Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Episode 27 — The Amber Spyglass Chapters 35 & 36

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Taste the fruit.  CHAPTER 35 — OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY CHAPTER 36 — BROKEN ARROW --- 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 27, The Amber Spyglass, Chapters 35 and 36. I am one of your hosts, Eliana. And I am another one of your hosts, Chloe. Excited for this two-chapter episode. I'm not actually that excited. It is very bittersweet.

We are covering chapters 35, Over the Hills and Far Away. Oh, God. And 36, Broken Arrow. Oh, God. After that will be a dust-cussion. And in our dust discussion we get we get a little dusty we get a little spoilery if you're here for this episode you're probably feeling pretty dusty too at this point you're covered in it there is dust all over you and at the end of the episode we will spoil the next two chapters and the books of dust that we have read. And novellas. And I mean, like, we say this

like every episode nowadays, but like, honestly, I really would be surprised if you have read these two chapters and you didn't read the last two. I really, really would be. There are only two more. Honestly, it's basically the end of the book. And you know what's happening.

You know what's about, you know. You already know. Like, this is, you're in the middle of the fall, right? When you are on a roller coaster, and you get to the top of the roller coaster, you're like, I'm in the abyss. There are specters. Shit's crazy.

That's the top of the roller coaster. And then the roller coaster goes down, and you're like, wow. And then you start to get to the bottom, and you're like, oh, no. We have to get off the ride, and we have to get off the ride next month. Oh, my God.

We have to. This is our penultimate. We're going to have finished a series. Yeah. Oh, God. Isn't that amazing? Oh, yeah. This is nuts.

This is crazy. I can't think of anyone better to have on as a special guest host, another other one of your hosts than our friend Haley Bowery, the mother of all manimals, the lead singer of the manimals, and also a podcaster, a fellow podcaster from Drinking Game of Thrones, Brooklyn, the podcast. She's going to come on and she's a huge Amber Spyglass fan am i'm excited that she has taken the time to come on for this because i know she is out there doing some rock and roll but she is like when i told her i was reading this book because of you and the pain that you've

brought me and how horrible i feel all the time she was there for me you know yeah i wasn't i was here inflicting it i was like chloe chloe what if you read these books but i i'm really excited to have hayley on also i mean as you said hayley's like a huge fan of this series as well um very impactful for her life so i i'm excited to like live out the end of the series again with her. It's emotional, so I'm glad we're doing it with a friend. And I gotta be honest, if you haven't listened to them animals, they have a great concept album

that is a Game of Thrones themed album that is just like art. Makes you feel alive again. If you like Game of Thrones or Song of Ice and Fire, you gotta listen. It's called Seven, but that bitch thinks in poetry dude like she is she's an amazing musician

and you know I love music and I don't you know partake I don't imbibe enough in making music anymore like I want to but she like always is just so inspirational she inspires me she comes out with all this music poetry in her veins poetry in her blood so I'm really excited to hear oh god what she has to think about the last two happy ending chapters

that come along in this series and when we get them let me know hey we have a happy you know middle of our story right now. We have a Patreon episode coming out, a bonus episode for the Stranger Tier patrons and above, Eliana. We do. And, you know, we are doing the Imagination Chamber, which features a couple of new lantern slides. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. And we were told to set expectations more.

So, like I i said it has a few uh new lantern slides but also has compiled for fans some of the lantern slides that you can find in the backs of the three main novels yeah it you know like you said lower expectations just a tiny bit i guess we got too excited sometimes we get excited our imagination often yeah yeah our imaginations run they run wild and sometimes we don't get books so it's exciting when we do it's like an 85 82 page book somewhere in that span i can tell you maybe we're being uncharitable there are 17 new oh okay i thought there were okay 17's good there are 85 pages gotcha and there are 17 new lantern slides which are some of them are

honestly like emotional i got a little i got a little emotional i was like oh god i miss this series so you know and now i'm here doing this episode but it was all right it's a great book it's a cute book it's got like red edges on the paper you're gonna hear so much about it we actually covered all of the lantern slides that were published for all the published books before this came out and that was a patreon only episode a bonus episode maybe you guys will get it for the public someday if our patrons are feeling like they want to unlock an episode but we covered all of them there are probably i mean so 85 pages half of them have things on them this is not i'm not trying to be cruel it's just it's true half of this is legitimately something you can see in the reviews of the book. Yeah. So there's what, like 42, 43 pages total of lantern slides. And there's 17 new ones.

And they are great new ones. And it's a good place to have all of them in one place. And I do, you know, when I'm really bored, maybe I'll start thinking about the placement of each slide to one another. I'm curious if that meant anything. POV style, like we do at our a swap free read but i don't know there's a lot to think on that we could add to kind of just the thought around this story it's got a nice cover it's a cute book uh i did enjoy reading it it did give me a little excitement a little dopamine hit so thanks phil thank you i'm excited about it more about it yeah yeah and it and it is a nice book

right i it i will say like it isn't easy to find here in the u.s but if you are across the pond you know it's probably about six pounds right now and by that i mean like not weight wise i mean like your currency right so like i mean go pick it up and it's nice to have it's nice to have and it feels good like in terms of the actual physical copy you know i think like the physical experience of books is also like really important so it's a good collectors thing oh funnily enough speaking of the collectors isn't it kind of ironic he'll put out the collectors later this year as a collector's edition of the collectors yeah so that's fun we've covered that too we did check it out check it out so yeah and also just to as a heads up the lantern slides i believe the new ones also include information from the books of dust and like some of the spans

of things that happen in the novellas so if that's something that you don't want any information on just know that but there's like little little snippets from some of the characters in there i need some more hdm i'm excited for the third season we're closing up our blue watch discussion going on series two is ending a couple of our friends warren and cassidy are closing out the season over the next two weeks saturdays at the ggc discord for thunder to your patrons and above we're gonna hop on i think they're three to six p.m or 3 to 5 p.m eastern time somewhere in there so you can find more info over at our discord or on our patreon head over there and check it out but we've been having a blast of big thanks to our patrons for hosting these every week last week brit did the scholar

which is an amazing episode the fifth episode of the second season if you haven't tuned into the his dark materials adaptation happening at the bbc hbo production it's it's just such a great adaptation so far there's just so much love in it you know as far as just love to the details and attention to the details and even if there's some stuff that makes me okay whatever tuned out for a minute zoned out came back in it always gets me back always same and i i mean like you said i think you can tell that there is a love of the source material right like obviously not everything can be adapted one-to-one i think that's just that's the nature of different mediums and also the times have changed right since these books were first put out and all these i mean there's a lot of things that like factor into it plus we had covid etc uh during the production of season two but

they adapt to all that they adapt to all of it you can i think what matters to me is most of all is you can tell that the people love it right like even if it's imperfect i mean as the series teaches us maybe love can be a little imperfect sometimes and so how could you say such a horrible thing to me um because i wanted to start the hurtfulness early but i mean like you know there's that and like i feel like you can sometimes tell with some adaptations right you can tell that they're like it's okay but like they don't they don't they don't love the material right there's a cynicism behind it and this one doesn't have that

and you can see in some series where they love it too much you know like where it's like okay we read that chapter we read that chapter we get it and this but there's a happy beautiful medium where all things are balanced as they should be. Right? Right in the very middle that you can teeter between. And I would say this is much closer to the middle than it is to, you know, being too much or too little. So it's just right. Yeah.

Goldilocks for here. Wait, Lyra is. Lyra is. Depending on, you know. The version. Genetics. Yeah. Whatever genetics you want to believe. People's hair changes as they get older too.

I was a toe head. What does that mean? I've never heard this term. That your hair is so light that it's the color of the underside of your toe. Oh that's hilarious. And my toe baby girl it was milk white. Let me tell you. And so was my hair was light. Yeah absolutely. We're tell you. My hair was light.

Yeah, absolutely. We're weirdos. Yeah. We look okay. I don't get cool traditions, okay, Eliana? I get, like, spaghetti and, like, I don't know, toes. Toes? God.

God, I don't want that. I don't. She doesn't like the underside of men's feet. Keep your culture, bitch. I was was thinking of what's her fucking name Debra? remember she's they're all like Debra Vance is like the underside of people anyways that's me it's a mood it is a mood I don't want to see it

I mean it's just the color alright let's jump into chapter 35 I don't want to man it's really you some sad fucking anyways chapter 35 over the hills and far away before i can even let you put us in the palm eliana i'm gonna stop us i'm gonna stop us right all right this is gonna be a long episode i have some thoughts on this chapter being called

over the hills and far away first of all bittersweet we all know that we all know that over the hills and far away has a couple origins right when you think about that phrase there are a couple places that could come to mind like the super traditional british song uh dating back to like the late 17th century there are a couple different versions like one from witt and mirth or pills to purge melancholy and uh different plays have versions of it like john gay's beggar opera of 1728 it was written in the napoleonic era when the british went against the french very big war you may have heard of it allegedly allegedly allegedly and so you know i could see where poleman could be inspired by that alone a huge british traditional song that he likely heard

growing up and you know lyra and will did just go up during the war against the authority and actually killed him with kind he killed him with kindness wow wow good kids but also I'd like to suppose a second inspiration a second source this is a little alt of me this is a little oh chloe she's she's shaking things up jimmy page and robert plant of led zeppelin also likely wrote over the hills and far away as an homage right in title to over the hills and far away the traditional british song huh but the song that they wrote describes the adventure of the Hobbits, right? The adventure they embark on and come back from. Interesting.

Yeah. Wait, like really? Really? Really. Really. Literally. Yeah. Actually, a lot of Led Zeppelin's music has J.R.R. Tolkien roots.

I'm not kidding. John Railroad Tolkien. I made up that first name. John Railroad Tolkien. Oh, my God. Oh, Eliana. not kidding yeah jog railroad i made up that first name oh eliana anyways jimmy page is also uh a lot of his songs are rooted in his celtic ancestry and they wrote this song in wales after they came back from a really grueling u.s tour it was like a really rough tour it was not fun for them so they came back and they actually started writing again and they were like oh let's write from a really grueling U.S. tour. It was like a really rough tour. It was not fun for them. So they came back and they actually started writing again.

And they were like, oh, let's write this song. We talked a little bit about some Lord of the Rings stuff over at our Song of Ice and Fire podcast, merely by association, guilt by association. We're not fans ourself. We haven't really, Eliana and I haven't delved so far in. I've seen the movies. I've seen the movies.'ve seen the movies my husband by association, by marriage

I know of Lord of the Rings pretty well from just what my husband's told me and some of what I've read on the internet from others and you know you have the whole the Shire that didn't make the movies there's some devastation there at the Shire

they call it the old scouring the scouring of the Shire. They call it the old scouring. The scouring of the Shire. And it's just like after war, man, Frodo goes through some shit after. He's like, I can't live in this world anymore. Shit's horrible. How am I supposed to live?

Especially after losing so much. And that's kind of a huge theme of what's going on in these chapters or what will go on in these chapters. And I do think there are a couple. I mean, both songs, when you listen to the song, I'm not even shitposting in real life right now. You guys, I'm like being very realistic. The songs are very similar in just thematics, like the traditional song. And just thematics, like the traditional song. If I should fall to rise no more as many comrades did before,

then ask the fifes and drums to play over the hills and far away. Then fall in lads behind the drum with colors blazing like the sun along the road to come what may over the hills and far away. And Led Zeppelin. Is this a spoken word now? This is it. Johnny Cash. Hey, lady. Oh, my God. Hello. and lud zeppelin is this a spoken word now this is it johnny cash hey lady oh my god hello i'm johnny cash uh johnny cash john snow they both wore black interesting sorry i digress hey lady you got the love i need maybe maybe more than enough. Oh, darling, darling, darling, walk a while with me. Oh, you've got so much, so much, so much.

Many have I loved and many times been bitten. Many times I've gazed along the open road. Many times I've lied and many times I've listened. Many times I've wondered how much there is to know. I mean, that's also the chapter. That is. Yeah, it is. I think it's both. I think it's both. I mean, that's also the chapter. That is. I think it's both.

I could see that, right? And you were talking earlier today about how Hayley, who's going to join us next week, thinks in songs and music, right? As a musician. We know that Philipilip pullman also

has a huge connection not just to poetry but also to music right he he's spoken about that a bit every now and then and things we know that he's good friends with kate bush and yeah i mean like he is rock and roll exactly exactly a lot of that he was he was there for some of this music so i i think that you're absolutely right i think there's a little bit of this woven into it. And maybe if not conscious, like just, you know, vibes. Absolutely. Maybe it's because we have that school teacher Pullman in our brain. You know what I mean?

Like, I remember my first teacher outside of school. I think it was Mrs. Mrs. Helga or something. My first grade teacher, I saw my first grade teacher at the gas station. I was like, what? Yo, what? That was insane, right? Like, that's not real. So maybe that's the Pullman idea. Like he just, in my brain, I don't immediately think rock and roll, but he is rock and roll everything he writes. I mean, he wrote Metatron, dude. I mean, he is rock and roll. For me, I he wrote metatron dude i mean he is rock and roll for me i don't see it like as because like the teacher that led to me falling in love with like

english right with writing and that led to eventually me becoming majoring in english was a huge girl yeah exactly he was like a huge rock and roll fan like he had like he had pink floyd posters around his like trailer and stuff like that um mine did too i don't think i noticed it though you know what i mean i just don't think i realized that was why i had like a drama teacher that was pretty good that i loved my high school i did have a few and i only really had one or two of them but like i had one that was rock and roll that I didn't really like nothing against the dude I just didn't I wasn't into him like he was fine he was fun he was fine uh but the weirdest um so he wasn't my teacher but my

friends had him as a teacher he was a latin teacher we are so off topic but I need to tell the story yeah um this is my weirdest like out of school encounter was i was at an anime convention and i was in high school and the teacher the latin teacher at my high school was there and he was part of a cosplay group they were all cosplaying from from utana from revolutionary girl utana who let him out i want to find him again and be like hey i want to talk about that time um my god my uh my homeroom teacher had a radiohead sticker and i knew and i was like wow i see you and he uh and he taught about beowulf he did british oh wow that's pretty great lit oh he's a nerd oh a lot of. A lot of teachers are nerds,

I think. A lot of things about my sexuality just came out. Okay, interesting, interesting. Hold it back there, Malcolm Pulse said, but, um... Let me get through this chapter. I'm about to settle, okay? I'm trying to settle.

Me and my demon are trying to settle. My last one is my physics teacher who he lent me an anthology of sci-fi short stories and Sand Kings was in that so thanks to him I read my first George R.R. Martin he was also a mentor on the robotics

team that I like eventually joined as a mentor of like for the writing stuff when I like was older and he's like eliana you can call me josh now and i just looked at him and i was like mr ends i was like no but i i understand now why he said that because he was quite young and now as a person who's about that age i also would have been like you can call me by my first name now fellow kids and i'm like i think i heard him did i hurt his feelings now that i'm like of that age i'm like fuck sorry mr s oh mr s

and c and and oh god yeah oh sorry like like the tree like the tree not spelled the same but yes think of the trees um from jr r tolkien's the hobbit wow and we have come full circle you know what else comes full circle every year is a birthday it's a birthday eliana which is the poem that opens this chapter tell me tell me chloe the birthday of my life is come my love is come to me christina rosetti so this poem is it's a banger it's straight up a banger christina rosetti is an english romance poet you might have heard of her before because her brother dante gabrielle rosetti you might know his works of painting like his lady of his lady lilith or his poetry as well he also wrote but i love christina rosetti's style she was really famed as one of the greats of her time in fact she even had her own little rivalry because you know back

then only a couple ladies could be famous at once they had to alternate they're like yeah one at a time uh so there's a lot of debacle of who was the great feminist perspective writer back then i mean yeah wasn't us yeah my favorite verse of this poem that actually really illustrates for us this chapter is and it's a little too on the nose right like i can see why he chose what he chose my heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a watered shoot. My heart is like an apple tree whose bows are bent with thick-set fruit. My heart is like a rainbow shell that paddles in a halcyon sea. My heart is gladder than all these because my love is come to me. Pretty straightforward, right? Like you hear, my heart is heavy, but it's also happy to have loved,

have celebrated life being better, refining love with another. And it's also like a rebirth. It's like, I don't know if you've ever heard the song by Bright Eyes, First Day of My Life. I think Eliana, you have. Yes. Yes. Yes.

A classic of our times. It actually is. It is. I can play it for you. I am going to see Aliana for Disclosure this weekend. So I'm going to play it for her. It's official. My love has come to me.

Well, I am gone to her. Whatever. Gone canon. You know, it is the first day of your life, though. There's a lot about things being awakened in this chapter. The sleeper is awakened. But that's it, too, right? Like, it really is the first day of your life.

Like, you open your eyes and things are different when you meet somebody that you realize you care so much about. Finding someone you love changes the way you look at the world and the way you interact with the world and people within the world. And, I don't know, I think it's a very straightforward, beautiful poem to open with. And it's going to be a sad ride from here, so let's buckle the fuck up i i absolutely agree i'm glad that you brought this in it's exactly as you said also i think christina rossetti might be more famous than her brother i think so too personally but yeah that might just be my bias i don't know i wasn't around back then i don't hear him like mentioned often but i hear people talk about christina rossetti a lot but i mean statistically

speaking she was one of fewer if that makes sense i mean you know again they only let like three in so yeah they have to rotate out you know like how the how the fates in hercules have to share that one eye they share that one so in the morning lyra tells mary that they plan to find their demons and lyra washes at the riverbank while mary looks for clues of the man that she saw last night she cannot find his footprints mary interrupts lyra's demon search though to tell her the man that she saw last night she cannot find his footprints mary interrupts lyra's demon search though to tell her the man that she saw and will joins them wide-eyed and serious i love the use of footprints in this chapter i really didn't notice it uh here she can't find gomez's footprints and later you have gomez following balalthamos the footprints becoming visible that to me is so interesting

that right there is really crazy right like and then you have the footprint on the sand disappearing just as a metaphor in life so maybe that has something to do with it but here it's death it means death and people even like examine right like you know archaeological finds of

footprints and stuff so it's like it's proof that someone was here this is on theme yeah exactly lyra thinks that this man is likely a traveler who had found a window like joppery was and if he turned and left he can't have been that bad but mary is worried she tells them to be careful and keep an eye out warning them where to go will says he'll be ready to cut them out to safety and she's like promise don't go in the trees where the man might be hiding oh that's interesting actually now that i think about it the don't go in the trees right

as opposed to go to the trees the tree of knowledge and the fruit but like he's the devil now yeah she's done her job he's satan in the trees. She's a serpent telling them, yeah, not to go in there. But it's also like speaking of, you know. Again, like we have a reinforcement of Mary's character showing that she understands the children that they're growing up and she warns them of the dangers of the world and prepares them for the danger, gives them guidance. But she doesn't hold them back and smother them. Right. She doesn't keep Lyra in a little trunk and drugged that's true that's very true yeah she even packs some food flatbread cheese and sweet red fruits

and will wonders why mary is so sad as they climb the road and lyra speculates that she's probably wondering if she'll ever go home she'll have a lab again and she's probably thinking of the man that she loved which she is definitely not uh will wonders if i'm gonna say that will wonders if they'll ever go home and lyra wonders if she even has a home anymore and she can't live with the witches or with the bears she's like maybe the egyptians would take her oh it's so fucking sad and scary to think about right we know the egyptians are coming because of our prior knowledge and future knowledge that comes to us before it comes to her we know they would help her make sure she gets with the right people to get her back into jordan or take care of her but like she

isn't a grown-up she's very not grown up she has no google.com like i'm sorry but my first problem whenever i'm like how do i pay my electric bill what's wrong why why can't i get logged in i'm like i google it she can't even do that dude they don't have that what is she gonna do she isn't a leaky that is a scary thing how do i pay my bills oh you're right and oh my god as i get into this negative capability state it is telling me negative dollar sign emojis imagine if google only communicated emojis sometimes it feels like oh honestly it might be better at this point truly it is it is sad and like we see the kids talk about this but as you said right she's she's not like a child

but she's not an adult right she's not a girl she's not yet a woman as britney spears would say and she britney spears also around the same time that these books came out um but like i mean that's that is kind of what adolescence and especially that time of your life feels like, right? You don't really know or feel like you belong anywhere. And I think every kid feels like that. That's why there's so many stories about it. It is one of those great emotions of growing up. And by great, I mean... It sucks.

It's an emotion. It sucks. And the next thing you know... It's definitely an emotion that you feel. Yeah, you're at the anime convention. There's your teacher. Cosplay. My god. sucks and the next thing you know you feel yeah you're at the anime convention there's your teacher cosplaying my god um will asks if lyra would live in asriel's new world in his kingdom and she thinks no it'll fail she remembers what jobry said about demons they can only live for a long time if they stay in their own world yeah asriel couldn't have thought of

that no one knew enough about the worlds when he first started so lyra's pretty harsh here you know she's talking about asriel she's like all of that skill and bravery wasted for nothing and they keep climbing stopping and looking back at the top of the road and then she asks will what if we don't find them and will thinks that they will find the road and then she asks will what if we don't find them and will thinks that they will find them and wonders what his demon will be like blushing la remembers picking her up and so does will and then we have a line of like it was forbidden not only by politeness but by something deeper than that something like shame there is this is a great broad theme as we get to the end of the book, right?

Of pleasure being shamed. Sex and pleasure is sin. It's shameful. Loving is sin. It's shameful. It makes me think of this quote from the Galatians. It's 5, 16, 17. So I say live by the spirit and you will never fulfill the desires of flesh. For what the flesh wants is opposed to the spirit and what the spirit wants is opposed to the flesh. They are opposed to each other and so you do not do what you want to do. This is propaganda. This is like authority propaganda, first of all.

This is from the authority. Like later we have Maryary and seraphina talking and seraphine is like and then i realized it's all true the conspiracy theories are true the authority has been oppressing people across many many worlds and that's how they survive and mary's like yo that's happening in my world uh and i'm over here like, yo, that's happening in my world. Mine too. Eliana, what about yours? Yeah, it is happening. It is happening in our worlds.

I'm just happening here. But yeah, this is, it's kind of, as you said, weird authority propaganda, you know, in this letter of Paul to the Galatians. Paul has some good letters, which which are like sex slavery is bad. But this one's a pretty shitty This is not like a fine letter. Shut the fuck up, Paul. He's like, maybe you just don't know what you want.

Yeah. Anyways. So Will asks when will their demons stop changing? And Ly says i don't know probably about nowish or maybe when we're a little bit older and i'm like again like puberty everyone is different and my god i mean it's true that is literally how it is right like no it is we have a character whose demon isn't settled by like 16 years old or something in the books of dust.

Yeah, no, that's true. Everybody is different. Though, obviously, we see they go through an experience that probably brings theirs closer together. That's true. Eliana and I experience this monthly. Are you talking about these books? I don't know what you're referring to. He's making a period joke.

This is a period piece. Oh, it is a period piece. This is a period piece. It was probably around this time. It was around this time that I got... Anyways. Anyways, oh my god. Yeah, Pullman never touches on that.

You know, now that we put it out there, I'm like, interesting. She might not have started it. Yeah. Especially because she's like yeah girl if i got an animal instead of blood in my crotch every month that would be so cool if like cats just appeared once a month for me just to like meow at me i mean i'm into that it would be interesting for sure yeah I don't know I will say on the topic of demons and settling uh

I think mine is settling I really do I think by next week I will have my demon in time finally dude I don't know I was worried I've been reading about a lot of different animals I've just been doing animals and research and I'm like,

is this me? This podcast is hard. It is. It's fucking super straight. It is like a life changing, like we can't just change it, you know? Yeah. I mean, this is it. But. Oh my god.

Well, Pan and Lyra used to wonder what pan would settle as when you're young you don't really have any clue but as you grow says she's but as you grow she says you start to think it could be this or that and usually lyra says it ends up as something that fits your real nature and she starts to tell will that most servants for example have a dog demon because of their nature okay and asks how people in will's world know what they're like and will doesn't say it but i'm like they know because of buzzfeed quizzes lyra they take buzzfeed quizzes and will says that he's realized he doesn't know anything about this world will doesn't know a single thing about this world. At least nothing true. Grownups, friends, lovers, he's like, it would be difficult having a demon.

Everyone would know everything about you and your personality just by looking at you. Lyra thinks, maybe your demon would be good at hiding Will like a butterfly or a wasp. Yeah. I mean, Will's got a point I would hate if everyone was just like, oh, I guess you were that and like decides who you are based on that, which, you know,

discriminatory, but also like at the same time, I think what's good is like the books actually show us examples of people who have like the same or similar animals as demons and they're very different, right? like you have both charles later you have both lord boreal and um dr lincelius as having snake demons of a sort and they're very different people right yeah so i think that's important and also it shows like you have a couple people with different insects right like the journalist who had a butterfly it makes sense to have a butterfly

especially if you're asking hard-hitting investigative journalism questions and also father gomez is a beetle and like he fucking sucks um and he actually though he is good at hiding until he is not in like a second but i was curious how that fit in for his demon. I didn't take the time because fuck him to think about his demon. But I was curious. I was thinking, I was like, why is it a beetle? I do like beetles. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they're cute little guys. They're okay. They have cute little butts. Mm hmm. I'll take them out of all the insects. So Will and Lyra walk in friendly silence down the great savannah. They could be the only people in the world for all they know.

They're very, very comfortable. Lyra speaks saying, you know, it's not actually that empty. And Will agrees, spotting shadows, birds, movements in the grass. He can see shadows if he doesn't look at them. And Lyra calls it negative capability, telling him the poet Keats first said it, and Mary Malone knows it as well. It's how Lyra reads the alethiometer

and how Will uses the knife. Will thinks maybe this is how we'll find our demons. And he points out Mary's fallen climbing tree they approach it hesitantly it's one of the biggest trees they've ever seen damn that's big sad it's also the whole negative capability thing

we'll get there in a second it's a little similar to how Serafina mentions to Mary that she'd be able to see her demon but also in terms of like seeing things in the periphery of your vision uh side note did you know that studies show that people actually react more to movement that's like in the periphery like in the side of their vision than things that are centered like sometimes they like won't notice if something moves or changes right in front of them but if it's in the side they will give like their full attention to it so we pay more attention to that also um when it comes to understanding the context of like a situation or of a room

the information like on the sides right the framing and the periphery is actually more important to figuring out that context and if you're only shown like the middle or something of an image so it's kind of hard to explain without a visual aid this is a podcast but i get it i have adhd though but i get it so i like understand yeah because literally things from the corner of my eye i just like prioritize them completely yeah i ignore everything in front of me all the time it might even be like harder what they're trying to do being like oh it's there in the corner of my eye but not looking because i think maybe we're like evolutionarily not we look at that well we're supposed to look at it because if you see something moving your eye you're like danger maybe i don't know yeah but that danger has like eroded over time and

it kind of speaks to i'm not even kidding it speaks to like the lackadaisical nature of how humanity has become, right? Like now we sit in front of the TV binging the Simpsons and smoking pot out of our bongs instead of uprising in the streets against slave wages and, you know, labor

equity. Yeah. Yeah. It's some Brave New World shit, you know? Yeah, yeah. But I really like my pot and my streaming. Anyways. Was Pullman making a message here? I don't know.

Probably. Lyra grips Will's arm. And she's sure their demons are up in the crown of the tree using that kind of negative capability, looking out of the corner of your eye using that kind of negative capability looking out of the corner of your eye this is like a doctor who episode you haven't seen this one but there's one where you see a monster only in the corner of your eye only through a negative capability pretty much yes but when you do you're like oh my god it's gonna eat me it's crazy it's during

series five it's very good it's very good but will looks to the tree and he's like, oh, Lyra, you are so right. Our demons are there. And they go, what if we walked away quietly? So they do to see if the demons would follow them, not looking at them. I wish we could look behind, Lyra said when they were a few hundred yards away. Just go on walking. They can see us and they won't get lost. They'll come to us when they want to.

I know we've discussed the myths of Orpheus and Eurydice in the scenes when people are exiting the underworld, which you all were there for with us, but this game that Lyra and Will are playing with their souls,

the whole moving forward, don't look back, or directly at their demons, is also kind of very orpheus and eurydice and i think we get a little bit of a reprise about this towards the end of this chapter um also maybe an aspect that's a little bit of like lot's wife looking back i don't know but like both almost makes a mistake he looks back which allows father gomez to see him and then therefore like his footprints afterwards and catch up leading to his own death but it does at least allow him to reunite with baruch but i will say you know in a way here it's kind of like their own souls are their loves in this the orpheus and eurydice for them so it it's a beautiful story about them finding themselves.

Yes, it is. Well, finding something. Very sad. It's very sad. I would actually wager that we have talked about Orpheus far too much in this podcast when it comes to that. Orpheus! Okay. Orpheus! to them. Orpheus!

Okay. Orpheus! I mean, you know, there's even just death or trickery, right? Death or trickery are the two paths for Orpheus and Eurydice, so hopefully we get something happier than death or trickery out of all this.

Interesting. Lyra asks Will what he's going to do after all of this unsure he says he has to go home she worries about the men that have been after him and he's like i've seen worse especially here with you true she wanted to take him to jordan show him the fens visit shitagadze with the specters gone but he has to go back for his mom and can't leave her with dr cooper because it's not fair to either of them but lyra points out this isn't fair to you either will and he agrees but it's a different kind of unfair like an earthquake or a rainstorm the kind of unfair with no one to blame he worries he'll be forced to go into some kind of institution or

foster care or orphanage if his mother's condition was found out and then he'd have to wait it out until he can grow up and take care of her properly it's so sad life like will's life is just so fucking hard and sad and like yeah what's happening to him it really is very cosmically unfair, right? He's a parentified child and we see that he's growing up because he's finally able to admit to himself, and I think that is, you know, again showing maturity, that he can aloud say, actually, yeah, what happened to me is pretty fucked up. And he can admit that to the person he trusts most in all of the worlds. And he knows that leaving his mother right with dr cooper is unfair so uh his solution is that he child will then just continue to bear the burden of all of the terrible things go become an orphan and then feel guilty if you know he's not able to take care of his

mother after watching also his father died twice kind of so i'm like god damn it poor will i promised i wouldn't cry tonight so i do have to say a sidebar instead of orpheus from hadestown as now i'm just hearing orphan oh my god oh god that's like kind of meaner it's's what's getting me through all of this right now so you just have to let me have it okay. It's like This is horrible. It is. This is literally horrible.

It sucks. It's so real, right? Like, it's not fair. Lyra says this isn't fair. Why do you have to do that? Because no one else is going to it. He, unfortunately, on this fucking trip to the underworld and back into falling in love my god he has realized that he's grown up and he sees things clearly and he's like i have to do that though because no one else is gonna do it it has to be me god and yeah it's unfair but that's fucking growing up ah this is terrible this is no good this is the worst book

i just want you to know i'm really mad at you for what you did to be here i thank you for sharing this pain that's what friendship maybe is about uh well lyra and will are sharing some pain right we are yeah we're sharing pain you and i were apart you know talking they just were apart. They just found each other. They just found each other, dude. It only gets worse. Let's twist the knife

even more. Lyra says that Will can then just cut his way to her and it'll be fine. They'll hang out. He'd have the knife. They'd be able to see each other whenever they want. Actually, that's sometimes we're like that. We're like're like yeah we can just fucking message call whatever and yeah we have a passage between them that is so sad to me and basically lyra asks if will

thinks he'll get married he says he can't see that far ahead and it would have to be someone who understands about you know everything basically uh and that he he asks her would you get married she goes not to anyone in my world i shouldn't think and then we have this horrible devastating horrible thing philip bullman you'll answer for your crimes eliotta you'll answer for your crimes too, so don't smile into the camera. Will I? I was gonna champagne you Sunday. I'm buying

champagne. Are you gonna champagne me this weekend? Oh, it's gonna be real pain, baby. Champagne, yeah. Emphasis on pain. Ill and champagne. Ooh, that's a thought. That a thought chloe they walked on steadily wandering toward the horizon they had all the time in the world all the time the world had

i had some like shitty experiences dating right as a child in school whatever boy or girl they all sucked and they colored my dating experience later in my life probably because I allowed it to and I didn't work through it in fully healthy avenues but like not enough to where I'm 12 years old chilling after going to the underworld and coming back and being like oh worm I don't know if I want to get married either after all you know imagine having to experience things with another person ever again that is that's pretty it's pretty jaded i'm worried about those two we need to get them in therapy stat i feel like they're saying like maybe i would get married but they are also just like not to anyone in my world and it feels like especially with their age it's like

them being like oh so is there anyone that you like and then being like i don't know they were the ones is there anyone that you like i mean it's hard because it's like yeah how could you how could you date anyone else no one else you could never like anyone else again how would they ever understand the things you endured and saw during these two books and that is like where i imagine these two kids probably would struggle in their future like how would you how would you ever do anything again you peaked man i i'd just sleep for two decades i don't know if i'd actually do things again that's a lot yeah i'm thankful i didn't peak at that age but no but like what you said, like, that's so true. Like, this is a big thing to how do you even like explain that to someone else?

Right. Who's going to even fucking believe you? Who's going to believe you? Like, yeah, I went to the underworld and like freed everything. And now you have to tell stories. And also I killed God and my parents fall into it. Well, I guess she hasn't learned that yet but anyways how do you explain all that how who's gonna i don't know i don't know yeah where do

you go from here yeah my mom killed a bunch of kids like that was like her whole business well and that's the thing that's what someone might believe right now are covering right like where the fuck do we go from here what do we fucking do with our lives now like you don't just you know wage war on god and walk away and you don't lose those connections like that's the people who were there like who understand like i think there's such an important aspect of that's why people have support groups like literally in therapy it's people who have a shared experience together and understand and therefore can support each other so but to bring it back to like lord of the rings we were jokingly talking about earlier

but i'm actually serious i would never joke about lord of my god oh my god you're joking about joking about Lord of the Rings. God, I need a raise. I digress. Frodo, right, has this great passage in Return of the King where Samwise Gamgee says to him, you know, like, well, let's go back. You know, we fought all this shit. We did all this shit. We fought a war. And now we get to go back. And Frodo doesn't get to go back you know we fought all this shit we did all this shit we we fought a war and now we get to go back and frodo doesn't get to go back and he says it he says there's too much pain there lyra says about her father's world that he's built we can't go back if we go back

we will hurt ourselves by living there we cannot go to asriel's kingdom there is no home for us anymore there's no home built for the saviors right like they're supposed to be the fated children the prophecy children but there is no home for them and going home hurts too much right there's no place for them now they're displaced they are and i mean like you were talking about it in the context of lord of the rings but it also makes me think of i mean just in general right right? Like, PTSD, especially when it comes to, A, in general, but B, also when it comes to war. I mean, these kids were literally in the middle of a war. And that is what Lord of the Rings is very much inspired by.

World War One was just like this shattering, it was like this worldwide existential crisis. There had never been a war like that before before people could like pretend more easily that war was something romantic and heroic but this one was just like devastating for so many people and so yeah yeah obviously eng England was very affected by it. And anyway. Yes. Lyra. Yes. Lyra asks if Will will keep the knife so that he can visit her. You know, you have my number. Are you going to call?

And he answers that, of course, he will. But then they are interrupted by the sight of their demons out of the corner of their islands more. So again, it becomes a game pretending to wander like they're looking for their demons looking in stupid places like ponds trees fussing at ants and earwigs that she accidentally stepped on asking mockingly why pan the earwig was refusing to speak to her i feel like chloe had a reaction to this before but i guess not oh actually you actually a few days ago. I think this is so cute, right, that they're just like negging their demons?

This is really They are negging their demons, dude! They really are. They're like, maybe if we're really mean to them, they'll come back. It's very funny. It's very silly. Also, Pam the earwig Pam, why won't you speak to me i'm sure this was like the

peak of dramatics if we don't get this in the show i swear to god uh oh my god it would be so cute especially like now that they've brought more pan into the story like in season two oh it would be so good imagine pan turning to like kajava like, like, being like, what is she doing? What is she, why is she doing that? There's a meme. There's a meme, y'all. There's a meme. And the whole premise of the meme is, like, an animal on the internet in a chat room being yelled at by someone.

Like, there's a bird, but it'll be get out bird you stinky borb you dumb borb you smell get away i'll have to find the link and send it to you so you can put it in the details of this episode it is like an important meme i'm not kidding i don't even know but that's what they're doing okay it is culture lyra is literally like go away away, earwig, you stinky earwig. You suck. Eat some grass. Yeah, I don't think I know this meme. I'm uncultured. You're going to like it. But it is like, you know, they say when you ignore your pet, your pet wants your attention more.

Right? That's how cats are. Yes. Dogs want your attention no matter what. Well, that's why you like dogs and I keep my cats. I was at Chloe's place trying to play with her cats. I was like, why won't

you play with the toy? And then Chloe, you know, like, that's why I was a dog person. Yeah, absolutely. Why are you a dog person? I grew up knowing you gotta let the cat come to you. But that's also what you do when you're feeling vulnerable, too, right? You push things away, you push people away, and it's like...

True. There's also a little bit of fear of what happens when Pan and Kerjava come back. That's so true. Like, what's the punishment? And we're warned a little in these chapters, right? That there will be friction. Friction. Lyra, eventually, she earnestly also asks

Will. I mean, we had to leave them, right? Like, we didn't have a choice, and Will says that, like, yeah, they had to. Obviously, it was worse for Lyra, he says, you know, than for him. But she did make a promise to Rogerger and she had to keep it and they also had to speak to john perry and free the souls i don't know that lyra made a promise to roger like upon his dying like that but you know that's that's a good point it's a good point but it was a promise like it was like she had to do

because of who she is and it's the same reason why Will has to go home to tend to his mom. You know what I mean? Yeah, I guess it's not phrased well there. Because it's like, in the book, it's true. She did make a promise to Roger and she goes there because the promise was broken. Yeah. And she had to fulfill her end. And that's a lot of what we owe to one another.

That's straight up what we owe to one another what we owe to each other like yeah doing the right thing 101 and they both do the right thing and john perry yeah like freeing the souls that's the right thing to do and if they acknowledge that they should do it then they should do it and they knew that and did that and i mean there's what there's so many adults nowadays that don't have that same, that conviction, you have that conviction when you're a kid that you can do the right thing, where when you're adults, you get so many strings attached, which we're about to talk about in a little bit of Seraphina Pecula, maybe you get strings that are attached that change the way that you act and react and the things you do and the things you do are what define you right so as a kid there's less of that and they knew that was the right thing and they did

and i don't know lyra thinks pan will be glad one day when they die that they won't be split up right she freed the souls so they'll at least be together to mingle together yeah they're never gonna die heroes don't die sometimes they die very early and very young um so midday it's hot and they find a valley that's thick with brush hiding a stream and they travel it until they find a spring of water dipping their faces in swallowing gratefully following it until it becomes fuller and wider and they marvel at it lyra marvels at it there's no water coming into it but there's more here than at the top of the stream will tells her it grows slower it gathers in pools he nods toward a group

of trees at the bottom of the slope indicating their demons were in there and they set off to follow the stream the undergrowth is thicker as they travel down following by their sound and as well as sight and at the very top of the ridge however father gomez watches them concealed in the grass and bushes they look suspicious almost seeming to know they were being followed looking behind them constantly he kept his distance and quietly moves downstream his demon the green-backed beetle tasting the air flying ahead she has poor eyesight but her sense of smell rocks so she pushes ahead waiting for him to catch up and moving on again guiding them he finds himself praising god for this mission because it's very obvious this boy and girl are walking straight into mortal sin. They hadn't looked back in a while at him,

but he keeps low, thinking what he'll do when he returns from the mission. Hmm. Side note, I just realized, it's kind of funny that Balthamos never tells Father Gomez God is dead. Like, when Gomez is like like we're on the same side maybe we can talk about that more later but i don't i i think it's here might be like in a bit in this chapter but there's this interesting moment where father gomez is looking at lyra and will right and he's thinking about killing lyra because that's like all he ever fucking thinks

about and that he must not harm will he's like i can't hurt the boy he's an innocent in all this and father gomez is like and i cannot hurt an innocent and i'm like you're literally like hunting a girl who like hasn't done anything yet you are killing her as an innocent also um but i guess he's but I guess he's allegedly pre-atoned for that, prepaid phone cards. But like, as we see, like the fall of this Adam and Eve obviously requires an action on literally both of their parts. Um, we're going to see it in a second. And honestly, it does in the original story as well, right? Like both Eve and adam eat the fruit of knowledge some people consider eve's sin to be worse some consider adam's sin to be worse um for having gone second rather than stopping through the but like the text of genesis kind of seems to think that they are

both equally bad they are both wrong but i find it interesting that Father Gomez is blaming only the girl, only Lyra, for the mortal sin that they are both about to commit, which speaks a lot to how religion, and especially the Christian religion, has demonized women, right, and cast them as a scapegoat for sin. We see that when it comes to, for example, Mary Magdalene. And Jesus is like, I mean, all of you have sinned? And I think he's thinking in his head, he's like, you all

probably went to her but anyways um it also speaks very much to how not just like religion blaming women in general but and scapegoating them uh how sexual and romantic desires of women and girls are seen as sinful and dirty um in a lot of religion and requires punishment and requires enforcement uh whereas men in general they are considered innocent of it maybe it's like expected of them or if not they are rarely to blame for their loss in general they were tempted yeah and i love that you brought in just biblical figures right if you're into kind of some of those biblical figures to the bible and interested in how right if you're into kind of some of those biblical figures to the bible interested in how

right if you're interested in how some of these women are characterized there's a wonderful book i have to recommend it because it's literally it's just so good it is on mary magdalene it is called mary magdalene by susan haskins. And it actually unwinds through history what the Bible and the retellings of the Bible, which is what we're actually reading these days. Like, we're not reading the Bible as it was written because it was then transcribed by many people. And then it was also from there, you know, retranslated and redefined in many different ways. We're reading many different versions of it. And through time, Mary Magdalene is not the character that we hear about in many different ways. We're reading many different versions of it. And through time,

Mary Magdalene is not the character that we hear about in Western culture today. She was basically flatlined into one character of many women in the Bible, many different women. So that like blew my mind. There were some I knew about, like some stories that I had heard, there was like a little bit of disambiguation on like is that real is it not but there are so many in there that blew my mind i mean the bible was very much not written yeah equally and i mean the context of things you know just like as you said right it's different in the translation so so to base a whole society on it and rules for a whole society on it are very interesting it's like yeah as you said it's like basing rules on like who knows if this is even what it was like um they can't even

maybe we should just like actually fucking was maybe we should just play like four square to decide who rules the world. I feel like they were, like, they're good ideas. It's like, what if we followed, I don't know, anyway. So, Father Gomez is like, he could please the kingdom of heaven by returning to Geneva. Or maybe he should stay and evangelize this world of four-legged creatures yeah i actually though literally like you mean we were discussing them as indigenous people like a few chapters ago anyways uh whose habit of riding on wheels was abominable satanic contrary to god's will i'm like was it not really

god literally had wheels on fire and they were were like, be not afraid. It's a fucking wheel. He had a chariot in this book. Yeah! Literally. That's how, what's his face? When a couple of them were ascended into heaven on goddamn chariots. Or God-blessed chariots, I don't know. He's like, if he could break them with that,

salvation would follow. And he finally comes to a point where he can see and aim at Will and Lyra motioning to pick up his rifle but WAIT! He has stopped gasping his demon is being clutched by someone or something and the pain

is horrible and a voice comes from the air telling him to stay still be not afraid he doesn't say that but he should probably be afraid the voice says he is Balthamos I'm not afraid he doesn't say that but he should probably be afraid the voice says he is balthamos i'm not afraid personally i'm so glad balthamos is here to stop his colonizing ass yes uh i love the commentary from pullman here he's like when you hear people say they're evangelizing another world that's what they're doing uh so you know this is what i want you to think about that the mulefa

are wonderful and you love them and what he's going to do to their world is a tragedy yeah uh very nice very nice phil this was crazy though when baldamos pops out of nowhere i the first time i read this i screamed because i was like oh my god what because he just like disappeared off the page right like he he yeeted himself out of battle because he was like, oh, this is scary. Actually, literally, though. Literally. He was like, gotta go. And then we haven't heard of him since.

Will has talked about him. Will actually speaks somewhat often of him. He's like, well, Balthamo said this. And even, interestingly enough, a great chapter for him to come back. Because while Will is experiencing, you know, being a young man for the first time here, putting some moves on Lyra, getting a little, you know, getting a little, hey, I got my flirt on. While that's happening, Balthamos is making sure Gomez can't get at them. And Balthamos told him that for humans, like one of the best parts of being human was the flesh balthamos is the one that told will that so your will is about to enjoy some flesh yeah and in a way so they never learned

this is his last act lyra and will don't know he came back and they don't know they were in danger and they don't know that he took him out think on that right like they don't know they were in danger and they don't know that he took him out. Think on that, right? Like, they don't know any of this happened. They don't hear about it. I'm not going to, not being a spoiler here, they just don't hear about it. It doesn't come back up. So this is, you know, his last act is very selfless. It's reminiscent in some ways of what we talked,

what was brought up again later on about Asriel and Marisa, right? Throwing themselves into the abyss. It gets brought up by Seraphina Pecula. So in some aspects I can see where that gets brought up, but he was their literal guardian angel to the very end. It's not like a redemption because I don't think redemption's needed. He was scared as shit during the battle, but his guardianship is like everlasting that he chooses.

I have to take care of them as his last act is beautiful. It is. It is. It's like taking care of them. It's also like part of the cause that he believes in. But I mean, the war is done. Right. So that really plays up as you're saying the guardianship.

And he was a guardian angel. And as you said, no one really knows. saying the guardianship and he was their guardian angel and as you said no one really knows and i think that speaks to the idea that sometimes this heroism happens without fanfare no one knew what father gomez was fucking doing no one even like knows that he's here no one knows balthamos is here but it's heroic nonetheless whether or not someone acknowledges it's the right it's the right thing that he did and i could it's well done like i forgot about him i don't mean it in a mean way not i just like forgot that he was out there waiting somewhere out there i think you're supposed to i think you're supposed to and then you're surprised you're like oh my god it's our boy both the balthamos he's like he's

back he's back and he's like helping and he's saving the day and like oh my god now he's gone and oh anyways but I do kind of wonder how long he has been hanging around like just how long has he been watching over like Will and Lyra and just hiding you know out of sight out of shame for having run

and just watching them from afar protecting them. It must be since they returned yeah probably and just watching them from afar. It must be since they returned. Yeah, probably. It does make me wonder, did he do other things? Did he do other things during the war for them? Now I gotta look back. That's a good question.

Maybe not, because he's too traumatized except for this one moment. I don't know, they were somehow running through that battlefield and me and you were wondering, how are they getting through all this? What if it was Balthamos? He could have joined the other angels, yeah. There are a couple. Aw.

He overcame his grief, overcame his shame, and he took care of it. Or protecting the demons, like, while they were going across worlds. Yeah. So meanwhile, during all of this, Lyra and will head into a mystical gorgeous clearing in a grove with soft grass and moss-covered rocks everything's magical the tone is magical they set down the package of food in their rucksacks no sign of their demons anywhere they're alone they take off their shoes and socks and they dip their feet in the cold water hungry and more than hungry.

The quote that I love from this, something subdued and pressing and half happy and half painful, so that she wasn't quite sure what it was. Yes. Gotta find out. They clumsily eat bread and cheese, hardly tasting the fresh food, and Lyra takes out one of the red fruits that Mary packed for them she gently lifts the fruit to his mouth her fingers trembling brimming with happiness and confusion like two moths clumsily bumping together with no more weight than that their lips touched then before they knew how it happened they they were clinging together, blindly pressing their faces toward each other.

Mary packed the literal fruit. The literal downfall was that fruit. Yeah. I like, I don't know, I like the clumsily. Like, they're blindly pressing. I mean, they've never kissed anyone, so. They're just trying it out the best they can. They're just trying. They're just trying it out the best they can they're just trying they're just trying

but yes as you said they they um they're following a lot of mary's template and they both realize like mary said that they love each other and they kiss each other's faces over and over again it's and they taste of red fruit and there's nothing but silence surrounding them and as you called out with the language it's just a wonderfully written scene you see all of these elements right from mythology etc and even hearkening to as our friend ariana pointed out right in in response to other stories like the chronicles of narnia um playing out for these two children and what it means and it's just so good so powerful and i also love how the narration the perspective goes back and forth from how lyra is feeling or like starts

out with how lyra is feeling seamlessly into how will is feeling um upon like them kissing but her with the anticipation and the text doesn't need to feel tied to one close perspective for this and by just quickly going between the two characters shows just how entwined the two are i think in their hearts you know how they are just one for this yeah it's it shows too like the clumsiness of it is really nice i like that you pointed out because it is it is clumsy it is nice it's very first love and i mean just realizing throughout this chapter that how could they ever be apart from one another like they're the only people that have ever understood each other or ever tried to understand the other uh and here

you feel it here it's finally the moment where they get to have a little bit of love in their life because they they've lost a lot at this moment they've lost so much and if i keep thinking about it i will cry so we're not going to talk about that right now, but we will talk about Balthamos. If we look back, we're lost. Fucking terrified. Balthamos is terrified. Holding on to the insect demon tightly, trying to hide from Gomez, who's stumbling, rasping after him. And, you know, he's no match for this man.

He's weakened. He's crippled with grief over Baruch and shame from deserting Will. And Gomez is trailing behind, begging him not to hurt his demon. And in fact, the demon is hurting Balthamos. It's a little shithead. It's biting his palms. And Balthamos finally lures Gomez out of the woods. But he makes the mistake, as Eliana pointed out, of looking back at Father Gomez and steps

sideways into the stream. Balthamos hurries on, but he leaves a wet print on the rocks now whenever he steps, and Gomez realizes he's an angel and he can follow him a lot quicker. Yeah, we have this line of, the angel didn't reply. It was too hard to concentrate. He had to split his attention three ways behind him to avoid the man ahead to see where he was going and on the furious demon tormenting his hands and i feel that it is it is very hard to concentrate on anything when you're getting bit yeah actually though

i thought this was an interesting way to phrase it too with that rule of three Pullman likes to use that especially when it comes to like the alethiometer right reading it each of the the emojis reading each of the emojis or the three rungs of reading it the first version the second version and the third version and how they all affect each other and you know using negative capability or the knife or the I Ching, I thought that was interesting that the angel is like, wow, he's split in three ways right now, trying to focus on all at once. Yes, actually, though, he is. He is. That's a great point. Thank you.

Thank you. It felt like something. It probably isn't. Yeah. Every time I see three, I'm i'm like oh it might be yeah negative capability and but unfortunately things also end negatively for both of us he is incapable of negative oh i mean i think probably right because it sounds like angels might not be able to i don't know I don't know.

I don't know. We should ask that one day. That's a good question. Oh, and it's hard because Gomez has realized that like, well, Thamos obviously isn't going to kill him because he would have killed him by now. Right.

A real dangerous enemy would have killed the demon ended Gomez's life. So he's like, can we just stop and talk and he sees Balthamos's feet in the grass lightly pressing and he can make out his outline so he kind of begins a confrontation with him Balthamos admits he's too weak to kill Gomez and Gomez is like it's not too late to confess to repent and Balthamos cries out for Baruch to help him and as he cries out Gomez leaps at him with all his strength knocking Balthamos off balance and Balthamos lets go of the demon but the force Gomez used to throw himself at Balthamos is what kills Gomez he

expects more resistance from Balthamos's form which gives little to none right as an angel so his foot slips and it carries him into the stream Balthamos thinks form, which gives little to none, right, as an angel. So his foot slips and it carries him into the stream. Balthamos thinks, what would Baruch do? And then he kicks the priest's hand to the side and pushes his head down in the water. Again, we get something that feels a little bit like Jacob wrestling the angel, which we discuss towards the end of book two with Will and his father wrestling all night. But here it is actually very literal in that father gomez is wrestling with an angel but unlike what happens in the

story of jacob and the angel father gomez loses and dies um it doesn't really mean much i think this parallel is just not really i think it's more of just like inspo but it's definitely a biblical scene definitely yeah there's uh everything that you're saying it's kind of funny he's like it's more of just like inspo. It's definitely a biblical scene. Definitely. Yeah. There's everything that you're saying. It's kind of funny. He's like, it's not that dangerous or else he would have killed me already. It's like, nope.

Just gags, right? There's just gags because Baruch just never. Balthamas just kicks his hand so he can't catch it. And then he like, I don't know, Looney Tunes falls over and his head cracks against a stone. That's not Looney Tunes. This is actually really like very violent. falls over and his head cracks against a stone that's not looney tunes this is actually really like very violent and he chokes as he tries to rise um especially like when he first falls in the stream and botham is just like oh my god an opening and just holds him down in the water until and he just waits until the demon vanishes and he's like that's it we did it

he hauls him out of the water lays him on the grass he even like it's very actually respectful you know except for the part where he killed him but you know he closes his eyes and folds the man's hands over his chest sick and weary he's like crying out to baruch that he can do no more the children are safe and this is the end for him and a moment later he's gone poor one out god so sad it is though it really is but i'm he went out good though he went out really good yeah he went out with a fight literally yeah and you know we'll talk about it in the discussion but i think there's actually a death it kind of reminds me of interesting as we read it in labelle sauvage oh very interesting yeah huh well as we end the chapter back in the bean field atal gets mary's attention mary can't really tell excitement from

alarm when it comes to the mulefa yet but atal is excited. She wants Mary to take a look at the sky with the spyglass. Atal says that they can feel there's a difference, a change going on. Mary says the terrible flood of dust has stopped flowing away. It isn't still necessarily, but it's calmed. It's in perpetual movement, but no longer

leaving. If anything, it's falling like snowflakes to the earth.ary can feel the wheel trees like flowers accepting the pollen into their parched throats a towel indicates the return of will and lyra and mary turns spyglass in hand aliana will you take us out wow what an honor they were holding hands talking together close, oblivious to everything else. She could see that, even from a distance. She nearly put the spyglass to her eye, but held back and returned it to her pocket.

There was no need for the glass. She knew what she would see. They would seem to be made of living gold. They would seem the true image of what human beings always could be once they had come into their inheritance. The dust pouring down from the stars had found a living home again,

and these children no longer children, saturated with love were the cause of it all. They did. I'm sorry. If they would have just kissed a long time time ago do you think we could have avoided a lot of this i kind of wonder that now that you brought it up i'm just wondering do you think i wouldn't have to like be sobbing in two chapters no uh i don't know actually, could this have all been avoided?

If Will and Lyra had just met in Northern Lights and kissed. If Lyra had just kissed even Dick Orchard back then. Or if she and Roger were like, I don't know, I'm bored. What is this thing adults do? Lyra, if you

would have just kissed someone you liked... This is a horrible curse. Does it have to be someone you like? I think, like, true love, you know? Okay, so it had to be true love. Alright, so none of that would have counted then, never mind. I mean, Roger... And that was just, like, any kiss.

He was her servant for life. I mean, if Roger were the chosen one, yeah, that would have worked. But he wasn't. I thought you believed in choice, Aliana. Disappointed. Yeah, but author's choice. Not Philip Pullman's choice. Let's get to our next chapter. He chose Roger to die.

Oh my god. There's enough pain going on. Don't you feel any like, don't you feel any like don't you feel sad for the pain happening in these chapters how could you joke at a time like this that's how I deal with pain that's why I'm so funny

because I have so much pain in my life you're a pain in my life I know that's why you're so funny I push you to be better so really i should be thanking you really should philip who wrote chapter 36 the broken arrow in the amber spyglass which opens with a poem from andrew marvell but fate does from wedges dry and always crowds itself betwixt this poem is like a total definition of love uh he's a colleague and friend to milton andrew marvell is

highly skilled in prose it probably needs no analysis but i'll read these two verses for you for fate with jealous eye does see two perfect loves nor lets them close their union would her ruin be and her tyrannic power depose and therefore her decrees of steel us at the distant poles have placed though love's whole world on us doth wheel not by themselves to be embraced us as the distant poles have placed. This is fucked up. Especially with that North Pole shit.

Philip Pullman will answer for his crimes someday. Loves her world on a stuff wheel. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, dude. I felt that shit. You felt that shit? Crimes against humanity. Crimes. Crimes.

These are like book war crimes. This is hurtful. I'm in pain. I'm a. I'm in pain. And this chapter is actually really beautiful and really painful. The demons, the two demons, move through silent shadows. Cat formed across the moonlit floor, Looking in at Mary Malone's house.

Seeing a sleeping woman. They withdraw. They move through the moonlight. And find the other people they seek. A boy and a girl fast asleep in one another's arms. They check up on them. They're careful not to wake them. They clean Will's wound.

Lift hair off Lyra's face. A noise shocks them. And they both turn into wolves. Menacing their faces. But it's Sera pecula outlined in moonlight in front of them they're matching that's so cute i love that phase for them couple phases i like that i'm so excited too he's like oh my god it's seraphina very lyra of him yeah very lyra uh she beckons for the demons to follow her and they go to they fly where they can talk in the air she hops on her cloud pine while they turn to birds a nightingale and owl they fly with her to the nearest wheel tree grove i love this because she tells them

you know enjoy this you won't be birds for long take this sight into your memory because like birds we've discussed in this story especially like bird demons too like it's such a lonely existence it seems for bird demons right long to be in the sky and the ones that can be in the sky you know they see everything all at once and when you come down from that you know it's so different it must be different to see from up there as we think about throughout this whole story so seraphina really tells them to keep it in their memory this is their last moment to really think on it because soon they'll change soon they'll change and she's seen a little bit into their future pan's like what will we be she's like you'll find out sooner than later

i promise keep reading keep reading spoilers she tells them a little bit of witch lore right that no one but witches know and she says it's because their humans are asleep she's like all right i'm gonna give you a very very scary bedtime story uh she says that when lyra and will left the world of the dead they did something witches have been doing since the first witch in the north there's a horrible place a catastrophe happened there in the childhood of the earth and nothing has lived or thrived there since no demons can enter it witches must separate from their demon and undergo the same suffering but they find their demons still wait for them after unsevered and they're still technically one being but they they can now roam free, going to far

places and seeing strange things and bringing back knowledge. Interesting. What does it mean? What does it mean? I kind of wonder if this is a... I'm making shit up, but is this one of the areas where the authority and

the rebel angels first fought and clashed or something because it's devastated yeah yeah and like maybe it's like demons can't go there because like they are similar to angels in a way and like they didn't want angels or rebel angels to be able to return there or something i'm making this shit up this is all tinfoil that's interesting though because you think about the abyss right yeah what it takes to close up the abyss possibly or that people want to close up the abyss which we hear about during this so like you think that maybe these are places of devastation that hold magical power still or some sort of power yeah and i know i'm talking about it i'm talking about it in the context

right of like those pre-human before humans right um existed like those those shadows battles yeah but i also am i'm not gonna lie i'm imagining also the scenes from steven universe where you look at the old battles places of the crystal that and video games i get you no i got it i it. I've played FF4, you know, Final Fantasy 4 has a lot of that. Oh, I was thinking the Keyblade Wars. Remember those scenes? Like those, uh, yeah, anyways. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That's sad. That's sad. Pan realizes that no, Lyra and he are not severed, but it was so painful and they were just so frightened. frightened whoa that's an interesting line that seraphina and pan discuss that that bond being broken may have been damaging but the way seraphina sees it they weren't forcibly severed like the

children at bulwanger that had that taken away against their will she says you weren't severed you just experienced something really traumatic together you'll bounce back maybe she's just supposing but she does seem to know a few things about the world yeah i do think there's something in there about like choice to an extent about all this too but in general like if you think about it as the overall the overall metaphor about growing up i mean growing up is a painful experience and sometimes you do feel very distant from yourself and you have to find yourself again sometimes you do sometimes you don't honestly that's true it's very sad for life for those who don't uh anyway

seraphina says the two of them will not fly like witches and they won't live as long as we do but thanks to what they did you and they are witch in all but that honorary witches like the demons for what is this like an honorary diploma what can i fucking do with this like she's like you don't get to do anything you've graduated you're a witch the demons pepper her with questions will will be a witch despite he's a boy will they settle as birds seraphina merely tells them everyone's learning new ways thanks to you too but pan and will's demon you must both always help your humans not hinder them you must guide them to wisdom yeah so it's funny that uh pan you know asks like will will be a witch despite being a boy because

i believe in the second book ruda scotty already elaborated she's like yeah i've seen witches from other worlds and they're like all genders so they let do they have they let people in now all of them yeah that's interesting well maybe seraphina needs to be a little more progressive i agree dr linsalius could seems like he's like i I don't know, what about me though? I mean, it's been a couple decades. She's probably changed. Or not. Who knows? Honestly, we don't know.

So, Seraphina turns to the Nightingale demon asking what her name is. And she's like, I don't know. I was just born moments, like, after being torn from Will. I didn't even know I existed. And Seraphina's like, I'm going to call you Kerjava. And says, I'm not going to tell you what it means, but you're going to find out soon. It's fine.

It's fine. But for now, she has to tell them something else that's important. And before we face that very sad, important thing, Kerjava, we've talked about it before, I think, but it means colorful, right? Colored, modeled modeled iridescent multicolored and

I think we will talk more in the next two episodes or the next two chapters the last two chapters about that for sure uh Kerjava says no and Serafina knows already that they know the demons know and we get this

horrible this is this is the most terrible back and forth in a passage i really it hurts me i'm in pain we don't want to hear it said panalaman it's too soon said the nightingale it's much too soon seraphina was silent because she agreed with them and she felt sorrowful it's much too soon it's much too soon it's not fair it's really it's really unfair like a rainstorm or an earthquake that i made you or an earthquake i was like i've stuck it out and here i am and you know there's something really sweet in that seraphina knows they're trying to like avoid the topic so they start changing the topic which is a very kid thing to do right like toddlers or like younger kids

saying like no i don't want to do the thing I'm supposed to do. So instead, I'm going to make up and lie and tell you stories. And it's not unlike what Lyra would do. Right. And she says, where did you go on your travels? And they told her many windows stepping through many, many worlds. And they also they saw what was happening. They met others. They met an angel. Oh, maybe it was Balthamos.

Maybe. Oh. There you go. What if the demons met Balthamos? I think they might have. Unless it was Zephaniah. Did they say, yeah, I think they might have said it was Zephaniah in the, I don't know. Maybe.

It could be Zephaniah. It could be Balthamos. We'll find out, hopefully. They even visited the world the Galavespians come from with the big people who try to kill them and she lets them talk because of the love each of the other had for the other's voice and eventually they run out of things falling silent seraphina fills a silence and says stop punishing villain lyra kaisa did the same to me when we went through our ritual but we love each other still and eventually kaisa came back the whole thing's so painful like you said they keep talking it's childish but it's understandable it reminds me again of something you brought up last chapter

the chapter before of shaharazad and a thousand and one nights they're trying to do that right they're trying to tell all these stories to make time stop time keeps ticking keeps on changing life's fucked up um we have this line of and they will need you soon to help them do what has to be done next because you have to tell them what you know Pentalimon cried aloud a pure cold owl cry a sound never heard in that world before

in nests and burrows for a long way around and wherever any small night creature was hunting or grazing or scavenging a new and unforgettable fear came into being. Never heard before in that world. It just strikes it home even worse.

This is horrible. They have no owls. They should. They should get some. Lyra should be the owl. This is fucked up. This is fucked up this is fucked up Phil Serafina watches Will's demon remembering once of his fury to Ruta Scotty and sees

the brown borb filled with an implacable ferocity and Pentelemon's screams then die away and Krujava confirms that they have to tell them and we have a line of gradually the ferocity left the gaze screams then die away and Krujava confirms that they have to tell them. And we have a line of, gradually the ferocity left the gaze of the little brown bird and Serafina could look at her again.

She saw a desolate sadness in its place. Philip Pullman, fight me. Meet me outside. Fight me outside this podcast. For the emotional turmoil you have put me and countless others through you have to answer for these crimes i'm in a lot of pain i guess this is like maybe a penultimate demon corner wow one of our last demon corners of the main og trilogy of his dark

materials i want to talk about nightingales. I know Eliana's going to talk a little bit of the owl. And we've talked about the owls before. I feel like owls are pretty straightforward. Yeah. They're out there, you know. Who? Who?

They do their thing. But nightingales, they're a little different. And this is the first time we've really gotten to spend some time with Kerjava. So that Kerjava is in the form of a nightingale. I mean, in literature alone, right, they're romantic. They're a symbol of poetry, of the creative muse, of purity and virtue. Often their sound, their song, is sorrowful sounding. So Homer and countless others have called it a sorrowful lament, like in the myth of Philomela and Procne, where she's mutilated by her sister's husband and is

transformed into a nightingale after taking her revenge. There's this little metaphor in there that the female nightingale is mute in nature and only the male species sings. So that's very interesting. But here, kind of bringing back some of what you were talking about too of orpheus today this is an orpheus podcast virgil actually compares orpheus's the mourning of orpheus to the lament of the nightingale he sounds like a nightingale which for reasons referenced in previous discussion feelings, it feels about right for William, William Perry. But the reference that gets me the most here for Kajava being a nightingale is Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats, which you might remember from chapter 28,

Midnight. It was the poem at the front of the chapter. For many a time, I've been half in love with easeful death. In that episode, we talked a little bit about the tone of O chapter for many a time i've been half in love with easeful death in that episode we talked a little bit about the tone of ode to a nightingale and how it's different than his earlier poems exploring nature and mortality something kind of that became important in his work at the end of his career and i mean the poem itself is about something being powerful enough to transcend consciousness, right? Enough to not matter if you're alive or dead in another world and that finality of mortality that you can long to be in another world and you can abuse substances to get away from it, right? To put yourself into a state of being in another world, kind of a false state.

put yourself into a state of being in another world kind of a false state he references that in the poem uh to be dreamy and numb or you can go embrace life through all that through the pain like having lived having lost having pain it's less or more what seraphina finds herself telling the demons they have to reveal right that nature must go on above all other things the death of youth the death of love and there's this great these great parts of stanzas from this poem fade far away dissolve and quite forget what thou among the leaves hast never known the weariness the fever and the. Here where men sit and hear each other groan. Where palsy shakes a few sad last gray hairs. Where youth grows pale and specter thin and dies. Where but to think is to be full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despairs. Where beauty

cannot keep her lustrous eyes or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow. Very melancholy, but that fits, you know, Will with his sad brown eyes. Yeah. This was hurtful. Sorry. That's all I have. This was hurtful and painful

and it just kept getting even more painful the more you went on. I'm sorry! God! The night I kill! The night I kill! Why did he do this? This hurts me. I don't know.

Speaking of things that are hurting, Pan, as you said, right, Pan's whale comes as he is an owl and again i feel like owls are pretty straightforward i feel like everyone knows that fucking owls symbolize and that whale comes in this moment as seraphina gives them that knowledge that wisdom turns out and the wisdom is painful it's like a gunshot of pain uh this ain't it's anguished right it's an anguished whale like a very final whale because there's nothing that they can do as they know and pan's anguish is my anguish and seraphina closes it up she's like well there's a ship of gyptians that are coming i left them to come find you guys they'll be here in a couple days and the birds sit closer they change their

forms they become two doves i feel like that's pretty straightforward of what it is to everyone all you need is love peace Peace. Marriage. Love. Meeting for life shit. Fuck. Serafina says this is probably the last time they'll fly. She saw a little ahead. They will be able to climb trees, but they

won't be birds, so take it in and remember it. She says you'll think painfully on this, but you'll make the best choice. Yeah, bitch! The fuck? And Serafina kind of reinforces what

you said, Aliana. She says, it's yours to make, and no one else's. Choice is important. They're not just the fated children, right? It's their choice and they will else's. Choice is important. They're not just the fated children, right? It's their choice and they will make it. Which still feels kind of like fate and unfair, but we don't have to talk about that.

I mean, we will probably next chapter. Anyway. Serafina flies off amidst starlight and even feeling dust on her skin in the atmosphere and seeks Miriam alone. She only knows that Miriam comes from Will's world, but her part in the atmosphere and seeks mary malone she only knows that mary comes from will's world but her part in all this was crucial she had to wake mary without startling her

uh she's very polite i've been like girl you gotta wake up it's time to get up we gotta talk anyways so seraphina sits uh waiting for mary to stir and like does this like breathing like exercise where she syncs with mary's stir and like does this like breathing like exercise where she syncs with mary's breathing and then enters her dream and we have like presently her half vision began to show her the pale forms that mary was seeing in her dreams and she adjusted her mind to resonate with them as if she were tuning a string oh interesting then with a further effort seraphina herself stepped in among them and we know that mary has had a vision before like i think last episode slash few chapters are these more visions than mary's having

like she did before like is mary something like a prophet really it really seems like she's opened her mind to be perceptive to matter already right and so this really is it seems seraphina entering her consciousness so we even like she speaks to mary and seraphina says you're not going to remember this in the morning like when you see me when you open your eyes to me soon you're not even going to know this happened so that's very interesting that she can walk in and out of someone's consciousness like this like it's that episode of spongebob squarepants right everyone's dreams you know the episode i'm talking about no i don't we should find oh this weekend i have paramount plus right now we're gonna watch it it's one of the funniest episodes but he goes through everyone's dreams

he's just causing trouble and that's what seraphine is doing uh and she speaks to mary they walk among a silly landscape of reed beds and electrical transformers which is interesting almost like the intersection right of consciousnesses like these are several places that have been formed together in her dreams which we see philip kind of play with in certain areas of the story so that's interesting so Serafina I love this post-apocalyptic scenery of course and it also feels prominent in these two chapters molding like part of nature and the flow of nature to kind of the industrialism of the world of what's left post-war there's definitely something in there about that of mary living within these two worlds right between the mountains and also between having to return to her world yeah that's a

great point yeah absolutely and i mean she's grown quite fond of this world she's like she's been here for quite a while and become a very important part of their society and been accepted and has contributed quite a bit. It's kind of funny, though, the electrical transformers, because it feels so out of place, right? When you think of the nature imagery, it really, again, highlights Mary's characterization. Well, especially as we get her demon, right? That we learn is so very her, so very her and very a part of nature, which is her whole thing.

That's her whole thing she's into. Mary finds Serafina in her room when she wakes, knowing she must be the witch. They introduce themselves to one another, and Serafina asks her to take a stroll in the moonlight while the children sleep under a tree. They sit on the riverbank, and Serafina tells her she spoke with the demons. Mary says the children looked under a tree. They sit on the riverbank and Serafina tells her she spoke with the demons. Mary says the children looked for the demons today. Will had never even known he had one. He had never seen his demon till today. Serafina's like, you have one too, Mary. And if you could see him, you'd see a black bird with red legs and a bright yellow beak,

an alpine chow, a bird of the mountains. And as we've learned recently, Mary loves hiking. She learned about it from a former lover. Mary loves hiking. She learned about it from a former lover. And that was very crucial for her ability to climb the mountains, which is explicitly where the angels through the Yixing had told her that she needs to go where her fate lies. And, of course, when we first meet Mary, she's identified by a painting slash picture of a mountain on her door. I guess they're like one of the rarest birds for

britain too there's only 300 pairs in scotland wales and the isle of man now a cliff in england's southernmost county and technically they're a crow bird oh so you can see pullman loves this character by bestowing it his own somewhat demon a special demon yeah and there's kind of like a witch-like quality right like we've learned that pan and kajaba probably won't be birds there's a witch-like quality to that for mary and as we've discussed it's kind of like joppery she's kind of like joppery too in a lot of ways so yeah honorary birb. I mean, honorary witch. Yeah, both of them. Serafina tells Mary what the demons have to do and what it means. Again, very carefully done by Pullman, but he doesn't say it.

Yeah. He walks you to your own death. He makes you insinuate. You've read what all the characters have. You kind of know what this means, but he wants you to come to it, and he wants you to accept it in your own terms. I do not. Seraphina says she thought of waking them and telling them herself, of telling Mary and making her do it.

But then she saw the demons, and she knew that was the best way to tell them. They're in love, Mary says. I know, says seraphina things fucked up can you just run a sword through me what the fuck what the fuck is that line yeah i can't believe she thought the demons were the best way i'm like were they i have some thoughts in the discussion for sure. I think that might be part of it. I do.

Yeah. I mean, maybe the demons are the most slay. I don't know. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Mary takes in the implications of what Serafina told her, but she can't quite grasp it, which, like, same. And she asks Serafina if she can see dust. And Serafina's like, you know, I've never even heard about it until, like, these wars. you know i've never even heard about it until like these wars so mary just wordlessly very very cool very casually just takes out her spyglass and gives it over to seraphina so that she can show her the dust and seraphina's like it's beautiful and then mary's like you gotta look over at that

tree and she's like the children did this and something changed right and the children now saw each other differently and the dust was attracted to them and now it's safe seraphine says at least it will be uh when the angels filled a great pothole in the underworld which oh potholes never get filled that fast please uh the abyss and seraphine explains it to mary and says she met like a female angel flying old and young all together she's like it was so bizarre her name was zephania and mary is like that's literally you to me right now um and like zephania told seraphina many things it's just like this chain right she learns about the history of human life a struggle of wisdom and stupidity literally the

book says wisdom and stupidity and of the rebellion of the angels from the authority and his churches and zephaniah had given seraphina numerous examples in her world of the authority oppressing the people and mary sees it in her own world immediately but they both also recognize that wisdom had to work in secret all this time and the battle isn't over yet right because the forces of the kingdom met a setback but they are regrouping which i'm like oh okay interesting interesting but also the battle is inside all of us that's what i learned from the ending in the final like stars s or star s whatever chapters right we all have to fight

darkness ourselves anyways mary asks what happened to lord asriel and mrs coulter and they are gone forever having fought metatron and to answer mary on mrs coulter fully seraphina takes out an arrow very dramatic it's like her bestest arrow and then she breaks it saying once in my world i saw that woman torturing a witch and i swore to myself that i would send that arrow into her throat now i shall never do that she sacrificed herself with lord asriel to fight the angel and make the world safe for lyra they could not have done it alone but together they did it and this is completely unrelated but uh i don't know philip philip holmes forgot it or it just probably didn't mean anything right in book one there was an explorer named dr broken

arrow oh i don't i forgot about him didn't he like map something he mapped like north something he did something pretty cool and lyrara was, like, very impressed. I want to say he mapped the currents of the Northern Ocean. Yeah, he mapped the great currents of the Northern Ocean. Yes. It is interesting, though, bringing up the concept of the broken arrow, because it actually represents, like, a broken arrow breaking an arrow. Doesn't- you'd think it seems like it could be kind of dangerous, right? Like like she seems like she could be angry as she broke it it means burying the hatchet though

it means putting aside a quarrel for the greater good whether it's something like external um yeah so breaking an arrow symbolizes that you are putting aside the hatchet and i find that especially from seraphina i find that interesting in this context of like you know this woman was horrible she was a child trafficker and abuser but you know and murderer murderer don't forget the murderer sorry you know i like to leave that off for uh yeah it's funny um i didn't know that about what the broken arrow represented. You can kind of get it from her words, right? She's a little, like, myth, but she's like, all right, respect.

But also, like, fuck that bitch. Yeah. Well, Mary asks, how in the world they'll tell Lyra? And Seraphina says, we'll just wait until Lyra asks. And she might not ever ask. And also, she has her alethiometer that could just tell her too we don't have to be the ones to tell her I'm just um um yeah it's not the best choice I mean it's hard doing things that you don't want to do

but maybe you should practice what you preach she just has very much committed she's like i'm not gonna tell them any i'm not responsible for telling them any she's like i had a really bad heartache already i have to deliver to them and i already just barely made it out of that one so yeah she's like i did my parts in books one and two so a half of a heartache is enough to deliver to these children thanks they start to talk about what's gonna happen after right mary is maybe gonna return to her world but she's been so happy here and seraphina says i'll be your sister as long as you live uh a sister in another world right if she returns home and that they'll see each other once more in a couple days when the ship arrives they'll talk again and then they'll

part forever embrace me now sister says seraphina and they do she flies away on her cloud pine how special again with all the emphasis on flight too and that within Mary, there's a bird wanting to fly. That is that's very special. She'll only fly away. And first of all, this is probably basically just a scene of me and you, right? Talking about our children and how magical they are. This is literally just imagine us to me on the cloud pine. You with the amber spyglass.

I mean, that's us. That's absolutely us am i wrong is it because of my glasses yeah nerd chloe look through my glasses is everything weird for you stuff you in a locker oh uh and then fly off of my cloud pine this got sexy uh having both of these two on a page together is great because they've kind of held their own pillar in the story right aside kind of secondary plot characters that still can hold a chapter have their own pov keep interest and both of them sharing this wisdom of having loved and lost and knowing it's both horrific but also cyclical right like this is unavoidable this

is like part of nature and it only gets easier with time. These two women for just a moment, or even part of one another, as sexy weird as that sounds, speaking of sexy, Serafina can literally step into Mary's consciousness. Very sexy. And then step lightly out. And it's also exemplary of the entire chapter, right? In contrast to Will and lyra meeting and the

pain at the idea of them maybe having to change their relationship it's almost emblematic of the process of severing a bond with another soul and the opposite is happening here for mary and seraphina right like they have they are meeting they have fallen in love with one another as he as like people they're like wow i love your brain like, wow, I love your brain, I respect you. Wow, I love your brain, I respect you. And now they have to part. And it's just a miniature, very sad landscape. But they're old, and they've done it before.

Yeah. Yeah, it does get easier. I'm not gonna lie, it does get easier the older you get, right? Being like, hey, this was an awesome connection we had um that was cool that was cool great times and then just being comfortable with moving on i feel like seraphina obviously has done that a lot a lot in her life mary clearly seems to right like mary clearly seems comfortable with that based on the stories of romances she's had um which is you know a very long-term relationship with someone um and i do think it's kind of funny that seraphine is like yeah i'll be your sister for as long as you live i'm like

that's a much smaller commitment on your part seraphina than it is on mary's but maybe that's all she can offer you know i mean you look at her and Coram's relationship. Yeah, that's true. She knows that's all she can offer. Yeah, let's talk about the best part of the chapter where Gomez gets eaten by the lizard. Actually, it is like you're right. That is what it is. It's like Negali in Yorick, you know, like there's no niceness happening here.

That's true. There's no niceness happening here. That's true. So, the text tells us that at about the same time, one of the large blue lizards came across the body of Father Gomez. Will and Lyra had returned to the village that afternoon by a different route and hadn't seen it. The priest lay undisturbed where Balthamos had laid him.

The lizards were scavengers, but they were mild and harmless creatures. By an ancient understanding with the malefa, they were entitled to take any creature left dead after dark. The lizard dragged the priest's body back to her nest, and her children feasted very well. As for the rifle, it lay in the grass where Father Gomez had laid it down, quietly turning to rust. War is over for now. For now. I had a random thought reading this paragraph.

I was like, because of that thing about the ancient understanding with the malefa and being entitled to take any creature left after dark is the lizard also sentient right like we're told the tuolapi might be a little bit right they're agents of the authorities somehow but they're not quite sentient but i don't know anyway so like if they have an understanding are the lizards also like humans right are we going to see lizard people also like in the underworld with all the different kinds of humans i mean maybe all animals are like humans they all have their own little ecosystems i don't know and i mean i actually i was kind of kidding but this is really like Lee and Yorick, right? Because you have the rifle rusting in the ground, just like Lee's body.

I took that seriously. When you said that, I took that seriously. Thank you. Okay, good. Well, I'm just saying, like, that is, the rifle especially is just like, oh, the rifle is there. And yeah, of a way that's dying. Not just Gomez, but his way hopefully hopefully we see lizards in the underworld someday there must be there must be like a world somewhere with like

no spoilers book of dust but they haven't shown up yet i've watched super mario brothers theaction movie, and I know that world exists. Oh my god. I've seen Multiverse of Madness. No, I haven't. I'm waiting until it comes out on Disney+. That was my Multiverse of Madness, the Super Mario Brothers movie. Oh, Eliana. Well, we don't want to spoil anything from the Books of Dust in this part of the episode, but we do want to transition into that part.

So thank you for listening to these two chapters. These are the penultimate chapters. This is the penultimate episode for Girls Gone Canon reading His Dark Materials, the original trilogy. Right now, the Amber Spyglass. We'll be back with Haley bowery of them animals to finish out the amber spyglass next month at the end of the month and i'm sure we'll have some updates on what's to come then i'm just i'm just astounded i never thought we would like get to a point like where we finish the series not like that i thought it's just like i can't leave time has passed so much time well now i know eliana doesn't believe

in me that's not that's what i heard that is everything i heard i believed in the authors that we read more than i should we're due for another we're due for another so yes um discussion it's gonna start now i assume you've had enough time all right everyone sorry if you like ran and didn't make it in time to like pause your shit but it's time to get a little dusty and we're very dusty today and the biggest thing we need to talk about is the absolute betrayal betrayal of seraphina peccolat okay so this chapter was pretty pointed that seraphina was like she's gonna have me as her sister and she's gonna have a lot of people that support her we know as we get into lyra in secret commonwealth seraphina really didn't seek lyra out and didn't

act super sisterly and it kind of makes me wonder if Serafina feels immense guilt for having been the one to kind of ruin Lyra's life with the truth. Right. And also cause the rift between Pan and Lyra because it doesn't get better. Like she tells them like it's going to get better. Me and Kaisa, we're great. We see each other once a week. Maybe it's great. Yeah.

And maybe that's part of it. I don't know. Maybe that's just part of it but the rift between them does not get better it's like kind of fucked up right like when i learned that seraphina hadn't seen lighter even like in serpentine right when she like goes to the north right seeking some guidance and like seraphina where the fuck are you and i do wonder about it like i'm like where was she and i think we'll get an answer probably but like in this chapter she talks about how the forces of heaven after this setback are

going to regroup me and my charitable view i'm like maybe that's what she's been focused on right maybe she's like fighting that that's why she's not here but also the other part of me is like i mean i think seraphina is acting very sisterly to lyra right uh she's acting exactly like the rest of lyra's biological family and by that i mean abandoning her oh my god what is the most familial thing that seraphina can do for lyra if not abandon her she's sitting there like oh Lyra got this much attention over 20 years I an old person will come back in 20 years that might be it too I mean for her in her mind being a sister is different because she's lived for so long uh I mean in in ratio like us humans live measly lives compared to her and that's why she had to pull back from quorum and

yeah i don't know the parallels i won't talk about it this week i'll talk about it next month when we finish the story because then we could be spoilery about the main series the parallels between quorum and seraphina and will and lyra are glaring now and this reread like one of the things that i've noticed most are those parallels and that she's withholding so much because of what she suffered in the same way with her and cora i'm like well you'll learn unfortunately and i have to let you learn i can't just do it for you and i do think i think there's guilt there i really do like rereading this that this is so pressed on that she's like i'll be there for her don't you worry i think there is

guilt because like i mean the emotion next month it's good it's rough dude it comes over like he tells you he leads you to the slaughter and then he puts your fucking head on the block in the last two chapters and he chops it off like i knew that they couldn't be together. I knew because they told us in these chapters that they can't stay in the same world. I knew. The 13-year-old me didn't know. The 13-year-old me didn't know. He told me, Eliana. He told me in these two chapters.

And then literally I turned to the next two chapters and it's like I go brain dead. And I sit there like, what? Oh my god, what? It's horrifying. And maybe that shocked Seraphina too because it is horrifying i wonder if it's like she does as you said right she doesn't know and that's compounded with time like you know the the this traumatic thing happens with lyra and pan and seraphina's just like not there to guide it and there's a part of me that kind of feels of her telling pan like

i don't know me and kaiza went through this like painful thing and you're gonna do it too right kind of like that old generation way of like i had to walk up to hill both ways to get to school and you're gonna fucking deal with it right is it it's almost like maybe kind of like that only i don't think i would have felt that way had i not seen its ramifications in the secret commonwealth which I think in my opinion I know some people like for them that's very difficult that's actually one of the strongest parts of the secret commonwealth to me yeah I think it's so resonant like it really I mean it hurts it fucking hurts you're like wow that's so real I too hate myself as an adult especially like at that time you're it's a hard it's a hard time as

well alone alone you're alone you're trying to like adjust into like not just adolescence but now you're going from that into adulthood there's like expectations you're supposed to fucking have it together you're like i don't know i'm 20 i'm 21 i don't have it together and like um one last thing you know in regards to that pain and knowing that she caused him that pain pan makes that whale if i'm not mistaken in the next chapter or so when lyra finds out the same news she also lets out a huge whale oh my daughter how could you uh there's also i mean logically speaking we're gonna get an answer because we haven't seen her yet she's been mentioned in the books at us we have not seen her yet yeah and she's not she's

not forgotten she's coming back there's no way he's not pulling seraphina peccola back in in the third book of dust yeah and yeah maybe this will flow into that there's a quote that really struck me this chapter when she is getting into mary's consciousness and like just stepping on in she adjusted her mind to resonate with them as if she were tuning a string yes that stood out hella hard uh it reminds me of a couple things first of all the lodestone resonators from the galavespians they tuned the string to get the message across to other worlds so she's able to enter people's consciousness and the idea that consciousness exists across like all worlds right we had mary's consciousness showing two different worlds basically conjoining

so if your consciousness can be accessed anywhere, right, your consciousness exists like in atoms and matter, it doesn't exist in a place. It's not a place, a physical, tangible place. Serafina was able to just see her dreams and enter them there. Yes, they were in the same world. But the way she got in there sounded a lot like negative capability. And it reminds me of the way that they're reading the alethiometer in the secret commonwealth the new way to read the alethiometer that makes you sick to your stomach but yeah gave the raylo moment right the kylo renan ray moment between lyra and olivier bon vie so that reminds me so much of that way of reading the alethiometer

and makes me think that that's going to come right back up. And that there's some sort of way that if you are on, and maybe this is like a love thing too, right? Like you think of Will and Lyra and how much they understand and love one another and understand what the other's been through. That they're just in sync. Like me and you, we're just in sync. You know, we're on the same page. Sometimes we really are though. Yeah, we finish each other's sandwiches.

Yeah. We do. That's part of it though right like she's able to see the same wavelength and via matter her and olivier bon vie like see into each other's minds and where the other is that's got to come back i'm sorry that's gonna come back into play and will can do it too will can do it too will can do it with a subtle knife he can't well because he can feel things which is really interesting and yeah i think that's that's interesting um i was actually thinking uh when you were talking about that resonance absolutely i i that does feel like it has ramifications for the systems introduced in the secret commonwealth but I was also thinking like there's this

idea behind it too of like if she can resonate for that right in the way that you're talking about will the alethiometer getting into new worlds speaks to this idea of like each of us we all have a little world inside of us my god we just have to learn how to I mean that's kind of

i think what to an extent but the alethiometer right and you were talking about them seeing each other the sort of empathy right learning to see one another and understand one another well and there's also like that the knowledge always existed within them it's just the alethiometer is a way to channel it elsewhere you know like you're reading the symbols you're interpreting the symbols it's like in a song of ice and fire melisandre gets her visions via fire but she's interpreting them there's no one answer and there is no one answer to life right like that's the other part of it for lyra well there's no one way to read the alethiometer as lyra learns as she has to relearn it yeah and and that's the choice right there's no one way to do

life it's a series of choices my god and the choice will be theirs and the choice will be ours if we return to this podcast for the last episode oh my god podcast is canceled that's a thought that's a thought we never i do sometimes watch shows up to it i'm like this is a nice happy moment let's stop weirdo i know i'm not that's like i think that's normal i'm like this is good this is a good ending you think it's normal to watch the entire show to put your hard work into it and get to the very last show the last episode of it and stop watching right at the climax no right at understanding last episode of it and stop watching right at the climax no right at understanding what it's about it seems like right at a place where it

seems like this is a perfect happy ending what and i feel and i can sense i can sense something is gonna break my heart this happened to me with the korean drama coffee prince okay let me put barney on for you real quick since you like happy endings so much, you fucking toddler. We were talking about how I met your mother at brunch discord this past whatever. And also I bring up Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars the movie is a perfect ending point. If you have not watched the final season that takes place many years later, just stop at the movie and that's it. There's a difference between bad writing and ending the story so that it gives it a happy ending eliana yeah that's that's true i don't think the veron comars like ending was written poorly i think it

like that one i don't think was done poorly it was just like i didn't need that at that time it was like the middle of the pandemic i was like i did not fucking need this well i don't need this either i don't need chapters you actually probably don't 37 and 38 but i'm gonna do them anyway you do and you don't i don't know you know farmacog thanks for joining us everyone we will talk to you next month when we finish up the Amber Spyglass. For now. That's wild. For now.

Where can they find us online, Eliana? I don't know, fucking everywhere. You can find us on... You can definitely find us on social media at Girls Gone Canon, C-A-N-O-N, or you can send us an email at girls gone canon at gmail.com hey subscribe to us on a podcast platform near you if it has the review option and you give us a review double high five thank you so much we so appreciate it whether it is spotify google play apple podcasts acast stitcher pandora audible amazon you name it we're at all of them yes and podcasts, Acast, Stitcher, Pandora, Audible, Amazon,

you name it, we're at all of them. Yes, and of course you can always find us on Patreon, where we have these episodes and more, and this month for patrons in the $5 tier and above, the stranger tier and above, you will get bonus Hazardic Materials content through the Imagination Chamber

bonus episode. Step on board and imagine the book. Imagine that. Imagineer that. Imagine the novella with us. Oh my god. And of course, like, we've already done it this month, but every month

for the Thunder tier and above, $10 tier and above, we do have our brunch, uh, happyhour slash brunch on Discord and also, as we said, we are doing a season 2 rewatch. Hosted! We are not doing it. Our patrons are doing a season 2 rewatch.

They've done a wonderful job hosting Spearheading. It's been a lot of fun and they're almost done. Like every Saturday for now, for the next two Saturdays. The next two Saturdays until we're done. I can't wait to listen in this weekend. As always, you've been one of our hosts.

I've been one of our hosts. As always, I've been one of our hosts, Eliana. And I have been another one of your hosts, Chloe. And we'll be back reluctantly next month. I was like, should I put in like an owl wail now? But I was like, I don't think anyone wants me to yell at like this time in my apartment. Nothing that'll wake, you know, all the all the creatures in their small burrows. And by that, I mean the rats.

My God. Or not house apartment you should be more worried about the rat living in your house it's you i'm gonna summon the rats summon the rats goodbye bye