Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Episode 23 — The Amber Spyglass Chapters 23-25

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

A couple of bombs go off these chapters. The first is when Lyra drops some truth bombs on the dead and the harpies. True stories, it turns out, can be nourishing.   In another world, there's an actual bomb, and Mrs. Coulter's got a hair's breadth of a chance to defuse it.   ---   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 23, The Amber Spyglass, Chapters 23 through 25. I am one of your hosts, Chloe, and we're here. We're here. We are in chapters 23, 24, 25. No Way Out, Mrs. Coulter in Geneva, 25, St. Jean Lizzo. This is, we're getting to the tense portions of the books. We are. lots of tense things

happening marisa is out there this episode doing dangerous things she is doing her own stunts in this chapter that she's in lyra is not feeling so hot is she she's feeling down down in the the dumps the the underworld dumps yeah she's she's literally feeling down, as far down as one could go, in that they are in the underworld. Very far down, as we find out from Will moments. But, as you know, because those moments, those are going to be discussed in this episode, because they happen in these chapters. But there are moments that happen after these chapters. And this is not a reread podcast. This is only a read podcast. So anything that happens after these chapters will be in the discussion. So any spoilers will be in the discussion. Everything from book one, book two,

So any spoilers will be in the discussion. Everything from book one, book two, up until this point, fair game. But when you get to the discussion, if you don't want to know what happens, don't do it. Don't do it. Good advice, Eliana. Don't do it. Yes, our discussion will spoil the shit out of everything else. We're going to talk about the novellas.

Not the new one that isn't out yet, but it's coming out in April, right? I'm very excited for that new novella Pullman announced, even if it's kind of a lantern slide redux, a novella. But yes, we cover all the novellas from Lyra's Oxford to Once Upon a Time in the North to The Collectors. We will talk about all those kind of things. And the Books of Dust. La Belle Sauvage, which we have covered here at Girls Gone Canon in full. Please, please go listen to that if you haven't

and you're looking for La Belle Sauvage content. And we will also probably talk about The Secret Commonwealth. We might. And maybe speculation at the future Books of Dust. The Boobs of of dust as our discord jokingly calls them when will the boobs of dust come out I think that started from

our friend Pete we'll talk about Pete in a second actually our friend Pete though I think his phone auto corrected it or maybe it was Cassidy who was with us last time but yes yes pete is doing some exciting things and we'll talk about that again on the discord in a second but first we want to be sad because we've gotten like just like tiny little tidbits from hbo they're like oh look a scene allegedly from season three but no trailer no release date big sad i'm suffering yeah i'm suffering i i think that uh they're they've wrapped it up right everything's wrapped

in the last handful of weeks or so they're wrapping up they're doing the post stuff they're really getting some of that stuff out they've put out a little marketing i think it's coming you know yeah spring and i'm not spring will sprung i'm not like mad in that because like i also understand there's probably a lot of post-production that has to happen in this i mean you've got ghosts you've got malefa you've got galavespians you've got the world of the malefa there's and there's so many things that are gonna have and of course the demons right there's so many things that are gonna have to be like cg'd yeah there's a lot of work cut out for them uh and yorick not just that but yorick yeah we've seen the battles i mean some of the other things that we can't tell you yet because it would spoil the rest of the book so you should

be reading this book with us and not get spoiled but it's a read there's a lot of stuff to come it's a read podcast don't do it don't do it if you don't want to listen to the spoilers don't do it eliana said it's a really great way to greet your listeners don't do it we'll warn you yeah and you know i do want to say with this new novella coming out that pullman's putting out right do you think that it will have anything that is going to be played with or addressed in pullman's world building also addressed in the show in series three of his dark materials you know the amber spyglass i think so it seems like he's been working closely with them right like on some of those notes he probably has already given them this in the past and maybe maybe he gave it to

them before right and maybe like jane chancer was like or jack thorne uh was like wow this is really good phil uh you should definitely put this out for the public I wish that I had because like they're like of course as we know Jack Thorne's also like a big fan so does it does the one wolf inside of you ever get jealous of the other wolf inside of you that

knows that there are tons of George R.R. Martin drafts all over the internet that are not in a novella for you to read i mean i don't i don't want to see i don't want to see george's like scrapped bits and dirty laundry you know no i want his polished shit i got that well and sorry i don't mean his sorry i don't mean a shit it's not shit yeah i'm excited to see if there's anything in this novella that coincides with some of series three and uh anything that might allude to the books of dust the boobs of dust number three yeah boobs of dust boobs of dust and speaking of the Boof Sound Test, we do have a Patreon. And you can access our Discord once you join our Patreon in the Thunder tier or above.

And we've talked a little bit about the happy hour slash brunch. And this month it's going to be on January 30th, so this coming Sunday. But there are other events happening, other community events that are happening too. Yeah, our friend Pete, who may or may not have been the Boobs of Dust originator. We have to get a fact check on that from our executives. But our friend Pete is hosting a rewatch of Series 1 of His Dark Materials. It will run into Series 2. two he's gonna see them all out and so what is happening is the goal is for you to have come having watched he'll be hosting

a discussion the first part of the discussion will be dust free right no dust on me no dust on you we'll keep it spoiler free just for the episode for the first part. So if you're watching for the first time, you are totally welcome. We will ask you to bow out at the dust discussion part afterwards when they start to spoil what's going on throughout the season. But yeah, so it's kind of exciting that if you want to watch the show for the first time and you're a patron over in the Thunder tier at patreon.com slash girls gone canon you'll get access to this event on the 29th the day before our brunch at 1 p.m eliana time et phone home yes eastern eastern time eliana time yes

so hope to see you all there and other things that happen on our patreon for patrons in the stranger tier and above you get bonus episodes every month this month's bonus episode is going to be in the song of ice and fire episode it will be another stop on our tour of the

free cities Norvos yeah you're making me really Norvos by Eliana really Iiana. Really? I feel pretty confident. No, I feel good about it. I'm excited about it. And next month, we're doing something a little special, and I know some people over at the Patreon, at the Discord, have

already gotten kind of a head start on reading this, but we're going to be covering Cersei, not Cersei Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire. However, another Cersei, a Cersei Mrs. Coulter, could even be influenced by, who knows, Cersei, not Cersei Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire. However, another Cersei, a Cersei Mrs. Coulter could even be influenced by. Who knows? Cersei from Greek mythology,

Helios' daughter, by Madeline Miller. So the book is Cersei C-I-R-C-E by Madeline Miller. Our patrons in the Stranger tier and above, the $5 tier and above, every month get a bonus episode and we've been branching out a little bit to bring you something else fun and we had fun

covering the song of achilles by madeline miller last month we thought why not finish the next novel together and chat about it yeah so the cersei po, but not that Circe. Someday. Yeah. Someday. Well, I'm sure people who are tuning in feel that maybe there is no way out. And by that, I mean chapter 23 of the Amber Spyglass. We're jumping into it. It's entitled No Way Out.

The opening quote for this section is, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free from St. John. Don't do it. What? I don't know. I was just laughing about you saying don't do it again because it's killing me. I can't stop thinking about it.

Something I really like about No Way Out, chapter 23, is that now that we're in the underworld and we're allowed to talk about the Underworld and Roger, because that was very hard to keep from all of you for so long, right? I had to really, really hold that within myself, and now we're here.

We can talk about it. There's this bit from Northern Lights and Golden Compass, depending on where you read it, what world you're in. Now that Lyra had the taste for exploring it she abandoned her usual haunt the irregular alps of the college roofs and plunged with roger into this netherworld from playing at gobblers she had turned to hunting them for what could be more likely than that they

were lurking out of sight below the ground so So this comes from the early chapters for Lyra and Roger, right? Back in Northern Lights. And of course, as we get to the 25th chapter, it's the French Alps, right? In this world. Saint-Jean-les-Eaux is

the French Alps. It's based off of a different French Alps. So, yeah. It's legitimately like Pullman's world french alps there so that's where coulter's battling it out at so the irregular alps and now she's plunged into the netherworld we have abandoned the irregular alps and we've plunged into the netherworld i really loved that connection i was rereading i have a handful of them today because I was just rereading. Rereading some Roger moments and trying to let it all sink in.

Be sad. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. Now she's in the regular Alps. I mean, that is what the Alps are, right? They're just like the regular Alps. And I didn't know that. And there's a couple of things from book one that really start paying off in these chapters. I mean,

they've been paying off before, but they really, really come to pass in these ones because you can tell, maybe Pullman was figuring things out before in terms of how is this going to go? But he always knew that this part was going to happen. So, really great. He has neatly etched some of those

little, like, tied-em-off-with-a-bow moments of, like, what if I called back to chapter three and said this exact really great he has neatly etched some of those little like tied him off with a bow moments yeah what if i called back to chapter three and said this exact same language or etc it's all really nice that he knew what he was doing but he went back in and etched it in with a pen yeah you know let's just shade it a little yeah yeah and i mean these they're moments that were foreshadowed as you've pointed out right well here's some things that are not foreshadowed at the moment. For example, Lyra and Will wondering what the Harpies will do when they let the ghosts out. Salmachia says they're getting close now and that Lyra could see Roger if she climbed up on the rocks, but Lyra doesn't

want to waste time. She just wants to see Roger. She wants to be cheerful for Roger, but it's hard to feel happy when all she can see in her mind is dog pan. Right, dog formed, alone, heartbroken on the jetty. Big sad. She finds Roger, though, very suddenly, and he embraces her, but unfortunately he passes through her arms like smoke. There's like a brief moment where it says like his hand almost clutched on her heart but still passed through. it says like his hand almost clutched on her heart but still passed through and i was like and he also can whisper though and he says lyra i never thought i'd ever see you again i thought even if you did come down here when you was dead you'd be much older you'd be a grown-up you wouldn't want to speak to me he blames himself for not running to her

back then on that mountaintop which was not the alps irregular or regular and for not fighting mrs coulter nor asriel and myra says but that weren't your fault stupid blaming herself instead but roger says it wasn't her fault either and that maybe he would have died some other way which is true of all of us if you think about it we all do die someday some way it's really sweet that like even in friendship they're like no you're stupid stupid like you're wrong no you're wrong you're wrong about it i would have died about the stupidest thing right the stupidest thing that friends fight about even in the afterlife stupidest thing i can't whose fault is it that you died

the stupidest thing to fight with you about his fault someday yeah in the afternoon we all we almost fought that one time when we were like is dog dead i i'm very sad for lyra in this that she immediately was like no it was my fault idiot and also roger like lyra's really downtrodden in this chapter uh obviously the ghosts are kind of feeding on her happiness and her aliveness. But that either of these children are blaming themselves like this, it's not their fault at all that horrible people exist in the world. Lyra went above and beyond to save Roger or try to help him, not just once, twice, three times even could be argued.

And I don't know know it also sucks to think that roger probably thinks this is his fault because of kind of his life of like being a servant and the way he's been spoken to all his life like i'm sure many things he's been told are his fault his whole life that weren't his fault so it's natural for him to immediately go to, it's my fault. Right. And it's like, no, you were murdered. You were like, tied. Yeah, yeah. And it feels bad because to me it feels like he's internalized this idea of, oh, well, I didn't fight back, so I must have been asking for it. It feels like shades of that, even though I know that's not exactly what it is.

It is different. And like you said, right, it's neither of their faults. And something else that you pointed out of Ly lyra's really sad mental state here right because she feels responsible for it even though again it's not her fault either um it it's we're doing the samwell tarly chapters right now in a song of ice and fire and like obviously it's taken her a lot of courage and bravery to get all the way down here and i think it shows a lot of bravery on her part not just to make it to the underworld and be insistent on that but to be able to like come face to face with someone you feel that you have deeply wronged and i think that's really courageous yeah i mean she sacrificed her childhood yeah because he lost his.

Yes. Like, that's really what happens. And we're going to talk about sacrifices later in these chapters, because we do have some prominent sacrifices coming up. And in the light of that, you know, you're just reminded of that as the shades of these children and people all mill about. The ghosts and Will kind of move away letting them have their moment will is nursing his hand which uh-oh this is kind of weird right had started bleeding again we thought this was fully healed so the underworld is doing something here and salmakia goes to help him lyra describes how they got here and what she had to do to get here, to Pan. Roger, in turn, tells her this place is awful and the harpies are awful.

They're always whispering and never letting them rest and telling them all the bad things they've ever done and their worst nightmares, making them feel awful. Lyra then gets the courage to tell him her secret, her plan, right? All close, all mischievous, like they once used to do at Jordan College. The witches have a prophecy about her, and she had proven herself at Dr. Lanselius's, the witch's council. She was to do something great and important in another world. Only I never spoke of it, and I reckon I must have even forgot it. There was just so much else going on, she says. Classic, classic Lyra.

She tells him when Coulter captured her for the first time that she dreamed of Roger, that she remembered all of their adventures, like when they sailed Ma Costa's boat almost to Abingdon, a memory that Roger then says, I'll never forget. She says when the Gyptians saved her from Coulter and looked after her, Ma Costa told her she had witch oil in her soul, that the Gygyptians saved her from coulter and looked after her ma costa told her she had witch oil in her soul that the egyptians were water people but lyra lyra was a fire person i thought it was interesting that lyra had actually overheard these conversations and we find that out here and it's like oh so you've been just like holding that in these past two-ish books and i can see that it makes sense that she did and she's trying to say

like this might be like fulfillment of that but to me it almost feels a little bit like not that it is a retcon but because it does feel like gardened into the story yes grown gardened into Eden yeah I didn't say that but maybe you would say that Chloe you can take that credit. Well, Lyra says that Dr. Linsalius said it was vital that Lyra didn't know her destiny until it had happened, and so she had never asked the alethiometer about it. Again, justifications for this retcon, but not retcon.

Anyways, but finding Roger was sort of proof she has to rescue the ghosts in the land of the dead. And she thinks it's because of something that Asriel had said of death is going to die. It's not the best oratorship on his part, but anyways. Lyra makes Roger promise not to give this plan away yet. And Lyra makes Roger promise not to give this plan away yet. But it's sort of too late because he had already told the ghosts that, you know what, Lyra is going to come and rescue them just like she did in Bolvanger. He's all like, I says Lyra will do it if anyone can. They wish it would be true.

They wanted to believe me, but they never really did. I could tell. Yeah, there's this super horrible, awful sad bit that then he says, every kid that comes to the world of the dead would always say, I bet my dad will come get me, or my mom, and if it's not them, it's their friends, or their grandpa. They always think someone's gonna come rescue them, but they never do. Damn. rescue them but they never do oh damn and even sadder is like lyra and will both already know this kind of feeling yeah of like waiting for someone to come home that never comes home for them or never picks them up to take them home when they're in the dangerous bad place so it's like a

double whammy of emotion that's a great point yeah of like now you have to save them you have to adults that have failed them and lyra's like well they're gonna if they're not gonna do this for us we will and i will say in the children's defense their parents do eventually come down to them they just don't rescue them because they're also dead yeah in fact it's just to mooch you know they're like i'm not gonna pay rent yeah we all live here now this is our new home oh my god well as we all know this time roger was right lyra was here lyra then remembers her friends and says oh she couldn't have done it without them please meet will cheval Chevalier, Tialis, and Salmakia.

And immediately Roger's like, okay, who's Will? Where'd you find this guy? Where's he from? It's kind of cute. It's a little, it's a little cute. And this line is really, this is very sweet that she starts to explain, and Pullman writes, quite unaware of how her voice changed how she sat up straighter and how even her eyes looked different when she told the story of her meeting with will

and the fight for the subtle knife how could she have known but roger noticed with sad voiceless envy of the unchanging dead oh god it hurts so bad which part there's a lot of different parts all of it i mean it's so bittersweet yeah for reasons but especially because you know lyra is falling for will but also like that was roger's spot man yeah he never got a chance he never even got a chance to get turned down you know yeah he never got a chance to experience it all you know experience that kind of love not even with lyra yeah just with anyone yeah he never got a chance to like mack on a girl like will's gonna do with lyra you know yeah or to desire anyone you know like yeah he never got to that point in his life so big set

meanwhile will and the galabaspians discuss their plan will says we'll open the world and let the ghosts out with the knife and the galabaspians who he's come to respect sit there and they're pretty astonished and they say that would make the authority powerless if you freed them all yeah tialis is like very impressed with this plan he's like that's an amazing plan like in the voice of elliot from euphoria that's an amazing plan or lori that is an amazing anyway so you're a genius i do really love this moment because the Galavespians, and we've kind of been hinting at this with our previous discussions of like,

why are the Galavespians being so mean? I don't remember them being this mean, right? Because they've really come around at this time. And this is, I think, my lasting impression of them. They are here. They are full on supporting these kids. And they're like, wow, that is so good. And at first they were

like yeah this is a very risky plan i hate that the kids aren't listening to us but they found a whole lot of respect for these kids and their convictions they see that they're serious about this and now they also see like i see maybe these kids like really are chosen for a reason right because this is again a huge plan would be a huge blow to the authority. Very, very effective. Like, in my opinion, way bigger and way more subversive than anything that like Asriel's ever done in regards to the authority. And I'm also like, what does Asriel even accomplish, right? He's made like a flying Tesla. And everyone's like, super gung ho about him. Yeah, and he even tweets all the time and bombs his own stock. gung-ho about him yeah and he even tweets all the time and bombs his own stock i don't know he kind of he would do that i feel he'd be tweeting be like outside the authority layer what's up bitch at god at god come at me bitch at jack at jack at god unblock me you coward yeah this is a big like heavy galavespian like strength episode in general these three chapters hold a lot of emotion for the galavespians and that

scene here like their unrelenting faith now in the children compared to lord roke's unrelenting faith in getting the job fucking done in the next chapter and protecting marisa in a way right he didn't want that blood on his hands and he was doing it for you know saving the world and free will and shit yeah absolutely i mean it's important it's an important cause and now that the galabaspians can see the scope yeah of you know everything mean, that is big. It's, what do you do? You remove the labor. You can't complete production without the means of labor, right? So you cut them off at their source. Yeah.

You just cut it off. You free the souls. You free the slaves to the authority. Yeah. All of the souls that have been enslaved in his underworld, you take them out. It's a brilliant plan. A genius plan. Amazing plan.

Amazing plan, Rue. Wow, brew wow brew you're a genius fuck no i'm not invested in that plan fesco says i did not like how the plan started so will thinks that after that they're gonna have to escape and then go find their demons right and then he's like okay this is too much to be thinking of then there's a lot between now and then we have to think of now he swears the gallivespians to secrecy because he doesn't know if this is gonna work and he doesn't want to give away the plan too early to the ghosts or the harpies he sends the gallivespians to distract the harpies while he toys with his plan. He cuts through windows, finding only rock on the other side. He opens several windows and tries to change his angle each time, but each one shows a rock.

He then pushes himself to have that little resonance, right, that usually reveals a world, not unlike Lyra focusing on the alethiometer, but the touch is wrong whenever he tries to feel for an edge lyra can tell she's watching him something's wrong and he says we need to move we need to find a higher place to cut into but the harpies won't let them lyra's scared but he reassures her if they have to cut their way out with a tunnel they'll do it yeah so they are underground and speaking of book one things just wanted to remind everyone of that time long long ago and i think we discussed it in a discussion back then when we talked about the chthonic railway in like book one and how mrs coulter wouldn't permit lyra to take it as it wasn't for people of their class you know they

don't ride the subway or whatever and now lyra is finally in that catholic area that catholic station the underground slash the underworld literally under um again like that railway slash subway is underground and it's a place that is full of people of different classes no matter what yeah this is absolutely an underground kind of railroad idea to cut that tunnel out that's crazy yeah that too that too that's interesting and it is a literal thonic railroad lyra's worried about will he looks ill in pain he has dark rings under his eyes his fingers bleeding once more her magic girl powers have worn off in the underworld and she feels like he looks herself it's probably because of the lack of demons she thinks and she

aches for pan but meanwhile the ghosts are kind of pressing close trying to take their remaining warmth not leaving them alone one girl begs lyra not to forget them when they return back to tell people of them and Lyra says I will what's your name and the girl the girl forgot she's embarrassed she's ashamed she forgot her name another boy says I've forgotten mine as well and then he says it's better to forget you forget everything here eventually except the sunshine and the wind never that another kid asks the alive folk to remind them of the sunshine and wind and how to play in the sky and they clamor for lyra to give them a story time she says to will what should i

do and he says tell them tell them the truth not lies like with the harpies feeling weak lyra makes for a dead tree with bone white branches and sits there ready to do the hardest thing she's ever done in her entire life tell the truth yeah behind them tialis comes to warn will to keep his knife ready that the harpies plan to come back the dead figures cluster around lyra and will tries to keep them back to give her space all but roger who stays close her closest disciple listening passionately she tells them of jordan college of her and roger's adventures finding the rook with the broken leg looking after it or exploring the wine cellars or drinking canary or tokai she couldn't tell i wouldn't be able to tell either and i've been drinking a while i love that line when she was just like in that first

book she's just like well i think it's fine when roger's like this is awful they do this she's like i love it i know i'm like yes every time i'm hung over i think about that scene yeah roger's ghost proudly and desperately nods along corroborating her stories as she tells them of the great battle between the Oxford townies and clay burners and how the sun shone for days, clay and mud drying and cracking beneath them. She describes the smells from the kiln and from the river. Yeah, I just love these stories. I mean, I think there's something really beautiful about of all the the stories that, like, Lyra could have chosen to tell, she chose these ones. Because, I mean, as we know, right, like, she has obviously way more, like, exciting and salacious stories to talk about because we were there the past two books on those adventures. Even if she, I guess, doesn't think that they're that exciting, which is why she never tells them.

Or, like, that was a way better story than the one that, like, anyways. But she picks these moments from her home, right, because they are stories that Roger can remember and, again, they're maybe, like, not swashbuckling, but they're real to him and they allow him to, again, remember and relive that outside world. And I think even in the

simplicity of these childhood stories and childhood memories, they are so full of emotion for lyra too and and even the reader because again like as you pointed out right like these are stories that we heard about in the first book and it creates this like it really creates that sense of nostalgia for readers looking back on their own journey through the books yeah i'm so struck by the structure of these kind of final run of chapters how much it broadly parallels the first book and some of the second book and some of the reaches yeah and it's a

really great way to reincorporate those memories because it's also like breathing life back into roger both metaphorically for us the reader as well as like literally in the story like it's giving him a chance to have a story again right like it's it's definitely like proving he lived he was he is still right uh when you're hopeless and you have nothing like it gives him something to hold on to and i i know there's some great parallels it holds but it also holds like kind of just an homage to roger's character right because we spent these two books with our bloody hands from roger's roger's awful death and every single one of those adventures is from a chapter where he is very much so involved and very much a main

character alongside lyra and they're getting into mischief together so it all around is really just a sweet nod to have those adventures out loud yeah once more i love what you were saying right about like it breathing life back into roger because it's kind of comes back to the idea of you they don't i think necessarily talk about it in this story but it comes up a lot in other stories and media of like people die two deaths right when you actually die and when people forget you and stop talking about you and so by telling these stories as you said right it continues to give roger life you keep them alive for you and for them yeah i think that's really important. Yeah. Well, the ghosts crowd closer, feeding on her words, remembering back when they had flesh and trying to will her to never stop. She tells them about how one day the war between the Clayburners' children and the Tannys escalated fully

and the Clayburners turned everyone to a muddy mess, destroying their fortifications, and that no one had ever had a better day in their lives and again i love that i love that i think it's just so brilliantly done and it's such a well-chosen story for this and then she finishes right and then she looks to will lyra is exhausted and suddenly has a bit of a shock as she realizes that oh it's not just the ghosts and her companions that she's telling the story to but also to the harpies they had settled around the branches and they're listening solemnly also spellbound and then lyra begins to just for some reason just rile them up because i don't know like why would you pick a fight with someone that seems like

they're finally listening and being quieter on you but no she decides to make a fight she's like why aren't they attacking her now go on make a ghost of her and no name herself speaks saying that thousands of years ago they were given the power by the authority to see the worst in everyone that they fed on that ever since but now Lyra plans to

free their food and now they plan to defile and terror every single ghost that arrives here. Lyra is distraught. She feels she has somehow probably made things worse as the harpies begin to scatter the ghosts, flying maliciously about them and says that, oh no,

we've ruined it and that now the ghosts will think that they betrayed them, but Tiali tells her not to despair. Call everyone back. Tell them stories once more and entrance them again. Then Tiali's like, leaps to a rock and makes a grand stand and tells the harpies to come back

and answer his questions truly, asking why they flew with Lyra outside the wall, yet sat very still listening to her stories just now. I love it so much. And no name does respond. No name says,

because it was true. And no name does respond. No name says, because it was true. Because she spoke the truth. Because it was nourishing. Because it was feeding us. Because we couldn't help it. Because it was true. Because we had no idea that there was anything but wickedness. Because it brought us news of the world and the sun and the wind and the rain

because it was true perfect i love that awards you're welcome awards thank you all the amazing that was amazing yeah bafta bafta or bafta bafta sorry wrong world wrong world did you say be amazed mtvt choice awards i'm gonna have to remember all i knew is that because it was true was the grounding for that so i can i can isolate that clip for you if you'd like um for me it's just for me not for you yeah sorry sounds like this one's for you things that are also for me i feel like and as you'll see in the next few moments um as agreements are made this is the plot to monsters inc like literally this is the plot to monsters inc which also coincidentally came out

the year right after this book eating dreams eating them up yeah or laughter instead of screams so yeah yeah these these harpies are a piece of work right there is a little flip-flopping going on with them too now they're like well we kind of like the stories but we hate you but we like you let me meet you i mean your stories mike was asking tialis fearlessly tries to bargain instead of of wickedness and cruelty, what if, from now on, they ask the ghosts that came here for stories? And if they listen to each ghost's story, all true stories, they will have the right to hear them, and they will have the right to tell them. No-Name is like, hmm, no, but go on. Go on, I'm a little interested.

And No-Name's like, we used to be feared and honored for what we've done for the authority. We still have pride. We need an honorable place. This time, though, Lady Salmachia steps in and smooths things out. And she's like, you're right. Oh, my God, your honorableness. You are so right, No Name. You guys should be so honored.

This is important. And so what you would be doing is guiding the ghosts from the lake's landing place as the keepers of this entire place getting the ghosts bringing them in and then taking them out of a new opening out of the world and in exchange you'll pay for that guidance through their stories as currency so this this sells this fucking sells no name is so fucking into this no name and her sisters are like okay how about this one tiny clause if they lie to us or if they have nothing to tell me if they're boring as fuck all then we can refuse to guide them they can just be lost and wandering this is the new deal that the underworld has been waiting for right so

they call this fair they make a treaty in exchange for lyra's story the harpies take travelers and the knife to the higher ground this time a long way off through the tunnels and the caves yes it's brilliant it's it's really brilliant and again monsters inc it's a good plan all around this is this is a genius plan this is an amazing plan not like the way this plan began uh that that is how the harpies felt at first and then they were like no we want to do labor and i was like and maybe that's why i'm not a terrifying bird woman because i couldn't relate to that but well when it's all you've known that's true forever and ever i mean they've been conditioned to believe this is their purpose but and they would have been born yeah that's all bullshit yeah yeah i get it that's how retirement works right this is kind of like a retirement clause

for them we're just gonna ask that you guys step back on your duties and do them less. Yeah, they become like stage two psychopomps, right? Like first you got your deaths, then you got the harpies. And you're like, we're going to take you through this level of the underworld. And then you can just go back to where you came from. And you can do it every day. In fact, we're really just giving you a harder job, but that's okay. At least you get stories out of it.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like torturing people's hard to maybe like now that people are nice to them maybe someone will like wash their face but apparently this is just how vultures are as we've learned from from our friend cassidy disgusting you know we did talk so gross the smell of it my god we talked about the the theories last week we talked about the harpies the greek theories and i think there's something interesting that lyra the prophecy was all whoop-dee-doo exciting but she's changing changing fate no one knew what she was going to do and this is like a total spike in the road for whatever anyone planned about this girl. Everyone is making so many plans for Lyra and her fate and her destiny and what's going to happen with her.

And like Lyra is doing the unthinkable things they would never have dreamed of doing. And it made me really start thinking about the idea of exchanging these stories as payment, these words as payment. Right. Thinking of different like fictional things of just like where we're exchanging words for payment like the sphinx yeah yeah the sphinx is kind of interesting that like figuring out the riddle of the harpy and figuring out what the harpy wants as lord rogue was like oh so you like those stories huh little guy lyra like is trying to pass the sphinx not unlike oedipus and oedipus answered the riddles right what creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed two-footed and three-footed man

oedipus had said who crawls on all fours as a baby two feet as adult and uses a walking stick in old age and one of the other uh commonly rumored which, you know, didn't date quite as far back as that one, is there are two sisters. One gives birth to the other and she in turn gives birth to the first. Who are they? And the answer is day and night is the other one commonly kind of accepted. After that, Oedipus becomes this liminal or threshold character kind of showing the death of the Sphinx as a movement, right? In society,

a change in the odds and the gods, right? The rise of the Olympian gods and Lyra for many accounts is kind of Oedipus here that she's able to solve the harpies, trick them into coming along, defying the fates who have written her thread in one way. And now her thread is being recoiled in a totally different way. And maybe even defying what the prophecy originally intended in some aspects right we don't know we don't know if

prophecy works is real etc fate whatever yada yada is it written is it wet is it dry we don't know we just don't know about that ink that we're writing fate with absolutely and i mean like that's the point of lyra right like she's going to make it so that fate is gone. And yeah, I like the idea of the harpies as kind of these sphinx-like characters. Different characters, I guess, or creatures in Greek mythology. But like, also, they're like these gatekeepers. And, you know, there's also something else, mythologically speaking. I think I've kept this mostly to the discussion

before for no reason um but in the discussion that there's almost something about like orpheus for lyra that paying with her stories yeah that's how orpheus got big right that's how orpheus actually got in with the gods is being able to play and write and wordsmith for them and say the right things and play the right tune and sing the right songs so that's interesting that's a really great point absolutely like it's still a performance liar yeah actually literally though like her name is inspired by that to an extent too and the idea of stories uh as a kind of like yeah song and so moving right and i i really that's definitely something that's at play here and there's like a line i don't remember where it is in this chapter somewhere um where someone suddenly calls the the mayhem breaking out like

uh of the underworld as like a wasteland and there's something else there too going on like if you were going to talk about different speakers right that calls back to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and maybe I'll go into this more next episode because I need to re-read it though once upon a time I did write an essay on it long long long ago about the wasteland and

cubism anyways shout out to the Galows espions negotiating skills also and their quick thinking right tiali's like hits the first point samaki hits the second one bring them to your business meetings amazing well there's a ghost in the crowd an older angry passionate man speaks up asking, wait, what's going to happen if we waltz out of this tunnel? Will we vanish like our demons? Valid question.

Very valid. And he says that everyone should refuse to follow these children unless they know what will happen to them. And Lyra doesn't know what she should do. And Will's like, why don't you Google it? And by that, he means tell them the truth and ask the alethiometer. This is one of my favorite passages from the book, honestly. Probably one of like my top five to ten, you know, little quotes.

So the answer comes at once. And she says, when you go out of here, all the particles that make you up will loosen and float apart. Just like your demons did. If you've seen people dying, you know what that looks like. But your demons ain't just nothing now. They're part of everything. All the atoms that were them, they've gone into the air and the wind and the trees and the earth and all the living things. They'll never vanish. They're just part of everything. And that's exactly what'll happen to you. I swear to you, I promise on my honor,

you'll drift apart. It's true, but you'll be out in the open, part of everything alive again. It's a really beautiful sentiment. And you're speaking of things that are a huge blow to the authority. I like that it kind of speaks to this idea of like omnipresence, right? Being part of everything, like everything, right? And i feel like that's kind of an aspect of divinity each in and of itself and that every single person gets to be that and it is beautiful it's very meaningful like that it's that's what they want no one wants you to live you know and your goal is to live that's exact goal. And that you will become part of everything that you're missing now. And once more be born into the earth in some sort of way.

I mean, I think that's kind of like ticket. If any of them are true, I hope that shit's true, you know? Yeah. Just like be reborn into the atmosphere and shit. But not now. Like, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago. Maybe not like so close to 2030 or 2040. I don't know, maybe 20 years ago. Maybe not, like, so close to 2030 or 2040. I don't know if that atmosphere is going to be very kind.

You won't feel it. You'll just be like, we're hurting people. I guess hell could be worse, right? So whatever. Hopefully I'll be a flower for a couple years. That'd be fucking neat. There's a character who's a young woman who dies as a martyr centuries before, and she comes forward

saying we were promised a glorious heaven some spent their life in solitary prayer letting that joy of life go to waste she then says that the land of dead isn't a place of reward or punishment it's nothing the good come here as well as the wicked and now lyra's come offering a way out and she is going to follow her. She says, even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it because it won't be nothing. We'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass and a million leaves. We'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze. We'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, is our true home and always was and she tells them to follow the child out to the sky again once more just like book one lyra's walking into the sky oh what a girl oh my god yes into the hole she's

making now with will into the sky yeah out of the ground i'm i'm definitely reminded of mary and marisa when we read this passage right of what it means to live the good come here as well as the wicked the martyr says about the land of the dead marisa is exactly what she speaks of right one of those promised paradise and salvation and following the lord's will but as we see in these three chapters and in the way that like she didn't really follow what an actual good person would probably do you know no ten commandments you know she was like thou shalt fuck up children um thou shalt kill thou shalt that's the commandment right thou shalt kill is that i heard it let me just it's

smudged on my hand can you just i don't know this word not right but to be fair i will say in these three chapters we've seen immense growth right like she would rather choose to protect when life is threatened and when she realizes it's all bullshit, even though she's not great at her attempt to love Lyra, she chooses that glimpse of fucked up happiness. Lyra. Protecting Lyra. And then you think of Mary, who, when she was a nun, she kind of was unhappy, right? She was very unhappy. She wasn't allowed to have passion. She wasn't allowed to love. What kind of world is that where someone says you can't love? Yeah.

She wasn't allowed to live or feel her life. And so she- Also a promise that wasn't real. Yeah. So she abandoned that, dedicated herself to a new thing. Well, this other guy comes along. He's unwilling to let

go of this. He's a ghost monk. Shoves her out of the way. Calling this child an agent of the evil one himself. I don't know about the evil part, but he's not wrong in the part where Lyra is

on the same side as the Satan stand-in. That's not wrong. And he says that they truly are in the good place and that going with lyra means peril and that he and his true companions would be staying here and people are like i mean you can do that if you want um really big emperor's new clothes vibes i feel from this man but it also i think speaks to the like larger themes of the story in regards to experience and trusting one's senses or i mean at least enjoying your senses that come up in this story because that other martyr right she finds that she has been proven wrong in what she believed in her faith and when confronted with

that evidence by like how miserable the last few centuries have been for her and her ghost therefore reassesses the world based on this new evidence which is very much like how science works right when new discoveries are made you reassess and reshift your view based on that whereas the monk kind of just refuses to trust or acknowledge his senses right everyone can see like you are fucking miserable here right but he's just so detached from his experience and his his senses that he's deluded himself and continues to deny himself sensation and joy again i like that this chick straight up keeps standing up and she's just like, no, this is the bad place.

This is it. This is the bad place. My God, even Will got it. This is getting embarrassing. For real, though, it's the bad place. It is the bad place is what she's saying. But it's only the bad place. No, it's the good place.

Yeah. Yeah. Which I don't want to spill too much of the show so watch the good place you guys lyra's bewildered at all this she's like maybe i'm making a mistake it's kind of broken down here gloomy but like my mom looked real cool when i met her and she wasn't she sucked so maybe i'm wrong yeah and i understand that you know when you've been like subjected to that or or like as you know coming back to the samuel episodes that we're doing like as as yoke boy pointed out right you start to like question your own reality when you've been abused

and clearly lyra was by her mother but also i think part of it is also her remembering how wrong she is about lord azrael she doesn't say it outright because she doesn't need to, because literally the evidence of how wrong she was about Lord Asriel is right here next to her. It's Roger, right? And I think there's a part of her that's questioning like, oh God, am I leading Roger to his demise a second time? And still feeling responsible for his death. Yeah. time uh and still feeling responsible for his death yeah i appreciate though that even though she never voices this like this is all internal will senses it and he's encourages her he's like

dude everyone can see that that monk is lying like they can see it right and people are depending on them so they have to take a step and start to move until lyra trusts her body and her senses and knows pan would have said the same thing and off they go millions of ghosts following them so behind all these ghosts other inhabitants of the world are following every being ever punished by the authority with exile and death yes hbo music is playing hard right now, right? This is end of the episode kind of thing. Because some of these ghosts don't look human at all. Beings like the Mulefa appear and even stranger ghosts than that.

All they can do is follow the harpies. Dun dun dun. So that brings us to chapter 24 Mrs. Coulter in Geneva which we open with a quote from Ezekiel as is the mother so is her daughter self-explanatory I don't think I have to have to tell you about that one

I think it's a pretty self-explanatory quote I feel like I don't have to explain it it even becomes even more relevant as the story goes but that's for the next few chapters I don't think we'll talk about it that maybe a smidge in the discussion it's to come it's to come keep your ears

peeled for next time but we open with Marisa who has been to the college of Saint Jerome three times before and knows the perfect place to hide the intention craft which she's falling in love with this is her favorite machine that doesn't use batteries wow i love this tesla i wonder if asriel built in any you know jets she's gross oh my god once settled she sends her demon to investigate the attic of the tower they landed near,

and they find all sorts of item in storage, like furniture. She tiptoes to a door, locked, and she pulls a hairpin out to fix that brief obstacle. Minutes later, they stand on the corridor. Five after that, they've opened a window two floors below in the kitchen pantry and climb out to an alley. They come to the gatehouse of the college because it's very important that they arrive in the kitchen pantry and climb out to an alley they come to the gatehouse of the college because it's very important that they arrive in the orthodox way marisa says no matter how they intend to leave it they're accosted by a guard immediately who she actually orders she's like show us some courtesy how dare you and she tells him that she's there to speak with the

president and to let him know the man falls back to his pincher demon and they crank the handle of a telephone and a young priest arrives to meet them who says he's brother lewis the convener of the secretariat of the consistorial court marisa wants nothing to do with brother lewis she came here for father mcphail and she expects to be taken to him the brother quails takes her over to him and tries to converse but gives up on the way and he leads her silently to father mcphail who is at his devotions so when they enter the room which father mcphail is most unhappy about this entrance there is no courtesy offered to marisa so she just like advises she's like i'm going to take a glass of

right uh knowing that it is very insulting to treat this priest as a servant which power move like the entire thing she's like we gotta enter the proper way power move right so brother lewis being outplayed leaves annoyed to go get her her chocolate milk. And the president immediately tells her that she is, of course, under arrest. But she volleys back that, um, actually, I came here of my own volition, all right, to give information about Asriel's forces and, of course, the child. So so everyone she's like telling them you might not know this but I in fact remembered my daughter's birthday she's 12 now all right she's going to soon approach the cusp of adolescence and then there will be nothing that you can do to prevent

the catastrophe and then thanks to the influence of father MacPhail, it's going to come more quickly. You did this. And then he says, well, Marisa, I think it was your duty to bring her to them instead of the mountain cave. And she somehow still turns this all around. But he still goes like, though, how a woman of your intelligence hoped to remain hidden is a mystery to me. I love how much he underestimates her they always do right and they highly underestimated her in the next two chapters and she kind of gets a couple of volleys in this chapter that we'll talk about as we go but she comments there must be a great deal of mystery

in your life like the relation between a mother and child i would never release my daughter to men like you obsessed with sexuality with dirty fingernails reeking of sweat oh let him have it get him get him and then she says this line that like this is the ultimate get him line i was excited men whose furitive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches oh yeah yeah you shame him yeah i it's it's a fantastic moment and scene and she's like not wrong in the least i love that she goes for the low blow she goes for every petty thing she's fingernails are dirty right she stops with nothing but i will say when this happens in the television show it's gonna be real weird but ruth wilson says this to will keen daphne keen's father real weird real weird it's gonna be weird like i i know that i think they're

gonna deliver it great they're fantastic actors but in like a meta sense me thing knowing i'm like i do think he's gonna nail it though oh yeah he's like he's gonna be so because right now president mcphail is so obsessed and like lost his mind about it like he's just like stopping at nothing and we've already seen him take it to the brink in his dark materials adaptation tv show so i'm excited to see him really go over the edge uh even in this chapter when he he flings his demon into the mesh cage later, I'm like, oh, God, Jesus. Yeah. Or the next chapter, I should say. Yeah.

So Brother Louis brought the chocolatel, and he is not asked to stay, by the way. Oh, Brother Louis. And our mate isn't Louis, because they're in the French areas. They're in French Alps. Brother Louis. Yeah. Frat Louis. Bon. the french they're in french out brother louis yeah frat louis um so i do want to say that i love that mrs coulter orders chocolatel and internally

she doesn't say it aloud she like thinks like this is terrible chocolatel right she's like it's a watered down terrible quality and she thinks of it in terms of like how these priests are denying themselves the pleasure of enjoying it of any sort of like sensation in that way and i really like how it brings us around like she thinks of this idea of tempting later on but it brings us around to like chocolate as sort of standing in as like temptation and i don't know maybe i also stand in for like fruit right that idea of sweetness and it is after all what mrs coulter used to tempt and lure children to their doom thou shalt kill yeah there's even a little bit of this used

in la belle sauvage that we talked about in our la belle sa little savage episodes no spoilers but uh the other thing about this is like the magisterium is kind of using everything against her that was hers in these two chapters lyra first of all uh second of all the bomb and it being connected to her machinery is her invention being used against her uh so i find that really interesting that all of this is her own methodology just being pitted at her and she knows she showed up and she knows what they're doing for the most part and she gets to find out about it as each pin drops she's like oh interesting my invention interesting my daughter interesting my locket yeah absolutely they yeah They needed her to do all the hard work and then they just give her a low quality Chocolatel. They hope to punish her.

Classless. Classless. Tacky. Tacky and I hate them. Marisa wanted to keep Lyra safe until the danger passed, she said. Somewhere there's a tempter, a serpent, and she must keep them from meeting. Besides, they're not with Asriel, who's undoubtedly looking for them, and specifically the boy with the magic knife. The president wondered why she was smiling. Surely she didn't approve of this wretched boy. I'm proud of Will, who makes a great impression on both of lyra's parents both of who are murderers in different way by that i mean mrs colter and york burnison good job will

so she thought this was brand new information for them right like she was like all my new info is gonna pay off well but he reveals that fra pavel actually knew all this already and she's like well that's much quicker than usually usually it takes him a month to read that in his little alethiometer interesting the president is like well tell me everything about asriel and she tells him not everything but a substantial amount of truth and he's like well how'd you get here and this is where the lies start back up. She says, I took a gyroptor most of the way, abandoning it when I ran out of fuel

and walking the rest of the way. Smart, very smart to have lied about that. It is smart of her to lie about that. Absolutely. The president tells her what he has pieced together, right? That Asriel is after the knife and it's called the God Destroyer, according to the cliff gas, and then is aiming to destroy the authority, right?

He's aiming to attack and dethrone God. And many already claim God is dead, you know, coming back to probably, he's like, yeah, we have Nietzsche in this world. I don't know. But presumably Asriel is not one of those people who believe that because he is still out there trying to like literally kill God I just want to like call out cheers from my homies the cliff gas love those

little muppet babies um Mrs. Coulter asks well I mean if he is alive like where is God and why doesn't he speak anymore right he used to be very involved. He used to speak with humans, Adam and Eve, Moses. And then he became aged, the ancient of days by

the time of Daniel. Where is he now? Is he still alive, decrepit, demented, unable to die? And wouldn't killing him be a mercy? And then it really feels intoxicating for Mrs. Coulter to speak to this man in this manner i love it for her because she's like you know what hell hath no fury like me yes of all true second of all it's just not worth it anymore like she's obviously kind of hit a turning point and like she's smiling about will which i'm sure launched like milfy fanfics everywhere across the fandom i don't check a03 i don't i don't want to look it up real quick you don't want that you don't want to read

that eliana some sick fuckers are out there that have written that and i respect the fuck out of those people i am as you know i'm like mrs coulter should be with someone else for just one night stand i really hope that she does fall for someone. You know, I think it could be really sweet. Oh my god, I hate you. I love that she's challenging God. She's smiling about Will and Lyra. I'm sure Will and Lyra's defiance is reminding her a little bit of younger her and Asriel. Ah, yeah.

She felt free. I mean, being married to Mr. Clter obviously wasn't a dream because asriel made her heart race a little bit faster you know touched her thigh a little bit got her a little like a boy uh with asriel's willfulness as a person like that was like her breaking and tasting the forbidden fruit literally right when she you know cheated on her husband uh yeah and now she's really suffered in this position and just taken so much shit from the church from people around her when she's just trying to girl boss out there you know she's trying to girl boss too close to the sun and no one's letting her so i i like that she gets these digs this time she's trying to girl boss she's

trying to gaslight her daughter's out oh girl she gaslit yeah her daughter's out here teaching harpies how to gatekeep you know like absolutely though um i i i hadn't thought of that you know as well as that forbidden fruit interesting i mean her life was probably monotonous she followed the formula before him and she was just a bright girl that married right maybe you know exploited some uh traveling between worlds in her time in between but uh yeah she i think asriel was kind of her wake up like her bit of lust that woke her up her desire and then she tried to feed that desire with ambition instead but it did not satiate those lustful flames did it my friend

yeah and part of that is her world right you can have both but not i guess in this world but also she chose like the wrong career track i guess for that too um the church children religiously too a church so marisa doesn't get away with her smart mouth for as long as she'd like uh mcphail volley's back and he's like oh so what do you think about dust and she's like well i don't know what it is no one does and he's like well that's great but by the way you are still under arrest as you'll remember i said as you'll see in my previous emails you're under arrest and he rings for brother louis to come lock her up in the best guest room they have which is shabby cheap furniture but it's clean love that she

notes that shabby cheap furniture kind of tacky but it's clean it'll do uh and she looks around the room immediately and finds two microphones in there and she disconnects the fuck out of them and then she finds that lord roke is watching her from the chest of drawers and she scolds him a little playfully saying oh when were you gonna reveal you were here when i was naked uh and her demon is menacing all the while the monkey is very menacing during this and he's like will you control your demon jesus he's here because of asriel right uh he as soon as she arrived the magisterium set to doing some sort of crazy and bark work in the cellars and her presence greatly motivated them and she doesn't know whether to be alarmed or flattered but she definitely is tired yes i feel so this is what I mean, like, I feel like this encounter between Mrs. Coulter and Lord Groke is like, it's pretty flirty, all right? And like, even this part, still flirty,

because she's like, all right, well, you can just keep watch then while I sleep. And then off to bed they go, except for Lord Groke, he stays awake because, again, he's watching. And he doesn't, like, give her any updates on Asriel's camp, right? He has been holding back. The Allies had been tracking flight paths in the air over the Republic and had noticed a few groups of activities, something that may be angels and something else entirely out west. Their investigations so far, though, have yielded no results, but he found it better not to worry Mrs. Coulter on this one. Which, yeah, why not? About an hour into the night, Brother Louis

breaks into Mrs. Coulter's room, tiptoeing around, very creepy, and looking for her belongings on her bedside. Roque is poised in the shadows, ready for action, and Louis finds what he's looking for, but it is unfortunately still connected to Mrs. Coulter. He begins to lower his shaking hands to the golden locket around Maurice's neck. Roque heads to the door, ready to tail Brother Louis, and follows him to the President's

room. Macphail is in his room with Frau Pavel and Dr. Cooper, and an experimental theologian from Bolvanger McPhail congratulates Louis on bringing the locket and they all bend to watch him open it, pulling out a lock of dark gold hair

and twisting it in his fingers Brother Louis asks if he can know why did we steal the child's hair? But President McPhail says no, that is above your pay grade I don't think they pay him. I don't know how in it works. Begone, thought. Yeah, pretty much. That's literally what

President MacPhail does. He's like, replace what you stole. Lord Rogue thinks of following him out. But then he's like, no. I should find out what they're up to. And we have this moment of like, how did you know where she had it said the scientist every

time she mentioned the child the president said her hand went to the locket and i'm like okay like i get it but to be honest like i i also agree like with the question of like how did they know she had some of lyra's hair in that locket like literally that locket could have held nothing like how did they know she had any of Lyra's hair did I miss something I I mean I guess probably because she just kept touching it yeah like talking about Lyra and they just assume but like how would they assume that she just had the hair yeah common thing is this like a common thing did mothers just keep a lock of their daughter's hair ever i don't is it i mean like i guess i see it like come up every now and then in things but i'm like how do they know it's not just like a photo of her you know well speaking of things that we haven't heard about in a while on that, right? Really weird. Yeah, I don't know. It's really weird.

Maybe the hair thing's like an old-fashioned thing. It's a big jump. It's a big assumption. It's a big assumption, but they got very lucky on this one. They did. Real lucky. And they discuss the hair, that it needs to be placed inside of a resonating chamber and go through a series of anabolic pulses using the barnard stokes heresy the many worlds idea so this is kicking it all the way back to the northern lights chapter two chapter two

a city in another world no doubt said the dean with contempt in his voice lord asriel ignored him there was a stir of excitement among some of the scholars as if having written treatises on the existence of the unicorn without ever having seen treatises on the existence of the unicorn without ever having seen one they'd been presented with a living example newly captured is this the barnard stokes business said the palmerian professor it is isn't it that's what i want to find out said lord asriel so the many worlds theories is what we're talking about to kick it back to that book. The doctor doesn't bring too much heresy in, which I thought was really interesting how he's a little afraid.

And the president was like, it doesn't matter. We're past that. You could just be a heretic in front of me, basically. You know, he straight up was like, oh, we're performing heresies now for pride. Heresies for pride. And he's already heard about all these other worlds through pavel so heresy's out the door now it's not a thing they discuss that the force of the bomb will be directed by the hair so that when the bombs detonated the child will be destroyed wherever

she is the hydroambaric generating station they had had been requisitioned just for their use to create the amount of power needed to blast through worlds and also murder Lyra. Macphail directs Cooper to leave at once to his room because a storm's on his way and they kind of need to, you know, get ready to go, get out of there, go get to the station. The scientist takes the hair and bows out and Lord Roque silently follows him, once out of earshot of the president's room springs stabbing him with this poisonous spur taking the envelope and running to coulter's room slipping through he wakes her up telling her what happened saying that she needs to destroy the envelope that the men said even one single hair would be enough

coulter examines it though and says this is only part of the lock of hair. I can tell. They took part of it. They must have kept some. Yeah. You know, speaking of these men being very interested in Lyra's body, here's part of it, I guess, kind of, if you consider your hair part of your body. And

yeah, they begin to discuss urgently how to get the rest of Lyra's hair back, and that they must seek the bomb, but get the rest of lyra's hair back and that they must seek the bomb but then the monkey shushes them goes shh um warning them that someone comes mrs culture thrusts it all at roc who leaps to the wardrobe and hides and i i just thought that was really interesting right like the monkey shushing them going shh yeah you know we commented a couple episodes ago when it said something we hadn't really noticed that it was speaking you know

it doesn't speak often I think it's only one or two times it speaks but it also shushes he shushes people that's amazing he's not completely nonverbal he is present he is here yeah he is present he is here he is good he is present. He is here. He is good. He is grateful.

The president enters, accusing Mrs. Coulter of attacking the scientist. And she struggles to sit up, puts on a performance, but also she, like, really did, more or less, just wake up. Like, it's obvious that she has never left her bed this evening. Not in general. Yeah, i was like mood uh and the president says that she must then have an accomplice who had attacked his and she says she isn't the faintest clue and also oh my god why is her locket on her pillow because of course louis did not have the stones to put it back on her not one bit and this is great i love lord roque then saw a superb piece of acting yeah he's like this is such a bafta marisa like lifts herself up and she's like i'm just gonna mirror his emotions and she's just as bewildered as mcphail and she's like i have no

accomplice if there's an invisible assassin in this place i can only imagine it's the devil himself and i dare say he feels quite at home and i would like to speak to your manager is basically what she just said mcphail then turns to the garden says put her in chains send her down to the cellars coulter meets roke's eye just for a moment and he catches her expression knowing exactly exactly what marisa means for him to do whoa teamwork makes the dream work i do love that marisa uses all she can in these chapters of like her womanhood to protect her right accusing them of touching her body while she slept they've been inappropriate with her because a woman's virtue if they are christians is supposed to be important right christian yes christians and you know attacking not just that but their reputation in turn as holy men like she's trying to attack their reputation

but that said it's not enough none of these are enough protections for her in this scenario yeah they need to be more praise be to he you know praise be to he this is now a right i was gonna say at the start is this a righteous gemstones episode kind of it kind of is i would love father mcphail to step on in to an episode of gemstones with all the church and like killing stuff going on in this chapter it kind of is yeah and the money like it kind of is praise be to he y'all Y'all gotta watch The Righteous Gemstones. If you aren't watching it, it's very good. Oh my god. It's us.

We're gonna open a resort, baby. Jonas and his wife, they never say her name. Interestingly. I don't know if there's a contract thing with that, too. I was thinking that. And then I'm like, when are we gonna get all the Jonas's? When's Sophie coming on? When are we getting them?

I don't know if she's gonna, yeah. But I feel like Kevin when are we going to get all the Jonases? When's Sophie coming on? When are we getting them? I don't know if she's going to. Yeah. But I feel like Kevin would make sense on it. Anyway, Kevin is brother Louis or Joe Jonas is brother Louis. These are thoughts. Anyway, so unfortunately, this is not yet a Righteous Jumpstones podcast. We are going to chapter 25 of the Amber Spyglass. C'est Jean Lezeau. The opening header line for that one is a bracelet of bright hair about the bone from John

Donne. Yeah, The Relic by John Donne. Three stanzas. Oh, this is a good one. This is, I'm not going to read you the whole poem. I beg you to go seek it out, but it's called The Relic, and it is a hurtful poem. I won't comment too much on it, but I was like, oh, I see. Oh, I see. So basically it starts, and the first stanza, the speaker says that he will someday die, right? Like he sees his death coming and that it's imminent,

and so he wraps his lover's hand around his wrist. And then he gets a piece of her hair. And he's like, I want this. I'm going to wrap this around my wrist. So many years later, when the bones have all gone, he's dug up. They're going to place some other body in his spot because it's been many years and the bones are already gone and blah, blah, blah, decomposing. And all they find of what's left of the bones is the gone and blah blah blah decomposing and all they find of what's left of the bones is the piece of hair wrapped around the bone so that shows like his

lover's power that his lover has lasted through all these years and that she surpassed time while his bones did not and he speaks in the next stanzas kind of of how like many people would call this a miracle speak of a great miracle and prophecy of this piece of hair surviving over time many many shadows would be seen on it if we had the amber spyglass but he says that the miracle would not be that the hair survived but the real miracle was their love right the entire time yeah yeah i see you eliana exactly the real miracle is that their love lasted this entire time that even after bones are gone and after you've gone into the atmosphere the hair was left what does it mean what does it all mean eliana i don't know i'm just big sad now

sorry i'm sorry that i analyzed this poem oh my god are you crying are you crying did i do it into my hair actually incidentally my instinct is to pull my hair over my eyes yeah so that's depressing it is depressing. But. For no reason. It's okay. We're here on a regular Alps vacation. Oh my god. Pack your snow gear. Snow bunnies. We're going skiing. So we have this line of,

The cataract of Saint-Jean-le-Zoe plunged between pinnacles of rock at the eastern end of a spur of the Alps, and the generating station clung to the side of the mountain above it. It was a wild region, a bleak and battered wilderness, and no one would have built anything there at all had it not been for the promise of driving great and baric generators with the power of the thousands of tons of water that roared through the gorge wow that's that's a metaphor right we've seen a lot of those uh kind of places in our own world i would say and i'm sure the uk probably has it too where it's like you just have great industrial buildings that are only there to you know exist to work and power things with tons of electricity and use up all this power and resources and space to create whatever that's very interesting yeah industrial industrial

wasteland and i will say like regarding the name right it comes when you were bringing it up like that first header at the top of uh chapter 23 is St. John and this one is I guess St. John of the Water and I guess there's like a bunch of water here. That's like what that name means but I don't know why it says St. John the Water and not St. John of the Water.

Anyway that's all. So a zeppelin hovers near the station, near the water, and the pilot is carefully moving through the storm because he doesn't want to, you know, fatally wreck at the building. The pilot shouts they can't really get closer if they want to land and McPhail is frustrated and tells him just put us below the ridge. So the crew repairs to Moore, the president's frustrated, waiting. the ridge so the crew repairs to more the president's frustrated waiting and at the rear of the cabin lord roke semi-hiding semi-not uh in plain sight is waiting and so is mrs coulter awake silent on the other side of the aisle her demon watching everyone exuding malice love that yes exuding lord roke takes a chance darting over to tell her what he's learned.

And she kind of asks, she's like, are you going to stay with me or are you going to work on your own? And he stays. He gets in her fur-lined pocket, hiding under her coat. The monkey helps to make sure he's hidden in the coat, and not a minute later, a soldier comes to accompany them out of the ship. Coulter asks, must I wear these horrible handcuffs? And tries to manipulate her way out of them them but the younger soldier will not budge i love lord roke in her breast pocket it reminds me of pan in his air mind kind of form getting in the the pocket of lyra's coats yeah or even like as a mouse yeah yeah well even if lord roke is in her pocket, Mrs. Coulter is acting out of pocket these chapters.

Fuck. It's fine with you. So much, so much. They head down the gangway, and the soldier tells her that the head sergeant is the one with the keys anyway, and Lord Roque and Mrs. Coulter are like, teamwork. They both quietly spring into action because he knows what to do, and they try to figure out which guard and which key they need once decided it's a short key with black tape wound around it and lord rog climbs down to go retrieve the key and then of

course there's a commotion because of course there is um and the guard drops his flashlight lord rog stabs a spur into the guy no one noticed noticing the weather and, like, the metallic din of, like, because there's, like, a lot of machinery going on. I guess that's a dam, right? This is, like, a dam, essentially. And he works quickly to get the keys. The other guy comes to check in on the sergeant, and Roke is forced to stab that guy, too. Oh, no.

The red shirts. Yes. And, you know, this is kind of, like like the water version of Asriel's hell, right? His little hellacious rebellion set up. It's the water version. The song of water and fire. So Roke finds the key just as the group kind of finds the fallen men. Oops.

And he hurries back to Marisa he's caught in the middle of the floodlight totally like fantastic mr fox style caught in the middle of the floodlight fox and headlights and freezes thankfully everyone's preoccupied with all those men he stabbed and so he gets the key to colder hurries to her shoulder asks where the bomb is and off they go he tells her hide yourself and he plans to keep watch as the scene unfolds in front of them the president is shouting over the engines to give some sort of order to the whole mystery of the you know poisonously stabbed men and marisa remembers a time not too long ago that she had been stabbed by chevalier tialis the horrible pain the

hallucinations she keeps climbing up thinking about them up the rocks the engineers kind of are struggling at the edge of the gorge bringing power to the bomb and coulter is reassessing the scenario getting out of the situation isn't really the problem it's more getting lyra's hair out roque burns the rest of the hair after her arrest earlier on but he wasn't really able to go find where the other half is. But they know where it is now. It's in the resonating chamber on the bomb. And this is going to be hard. There are scientists going back and forth. There's bright lights over there. They have one last chance to get rid of the hair, which will be even harder because of what the president intends

to do with Mrs. Coulter. Because you see, the energy of the bomb comes from somewhere very special. It comes from cutting the link between human and demon. He was going to sever the monkey and Coulter and use that power to destroy Lyra, using the very technology Coulter invented. And her hope, her only hope, was Roque. But that was bleak because in their exchanges over the last 24 hours she learned that every time he stabs his venom weakens it would take at least a day to build it back up i will say that i admire that mrs coulter recognized she's like yeah i guess

there is some delicious irony in that too you know know, the whole plan that they had set up where her death would cause the death of her daughter. She's like, all right, that was mildly clever. That's what I would have done. Yeah, she's like, okay, I feel that, yeah. The engineers rig up a series of lights, pulling cables to the bombs, which would take about, you know, a five-minute climb towards the bomb. And meanwhile, the president rallies soldiers at the zeppelin. Mrs. Coulter eyeballs the mesh cages, the silver blade hanging above. She sees no principal behind the rest of the coils and jars and tubing, but she knows that below there is a lock of hair that the entire system depends upon.

Another soldier gets the stab from Lord Roque, and to Mrs. Coulter's dismay, another soldier gets the stab from lord roque and to mrs coulter's dismay the president calls into the sky a witch shouting for her to search for the creature that is helping the woman the witch tells him that something else is coming and that she can see it in the north but the president is like don't don't look at that don't worry about that right now we have to find the creature and destroy it but also look for the woman too having the witch there to try to take out Coulter, I find that so interesting, right? Because we've seen Coulter torture witches in the past. And also considering her own fiery nature, because as Lyra brought up at the front of the chapter, Ma Costa said she had witch oil in her blood, that she was born of fire. Andisa coulter lyra is definitely her daughter definitely

there is a bit coming up where like she sends her demon down to pick up broke and she seems that she's pretty far up all of the rocks so i'm curious what the demon travel distance is like what is is it six feet twelve feet i don't. Maybe we'll never find out. But I'm just curious. The fact the church is willing to sacrifice Marisa is kind of icing on the cake, right? That they're like willing to use her to exploit her to gain Lyra. But would they gain something? I, as we've discussed before, am in the camp that maybe Marisa is already severed, right? Maybe, maybe that's already something. And maybe this is more something to chat about in the camp that maybe Marisa is already severed, right? Maybe, maybe that's already something.

And maybe this is more something to chat about in the discussion. I don't know. I just don't know. It would have been really funny, though, had they operated or done the intercision with Marisa and then she's sitting there and she's like, well, that was so fun. What a gas.

And she just is smiling like, oh, i was already severed darling what the fuck do you think but that's also like not how the bomb works too it still would find lyra it seems maybe if they had enough energy so i don't know i don't know i don't know interesting i was i was kind of wondering that right because we've been having that discussion and you've been bringing it up i think she's got something like a witch i guess like as you said right that's sort of like witch disconnect but that's not exactly the same as like a complete severing yeah like there's still obviously like a connection there so maybe it would work but because obviously like mrs culture is like i'm not taking that risk right

like she she knows enough that she's like i'm not risking being severed being submitted to what i've submitted all these children to but also like risking powering the bomb so well and that's interesting too right she's not a clean sacrifice like just putting it out there it's not like taking a baby lamb and putting it on an altar it's like marisa's hands are not clean you're intending it as some great sacrifice obviously you You're intending it as some great sacrifice. Obviously you're not intending it as some great sacrifice for your big God because you wouldn't sacrifice Marisa. Well,

they wanted the poetry of it, like George Lucas style. Well, and exactly that's it, right? Like this is evil. It's not good. It's not done in the name of the Lord.

And while they've like exposed and exploited her love for lyra they're also underestimating the lengths that she's willing to go like the relic states that the chapters start right like that locket that lock of hair lyra that's everything to her now she has nothing else to lose i mean i think that's like what the biggest part on which like this chapter turns, right? That that is everything to her, as you said, right? Like she tries so hard. She like gives everything that she has in this moment to try and prevent that bomb from

going off. And she cares so much and is like basically almost dies. She risks everything to try and stop that bomb from going off. basically almost dies. She risks everything to try and stop that bomb from going off. Well, Lord Roque was once more in plain sight. He's lying in the open on a patch of moss, unmoving.

Fortunately, like, the bad people don't see him. She sends her demon to crawl down the rocks and get him, conspicuous to anyone's eye, but Father MacPhail and the others, they are too busy looking at the bomb. Too busy. We have this line of the president turned to look over his shoulder and she saw his expression it was so fixed and intense that he looked more like a mask than a man his lips were

moving in prayer his eyes were turned up wide open as the rain beat into them, and altogether he looked like some gloomy Spanish painting of a saint in the ecstasy of martyrdom. Mrs. Coulter felt a sudden bolt of fear, because she knew exactly what he intended. He was going to sacrifice himself. The bomb would work whether or not she was part of it. The monkey brings Roke back. His left leg is broken from being stepped on. He tells her to listen carefully, explaining how to get into the resonating chamber and to retrieve the hair. Suddenly an arrow whooshes past,

hitting a tree in front of them, and it's the witch. She's such a witch. Anyways. So the severity of the situation and like really the gravity, right? With which Mrs. Coulter and Lord Roque take this task is very clear by the fact that Mrs. Coulter, like her monkey demon makes direct contact with Lord Roque. And I mean, it's probably like a small amount of, I guess, the monkey. It's still very important, though, right? Because like, I mean, proportionally, it's probably a large amount of i guess the monkey it's still very important though right because like i mean proportionally it's probably a large amount of lord roghe yeah it's very intimate right like i

mean and like lord roghe didn't go down with them so he doesn't know everything they've learned the other galavaspians have learned right yeah but that doesn't mean it's not intimate it is intimate for the demon too i mean he doesn't like to touch anyone yeah and i think like anyone he's probably spent enough time with lord azrael to like understand like this is taboo and like she is risking it to save his life i think it does speak volumes for where coulter is as well with broke that she has come to really trust him you see kind of that she's turned that as well like she's definitely turned a new leaf on that that she and roc have a partnership in this yeah it's like yeah

partnership in this and like an aligned goal and and respect right um as comrades well mrs coulter does some cool action shit right she rolls away before she can get hit and then everything happens all at once right a burst of gunfire a cloud of flameless smoke and then the witch flies directly for mrs culture and they wrestle among the rocks and the monkey like works to tear out like the needles from her pine cloud branch from her cloud pine branch which is kind of like funny of a scene when you think about it because i imagine like the monkey just tearing up like this like tree branch yeah it does say that she like takes her raggedy ass broom and tries to get on it after this it's been funny um but it makes me think of the what the show's kind of done with the cloud

pine yeah if you're looking for a reason to want to watch the show part of the cloud pine is in the witch's body and so actually there's a scene where a witch gets tortured with it coming out of her, which gives me the heebie-jeebies and makes me think, honestly, it makes me think of this story that a friend told me about getting her nipple pierced and that the nerve was hanging out of her nipple afterwards. Oh no. I think you've told me about that.

Yeah. Yeah. We've talked about this and she puked and shit at the same time. It was awful, awful. So that's really what that makes me think of. And that's what i think i'm imagining every time that the cloud pine now comes up so yep enjoy that one uh for your brain right now this is a great moment though to see the loyalties conflicting between witches that not all witches are following asriel not all witches are following

the magisterium right people see protection through them but yet they're dying all the same when it comes to the magisterium so there are some people too you see like with this witch obviously the president and them are so far gone they don't heed her ancient wisdom right her warning that she tries to give them she tells them something's coming from the north something's coming uh and they don't listen to her and she dies at the fault of the magisterium fighting for them just because she joined them for protection and her demon is a seagull we haven't done a demon corner in a while but i thought it was interesting that her demon's a seagull because they're like

kind of an ultimate scavenger in some ways they gather where they can be fed easiest right so she can be fed easiest here with the magisterium and even part of goal i mean there's etymology stemming from welsh and cornish roots for goal but also the word gullible comes from a goalll because a gull is someone who will swallow anything thrown at him i didn't know that yeah interesting so she is you know she went with the magisterium thinking that that would be her protection and it's devastating because she dies yeah i mean at the same time you know she could also i i guess as you said right she was gullible but like she could die for good though even though they promised good but she could die for better yeah and like that she was very instrumental i guess to the death of lord roque and like i mean it is interesting that it is a

seagull because i mean you brought up like these really great connections whereas for some reason my thought was like first of all just as pigeons are the rats of the sky, seagulls are just like beach pigeons. But also, you know, earlier we talked about Monsters, Inc. and Pixar. And I think of the scene in Finding Nemo with the seagulls. Mine. That's this. That's this scene. That's not this scene.

No, it's this scene. I don't think this is. So the next Pixar scene we get is the president throwing his lizard demon into a small mesh cage. Shireen, no. She rides, screams, and kicks, but he strikes her off his hand all the same. Shutting door, slamming it shut. This is horrible. Daphne Keene's dad, why?

Daphne Keene's dad, why? The witch's demon flies down and seizes the Galavespian. The witch tears herself out of Coulter's grasp, snatching her nasty-ass pine branch, leaping to the sky with her demon. Coulter actions after her. Oh my god. Coulter hurls herself toward the bomb, feeling some sort of ferocious gas begin to attack her. It's tear gas.

Most of the soldiers have fallen or stumbled away choking and she wonders where'd this gas come from? The wind disperses it though and they're able to all try to get back to the bomb. Oh, it's from Asriel. Oh, very fortunate I guess for her to have dispersed.

It must have been from asriel yeah they get interrupted by a scream and a falling of limbs silk and twigs the witch falls injured but only just alive at the feet of father mcphail coulter immediately seeks lord roque but he didn't survive the fall boo his spur is deep in the witch's neck and the witch's mouth moves saying something coming something but it makes no sense and the president's already stepping over her fallen body to reach the larger

mesh cage. His demon is scuttling around crying for pity up and down. Damn. It's it's there's a lot happening in these moments i am really sad about lord rogue dying he seemed cool i i i like the gallivespians you know they're very noble characters the monkey leaps for father mcphail climbing up his shoulders to get to the wires and pipework and trying to get

lyra's hair out and the president tries to grab him, which is very interesting, right? Again, shows the desperation that he's willing to break that taboo. But Mrs. Coulter tries to pull him away, unable to see anything. Gunfire begins all around them, and the president and Mrs. Coulter fight hand to hand. She's tired, he's strong, but she's desperate too. And she tries to watch her demon while she holds him back. But unfortunately, a blow hits her in the head and she falls stunned. The president scoops himself, bleeding into the larger cage and shuts himself in. The monkey opens the chamber, the hair within, held in rubber pads and a metal clasp.

And Mrs. Coulter holds herself up with him, getting into everything herself, and tries to displace the parts and shake things before the president can ignite it. There was a flash of intense white, a lashing crack in the monkey's form was flung high in the air. With him came a little cloud of gold. Was it Lyra's hair? Was it his own fur? Whatever it was, it blew away at once in the dark. Coulter's right hand convulsed so tightly it clung to the mesh, leaving her half lying, half hanging, while her head rang and her heart pounded. But something had happened to her sight. A terrible clarity had come over her eyes, the power to see the most tiny details, and they were focused on the one detail in the universe

that mattered. Stuck to one of the pads of the clasp in the resonating chamber, there was a single dark gold hair. She cried a great wail of anguish and shook and shook the cage, trying to loosen the hair with the little strength she had left. Mrs. Coulter has done an enormously great effort in this chapter. She's done a lot. And I really love this moment where it calls out, right? Like where the story wonders, is it the monkey's hair or is it Lyra's hair that's flying in

the wind in that moment where everyone's like electrocuted? And we realize for the first time that Lyra's hair is the exact same color as the monkey's for it to be so indistinguishable. And I think it really goes to show that Mrs. Coulter's love for her child, yes, it's warped, it's toxic, it's harmful, it's abusive, and none of it was good for Lyra at all. And I don't mean for this to excuse any of that, but ultimately it was very much and inextricably a part of her core. was it was part of you can see it on her demon that was brilliant i had never thought of that i had never even like connected the two i would even say that's golden wow you're you're proud of that i'm proud of you i'm proud of you

well i was proud of that i wanted to answer it with something just as excellent i didn't have much else though so this is a golden i do find it interesting so now that she's up close with all of the elements right already into place the the blade the metal alloy of the blade is already there getting ready to come down has not come down yet but she's still seeing those details that clearly so it's not unlike when mary started to climb the tree oh here she's climbed up the mesh cage but mary climbing the tree with the amber spyglass and being able to see motes floating around this is kind of what it seems like she's doing she can see the motes just

because the elements are kind of near and that like adrenaline and now that you say it like that and like having these connections between like the goldenness then of lyra's hair the monkey's fur and the goldenness of dust yeah and like and there's like really i mean very a lot of intense imagery in the scene especially like during this one break in this chapter where then you contrast like of course the goldenness of mrs coulter the monkey and then the the cold silver of the blade as it comes down yeah and it does right uh the president is still praying and she's hurling herself at the cage. He's saying praise be to he in that cage. Praise be to he. She's trying to break the cage down to no, nothing. And he brings together two wires and the blade shoots down.

Something explodes, but Coulter's beyond feeling it because hands are lifting her up out of the wreckage. It's Asriel's hands into the intention craft amidst smoke and cries of alarm he climbs in beside her stell maria as well the half stunned monkey in her mouth colter manages to ask if the president's dead if it went off and she looks down the mountain slope through tired pained eyes where men are running like ants some lying dead dead, others crawling brokenly. There's something interesting in the parallel that the last time we saw that huge bomb go off and use a bunch of power to blast through multiple worlds, it was Asriel. And here he's the one rescuing Coulter instead, right? Putting an end to the equipment being used, flame it all down.

That's an interesting character development on Asriel. flame it all down. That's an interesting character development on Asriel. To be fair, don't know if he, you know, if I'm cool with him just flaming a bunch of people, like not all those people were bad. Some of them were just caught up in bad things. I guess that's kind of the whole story of the book, right? Value of life. He's willing to kill kids. Right, right. But like, then there's that other part of like science right like this scientific evil that could be progressing to kill more people if this gets perfected this atomic fucking hair bomb so the fact that he does burn it is probably for the greater good but it's like who are you to

decide that value of life yada yada god yada yada you know the whole themes yeah yeah uh but nonetheless he's rescuing Coulter. He's putting an end to that equipment. And Marisa, it's interesting because not unlike Lyra, who had all this guilt last time, right? When a big bomb went off and killed her best friend, and now she's in the underworld just to catch you up. Marisa not only brought Lord Roke and brought him to his end and his danger,

but also danger to Lyra, right? What was the stake here? The stakes were Lyra's possibly living or death and Lord Roke's living or death. And Lord Roke's dead. She's alive. Thankfully, one person survived. We don't know if Lyra's alive. We do not know. I don't know what to tell you about the next chapter. I'm worried that we have a funeral in chapter 26. I'm very worried, worried but at least she doesn't have to travel far um asriel also obviously still cares about her because he he was very amused at her behavior when she stole the intention craft he's like yeah we'll catch up with her later and here he is showing up and saving her collecting his equipment and his spy slash prisoner there's also something interesting

about like their demons still having that intimacy of like let me just grab you in my mouth honey come on uh very interesting you know it's obvious that he still has the intimacy going on in his soul for her and vice versa and in his dick probably for her yes yes and i love that when you look at like their last meeting in the first book uh before all this back in the first book when they're arguing mountaintop and lyra's escaping into the other world they have this conversation where she says she's more yours than mine asriel he says not so you took her in you tried to mold her you wanted her she was too coarse too stubborn i'd left it too late but

but where is she now i followed her footsteps up you want her still twice you've tried to hold her and twice she's got away if i were her i'd run and keep on running sooner than give you a third chance well she did take that third chance right and it went poorly that was the caves but for a fourth chance instead of going after her she's at least doing the right thing and trying to protect her uh and just that line that like she's more yours than mine asriel i don't think so yeah she's both i think they both contributed dna yeah both of you have to pay child custody not custody what is it child support both of you have to pay child support um there's a way out of that sorry i'm sorry i i i mean absolutely yes everything that you've said here

in terms of i mean there's so many emotions going on in this scene and in this chapter and we've discussed a little them already like in terms of like marisa trying to save her daughter right and like i mean asriel does care for lyra even though he like wants to be a tsundere whatever and besides like some of these parallels that you've brought up i think there's another parallel to here right of like the first time that mrs kulturer actually saved slash tried to save she she did succeed right lyra's life at bovanger right it's it's in the context of a similar, like, contraption, right? Intercision is still

involved, but this time Mrs. Coulter's trying to rescue Lyra's hair from the chamber rather than Lyra herself, and she's keeping herself from the chamber and not as opposed to Lyra, right? Like, there's kind of, like, this symmetry between their positions and

their bodies. Yeah, yeah absolutely that's that's very interesting even the intercision at bull of anger yeah that's a great connection well someone with whom their body has no symmetry is the president who's laying crumpled in the cage that bitch dead asriel asks after lord rogue and maurice is like yeah he dead he's dead everyone's fucking dead everyone's just dead yeah asriel hits a button and loses flame down at the swaying zeppelin very interested how you got a flamethrower on that tesla and he watches the airship boom into a rose of white fire. The intention craft floats unharmed in the middle of that fire. Oh, and a force field now? Okay, Asriel.

And he moves away, watching the Zeppelin slowly fall on top of the entire scene. Yeah, Asriel's investors are gonna be so happy. His angel investors, if you will. I'd play an emoji. Send.

His VCs. Oh, and Matt's Yeah. His, uh, Oh, and Madsen. Okay. So, as you said, right, like, Lord Roke's dead, um, a lot of people are dead, and I feel like there's something here,

right, especially because we find out about both of their deaths, like, confirmed at the same moment for the sacrifices of both, like, the president, Father MacPhail, and Lord Roke. And, I mean, both of them are doing it for causes that they believe in right and in the hopes of taking down someone like taking someone down with them in order to achieve the causes that they believe in and it is about sacrifice

especially self-sacrifice and that is an important part of this book series as we've discussed and it's interesting to have two such like very high esteemed leaders like in their respective areas like of their respective people die at the same time over the same altercation and in sacrifice here right i think we are supposed to like really see these two contrasted and next to one another and we i mean i'm not gonna like sugarcoat it obviously we see one of these sacrifices as noble and the other as cowardly right and and a big part of that is because we are primed to sympathize with one side of this effort much more and because we don't want lyra to die but also that like in one right we see i mean we don't really see but we assume perhaps like the soul is aligned with the spirit for lord rogues right versus the other one when it comes to the intercision where

we assume um like father mcphail's or where we see that father mcphail's demon is not down with this plan it's horrible it's awful how could you just do that to yourself to your scaly cute little self i don't know i mean lyra had to find the strength to do that to i mean into a dog how do you look at dog pan and be like goodbye well and that is part of it right that lyra had to look and do that and her sacrifice was for a much greater purpose yeah well the entire scene whirls into the darkness as they zoom nor the word in the intention craft but mrs coulter couldn't take her eyes off the scene she watched behind them for a long time gazing with tear-filled eyes at the fire until it was no more than a vertical line of orange scratched

on the dark and wreathed in smoke and steam and then it was nothing coulter is finally affected by something anything in these books right um she's affected by a fucking worried that lyra's dead as fuck and then b lord rogues death i think it did affect her. He went out of his way to protect her and the cause and he died for it and her and for Lyra. And she even touched him. I mean, that might be part of it too, right? Why she felt that so much. Like she, her demon touched him.

When's the last time she touched another person not out of anger or defense or whatever, besides Asriel. Lyra? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. In the cave, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, everyone, that brings us to the end of the three chapters that we are covering today. We are going to talk a little bit more about how some of this connects to the rest of the story, but also maybe some of the novellas, some of the boobs of dust. And as we set up top, if you do not want to hear the discussion, if you do not want spoilers

for any of those parts of the story, just don't do it. All right? Just don't do it. Oh my God't do it oh my god yes we are giving you the opportunity to bow out now gracefully go go off with your day or your evening and have a great time thanks for coming to hang out with us and listen and we will return next month with another episode of the amber spyglass for you but for for those of you sticking around, if you're ready to get dusty with us and get spoiled, then let's do so.

Let's jump on in. Get dusty. Get dusty. Get dusty. All right, so I'm getting dusty, and here's what I'm getting dusty about. So yeah, Colter, witch possibly, right? We've talked about witch, witch, witch, you know, witch, witch, witch here.

We don't know if she's a witch or not, you know. There are definitely some hints. The show kind of seemed to have some little hints at it. The novellas have had some little hints at it. So lots of witch nods to Lyra and Colter in the outer works, as well as maybe in the inner works and it does make me wonder like that is technically severing like the witches go through and they have to sever from their demon on a lake this is in the novella in serpentine

and they have to be like bye bitch i'm a witch now and that's why some of their relationships are a little bit strained and we kind of see that lyra had to kind of do a similar ritual so it makes you think maybe colter did too i would have found it interesting a very interesting thing had she just sat down and was like surprise bitch it's almost like kind of worse for like, I think, Marisa and Lyra in that. So the witches, like, I think that the demons and I assume the witches are kind of raised understanding that's part of their culture. You know, from a young age, and they know that this is coming, they can kind of sort of steal themselves for it for like Marisa and Lyra, like they don't have to. So it's kind of like,er yeah so yeah yeah out of nowhere yeah yeah that line is vague though i will give it that like he does keep it kind of vague that he says the bomb would work whether or not she was part of it you know because obviously he means

because the president is jumping on board but i mean there's a bunch of other people that he could have forced into there too right like yeah all these other random ass people all the other people that still died because of the bomb all the other people that are like in the church so i love that the bomb like okay you guys i know this is a big spoiler. Don't tell everyone that didn't listen to this yet. But Lyra doesn't die yet. What?

I mean, she will someday, but Lyra doesn't die from the bomb. Same. And maybe we'll talk about it next month more. But I don't really recall if it's explained why. I don't remember. And I haven't done my reading for the next few chapters, and I only read it once and a half, twice. I did, and I've thought, and then I remembered that's not this, so. We'll talk about that next week, for sure.

The other thing in book one I really loved rereading about that reminds me of all this is that roger had a second cousin simon do you remember simon parslow yeah and i have to say alice lonsdale alice parslow alice retconned lonsdale alice retcon marie lonsdale um when she like got older after she got married she got her entire husband's family hired there i respect the fuck out of that bitch yeah she was like yeah i'll get you a job i know some parasite shit like we hook it up here but in a good way family up yeah yeah i'm scared about going down into that cellar i mean we know what's in the cellar we've been there wine and dead bodies oh my god

praise be praised be so this could probably go in a later episode but i'm just saying now you know like marisa's over here contemplating like oh what if the authority is like decrepit and old and huddled up and unable to die and we also find out what happens when uh the souls not the souls when the spirits like exit the underworld right they become part of everything and like dissipate and i assume you all know this because if you're in the discussion i assume you know um but like i i just thought that was interesting because i mean lyra plays a big role right in the authority's eventual like death but because of her compassion right and i think this is another potential prophecy fulfillment uh though we know that the actual one is like more with the reversal of dust flow

because we're told it but anyway so she and will feel super bad for like this being that they see stuck in like the crystal bubble they're like oh no bubble boy and so she and will like free him as they've like freed everyone else in the underworld and i just think it's a great mirror for uh lyra's arc considering that a lot of her struggle right has been about trying to be free i mean that's like an overarching thing for everyone in this book but especially like her trying to be free from her mother trying to keep her in a sort of bubble too right like keeping her from experiencing life seeing the world living and like when the authority is released from that crystal bubble right since he's an angel he isn't really dying in the same way like when he's gone forever like he like the rest of the souls when they leave the the underworld like or the demons

right made of dust he becomes part of everything else now too yes and that is something too that we're like very constantly surveying this series of good versus bad and what's good what's bad and like those men that die out there on the rocks and on the hill there with the bomb, like, did they all deserve to die? We don't know. We can't say that. Asriel apparently did say that. Apparently. But like the authority, when we get there, eventually, it turns out it's just the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.

It's just like shriveled up like he has no real power, which is, again, like the metaphor with letting the souls out. Yeah. You know, like that's getting rid of the power. That was the power. The power was telling them that they were there forever. Right. With nothing. And even he was a prisoner unto himself.

And it's like even some evil people are imprisoned in themselves too you know like some of them aren't actively evil it's that people are doing things in their will etc which i think is interesting because like you have the angle that death is a part of life right he the authority is also a part of life. Even him dissolving into these bits, going into the atmosphere. He's a part of life. Life isn't just the good things. It's not just the sky and playing like the ghosts were saying they miss, which is a big part of life and the sun and the sky and all the good things and the blades of grass and the flowers. But also there's bad.

There's suffering. Yeah. I think him getting reabsorbed to showing like the way you deal with that suffering is living i will say like i didn't bring this up in the other parts of the episode but like as you were saying right a lot of life is suffering and i guess the heartbeats would accept that too but like it kind of sucks right if you have to relive like your trauma and like a terrible if you've had a terrible life right and that's your payment in order to just fucking get to the other side and and like i don't know that was something that i was kind of thinking about

and in the sense that like no one's entitled to your stories but i guess it is like a payment to be taken to the i don't know it but like what you were saying that's interesting yeah yeah this could have been I guess part of it too is that that's like that's so the spirit's sticking around like part of it is because they've been trapped there but also part of it is that that's just their life forever now and there's nothing else and they don't have the capacity after so long to believe there could be anything else too right so there's almost that little bit of hope and that like that you need to get rid of your baggage with the harpies before you can go on to leave the underworld of horrible things and go on to be free and the world is and float around the atmosphere so like in a way it's like a therapy session and at the end you just leave and float out i think is the other thing yeah i guess i mean

like the harpies kind of make it clear right they don't care like if it's a happy or a sad story they just want true ones and i guess the harpies are happy for you to trauma dump on them as i guess is the term and they're fine with that and but it just boy do they have a copay because sign me up oh my god coming through yeah so i just thought that was i was like damn you made this agreement for everyone coming after that's a big new deal Lyra's new deal you know Lyra's new deal there was something

technically the Galabaspians in a way too they negotiated it they were well that's such a big thing right that they as a people were involved in the negotiations to free the underworld that's huge for the galavaspians it is that is big that young martyr woman that died a martyr centuries ago you know the ghost i loved when she proclaimed you know passage to

heaven when we were alive was great and all but it's fake it was all fake we all suffered for it because that also is part of it too like what we were just saying about living life that some spent their lives in solitary prayer letting it all go to waste and it's interesting because when we reconvene with lyra and the secret commonwealth she's kind of the young martyr woman now interesting yeah right yeah like her life is kind of going to waste now she's unhappy everything's kind of horrible her connection with pan is fucked up well she sacrificed like i mean that's the thing right that's what i was talking about like to the extent that what we were discussing in terms of trauma she's like sacrificed her mental health and her emotional well-being

for everyone yeah and for what like i guess a like, long-term, infinite, like, long-term gain, but... It is a little sad. You know, you go to the Underworld, you don't, like, see necessarily in the same way and commune with the people that you knew in the way that Lyra would with Roger, because everyone's all- is, like, now out in the universe. It's a little different. I had this tinfoil. This really tinfoil moment as we were going through the episode where they were remarking on,

oh, Fra Pavel has gotten really fast, hasn't he, at reading the alethiometer. Could Fra Pavel be using the new method that is introduced in the Secret Commonwealth? I love it. I fucking love it. That's it. I don't even think it's tinfoil it's canon it's canon okay i don't know though that mousy little fucker he's gonna pass out from the strain he better settle down he probably will but um you know he he might envision himself as a martyr as well and he's willing to do that sacrifice of sacrificing his physical and mental health to do the new

method i think every fucking man that steps foot into that building thinks he's some great fucking martyr that has done some great service to his god and he's gonna someday just suffer and everyone will know his name because of his suffering yeah in's defense I know his name so it's Fra Fra it's Fra well that's all the time we have for fun and shenanigans this week

Fra hey thanks so much for listening this was our second episode this month it was very fun doing a two in one One at the front, one in the back, as Eliana appreciates. I'm in the front. I don't know what's wrong with you.

So much. As always, be sure to check us out over on social media at Girls Gone Canon, C-A-N-O-N, or if you have some thoughts about the episode tweet them at us message them to us give us an email with your thoughts girls gone canon at gmail.com yes and of course you can always find us and new episodes whether it's historic materials or

song of ice and fire or i don't know something else someday, on any of the platforms on which we are hosted, such as Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Google Play, I'm out of practice, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Acast, Overcast, I think that was good enough. Stitcher. You did great. You did great. Thank you. Thank you did great thank you thank you

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And of course, we do host events over at our Discord. Patrons in the $10 and above tier, the Thunder tier and above get access to those events this month we will be doing a his dark materials rewatch starting up this coming week january 29th hosted by our friend pete starting at 1 p.m eliana time eastern time i'm not wrong and the day after that, on the 30th, we will be hosting a brunch slash happy hour with our patrons. So that will be

from 1 to 3 p.m. Eliana time, and we hope to see you there. It could also be BST, you know, British Standard Time, or if you will, Boobs of Dust Standard Time. Stop. Stop. Oh god.

I don't know if British Standard, I think they actually have multiple. I think it's GMT is five hours and I don't know. You know what? I did the best I could. And it was not very good. Well, we hope to see you there at the rewatch

and slash or brunch. Thank you everyone for joining us for this episode I have been one of your hosts Eliana and I have been another one of your hosts Chloe we'll talk to you next month goodbye

praise be to he