force of power for the man that is stuck behind the curtain, the real authority. But there's something so interesting in a lot of the mythology of Judaism, for example, on how the story of God creating everything is presented. as a recovering Catholic with God kind of looks like an asshole. Okay. One of the primary rabbinic debates about creation is whether God had assistance or not. So while everyone argues about who made earth, God made earth is like, you know, the big standpoint,

the Christian standpoint is end all be all God did it. A lot of people argue God sent his angels to make earth, right? As you just talked about a minute ago, that angels might have been early models of human or of bodies. But God sent angels to work, which means he still made everything, right? Because he made the angels, blah, blah, blah. Project managing is hard. There are a couple of myths that relate to that i recommend the three craftsmen but basically

god creates the world and when he does everything consists of water from water he develops the world using the three craftsmen heaven earth and water water produces earth earth produces creations heavens makes a separation between the upper and lower waters sounds classist but okay god he then joins the three craftsmen to create man because they could not do it alone now this myth is kind of funny because this implies god actually only was responsible for 25 percent of people right souls which are i mean pretty important especially in his dark materials terms we know the soul feels kind of significant but one fourth you know in that myth god only put one fourth of the work forward like a really shitty team project no i mean he was project managing it that's really hard

i i stand by was he managing it though it sounds like here we have metatron well metatron comes later right first there's like this this first angel right the first angel was all like i'm gonna give myself cool names and later on he's like i'm gonna make a hire well so the authority had told those that came after him that he created them a lie and one of the angels who came later was wiser than him, found out the truth, and he banished her. And Brooke and Balthamus now follow her. But the authority reigns in the kingdom with Metatron as his regent. Oh, that's Zephania, right?

Is who we're talking about there? Yeah, yeah. I didn't ever get that the first read through. Wow. Yeah, she's's important she's a big deal big moves starting her own you know branching off starting her own business um well they explain a few phrases that he keeps hearing said for example the clouded mountain sometimes called the chariot which moves from place to place and it's the heart of the kingdom wherever he goes his citadel and his palace go to the authority dwells within the heart of the mountain and has delegated most of his power to metatron i have to appreciate this because

when i reread this chapter all i could think about was you talking about your movable garden so i hope you feel good about yourself, that you were in my head. Always together, always know with the other. We are one, the two. Oh my god. Now is not the time to declare your passion for me in front of everyone, Eliana. Earlier was that time. My bad, I missed my chance.

Learn boundaries. The Metamorphosis and Enhronement of enoch uh is one of my favorite enthronement myths in religious texts so let's talk about enoch and metatron and enthronement enoch and metatron and the myths surrounding them are not dissimilar to other stories like jacob moses king david or even adam but metatron's is probably the most epic proportion and the most metal, as we've talked about. In the Old Testament in Christianity, the prophet Elijah and the patriarch Enoch are bodily assumed into heaven on their chariot of fire, alive, some of the few living people to see heaven.

The text of the book of Genesis says Eoch lived 365 years before he was taken by god and it reads he walked with god and he was no more for god took him in the early jewish kabbalah metatron is the name enoch receives after his transformation into an angel when god saw his righteous ways he called upon anaphil to bring him to heaven. Instantly, Enoch found himself in his fiery chariot, drawn by fiery horses, ascending on high. When the chariot arrived, the angels caught the scent of a living human, and they were ready to cast him out, to cast him down, because living was not permitted here. But God explains he brought him here to rule in his name. God then put his hand on enoch blessed him and

the metamorphosis began his flesh turning to flame bones to fiery coals hair to fire and flame body to smolder it is said god gave him 365 eyes each one a sun in itself no luminary shown brighter than Enoch. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Oh, no. That doesn't sound cool. I feel like I don't know that I wanted this. I didn't want this. Well, that's the thing is like thinking of all this. Of course, Metatron got too much power.

You know, like, of course. Oh, my God. God is giving him the works. Like he made him a throne similar to his throne of glory. He made him a majestic robe, gave him curtains of splendor. He even gives him a fucking crown. Like God really hooked it up. He was like, we're just going to give you the whole package.

He gives him 365 eyes. Yeah. Why did he need that many eyes? Where are you going to put the crown when you have that many eyes? That's true. He then, he sends out a message. God sends out this message, right? He sends out a big DM to the entire universe.

And he's like, hey, this is my main guy, Metatron. Listen to him. He knows what he's about. He speaks with my voice. So God is like, second in command powers, have fun. Your job, only job, Metatron, is record the histories above and below. How Pullman translates Metatron into this story is fascinating. And again, not to toot his horn too much, but good job, bravo, Phil.

If God gave most of his power to someone, set them up with their own throne crown chariot palace everything that's a lot of trust for a man that was transformed into an angel and metatron in this story is obviously hunger for that is obviously hungry for that power and control i can't just give a man like four rapidash see what happens anyways now you won't see a pokemon master this is the giovanni story oh my god oh i'm gonna sleep with the fishes he does i think actually have a ravindash doesn't he and his team i could be wrong i think so have a ravidash doesn't he and his team i could be wrong i think so anyway yeah that's uh that's horrifying i guess i mean that you know pretty cool you're given like all this power right you're

given 365 eyes each one a sun you know maybe once you get that much power you don't even care what like normal looks like you're just like this is it dude that's that's what happens in this story well both almost starts to take his frustration out on will for them being seen and especially for being seen with the knife by metatron but how are you how are you gonna hide yourself all right that man has 300 not man sorry he has 365 eyes you you didn't stand a chance and brook gently talks him down because it's obvious that they're withholding some sort of He has 365 eyes. You didn't stand a chance. And Baruch gently talks him down because it's obvious that they're withholding some sort of secret

from Will. And Will's like, alright, um, left field, wild card, what happens when we die? That's his question instead. And Baruch tells him, a world of the dead exists and no one knows what happens there

his ghost was saved by Balthamos from that fate and vice versa it is interesting though because Baruch is kind of in that way it's a foil to Metatron in that he was also a man turned into an angel but Baruch's like

fun you know and good and overarchingly good has two eyes i was thinking the opposite right i was actually thinking in a way that baruch is to will as balthamos is to lyra oh interesting look at that especially balthamos is snark and vulnerability right and like that Balthamos has to remind himself like, all right, I need to back down later from being mean to Will, which is a lot of what Lyra is doing right in the last book in this book of trying to, you know, help be a team member with Will. of the rational one will does tend to be a little more rational when he hasn't you know lost his only family member that he didn't you know know that he could have a relationship with lost his best friend yeah a lot of things a lot of things go on and he's pretty rational otherwise in my opinion he's very like he calms lyra down he's like all right don't put eggshells in the omelet first of all yeah yeah well before then in the in the land the land of the world of the dead

balthamas is like oh it's a prison camp basically established by the authority in the early ages and i'm just like damn the angels just do not care they're like we got our mission we have our thing we want to take care of and like i don't know who gives a shit about the land of the dead i escaped it i am glad that obviously you can tell by the end of the chapter baruch was like hey balthamos remember you're kind of being an asshole to this kid yeah he's not 4 000 years old like i am you know so you should probably shape up a little bit uh i think that's important that here obviously they're being a little bit insensitive but baruch's love and kindness reminds both almost to stop being such a dick all the time and to be kind which is very nice it's kind of funny you

know even though they are much older right live for a long time live much longer than witches right i mean we're told when rudisconti meets them they seem like so much more i don't know aloof right and and very regal and beyond anything rudisconti can comprehend yet the witches are much more also at the same time like stoic whereas you know i guess once you reach a certain age maybe after you reach like a thousand years you stop being stoic and you're just like, I don't know, fuck it. Yeah. Fuck them.

And you know how like, I don't know, you know how cats are? How they like, when a cat is like standing very still and very elegantly, very stoic like that, like, and they can like do that for hours. stoic like that like and they can like do that for hours they can just sit in one place for hours not move and just close their eyes and put their ears back and be and exist and that is exactly how those angels are they're like i could stay right here on my perch for three days straight and then fly somewhere else pretty much actually though yeah the angels are like oh so why do you want to know about death kid and will's like oh my dad just died and you know he would have told me about everything but he was killed in front of me it's pretty fun baruch is like well it's impossible to say what happens there even the churches don't know they just tell their believers they go to heaven but it's a lie and if people knew

and he trails off and will's like oh so that's where my dad's ghost is and they're like yeah along with the other millions who died before him and it is such like a baruch it's impossible to know what happens there balthamos horrible torture slavery prison but they're like probably they don't actually know no one really knows i mean they're like i'm not trying to find out why would i go there yeah uh well finally will asks why they didn't take whatever this huge secret is that they won't tell him to asriel straight away instead of looking for him bal Balthamos is like, well, we weren't sure that Azrael would believe us because we're two low-ranking angels, remember, without proof of our intentions, and thus your knife

and you were very important to bring along. Will is like, that's kind of a feeble excuse, because if it's that important of a secret to, like, save people and stuff i mean i would have just taken it there and they're like well we also knew metatron would be chasing us and we wanted to protect the knife from metatron if only you would have let us take you to asriel first i don't know i think will has a point he's like if it's not gonna be secret then yeah yeah spit it out yep i see him i i stand with will on that i will say though and they are pointing out that will is being pursued right because of the knife and because

of who he is right as a knife bearer and of course we know that lyra is also being pursued by another another part of the religious forces the magisterium so both of them are being pursued by these different religious forces and it reminds me a little of them are being pursued by these different religious forces and it reminds me a little of right uh the way jesus and the pharisees were but also especially jesus as a baby and king harry being like what if we send people to kill him that's fun right yeah i i definitely was thinking something similar with the Lyra stuff, but Will as well. That's a really good call out that he's also being pursued as part of that chosen one mythology mythos. Will is adamant about getting to Lyra and he's like, she is the most important thing at stake.

And you guys are forgetting her completely. Exactly. I agree. Will starts to get real mad now. I get this. This is young love. Will starts to get real frustrated, real mad because he loves Lyra and he's like, just leave me here and go to Asriel on your own while I look for Lyra. And

Balthamus is like, you need a demon in Lyra's world. You can't go without me. And Will is so mad he has to walk away. He stomps away and then it's hot so he's like fine i'll just walk back and it's humid and so he walks back and the two angels then humbly and awkwardly apologize again baruch had a little chat i think during this time with balthamos baruch says he'll give asriel the information and request his aid for them in finding lyra balthamos will

stay with will to protect him and assist him will thanks him and they embrace baruch kisses both of will's cheeks awe and will asks how will you find us if we keep going to look for lyra baruch says he shall never lose balthamos and soars into the stars also like soon after there's like the moment right where and it just kills me it kills me as Will looks over at Balthamos who is staring

off into where like Baruch has flown off and is just it is described as looking at it longingly and it oh at the stars just looking up into the stars? Yep. Longingly? Yep. To where Baruch is. Baruch, eh? Anyway, um...

So Will and Balthamos make camp, and Balthamos apologizes for being short with him. Right, and I mean, I love that. So great. And he's noting that Will has the greatest burden. I will say, I don't know. He's just like, Will, I mean, I love that. So great. And he's noting that Will has the greatest burden. I will say, I don't know. He's just like, Will, I have been short with you.

And it was wrong of me. You have the greatest burden and I should help you, not chide you. I shall try to be kinder from now on. And Will lays in the sand, you know, when Balthamus takes the first watch. But kinda is like, you know what it is.

Now he gets to sleep. Again, this is about Will sleeping now. And we do return to Lyra and Roger, who, uh, Lyra is sleeping and Roger is in the great sleep. Get us out of here, Roger. I promise. And Will's coming. I'm sure he is. He didn't understand. He spread his pale hands and shook his head.

I don't know who that is. And he won't come here. And if he does, he won't know me. He's coming to me. And me and Will, oh, I don't know how, Roger, but I swear we'll help. And don't forget, there's others on our side there's seraphina and there's yorick and i don't remember does she i don't know how she knows because like when this continues in a second which we'll get to she doesn't see mr scoresby also hmm maybe roger has told her maybe i mean like maybe she can sense it because she's there kind of in that world i don't know but like a pokedex of dead people it does seem like an oversight briefly but anyways roger being like i don't know who that is regarding will she's just like yeah well that's because you're dead. Yeah. Yeah. He's also, I don't know. I guess he knows who Seraphina and Yorick are, but I love the parallels of Will being

so sure that he will find Lyra wherever she is. And he's like, we're going to find her. All right. It's the same as Lyra's being so sure that Will will find her no matter where she is. Same thing. Even though they are in different worlds at this time and it's a as you're talking about right it's very similar to the connection that baruch and balthamos have that resolve of no matter what's in the way or where they are what world they're in

a baruch and balthamos will find each other and of course will staring at balthamos and baruch's like embrace and seeing like okay this is what being in love looks like. Because he's never really seen people in love before, any lovers in this way. And though he's scarred from his father's death, I will say, you know, at least like this is his first, I think, real encounter of, okay, so this is what love, romantic love looks like. this is what love, romantic love looks like. Unlike Lyra's, which is, you know, seeing two lovers embraced. She's like, okay, those are my parents. And one of them just killed my best friend.

And the other was basically just trying to kill a lot of other kids. So, well, it's got it like, okay-ish right now. And I would also push back and say, like, how he experiences his father dying and how the witch does say, and for as much as we've complained about it in the past, and also for as much as we've lauded how the TV show fixed all of it. When the witch murders his father in front of him and he's just like, why did you do that, you dumb bitch? Why would you just kill my dad? Yeah, he's like, why the fuck would you just say my dad yeah he's like why the fuck would you just kill my dad in front of me bro it's not okay uh but she says like you would never understand and will is slowly having this love that is worth killing for question mark yeah but not killing the person you love question mark

but okay well i can't help explain that that's just part of poland's issues okay well i mean i think that will wouldn't do it that's the path the parallel the parallel to that the witch doing that and and that sort of corrupted even though i I wouldn't call that love, but that corrupted possessiveness around love, the parallel is what Mrs. Coulter is doing to Lyra. Exactly. Also, it's the idea that if you can't be with me, you can't be with anyone, which is a very negative and like, it's a very narrow minded idea, idea obviously and does not show healthy relationships does not show a healthy progression of an adult relationship we see baruch and balthamos yeah aged gods here that are in love and respectful even though they're different and they find like big differences in attitudes right balthamos is a little crankier than baruch they work around that together and

they complement each other well where i think that the witch murdering his father is a very like a wow what i learned not to do in love 101 i know right and that's also like i don't even know that they you know you're saying examples of unhealthy relationships i don't know that they had none you know i think that witch just like slid into his dms once and was like, I love you. And he's like, I don't know you. I hope. I sure hope. Well, I prefer to subscribe to the TV adaptation version because it just fixed it all. Yeah.

It was way better. Made more sense. I do love this world of the dead being used as a device, especially with the introduction of Metatron and, of course, the lines about the prison being what's happening to the dead. Ending that chapter with this subconscious kind of place that Lyra and Roger are communicating, it ties in really nicely with Metatron and the layers of the heavens, especially after learning the world of the dead is a prison. The second book of Enoch, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, explains multiple heavens and battles between angels and devils in heaven.

So the first layer of heaven is just above the firmament where angels control atmospheric phenomena like weather, which we know Philip Pullman loves to play with. The second layer, Enoch finds darkness, a prison where rebel angels specifically are tortured. Three, paradise and hell, with a garden of Eden guarded by angels and men being tortured as well. The fourth layer is the place where movements of the sun and moon happen, with a heavenly choir of soldier angels singing as well. The fifth layer of heaven is Grigori, the soldiers of Satan that look like humans but were giants, fifth layer of heaven is gregory the soldiers of satan that look like humans but were giants almost like the nephilim not yet condemned in a state of limbo enoch convinces them to repent the sixth layer of heaven are angels in charge of governing the cosmos and people the archangels who measure life in heaven earth and who are appointed over seasons and years and the fruits of the earth.

These angels write all the souls of men and their deeds. The eighth layer of heaven is below the upper firmament. Muzzaloth lives here, the changer and mover of constellations. And the ninth layer of heaven is the upper firmament itself, where constellations and seasons are fixed. And finally, the tenth level is where God's throne resides and can be seen up close. I think these layers from the second book of Enoch are so important and that Pullman had to have been taking from a couple of these layers, especially with the prison where the people are in the underworld now versus the layers of paradise and hell and torturing outside of the garden of eden as well as the prison where the rebel angels are tortured yeah i love this i love this description

and how you talk about the different layers and while i i haven't read that the last book of the divine comedy or like the last part um but i, even though this isn't, like, I guess exactly to some extent what we see, right? It's reminiscent of the different circles and layers, and Pullman is inspired by the Inferno. So, the Divine Comedy in general, but probably. But, anyway. Yeah, you can kind of see how this becomes a with all these layers how it becomes a mountain after a while oh my god well let's close out this episode with chapter three in the mountains scavengers this chapter opens with the knight's bones are dust and his good sword rust his soul is with the saints i trust s t

coleridge yeah it's sad because it's about lee and he is a knight he is and you know his good sword soul is with i mean we'll talk about that at some point um he's one of the millions that died before will's dad so yep yep so that's where his soul is right now i mean roger's a saint yeah seraphina flies through the arctic skies weeping with rage and mrs coulter and fear of what is happening to her land but also remorse which she would face later and i know the reveal comes quick like literally on the next page but i do like the way that remorse is for this moment a question uh before it is revealed and all all in all i again love the way the third book opens and how it's showing us all of the players across the wards now uh where they are what they're doing to get ready and in position as we you know get ready for that fight the battle

or whatever i do have to appreciate that she pushes her remorse aside because she knows she has a duty to lee right now right she can be sad and she can feel regretful later but right now she has a duty and she flies north over the melting ice caps until she reaches kang yorick burnison's realm. She hardly recognizes his island. The mountains are bare, black, and the sun is out, with barely any snow on the ground. Nature had been overturned. She finds the Bear King swimming after a walrus.

Yeah, so go get that hazelnut cream. You deserve it, Yorick. Sounds good. Sounds delish. There's this passage. It was harder for bears to kill in the water. When the land was covered in ice and the great sea mammals had to come up to breathe, the bears had the advantage of camouflage and their prey was out of its element.

That was how things should be. Yeah, this is happening in real life. Thanks, Asriel. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a little jarring. I'm just like shit well once york is finished hunting seraphina flies down laying her weapons

down and requesting to speak with him because this is this is the thing that she feels remorseful about yeah uh she's very much so tiptoeing carefully about it right big respect for her because if i'm eating and you fly in with your arrow raised i'm flipping my shit too you know i mean that's only respectful but there is something really interesting here in that he even says he's like seraphina why are you acting so formal we've never fought you know why why are you being all like peaceful with me like this what i don't know i think war times are tough you can't trust everyone and she's also being overly cautious because you know she's

about to tell him his bff is dead and that like she could have probably saved his best friend that's dead but there's also just this certain amount of respect whether for him as a king or just for who he is and how his people are and how they live and what's being taken away from them as she flies over and sees you know oh wow asriel fucked this up real good i think it's a little of all these columns she's obviously so stricken with grief at seeing their home melted as well as stricken with grief for her boyfriend league Leek, dying. Yeah, and I mean, also, of course, she sees it in some ways, I would say, a parallel of her own homelands being

you know, destroyed as well. There's a lot going on, right? Oh, that's happening to them too. Bullshit. And yeah, she just feels so bad that she's like, oh man, I really let this guy's best friend die. And she's just hoping he's not going to be as mad at her as she is with herself, right?

That's why she says that she's wretched with remorse at some point later on. And I do like, as you pointed out, I don't understand what's going on. Like, we've never had any beef. Like, I don't think we do. Like, we're cool. Do we? Do we? We're cool, Pac do we we're cool we're cool cool cool is the other side of this iced rock wait never mind it's melting yeah uh i i think there's also a certain

amount of parallel right to will having just lost his father and losing lyra and having to carry on even though these very big moral factors of his journey, right? Like his whole journey was centered around finding his dad, basically, before. And now that guidepost and Lyra, who's the other anchor in his journey, are both gone. And for Seraphina, obviously, it's been a while since her mother passed away

and since she had to take that ownership of her tribe of witches, her coven. But it hasn't gotten any easier. Now she's lost a friend slash lover slash boyfriend question mark. Moving on, glossing past that. She's lost a friend in arms. Lee Scoresby, right? And now she has to think of the best way to move on without these anchors to guide her. And that's kind of that's happening happening to yorick too right you're drawing these parallels and he has to find his best friend he's just been reunited with this really good friend after many

years and you know you were talking about seraphine having to take up the mantle of her mother's position and that's what yorork has had to do right he's finally been able to regain his position and now he's like shit i have a lot of responsibility and also our home is melting and this is just coming off of what a quite a while you know maybe years of alcoholism and depression as he couldn't figure out who he was and was semi-enslaved you know so now his best friend's dead um there's also that idea of waking up from like for yorick especially waking up from that fog of oppression right that people kept his armor from him to enslave him basically and keep him working for them and using his power for what they wanted and their bidding and uh i think there's a big

overarching feeling in the book of that right that this fog has lifted uh off the people and they are gonna rise up all these people from different places you know the bears the witches absolutely absolutely well yorick remains very still as seraphina explains and she does tell him that there's a saxophage blossom that she gave lee to summon her with but she unfortunately arrived too late as he died fighting with the muscovites and again she says she's wretched with remorse and then he's like i i don't understand i didn't read book two and so seraphina tells him everything about stanislaus grumman the barrier between the world and then the global climate change and asriel and then the angels and ruta scotty and and preserving lee's body from corruption that didn't happen in book two so you know now she's catching up and it will last

until york sees him if he wishes to say goodbye to lee york asks after lyra and seraphina had left her with her sisters in the same world as lee which you know it kind of sounds risky and she explains that york can get to that world from here and he plans to go to lee and then south he's chartered a ship for his people to to go with him and i'm like well i like i like the idea of the bear chartering a ship that's fun so we're better with food i don't know it's kind of cute except for the part where their home's like terrible but he's destroyed he destroyed but the bear being like all right we're gonna take a ship everyone anyway i do feel like there's feel like there's a slight threat here

kinda from Yorick when he asks after Lyra. He's like, alright, so I guess you let my best friend die, but what about my adopted daughter? Haha, and then we're over here like, so about that. She left her with her sisters. Uh, okay.

I'm sure it's fine. It's fine. Things are fine. What's the worst that could happen? Serafina says that her next move is to find the Egyptians and that they'll be needed. Yorick wishes her well and paddles off to the New World. Meanwhile, they're being spied on

by three foxes of the Arctic, scavengers known for eavesdropping very poorly and playing arctic telephone it's actually kind of funny in the passage it's so funny except for the part where it's really dark in a second like when they die and get eaten but they are really bad at it it straight up reminds me of like some jim henson style dark crystal kind of like yeah muppetry you know and the cliff ghasts are just as bad because they always believe the arctic foxes no matter what they never learn so the bears and witches are

used to having their conversations scavenged and we'll come right back to them in a few but first we have some other stuff to do yorick is stepping into a burnt down forest so of course the forest where lee died to find his friend he had swam across into this new world he could even taste the change in the water and temperature when he was swimming he comes upon a slope of boulders and scrap metal from a machine and drags his claw on a less damaged piece of metal he thinks it's flimsy and turns away, scanning the mountain. He finds a narrow gully and heads that way, stepping on and snapping dry bones from previously dead men as he goes. The boulder was pitted and chipped with bullet marks. Everything the witch had told him was true, and in confirmation, a little arctic flower, a purple saxifrage,

in confirmation, a little arctic flower, a purple saxifrage, blossomed improbably where the witch had planted it, as a signal in a cranny of the rock. Yorick Burnison moved around to the upper side. It was a good shelter from an enemy below, but not good enough, for among the hall of bullets that had chipped fragments off the rock had been a few that had found their targets and lay where they had come to rest, in the body of the man lying stiff in the shadow. He was a body still, not a skeleton, because the witch had laid a spell to preserve him from corruption. Yorick could see the face of his old comrade drawn and tight with the pain of his wounds, and see the jagged holes in his garments where the bullets had entered. The witch's spell didn't cover the blood that must have spilled. Insects in the sun and wind

had dispersed it completely. Lee Scoresby looked not asleep, nor at peace. He looked as if he had died in battle, but he looked as if he knew that his fight had been successful. Hurtful. Hurtful.

It's very painful and beautiful it is the purple flower the the saxifrage right the arctic saxifrage nonetheless like arctic bears at the sight of lee's body reminds me a little of you know when greek gods and goddesses would like turn their favorite humans or lovers into flowers or not lovers sometimes they were reluctant. Anyway, into flowers to remember them as a way to sort of preserve them through memory. That's very interesting that they're memorializing him almost as a god amongst them for his sacrifices in battle. An honorary god, right? Because you have the witch and the bear and their supernatural powers, and you had

Lee Scoresby with his cowboy hat and his Winchester, you know, that held the line, like York says. It was a good shelter from above, but not below. Yes, and Hester, who held out, too. And I do, you know, we went through a lot of different symbolism of the purple

saxifrage in the very last Subtle Knife episode. Please go check that out if you want more. But I do love that he's memorialized as a god among men. Yeah, and he's memorialized in other ways too, right? Because Yorick is about to ritualistically eat his best friend, feasting on his blood and flesh. And he's thinking very complex thoughts as he eats. He thinks of Lyra, of the witches and alliances and pacts and war, and the new world itself,

and that everyone's fate hinges on Lyra's herself. Well, thank God. You know, thankfully Yorick fucking gets it. Right? Because no one else does. Anyway, but this moment of memorialization, it is very ritualistic. And I really find this to be a beautiful scene that when Yorick sees the body, right? He thinks of it as Lee's final gift.

And the thoughts that Yorick has as he's devouring his friend, it kind of makes it feel like a meditation, like something like a prayer, right? And that's what adds to making it feel like a ritual. And we saw this really deep expression of love with Balthamos and Baruch, who were, you know, they were so sure that they were going to find each other again, you know, no matter what world each other was in. Baruch, who transformed into an angel to be with the one that he loved 4,000 years ago, changing into something different, a different form. And Lee is here, right, with his beloved best friend, Yorick. And Yorick is so sure that no matter the world he's going to find his friend again right he has crossed worlds in order to find lee and at the end yes he eats him and the description of his

hunger almost muddies it for a second makes you think well is it really his gift or not but when you think of what york has just gone through in order to finally he's left his people for a moment just to go on this pilgrimage to find this man who has died for this mission who has given up his safety, risked his life for him many times and who helped to bring him out

of his depression and alcoholism and Yorick hasn't stopped to eat right? This is a long assorick hasn't stopped to eat, right? This is a long-ass journey. He hasn't stopped to eat until he has found Li, which kind of makes it in a way, it's almost a fast heading towards it too. And also because it would be rude, right, for him to delay, knowing that his friend's body is waiting for him at the end. So he goes there in haste, his friend's body is waiting for him at the end.

So he goes there in haste. And then at the end, he does become one with Lee. It's this sort of communion. And also, it reminds me a little of the way that the Foray people in Papua New Guinea practiced cannibalism, right? But it's not exactly like that, because it's technically not cannibalism, because Yorick's a bear and Lee's a human they're different species um yeah i i know this right he's a panther bjorn and but it does he's basically a human okay aliana even though they say he's not and so i'm like i don't know is he is he not i don't know it's it's real confusing for me sometimes i'm like it's

maybe you're a bear i could be um if you're a bear i'm a bear well it does go to show though i mean like so it's technically not cannibalism but even even if it wouldn't be again he we perceive york as human right and the way that the four people see cannibalism like you consume your ones, there's a part of their spirit and maybe their abilities, right, that will become part of you. And there's also an aspect of cleansing associated with it as well. And I think what's happening here with York and Lee, it is really beautiful the way that York is approaching this and gives you a little bit of beer culture, you know, panzerbieren culture, that the spirit and the soul of your loved one become part of you when you consume them and and we'll come back to this a little bit more in the discussion but yeah as york consumes his friends something else becomes part of york as well right not only is lee being transformed into being york york is taking on part of lee's journey and also this new mantle right vengeance yeah he's angry at the people who killed him right the magisterium the authority for bringing their oppression and power down upon his friend who died pretty selflessly right protecting people

giving someone a chance so that they could go ahead and help make the world better and it does of course go i mean to say like we know lee is one of the previous million people that died yeah which means he is in this prison camp which means that so obviously yorick you know wanted to respect his friend's soul and body. And in his mind, Lee couldn't be free until he ate his body. You know, like Lee couldn't be able to go on to his afterlife in that way, it seems. That's part of it, too. And so Yorick, you know, made his way there to free him. But he's not free. And that's obviously a big strand that needs to be closed in the story.

And that's part of the vengeance, right? If he takes part in this, not intergalactic, interdimensional war. There we go. That's actually technically correct. Interdimensional war. And does his part, it gives his friend a chance. Yeah. Well, then Jorg thinks of the melting ice and his hungry panther bjorn having to leave

their home and there's a line that reminds us that ice was their home ice was their citadel we had a huge emphasis on metatron citadel right that follows him everywhere in the last chapter and i'm really reminded that the authority and asriel and metatron they they have this power and these citadels that they can rise and move and construct out of nowhere and it only comes at the cost of other people right asriel causing the bears and others to become displaced from climate change it of course has the very obvious parallels to these companies and corporations that are buying up all the natural resources and forcing people to subscribe to those

assets or live a lesser more difficult life i just felt that the usage of citadel here much like you know a city in an ancient greek town or ancient sparta which had a citadel it just feels so emphasized especially in the wake of asriel's citadel rising interesting yeah ice is the bear's citadel it is it is and i mean they have to find a new one right as as it disappears and it sucks like that they decided all right well not only can we sacrifice this little boy's life, I guess we'll just sacrifice the entire lives and ecosystems and that's gonna have, that has ramifications you know

absolutely, ones we'll never know about I'm just kidding, we might, maybe in the books of dust, yeah we might well Yorick plans to explore the mountains that Lee Scoresby had once told him of that were so high his balloon couldn't even fly over them to see if there might be a place for the panther we were to live. And in some ways that is, again, continuing the journey his friend left off with the places that Lee could not go to explore.

And is also, I mean, it's interesting, right? It's an idea. It's another gift that Lee has given him, the idea of where can his people go. right it's an idea it's another gift that lee has given him the idea of where can his people go and so he finishes up the flesh and bone of his friend and he's suddenly struck again with that anger and vengeance feeling restless the sun is setting on him as he finishes the parts that he will consume of lee and he lifts seraphina's flower and drops it in the center of lee's remains as humans would do at a grave so that seraphina's spell is broken and the rest is free now to be eaten by the other

scavengers returning Lee's body to the earth. And speaking of the scavengers, let's go back to those foxes who are about to be eaten by a cliff gas. But first, first that fox is babbling. It's like this weird, like, twisted Muppet scene, you know? Everyone's laughing. They're all laughing.

The cliff gas are laughing. Totally Henson. The foxeses are laughing they're all giggling you know the foxes get eaten and they're no longer laughing right it's so it's so it's so weird it's so love it so the fox exclaims bear must go south which is troubled true swear promise and the cliff gas doesn't believe his lying ass and he's like no and then he's like scores me dead dead king bear goes south and then the cliff gas is like and he takes his head off and he eats him good gossip though it is quite the ending scene to be honest and. And it really, I think, is meant to contrast, right, what we see between, in that scene with Yorick and Lee's body. You know, the cliff gas and the foxes can clearly communicate with one another, which gives them, I think, a sense of that humanity as well, and evokes that idea that we were talking about of cannibalism, and the repulsion that usually goes with it,

even though, again, it's technically not cannibalism because they're different species um but the irreverence with which the cliff gas just like sort of they just tear the foxes apart live and then eat them it really contrasts with the solemnity and the meditation that york had when he was consumingly to show that it was this gesture of love and very civilized and you know more than that it's almost like eating knowledge right like tree of knowledge style like the foxes are being eaten by the cliff gas which again this is another little ecosystem like you just spoke about all the ecosystems that are being destroyed and the ramifications that come from that but this is one of the working ecosystems that has risen up in the face of that being destroyed over many many years that this is the way they found their lives work the cliff guests learn stupid information from the foxes

and then eat them ah well we'd love to consume knowledge but that's not the end of the chapter because of course we have our roger and lyra hour going on because they're asleep well one of them's asleep the other one's the great sleep jesus

lyra begins in after having been cut off they will come they will but where are you lyra Lyra begins in, after having been cut off. They will come. They will. But where are you, Lyra? And that she couldn't answer. I think I'm dreaming, Roger, was all she could find to say. Behind the little boy, she could see more ghosts.

Dozens. Hundreds. Their heads crowded together, peering close, listening to every word. And that woman? I hope she ain't dead i hope she stays alive as long as ever she can because if she comes down here there'll be nowhere to hide she'll have us forever then that's the only good thing I can see about being dead that she ain't. Except I know she will be one day. Lyra was alarmed. I think I'm dreaming and I don't know where she is. She's somewhere

near and I can't... She is indeed near. Much closer than you expect, guys. Maybe as close as you would expect to be honest well i will say okay this is my opinion i think that this is kind of unfair of roger all right yes all right like yes he should be afraid of mrs coulter she is terrifying and she is the one who like initially kidnapped him and i think that the show trafficked him yeah trafficked him all those things the show kind of shows a little bit more of like how that might be much more terrifying for roger on like a longer scale but i'm just like i don't know why is he only afraid of mrs coulter all right he should be afraid of lord asriel too

not just that woman all right because yeah she's she's terrifying but the guy asriel like killed you yeah he's the one who actually went through with like tricking you and then kidnapping you again and then yeah separating you from your demon which is like horrible like like that's like the worst thing you could do to a person and i'm like yeah mrs coulter has done terrible things on a much larger scale but not to you personally roger you should be more afraid of Lord Asriel. You should be afraid of more people. that like he doesn't actually know kind of 100 how he died if that makes sense like he just knows that then he was gone and like obviously the logical thought is lord asriel got you to sit in a cage and put your demon on the other side and there's a blade between you like that's obviously very logical we know what that means but then i know Pullman doesn't really care about this conversation, but it does make me wonder,

like, you know, how like trauma, you know, maybe he died and his consciousness was severed and maybe he blocked out the trauma. Maybe. I mean,

he knows, right? Because like he and Lyra were just careening down that hill and he knows that he was his demon pan. They were all trying to fight, fight Selmaria and be like, let me go. And so he would have recognized Asriel's soul as the soul was killing him. But I think a part of it is like on a narrative level, it's playing up Mrs. Coulter, right?

She's in many ways besides the two kids, the star of this story. she's she's in many ways besides the two kids the star of this story yeah and you know preparing us for the way that her character will develop it is developing now yeah there are big developments happening big changes and as we got through the rest of the story you are going to see and hear a lot of them but for now if you have not finished the amber spyglass we are so sorry about what we have given you this these these chapters you need to log off you need to go uh take a nice nice long nap have some hot cocoa some chocolato sorry uh feel good about yourself and uh forget all about the sadness you encountered today but if you have read the amber spyglass and if you're interested in the outer works of philip pullman like the companion

trilogy the books of dust la belle sauvage the secret commonwealth or the novellas the outer works of the novellas feel free to stay tuned listen in as we talk about our discussion where we talk about spoilery kind of topics existing past and beyond the amber spyglass yes some even before long before the amber spyglass with uh labelle savage but we've given you enough time i think now you now. You haven't turned it off. If you haven't tuned out now, this is it. You're going to hear the spoilers. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Not that we've done a good job. This is a very heavy... Yeah, right? This is a heavy introduction to the story, these first three chapters. I don't remember them being so action-packed. This reread, I'm like, wow, lots happening. But there is definitely a lot that translates over into some of these other stories right uh will looking at the fire with the angel on the very edge of his

vision being able to see him better that stood out to me so much and it reminded me of a couple things it reminded me of malcolm's light that he sees coming out of his eyes and labelle sauvage that oscillating migraine aura that he gets with no migraine in a way, and how sometimes if he just squints right, he can see it coming out of him. And not just that, but also when Will is kind of using the knife for that extended period of time, and he feels very dizzy while he's using it, and while he focuses on separating his body and mind while using it that reminds me of malcolm's light as well and also reminds me of the new

method of a lethiometer reading that gets introduced in the secret commonwealth for lyra and how it makes you feel that's interesting and that there's a lot of power in that yeah it does feel like foreshadowing too in learning these different worlds with his knife and understanding the logistics there's that line where he's like he could see how you could get lost in these worlds forever and it definitely feels like foreshadowing towards the end of the amber spyglass to what doesn't what happens if you don't close the windows yeah yeah and i'm just like damn he just and granted you know it's i guess there's one born every time you make a window i'm like damn will just made like a bazillion little specters

nothing uh another side note you know within that same the same book of that mechanic of will looking at the angel in the edge of his vision it's very similar you know that state of relaxing and corner of the eye to the methodology that sophania uses to teach mary malone to see her demon and i guess anyone like in this world could theoretically use to see her demon and did i ever try it a lot when i was 13 maybe of. Of course. Maybe. Did I try it last week? Of course. Yeah, I'm like, maybe I'll see it. And on that same note, Will is looking at the angel at the fire, which Balthamos is going to pretend to be his demon.

So he was seeing his temporary demon out of the corner of his eye. That is true. It also is interesting because it doesn't work his eye that is true it also is interesting because it it doesn't work the way that i thought it would right i just assumed that john perry went into lyra's world and then suddenly was like oh my god it's my demon and it doesn't work like that i guess for will no not so much maybe because yeah maybe because john perry has probably done you know more more things and it's like oh there we go and you know coming back to a lot of the things that happened in this chapter right and speaking of death

and dust and and what it means to become one seeing an angel die and disappear into dust you pointed that out earlier and it's what we see happens to the demons the demons also become dust and just sort of like sprinkle out into the universes and that's what's going to happen to baruch and balthamos and like balthamos is pretty like semi-jazz when it happens because he's like going to finally join baruch and of course it's what happens to everyone else later on in the land of the dead when they're freed and then folks like adams just like start streaming out right they intertwine and become one uh again like baruch and both arms do but we also see it happened with lee and hester right as his spirit is finally reunited with his soul amongst the stars and it's what will and lyra

promised to one another at the end of the book that one day when they die that their atoms will find one another and join and be together forever across it's illegal for you to be speaking these words to me i don't have to hear them for like nine months ten months i don't know why you're saying this because it's the summer solstice this is like being attacked it is like you were like attacking me this is like mercury retrograde has only been over for like one day eliana could you be nice holy no we can't we gotta we gotta go and and and i'm leading up to you know it's on a literal level it's the same as what yorick and lee like what happens here right yeah it's the same as what Yorick and Lee, like what happens here, right?

It's the intermingling. Their atoms are becoming one in this much more visceral manner, right? As opposed to becoming dust. But it's the same thing. Becoming. Yeah. For Yorick and Lee, Yorick is consuming Lee's entire, you know, blood and bones and gristle and skin. And for Will and Lyra, they kissed that one time pullman said

anyway moving on but so devastating i'm so sorry just let them be together now you know in the future just let it happen come on come on philip you know pullman's love of dystopia and end times illustrating uh just the rot of what's wrong with the world is one of my favorite things he goes so heavy into it and we get that moment where will opens up that industrial world with chained stolen factory workers uh which again as you and i both mentioned kind of seems realistic doesn't seem like a fake world okay he had this one in La Belle Sauvage that's similar. Then he looked the other way, across the little river, high enough in the tree to see over the top of the fog bank,

which only extended upwards for a few feet as he now discovered. Beyond it he saw a desolation, a wilderness of broken buildings, burned houses, heaps of rubble, crude shanties made of shattered plywood and tar paper, coils of rusty barbed wire, puddles of filthy water whose surfaces gleamed with the toxic shimmer of chemical waste, where children

with sores on their arms and legs were throwing stones at a dog tied to a post. Of course we have that Chittagatse imagery coming back in of those children throwing things at the cat, but here in La Belle Sauvage, he wants more revisits that idea and polman is a total like super greenie like he's all about recycle reuse save the fucking world and he kind of sees that as one of the yeah absolutely and he sees that as kind of the end all be all of how to save our

world right like that's what's left we can save, but we all have to pitch in and pitch in fast. And it really shows when he highlights things like this throughout the books. Yeah, I wonder if that will come back. That's a great point. That is probably actually the exact same world that they see. Our world. Yeah, I'm like, reminds me a little um in the first full metal alchemist anime not the one that's closer to the manga yeah remember when they find out that oh yeah

actually turns out alchemy is powered by uh all the death and destruction in the other world and then you go to like world war one i'm like oh okay we're done well um on a lighter note but only kind of later not things don't get that much lighter in this book so the mint thingy the kendall mint cake um will offering a little bit to balthamos the fallen angel right who's already fallen for a human and that taste of sweetness it's reminiscent of the taste of the marzipan with mary and the kind of feels like foreshadowing of will offering that like berry to lyra and that act of that act that leads to dust coming back the taste of the fruit of knowledge yes honestly balthamos and baruch feel like the ultimate setup uh for the heartache of will and

lyra that was if you did not notice us illustrating that as quietly as we could without spoiling the end of the book we're not very good at that i'm very sorry you know i think you guys should know better by now you've if you're here you've probably been with us the last two books so you know better you probably already read the last book by now if you started it if you're here you've probably been with us the last two books so you know better you probably already read the last book by now if you started this when we started it we took a break we took a break but it does feel like their whole relationship

is you know Baruch and Balthamos Baruch lost against the stars Balthamos longingly staring up at the stars wondering when Baruch will come back yeah painful it's just the pre-illustration

of Will and Lyra yeah speaking of flying things I love when the foxes are talking about the flying things right and they're like the angel with the crystal treasure it's just not everything sounds like it might be nonsense but we can piece it together and on a reread you can kind of tell

that that's that's what baruch and balthamos won't tell will right that's the secret it's the crystal treasure inside the cloud mountain yeah it's the authority he's so frail now that he has to be encased and later on will and i are going to be like oh no we have to free him that's actually how she kills him it's so sweet oops she's like oh no that old man died um it's so sad alexa play despacito oh my god well and then see siri show me the child slavery in your factories. Oh my god. So last side note. Last side note about sad kids, though.

Roger does get his wish, right? Mrs. Coulter never ends up going to the land of the dead amongst them. And her Adams will actually likely never really join the others because she's just going to fall forever in that abyss. Oh. Well, I'm glad your wish came true, Roger. Congratulations, Roger. And you know what?

Good for you, Roger, because even though you weren't afraid of him, it's the same thing for Lord Asriel, all right? He's not going to be able to get you either. Equality won, even if you didn't want it to, Roger. You know, it does remind me, the Land of the Dead just reminds me of Korra. And I'm just like waiting to see

Mrs. Coulter shrouded by fog just talking to herself in the Land of the Dead in my head, you know? Just like Korra sees, well, Tenzin and everybody, they have to link together and not get lost in it. I don't know, I just think of the Korra Land of the Dead whenever I think of Amber Spyglass

Land of the Dead. Yeah. I don't know. I just think of the Korra land of the dead whenever I think of Amber Spyglass land of the dead. Yeah. I don't know what it is. Well, that's that for a first episode. I'd say I think this was a big one. This was a big chunk and hopefully we'll be back in about a month to cover another couple chapters or so. Yeah, you guys got a jam packed. I mean, there's a lot. there's a lot to kick this off

and a lot of feelings to be had. But, you know, if you have feelings that you want to let us know about, you can feel free to send us a tweet on Twitter at Girls Gone Canon, C-A-N-O-N. Or, perhaps you would like to send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com.

Yes, and if you are not already following us or subscribe to us on a podcast streaming platform near you make sure you get on to your favorite one and you click follow we're on so many we are on podbean where we're hosted itunes google play spotify stitcherudible, Amazon, you name it, we're there. iHeartRadio. Look it up. And of course we are also on Patreon. You can subscribe to us on

Patreon where we have an RSS feed. And this month's bonus episode for patrons $5 and up, stranger tier and above, is going to be a His Dark Materials themed episode about the novella the collectors it's not a novella it's actually the short story the collectors sorry everyone yeah i guess it's a short story i'm really excited but yeah the ebook itself goes to 60 pages i want to

say it's like a half hour on audible if you guys have a credit you want to use for the collectors. So go listen to it. It'll be out hopefully later this week for patrons in that $5 and above tier over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon. As always, I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. No, I go first this time. Oh, my God. Balthamos, you're so pussy. I'm fine. I've been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Goodbye.

Talk to you guys next month.