Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Episode 22 - The Amber Spyglass Chapters 20-22 featuring Cassidy

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

If heaven and hell decide That they both are satisfied Illuminate the "no's" on their vacancy signs If there's no one beside you When your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark   Where to find Cassidy: Twitter: @birdnut95 Murrelet Project Video: https://www.pbs.org/video/marbled-murrelets-fvfe7o/ Links Mentioned: Hawkwatch International: hawkwatch.org Oregon Marbled Murrelet Project: oregonmurrelet.org   Music credit: Reawakening by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4267-reawakening License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license   --- 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 His Dark Materials, Episode 22. The Amber Spyglass, Chapters 20 through 22, featuring Cassidy! Yes! I am one of your hosts, Eliana! And I'm another one of your hosts, Chloe, here to remind Eliana every week that she's a host of this podcast. I'm so excited to have one of our very good friends on with us. Our friend Cassidy is here. And full disclosure, before we were recording, we were just commenting.

We were like, well, sorry we chose this for you, Cassidy, but you are our bird friend. As I mentioned a couple episodes, you're a little orny, they say. Hello, welcome. Tell us where we can find you online and what's going on in your life and a little bit about you. Some background on you, Cassidy. Yeah, so first of all, thank you so much for having me on. This is such an honor and I'm super stoked, even though these are indeed pretty sad chapters, occasionally. But I forgive you for that.

chapters occasionally but i forgive you for that i am first and foremost known as the bird guy in actually several different circles so i uh i take some pride in that if my social media handles if that's anything to go by they're all bird related so I don't have any podcasts of my own or anything like that. But I am a aspiring wildlife biologist. And I've been an avid bird watcher since I was about eight years old. And since about high school, I've really made it my goal to work in conservation as a career. So I'm in the process of doing that and doing a lot of research work in different parts of the country. And in my spare time, also obsessing about his direct materials. Yes, I mean, that's so funny. I didn't realize that. And that makes sense that you would be the bird guy for many different circles. meet because I'm so passionate about them.

So it kind of just escapes out in conversation. I'll be like, oh, I'm Cassidy. I like hiking. And oh, have you heard about birds? Yeah. You would definitely have a bird demon. I think I would definitely be if my demon settled as

something other than a bird, I think I would have a full-on identity crisis. That could happen. What if you were like that dolphin person it that could happen you know and then it'd say something about not being okay with the form your demon took and you're restless but i i think it would be a bird. Well, we're going to hear from that ghost girl about her demon in these three chapters, right? That had a demon that was close to settling as a bird. So I think the warning signs would have been there from a young age, from a young age about your bird demon.

We still aren't settled yet. You know, Eliana and I, our demons haven't settled. Although I confess, mine keeps turning settled. Yeah. Although I confess. I've never been through puberty. Mine keeps turning into a cat. So I don't know. I don't know. I feel like a lot of weeks my demon spends a lot of time as a very sleepy cat.

But I like to think that it also spends a good amount of time as a hummingbird kind of flitting around my head. That would be kind of flitting around my head. That would be kind of fun. Maybe annoying after a while. I'd be annoyed with myself after a while. I'd possibly be annoyed with myself. Yeah, that's true. Me too. Me too.

Well, we have six episodes left until we figure out what our demons are. So stay tuned for that part of the journey uh but today we have a sadder part of the journey and before we embark on that journey i want to talk quickly about our spoiler policy eliana i don't want to talk about it you tell me okay so as you all know we are doing doing our His Dark Materials read-through a little differently from our A Song of Ice and Fire reread. So we are reading and only discussing information up until this point in the book, right? Up until, like, this point of the His Dark Materials trilogy story. So everything from Northern Lights slash The Golden Compass is fair game.

Everything from The Subtle Knife is fair game. Everything chapters 1 through 19, fair game. Honestly, what are you doing here if you haven't read those books? But everything from chapter 23 onward is not. Everything in the Books of Dust and the novellas, depending on if it's the Bird Bud, we might talk about that one every now and then. Or Once Upon a Time in the North, but we are not going to

talk about that this episode, so don't worry. Anything about all that will be in the discussion. You didn't need all that. And, you know, let me tell them what they won for the discussion. Eliana, the discussion will be covering all of those outer works,

not in the main trilogy and some of the main trilogy. We'll be talking about those final chapters that we cannot talk about during the main section. So if you have not gotten past us in the reading, I'm not going to shame you because I would have gotten past us because it just gets so exciting in these chapters.

But don't listen at the very end of the episode. Come back at the end of the month. Because we will have another episode this month. That's right. Two HDM-isodes in January. New year. New Eps. We skipped out last month.

So you'll get another episode this month. But you will be getting chapters 20, 21, 22 today. Climbing, The Harpies, and The Whisperers. And if you cannot get enough Girls Gone Canon or His Dark Materials discussion before then, we do have a Discord available for our patrons in our Thunder tier and above, named for horses, not for birds. in our Thunder tier and above named for horses, not for birds. And we, once a month,

join for a brunch slash happy hour to talk with folks. We also have special bonus episodes for people in the Stranger tier and above. Also named after horses. Yeah, we actually also named after horses. We did just put out a special bonus episode, a little different, actually, on a new point of view

to talk about patrick liss from greek mythology we talked about the song of achilles uh by madeline miller it's a really great story i highly recommend it that and cersei not that cersei the other cersei um wait actually technically chronologically speaking yes that's Cersei anyways but another book Cersei that's really great too that we're going to talk about in the future this month we'll be doing a bonus episode on A Song of Ice and Fire the Free Cities Norvos and we have done some other really fun dusty episodes in the past that we put out just for patrons that a couple of them are actually now public uh we've collaborated with a couple really great podcasts out there like the dark

materials cast her dark materials and the dust podcast so really fun episodes be sure to join over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon c-a-n-N. But for now, here we are in one of the many, many different worlds of His Dark Materials. Let's dive into the amber spyglass. Let's not run. Let's not walk. It's chapter 20, Climbing. We open chapter 20 with a poem from Emily Dickinson. Again, one of my favorites.

I gained it so by climbing slow by catching at the twigs that grow between the bliss and me. So this is I gained it so from Emily Dickinson's complete poems part one life. It has two verses, it's quite short. And this is such a perfect snippet to encapture the entire Mary chapter. Every Mary chapter, it's so funny against these like horrific, traumatizing other two chapters for Lyra and Will. The Mary chapter is very steady and grounded and like serene in some ways, although she's discovering some sad things.

So in other ways, not so serene, but definitely has a certain bliss to it. The second verse of this poem, I mean, when Mary hits that third set of climbing the tree later in this chapter, and she's looking out at the ocean waves crashing, it says it all in this poem. I said I gained it. This was all. Look how I clutch it, lest it fall. And I a pauper go, unfitted by an instant's grace, for the contented beggar's face I wore an hour ago. She talks about obtaining bliss, nirvana, but it also makes me think about that serenity being almost a feeling of focus, almost like the state of mind that you have to be in to read the alethiometer, right? mind that you have to be in to read the alethiometer right not unlike the way mary focused on the eging which the language in the poem kind of reminds me of as well the reply came keeping still so the restlessness dissolves then beyond the tumble one can perceive the great laws it went on as a

mountain keeps still within itself thus a wise man does not permit his will to stray beyond his situation. I bet Mary Malone would be very into Emily Dickinson and her poems. Oh, yeah. She seems like a Dickinson fan. And I like what you pointed out, right, of how serene Mary's chapters are, because it really helps highlight the different worlds right like these are different places especially when you contrast it as you said right to the misery of what lyra and miller going through the absolute positive negative miserification of the whole entire thing. I'm suffering. Suffering.

Yeah, Mary's chapters are a little escape. There's still like a slower, steadier message behind them. It's not like they're empty and it's just Mary like sipping a pina colada on Science Island. Like, I don't mean it's like that in some aspect, but it's a good pacing, I think, to kind of like show the more grown adult theme of Mary refinding this this solace and the serenity in herself that she maybe didn't know she still could have and doing it while something that she's passionate about and helping people

whereas like Lyra's learning the harder younger way of it where you have to like fall and get hurt probably maybe we don't know right yeah i just think pullman also he does a great job with the imagery there too to really make it feel different like one i think of so bright the other very dark hearing you talk about that I was just remembering when I first read the books at about the age of 14. And to be honest, I think a lot of Mary's chapters went a little over my head because I think as a 14-year-old, I mostly took away, wow, so everything's really sad. And then Mary is on vacation for the whole book and sure sounds nice to be her but coming back to the books a little later in life i think i really gained a new perspective on it and i think phil really did a good thing structuring these chapters between a lot of the really intense

and sad events that happen with will and myra because at first glance it can seem that everything's really idyllic and happy and nothing's really happening but like you both said you know he's he's telling a story here it's just it's more subtle and it takes longer to grow and mature but uh it really keeps with the messages of the book and i think every time i reread these chapters i gain more appreciation for them absolutely yeah i don't remember what i thought of mary's chapters when i was younger i was like sick just going to different places. I thought that the amber spyglass was pretty lame.

But now that I'm older, I'm like, this is cool. Well, and yeah, and like, now that you're older, it's easier to to pick out those themes probably, right? Like, her helping the Mulefa versus Lyra helping the lost souls of these children, you know, and like, seeking the good in the world and bringing dust back and what this could mean if they could. So I think that's an interesting thing to explore. Yeah, and everything's connected to each other in that way too.

So yeah, I was just like, I remember I was like, this is the worst sailor sent you, Talisman. Well, Mary tests out the many ropes and cords that the malefa make they're all braided as they haven't quite caught on to the twisting and winding methods yet Mary finds the rope that she wants and she explains to the malefa ah yes I am going to take

this and I'm going to climb but they don't have a term for climbing so she just describes it and I absolutely love that the malefa's reaction to this is horror they're like you're going to what right absolutely love that the malefa's reaction to this is horror they're like you're going to what right oh my god what does it even mean they're like this sounds horrible do not do it that is scary i agree it's like putting a cow upstairs you know like they can't go downstairs that's a whole thing oh oh yeah i was like why am I putting cows upstairs? I get it. Yeah. Well, don't do it.

Don't do it. Yes. Mary absolutely has to see what's happening, right? She has to get to the top of this tree. She had rock climbed before, but never really expected to scale trees. So she tries to make it as safe as possible, taking long coils of rope, securing herself to a tree with a fisherman's knot. And I really like this section because I didn't really realize it until this reread, but a lot of the knots that Phil is describing in this chapter and the techniques that

Mary's using share a lot of similarities of real rock climbing techniques. So in other words, Phil isn't just coming up with this at random, which makes sense. He definitely does his research. Part of me thinks that maybe he's rock climbed before, which is a fun thing to imagine. But it definitely struck a chord with me just because I myself have done a little bit of rock climbing both inside and outside and also have gotten the chance to do some tree climbing with ropes. And not only is it very scary at times, a lot of the techniques are really mirrored in this chapter. are really mirrored in this chapter. And I was even more scared for Mary, reading how she just comes up with these harnesses for herself and knots on the fly, because I would definitely be very terrified if I was responsible for tying all the knots into a makeshift harness that would

be the sole reason I didn't fall to my death it's really scary i've never like that's why we invited you on was because you've climbed trees and i haven't you know that experience is eliana you haven't have you climbed a tree like not this kind of tree i climbed like a tree as a child and like you know like a smaller tree. But also I'm like big and brittle now. See, I was like little big brittle then and I just didn't have motor skills. So trees weren't for me. Mine developed, unfortunately, just a little, a little later. And I would try.

I've tried a couple trees, but none quite fit me back in the day. So your experience here, you guys, is absolutely very dire to me. Especially because like, so what I'm understanding is that she is treating it like she's rock climbing, obviously, like we said. And she actually carves out bow and arrow, right? out bow and arrow right like she's like i'm gonna make arrows and makes a launch kind of like crappy pulley system by using an arrow and launching it and trying to get it over the branch and then that's supposed to stabilize her and then she's gonna climb up the trunk to the next to the next rung of branches yeah that wouldn't be that's insane's insane. That's not me. Yeah, she's crazy. That girl crazy. I could picture myself doing some of this, but the fact that she just casually is like, okay, I'm going to go make myself a homemade bow and arrow and use this homemade rope and tie some knots and go up this gigantic tree. Yeah, that's, that sounds very intense.

Yeah. And she, so she eats and she falls asleep right after she does all the nodding. She's like, we aren't doing this tonight. We're doing this tomorrow. So in the morning and some of the Mulefa are watching her. And after a couple attempts, she does the arrow thing over and over and she starts to move upwards.

I really loved that Phil made a note in this chapter just to tell us that Mary also is very anxious. It's not just the Mulefa watching her because I think it's so important for Mary's character that she's not just this, you know, superhero like character that can climb trees and tie all these knots because she's honestly a little terrified doing all this. And then she makes the bow, but then she has to sleep it off. And she's very relatable in that way because she's doing all these very impressive things, but she also knows her limits. And I know if I even attempted to make a bow out of material in the woods,

well, first of all, I'd probably decide to pass out after just an hour. Yeah. But if not that, I'd definitely sleep it off before I attempted anything. And then this note of when she gets the bow and arrow ready, and she tries to shoot it over this really big branch in the tree, I was able to really specifically picture that. And the only reason is because I've witnessed something very similar through my research jobs. And I was not the person climbing, full disclaimer for that. But I've worked a job in the past where part of the research involved setting up a camera really far up in a tree to look into the nest of a particular bird species to monitor it.

But as you can imagine, it's really hard to get a camera about 50, 100 feet up in a tree. So the way they do it is you have a really strong compound bow and this weighted arrow, a really strong compound bow and this weighted arrow and he'd tie the arrow to a string and then he'd shoot for this really small gap above a branch that he thought looked big enough to hold his weight and he'd shoot and even though he had a much more advanced setup than Mary did usually took him at least two or three tries. Then when he got the arrow over, it'd fall to the ground. And then he'd attach different ropes to it in a pulley system to pull himself up. And then he'd tie the end of the rope around the base of this tree

so that that would be his main support. And it doesn't mention that Mary does this in the book, but a very scary part of this whole process was the initial so-called weight test where he would tie himself into the line with a harness and then he'd jump up in the air pull out slack in the line and then just dangle in midair and the whole point of that was to see if the line would support him because you don't want to start climbing a tree and then find out that the line actually does not support you halfway up if you happen to fall off and most times the line would hold and that would be that and then he'd start climbing but i once watched him do this test and he

jumped up in the air took the slack out and then there was this massive crack sound a huge branch came flying out of the canopy and almost hit him in the head he had to reshoot the arrow it was then that i decided that i could probably do without climbing huge trees wow damn yeah these are like trunks bigger than people, you know? Yeah. Thicker than a human. With trees. Thick with two seeds. Trees. And yeah, it seems like very dangerous. And as you talk about this, I'm realizing that, you know, we've talked about Mary before

as a scholar, of course. I mean, she literally is one. Don't call them that, right, in our world slash Will's world. Yeah, Oxford. In Oxford. But, I mean, she very much very much is like on the same tier as asriel right as a scholar or whatever or as a joppery slash stanislaus these adventurer researchers with danger great point i mean i would argue that mary probably can climb a tree better than both Asriel and Joppery, but that's just my opinion.

I agree with that. Well, to make these ropes, right, as you're talking about, seems very precarious to just trust these own ropes that you've made. She's braiding these three small ropes into a self-made harness which allegedly increases her security i mean it does right she survives this this moment she survives this climb and um climbs up faster than she expected and in 15 minutes right she's planning her route to the next branch creating complex webs to help her climb she finds herself in the thickest part of the canopy amidst white flowers and small coin-sized mini seed pods and she rests at her third branch

watching the sea, feeling a kind of bliss she had only felt once before. I love this line. And that was not when she made her vows as a nun. Oh, Phil. Interesting. Interesting. What's she doing up in that tree that's a i mean that's a thought anyway you know i'll be honest this read of the chapter was the first time i ever truly caught this line

and i don't know why i didn't catch it before but I um definitely noticed it this time and yeah my comment was just wow I definitely see you Phil and I just wonder if her previous memory I'm assuming was not in a tree but you never know could have been some sort of trunk as, like, you put it together with the water and it's like, ah, right. It's an orgasm, Philip. Yeah, I didn't get that either. So, um, very fun. Mary Malone fucked. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. She pulled. Mary Malone fucking pulled, dude. Anyone who's sleeping with Mary Malone, though They pulled her They're the one trying to pull Ezio I mean, she's also literally pulling She's pulling on the ropes Pulling herself up this tree, too

Oh my god, literally, right now, she is pulling She is pulling She actually pulls so hard that she gets a cramp I feel that And she has to ease it away, which is such I mean, we've all been there, the worst And she pulls out her newest invention, which the Mulefa have actually learned to take her sap lacquered mirror that she made or her little lenses. They changed it for her into kind of a bamboo telescope because it was not very ergonomic to keep holding up the two lenses so it's turned into a spyglass of sorts if you will

if either of you will with me a amber spyglass wow wow beautiful they said the thing they said the thing she watches the floating golden sparkles drifting like dust motes in the sun but the longer she looks she sees a different kind of motion a deeper slower movement out from land toward the sea i love this description of motion especially when we look ahead at lyra's chapter right and we had so much of the motion of the souls of the ghost children and people moving around and you could kind of almost see the motion move. So I love that the coming together between the Mulefa and human is something that Phil is really bringing to light here.

I think it's one of the things that sticks out most, that Mary's doing something they never would have dreamed of, right? She's climbing a tree, first of all, and then she's using these crazy lacquered mirrors of sorts to be able to see into a different part of the world that no one can see. Yet the Zalath have different methods and ways and materials to put together her spyglass. So while Mary discovered this great, fantastic thing, they had something that improved it even better. Even in the rope, right? I love this description of rope that it's braided not wound

uh it's braided because it's the overlay of the worlds combining right each strand are the worlds being kind of put together different people different worlds coming together to make things work better together i mean as you're saying right in terms of the worlds we talked about string theory a little before it's it's a... What is a rope if not a giant string? String theory, baby. That's all it is. And also, of course, like you said, everyone coming together to help out, bringing their talents to the

table. Knowledge is a collective action. A talent. A talent. A talent. Like a tal. Yes, yes. Oh, a talent. Yeah, a tal. A tal. yeah tall yes yes a tall has been very helpful i'm often called a tall you are very tall yeah cassidy's apparently tall too so mary starts to look at all the flower heads and begins her climb down. And when she gets down, she finds her Malefa friends in a very fearful state

because, as previously mentioned, they have never imagined climbing to begin with, and they're very worried about Mary, and it's very sweet. Atal is especially very relieved that Mary has returned, and she carries her to the settlement with a dozen others. As soon as they arrive, the throng of Malefa is thick, and all the visitors seem to have come to hear what Mary has to say. Sadamax welcomes her and then gives Mary the floor. Obviously, Mary doesn't

have great news to tell them, but she tells them that she watched from the treetops to see what's happening. And she saw a current of Shroth come in the treetops moving against the wind and towards the sea. So Mary climbing the tree, I think is really aligned with the role that she's been given to play the serpent. Because the seed pod trees, as as we realize they are very much intertwined with this idea of i mean they're the tree of knowledge right that that first zalif the seed pod tree was part of her story of temptation and rather than eating the fruit it was the sticking of the little prong thing and the seed pod wheeled thing and so yeah the seed pod trees are their tree of knowledge and mary climbing this tree of knowledge is just getting into place and from there learning she gets that knowledge from being

up there and it's like like you said right um she sees the scruff and the dust and what's happening to it and from there is able to then well not find a way to fix it, but identify the problem in hopes that we will find a way to fix it. Will we fix it? We just don't know. We don't know. But let's talk a little bit about what that problem is. We have these lines. There are flowers. All right, this is how plants work, right? There are flowers, and then the fruit comes from the flowers, right? This is real life. And so she's talking about the flowers that the seed pods come from and says, the flowers must have evolved like that because in the past, all the Shroff fell straight down. Something has happened to the Shroff, not to the trees. And you can only see that current from up high, which is why you never knew about it.

So if you want to save the trees and the life life we must find out why the shroff is doing that i can't think of a way yet but i will try i actually thought this was something really clever to include the evolution of plants especially when we've been talking about the evolution of matter and dark matter throughout this entire story. So there's something called the colonization of land by plants. And yes, I agree. We have to burn them all down. No, I'm just kidding.

They're colonizers, Eliana. The tree spits. Once, a very long time ago, a certain aquatic algae evolved and colonized the land this i'm not making this up this is literally this is evolution eliana don't laugh we do call things right algae colonies and bacteria colonies am i not mistaken those are the terms yeah i i suppose so well it's an aquatic algae basically and it starts to adapt to land into vascular tissues seeds flowers you name it and it starts producing heavier amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere yes folks that's the atmosphere we're in uh so it's fitting that it's kind of been flipped script wise here that plants colonized the earth but what happens to plants when their earth is being colonized against them look at

trees right specifically like leaves leaves have evolved countless times due to humidity temperature wind all changing shape size color density of leaf super high trees don't usually have big leaves because high winds would damage them. Trees in temperate regions have pointed leaves to prevent ice kind of nucleusing and reducing water loss. And mammals and insects drive leaves into further evolution, like discouraging creatures from eating them with color and different shapes. So now that we see the sraf or the dust falling,

has this evolved too? like not even just thinking about the flowers that evolved to accept the sraf maybe the sraf has evolved it sounds like maybe the dust is evading predators yeah i i really love that because it's you know i hadn't thought about it that way uh before you said that. And I definitely think that you could be on to something because Phil really likes to bring little science tidbits into the Mueffa world. And I'd say a lot more than tidbits. I mean, this whole storyline is so based on evolution and changes in fitness and organisms' ability to survive. If you look at the Mulefa and the trees and the grazers, he's mentioned how they're all connected. But like you said, he likes flipping the script on different scientific phenomena. So for this, he wants us to ask, you know, why is the Shroff

flowing towards the ocean instead of falling down to so-called fertilize the flowers of the tree? And no spoilers, but you know, there is an explanation later in the book for this. But I think just on an ecological level and more scientific level, I really, I think about a comparison to a prey species evolving to evade a predator. Because often predator and prey species evolve in tandem. And there's a kind of so-called genetic arms race where the prey species gradually gets new adaptations to survive and avoid getting eaten by the predator. And then the predator species will respond by getting new adaptations that allow it to be a more efficient hunter. And this can go back and forth for millions of years. And this can go back and forth for millions of years. And I think it's easy to forget that evolution takes place in this huge time scale.

It's not like in one generation, a certain animal will grow horns as a defense, and then they'll suddenly be a change in 10 years. It's a very long process. But with this storyline, I think the connection is just asking the question, you know, what is the predator of the sraf? Because it didn't used to flow out to the ocean like that. It used to fall into the flowers and go towards the ground, but now it's changed. So thinking in that ecological mindset, I think it's just really interesting to think about what could be forcing this to happen. And I really like that Phil is making us think this way, because there just aren't a lot of fantasy books I can think about that brings science into such a

integral extent and really make you think about that. Yeah, between the Tualapi and the Magisterium, the dust has changed. The Tualapa, stop! The Tualapi. But yeah, absolutely. And it really goes to show, because in previous chapters, right, they've talked about the evolution of the malefa and how the malefa seems so well adjusted to this world, the smooth lava tracks, etc. And so that the trees even are part of that really goes to show how balanced this ecological system, as you were saying, is. system, as you were saying, is. And what I like is that when she's down there, right, and explaining these observations to the Malefa, Mary's scientist nature really comes out because she's like, and we're gonna do it again. We're gonna go back into the trees to find out more, right? Because

there's really no history of the Shroff, right? No stories. I think of that XKCD comic, right? Where they say, this is how a normal person approaches things. You're like, oh, so that's what that does. And a scientist gets zapped by the lightning and is like, does it do that every time? Let's find out. Let's do it again. And Beery gives me that energy. Yeah.

Very persistent. Exactly. Nevertheless. uh yeah very persistent exactly nevertheless well they are all very nice the malefa as we know and offer to help mary build whatever she needs even offering to help lift her to the canopy of the trees next time they gather materials assembling things to help her and then meanwhile we meanwhile, we get a scene cut, right, before the end of this episode. And by this episode, I don't mean our podcast episode. Like, imagine this was a television series, which it is. Meanwhile, Father Gomez is off the rails. He has spent several days looking for Mary, but Mary has vanished completely.

The weather has deterred him. It's been hot and dry and yet he finds a wet patch of rock somewhere and he climbs to see if he can find anything and then realizes there another world the very same world of seed pod trees and he enters the window that mary malone has entered through the only thing that matters to me is that daddy gomez is gonna be hot the rest of his life in his dark materials you know in the books in the books fought he's father gomez but on the tv show he's daddy gomez and i think that's very important oh my god literally i don't know. Oh, my authority. Oh, my God. Oh, my authority.

Well, with that, that puts us into chapter 21, The Harpies, which opens with a quote from Byron. I hate things all fiction. There should always be some foundation of fact. So the full quote. Girl, there's some tea I got to spill here. We got some tea about Byron. girl there's some tea i gotta spill here we got some tea about byron i i did a little digging back on ye olde gossip pages back you know back in the 1800s the the thousands you know back in the thousands the 1800s yeah i hate things all fiction There should always be some foundation of fact. For the most airy fabric and pure invention is but the talent of a liar. I was surprised that he didn't do the full quote of that just because it has the, I mean the end.

The pure invention is the talent of a liar. This was in a letter to John Murray from Venice, April 2nd, 1817. And it was published in his letters and journals. John Murray was Byron's best friend, publisher, literary critic, and advisor. And this letter would have been written probably about five years before Byron's death. And it happened at a very dramatic time in his life. Basically, 1816, at the height of his power, he has a bunch of hookups with some high-power women in society,

and then he re-meets his half-sister for the first time in four years. He gets this super unhealthy obsession with her, and all these rumors start kicking around about incest, and then it turns out pretty heavily rumored slash could be true especially because of some of the things he was writing that like were referencing incest that she and him had a kid from four years before yeah so anyways he gets married to stave off all these rumors he ends up marrying a rich heiress and he cheats on her a ton and he doesn't quit his weird unhealthy incest obsession with his half-sister so it all comes to light to the public and the heiress annabella leaves him

he flees from england never to return yeah and annabella was straight up she was taking notes girl she was taking notes like his behavior she was charting his behavior because she was like he's off his fucking shit he's crazy he's a mad lad absolute mad lad uh so i just thought that quote specifically i was like oh so i don't know byron i don't know what to believe from 1817 from you you know that was a volatile time in his life that's like an understatement uh i like the use of the word mad lad you know to talk about byron's like native dialect of english it's it's a term that i've learned from love island uk and ye olde ex mad lad ye olde isle of love isle of lad isle of lad i love lad worse i'm like that's a show no wonder that man was like just so emotional right lord byron like this is yeah this is a lot yeah uh and you know to be fair and it does make me wonder uh how much this gossip of ye olde gossip, Pullman has ever thought of. But, you know, it does remind me all of this drama of Lyra's later lies, right?

How dramatic her story is of the Duchess and Duke that were her parents, and all the swashbuckling that occurs there. But I thought that was a tale worthy of Lyra the liar herself. I mean, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction is what we've learned and this is pretty strange this is all very strange as for why I kind of wonder if Pullman didn't include the last part of that

line intentionally of course of being like an easter egg right because if you look up the whole entire quote then you'll see aha it's about Lyra you just know it right because if you look up the whole entire quote then you'll see aha or if you're just about lyra you just know it you know if you're like that yeah someone like that chim chim what a

great quote that pultman used i always love lord byron and his letters in venice to his friend cassidy what are your thoughts on incest? Wow, that has to be the best segue I've ever heard. Do you see what I suffer through now? Do you get it, Cassidy? Do you get it yet? As a matter of fact, I can't say that I have a number of mistresses and also an unhealthy obsession with my half sister. But I'm glad. Oh, no. Oh, no.

You know, I see that that dude's going through a lot. lot and i just um i gotta think that you know this this friend i i wonder he must have been a very good friend i wonder if he if lord byron also confided about all his wild affairs and his unhealthy obsession with his half-sister, or if he was just trying to keep that to himself. But let's just be thankful that Lyra does not have a half-brother that she has an unhealthy obsession with. Just someone she was raised by that's kind of like a... So, interesting. Just some interesting drama.

Some interesting drama to pop us off here at the top of the chapter yeah very normal very normal stuff but you know what is normal will and lyra sleeping and of course waking up after they wake full of dread tialis and salmakia tend to their dragon flies but when they see the looks on will and lyra's faces, Salmachia comes to tell them that they could still decide to do something different, you know? We don't have to go into the land of the dead. But Lyra says that they've already decided. She says that, you know, the Galavespians don't have to come with them, but Salmachia is insistent that they won't abandon them. So if the Galavespians die, they will at least die having done something important. And that makes Lyra stop and take a good look at Salmachia for the first time.

She's not beautiful, but she's calm, kindly, and has a low and expressive voice. Lyra doesn't remember ever having been read to sleep, but Lady Salmachia was the kind of person that she could imagine, wrapping her up in love and telling stories to her at night. I really got emotional reading this section when I was rereading it this week because I was just reminded how starved for positive maternal figures Lyra is. She has Ma Costa in the first book. Then she spends some time with Mrs. Coulter, who very much so is not a positive maternal figure. And we all know about her multiple dads, but she really is lacking that consistent positive maternal figure in her life and you know this desire to be cared for and cherished i think has become even more strong for her since her time with her mother mrs coulter in the cave because as we know she was drugged the whole time but she still has these fragments of memory that pop up of her mother singing to her caressing her forehead and doing different performances of motherhood and i say performances of motherhood because i really don't think that Marisa truly knows how to be a mother. And she's doing the performance

mostly for herself because Lyra was drugged. Lyra was mostly not awake to experience that. But Marisa really wanted to get those years back with Lyra that she didn't have when Lyra was a child. So as you've talked about so well in previous chapters, she's treating Lyra almost as this little doll that she can take care of and dress up and brush her hair. But, you know, despite all the very creepy and problematic aspects of that i think lyra still has some at least semi-positive associations with that because she's like wow this was my mother and she was i think trying to care for me in her own messed up way. And she still thinks of Coulter as this figure of fear and anxiety. But now there's this extra tinge of longing because Libra realizes that she was deprived of love and affection for her whole childhood in this specific way. And I think that figures like Ma Costa and Lady Salmachia just remind her

what she could have had. This side to Salmachia is pretty new for Lyra because up until a few chapters ago, Salmachia and Tialis were not necessarily purely antagonistic to Will and Lyra, but they were very against going to the land of the dead. And there was a lot of friction. But I think Lyra seeing this new side to Salmakia and realizing that at her core, Salmakia is this immensely caring and trusting individual and would really go to the end of the world for Lyra, which is kind of amazing if you think about where they were a few chapters ago. And I think that this scene in particular

is just such a huge step for both Tialis and Salmachia, but mainly Salmachia in terms of her evolution as a character, because as readers too, suddenly introduced to this new side of her that we didn't know was there before and it's a really really touching moment yeah they're truly coming into their own as characters uh and i think there's something to say for the maternal energy coming from salmakia who you didn't really quite know had that. A little more of the stabby stabby come with us kind of thing going on before now. But now, I also think there's something to do with like the timeline they're on. And I think that kind of pressing, beating clock of time behind them saying, you only have so much time left right like their relationships

with their dragonflies earlier in the story we learned they only live themselves 10 years and they're given an amount of dragonfly eggs and product help either expedite or slow the birth of these dragonflies just from i believe it's from their spying mission i don't think everybody gets that i don't think it's just like you're born a galavespia and i think it's because of their position in their societies so these dragonflies are almost like they're demons in an aspect in a way especially as we'll talk about in a bit when they kind of consider wait do we have demons do we have souls but they only have 36 hours earlier on in the story to hatch their larvae get them to adult age and fly to get to the kids and get to asriel and

then you know battle and do some other things that are about to go down but we see them go from panicked, mean, disagreeable, not flexible, you know, very chuffed and stuffy adults to now they're super flexible. They're on their adult dragonflies working together with Will and Lyra. And I think there's something about the limited time that they have in their worlds. For them, they're at the end of their lives and they have a whole ass change in their priorities. That doesn't often happen for people at the end of their lives. People at the end of their lives don't always change, right? Some people do. Some people suddenly have a change in a lifestyle or how they want to live their life out. But a lot of people don't change that late. And to have everything turned on its head by these willful children and to actually soften them to want to follow and help them.

Because what are they going to do? Die in a bad manner, in a boring manner for the wrong people? Go nowhere? Like all these people that they see in this chapter around them, dead, doing nothing? What's the point of living? Right? I think if you can't live in the last year-ish of your life,. What's the point of living? Right? I think if you can't live in the last year-ish

of your life, then what's the point of living? Absolutely. This signals a change in their character. But we'll see that pay off in the next rest of this chapter and the next chapter, right? They've come to care for these children, and I think

they've come to respect them. You know, like, it takes a lot, as we saw, for someone to be able to summon their death to get this far, and to really accept what the cost is. And I think that's a big turning point, too, for the Galabespians in respecting Lyra, right? Like, when they see what she gives up. in respecting lyra right like when they see what she gives up and they they kind of join the throngs of people who are like we're doing we're helping lyra right in in terms of being like i will follow you instead of following whatever lord asriel wants my way of achieving this goal of you know liberation for my people is by recognizing that I'm helping you in your role in this war.

I will follow you into the dark. That is literally what is happening. If you need a soundtrack for these few chapters, Death Cab for Cutie, I will follow you into the dark. Put it on now. No, that's it. Is that the Byron song for Augusta? Oh my god.

So the next sad detail about all of this, just to cake on another layer of i had forgotten and i have a lot more thoughts about this that i will save for the discussion because they are very spoilery but yeah this line really just took my heart out you know and maybe her and will work out right he's a good kid maybe they could pop a few out he's a good kid. Maybe they could pop a few out. He's a good kid. Or maybe she'll meet someone new. You don't always stay with your high school love. Maybe someday she'll meet someone strong and smart and into martial arts and kind and funny, but also badass at the same time. And I think it could happen for her.

That's the best kind of character. What's that called? Is that? Are you talking about Bears? Is that a Gary Stu Stu isn't that what you called uh in the episode is that what that is I was thinking about bears but yes you're also right anyways that's in the future for Lyra you know there's no there's no book that gives us that information yet so you never know now in real time in jesus in this trilogy it is really just sad like with her experiences as cassidy kind of detailed with her mother and father ish you know and the abandonment issues and just the piles of childhood trauma she hasn't had the most positive maternal influences. The good ones she

had were powerful, meaningful. Seraphina, I wouldn't say she's a maternal influence necessarily, but, you know, she looks at her in wonder and idolizes her in some aspects. And it's interesting to see this soft moment brought up for Lyra of her desires and wishes when usually we see her you know kind of just doing more hero adventure-y things things that don't necessarily always scream hero I guess is motherhood and I think there's something interesting too in that one of the few people she did have growing up was also Mrs. Lonsdale who Cassidy erased from the episode you know before this in his speech no I'm just kidding Cassidy but Mrs. Lons you know, before this in his speech. No, I'm just kidding, Cassidy.

But Mrs. Lonsdale, like, she's strict, right? We see that Lyra didn't really often get hugs from her necessarily. And we see that, like, she didn't have warm female scholars around. It was all just kind of stuffy old dudes that had their little special room. No one was allowed in except them where they had their special cigars and special wine she just like jumped on roofs and shit so maybe she could patch up her kid's knee after it jumps on a roof wrong or something yeah i mean even even if she doesn't have any, like, formal, I guess, mother figures in that way, it's still, I think, a found family kind of story, too.

A lot of the characters, right? And that's what Salmakia and Tialis are kind of here. They're joining that larger found family. And, I mean, it's interesting because we're getting, as you said, right, one of the first times Lyra's goals and desires for her future. And it's like, it creates a sort of dramatic tension, because we're about to go into a moment of danger that very much imperils that future. She could die, we are going to the land of the dead, and allegedly no one comes back. So, but this detail, I think think of her wanting to be a mother it does really stand out right um and and how that's triggered by salmaki's voice uh and it's set up well for also i think the rest of what happens in this chapter because i mean we've already heard before from prophecies lyra's eve she and as the witch screams mother of us all right as she's like in pain and she does tell a story to the harpies she's she's getting that

experience of telling stories it's apparently a very unwanted story the harpies do not like it but it is a story um and then later on right like in terms of that motherhood imagery the children in the land of the dead are the ones who flock to her which also is a little messiah-y too if you think about in terms of jesus but we'll get there soon i love that especially with some of the conversations we've been having about brienne of tarth in our saga vice and fire series in brienne's seventh chapter she kind of takes on a role of protective motherhood and protecting some orphans uh i think that's kind of a similar aspect for lyra right like motherhood comes in other shapes and forms. And sometimes the idea of protecting.

Yeah. And the realization she comes to of like, I have to free them. Like, this is my job. I can't not do that. Well, I could do all of it. Like, it won't just be fine. Roger, like I can fix everyone. Just one swoop.

I could do it. And that's really emotional. And that's, oh, that's a maternal aspect, protecting, freeing. In response to also combining what you've just said with what Cassidy was saying of Mrs. Coulter performing motherhood, right? We've talked about Jungian aspects of the mother before and the shadow of the mother being this really smothering thing, this very cloying thing um this this very cloying thing and versus that nurturing aspect i mean mrs coulter right her instinct what she thinks motherhood is is keeping someone from living keeping someone from anything and trapping them whereas lyra as you said her aspect of the mother is

let them be free some wild shit shit. Radical. Very radical. Literally. Maybe even left it. No, I'm taking that out. The discourse. Once they eat their minimalist breakfast and tea, they thank their hosts and they get ready to leave. Lyra looks for her death.

There he is, walking a bit ahead of her, checking back to make sure she follows every once in a while. They head through the gloom, seeing no one, only a few deaths, and the dragonflies soar through the air. A few croaks or splashes are heard from time to time, and they do see one toad as big as Will's foot. It's flopping around as if it's injured, lying in the path. Tialis says it would be merciful to kill it, and Lyra asks, how do you know? Will says they'd have to take it with them

if they killed it, and it looks like it wants to stay here. That's actually kind of funny. They would. The frog's soul would leave the body and just come with them. I really like the way the frog is used here as a literary device and to deliver this metaphor. One time, and by frog I mean, I guess, toad. There was a toad in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick.

And I'm going to just be really honest with everyone. I don't get it. I don't understand what the toad stands for. Maybe I need to reread it, but I don't think i'm ever going to the toad the toad baffles me but here the toad does not tally's does ask if it's fine to kill the toad if it's in pain and will argues and i'm just gonna read this quote because i again think it ties into things in this chapter and the next chapter and even some of the things in the chapters after that. Will says,

If it could tell us, we'd know. But since it can't, I'm not going to kill it. That would be considering our feelings rather than the toad's. And I just really love the way that this is put because in one sentence, and thanks to this toad, because in one sentence, and thanks to this toad, Philip Pullman has encapsulated everything that we've been trying to say about, you know, sacrifice in this book and in A Song of Ice and Fire, just questions about it. And also, I mean, considering the will of those who want to live. And I'm going to come back to this in a second with the boatman very, very soon. I love your point there. And I really love this quote about the toad that you read, because it's it's such a simple quote, but it says so much about both the the narrative, the book as a whole, the ember spyglass, and really about Will's character, because, you know, Will has been associated as being this warrior figure who is

ready to fight and will fight if necessary. But I think the more time that passes, especially in the Amber Spyglass, you're really reminded that Will does not like fighting. He does not like being violent or killing. And every time that he has had to kill, he has been really messed up. And he's wracked with guilt about it. I'm sure he's still wracked with guilt. of, as Tialis would say, mercy killing it pretty much. Will rejects that because, as he says, that would make our consciences lighter. That would help us. But how can we possibly know that is what the toad wants? I think that that's a really strong summation of just who Will is as a character, and that he really values life and living and people's free will. Yeah, free him free will. I mean, it is a test of character, right? Like think of how much you could learn from the people you know, hearing what their answer would be when

you come across some sort of hurt creature, not a cat, not a dog, you know, that's different. Not like a normal domesticated creature, but a hurt creature, right? In a path, like what you do with that creature, that says a lot about someone's character. And Tialis was like straight up like, kill it. Kill that sucker. Let's go. And I think there is something to the point that not only is this part

of will's character but also this was will one book ago he was lying in a path with his fingers cut up yeah you know like missing fingers um could have just been left right like they were all like thinking about leaving him behind he was like just leave me i'll i'll get there or something i'll just bleed back here uh he was almost a goner for a hot second in the subtle knife you know lost a lot of blood that's he did lose a lot of blood and and that's such a great point too um you know something that you're both making me think about is yeah that was will but also if you think about it who gets to decide what a mercy kill is right who gets to decide when someone else or some other creature is in such pain that you get to decide um when to call the end of it and in terms of like disability, right? His mother, you know, we see that quite a bit where people make the argument of like, well, perhaps X person would be better off. We see that argument in A Song of Ice and Fire because we can spoil that book because I assume, I mean, maybe you haven't read it, maybe you have, whatever. It happens really early on in the television show too right there's someone who becomes disabled and people's thoughts are

oh it would be better to kill him than let him live that way but that's putting their feelings in front of the person and their autonomy that is though like the mercy thing there's something i was reading i'm gonna i did a lot of light reading of the enneads today, is what I'm trying to tell you all. And we were connected. We were linked. But there is something, like, about mercy. Like, is it a mercy? Is killing someone truly a mercy?

And, like, the line is here, like, just because it makes me feel better. I find that interesting. It is very playing God, right? And that's not what we're doing here. We're attacking and dethroning. Yes, yes. Pan turns into a lemur in Lyra's arms with huge eyes clinging to her as they head into the mist.

They hear a wave breaking. Not as good of a wave as mary malone's wave unfortunately and they come into a shore with oily gross scummy water they take the path to the left where a wooden jetty sits the path less followed we could say less chosen nothing is ahead of it nothing behind it pan whispers don't let go to to Lyra, who whispers back, got to. Will's face is hard, grim, eager, and the Galavespians each sit on their shoulders, calm, watchful. They prepare to climb in, the figure rowing the boat closer, crippled and bent, moist eyes sunk deep into folds of gray skin. There's no need to speak.

Will enters first, Lyra second. The boatman speaks. Not him, he says, motioning at Pan. And she says, he is me. We'll die if we're separated. The boatman says, isn't that what you wanted? And then, for the first time, Lyra truly realized what she was doing. This was the real consequence. She stood aghast, trembling, and clutched her dear demon so tightly that he whimpered in pain. They, said Lyra helplessly, then stopped. It wasn't fair to point out that

the other three didn't have to give anything up. Will was watching her anxiously. She looked all around, at the lake, at the jetty, at the rough path, the stagnant puddles, the dead and sodden bushes. Her pan, alone here, how could he live without her? He was shaking inside her shirt, against her bare flesh, his fur kneading her warmth. Impossible. Never. I'm in pain. So, we begin one of the

most painful moments in the books. One of. It's so enriching. Yeah, notice I only didn't say it's thee. But also coming back again to the toad and this idea of considering whose feelings are at stake,

Lyra is realizing here that the risk of going into the underworld, what that means, and even though it will cost her a lot, she realizes in this moment that she has no right to demand that others also give up their own souls for her quest and what she has to do just because she has to pay a price just because she has who doesn't mean she should imperil everyone else for her own feelings and of course obviously here the soul is the toll the animal demon which uh as we pointed out long long

ago the coin that is on the dead scholars like coins in their skulls at jordan college um just like charon's obol in greek mythology and like he's being like very unfun here why is he not selling things to me i don't know why isn't he selling things to make me cooler and anyway i'm gonna come back to the toad one more time in the next chapter she's playing a lot of Hades lately, everyone. She finally broke down. She bought it. It's my fault.

I did it. It's your fault. You lost your life to Hades. Charon is more fun in Hades, the video game. I got to suggest you all play it. It's very fun. God. This is real rough, you know?

Like, the worst part is how furry pan is right like and like you know he's pressed against her flesh and you're like i've held animals like this and loved them and you're like oh my god but he's not just an animal he's myself and i have a complicated relationship with myself and it's like i hate myself i love myself i love my furry version of myself who could do no wrong it's pretty bad, I just think about my cats pretty much. So this is going to be a great, great end of the couple chapters. We're going to do it. It's not going to hurt.

Tialis and Salmakia say something to the boatman, but he shakes his head saying he has to stay if she wishes to come. Will says it's unfair. Why don't they have to leave something behind the boatman responds they do it's lyra's misfortune she can see this part of herself and they cannot they won't understand until they're on the water but they all have to leave that part of themselves here yeah i thought this was just like kind of an interesting idea you know the idea that that knowledge of knowing yourself in that way has a price. I mean,

ignorance of course also has a price, right? But, but that there is a cost to that knowledge. Well, the boatman says that if Pan enters the boat, I mean, Pan can come on the boat,

but the boat's going to stay here. And Will asks, how will she find him again? And says he doesn't know they ask if they'll come back when they leave and the boatman says uh there is no coming back this is the land of the dead he has taken millions and none come back this is why charon won't fucking take me all the way anyway but nothing they say can change his mind. It is not a rule they can break. He leaned over the side and cupped a handful of water, and then tilted his hand so it ran out again.

The law that makes the water fall back into the lake, it's a law like that. I can't tilt my hand and make the water fly upward no more than i can take her demon to the land of the dead whether or not she comes he must stay just let the animals come um i do really love the action here of the water falling down and that imagery and then how the boatman turns it into a lesson about the laws of the world and also kind of physics, too. Arguably, though, I would say that some of these worlds slash universes could have developed with a different set of laws of physics. That is what I've been told about multiverses.

By Spider-Man? multiverses. By Spider-Man? Anyways. No, no, by when we talked about string theory and all those different universes and the bubbling. They can have completely, I can't even fathom it. Different laws of physics, though. But, anyway.

The water must fall back down. And matter, right, as we know in our world, acts according to gravity and for me that thing that makes me think of the shroff in a different way right in their motion and it just really drives home how how unnatural this current movement is to what they've experienced before or like what the trees and stuff are used to and as the malefa tell mary or kind of like as mary

realizes right as as you pointed out the flowers face upward because they've evolved for the shraf and that is the way that the laws of that world and the universes have always gone the shraf has always fallen down but now it feels like maybe they've evolved or maybe there's like this other whether or not they've evolved it's so unnatural to the laws of like this sort of quote unquote gravity, as I'm calling it, that the Shraff followed. And something is breaking like those very binding ideas of the physics of the dust and pulling it away. And that's why it's so concerning. Cassidy was saying about evolution and how, you know, the question before was, you know, mutual evolution on both sides that one was evolving and the other was evolving in turn. It's almost as if the new hypothesis is what if there's a third thing that

affects all of this, not just predator prey, right? Like maybe there is something else that we have not been able to quite harness or understand. A high pod. Every podcast with me is a high pod. The sis.

So the Galavespians think to attack him, but it's no use. The Galavespians think to attack him, but it's no use, right? Lyra knows that attacking the boatman isn't going to let Pan come aboard. She has to do the cruelest thing she's ever done to Pan and to me and to you and to everyone listening. pan and lyra they're weeping they're sobbing there's loud gasping retching sobs as pan and lyra sever and we have this passage and panalaman didn't ask why because he knew and he didn't ask whether lyra loved roger more than him because he knew the true answer to that too. And he knew that if he spoke, she wouldn't be able to resist. So the demon held himself quiet so as not to distress the human who was abandoning him. And now they were both pretending that it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't be long before they were together again. It was all for the best. But Will knew the little girl was tearing her heart out of her breast. Then she

stepped down into the boat. She was so light that it barely rocked at all. She sat beside Will and her eyes never left Pantelamen, who stood trembling at the shore end of the jetty. But as the boatman let go of the iron ring and swung his oars out to pull the boat away, the little dog demon trotted helplessly out to the very end, his claws clicking softly on the soft planks, and stood watching, just watching, as the boat drew away and the jetty faded and vanished in the mist. Then Lyra gave a cry so passionate that even in that muffled, mist-hung world, it raised an echo. But of course it wasn't an echo. It was the other part of her, crying in turn from the land of the living as Lyra moved away into the land of the dead.

My heart, Will, she groaned and clung to him, her wet face contorted with pain. And thus the prophecy that the master of Jordan College had made to the librarian, that Lyra would make a great betrayal, and it would hurt her terribly, was fulfilled. Thank you. I'll be taking my awards for that. Not one tear. Not one tear.

And it was really painful, and I just want you to know I didn't bitch. I didn't do it. Not a tear. Not a tear. I'll be billing my therapy bills to you. Thank you very much. It was real hard. There were a couple moments. I was not... Do you ever wonder I had this thought this is gonna be so inappropriate tone wise whatever it is it's gonna be dumb

why couldn't Pan because we don't know much about this river why couldn't Pan just turn into a fish or a dolphin no I'm being very serious how is that inappropriate it's a valid question. Because they still wouldn't let her in.

That's like, what if Pan dressed up as a toddler in a fucking trench coat and tried to walk through the doors, Eliotta? Yeah, but he would just follow the boat as like a fish. They'd have to sever in front of like the harpies instead? I don't know. Clearly we can just punch the harpies and go in, you know? This whole book could be avoided. God.

If only Pan would be a fish. I mean, it only works for children and children going to the land of the dead, right? It doesn't work for all adults, is all I'm saying. Yeah, Pullman, answer us. Answer. Answer. There are a lot of questions you've asked,

and I really hope he never hears a lot of them. Anyway. Will finds himself in pain, too. But through it, he watches the Galavespians cling together, just as he and Lyra were. And part of the pain is physical, like someone is pulling his heart out through his ribs, but it's also very mental. It's very secret and private. It's very laced with pain and shame and fear.

And it was worse than that. It was if he'd said, no, don't kill me. I'm frightened. Kill my mother instead. She doesn't matter. I don't love her. And as if she'd heard him say it and pretended she hadn't so as to spare his feelings and offered herself in his place anyway because of her love for him, he felt as bad as that. Damn.

I don't know why, but this reminds me of the end of 1984. Yeah. With like, what's that file quote? No, Paul Winston. Well, now Will understands what having a demon feels like. And his demon was left behind with Pan on that poisoned, desolate shore. But at the same time, both he and Lyra realize that at least they're together without them.

And only the boatman and the dragonfly seem indifferent to the journey. Happy for those little bugs, which last much longer than Lyra likes. She's raw and upset, thinking of Pan, but also she adjusts to the pain, looking ahead and wondering

where they'll land while will's arm is around her eventually they see some sort of cliff or island ahead and the boatman says they'll land in another five minutes that the gate to the land of the dead is on this island everyone comes here kings queens murderers poets children everyone comes here and none come back we shall come back lyra whispers he says nothing his eyes are full of pity i like that he still has emotions like that and i also really do love the boatman speech here about how uh death is the sort of equalizer, right? Like everyone ends up coming here, no matter how powerful. And also that it's those who have power

who seem to, it makes them think that they deserve different or above it all. They're above going wherever the boatman is taking them and that they're very entitled and demanding when they enter that boat. And I note that he does call out priests. He calls out rulers and monarchs too, but it seems that he's more calling out, again,

wealth and those positions of power and not necessarily people who are just very religious in this speech. Yeah. And on him having that little bit of emotion left too, you'd think, like you said, every single time he took someone, you'd think that he'd lose a little bit of faith, a little bit of hope. But there's almost that recurring theme of hope, right?

Because as we get to the world of the dead and the children will crowd Lyra, a lot of them are skeptical, right? A lot of them are very skeptical, but some are like, well, nothing's ever happened here. This is the first thing that has ever happened here. What if? And maybe that spark is in his stomach too maybe charon is sitting there thinking my god what if he's never heard someone say they're gonna come back like that what if and i think he has but i think like that he hasn't lost that emotion as you said right like after all those times after seeing so many

people go through it to still feel pity and empathy in that way maybe pity is not quite the same as empathy but in anyway to feel something is is i think admirable better than feeling nothing they say they've clearly never had vodka though will asks if they're dead now but the boatman says it makes no difference many come through insisting they asks if they're dead now but the boatman says it makes no difference many come through insisting they're dead they're not dead but they were so if you don't know whether you're dead or not and the little girl swears blind she'll come out again to the living i say nothing to contradict you what you are you'll know soon enough. Wow. Very little, you know, little like, oh, cryptic. Cool, cool, cryptic, Mr. Gray Dabbled Skin Boatman.

As I mentioned, I was doing some light reading today. You know, the Enneads. The collection of writings by Plotinus, collected by his student, Porphyry. The first Ennead deals with human ethical topics. The second and third are devoted to cosmological subjects or physical reality. The fourth concerns the soul. The fifth, knowledge and intelligible reality. And finally, the sixth covers being and what's above it, the one or the first principle of all, a godlike power. Plotinus is one of the founders of Neoplatonism, thoughts that are rooted in Plato's philosophy, but kind of extended out a

little further. And I'm going to be honest, written in super crabby Greek. So, so like old and kind of short that many have hated translating this from what I understand but we're going to be discussing this based on the translation by steven mckenna and bs page from mit so thank you for your translation and work in service i do not have to learn greek today you know it's all greek to me delta omicron god the fourth ennead is the collection of writings based on the soul they're all separated by content of writings instead of chronology of writings on the essence of the soul on problems of the soul sense perception memory immortality of the soul and on the soul's descent into body and then the last topic discussed is are all souls one some other things i found really

interesting though about these readings were that plotness thought a few different things lesser beings seek to become more like higher beings souls seek to become intellectual intellectual seeks to become the one the soul can live without a body but the body cannot live without soul the body's illuminated by the soul the unembodied soul is a higher phase but the body cannot live without soul. The body's illuminated by the soul. The unembodied soul is a higher phase of the soul, while the embodied soul is a lower phase of the soul. Unembodied souls have no sensory perception, but it can have memories, and that's what it bases perceptions on if it's disembodied. So to me, I'm thinking of severing during all this, right? Just constantly thinking of severing. Life is hard in these books.

So it can't be perceived, your soul, in a sensory world that would require perceiving if it's not in your body. But it can be perceived in other worlds. So like Mary, using the amber spyglass to see dust. But the soul can achieve knowing itself and becoming like the intellectual principle because in the intellectual principle the thinker is the same as the thought this is some real next level high shit right like this is like you just went to some dude's basement in college and you got offered the bong and the thinker is the same as the thought man the knower is the same as the known i man. The knower is the same as the known.

I don't know what plotness was drinking, what good ambrosia he had, but I want it. The intellectual principle basically transcends the difference between knowing and being. That like the truth and the intellectual principle is what's actually the relation between our body and soul. The sameness that's between them, the common denominator between them. He also believed that acts of violence could not separate the soul. So the soul could only be released from the body by seeking a higher level of reality. So it kind of sews some of the following chapter together in the face of the severing, because now that we move deeper into the mists lyra faces this

spiritual embodiment right that requires intellect and truth to free all of these spirits i thought some of it was very interesting and i don't know how much i agree with it you know in real life i haven't really died so i can't really tell you what happens to the soul but yeah you should head to the underworld and give it a try come back and tell me yeah give it a whirl give it a whirl yeah i i mean everything that you've said here right that's what's going on in this moment but also i think some of what you've talked about in terms of the the intellect and truth and becoming free i think that's something that we're gonna see a little more also in terms of the intellect and truth and becoming free. I think that's something that we're going to see a little more also in some of the later chapters.

No, maybe, maybe. I can definitely see the connections to this chapter. And I think that all three of these chapters, but especially the last two that we're covering really are all about the soul and what it means and what it means when you're separated from your soul. So I think that's a really great connection you made with the

Aeneids. I'm very glad for the people out there that translate this because I also would not have been up for doing translation from ancient Greek for all this. A lot gets lost tonally. would not have been up for doing translation from H Greek for all this. A lot gets lost tonally. I think that's a really, really great connection. And especially when they go deeper into the myths and there are a lot of, it's when a lot of the unknown and conflict occurs. But it's also, as you said, known and conflict occurs but it's also as you said when lyra really faces that choice to free a bunch of these souls and so i'll talk about later that's not something she has to do but

you know lyra's soul and being is such that she really deeply cares about the freedom and free will of other people around her. And she's, I think, at times in the previous books, she can come off as very selfish. But I think especially now throughout the Amber Spyglass, her just innate goodness really shines through. And her freeing the souls is a huge part of that. Yeah, absolutely. Well, once they've landed, Lyra doesn't want to leave the boat. It's actually, it's very sad. It's very painful.

Because if she leaves the boat, she realizes that it means that pan won't really be able to see her or feel her properly anymore that the last idea that pan last image pan has seen of her was her sitting in that boat staring back at him she does though get out all the same following will and she asked the boatman to tell her demon when he returns i love him best of everything in the land of the living or dead, and I swear I'll come back to him, even if no one's ever done it before, I swear I will. And the boatman says that he'll tell Pan, and off he pushes. And we have the line of, so they stood, the travelers at the edge of the land of the dead. And you know, this is very

hero's journey sort of stuff, right? explicitly so and lyra entering of course the land of the dead versus i think the first book had some great classic hero's journey structure the second book less so but the third book very much and something i just thought of is, you know, when Lyra tells the boatman to tell Pan this, that she loves him best of everything in the land of the living or dead. It's a small detail, but I just wondered, we never really find out whether the boatman actually told Pan this, which I don't think is a spoiler. And I was just wanting to ask you, do you think that he rode across and told Pan exactly what Lyra told him? Or do you think he didn't tell him? I wonder if he was even there at that point, you know? I'm curious. Timeline wise, I don't know.

If Pan's there, yes, I think the boatman did. He seems to have compassion. I think you kind of have to have compassion to do that job for so long or or I mean some people could kill it but yeah yeah I I definitely agree I think that he's a compassionate person and I think like you said Chloe I think the question is more, you know, whether Pan was actually still on the dock at that point. We need the Pan POV. So ahead is nothing but mist. And they realize they have to move on and go in. And there's a passage in here that I think really sums up Lyra's guilt and pain over Roger's death, because through this severing and all the really intense emotional pain that's happening, it can be easy to forget that Lyra is doing all of this for Roger and because of Roger's death. And all this really wouldn't have happened

if that scene on the mountainside in book one hadn't happened. And there's this quote. She says, still, she thought, Roger must have felt like that as he plunged down the mountainside, trying to cling to her desperate fingers. And right before that, there was a note about how she had been feeling cold and miserable and like the wind was coming through her ribs. And, you know, she was feeling sorry for herself because she's in a really terrible situation and her literal soul was just ripped away from her.

But even through that, I think she reminds herself, look, this is why I'm here. And I can't even imagine what Roger went through when Asriel hooked him up to the little demon friar. It's obvious that Lyra's still using Roger's death as a primary motivation to keep going forward. I think the thought about Roger here is almost a rebuke of self-pity, or at the least a reminder to herself why she's going through all this immense pain in the first place because she doesn't have to like samahia told her earlier they can turn back but what happened to roger and her immense guilt over that is such that she's willing to literally sever herself in half to try to make amends. And that's really intense. That's really sad, especially when you remind yourself that this is a 12-year-old girl doing all this.

She shouldn't have to. She shouldn't have to be doing it. Where are her parents? Making hate fuck eyes at each other. That's weird. You know. Yeah, I mean, what you said, right? It's such a painful moment and it's again a great reminder of why Lyra is going through all this risk.

You do have that callback earlier as Lyra and Pan are wondering wow, we're really going to do this risk but you do have that callback earlier like as lyra and pan are wondering like wow we're really gonna do this to ourselves we went through all that shit in bull vanger just to like end up doing this anyway and again like you can see how strong like that sort of determination is for her to to go through that same pain and it's not it's not like nothing right as you pointed out it's so much that it's got this like comes with feelings of self-pity and also it was so painful it killed roger right and lyra's surviving this right now yeah and there's also like there's that intention right speaking of intention crafts and intention forges there's the intention forged into the choice that for her to save roger she has to give up that part of her right

and it's almost like like of course right at the end of the journey of course this is what i have to do what i've been fighting against my entire journey is what i have to choose to do i have to choose to sever from pan if i want to make my big journey and do my hero's journey and do the whole shebang you know bring everyone home ish that's real rough that is a big sacrifice for the hero of the story to make but it's different because she made it yeah like with the toad she made it for herself they make their way over to an ancient stone wall that's green with slime. Maybe it's that colonizing algae we talked about. And they hear cries in the air.

Human, animal, they're unsure, but they're the stars of this chapter. They see a door and try to enter it. The screams fill the air and they go on the defense. The screaming thing settles above their heads it's a great bird i see cassidy just like rubbing his hands together right now it's a giant great bird the size of a vulture with the face and breasts of a woman will immediately thinks harpy her face is smooth unwrled, but aged beyond the witches somehow. Thousands of cruel years on her face. So I am very excited to get to this part of the chapter. And I think

that it's impressive that Phil, in one of the most painful chapters of the book just you know lyra has her soul ripped away from her and then bam we're introduced to an entire new character and being and it works it really works well and the way that he describes the harpies um is really interesting to me because he describes them as being the size of a vulture and when i hear that i picture a medium to large size bird of prey, not eagle sized, but not as tiny as say a kestrel or a sparrowhawk. But, you know, I wonder, he could have easily chosen to describe the size using a different bird, like the harpies were the size of an eagle or a hawk, but he used vultures. And I think that's very purposeful

because vultures get a pretty bad rap. When you think of vultures, most people don't have a very positive association and they're widely viewed as ugly repulsive uh even scary a lot of them have bare skin on their head and they just aren't very well loved they survive by eating carrion and they also have a defense mechanism when threatened to projectile vomit on their would-be attackers. So, you know, you hear all that, you're like, hmm, not the best animals, right?

And I definitely don't judge people when they have negative reactions to vultures especially initially but i i really love how phil uses vultures as the comparison but then throughout following chapters he really fills out the harpies as characters and shows you that they're very multifaceted and they're not these scary smelly cruel beings at heart like they are that way for a reason and their existence isn't in a vacuum in other words like their soul essence is not being nasty and attacking people and i i would like to think that you know people would use that and then come away with a more positive perception of vultures as well because vultures are incredibly important to our ecosystems. And they, you know, they eat

carrion. So if you think about that, if we didn't have vultures, there would just be a whole lot more dead animals lying all over the place, uneaten. And so they really are the, you know, the trash collectors of our world. They make for more healthy environments and fewer pests and diseases. And they're definitely not appreciated enough. But I just really loved how he brought the bird imagery in right away. And so you're focusing both on the description of the harpy's face, which is human, but then also the wings, which when the harpy spread their wings, he notes careful to not not make them too one note even right off the bat because you really get a sense that they have the potential to be cruel and nasty but they're also like you think wow have they been stuck at the land of the dead for thousands millions of years like what's what's the history here and i think for me at least when i first read it

i just wanted to know more about them and why they are the way they are. And also details such as the Harpies could have attacked Will and Lyra straight away and not even asked any questions, but they at least entertain Lyra's bargain of a story for entrance into the land of the dead. And obviously, as we're about to see, that doesn't pan out too well, but they aren't merciless. That's really interesting that he chose vultures, right? As you said, there's a lot of associations with them and a lot of things that are very true, as you said, about what it means for the harpies to be part vulture, right? In this idea of feasting there's a very um there's a very visceral idea associated with them and that makes sense right we're here in the land of the dead and they're they're birds they're an animal that's very much associated with the dead but we

kind of get this sort of scavengery aspect of them right um in terms of that too and it it makes them seem very hardened and we'll see kind of why in just a second but also i didn't know that they were they had a tendency to vomit on themselves and that like really makes sense now like that really puts into context some of the things that are going on on their faces for me because i'm like why are they so nasty i i legitimately wonder that. You know, maybe I didn't even think of that connection. But yeah, I mean, he spends a lot of time describing how repulsive their faces are and these infected eyes and matted hair and they stink. But you can definitely see that they just spend millennia throwing up on themselves. That can't be too healthy.

You know, people on TikTok are into like mucus stuff now, like snail mucus masks and shit. Oh, no, that's been a long time. That's been a long time in Korean beauty. But what about harpy mucus? Like harpy mucus masks. Absolutely not. What's interesting is like it actually,

he gives them the benefit of having unwrinkled skin but then they've puked all over their skin and they have red swollen eyes infected. He's like you can look young but you also have to look like you're dying forever. But like do you, they just need to

wash their face you know like give them nappies or something like that's what I don't like Cassidy do vultures wash their face you know like give them nappies or something like i that's what i don't like cassidy do vultures smell nasty like do they smell this bad they they do actually um i i have actually not i have not personally been very close to a vulture, but all the people I know who work closely with vultures, whether it's in wildlife rehab facilities or actually working with them in the wild. The common thread is that they have a very powerful smell and it is very very strong and like very reminiscent of this so i definitely think i think philip definitely did some research into vultures and caught on to the they smell like shit yeah i mean it yeah do they have eye boogies too the the eye boogies not so much but the it's interesting when

he was talking about the infected eyes and just really all the sounds like there's a lot of infections going on on their face and i was reminded of some of the diseases that other birds have, most notably house finches, where they, of course, I'm forgetting off the top of my head what it's called, but they get just a ton of eye gunk and that you can barely even see their eyes because they just have this buildup of crusty, nasty stuff on their eyes. And actually, fun PSA, I guess, if you have bird feeders and you see any birds with nasty, crusty eyes, the right thing to do is actually take your feeders down and wash them and don't put them out until you don't see the birds of crusty infected eyes anymore because they actually infect each other through feeders and they can pass it amongst themselves so it's kind of an effort to uh you know contain the virus, so to speak. Wow. That makes sense.

I don't know if I'll ever see that closely into a bird's eyes, but I'll keep that in mind. You'll keep your eyes open. That's for sure. Yeah. The harpy mocks the group, saying, they are alive, not dead, here in the world of the dead. And they ask who she is.

She screeches back at them and the screech turns into crazy laughter like a villain from sailor moon so again like a villain from sailor moon no i'm just kidding uh okay you the villain will is reminded of the cruel children at the schoolyard who would laugh at him but he puts himself straight faces the harpy and says we'll fight you if you stop us from entering that door she mocks him further and says that they'll send his mother nightmares scream at her in her sleep he doesn't move watching salmachia out of the corner of his eye moving toward the harpy salmachia jumps at the harpy stabbing it with her spur and the harpy leaps off the branch, screaming. So just like with the vultures and everything else, I feel like Philip Pullman's

having just like a lot of fun here with some of these references and wordplay with the harpies. Like at one point when the harpy is stabbed, she's described as her hair stood out from her head like a crest of serpents, which is an obvious reference to the Gorgons in greek mythology and then like in a second as she's flying towards the children it says the harpy launched herself at them in a fury and it feels like this pond like wink about the furies from greek mythology and i think chloe's gonna talk up more about yes these are i love we're in a very mythological mode the last couple months with our Song of Achilles. And harpies are very much in mythology. They're half bird, half human.

Personification of storm winds from Roman and Greek mythology, specifically in Homer's poems. They carried evildoers to be punished by the Aranese, thonic deities of vengeance, and Hesiod has described them as having maiden faces, which I thought was interesting. They can be beautiful bird ladies. Dante, though, called them repellent

and that they brought woe in the Divine Comedy. And William Blake actually did some artwork later in his life, made some illustrations to the Divine Comedy, and he drew them as hideous, nightmarish, half-female vultures.

There's an interesting bit about these illustrations. He was ill in his 60s, and he had made probably 100 illustrations by that time, and so he decided to make something based off of the wood of the self-murderers, the harpies, and the suicides. Basically, Dante and Virgil walk through the haunted forest, and Dante tears a twig off of a bleeding tree, dropping it in shock, hearing the words, Wherefore tierced me thus? Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast? At the time of the wood of suicides, it was written by Dante, the Catholic Church was considering suicide to be equivalent to at least murder, and alluded to this by putting suicide offender into a tree denying them eternal life

and damning their soul to eternity as the restless dead pray to the harpies the soul can only speak when its tree is damaged as punishment for choosing to express their grief through suicide it's an interesting depiction of the harpy versus what we're seeing in these chapters which again i rather love as cassidy's been saying like that kind of flip that the harpies aren't actually bad bad necessarily uh they're stuck here as much as everybody else is stuck here right just like the rest of humanity stuck to either like be a soul cop or suffer that's kind of the choice down here yeah and no i i loved that connection you made and i think it's it's really cool that there's just so many connections with harpies and some of them

phil brings up uh very deliberately in this chapter and some are under the surface. But you know, like what you were saying, Ileana, with his wordplay, I hadn't even caught on to that until you mentioned that. And, you know, just makes me think how, how many different sources Philip Pullman is pulling from, no pun intended, when he writes these chapters. And, you know, I'd like to think he occasionally reads bird books too, for my own selfish reasons. And another reference that I was just thinking of was that of harpy eagles. The harpies actually get their own namesake in the bird world. But unlike vultures, harpy eagles do not suffer from quite the same negative popular image, shall we say.

They are huge birds of prey. They're one of the largest eagles in the world. And they actually have the largest talons of any raptor. And if you have a chance to look up pictures of harpy eagles and specifically their talons, chance to look up pictures of harpy eagles and specifically their talons they are just massive beyond belief and there's pictures of them next to a human hand and it's frankly kind of terrifying like those things could eviscerate you and they're also the size of a uh a grizzly bear's claw wow so they're just massive birds but they live in the jungle they hunt monkeys and sloths and they're very badass and i am especially after reading this chapter i'm just very glad that harpies get some positive rap because they they they could use

some yeah i mean but also like why the sloths you know what did they do to anyone that's true no that's true they're they've been too slow that's the main thing eliana i hate to break it to you but that is the circle of life there yeah wow harpy eagle eats sloth we do podcast life's hard you know cassidy you say the harpy eagle and something else I was thinking of, especially because we know Pullman loves Dante as an inspo and loves William Blake as an inspo and is into some of this stuff as inspo. You know, he's dabbled. He's dabbled in writings and readings. He's a learned fella. It reminds me of Prometheus, too, especially with the description of how dante says

that people were treated the harpies were pecking at them you know inside the tree keeping them just just alive not unlike prometheus who got in a little bit of trouble you know stealing fire for mankind taking a spark back and so he had to you know be chained up and have his liver eaten out by an eagle constantly forever yes forever and i mean like when you're reading that aloud right it does feel very much like as you said prometheus and it it feels very much like i think he probably took inspiration from all this like why throw in harpies of all the things that you could throw into the underworld? Probably because he's, like, big Dante fanboy. Because, I mean, you know, Dante, he wrote this whole thing, right?

Instead of an erotic friend fiction, it was a neurotic enemy fiction. And that's literally, like, what the Divine Comedy is. And Prometheus makes sense within the context as an illusion within this story because it's a story very much also about the fire can be seen sort of as an allegory of knowledge, right? And it's very akin to that idea of the consumption,

taking something from the gods, that knowledge, and stealing from them. Yeah, this whole rebellion is. Exactly. It's big sin. and then he gets tortured like you said for a long ass time like the harpies are torturing the people which we find out soon as they try to run for the door and she returns the gallivespians are fighting off the bird woman right finally lyra calls out for them to just stop fighting her she tells them you know what the harpy is right also they can't seem to hurt her for some reason and so she just asks the harpy's name she cries out no name and asks what they can give her lyra offers a story and asks if they'll let them through if they tell her a good story no name says to try and lyra felt like she'd just been dealt the ace of trumps

oh be careful whispered salmachia but lyra's mind was already racing ahead through the story she told the night before shaping cutting improving and adding parents dead family treasure shipwreck escape well she said settling into her storytelling frame of mind, it began when I was a baby, really. She tells her ridiculous tale of her Duke and Duchess parents, but the harpy cuts her off, calls her a liar, pulls out a tuft of her hair with her claws, and aims for her face, but Will protects her, pulling out the knife.

Blood is running down from lyra's scalp and the harpy chants liar liar liar merging sounds together because eventually it just starts sounding like lyra lyra lyra cries into will who protects her under his shoulders and then cuts the door lock out with his knife so So smart. Such a smart boy. They dart in, tumbling into the realm of ghosts. The harpies cry behind them. Lyra. Oh my god. Lyra. Not now, Eliana.

Not now. Kate Bush is not totally appropriate right now. Okay, my bad. But what is... I do love this. at long last you know we get we get the thing that everyone kind of already knew you know the whole name playing on the word liar and lyra and stories and all those the inspiration is very obvious but it's here explicit now congrats and so here we are at chapter 22, The Whisperers. I'm going to not whisper this header for the chapter.

This quote, Thick as autumnal leaves that strode the brooks in Valambrosa, where the Trurian shades high over Arctim Bower. And that's from John Milton from Paradise Lost, 1 line 302 it's a pretty big deal Paradise Lost when it comes to these books oh my god it's lost to me it's all Greek to me

Jesus fucking Christ that's also part of this story too Will treats Lyra's head with blood moss ointment ah she's ash pale her eyes are glazed she's ready to give up she feels useless can't even tell lies right you know what i'm saying life sucks he reminds her hey you can still read the alethiometer and we need to find out where we are for roger i I love that Will did this. I'm like, what a good

friend you are, Will. That is great. He's building up her self-esteem. That's what, you know, being like, you might not be able to do that, but you knew all these. And so they look out at the land. There's no true shadows, no true light, and they're just ghostly adults and children filling the space, and there are too many to count. Some sit, some stand, some lay listless or asleep. No one plays, but they do look up at the new arrivals. Ghosts, she whispered. This is where they all are.

Everyone that ever died. No doubt it was because she didn't have pantalimon anymore, but she clung close to Will's arm, and he was glad she did. Whoa. Whoa. Interesting. Juicy. But, yeah, and Chloe, you might know more about this,

but the way that the land of the dead is described in his dark materials makes me think a little bit of, I mean, to come back to Dante, for a moment it did remind me a little bit of that limbo area that Dante goes through, but it also makes me think a little bit of Sheol, where the tanakh says all the shades of the dead go like whether the person who was living like is good or bad that's where all the dead go yeah there's a little bit in one

of my favorite books that i talk about like all the time every month tree of souls about that um about shayol and it actually is called a couple different things in judaism it becomes jahanna so in the myths of hell in the biblical view all souls of the dead go to shayol there is neither reward nor punishment it is not unlike the greek realm of hades and it is likely influenced it likely influenced the christian concept of limbo in rabbinic lore shayol was replaced by jehanah a place of punishment for the souls of sinners which combines elements of both purgatory and hell it was the widespread rabbinic belief that only a few souls actually went to paradise after death the majority went to jehanah where they burned in the fires of hell,

and they're punished with lashes by avenging angels for up to one year, again with the punishment as we mentioned. In the Zohar, these fires of hell are identified as a person's own passions and desires which consume him. These punishments are just as severe as what's portrayed in the Inferno, but in contrast to the Christian concept of hell, the purified souls end up released from Gehenna and end up making a very slow ascent into paradise. For this reason, it's kind of argued that Jewish hell is more like the Christian concept of purgatory than like hell, and some take the position inevitable release means there is no concept of hell at all, all however a stage of punishment that purifies the soul before it ascends on high kind of interesting kind of an interesting little

concept it is interesting and i didn't know that that i mean that makes sense right now why i thought of it as similar to limbo yeah so the galavespians go forward scouting out the ghosts who watch them with wonder most keep watching will and lyra though and the harpy screams fill the air outside of the walls will speaks first asking if they can speak they can only whisper these ghosts a pale sound the child ghosts thrust themselves forward to speak to them the ghosts think the gallivaspians are demons and lyra says no i'm sorry they're not she talks to the children telling them if my demon was here i'd let you pet him i i just really love that moment from lyra right like the books have emphasized this whole time what a huge taboo it is for someone else to touch your demon and we get to see that Lyra feels the pain of these ghosts so deeply,

and especially having experienced losing her demon herself just now, that she's willing to, she would have been willing to feel that really deep discomfort and to break that rule about having others touch your demon just to ease their suffering. Yeah, this is such a quick moment but i think it's such a important moment just for understanding who lyra is as a character because it's just she says it so openly and easily just she's like i would i would let you touch my demon and get comfort from him. And she's saying this to people who know what demons are and know how important that is.

So, you know, I can imagine how much that touches them. And that's just not something anyone would say in normal life in Lyra's world. You wouldn't come up to someone who's grieving and say, oh, do you want to pet my demon for comfort? Because that just doesn't happen. And that person would also take comfort in their own demon. But I think the fact that she says this to the children, just so matter of factlyly it just really shows her capacity for empathy and love even when she's getting her soul torn out of her body literally and she is in immense pain and not in a good spot emotionally at all but she really wants to be there for these kids these ghosts and that's yeah she's lyra's too good for this world is the moral of the story it does go

to show and i think this is a great mirror to will earlier with the toad right that lyra realizes these children have been bereft of their demons and their soul you know even the ones we're about to see that may never have had demons before they know now that they have a part of themselves that is reserved for that as well it's uh it's very brave of her to immediately choose to formulate a plan to save all of them instead of just wash her sins off you know get rid of her guilt over roger and see him at least now it's why why just one why not all of them yeah the adults hang back watching while the children warm themselves at the life that flows from will and lyra so well lyra are like furnaces that the ghosts just swarm to just for experience,

just a little warmth because they're only surrounded by other ghosts. But bit by bit, Will and Lyra noticed that they're being drained. It feels like the life force is being slowly taken from them. And Lyra has to plead for them to hold off and not go so close. She apologizes, wishing she knew what to do but asks them to help them find the boy that they're searching for. A ghost girl worries about the gash on Lyra's forehead and she tells her not to worry that the harpies can't do any more to hurt them. The ghost girl is like, you have no idea. They're awful. And they do a lot

more than that. But she doesn't explain more than that. But she calls them hateful. In contrast, the adults seem to be in a very lethargic state, unable to speak or care. And Lyra once more calls for help, saying that they need to search for a boy named Roger, who had only been here a few weeks. The first ghost girl is asking why they want to find him, and Will says Lyra needs to speak with him, and he's looking for someone too.

His father, John Parry. Japari. Joppery. Joseph... Stannis looks grubbin'. Do you know him? Stannis? Stannis? St stanis ron series renly john not roger but suddenly the ghosts all turn and flee all of them because the harpies have returned will protects lyra with the knife tialis and salmachia skim towards them the knife keeps them safe enough and will calls the galavespians to

perch on him he tells them to watch the harpies actually only come and scream they didn't actually mean to hit lyra harpy defense squad leave them alone you know let them live their lives they're just swooping around you know the ghosts also suddenly realized this which is kind of like y'all have lived here for a while so you didn't notice that they anyways the ghosts finally realize this and they drift back watching the birds very cautiously lyra's wound has reopened and she wipes blood off her cheek telling will she's happy she's happy they came here to do this together he thinks she has an expression on her face that he loves it showed she was thinking of something daring but she wasn't ready to speak of it yet he nodded to show he understood what a great secret language like

he knew what what she was really thinking her i'm happy him you're planning something yes yes they they started to really build this connection and that comes through a lot in this Her, I'm happy. Him, you're planning something. Yes, yes. They've started to really build this connection, and that comes through a lot in these chapters, right? Like the moment where it's described that they both have the same expression on their faces. A lot of that mirroring. And meanwhile, the ghost girl tells them, all right, come this way, and they feel ghost hands tugging at their ribs, making them follow, and the ghost girl asks them where their

demons are, apologetic for asking, and they explain that they left them outside, where it's safe. And the girl starts to tell them about her demon, who had been named Sandling. He hadn't settled yet, but he thought he might be a bird, but she didn't want him to lose his fur. But more and more,

he was staying and becoming a birb. Interesting. Very interesting. that's all i have to say listen to the discussion also just a a quick thing i just thought of is with the name sandling there's actually a small sandpiper called a sandalene so it's almost the exact same name just a couple extra letters and you know the fact that he's spending more and more as a bird i just thought was really interesting with this name that almost perfectly matches a real life bird name so oh philip coleman said bird rights yeah no that's canon now I think it was becoming a sanderling

wow Brandon Sanderling oh my god Lyra tells the ghost girl and all of their listeners about Panna Layman and all the ghost children tell her about their demons as well

they're playing kind of hide and seek with their demons and their memories. They're arguing about settling with their demons, all sorts of stories, wondering if they'll ever see their demons again, thinking they must be out there, which is like the most depressing thing because like anyone who lost an animal as a kid, you know, can tell you like all the dreams of little kids are, will I ever see the animal again someday? Maybe in heaven you'll see your childhood best friend. And it's like, no, dude, this is quote-unquote heaven.

This is where these kids have gone. It's so fucked up. I had that feeling at 30 years old when my dog died. Like, I'm not gonna lie. It was, it was... It gets worse as you get older as somebody who's lost them from childhood to adulthood god it sucks yeah i mean they were like there for like two-thirds of my i mean this was the this pan was there for her whole anyway but no yeah it sucks yeah it's a

horrible feeling and like now you get to the pearly gates and this is the pearly gates mother fuck and what's the worst these kids could have done like they're not as bad as the chitigatse kids you know what i mean yeah and those kids are all right those kids are probably here yeah some of them i mean everyone is probably here you're right i mean they might not be here hopefully they're a lot of them survive, but some of them might be here because, I mean, like, those kids are on their own. Yeah.

Will finally speaks up, asking if anyone's here from his world where they don't have demons. And some of them speak up, and they explain that they didn't understand demons until they came here, and when they came here, they felt like they were missing something too one girl talks about her death instead and says that she had known that she could always trust her death where they were going what they did but when she died

her death left her and she doesn't know what's going to happen ever again she doesn't have him anymore yeah i like the deaths i do too and the rest yeah the rest of the deaths echo her saying nothing forever nothing's going to happen what a fucking mood that's it right like that's just this is it forever and then you die and then it's another thing forever of death yeah I don't know one boy that's with them is like totally optimistic though right like he's like

what if things might change now that they're here that's actually how he says it that's how all of them say it it's no it's canon that is that is how they talk and uh this is the whisperers yeah oh yeah actually literally it is this is the name of the chapter so lyra asked what he would do if he could do anything and the boy says he'd go up

to the world again even if it only meant seeing it once. Lyra keeps burning on with this new idea, but she doesn't give away the game yet about her whole idea because she decides that Will deserves to hear it before anyone else. Because of course he does. does uh she says they have to keep finding roger the ghosts flock to them they make a very slow moving migration across this empty plane and tialis and salmachia are flying ahead wondering if they have demons too salmachia has felt different since getting onto the boat like her heart has been torn out and tialis has felt off rhythm too yes we have demons whatever they are maybe the people in lyra's world are the only living beings to know they have maybe that's why it was one of them who started the revolt i love that so much. I love this development for the Galavespians, especially because before this thought, they had joined Asriel's campaign initially, and that's what they're supposed to do. But now they're contemplating if they too have purpose, if they have souls. And, you know, they've been hunted and treated by their humans in their world pretty badly. I imagine there's probably propaganda this whole time saying that their people don't have souls, right?

Making them feel lesser, making them feel even smaller than they actually are. But this whole time, they did. And they now know it because they actually felt something, right? And that's what's actually pushing them now to kind of take the no chance, no choice moment to take on, you know, the authority for Lyra, not even for Asriel. That's such a great point like now they know for sure unfortunately through this very terrible way and at the very end of their life

yeah after having been as you said right like dehumanized for so long it's really interesting well things that also don't work here besides souls the lodestone resonator because unfortunately turns out there is no wi-fi there is no signal no 5g in the land of the dead there's nothing forever all right they're beyond help salmakia says that will would follow lyra to

the end of the world and tialis wonders if his knife will cut the way back she's very sure that this is their plan but also they're both so young and tialis reflects that his knife will cut the way back. She's very sure that this is their plan, but also they're both so young. And Tialis reflects that on the upside, if they don't survive, then she never has attempt fate and make her choice. Salmakia wonders if she had already chosen, like, leaving Pan there on the shore. Maybe that was the choice. They look down at the children, just seeing them amongst the ghosts, and he says no not yet

your choice is yet to come and salmakia says they must bring her to it safely then tally says both of them they're bound now which is i mean like speaking of character progression right like this is this is pretty big for tally's um being real mean to the kids you know chevalier tiales yeah he's definitely saw a big time towards them definitely i like how you know tiales is definitely going through a lot of development as a character and becoming a lot more understanding and empathetic but you know he still has that side to him that's a little kind of well this is the way things are and i i do have to laugh a little bit on his comment that well doesn't matter if she's dead that you know she's dead at least she doesn't have to make a choice and you know he he doesn't mean it in a cruel way or anything like that it's just in the context of the chapter it's

a little a little funny yeah he's definitely like a gruff kind especially after just spending holidays with people different than myself you know he's very like gruff and stuck in his ways absolutely and on a meta level it serves to remind us of that that prophecy right we were reminded of one of the other ones being fulfilled a second ago. Yeah, that's true. They fly ahead, letting the dragonflies expend some energy, and the children look up and see them and actually feel a little relief. Lyra finally gets a chance to tell Will her plan.

I want us to take all these poor dead ghost kids outside. The grown-ups as well. We could set them free. We'll find Roger and your father, and then let's open the way to the world outside and set them all free. He turned and gave her a true smile, so warm and happy she felt something stumble and falter inside her. At least, it felt like that,

but without Pamelamen, she couldn't ask herself what it meant. It might have been a new way for her heart to beat whoa whoa this that freaking passage yeah it um it it really gets me and i before rereading these chapters I had forgotten just how many little moments there are like this that just remind you how much will Lyra care about each other and in this case this is a you know it's a new chapter in their relationship and they're discovering new feelings about each other especially just describing this feeling for lyra as it might have been a new way for her heart to beat i think for one thing it just really describes uh discovering you have feelings for someone so well of just like oh this feels different and she knows will

so well at this point but she's discovering different you know she hasn't had this reaction before and she doesn't have penteleimon to ask what it means but i think to readers it's pretty obvious is what's happening and And I think the real touching aspect is that both Lyra and Will are still in the phase where they don't really know what's happening, but they're just kind of along for the ride. And I think it also shows a lot of character development for both of them. Because if you think back to The Subtle Knife, there wasn't this trust there like they really had to build this trust between each other and i think if lyra had told will of this idea

back when they first knew each other will probably would have questioned it and questioned whether it was a good idea but he knows lyra so well at this point that he just innately trusts her and trusts that she's making the right decision. And he just he I think he recognizes the compassion in this idea. And he's just amazed at her ability to care that much. And he that smile he gives her is him saying i trust you and i would literally follow you anywhere and it uh yeah that that line really gets me it is it is such an adult relationship right like this isn't something they've ever experienced with anyone else and saying yes to going to the underworld is one thing but now it's obviously transformed into a much bigger much more daunting and scarier task really scary task to try to somehow have the weight of every soul in the underworld on your shoulders that's something that not a lot of 12, 13 year old couples go through, in my experience. Yeah, and they didn't have to take that weight on, right? Like that speaks to the conviction that Lyra has, and it speaks to that, to Will sharing those same values that he says, or that he agrees that he sees something wrong, and he too cannot look away and cannot turn from it. Same as Lyra.

Yeah. So, speaking of immense guilt and sadness, Roger's name is being whispered by the ghosts spreading from one to the other and a new movement begins in the crowd. The Galavespians skim down closer, watching ghosts pointing,

someone being urged forward, and then a young ghost boy with an honest, unhappy, confused face has been found. Roger. It's a long way to Lyra, but the ghosts get him on the right path, and the Galavespians fly back to tell Lyra he's an hour walk from her. Tialis says

you have to keep going. Soon, you'll find him. We close out the chapter with... Oh my god, hello, boy. Welcome. There he is. He is here. Lyra was charged with it already

and plied the Galavespians with questions. How did Roger see him? Had he spoken to them? No, of course, but did he seem glad? Were the other children aware of what was happening? And were they helping him? Or were they just in the way? And so on.

Tialis tried to answer everything truthfully and patiently. And step by step, the living girl drew closer to the boy she had brought to his death. I'm emotional. What a freaking way to end a chapter. You know, Phil knows. He knows how to end a damn chapter. You know what?

I don't care what they say about Philip Pullman. Yeah. Okay, I don't care what I say about Philip Pullman. I don't care what i say about philip yeah i mean it he ties that together with like the things that are going on in the previous chapter is just so well like um again i would like to once more finally bring up the toad for the final time all right the toad was really important and and i think that roger is exactly like the embodiment of what was being brought up there like i can't make that call like i don't get to decide like that the toad's gonna die for my feelings right and and that's

what lord azriel did and that's why um i just i struggle to see him as heroic right like he decided that it was fine to sever this other kid and thus kill roger for the sake of his own feelings and like his master plan and lyra is very much our moral compass and lyra is like no that was wrong we don't get to decide that roger has to die for all the rest of us roger didn't get to make that choice his free will was taken well Eliana I agree but now that you're done beating the dead toad the toad is alive

Schrodinger's toad you know what a chapter the whisperers I love that and you know the whisper voice eliana yours was better mine was a little improvised i just didn't want you to show me up but that's creepy that sound that echoing of whispers i kind of just do that to people also i've had a lot of practice of going up to people going

and just speaking in that voice so i've been preparing for this role my whole life of being dead so on that note we are going to move into our dust gushin where we spoil anything and everything outside of these chapters the end of the main trilogy uh the books of dust la La Belle Sauvage, The Secret Commonwealth, all of the outer novellas, all of those works. We're going to spoil the hell out of them, so if you are not caught up, if you have not yet finished the Amber Spyglass or those outer works, head out now.

Go take a breather. Come back at the end of the month. We will be back with episode 23, covering the next few chapters. And we'll see you then. For the rest of you. It's time to get dusty. All right.

I think they're gone. You know, those, the unspoiled, the dustless, the clean ones amongst us. Let's start it off with that ghost demon girl saying that a shout out to her demon being a bird more and more and more. We have Pan settling as the Pine Martin later, but he's been what? Settling as his relatives lately. Just transformed into a cousin. I'm that. transformed into a cousin i'm that indeed another little piece i really liked which of course i'm i'm good at picking out just really tragic depressing bits but it's a specialty of mine

so when lyra tells pan that if i have to spend every minute of my life finding you again, I will. That's definitely foreshadowing her telling Will a similar thing at the end of the book and how her atoms will look for his atoms and they will reunite in the land of the dead and then forever be intertwined in the outside world. And I'm not proud of myself for coming up that connection. But there you have it. It's not what we do here, Cassidy. I want you to think long and hard about what you just did. No, I'm just kidding.

It's exactly what we do here. Yeah, it is kind of sad. What a sad fucking sacrifice right that like she sacrifices that part of herself she cripples her relationship with pan and we see in the secret commonwealth that it's strained we'll talk a little bit about that today in the discussion but you know we see that relationship strained and it's like so she's without will she can't be with fucking will she got her demon back but he hates her life sucks as an adult you know like right now life

sucks very badly for lyra as a child too but um it doesn't get better fuck yeah yeah and i mean like as you said life sucks she's lost pan lost will and then like a lot of those mentor figures aren't there for her either yeah you know come adulthood too i saw cassidy having a conversation with people on twitter you know like i mean the mother figures right they they didn't like really stick around either no or not mother figure i guess but yeah she yeah even like after the events of the main trilogy it's like mother figures father figures like she doesn't have hardly anything she is dame hannah but you know really not not really and she's still you know getting to know her seraphina kind of ghosts her and then you know ma costa doesn't really come up a lot lee's freaking dead

the master's dead the master's dead it's just like the more I thought about it, I just I really think that, you know, after they part, Will is definitely the more supported one because, you know, Mary, despite everything, like, Mary's pretty great to have as your main mentor, friend, and she definitely is a maternal figure for Will. Definitely is a maternal figure for Will. And she has the bandwidth. You know, like, she definitely has the time to care for Will. Or at least to, like, help be a strong, prominent figure in his life. And it is kind of sad because it shows, like, that journey of the hero being alone at the end. Right? Like, Frodo, like, etc. Pick a hero.

At the end, Lyra was alone. The special gifted, prophesied one is still isolated, alone, and after saving the world that's what she has to go back to. There's part of me that knows that some of it is retconning for the purpose of writing sequels, but

the beginning of the Secret Commonwealth when they sit her down and they're like, by the way, all these crazy adventures surrounding your birth happened forever ago and we couldn't even speak to you about them or breathe toward you about them until right now age 20 sitting here in this room and I get it

it's plot like that's the reason but it did hurt like the Alice Lonsdale retcon going on that like you know Alice never loved me alice loved you ferociously in labelle sauvage it's just philip pullman wrote that after the main trilogy yeah you know i get it i do get it it's just like he then wrote it so well that it's such a bummer see i don't have the problem of reading it when i was a kid like you guys do. So my issues are now.

My issues are like, but it would make more sense if you put this in the time machine and fixed it, Phil. And I mean, like, it's not really a retcon, but like we end the series where her we end this series with her not completely alone. Right. She has Pan. It's only later on. Like, I guess. Almost 20 years later right yeah in my own life not just her life like in her life it's been 10 years in my life it's been almost 20 years between like the secret commonwealth and the release of this book and she has pan that she can lean on at the end of this series. She's not alone.

And, like, that's the whole point, right? That's how the first book ends, that Lyra was not alone. She and her demons walked into the stars. Yeah. Yeah. And another kind of related thought I had of just, you know, not being alone was, you know, of just you know not being alone was you know she has that thought in this chapter of what it would be like to hold a child and read to and thinking that i might like that and i don't know i just got to thinking about whether this was just kind of a throwaway line and wouldn't come back or there was some possibility

that Lyra would have a child in the future of the books and I don't really foresee any scenario where in the current timeline like in the third book of dust you she would have a child. But even if it was some kind of hinting that like he does at the end of the Amber Spyglass, that years later, Will would think this or years later, Will Iver would think this. Some note that, you know, she was reading to her child. I could see it go either way, but it just felt notable that it was in this chapter. So, yeah, i was i was wondering what what your thoughts on that were olivier bon vie and her have a baby i mean if she's having one that early it's probably not planned you know um well it has to be soon then you know

yeah right if it's like in book three i mean granted they could do a time jump right like an epilogue. There was a part of me that kind of wondered if the whole thing about her wanting to have a child is like, I mean, coming back to the idea of loneliness, right? Is it this, something that she was thinking about of a way to create her own family, considering that she didn't have one, you know, heading in the other direction, like, of parents downwards know yeah recreating your family i don't know that feels like that does feel like part of the story right especially with the gyptians especially with the witches especially with lee scoresby kind of a collect your own family but i i would like to see an epilogue or something of if that's what Lyra desires of having a family. I mean, yeah, I just hope against hope right now at this whole entire series that she gets some sort of happiness. Right. Because right now she's like, wow, like just ripped apart. She had a very traumatic childhood, very traumatic events that happened at the end of this book.

she had a very traumatic childhood very traumatic events that happened at the end of this book and if that would make her happy i hope she settles down with the right guy e.g dick orchard maybe you know olivier bon vie he might be all right if she straightens him out a little bit roughs him up a little you know gives him the old one too i mean she's like 20 years old she could meet anyone else that too in the the next few years of her life. And that person doesn't have to be a professor or do martial arts or... Yeah, he could literally be anything else. It could be anyone. It could be her friend, Marianne. It could be you. She might not even know them yet. She gonna go on tinder and go find someone she hasn't even gotten through her 20s yet like she could still be really

gay yeah there are there are like people who have readings of lyra as sapphic so and philip pullman didn't turn it down he's like if you can like find the evidence and if you can find a tech space for it yeah i saw that happen on Twitter. I was like, okay. Wow. No wonder our podcast is allowed to exist. Philip, if you can dream it, you can speak it into a microphone. For the future of the books and Lyra potentially having a child and who she ends up with i'm right there with you that i i just i really want happiness for lyra and for her to have some peace and some resolution but you know we will we will see

and i i just wanted to make one more note it's not directly related to uh children per se but i have been reading a very good lyra and will like his dark materials fan fiction so for anyone who's into that i would definitely recommend from eden and spy eliza blue i believe e-l-l-i-z-a blue i definitely find fan fiction to be hit or miss a lot but she she writes lyra and will so well and their dynamic is very believable and i think like regardless of you know if you are a big fan of lyra and Will as a coupling or characters. It's just, she really brings in all these characters from the main trilogy and the,

the books of dust in a way that's really fun. And in my mind, most importantly, she also has this older version of Malcolm that is in my mind, the kind of natural progression from Malcolm in the first book. In other words, that he's sweet and really supportive of Lyra, but without some of the creepy undertones that we get in the Secret Commonwealth. So just wanted to throw that out out there. Schmelkem Schmolsted. I don't know.

Yeah, I know that our friend Candid has been also tweeting about that, so the name rings a bell. May have to check her out, huh? Yeah. Coming back to what Lyra's future could look like, and whether or not she does does have a child I mean

speaking of her very very very immediate future like as in before the end of this book you know she she really does already become that person who reads to stories to children right because again she's Eve mother of us all and Will in a few chapters or like the next one I don't remember exactly I mean she's gonna do as Will advises right tell them and so she tells them about the world and how wonderful and sweet life was slash is and also the

difficult journey it took to get down here I don't know why she keeps making up these stories like those stories are not as good as like what she's actually been through because I read this story and so I know that this is a better story and she finds that everyone what she's actually been through, because I read this story, and so I know that this is a better story. And she finds that everyone, including the harpies, they all fall hush to listen to what happened to her. And she does, so she already becomes that mother, telling stories and teaching the other shades and the harpies about the power of tell-them stories.

Yeah, that's just as powerful in some ways as motherhood you know carrying on culture and storytelling and legacy legacy in the words of selena meyer legacy that's a quote around my household sorry i thought you were we were doing the other quote the other quote the quote by alexander hamilton linden while miranda alexander hamilton maybe selena meyer was quoting that in veep actually um what if there were a veep musical okay you know it's really funny that you two were just mentioning lyra and will being in love together forever having babies right because they're in love that's what i took from this conversation and usually i look at their relationship with very sad undertones right very orpheus and eurydice undertones as we've talked about here in this very dust discussion

before uh especially regarding the books of dust what if they get to say goodbye and heal you know yada yada but there are some shades haha shades here almost of psyche and cupid um psyche actually means soul right and yes it's not like a one for one but there's cupid defies his mother not necessarily will defying his mother but he feels guilt choosing lyra's journey and his father over her. Psyche having to retrieve something from the underworld and Charon's obol even is involved. There's even a prophecy about Cupid and Psyche and bonus her sisters are evil and they jump into an abyss thinking Zephyr is going to catch them. Zephyr does not catch them. So nothing one for one but just a couple thoughts and cupid and psyche then get married forever and have kids so just like will and lyra right you know right guys right

oh yeah yeah exactly like them same thing yeah thanks good waves crashing down settle down marry him alone leave me marry him alone god and i I just had one last thing I wanted to bring up in that when Lyra is telling the children that she would let them pet Pan if he was there. I really was reminded of the scene in the Secret Commonwealth where Lyra is on a ship and it crashes into a smaller boat. And there's this big catastrophe. A lot of people go overboard and need to be rescued. And obviously this whole time, Lyra is without Pan because they are estranged,

but despite not having Pan with her there, But despite not having Pan with her there, she also is able to just put herself in the shoes of those in need around her and tries to offer what little warmth and comfort she can. And she specifically offers this little girl, I forget her name, but she really offers her some solace. And I found it really powerful in the Secret Commonwealth. And I think it's even more powerful with this connection with Lyra being without Pan in the Land of the Dead and finding the ability to do that. the ability to do that because I think, you know, no matter what happens, Lyra will always be the Lyra that fiercely defended the body of Tony Macarius in book one and was the only person there for him.

And then later just being there, being there for the people that don't have protectors. Like she is that person. I think that this just keeps being reinstated. And I love this connection between her in the Land of the Dead and then her in the secret commonwealth because there's a lot of similarities there yeah i love that her heart is just like so open to the underdogs to those that do not have as great of a situation as she has and she doesn't have the best of situations always she's better off than other orphans right uh she lives at fucking jordan college and doesn't want for things however

it is like her heart is still full she doesn't let that stunt her growth or stunt her view and doesn't let that stop her from adventuring yeah and thank you for talking about tony mccarrie it's really important to me something very special and personal to me is Tony Macarius yeah he definitely does not get enough love in uh this fandom and I I know that he's especially important to you and I think I really connected with what you've said about him in the past and just what his character means for lyra and for the story so and tony mccairis is without his demon so there's just there's so many connections in there yeah lyra is now in those shoes those same very shoes and she has to hold it together while feeling like she's been ripped apart yeah i do wish we had found him in the Land of the Dead.

Yeah. I guess Lise Goresby was the most they could toss us as the extra bone, right? I mean, we got a lot. We did get a lot of people. Like, three is enough. Three is a crowd. I get it. But I do wonder.

I mean, we all know how his life ends up right i mean he goes out into the window and joins his demon which is like fantastic yeah lyra made that happen for him oh ratter yeah well cassidy thank you so much for joining us on this journey into the underworld i know it was a very rough journey we faced some obstacles so thank you for being brave and courageous and joining us for that here in the underworld well first of all thank you so much for having me on this was a it sounds weird to had a really good time and i uh really look forward to hearing you finish the story for social media you can find me on twitter at birdnut95 and i also if you're interested in looking into some more bird related things related to me, you can go to ebird.org to see some cool bird databases that I spend a lot of time on.

and also there's hawkwatch.org for hawkwatch international where i've done a lot of work and they recently released a documentary of some of the raptor research that they do and i do make a couple of appearances in in that documentary so if you search on their website i think you'll be able to find that and then the website for the organ marveled merlot project which i've also done a lot of research with and that website is organmerlot.org i Yeah, we'll link all these below in the description too when we snag them from Cassidy, so make sure you check them out. Yeah, I remember you talking about E-Bird before. Yes.

During a potluck presentation, so very cool database. Check that out. And of course, you can also let us know what you thought also about these chapters. This episode, maybe you too would like to share some thoughts about birds. I know that we got more pictures of Blueberry.

Thank you. Thank you, Robin. Yeah, and I know they're an Aeswaf fan, and I think they're also his Dark Materials fan, but we got some great photos of our bird friend from Robin, Blueberry. Yes Blueberry. So thank you so much for sending those and maybe you also have pictures

of birds that you want to send us and to do all that you can send us an email at girlsgoncanon C-A-N-O-N at gmail or you can find us on Twitter where you should probably also follow us and if you would like you can find us on Twitter, where you should probably also follow us. And if you would like, you can, again, DM us at Girls Gone Canon. Yeah, and make sure you're subscribed to us on a streaming platform near you.

There are many you can follow us on if you have not already hit subscribe. Hey, I hear Spotify is now doing reviews, too. Brand new thing. Thanks to Candid59 for letting us know. So if you follow us on Spotify, throw a review down. Five stars. Tell us why you love us. But you can follow us over at Spotify, Stitcher, Acast,

iHeartRadio, you name it. We're on there. Google Play, Apple Podcasts, iTunes. Yes. And of course, you can also always find us on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Girls Gone Canon. Where we have bonus episodes, such as,

for example, The Song of Achilles. A different story entirely. And we will be doing Circe. C-I-R-C-E. More Greek mythology things. In February. Also by Madeline Miller. And, of course, we do have A Song of Ice and Fire episodes. And of course, we do have

a Song of Ice and Fire episodes, and we also have access to our Discord on Patreon. Yes. Check it out at Patreon. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us for these really sad episodes, these really emotional episodes.

And thank you again, Cassidy, for joining us for these really sad episodes, these really emotional episodes and thank you again, Cassidy for joining us to talk about them and to live through them and to be in pain with us I have been one of your hosts Eliana and I have been another one of your hosts

Chloe, thanks and we will get sad as hell with you at the end of the month. Roger's kind of Patrick-less. Yeah. You know, Roger's kind of Patrick-less-y. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Patrick-less-y. I think that's true. Absolutely. Definitely.

Absolutely. We'll see you next time. Pfft!