Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Episode 28 — The Amber Spyglass Chapters 37-38 featuring Haley of The Manimals

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

"When we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you … We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams … And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight …”   Where to find Haley: Manimals website: https://www.manimals.band/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ManimalsBand The Manimals music: https://manimalsnyc.bandcamp.com/ Drinking Game of Thrones Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drinkinggot/ The Manimals Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manimalsband/ CHAPTER 37 — THE DUNES CHAPTER 38 — THE BOTANIC GARDEN   FIN.  ---   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 28, The Amber Spyglass, Chapters 37-38. And while it is a somber episode, there is something that is a little happy. Today we are featuring Hayley Bowery of the Manimals. Woo! Woo woo! Hello! I am one of your hosts, Eliana. And I am another one of your hosts, Chloe.

We're going to be covering chapters 37, The Dunes. Not that dune. 38, The Botanic Garden. 37 the dunes not that dune 38 the botanic garden and then this will follow with a dust discussion a spoilers section for the books of dust and the novellas as always we will not spoil during the main parts the rest of the main trilogy i'm just kidding because this is the end of the main trilogy but before we get to my god why is it so fucking somber in this bitch before we get to the real sad shit i'm so excited to have my friend hayley here from the manimals hayley thank you so much for joining us you are like an accomplished

lyricist musician wonderful human being a poet you have just a beautiful mind and soul i love you so much i'm so happy to have you here oh Oh my goodness. Thank you. I'm so honored to be here, you guys. This is probably my all-time favorite book series, so I'm thrilled to be part of it. I know both of you originally through Song of Ice and Fire stuff, which i'm involved in because of a record i wrote that is based on that story but i actually my very first musical foray into basing something on a work of fiction was something i wrote called lyra and will based on this chapter the bot Botanic Garden, when I was like 22. And it was one of my first like, actually, it was like when I was first getting back into writing songs like as a adult.

That's awesome. It's very special to my heart, obviously. Could you sing us a little bit of it? You don't have to if you don't want to, but I figured I would ask. I'm trying to think if i could like quote a lyric to you from it because it is i do not want to sing acapella personally but let me see if i have a box for you oh god going good job oh my god i mean so the it is a very sad song about not getting to be with somebody anymore because now they live in a different world and perhaps dating other people but needing to be

good to them um it'll hurt it'll hurt us yeah so i think i let's see the the ending part says like time goes by summers die i've got a lover his eyes are blue and i don't mind you know i've done my time most days i don't notice that he's not you oh but i'd feed the tree for you and me and i'll meet you in a dream he'd never realize when i close my eyes I'm going someplace green there you go I'm like crying now this is good we just started the episode

Hayley what the hell you guys as I'm going to expound upon throughout this as I get like really esoteric about this series is that Hurt is good Hurt lives on the razor edge of joy and beauty and that's what this whole story is about we have to hurt it's true hailey on here

to hurt us yeah i'm here i'm here to hurt you i'm sorry oh my god. I'm excited. I love pain. Me too. It's hot. It's a sexy, sad podcast today. It's not just me attacking Eliana. Now it will be two people. Oh, my gosh.

Thank you for joining us, Haley. Where can everyone find The Manimals and you online yes the manimals is the band you can find all of our music on spotify and all the other places band camp our instagram is at manimals band we're barely on twitter but you can find us on all the things you know just look for manimals or manimals nyc or something some variety of that we are a new york band so if you're running into other manimals elsewhere and if you're out in new york make sure you're checking their show roster because you guys put shows up here and there and i i hear they're rowdy around they are rowdy yeah artsy, though. Yeah, they're like weird rituals that are like

full of catharsis and chaos. Not a cult. Yeah, come out and see us sometime. Indeed, indeed. Maybe, you know, get your heart broken. Oh my god. You too can be hurt by Hley yeah oh yeah for a low cost i want to build you back up again

after the hurt though you know that's part of it i love that we have to build we have to build a republic of heaven yeah i mean yeah right where we are here on the internet well wow that's that's next for us right we're up next for girls gone canon since this is the final hdm main trilogy sewed for now what are we building for our kingdom of heaven are we doing something again for his dark materials someday? Maybe. Well, yes, and that eventually, eventually HBO is going to tell us when the third season comes out. And we can be hurt all over again. imagine how they will adapt this book i've always wondered that like back in like 2007 with the first movie i was like how will they ever do amber spyglass and then i was like oh they won't so this should be very interesting the budget has to be huge yeah we're both just like the budget

the budget the malefa of it all. Like, what will it be? They're tight-lipped, too. I mean, not much has come out because they're, you know, doing a lot of CGI, I imagine, and effects right now. A lot of post stuff to add. We will be covering it when it does come out. Yay. We just don't have a date yet for you.

Yeah. But we'll be here. We'll be here. We'll be here. Whenever that happens i mean we're hoping we get a an announcement soon i assume they're gonna try to as we've discussed like convert the house of the dragon audience to watching his dark materials and who knows i don't know weird things are happening at hbo right now with like them and money i don't know what's

happening why would you put that evil into the world yeah you shut your mouth el money i don't know what's happening why would you put that evil into the world yeah you shut your mouth eliana i don't know we did though we did just see a couple shots from series three in the hot d opener house of the dragon opener there's like a little little intro commercial and there's a little shot of lyra little shot of yorick uh if i had to speculate it looked like it could be at a certain reforging of a certain knife in one of the shots. So take a look at it if you're on the old internet or on HBO. Check it out. Promo stuff.

We'll see. And this isn't the end. Eventually, we do plan to cover the secret commonwealth. We haven't completely come to an agreement at this time on when we have you know already said hayley can come back because she loves the secret commonwealth i think she would have a blast chatting with us but yeah we haven't haven't chosen to yet we might just want to revel in our finished labelle sauvage and our finished his dark materials for now yeah chloe said maybe 2023 and like that would make sense we just don't know yet and

yeah i don't know it it might be nice to be a little freed up to be honest but um i mean i do really love this series i think part of me kind of wants to know as well what's in store in book three i'm gonna be honest like there's a part of me that wants that first but obviously sometimes we just have to go into things without an ending. Yep. We've done it before and we'll do it again. By God, I think. No, I think.

This will end. This will end. And I have faith in Philip Pullman. He's cruising from what I'm hearing. He's doing great. He is. That man has a golden constitution when it comes to writing these books. I know he's, I hope he's got some ducks and some ponds around.

You know, that's all I can say. He likes ducks and ponds. I think he does. I believe that he does. You know, we have talked possibly about doing some more His Dark Materials Patreon bonus episodes. We had a really good time talking about all of the new stuff to find in the Imagination Chamber

from Philip Pullman. And I actually, I think I'm going to bring Imagination Chamber up later today, believe it or not. We've talked about doing the poetry of His Dark Materials. We've already done the music of His Dark Materials. Sadly, we didn't get to include our favorite song from Hayley that Eliana is like sing it for me um just wants to hear

the song of his dark materials but i think we'll have to do a poetry one someday there's lots of really interesting connections to pull in more than we've ever had really time to get through all of so i look forward to that in the meantime and and we could do our deep dive a deep dive on paradise loss of it i mean the whole story started because of a poem so it's coming paradise lost the podcast paradise little boy lost found that doesn't i don't know that that maybe on a milk carton maybe on a milk carton for now for the last week of the month we have been covering house of the dragon that just recently started i know hayley is also covering it over at one of her many podcasts too i hear

yes i have another very stupid thing called drinking game of thrones we used to do a drunk podcast it's very embarrassing that you can still find on the internet for a limited time um i think but then um right now we're doing live streams on instagram so you can find us at drinking got in the days following the show whenever i can get my friends together to come over and yell. You always look like you have the most brilliant drinks, though. She does. We do make good drinks. We try to do good snacks and drinks.

They're intense. Yeah, it starts out classy, and then it devolves. I mean, I never really notice it devolving. For me, I'm always like, what the hell? Amazing. It's like art. I only know because I've been involved before. And you know how stupid we all can be.

I just know because I've been one of you before. Man, I think it's still a pretty classy joint. You all have to check it out, out on the gram. As mentioned, we'll link it uh we'll be we'll be covering that for now weekly on top of our a song of ice and fire pov episodes we have a couple ideas come autumn here so keep your ears tuned your eyes tuned peeled check out the social feeds the the patreon i'm sure we'll release some info there as well of what to expect that last week of the month in the autumn. As we said, we are

doubling up for now, though, covering both House of the Dragon and A Song of Ice and Fire. When this episode comes out, it will be August and this month's Patreon episode will still be an A Song of Ice and Fire kind of episode. We will be doing Mothers of the Dragon.

It's focusing on the mothers in Fire and Blood but we'll figure things out in the future also other things that are fun on our Patreon are if you want to talk about His Dark Materials or the

Book of Dust stuff with other people we do have a Discord server available in the thunder tier and above the ten dollar tier and above check it out people are having fun we did like previously hosted by one of our patrons pete and then hosted by several of our patrons um have a rewatch of the historic materials television show and likely people people are gonna be talking about it and hosting something maybe I don't want to put I don't want to volunteer them right now but like

you know they might people might do something during His Dark Materials season I don't know wait wait wait wait did you say did you say peat-pull? because I heard peat-pull I think I accidentally almost said like peat-pull or like petrons and then I was like wait I can't just

put that on him if you're listening Pete thank you thank you yeah and you know the House of the Dragon discussions are being hosted by one of our good friends Maddie it's really been fun to have a couple

of our patrons take the reins and do their own episodes of Girls Gone Canon live. They're doing it live. They are actually literally doing it live and they are taking the reins. We do have horse themed tears. Oh my god. I will say one last thing before we jump in. In honor of the last His Dark Materials episode that we are doing for the books,

I want to plug our friends her dark materials their read-through is still going they are on the amber spyglass right now though but they make like such cool stuff they make awesome art and like gear and i'm wearing my alethiometer shirt from them and it is so cool that's all i love your shirt i do i need to get one all right here i'm gonna they've got great art great stuff all right guys our demons actually settle after this chapter i know you all were waiting and you thought we were gonna tell you now but they haven't settled yet they do after this chapter though yeah eliana did your demon not settle yet i don't know i'm a child eliana we have been planning this for like three books for 28 i just don't believe i can know everything

that well about animals okay and i also don't believe i know myself that well but um that's why i needed a magical external thing for myself to settle on its own and tell me who i am that's why i take personality quizzes okay who am i i don't know oh my god this is the biggest disappointment you have a whole chapter to get your life together and i hope that i see God or something. I have an answer in there but like, I don't know. A disappointment. What animal's a disappointment? That's me. Actually, that actually might fit the animal that I have in there.

But let's talk about chapter 37, The Dunes. The Dunes. We open up with this line of, My soul do not seek eternal life but exhaust the realm of the possible by pindar yeah i of course the final poem the final lungs there's no quote in the next wow

yeah right this is it well the last one is a poem itself, I would say. Yeah, let's be real. But this is courtesy of Pindar, an ancient Greek lyric poet of Thebes. What Haley would have been had she existed then. A lyrical poet. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's you. That's you. He wrote the Pythian Odes, which are basically stories, metaphorical, that he writes of, you know, different battles that would take place at different coliseums and games, the sporting events in Olympia and Corinth in honor of the boys and men who got their victories. But some, like Pythian III, honor kind of more specific

things, like here in Syracuse, and it was a great victory in the Pythian games, but also it kind of became a metaphor for consoling chronic illness even. And so a closer kind of translation is do not yearn, oh my soul, for immortal life. Use to the utmost skill that is yours. And the actual story, he writes, Apollo reaches for a child and snatches it from a corpse with a burning fire,

like dividing between them and bears the child away and gives him to a magnesium centaur. Everyone come along for the ride. This gets a little crazy and gives the child to this centaur. The centaur teaches the child how to heal many painful diseases for man. And people come to him with limbs wounded by gray bronze or by far hurled stone or bodies wasting away from summer's fire or winter cold and he releases and delivers all of them and saves them with potions and incantations and remedies and some even surgery and there's this line within it that even skill is enthralled by the love of gain and it's just such like an interesting

line from this poem and story of like everything wrapped together of comparing like no cost really to to being able to provide those things and the magic of healing and the magic of experience and innocence lost and experience really when we go back to some of those big thematics. And it makes me think of Will's fingers with the knife. His fingers being repaired with blood moss. And with his father's loss as well. Right? His father, like, sacrificing himself so his son has fingers again.

That he'll... Anyways. He never regrew them. He just stopped the bleeding which is yeah that's the thing the wound is still there we talked about this already everyone just go listen to that episode we're done I like the idea of his dad giving him new fingers though basically

he's like go forth son they're not gonna fall off anymore they're just gonna stay where they are that's as good as it gets you can do that I've heard but um should have had medical accessibility but uh losing the skill of like reading the alethiometer for example is not precisely the same exact thing but like metaphorically that will's like well because of learning this tool learning this trade and learning my knife. I don't have these fingers.

I have the mark. And Lyra has now lost kind of her own like extension of her mind. One of, I mean, the things we do with our hands are insane. Musicians, et cetera. You know, like as an adult, I used to do a lot more music when I was younger. I played so many instruments and now as an adult, it's like, I have to reawaken it.

If I'm not doing it all the time time i lose half of that skill so easily and like not having that advantage lyra losing that will mean becoming an expert surgeon those little guys my poor guy also like within the themes of this chapter and the losing skills and things. Just that when you're young too, like with the addition of like, yeah, you age and yeah, you're maybe your brain gets a little foggier or something, but I think it's also more just like the freedom that you have in your youth of like there's zero self-consciousness. Like I used to sing, like I used to like belt it out, like Broadway style. And it's like, I, now I'm like, oh, well I can't, I know I it's like I now I'm like oh well I can't

I know I'm not as good as I could be so I won't you know and then it's like but when you're a kid I was like I truly am going to be on Broadway um so it's like I was like I'm a star and someone's just gonna like find me one day you know it's like and you have that kind of confidence of just like someone who's like loose with their skill when they talk about like lyra's grace with things and it's almost not even a skill when you're young it's just like this like loose expression of your soul yeah you're allowed to like explore that and strengthen that and like because you don't have those kind of just feelings of no confidence anymore and like like yeah what is that right like i Like, I live with like, I guess I have an asshole that lives below me. But I mean, I used to love singing and music.

Like as a kid, I think I remember Lyra-ing it and lying to my classmates and telling them I tried out for American Idol or something. Yes. Yes. Like I was a complete liar. Like I was Lyra style out in the schoolyard just telling fibs dude i remember this i had to fucking fourth or fifth grade or some shit who knows i just lied about stupid things for no reason um but i love singing but i don't know i like about so many things i like made people believe that our school was haunted and took them on an adventure around it did you see that i'll send this video later these two little girls going hi liars it's the cutest thing um that's us right now we're the liars that is you and then they're like i lied it's so funny god i don't know absolutely with um you know what

you're saying about it's easy to do things right right? You're not self-conscious about it and then you get older and you realize what am I doing? And that consciousness about it, that intentionality pushes you to either work at it and get better at it or

hate yourself more for it and then not do it. So that's a different part of this story but you can talk about that later the next day will and lyra are eager to be alone again to kiss in their gold and silver grove to bathe eat and lay happily they are having a time it is vacation and in the evening they eat with mary and atal saying very. They end up walking along the sea under the moon. They lay in the sand dunes, listening to the birds call.

But suddenly they hear a call that is different. It's not like the birds in this world. And Lyren will sit up, realizing that there are actually two birds singing. It's Pan and Kerjava, who choose to appear to them on the sand. Pan is a darker dove, while Kerjava who choose to appear to them on the sand pan is a darker dove while carjava is pearl white and i'm like is pan just a pigeon because pigeons are just darker colored doves and i'm like that's not very cool it's not impressive pan's just being chill and will knew what it was to see his demon. As she flew down to the sand, he felt his heart tighten and release in a way he never forgot.

Sixty years and more would go by, and as an old man, he would still feel some sensations as bright and fresh as ever. Lyra's fingers putting the fruit between his lips under the golden silver trees, her warm mouth pressing against his, his demon being torn from his unsuspecting breast as they entered the world of the dead, and the sweet rightfulness of her coming back to him at the edge of the moonlit dunes. I'd like to McFucking die.

I'd just like to call it a nap. So beautiful. This has been a great series. Thank you so much. I'm Chloe. Have a nice day. No. This is it. This is where it ends. This it i wish right everyone's happy he gets a demon the end yeah everybody gets a pet

and they live happily ever after this is the best this is the best i love this trope in general i know i think tolkien uses this a lot so from what i've heard it's very uh you know it's really melancholy it's it evokes a sense of melancholy kind of time traveling within a character's plot although you're used to the present sorry pullman i know how you feel now about the present but um i could see he was starting to play with different tenses around this day right but even being picked like picturing him as an old man that's just like so evocative and like touching that it's like these are like these key the key these are like the core memories and they're also sensory and like everything in these chapters is really like sensory and um like so beautiful throughout

there's plenty of that but I would say these chapters in particular are like very poetic and point out all these like tastes and sensations, which is really cool. Yeah, it's definitely giving, like he very much put his whole self into this to make sure that it really, that he nailed it.

And he does. It hits every single heartbreak branch. And it's really beautiful because later we get some lines between them, some heart-wrenching lines. Maybe we'll skip them when we get to them because they hurt. Where, you know, Lyra's telling him, like, I don't want it just to be a memory. I don't want it to just have happened and been an experience. And Will says, too, he's like, memory is a terrible thing to have. And they're both like, what if we don't remember?

What if we forget? Reminds me, of course, later on in the timeline of life you got eternal sunshine right with similar themes of forgetting and losing memories in that kind of similar idea but here it proves he didn't he never lost the memory he still remembers it like it was yesterday even as an older man so it's great because it gives you reassurance even in the fucking horrible horrid parts of the botanic garden when you get the heart-wrenching separation a horrible sever in my opinion another horrible one there's even this line right here you know you can only hold paradise in your memory and there's the lines about the sweet rightfulness of her coming back to him at

the edge of the moonlit dunes that's about his demon coming back but it's almost a play on words that makes you think maybe someday that could be her coming back too or maybe it's just the memory i want this me too and i'm gonna tell you how it can happen in the discussion today, everyone. Ladies, gays, and days. So you stay tuned. Stay tuned. Here's how Will and Lyra can still happen. It's literally me every day. Here's a few weird tricks. How Will and Lyra get back together.

But actually, I legitimately do go that way when I'm with herself. Well, I don't know how, but Chloe does. And she trusts me with her life. I do. It's kind of weird i liked what you were saying also hayley about how you know this is such these two chapters they're so sensory there's so much description of that physical stuff and like even these lines that you've reread chloe right like there's so much visual language even for later on and

about memory and it makes sense right because that's the point of all this dust and of living to experience and to feel and to do it all with your senses so and we're also like illustrating like a paradise on earth like a potential republic of heaven kind of so it's like if this is like the Garden of Eden or something in religious texts, the idea was that the goal is to always get back to the garden to make sure you're pure to like, be righteous, because the garden fell because Eve, you know, sought wisdom. But it's like his whole messaging is that you're supposed to eat from the tree of knowledge, you're supposed to go for these experiences. knowledge you're supposed to go for these experiences and we're supposed to experience the sensory beauty and it is like all around and yeah

it's just very like poignant and beautiful yeah the way that it's described because it makes me think that it's this is like the potential of the greater thing that they're hoping to build except it's momentary glimpses for the time being that's perfect perfectly put Lyra moves to them but Pan stops her speaking telling her that Serafina Pekela is bringing the Egyptians

led by Farger Coram and Jon Fah and then he breaks the horrid news he's changed into a white airman and Krajava who's now a cat, begins their tale. Krujava says that, ah, Serafina named her, by the way, and also, my name is Krujava, which is why we all keep calling her this. She told us her name.

It's fine. It's fine. And then they explain, due to the nature and the forces that be, they must now betray them, these two, by telling them these terrible news of you know the duo our two kids our two young lovers have brought back the dust but at a great cost because to keep the dust they must close all of the openings made by the subtle knife forever kirjava says they must leave and stay in lyra's world or lyra and they must leave and stay in Lyra's world or Lyra and Pan must leave to stay in

theirs. There's no choice and we get the passage that is just, oh my god, all these suck. There's nothing, like it's hard because all of them are so beautiful and poignant but it's like, they're all so heart-wrenching. Then the full bleak daylight struck in and Lyra cried aloud.

Panalaman's owl cry the night before had frightened every small creature that heard it, but it was nothing to the passionate wail Lyra uttered now. The demons were shocked and Will, seeing their reaction, understood why. They didn't know the rest of the truth. They didn't know what Will and Lyra themselves had learned. Ugh. Yeah. Hor learned. Ugh. Yeah. Horrible.

It's real tough. That time. This whole section is so like agonizing because people keep being like, wait, but what if we did this? And then it's like, nope, actually this. But what if? Nope. And then it's like nope actually this but what if nope and then

it's just like in the end there's no solution i have one solution i have i have grievances against safania and all the angels yeah i have power they're not using it. They're like a terrible, you know, customer support team or something. Oh my god. Well. Will thought Lyra would die of her grief then and there, as she flings

herself into his arms, also crying, sobbing, not yet throwing up, remembering what Will's father had told them they try to think of a loophole as hayley said like they go through i don't know a bunch of them their demons comfort them and then lyra proposes a secret window and seeing one another just like you know some of the time right just like sir charles latrim like he sucked and he was able to do it and he was healthy but he was old he was, and he was able to do it, and he was healthy. And he was old. He was fine. Exactly. He was fine.

He was living a- he was having a great time, to be honest. But, Will reminds her of his father also nearly dying, though, when they had found him, and it doesn't matter, because Pan burst their bubble anyways, because the angels had already told him and Krijava that all

the windows must be closed. Bummer. Big bummer. And there's a really funny part, though, even though this is a horrible bummer. Funniest part is that Kujawa's like, it was a female angel that told us and Lyra was like, that's not true. There's no such thing as that. You're a liar.

She's like, at that time, finding a loophole because this is literally just them chasing to find loopholes the entire chapter until finally all the loopholes have been said no you can't you must accept your fate but not only is that hysterical but it also kind of i feel like that ties to lyra's plot right like no female angels no female scholars for example it's like not possible but even in like actual scripture not only what we see marisa and lyra lyra marisa and lyra somewhat struggle with in the series uh in scripture canons don't often get canonically assigned to gender they're some of them are referred to as male pronouns though they can't produce progeny mostly there's there's you know there's some propaganda

against that i feel like but they're called sons of god which feels more of a reference their military kind of formation where one would say sons of israel that doesn't mean there's no such thing as women in israel uh there's actually though i will say in genesis chapter six one to four we have an occasion where fallen angels do make half human half angelic progeny, which is like a huge violation of God's order, which they get cast into the abyss for. So it kind of reminds me of some people that we know from this story, maybe some Marisa and Asriel. Yeah, for making like a half witch child, basically, Jesus, for making Lyra. I i don't know there's something

about zephania though in this chapter i was kind of thinking about it and there's only really one female angel and it's known by many names jofiel zofiel dina and it seems like it might be an influence because it's one of the seven in like kind of pseudo-Dionysian teachings and holds like a flaming sword in iconography portrayed mostly as female most of the time due to the beauty of the angel and representing wisdom understanding and judgment and according to a bunch of authors and artists Jophiel was said to be the angel who cast Adam and Eve out of paradise which is essentially what's happening right this moment in this and john milton in paradise lost mentions zophiel being of cherubim of the swiftest win wing sorry of the

swiftest wing so kind of mentions the life quality as well which i find interesting i don't know very interesting and i think there's something to because i was like, Zephaniah is kind of like the only female angel in the story. Yeah. I'm sure there are other ones because what doesn't Ruta Scottie see a couple of them, but you're right that it probably is her and inspired by her. But also, as you were saying, right, regarding genderless angels, I'm like, you can't convince me that like those like bazillion eyed winged things that are just eyeballs like i'm like and tell me that that that adheres to what human gender norms absolutely not absolutely not or like what doesn't ezekiel see i don't know a wheel carried by like like a bunch of the angels have like three heads and some of them are like one's a cow and one's like, I don't know, something else.

You can't tell me that. Anyway. Yeah. I like that they just like the angels are like, we don't even have like a real less than corporeal body. You know, our existence doesn't need to be quantified by a gender anymore. And Lyra's like, sounds fake. Sounds fake. Sounds fake. Sounds fake.

Yes. So, next we have more bad news. Kujawa tells them that they also found out the root of the Spectres. They're the children of the Abyss. Every time you open a window, a new Spectre is born. And that's why Tritik god say was overrun with them they feed on demons and dust they feed on twitter accounts now i'm joking but because dust and demons are similar especially the older ones as we've seen throughout the series and the specters

grow stronger as they feed upon them and then in horror will realizes what that means they've been doing every time that they make a window. He remembered Yorick Burnison in the cave where he forged the knife again, saying, What you don't know is what the knife does on its own. Your intentions may be good. The knife has intentions, too. Yikes. It's a bummer.

I'm sad that the knife is over right after this like that he breaks it because I'm like man I would have loved for him to have kept his own dark material right his own instrument to use and get to learn more secrets about it or something but like that's I guess that's such a trope that's such like a fantasy trope yeah and I mean I guess the point is you know

they lose these things of their childhood and that wish fulfillment. But it is powerful, right? I remember when we were talking about this thing about the knife back when Yorick said it. And it's a good lesson, though, in general, when it comes to adulthood, right? Your intentions might be good. But that doesn't mean the outcome and the impact of what you do is and that like obviously if you're going to be doing something as cool as opening up worlds and like going out and like maybe stealing things from cool places or meeting your girlfriend it's like yeah you're you something there's going to be some consequences in real life to like yeah you're you something there's gonna be some consequences in real life to yeah awesomeness like that it means yeah if you when you find out it's bad you should try to find ways to correct it and change it that really is like yeah when you figure it out it's bad you could either keep using it and destroy the entire world but you already saw what that does firsthand. You've already saved that, done that,

been there. I don't think the worlds could handle it again. William, you have to do the right thing. It's irresponsible to do it on your own, for yourself, you know? Don't do it for yourself this time. Yeah, do it for everyone. Lyra says they'll have to come live in his world, knowing

he can't abandon his mom or his beautiful new healthy demon that her and Pan are strong they can last longer they have good doctors like Mary Malone not that kind of doctor Lyra that could help them figure it out what is she like she's like she can do radiation testing

she has no equipment it's all a myth anyway they're all the same I do that to my therapist all the time when I talk about, I don't know, some sort of physical thing. I'm like, it's okay, you're a doctor. You know how this works. I know. She's like, no.

I'm not that kind of a doctor. Like, you're a doctor. Just like the Sopranos. Well. Will doesn't think that this is perfect. He wouldn't be able to bear watching lyra you know get sick die when they're in their 20s yeah that doesn't seem very feasible he'd have to go down to the world of the dead just like she did for roger no we should spend our whole lifetimes together good long busy lives and if we can't spend them together we'll we'll have to spend them apart crowd boos crowd boos it kind of i don't know if like this is meant to be inspired by this

probably not because you know religion but it reminds me a little of like that corny ass prayer but it's pretty famous of god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change courage to change the things i can and wisdom to know the difference and yeah yeah an acceptance of like just like things for just like the whole good like not just serving yourself and also that like um actually this is a sondheim quote just that like you know if life were only moments even now and then a bad one but if life were only moments we'd never know we had one so you have to like all these little things are

just like they're these little capsules and you can hold them and you know yeah it can't all be these like the sort of heights unfortunately yeah you have to learn to embrace the memories and it can't all be these like the sort of heights unfortunately yeah you have to learn to embrace the memories

and enjoy what you had yeah yeah I just don't want to right now I don't want to embrace these memories this is horrible I appreciate you know Lyra's willingness to be like well you can't like leave your whole ass life

you've got a mom that you love and that you have to take care of. And I think that's really brilliant that she recognizes their connection and that Will needs connection, right? He needs that. And also Lyra's like, I don't know. I don't really have anyone, I guess. We find out in a bit that she does, which is great. But she's like, well, fuck my mom and dad. Yeah. She doesn't have major major major connections in her world like that's why she is an adventurer you know will remember something his father said

that they'd have to build the republic of heaven here where they were there isn't any elsewhere he had thought he meant asriel's new world, but now Will realizes he meant them, Will and Lyra. Lyra suddenly realizes that she could ask the alethiometer to find a loophole, and she pulls it out. When Will thought of her in later years, it was often with that little bag over her shoulder. She talked to the hair behind her ears in the swift movement he loved and took out the black velvet bundle. This is fucked up it's bright out and he asks if she can see against the glare but she knows where each of the symbols are she knows them by heart and she hushes him getting to work she tries a few times but it doesn't work it doesn't make sense to her anymore she turns the instrument around and will kind of calmly speaks to her,

tries to help her to get into the mindset, holding her trembly body for a moment, but it doesn't work. She pulled back and tried again. Once more, she gazed at the symbols. Once more, she turned the wheels. But those invisible ladders of meaning, down which she'd stepped with such ease and confidence, weren't there. She just didn't know what any of the symbols meant.

Fuck. Bro. All of it is so hurtful. We talked about this in a previous episode, though. Just bringing it back, because I think this was probably book one, where we talked about the alethiometer and the symbols as its own kind of language

and Lyra learning it. And I will say again this is not like learning a language when you were younger because that actually does stay with you for life it makes it easier to learn other languages you don't just forget it all I mean it can be harder to revisit

it if you did used to know it and like stopped using it at a very early age but it doesn't work like this that's all this is more like to me like a just like an intuition using it at a very early age or something but it doesn't work like that's all that's all this see this is more like to me like a um just like an intuition slash magic but like i also think about like child actors when we see like certain child actors that are that really like are magical and and pop and seem to be like so incredible and they're like eight or nine you're like how are

they so just transcendent and then it's like you see them sort of like age maybe over the course of a television series and they lose a little bit of that like lack of uh self-awareness i guess like or sorry maybe the other way around just like they they gain a sense of maybe too much self-awareness as they go along. And that's just like part of aging. And I think that like the, yeah, the alethiometer is like less of a language and more of like, I don't know. A skill, like you said, right? Yeah. Like I always thought of it like it reminds me of like tarot cards or something like that.

But if you had like a really intuitive like because it's symbol reading. It's like if you had a really intuitive read on something like that but if you had like a really intuitive like because it's it's symbol reading it's like if you had a really intuitive read on something like that and then yeah that could like if you became too self-conscious you might overthink it you know to to read them i don't know that's just a i think the closest version of something in our world i can think of i like that reading of it ha no pun intended and um i will say get into the heart of the cards right now oh cloud cards or tarot cards but uh there's something about it that's like to a young person this feels like your life is over this part of your life when you feel lost like this like everything feels lost but like to an older person that now has lived it and and felt that that's when the real skill begins like it

was ease it was grace it came to you when you were younger and that's when the hard part starts of actually mastering the skill and finessing the skill and i think a lot of people you know with many hobbies or many things that they're talented at, when this comes to them, they either quit, you know, and walk away because they are so flustered from that part of it of like that self-awareness that has been born under it. But then, you know, there are some people like what we get from Hannah Ralph telling her at the end of the chapter, you know, this is when it really begins. This is when it really begins. It might feel like your life is over, that everything has crashed down around you in the past two weeks ever in your life all at once. But this is when it all begins.

Yeah. In Lyra's defense, it kind of is like that for her because she did go through the underworld. It was like drawing from within. It's like if she's going to really learn these meanings and like, I mean, I guess we'll talk more about it later about like ways to read the alethiometer and it's like um yeah there is like some deeper more like mystical understanding that like an advanced like experienced worldly person would be able to do that would be really different from a kid who

she literally picked it up within like a few tries. She was like, oh, I get what this means. Yeah. Maybe it's like she didn't have a journey with it. It was just something that she felt was innate. I was going to say maybe it's like chess prodigies, right? Like they're like intuitively good, but they get even better. I guess when they learn strategies. I don't know.

But they're still like really good as kids. But I don't know. Because that's the thing. There's the line right there that she says to him. She's like, I know all the symbols by heart. Like I know where they're still like really good as kids but because that's the thing there's the line right there that she says to him she's like i know all the symbols by heart like i know where they are and she still does know where they are she just doesn't all of a sudden know what they mean so that means that the muscle memory and i'm speaking like this is you know like from a guitar for example memory like muscle memory you know like you know where the chords are you know what a g chord is you can strum it if

you press down on it it might be shaky the first time but if you keep playing at it and if you keep you know sticking your hands and callusing your fucking fingers until they're black after playing for hours and build that up like you can get it back yeah and actually like the thing like the missing ingredient would probably just be like musicality like so it's like when you're touching back on to say an instrument again it's like yeah you might be like i know where a c chord is i know what that is but it's like your sense of flow and artistry might not be there yet until you go through all these motions which is what i assume she will study is those motions again but i like like she she was like yeah i know i she only knew

like the skull for death was like really obvious stuff so it's like all these ladders of meaning were missing in her when she looks at it again um no bar chords in the insight you know right just g d c yeah maybe an a minor maybe an e if she's getting a little fancy. She's gonna start a punk rock band. Lyra. Actually, she should do that. She actually should. I think she would be great at it. Lyra and the Birds. I mean, she could play a lyre, right? It's basically like a guitar.

It's what I've heard, maybe. I don't really know. They're related. They're related. They're related. It's the music in your brain. It's supposed to make the music in your head exactly yeah like what you're saying about it being like your comparisons with playing an instrument and making art because in general it sounds like you are supposed to go into this sort of like concentrated flow state when you're doing the

thing of reading an alethiometer which which is a little bit like the experience of creating and doing music, etc. Which is great job. Y'all are making dust. There's like this, yeah, like an ineffable quality, which really is like what we're talking about, what dust is, what this whole book's about. It's like that ineffable thing. People who study and write about creativity, where does it come from? People talk about muses for a reason. It's like, oh, I'm just grabbing a thought out of the air. We don't really know where they come from or why.

There's methodical stuff you can do to write a perfect pop song. There's structures. There's things like that. But it's like the little magic to it is something nobody really gets so that's that's dust you have to find it on your own and make it on your own yeah yeah build the republic of heaven yeah where we are and it's imagination right i mean yes yeah actually use your imagination it's all ties in yeah perfect but now we're still in sad times because uh oh no oh no you haven't gotten there yet lyra despairs that the elite theme that the elite theometer came to help them through during their tribulations and now it's gone and it will never come back but that's not true as we just discussed but here to prove that she actually exists lyra

zephania appears floating down to ask for Will's help and learning to close the windows that the knife makes. What a fucking betrayer. She promises to help them in return, but she can't help him with the thing that he wants most. And Lyra asks, like, why can't she read the alethiometer?

And Zephania responds that they're going to invent smartphones soon, you're not going to need it, and that Lyra asks like why can't she read the alethiometer and Zephaniah responds that they're gonna invent smartphones soon you're not gonna need it and that Lyra read it by grace and by working she can regain the skill it will take a lifetime but her skill would be refined better coming from conscious understanding and that she'll lead a full long life

to do it one to enjoy reading the alethiometer in I love it i will say like you know reading by grace i think that's such a great description of it all with everything we just said right grace itself being able to do something with ease and agility and to take ownership of it and like you know focusing on what comes next instead of what's happened and it it's almost a gift. People like to say it's, you know, a gift that God gives them grace or that they have grace through God or through something. And Lyra, you know, when puberty comes, as you mentioned, Haley, nothing really happens

with grace. We see it in the next chapter. You know, it's been two weeks and even everyone at Jordan is like, oh, Lyra can no longer gracefully like a cat topple around the house and land on her feets and jump across the rooftops. Puberty's shaken that off of her and now she has to reconfigure. It's like all the code has been jumbled in a bag and now she has to re-figure out who the fuck she is.

What a disgusting time it is. Puberty's really like that. You get older and your bones get more brittle and you're like you just don't heal as fast no they don't they just don't will asks if every single window must be closed and zephaniah tells him dust is not a constant there's not a fixed quantity that has always been the same conscious beings make dust they renew it all the time by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on. And if you help everyone else in your worlds to do that,

by helping them to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel and patient instead of hasty and cheerful instead of surly, and above all, how to keep their minds open and free and curious then they will renew enough to replace what's lost through one window so there could be one left open camsafania just said toxic positivity for everyone i do like it though because like kind of i mean it is that but it's that but it's also yeah no but you're right. Like this dumb angel, like just make sure they all smile and do yoga.

But like really there, there's something to, it's like we're, we're trying to get people to expand their consciousness beyond like themselves. And, um, it's probably like challenging task. Like, I don't know how they're going to do that. Like, but I guess everyone you meet just, you know, inject this idea into them. But I think that's, yeah, that's again, a Republic of Heaven kind of quality is that we're trying to get people to like have open minds

and like regard their own consciousness and wisdom and all that. Yeah, build it themselves. Yeah. Create their own consciousness and wisdom and all that yeah build it themselves yeah create their own dust sustainable dust community oh my god yeah and stop trying to like do whack stuff like with the church yeah don't listen to those bozos you know ditch the zeros get with the heroes which oh my gosh right yeah it is it's kind of like it feel like lyra hugging the gross bird yeah we love gross birds

Will's excited thinking this could be their secret window right and Lyra's like no because remember the dead that we just let out of the skies like if we open a window is that not positively contributing to what we just fixed they have to live full lives, they remember,

so they can bring stories to the world of the dead someday themselves as well. Something to tell the harpies, something to tell the dead to keep the dead free. Of course, there's a really sad passage that Will and Lyra both just get so upset. A swell of anger. Life's unfair. This is bullshit. But there's no arguing with fate and as they calm from the rage they know they have to go face the truth the angel is as sorrowful as they are but

she can see farther into the future than they can so she feels hope too interesting interesting what could it mean also i'm just like whatever zephania good for you that you feel hope right now, but that's not helpful to anyone. I'm mad at Zephania. Yeah, she's just like a glowing naked idiot. Zephania's in many ways good, but I'm like, we could have tried harder. Anyway. But they have to learn. And probably a fake angel.

Come on, that's a fake angel. Fake fangirl angel. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Will teaches Zephania, fake fangirl angel oh my god oh my god uh will teaches zephania fake fangirl angel how to close a window but he has to open another one first so you know the last cut the second to last cut i guess if you really want to get technical zephania says she'll take care of all the specters and they talk about the origins of the knife that it was actually a human invention yeah so i thought that was interesting you know that it was actually a human invention. Yeah, so I thought that was interesting

you know that because it's a human invention humans carry that knowledge and the angels don't, right? That humans can make new knowledge but that's not what I want to talk about. That would be like a really nice beautiful thing to say. I want to say because Will is like, um but if I make a new window

then a new specter will be born and Zephania is like, we'll take care of it. And I'm like, so you could take care of it. You could all just take care of it. There's a bazillion angels out there, right? And they live a long-ass time. They could station one each year. One each year to have to be with Will and Lyra.

And their job is to just take care of the specter every single time they open a new window. But that's all. Exactly. That's, Eliana, they still can't. What? What? It doesn't work. That's not how it works, Eliana.

Because they didn't want to. They didn't want to work for it. Yeah, they didn't. If there was, like, one angel who would just be, like, a bodyguard, like, at the door, be like, get that specter like each time. Yeah. That would be whatever, however they're doing that. Exactly. No, literally, exactly.

At that cost, why couldn't Will just keep the knife and open a window all the time and say, hey, Lyra, and then kill the specter and then close the window? That's literally what I'm saying. Why couldn't they do that? But like, do the specters though don't appear? Yeah, that's literally what i'm saying why couldn't they do that but like do the specters though don't appear yeah that's true where the window is they're like they're different everywhere like it's pretty much implied that like specters are what make people have mental illness in our world in the will's world um because he says it like the specter attacking the guy like reminds him of his mom having her issues so it's like everywhere it's probably something a little bit different which would be oh so blame eliana for my issues that's

what i just heard this is eliana's fault because she wanted the windows open you it's the fan's fault for giving us mental illness yeah the fan you could fix it all right it seems perfectly fine will and lyra are depressed now and zephania is not and zephania could help but maybe zephania could fix it. Zephania seems perfectly fine. Will and Lyra are depressed now. And Zephania is not. And Zephania could help. Maybe Zephania's a specter. Have you ever thought of that? It sure feels that way.

She's quite an emotional vampire. Kind of like Colin Robinson. Am I right? Oh my god. Yes. And if you haven't watched today's episode, you need to anyway. Oh my gosh. I'm not going to.

I'm behind on the whole series. Catch up, you two. Catch up. This season just got really outrageous oh my gosh i'm not behind on the catch up you too catch up see this season just got really outrageous it was oh wow behind on this season so we'll get with it um my god so will's like close all the windows except one the one in the land of the dead he's like if i can have one window it has to be the land in the dead uh and then he's like so how many windows are there by the way to close and she's like thousands also there's the terrible abyss that blew open from the bomb that marisa and asriel are free fallen through still and then asriel's great opening and then many many smaller openings some in the air some in the earth

baruch and balthamos used to actually use those windows, but they have other ways of travel, she says. Lyra's like, well, can I learn that? Could we learn that? Will's father had, so it's not impossible, Zephaniah says, and it's done using your imagination. And hard work, too, as we've been saying. You know, using the old imagination chamber. She then says that it takes long practice. Yes, you have to work your whole life. using the old imagination chamber. She then says that it takes long practice.

Yes, you have to work your whole life. Did you think you could snap your fingers and have it as a gift? What is worth having is worth working for. But you have a friend who's already taken the first steps, and they could help you. Hmm. I definitely think that friend is Mary Malone through Serafina, and I think we're going to talk about it more in the discussion but very interesting very interesting pretty cool it is interesting i had like a brief

tinfoil moment is it his mom but oh interesting right yeah maybe she's just been astral projecting this whole time that's what i've been doing look at me it. He's probably married alone, but that was a brief, silly moment in my head. Will is frustrated, and so am I, but asks if they'll ever see Zephaniah or another angel again, and Zephaniah tells him not to wait for them, and then realizes

out loud, oh, we should probably break the knife, and we have this line of while they had been speaking the window had been open beside them the lights were glowing in the factory the work was going on machines were turning chemicals were combining people were producing goods and earning their livings that was the world where will belonged that sounds so depressing yeah yeah i mean sounds like our world i hate it i hate it there i mean that's the point right i guess yeah fuck yeah so will shows the angel how to close the windows and

the factory that they see disappears he asks if they must close even the windows that are not made by the knife and the angel goes yes because otherwise you'll waste your life looking for the other windows and you've got work to do get back to the factory will and he starts to ask but stops because he doesn't want to wonder what his work will be or waste his life wondering or being resentful and whatever he does he will choose it and no one else um and zephania says he's taken the first steps to wisdom which i mean this feels pretty significant right uh i assume we can talk about the lantern slides and one of the one of the possibilities that will puts out he's like you might tell me i need to be a fighter or a healer or i don't know he says

some other thing he's like but i want to choose for myself and we find out he does become a healer yeah yeah he becomes doctor dr will doctor who and that's the boy that grew up to be the doctor from doctor who he becomes daemon targaryen scutty ways one more thing about like the choosing and like that I mean that's pretty significant

that he doesn't want to know what his fate will be because he technically Lyra's the one who's going to be the one who does it but together they are the children who destroy destiny and they get to choose they get choice and free will

he's free will we freed will finally guys we just freed him yes they have a choice they do have a choice here it's just like the choices suck they all suck I guess that's adulthood too fuck and you know Zephania says that's the first steps to wisdom which like i said earlier the archangel is that's uh zophiel is supposed to be the angel of wisdom right so zephania it sucks i know she's being a pain in the fucking clitoris right now okay but like she's not that wise if she couldn't think of this plan

but i thought of but she's telling them that the hard way is going to be the right way the good way in the long run that they are going to grow and live better more fulfilled lives for having loved and lost than not loving at all it just fucking sucks and she's being kind of a bitch about it okay she's being stern about it she thinks she's being nice about it but and she probably is being nice about it but i'm just like like in an angel way exactly like she doesn't have human skills like you're a little blunt yeah well at least some less blunt people are on the way right lyra sees a light at sea which zephania says it's her friends to bring them home i don't like that she never thought she'd see the day she hated seeing farter quorum john fawn seraphina peccola so the line there is

like you know that is a ship to bring that is the ship bringing your friends to take you home they will be here tomorrow and then the next line goes the word tomorrow felt like a heavy blow lyra had never thought she would be reliable anyways so the repetition and emphasis on the word tomorrow for some reason kind of reminds me of that speech from macbeth you know the famous one of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death out out brief candle life's but a walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more it is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing and i don't think i make a very good like

macbeth i'm saying it i'm saying it chloe i said macbeth and how could you do that to me you didn't say it i'm the one who's cursed not you i'm the one shortening my life here and okay lyra or will whoever you want to be jesus too soon sorry so this is actually you know that really depressing speech that follows you know macbeth learning that his wife has committed suicide you know just his lover and like the loss and it's about many things really including that life is empty and meaningless as is death and there are a lot of that's usually pretty depressing

but there are a lot of philosophies of nihilism and existentialism that actually interpret that meaninglessness of life as liberating when you get to that point that if life means nothing then you have the power to make it mean anything which is pretty

awesome, I think. And that's very much what these books encourage us to do from Lyra's insistence that they have to both like live full lives and the reminder that to live them, right? To live your own so that you can tell stories and then Will's refusal to hear of his fate so that he can choose and decide his life's own meaning but there's also to get back to being sad an aspect of the speech that's that is just really very much about that loss of a loved one and especially your most beloved one i mean not that mcbeth like really showed that at the end, but they were a team, you know? He and his wife, they were a team. And losing that person can make life feel meaningless, which is pretty much the problem that Will and Lyra are facing now.

But something that they must do, they have to live on for themselves and for the rest of humanity because they're yesterdays we'll have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Dusty death. No. But like now it's good. Yeah but it still hurts. Oh yeah. No it's all hurtful.

Everything's hurtful. Zephania must take her leave and she kisses their foreheads just saying you could be nicer to her Eliana and then she dined and dashed okay he taught her how to close the windows and she's like cool peace out I'm done here

yeah well she doesn't have the same social you know fulfillment anyways so she's all the time in the world she's an angel she also kisses their demons, which is interesting because, you know, that's kind of taboo for normal human beings, but not for angels, because they're also kind of like

dust personified, almost. And the demons change into birds to fly with her as she disappears. Moments later, Lyra realizes she had never asked about her parents. Fuck. And now she can't even ask the alethiometer and she wonders if she'll ever know me too lyra me too oh well what can we do whatever can we do

i want to live with you forever i want to kiss you and lie down with you and wake up with you every day of my life till i die years and years and years away. I don't want a memory, just a memory. No, memory is a poor thing to have. It's your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn't know I could ever love anything so much. Well, you'll keep living, kid. Sorry, was no one going to give that take ever? i'm like all right yeah yes but you've been through a lot but i also see the other side here uh and of course the other half of this though is very sad and beautiful i'll be looking for you will every moment every single moment and when we do find each other again we'll cling so tight that nothing and no one will tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you. We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and

pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams. And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won't just be able to take one, they'll have to take two. One of you and one of me will be joined so tight. They lay side by side, hand in hand, looking at the sky. That's pretty terrible. It's like one of the most brilliant, beautiful passages probably written, you know, in this like era of literature, but it's terrible.

It's the worst thing I've ever had to read out loud. I didn't like it. Zero out of 10. Wouldn't do again something that you you're bringing up this idea it's like you know they are um what are they supposed to be 12 13 probably 13 at this point yeah something like that so it's like while we have experienced this book probably more than once and we're we're like this is like the most gutting couple of chapters in literature. It hurts because they have all these reasons why it can't work. And we also know that they're 13.

And that's also why you wouldn't want to sacrifice everything, both the planet and your lives, to be with your 13-year-old lover. So it's like the pain of that also is in there just saying i root for lyra and will though yeah even some closure you know yeah just some closure absolutely it's also just like they went through i don't know it's different when it's like someone who understands completely something that you could never explain right to someone else and they're the only person who knows but oh yeah i also wanted to call out you know our friend ariana who wrote out to us like a while ago who had like this i think we read some of her letter and it was brilliant regarding the Turkish delights and Narnia and the temptation

for the children and Ariana, thank you so much for sharing this with us, that you've been in a long distance relationship before having to drive to see your person and you know to quote Ariana, I think what makes Will

and Lyra's choice so important is that almost nobody would actually choose this we are all happy to make our world a little worse for a slice of happiness we normalize that for each other these kids grew up in worlds where this is normalized what made them strong enough to pause and actively decide

the adults around them framed these choices in a certain way, Serafina and Zephania and Mary all gave them support to choose for themselves so they had to make an active informed choice we see this active choice making through both kids arcs will explains how hard choosing is to yorick that it's easy to circumvent a choice because you want to appear brave and doing the right thing is very hard thank you ariana yeah yeah that's great. Yeah, I know.

I'm like all three of us have been in long distance relationships before. So I know I remember like one of the last few times I had to do the parting at the train station kind of thing. And I just remember I was like, why is this so upsetting? Oh, my God, it feels like I'm being literally torn from myself. Like I get it. It's a horrible feeling. And then I just chose to move in instead which was great and they don't have that option so right so that sucks for them sucks for them yeah yeah mine worked out i guess so and so did yours and so did yours hayley you know what everything worked out in the end you know so I'm

praying for Lyra yeah it's true I'll pray for you Lyra there's hope you know they remember back to a time when they first had met in Chittagatse and how fierce she had been and brave and he'd been so afraid and they kind of flirt back and forth and they sob a little

and cuddle and you know all the things you have to do when you have to break up with your soulmate and move very far away. Their demons change and come to them and they're in kind of a different form than before. Pan is an animal that Will doesn't quite know. A red gold, powerful ferret looking thing.

He realizes it's a pine Martin. Kierjava is a cat of no ordinary size with lustrous fur, a thousand patchwork shades of grey, black, and blue all mixed together. It's described as subtle. Like a knife. What? Really? Are you sure?

We get it. It doesn't sound like a pigeon, you know? Lyra asked Pam that'd be so what were you saying nothing it would just be so funny if Lyra's final demon was a pigeon it would say a lot

she's a little dirt bag you know she'd just hang on the roofs it could be a witch right I guess it's a bird. But I'm also like, dang, you're a pigeon. It's like a sort of poor man's witch demon. They are

kind of cool, I guess. Sure. Lara asks Pan if he'll be changing much more. He says no, and she remembers when they were younger when he would change all the time. But now she's like, I wouldn't mind you staying like this. Wool puts his hand on hers, and he feels peaceful. Then, he knowingly and purposefully pets Pan's red gold fur.

And Lyra gasps, a gasp filled with pleasure and joy, like when they had put the fruit to each other's lips. And so she does the same to Grijava's fur. And then they know that their demons have settled. These were their shapes for life. They would want no other. So wondering whether any lovers before them had made this blissful discovery, they lay together as the earth turned slowly and the moon and stars blazed above them this is very sexy

in a weird way i don't know if it's that weird i know like i retweeted something recently and they were like if i wrote about like my actual experiences from between the ages of 12 and 19 people would say i was sexualizing minors and i mean like i only say weird because we're adults talking about it but um it is it is sexy and it is like a very obvious like allegory of them discovering each other in some way so yeah i mean they were feeling tingly in their pants man like tingly remember that like we all did yeah were feeling tingly in their pants man like tingly remember that like we all did yeah everybody felt tingly your first like you got that absolutely not just your pants you know your skin you're on fire everything feels like it's on fire you feel you're like and the cutest part of this too is like wondering whether any lovers before them

right so innocent the very first time where they're like the first time you have a little bit of drink like that's there's your first book callback right with roger they have their first wine together and their body gets all tingly and that was their first kind of like awakening experience together and then with will this is her first like holy shit bodily experience that wow we are there's also yeah like i was just gonna say that like the this this original series is very much from like a more child ish perspective and so like we're seeing it mostly through like how lyra would experience like what she knows about demons and you know her limited experience of that so it's like anytime

somebody's touched somebody else's demon it's always been an attack or something like like someone was aggressing or it was really gross and so yeah she wouldn't know that like probably lovers touch each other's demons you know and that she's she's just learning this now and same with like all the other stuff they learn about consciousness and all of that. It sort of like expands. And then when we go into books of dust, it like that expands like so much further as well,

like with her aging and wisdom. Just in general, that metaphor of people that you love touching your soul. That's something I think just really beautiful in general. And how you can how finding people who you love that love you help you see yourself more clearly yeah that's a little bit of how we figured out what our demons are today yeah um i guess you know hayley will put you on the spot we've been and so you know you know this has been the big tease that we could not settle our demons until

their demons settled i know we're a little past the puberty age here but i thought we could afford ourselves i'm reliving my 13s right now. So if you could just fuck off. Let me have this. Yeah, I'm repairing my inner child. Adolescence goes a lot longer now, you know? All right. I've never been sure about this, but...

And maybe, like, I don't know if I stand by my choice because it makes me sound too cool. Like, it's like I bet like it would be like I feel like everyone's demons like a little bit like less cool um but like like what's a pine martin right I don't know what that is what is it I don't know right so right if I knew more like nuanced animals maybe I'd come up with a better one but my choice was that I'd be a wolf I was obsessed with wolves when I was a kid and I like them because they're ferocious but they're also little

cuties and they sing because they howl but I'm not a dog because dogs are for servants and cops apparently sadly but then when I asked Zach he said I said what would my demon be and he said

it would be an actual demon like some little weird thing from hell. He doesn't get it. He does not get it. I mean, dragons were possible. And then he showed me a picture. Oh, okay. It would be a, wouldn't you want like a small thing? It would be so annoying to have like a huge ass demon.

Yeah, probably. Imagine living with that. Yeah. like a huge ass demon yeah probably imagine living with that yeah yeah i guess it's kind of like ar if you live in our world though right like so you only see it if you line it up just right it's totally ar if i just have like a dragon flying behind me at all times yeah it's like the dracarys app exactly oh but i actually do see a wolf for you like especially with that explanation i see it i could see it i like to run i like being in a pack but also being like adventuring kind of on my own yeah strong independent in some manners yeah heck yeah i love that well thanks

yeah i guess uh what you should work on based on the way that they do things in this book is figuring out specifically which wolf that's the next because yeah i don't know specific breeds of wolves and color cool stuff all right eliana who's next you're up you're up to bat eliana am i up to bat or up to rat because oh my god oh shit good. Good segue. I'm serious. Actually, I do really like bats. They're pretty cool animals. They're very cute. Underrated. They're cool.

Yeah, they're like little puppies in the sky. But yeah, like I said, it's hard. It's hard. I still don't know. I know one of my cousins recently compared me and said I was able to pet some cats and they were like, it's because she's a cat right and they think that i'm very cat-like which i don't know but then i asked my partner what animal would you say that i am and he said you're a rat and i was like what the fuck i was like do you think i

rat people out on things and he's like no he's like rats they all like have individual personalities they're clever and they're cute, so I guess... I agree. Rats are cool. Not that you're a rat necessarily, but I actually think they're really cute. In fact, the last time I saw Hayley, I was visiting and we took the subway to see Hayley, and I was

just taking videos of the rats. They were really cute. They were really clever. They were down there getting some free snacks and some hors d'oeuvres before the train came. They were like cute. They were really clever. They were down there getting some free snacks and some hors d'oeuvres, you know, before the train came. They were like, oh. Yeah, as long as they don't touch you, the city ones. Yeah. Then you're good.

Well, I mean, they're all kind of, like, dirty and carry disease in their own way, you know, right? So are we. I don't know. But, like. Historically, but, you know. I've known people with pet rats that were adorable. Historically, we're all disease riddled. That's true. That's also true true so don't discriminate against rats what the fuck's your problem well everything's disgusting yeah every time i see one in the city i am a little i'm like

look it's the local wildlife i pointed out i'm like i like look at that and like i'll gesture when people visit like there's the rats the recently when i was in a park this was actually not that recently like two years ago now that i think about it it was like getting dark so the rats start scurrying around they get real bold at night and so i hissed at them and to keep them away and it works it works but other than that like my partner also pointed out that rats are the star of the one true mecha anime ratatouille which also you know we need to point out rats are also good cooks and i think i'm a pretty good cook they're also a little gross i'm a little gross and you know um yeah i'm not really sure if i how i feel about this but i guess if i'm a rat i guess it has to be a city rat um but you would like think of the pocket your rat would sit

right in your pocket you could have like oh so fun like in a cute little like and it would sleep right in your pocket in like a shirt pocket or hoodie pocket and it could sleep in your hood oh that's pretty cute maybe i'm like tony macarius right like with the bratter with bratter oh yeah yeah i could see that i love that i love that i actually really love that you're a rat that's way actually kind of cool am i do you really think i'm a rat i don't know i i never would have guessed it personally i would not either have guessed it i didn't know what to expect for you i really didn't actually i'd like it i don't know if that's it but i do like it i'm a city rat no no i think you're a little rat or like no i think i'm a big rat

i'm a big rat i'm living off of popeyes you know i'm the one that's like stirring up the popeyes in the washington dc like oh yeah uh you know the ones that all come out, and they're like, ooh, found us. That's me. You find them dragging food, like full-size food. That's me. That is pretty you. And the cats are afraid. Yeah.

If I'm going to be a rat, that's the kind. That says a lot, actually, because... So my team... They eat well. Yeah. What are you? Let's talk about are you let's talk about you i feel like you've known for a long time though secretly is that my virgo rising you're making fun of or is it just me um yeah i have known for a little bit i actually specifically chose a little bit ago like maybe a month or two ago i really put the pedal to the metal and I was like, I need to figure out which fucking one of these I am.

Cause I knew that like, yes, I was a certain animal, but what variant of the animal, what, what breed, what, you know,

what did I look like? Where am I from? There's a lot going into this role play here of having a demon. So a lot of our patrons kind of already called it because of my tendencies, but I am a cat. I am definitely a cat demon. So a lot of our patrons kind of already called it because of my tendencies. But I am a cat. I am definitely a cat demon. Like that is definitely there's no other demon I could have but a cat demon. However, because I knew that answer wasn't quite sufficient.

It's kind of a cop out because it's an obvious answer. Because you've all met me. I could just, you know, sleep and throw things off the table all day long. But I am a felice margarita oh that sounds delicious or a sand cat a sand dune cat um it has like sandy light gray fur and it camouflages well in desert environment and so it's it's a few fold of a thing like we don't know uh because my mother was adopted through cath services, could be Italian, could be other things too. And we don't know my biological father.

I think there could be some sort of Eastern in me because of some of my chronic illness crap that comes from the East. So it wouldn't surprise me if maybe I was from some had a little something in me, just a little something in there. had a little something in me. Just a little something in there. But that said, they also like, the big joke is that I'm really bad at drinking water in my household and my husband That's not a joke, that's like true.

And a problem. It's a running gag for me. It's a running gag in my household that I don't drink water and by that I mean a health problem. But the sand cat can fulfill its water requirements in the desert by consuming its prey alone so like i can you know live off of less water than most is really what i think so i don't know very beautiful this is the

cutest cat i've ever seen in my life thank you i had this it is what i would be if I was a demon or if I had a demon. I don't know. It is so cute. This face is so poof. Yeah. It's got little stripes, stripy stripes. I like the stripes. The stripes are so cute. I spent a long time deciding.

Thank you. I need to get more specific with mine. Yeah. For sure. I just like the eyes and the little poofs on the cheeks, the little pointedness. I don't know. Yeah. Don't tell my cats. you know, they'd be jealous. But yeah, it was that or like a Chinese mountain cat.

Honestly, I was like, I don't know. I was like, but I also am like, am I a big wild cat too? Like, I don't know what I am. I looked through a lot of them. I wasn't sure what to go with for me. And I didn't actually ask my husband's opinion. There's a lot of animals out there do you want me to ask? do you want me to text and be like

DM him what do you mean tell Nick because everyone needs to have a contribution we'll come back to it for the end of the episode if he's messaged back for sure for sure maybe I'm a dingo oh my god

I'm looking at all these animals i sent i sent him a dm in all caps hey this is urgent good well while we wait for his insight let's blast through the final chapter of the amber spyglass together the botanic garden chapter 38 the egyptians arrive the following day their ship is anchored far out mary tells the mulefa everything she knows of them so when they arrive with seraphina guiding them they're greeted by a curious crowd john fa has patience he's determined to practice graceful diplomacy with this people satan max welcomes them with a speech translated by mary and later gets shown around by the mulefa noticing Farder Coram has issues

walking. They offer to carry him to the gathering place to Will and Lyra. It's been ages since Lyra's seen these men and they notice it immediately. Coram's like, wow, she is all grown up. Absolutely. Yeah, it's called trauma.

I went to hell and back. Literally wow and then i destroyed it that's my girl lyra my dear if i had the tongue of an angel i couldn't tell you how glad i am to set eyes on you again but she looks so hurt he thought she looks so frail and weary and neither he nor john fogg had missed the way she stayed close to will and how the boy with the straight black eyebrows was aware every second of where she was and made sure he never strayed far from her that's so nice it's very sweet and very sad because she's come back changed and a little different and a little wrecked and you know

there's in love in love yeah a completely different girl than who left not the little knees and elbows tyrant that was running around running jordan right now she's back there's something interesting in the language in here um specifically if I had the tongue of an angel. So I was kind of doing some digging around, and I found something about some kind of somewhat accounts, some theophanies of people that have just kind of think they've had a vision from God or had an encounter with God. And I don't know about all of them. And I guess the founder of the latter-day saint movement kind of founded some of his beliefs on this specific one but Norris Stearns in 1815 published a vision he had in Greenfield Massachusetts the religious experience of Norris Stearns written by divine command and the parts of it that i found fascinating as this light and love

increased my sins began to separate and the mountain removed toward the east at length being in an ecstasy of joy i turned to the other side of the bed whether in body or out i cannot tell god knoweth there i saw two spirits which i knew at first sight but if I had the tongue of an angel I could not describe their glory for they brought the joys of heaven with them he goes on to describe it as God and Jesus basically uh and he calls God he says about God that his face uh were as if it were a flame of fire which really makes me think of Will actually because he has those dark eyebrows and that furrowed look, you know, and that jaw.

And just, yeah, I don't know. I thought the language was interesting because I'm pretty sure it has to be taken exactly from that because I have found nothing else but that. The tongue of an angel. The tongue of an angel. Interesting. I mean, that makes sense. It's a weird one.

That makes sense. It stuck out and I was like, what is this? What is this? But, you know, the vision of seeing both of them as that figure, like he's looking at these two holy figures in a vision coming to him. Yeah. Appearing. I mean, these two kids are pretty mom.

Will admires their power and they greet and treat him respectively. He thinks that one day maybe he would behave like John Fah, a shelter, a refuge, a power tempered by courtesy. It's pretty cute. The Egyptians are given fresh water and food by the Malafa

who had also offered to feast them that evening and so they did, which I love. I love that the Malafa have a very generous culture that involves people should eat here with us. They explained that three worlds met that day to share bread, meat, fruit, and wine. The Egyptians presented the Malafa with gifts from their world, like crocks from Genever, carvings of walrus ivory, silicon tapestries from Turkestan, carvings of walrus ivory, silicon tapestries from Turkestan,

and cups of silver from the mines of Sweden, and enameled dishes from Korea. In turn, the Malafa give them rare vessels of ancient knotwood, lengths of the finest rope and cord, lacquered bowls, and fishing nets that are stronger and lighter than the Egyptians had ever seen. I love this. It's all about, if you're talking about making sure people learn patience and not to

be surly and kind and stuff to make a republic, it's gotta be all about different worlds meeting each other. Yeah, I love that this is like the first foundational dinner of the Republic of Heaven, right? The first supper you could call it even. Cool! I love that.

Love it. Yeah, even like a pilgrimage of peoples across worlds come to like make a peace treatise almost I don't know it's really beautiful yeah absolutely but of course all of the fun and diplomacy must come to an end as they prepare to sail home before they part from dinner

Satan Max says a great change has come over everything, and as a token we've been granted a responsibility. We would like to show you what this means. They then follow the Mulefa to the hole where the land of the dead had been opened, where ghosts continue to come out. The Mulefa were planting a grove around it, calling it a holy place, a source of joy. Coram's astonished by the mystery as is john fa who are happy to see it but dying in darkness is a fear of all they say if they could show the light to some to be free in the sky like the birds that could be the best anyone would wish for

i love it isn't this like the good place yeah you know like and it like the grove like i feel like they like that's sort of the whole point is like our our ideas of heaven and hell are incomplete and so the actual thing that happens at the end is just to be sort of like absorbed out into like a forest you know and just like become part of everything and it's like it's i love that that's like honestly where i think a lot of people's creative vision of it goes, is like, we just sort of become sparkling dust into everything. I like that it's a grove. A sacred grove is nice.

I love it so much. It's like trees of souls, right? It's the sparks upon the tree of souls, basically. And we're all just sparks. We're all just part of it. And I think the sacred grove part is amazing that they're creating their own upon the tree of souls basically and we're all just sparks we're all just part of it and i think the sacred grove part is amazing that they're creating their own sacred cove of like these beautiful trees their own knowledge they're growing their own power and knowledge and magic

and you know it does remind me of like abraham and genesis right before he's asked to make his great sacrifice that he plants a grove in beershaba and he calls god there and like that's right before he's asked to make his great sacrifice that he plants a grove in beershaba and he calls god there and like that's right before he's like yo i need you to kill one of your kids and he's like i'm not gonna do it he's like good it was a test it was just a test bro just a test just a prank bro yeah that's really it's not just a prank right now like god is like yo will yo lyra nah you can't be together. But I wish there was a prank. I wish it was a prank. It's not.

Yeah. I really like that. That idea that they're growing and turning it into a place of worship. That they made it a real destination. Well, they decide to ask Lyra how this came about later on. I like that they call it a mystery, right? Kind of like a mystery of faith. It's not that mysterious. There's a whole reason. I read a book

of how this happened. Meanwhile, Mary must say goodbye to her very best friend, Atal. Actually, they are really good friends. I know. Yeah. Oh, this is painful. Who gives her a parting gift? Yeah. A lacquer file containing a wheel tree oil and a little bag of seeds.

Etel tells her, they might grow in your world, but they might not. And if they don't, you have the oil. She makes Mary promise never to forget them. And Mary promises never that she could live as long as the witches do, but she would never forget the Maleficent kindness. Man. Alright, and so the journey home begins. Two weeks pass on the sea within the blink of an eye.

Zephania had told Seraphina that the openings were closed and the worlds would go back to their proper places, including Lyra and Will's Oxford, being transposed on top of one another, though they could never truly touch. That would be impossible. They arrive in the evening to No Signs of Life,

to Chittagatsay-ish area, and they eat a last meal together, watching the darkness fall, and Will begins to say goodbye to them all, and everyone can see Will even more clearly than before. He's someone young strong and deeply stricken and finally mary seraphina will lyra and their demons set off to go through the empty city the garden is empty and childhood is gone the party's over it's like the very end of like a

my god it's like an end of a con weekend or something, you know, like when you're the last one's there, everything's winding down. God, you're depressed, right? You're watching everybody leave, being the last one to leave. That's what it feels like. That's so sad. Serafina and Mary hang back and they speak to one another as sisters. It's very sweet. Lyra plans to come to Mary's Oxford oxford just for a moment quickly to do something

and come back afterwards seraphina asks what mary's gonna do from here and she's like well i'll take will to my house for the night and the next day we'll find his mom and figure everything else out you know what we can do to help her what we can do to help him also dealing with the authorities because they're probably both wanted for like, you know, murder and robbery. And she doesn't need him. I got the murder. Yeah, he's still wanted for the murder. Yeah, like they probably went to search his house and they're like, there's a dead body here.

Yeah. How are they gonna? Yeah, that's gonna be a little rough. Yeah. It's fine. He goes to medical school. Yeah, you know, he lives through it. Besides, she needs him. She. He goes to medical school. Yeah, you know he lives through it. Besides, she needs him.

She has no job, no money. The police are probably after her too, as said. He'll be kind of the only person she has to actually understand her life now, too. They arrived at the window that Mary first came through. The broad boulevard with the line of palm trees in the center. The first window will had seen was opened here and had been guarded by police on the other side the one mary tricked her way through will reaches through and he closes the window he cuts a careful one through the moonlit

streets of chittagatse while mary and seraphina speak behind them discussing mary's demon once more serfina told her if she tries if they have the time she'd be able to teach her to see her demon and Mary's like I wish we had the time Serafina says but I think that you might be able to see it if I mean we've been together for a while and you've seen shadow and matter and you've kind of been through worlds you've communicated through the I Ching and your machinery why don't you try it so she lets her get a little hands-on yeah seraphina tells her to try to put herself in that mindset for seeing the yi jing as well as uh that regularly seeing simultaneously what it's just like a hard concept i get it but i'm like

yeah you know like look here but also don't well when she concept. I get it. But I'm like, yeah, you know, like look here, but also don't. Well, when she explains it, I get it. Because like I said, I did this like a million times after reading this book. In Mary's world, they had a kind of picture that looked at first like random dots of color, but that when you looked at it in a certain way, seemed to advance into three dimensions. And there in front of the paper would be a tree or a face or something else surprisingly solid that simply wasn't there before what Serafina taught Mary to do now

was similar to that I love that so much you know just some little puzzles for the brain and using that imagination chamber one could say also those books were hard they are hard oh yeah like sort of unfocus your eyes it's

like how they talk about reading the lithiometer too it's sort of like and and using the knife it's like all the same concept of just sort of right you're just like you're you're just yeah did you guys ever see mall rats i don't think i did but maybe maybe I should. Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, not quite. Kind of. There's a Magic Eye poster in the mall, and the guy's just been standing in front of it, staring at it the whole day, and can't see anything.

But he realizes it's a sailboat, right? Yeah. Very funny. Very funny. Yeah. It's basically the same thing i remember like i used to have to do little tests like that to say what i saw in them to um you know like a social worker in school or whatever i didn't you know shit like that yeah for like real learning they did for us they're just like i don't know they uh use it to like i don't know

it was for an understanding of your comprehension and perception i guess you know they did for us they're just like i don't know they uh use it to like i don't know it was for an understanding of your comprehension and perception i guess you know they did that they did like word association shit and spelling shit tons of weird tests i had to take like once a year really haven't unpacked all that yet but maybe maybe next series we'll get to some of it wow i learned different so she finally gets it though mary malone learns different too and she sees her demon on the iron fence there's her ar demon it's a bird glossy black with red legs and a curved yellow bill it's an alpine chuff her concentration slips and she loses it but seraphina says that's okay. It'll get easier next time. Aha, like we said.

She'll be able to see other people's demons in her world, but they won't see hers or Will's unless they've also been taught. This is so fun. I want this power. This opens up a huge amount of questions for her. She's like, can I talk to my demon? Will they hear me? She gets very excited, walks on, and and will's like where are we lyra says well we need to get to the botanic garden and mary's like you know still thinking about her demon

she helps guide them through the walk 15 minutes all while trying to see her demon as she does successfully and she holds out her arm and it hops on her arm she can feel its grip, its weight. He settles on her shoulder, and they move on. Aww. I love that. It's so exciting. It's sweet. I love it. So, Lara guides them into the garden, past a pool with a fountain under a wide tree.

Hey! Hey! Hey! Through a massive stone wall with a doorway, into the farthest part of the garden, the youngest part, with less formal planting. Over a bridge, through much more brush, and they come to a wooden bench. A specific wooden bench. One that Lyra would come

to whenever she wanted to be alone. But now, she doesn't always want to be alone. It's kind of different from the end of book one, right? Where she and Pan are comfortable with being alone. They're like, we're not alone've got each other and now right now she wants a little more what i thought was that if you maybe just for once a year if we could come here at the same time just for an hour or something then we could pretend we were close again because we would be close if you sat here and i just sat here in my world yes as long as i

live i'll come back wherever i am in the world i'll come back here on a midsummer day at midday as long as i live as long as i live he found himself unable to see but he let the hot tears flow and just held her close and if we later on she was whispering shakily if we just meet someone that we like and if we marry them then we must be good to them and not make comparisons all the time and wish we were married to each other instead but just keep us coming here just once a year just just for an hour just to be together this is the worst why did i pick this book series i'm so sorry they did right like they had to forever i want to believe they did i like that uh the detail

right about midsummer day apparently this one's supposed to be like that could be like i guess the feast day or something of saint john the baptist but oh yeah it's it is kind of still though supposed to be based around the summer solstice regardless because it's the idea of like saint john the baptist was like i decrease so jesus increases right because light starts coming back after the winter solstice and i don't know there's a lot going on there with it being midsummer day right that idea of daylight time stopping

and extending the time that you have together as much as possible I think there's something beautiful about that and really sad of what that's what they're trying to do stretch out their moments together and what they can together and stretch even their lives out right they've chosen not to be together for that reason

but also this one's less less happy but also you know i'm not saying that they peaked but like and i'm not saying it's all downhill from here right like after you reach like the most sunlight um because it's not but like i think my life's actually gotten better since I was 13 years old oh yeah I legitimately believe that yeah but I feel that it's a little bit about that there is like this I I have always had like this sort of obsession with like um like running out of time and like I remember especially when I was a teenager I'd be like oh my god this summer's over and it's like it was always so important to like, hold on to all these moments. And I mean, it still kind of is for me, because I like the summer. But you know, that longest day of the year, I was like thinking about it's like in the Great Gatsby, Daisy says, like, do you always wait for I always wait for the longest day of the year,

and then I miss it. And it's just like, think about this, like time where it's like, you have the most hours of daylight, exactly. Like, it's a perfect time. Plus, like all those sort of, like you have the most hours of daylight exactly like it's a perfect time plus like all those sort of um you know classic associations of like pagan rituals and things like that of just sort of like the the of a plentiful time i guess yeah it's a great point kind of garden yeah time to harden yourself for the autumn and the winter and to come out leaner and stronger on the other side yeah yeah yeah so you can feast again in the summers yeah yeah but staying and enjoying just for now just a taste in the garden i know like i love i love peaches and i love tomatoes i had a peach yesterday it was real fucking good good. We're at a good time of year. Yeah.

Later on, Will would once more remember this moment. Everything about Lyra was soft and tender, and they kiss over and over again, each one nearer to the last one ever. They walk back to the gate in part, looking through a window at one another. He turns to Serafina, thanking her for

rescuing them at the belvidere and for watching over them and tells her please be kind to lyra for as long as she lives i love her more than anyone has ever been loved she kisses his cheeks while mary and lyra embrace well. And I'm fine. And they step through the last window and Will tells himself, just like me, being cheerful starts now. And Lyra's doing the same, straining to smile. Like all three of us. One last kiss and a tear. Their demons kiss farewell. Oh, fuck.

Not the fucking demons. What the fuck? And he closes the window finally and he turns, trying to sound very matter-of-fact saying now i've got to break the knife he tries to find the feeling he had when he broke it during the coulter encounter and summons a picture of his mom's face but it doesn't work none of it works this time it's first of all this is fucking painful second of all i mean it's sad right that hit the the whole thing and also his mother's face not working anymore but it's it's true like that's the idea children shouldn't belong to their parents forever right and and that's what happened to will and his love we know that

his love for his mother is no longer foolproof in this way right he still loves her but it's not completely unbreakable and that there's something stronger because for a bit ago and by that i mean i guess two weeks ago because we had a time skip he was willing for a moment to give up being there for his mother so that he could live a very brief rest of his life with Lyra hmm not sustainable though as he realized

as he came to his wisdoms about well I mean as Lyra pointed out he'd always be living that half life kind of wishing that he were with his mother and I guess that's the point of why they're like you have to close all the windows or you'll be living a half-life in general with each other but it could have been fine i like the idea that they would have had kids who were citizens of two worlds that's sick i love that anyways that's my

world jewel um i love that i would also say, it's got those Tuck Everlasting vibes, too. You know? I don't think I've watched that. Or read it, even? Wow, what? I'm uncultured. I'm uncultured. Well, long story short, I won't spoil too much for you, but it's basically, you know,

a girl comes upon a family in the woods that doesn't age. They have a special fountain of water and she falls in love with everything about them kind of vampire-esque right like she wants to be a part of their everything but she doesn't know the if she wants to take and drink the water or not and become like them and then one day it's too late right like they've moved on and he's gone and there's like a brief like the boy that she falls in love with from the family kind of thing and he comes back and it's heart-wrenching and then they part and i want and she chooses i believe if i recall it's been a fucking while but she chooses to you know live

her full her full life instead live it out die instead of uh sacrifice it to go be immortal with them and run away from her family and everything she loves and her world, basically, and all that. That's pretty intense. It is actually. It's a tense story. It's similar to, I think you're just sensitive right now. I'm just saying.

I'm always a little sensitive. I know you are. I know you are, you little rat. Yeah, no, it's a good, I want to say I read it like like, probably middle school or some shit. It's a fine enough book. It's older. You know, it's not all perfect, but it's an interesting, shorter read. I think you should read it someday as just, like, a classic.

You might not. I wouldn't be surprised if he took inspiration from that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, it tries again, standing puzzled, like, why didn't it break? And then his demon says simply, Lyra. And this time, with a wrenching crack, the knife shattered and the blade fell in

pieces to the ground to glitter on the stones that were still wet with the rain of another universe. Will knelt to pick them up carefully, Kajaba with her cat eyes helping to find them all. Cool. Cool. Yeah. They're picking up the pieces, I guess, of our

broken hearts. It is. It is. It's kind of like a metaphor for that. Not just that, but also the rain of another universe glittering on the stones. Lyra's tears falling on the stones, basically. Oof. Oof. Oof oof yeah very beautiful very

again very sensory very beautiful afterwards mary speaks to will and kind of tells him i promise i'd look after you we'll be friends for the rest of your life basically in my life and uh we'll help your mom do all the things that she's been planning and then she's like let's go get some tea yeah uh as you said right clearly mary's also got some legal baggage i'm like is will like wait what the fuck i mean he's just so starved for friendship that here's another adult that needs his help kind of to be taken care of a little. I feel like Will got a little bit of a bad deal. Aww. I'm joking, but she's like, you know, Will's got a trust fund, which

we do know. I'm poor now, Will. I don't know. With his, like, just like Lyra said, you know, Will taught her to be discreet. You know, to use discretion. So maybe Mary will learn from him and they'll be able to skate through though i am curious i would love a book detailing how they get out of it all

learned hands will write us a legal well i guess they don't know british law that's different that's different way different law way different law just like their health care actually literally because i was joking with Chloe I was like damn he's got like Mary's debt and like whatever that to pay off and then his mom's medical debt that I remember no they have health care right wow

another time skip three weeks after Lyra had to leave Will forever she finds herself once more at the dinner table in Jordan College, but last time she was here, she had been under Mrs. Coulter's spell. But she's different now. She actually very much literally is. This time she is seated

by the Master and Dame Hannah Ralph, the head of St. Sophia's, which is one of the women's colleges. We love Dame Hannah Ralph in this household. After you finish this book if you haven't read labelle sauvage it's time pick it up because dame hannah ralph may or may not be in it and she may or may not be a goddamn g she's awesome in that yeah and but anyways you know

she uh she had originally lyra thought she was frumpy since coulter was there but now she's like wow why did i think that she's really kind and clever and interesting and she starts to learn what happened while she was away in the world the church's power increased but then waned as well with more liberal factions being brought to court the gob was dissolved the ccd leaderless and and Oxford's colleges were settling back to ritual. Some things, like the master's collection of silver were gone, servants as well, but not the

master's manservant cousins who Lyra used to have a very tense past with. But even he, her greatest enemy, was warm and kind to her, almost speaking to her with affection. Everything had changed while Lyra was gone. Yeah, doesn't he hug her and she's like, whoa, everything

really is different. Even cousins? They love you, Lyra. They love you. She held the fucking place together. Except for maybe, I mean, Dame Hannah Ralph probably cares about you, but she doesn't love you that much yet. She doesn't even know you. You know? Spent you like two seconds.

Dinner conversation turns to what happened while Lyra was away and lyra listens in dismay wonder and worry and finally they ask lyra if she can tell them of her journey if anything and she is she says she's willing right but she can't tell them all at once because she doesn't stand all understand all of it and some of it makes her cry, which is very understandable because it makes us cry. The one payment for hearing her story, though, is that they must promise to believe her. She tells them that, you know, she knows

she's got a reputation for not always telling the truth and that in her journeys actually, sometimes she did have to lie to survive. But she does have a true story, and it's so big. But they have to promise to believe all of it. Do you think they ever, like, that she ever did get to tell them everything? Maybe later?

I don't know. Maybe later in life. I guess it's possible. And also, like, I I mean she can't hold all that in like I think that seems painful for her but also yeah I want to believe that she did and also I think this is a I mean that's a little bit of adulthood too right learning how to kind of set those boundaries but being able to open yourself up and and being taken seriously right now she's being asked she's asking

to be taken seriously and given respect for what she has to share and she tells them that overall she wishes she hadn't lost her skill at reading the alethiometer that's like the second thing that she wishes she didn't lose the most um and that it was all got i mean it is yeah that's basically what it says it was got in an instant right that she had been like a monkey in the trees and now nothing which I'm like interesting with Jesper I feel like that's not a spoiler Jesper's right there

but Hannah tells her that those skills are not all gone there are books in Boldly's library and the scholarship in studying the alethiometer is alive and well I'm like nerd uh she studies dame hannah trying to find some more meaning but she can't really find that you know she can't read that or the alethiometer at this point okay but i think sometimes people never maybe that's just me but figure out how to read people yeah people's vibe yeah that is tough

and also she's like at a weird you know uh pre-teen juncture where it's like how like she like is like sort of being included in adult stuff but like not one yeah absolutely it's like when her mom was there but not you know is the other part like she's like how do i fucking trust you people right the last time i was at this dinner it started this whole goddamn charade right i should probably try to learn to read people better yeah so i don't do it again it's not just like oh a beautiful lady she must be nice that is a childish thing to think yeah it's like a disney characters are all you know actually now that i say it out loud the irony of it all anyways find out next year in the secret commonwealth um yeah that's the beauty i guess of this cut returning here you have to see how much

she's changed yeah yeah the master says that they have to create a plan for lyra's future and she's like i never really thought about my future once while i was gone but now i guess all i do is uh think about it because all i have is time to figure out how to fill anxiety yeah fun we love it she's like this is great i have a whole life but no idea what to do with it just like my alethiometer lol uh and she's in her head she's like i this is great. I have a whole life, but no idea what to do with it. Just like my alethiometer, lol. And in her head, she's like, I know my parents are probably rich, but I don't think they would give me access to it. They wouldn't have told anybody.

And she's like, besides, I probably used most of it starting wars or something. And she tells them Jordan used to be her home and that maybe she could go live with yorick on svalbard and be a bear or with seraphina at her witches or with egyptians but she really wouldn't fit in she feels lost she looks lost but also a little defiant a look that she learned from will without knowing and the master sees that in her now puberty as well she's awkward her grace is gone and he says she'll never be lost when this college remains. That Asriel made an endowment to take

care of her needs and appointed the master executor. He hadn't, but he had money of his own, and Jordan was rich. He didn't care. Aww, that's so nice. I love him. Steal from them. Good for you. I know. I love the master.

He also pocketed his squirreled away some money for her from himself too and also just like lyra being like i'm trying not to lie as much anymore but them realizing she's at this strange age now they're the ones kind of lying a little bit to her for her own benefit yeah unlike uh her mom who lied to her for bad things hold on and her dad well they don't count they're not here now people are lying to her for good yay he had meant uh you know this money for her learning future aka college she had missed a lot while she was journeying so she's gonna need to catch back up but if she were to make the alethiometer her initial study she could also need to catch back up but if she were to make the alethiometer

her initial study she could also set out to learn consciously what once she knew through intuition and if so then dame hannah would be her new educational bff dame hannah speaks and tells her you do not need to decide now but she tells her saint sophia's and its large boarding school in north oxford she wants ira to come and meet the headmistress and the other girls and make her choice. If she decides to take alethiometer 101, Hannah could give her private study hours. But don't worry about it yet. There's time.

You don't need to answer it now. And Lyra says she'll tell her when she's ready. And in her return, Lyra was given a key to the garden door by the master, able to come and go. She slips out that night, and Pan chases a mouse through the grass while she walks toward the wall. She loves watching Pan play, but they have to be careful about who sees it still, of course. I love that she gets her own mini movable garden, you know, in her backyard. movable garden you know yeah in her backyard uh one she can visit and just uh reap from its its source of nature and knowledge and dust but i also love this kind of source of tension almost

that they only get to really go use this garden in certain times because you know lyra now without her security demon she can't really be in public without him, right? Like she needs to at least have some semblance of pretend because it's still just not really societally accepted there. But also it's the opposite too. Now her demon can't be free of her when he wants. So he kind of loses a little bit of, you know, of his freedom. And I don't know, there's something interesting.

Their severing has to stay quiet so if lyra goes somewhere pan has to be with her and vice versa which kind of makes it hard like mary and will they don't have to really worry about their demons right no one can see them and if they do it's like well that means that i can see yours too and you can see mine so we know that about we're wargs together we see our demons but it's not really a say you, and you can see mine. So we know that about, we're wargs together. We see our demons. But it's not really a safe, you know, and they can't tell people is the other thing. Like they can't be loud and proud about their demon. It's a special happy secret just for them.

But that's less horrible torture than this of being stuck together and also severed from one another. I mean, I guess people could kind of explain their demon and be like, hey, I took a a personality quiz and i said that i'm this thing and that's a way to cover it but what you're saying with lyra just now like really made me think of how she can't really show her true self in that way and her true ability to everyone and while everyone else in the world right has to stay close together with their demon if we see lyra of course as a lens through which we can all kind of understand our own adolescence and like a coming of age story for everyone reading it um adolescence is that time where you start realizing oh i i have a whole inner world inside of myself and you start having to learn to hide parts of yourself and how to reveal certain parts etc um when you are in public and and learn to guard yourself with certain people etc well that's okay because will had to learn that from a much earlier age

and taught her the value of discretion speaking of of Will, she sits on their bench, waiting for Pan to come to her, trying to surprise her, but she catches him, of course. She's like, I knew you were there. I'm like, of course you knew. Anyways, they discuss the headmistress and going to the school. Lyra says it might be good. The other pupils might be super clever or more sophisticated

than her, and she doesn't really know she'll be able to keep up, which, I mean, understandable. Are the new kids going to be mean? You're the new kid i don't know she laments having to carry a pile of books everywhere to read the alethiometer and i'm like it's okay smartphones will be invented one day and then she asked pan a big question what the fuck did you talk about with kujawa pan don't tell her though they had sworn they would know when the time had come, but they wouldn't tell them until then. We have to find that out. There's no way we don't find that out in the Books of Dust, right?

There's no way. I'm sorry, that's too big of a thread to hang out there. Here is another way Will and Lyra are going to see each other again. Ooh. I feel it. I feel it in my bones. I'm just saying. I can feel it, you guys.

So Lyra had never kept secrets from Pan before, but she thinks it's only fair after her betrayal. He kept some from her and she lets it slide. And as they sit on the bench, she thinks about Will and thinks about how they probably have that in common. And she wonders if there would ever come in an hour in her life where she doesn't think of him, doesn't speak to him in her head, doesn't relive every moment they'd have together. She had never dreamed of what it was to love someone this much, and of the things that astonished her in her adventures, and that was what astonished her the most. And she actually thought that the tenderness was like a bruise that would never go away,

but she realizes she'd cherish that bruise forever. Pan slips down with her her and they're safe in the dark on the bench curled up together with their secrets it's very sweet lyra's adorable and thinks that in this city she'll find books to teach her to read the alethiometer and kind learned woman to teach her and that all these smarter girls she was going to befriend they don't know it yet but she's gonna befriend them so fucking hard they're gonna be my friends she thinks that's such a mood be my motherfucking friend i love that i love it i'm proud of her go get him tiger it is a little harder to make friends uh in adolescence You don't just click right away. Hayley, play us out.

Oh my god. Alright, well, Pan asks her a question asking what Will said about his father on the beach. And she remembers he had meant the kingdom of heaven was finished, but they were needed for something bigger. They could have gone to

Will's world and maybe gotten a good decade in, hopefully. But they were needed here for something bigger. And they needed to build something bigger, which was right where they are. They needed to build the Republic of Heaven. That is the Amber Speglas. Oh, my God. What a fucking book.

What an ending. Yeah. gorgeous it was an it was an epic story we went so many places in this one book oh yeah it's serious and it's like i don't know i like i've wanted to talk about this because like i had this experience with these with this trilogy in that i read the first one when i was in seventh grade and probably the next one that year or the next year something like that and then i became a adolescent and forgot about how much i liked reading books and did not even know that they're like had forgotten about this series entirely until something popped into my head when I was a freshman in college and I was like I wonder if there was another book in that series and then I read Amber Spyglass and it had like this book is so much more mature and when I read those first books it's like they were YA novels you know like

and even though the subject matter is kind of weird you're they're severing children but still it was like it was like if this is a book about consciousness and growing up it was like i got to like go back in when i was 18 to like what happens till i were here and like how heavy this book is and shattering it is yeah so that was kind of cool and then also to then read books of dust like now as an actual adult um which are way have a way darker bent i would say i don't know it reminded me of like a lot of people who got to read like harry potter like at the age of harry and then like as as they went those books like became like you're realizing with the main character, like how deep everything goes kind of. That's a cool thing about this series. But yeah, so this book is got a lot of stuff in it. Yeah. Can I ask, did you reread the first two books before you read the third one to like refresh?

I did. Because it had been a few years of a gap. Okay. Yeah, for sure. I would like, I was like, I remember like the basic gist of it. I remember the demons and the characters names. But yeah, I definitely did a reread. And I've since reread them a few times.

Like because, I don't know, like before the show came back on, I did a big reread of them all. So that I could do Secret Commonwealth. There's something comforting about them you know i didn't read them when i was younger as we've kind of talked about like i didn't read them then and i'm curious if i had read them then what would change about me right like about how i how i feel about the books interesting and i don't know that i would have appreciated them fully as a youngster as much like Like, obviously, I can't, I have no way to compare that. But now as an adult, I'm like, wow, I really appreciate having had experiences in my life, like reading this and like reading it through that lens.

Yeah, I definitely had a different experience then. I like, I think I liked that there was this like dark element to them. And I loved fantasy worlds and stuff. But and there was there was a lot of mystery in it of like really weird sort of societies doing strange stuff. And I always liked that. But reading it later, obviously, I feel like I can only read these books as like incredibly allegorical. Like they have a sort of mythic-ness to them. And it's like his style of writing is part of it.

And then also, obviously, all like the religious stuff. But it really feels like it's like so if he's rejecting the idea that like Eve caused original sin and that's like what happened was bad. He's trying to reframe that experience and growth is actually good. It's like almost like something about this series feels like yeah you're reading like a mythic text like he's rewriting for you like a sort of like reconstructed biblical text i don't know if that's a good way to put it but something about it just feels very like um like at times heavy-handed but then he gets into certain details like in these two last chapters that are like really poignant and personal,

but they all feel, yeah. Like, um, I guess mythic is like the word, I don't know, but I see that like the allegory and all of it. And it's like some of the,

some, almost everything in it has such clear analogy to our world as far as like consciousness goes. So, yeah. i think i think what you said is absolutely right though like uh there is an element where you can read it and just take the story in the plot as it is but it is i think meant to be written yeah read very allegorically too and i think um i like what you're saying right of how it's this retelling of the fall from genesis but it's reframed to be positive as you said right like it's not bad that people ate from the tree of knowledge or got cast out of the garden because

yeah of course you can stay in the garden but that's childhood everything's given to you it's easy but there's joy in having learned to earn and work for it yourself which is what they're saying about the alethiometer even though i'm like i don't know it seems real sad it's definitely all sad like all of it's sad and it's just like i think like part of the deal is that it's like yeah like everything really good comes with an ounce of pain, you know? And you're going to have to go through these awkward, uncomfortable times in order to, you know, have any hope of being, like, a full – have the full human experience. have the full human experience. And like if you try to protect yourself from the hard stuff, like by say severing part of yourself,

it'll only like sever your ability to actually experience anything beautiful and like transcendent, like falling in love. Like you can't fall in love unless you're like willing to sometimes be badly injured. But that's like a good thing and like it's all part of like it's like an acceptance of like that you know like being like yeah maybe you'll become self-conscious sometimes you'll like get feel like really lost or something like that but that's like part of the journey you'll still feel like right because it's like and you're like that's part of it like just like will saying how you know he doesn't want to be like sort of prescribed like his destiny it's like yeah if you're living everything under an authority or something sort of like guiding you or you don't have free will yeah i don't know

yeah you're not living we don't we're not living we don't want that that's not the republic not my republic of heaven yeah i mean i like that idea right that you know it all like feeds into the same place and everyone has to everyone gets to be part of it right so many places together yeah chloe do you want to know what your husband said that your demon is i guess i'm so excited uh so first when i was like this is urgent in all caps and i was like need answer before episode end so he goes oh geez and he goes cat large cat and i have to press right i'm like what kind of large cat species so he says panther and then he goes i mean probably a house cat is more honest if less cool and i was like any specific kind of house cat so then he said let's say abyssinia because of my cats. I like that. Damn, but you know what?

He went with my first instinct, too, was am I a giant fucking cat? Yeah. He was like, oh, is she like you pressed him and he's like panther? Oh, interesting. Good to know. Good to know. We need a species. That's what we're trying to do.

You know, there's a bunch of the different big cats are different kinds. He went big first. He went big first. Good for me. Good for me. I mean, I could be a panther. A panther is pretty different than a snow leopard you know yeah that's true that's true you're not a stalmaria i guess you would not do that to your kid wow well i don't know about all that you'll to find out uh before we move on to our before we move on to our discussion that will cover spoilers everything after the amber spyglass i just want to say thank you hayley for coming on

and for those that are listening right now before logging off where can they find you online again you can find me at manimals.band it's at manimals band on instagram i've got at drinking got as well if you like stupid game of stuff and that's on instagram also wonderful wonderful all right so without further ado as usual if you are not here to hear the discussion, the quick dust-cussion for our last dust-cussion for a while on the books of dust and the novellas, log out, log out. All right, and I think we are in. Welcome to the dust-cussion.

First things first, Lyra has met someone already on the path learning to travel between worlds. I'm thinking it's Mary, right? Mary seems like because she was learning, yeah, learning from Serafina. You know, one of our patrons, Janice, kind of helped me see the light on that because I was like, it also feels like it could be Lyra herself and she doesn't know it. Ooh. herself and she doesn't know it um you know kind of spicy take just because she's already she's already had perception like that and she's already had to look at things that way or pan yeah so oh but maybe it's mary foreshadowing lyra learning as well and you know with the seed oil and the rose oil mary gets seed oil lyra gets rose oil there are oils in two worlds

two parallel worlds right now that could possibly have magical properties about them that are near two of our protagonists and then the new method of reading the alethiometer feels really about this and not only that but like lyra is spending time on Georgiou Marbrandt's ship, right, at the front of the book, doing hard work. There's a whole passage where, I think it's actually in the snippets from the Imagination Chamber, where he talks about all of the tools and kind of like all the care he's teaching her and respect in using the tools. the tools. And there's also this one quote from the imagination chamber that I just have to read because I find it completely fascinating. Will, as a physician wondering about synthesisia and neural pathways, if someone, for instance, saw numbers in color, it was because of an accidental connection between neurons and in itself meaningless, but we can learn to see and hear things deliberately by training our senses and our memories. A piano tuner learns to hear

the beats that tell when two strings are not perfectly in tune, and in learning it establishes a new connection in the brain. When Will was a boy, there had been a vogue for magic eye pictures where you could learn to see a 3D image in a printed picture you only had to learn to do it once and next time it became easier a new neural connection had been set up and so that the things were really there but not noticed before they all became clear and apparent all he had to do was learn how to perceive them love it same language same exact language just marry him alone yeah will is learning it oh will is learning it and it also is kind of like what you guys were saying earlier about uh learning to tune your skill right and you're finding this the space in between of like that

sort of imperceivable whatever it is that like extra spice that like where your your brain it's like your your brain kind of like lets go and you follow some other property is sort of what's happening in there you embrace the emptiness yeah yeah cool yeah i like it yeah yeah we'll get there one day one day one day i mean like i i don't think it's far off i don't think it's far off either for both for us reading and both for uh philip releasing the third book i really don't release the dust release the boobs of dust oh my gosh um kind of a bummer that pan and lyra can't really ever be apart in public right that they have to like feign togetherness now and we see how that kind of becomes an issue over several years and becomes tension and resentment that's harbored and does make me wonder it feels like demons and people being severed and in like a societal way that's like safe and like everybody approves of it and nobody hates it anymore.

And they're like, no, it's not weird. We're not going to treat you like outsiders. Like if someone elects to do so in a safe way and goes through a trial that I don't know, I don't know how this works technically. But doesn't it feel like if that was a societal norm, they'd both be able to come to peace with who they are together and be able to also embrace it like as an elective? Yeah. My thought on that was like, and this was something I was like writing down earlier, because I think what's like one of the cool things in Secret Commonwealth is you start to realize like how many non-psycho ways there are to separate from your demon like it's not just you have to get cut apart by some giant guillotine like um you're like you can go through and these are like they have really clear real

world analogy which is you can go through an insanely traumatic experience like going to hell and back and needing to leave your demon on the other side and so this happens to other people who've experienced trauma of various types in the story like through the later books or like you can go on a vision quest like the witches and that ultimately extends your consciousness like physically literally like that makes me think of like a psychedelic ritual that you would do to sort of like change your relationship to yourself like in a really like deep existential kind of like ego death way and then later we find out you can also like hate yourself enough to make your demon go away but um that's it it's just like so it does seem that it's like if you were thoughtful like say a tribe that practices some kind of deeper connection to like why we do this journey

and like you it's intentional then it would be like the positive like let's say you know but maybe not if you're careless or something happens to you beyond your control right and it's like that that is like a cool thing apart so badly. Right. It's like you're you got like almost like frayed edges to like the tear. Like there's like pain there while the witches are like basically like stretching it in like such a like it does make me think of like cultures that do some kind of like vision journey or something like that where it's like and then you're it often is takes place around the time of puberty or something like that where you're it's like you're you're put through some type of trial to help you grow into like to bring ceremony to like the idea of you growing and changing and um it seems like that would be like the ideal in like the new world order of this like like post-church bullshit like that you would want um like a world where people could learn how to like manage their relationship with

their own consciousness in that way so it wouldn't be so like taboo or weird in lyra's world you'd want to promote that like you'd want to promote that freedom right but that would be like really you know yeah dangerous for the church or like different types of like educational systems that i feel like they have like a regimented way of viewing these things well and not to go ai on it but it's like now that you know demons feel things and they have their own lives and thoughts and like obviously they're part of a whole like lyra and pan are one in many ways and they complete each other's thoughts and like everything like you see pan brings her the thoughts that she doesn't even know that she needed you know that's very an important connection

yeah but also then yeah you see the opposite of that like you could see like if you don't let that flourish and if you you know struggle to keep that whole when one part maybe needs to leave to grow. Right. And what does it mean? Like, like, what's the analogy happening? Like with like having a secret basically from yourself? Like, what is that? Because it's like this is a part of her, but it's its own thing.

Is this almost like are they is he trying to like talk about like you're almost have like a repressed memory like something that you won't be able to pull out until another part of you kind of like returns or like you have an experience like that that's why i'm thinking about the pan and kerjava story that they're the secret that they have from their their humans yeah that it's like maybe there's going to be something that's going to like bring back this suppressed memory if that's like sort of what it's supposed to represent yeah because it's a part of them right yeah i think it's a it's a little of both i i think it sounds like something you know philip also likes to be like i'm discovering things about my world and my characters as i write right like maybe it's something he gardened about them because on one

hand it could be about repressed memories and there's like a couple of ways to go about and explore that that allegory right right um and another one is is it about being comfortable with knowing that you won't always know everything about yourself that you're always changing as a person and that there's always new things to learn and discover about yourself like for example i don't know discovering that uh i don't have a good example yet um i would say maybe like i would also say that maybe like the idea of like discovering like your own sexuality later in life or something like that like something where it's like oh this has always been in me but maybe it's only going to be like something dawns on you and then you're like oh wait there were a lot of context clues like throughout my life and it pieced together but

it is something that made it might have been held in like some little deeper recess or like you're unable to you know accept and access it and that's the thing what you're saying about being unable to accept and access it because you're not given the time to explore that right space to explore that just like exactly what you're saying about it being societally acceptable for the witches to have demons that can go further and explore and like i think the one thing is like you know that pain aspect but maybe if we were more comfortable uh being able to talk about that pain with each other and again like explore who we are right like as you're saying then it's we're all healthier as people and it leads us a little more towards that republic of heaven in which people are kinder they're more patient with each other because you

have space to talk about yeah totally it is so funny like how many different examples of like people expressing shame about their demons and the stuff that get like their interactions with it's like obviously you have like the essential an original conflict with like severing you know so that won't it won't change, you know, or so it will continue to change rather. And like, you know, we're trying to separate people from it so that they don't basically become adults. But then also like, touching a demon, touching someone else's demon, talking to somebody else's demon, people like don't really talk like to talk about like the hurt when you pull away from them, because it's like almost like a yucky

bad feeling. So it makes it's like, yeah from them because it's almost like a yucky bad feeling. So it's like everyone seems to have a real discomfort with their own selves. And just like simply the concept of it, even when in their world it's so obvious because it's like anthropomorphized. Yeah, a little bit.

That's a good point. Yeah. Free pan. Now that we've freed Will, it's time to free Pan. They were going to say pre-pandemic, and I was like, hmm. Hmm. When we started these episodes. Oh my gosh. We've changed.

We have changed, that's for sure. I will say- Our demons have settled. In that time. Finally, last but not least the master using his money and then what happens to him when the secret commonwealth and he's out of money oh so sad gotta pour one out for the master i'm gonna miss him for a bit he cared about he really cared about her no one else did just the master yeah speaking sorry i'm again i'm angry again you just shouldn't have reminded me get it out of your heart now eliana

this is your last chance so get it out seraphina first i guess she didn't technically say yes to it right she didn't technically promise yeah i will i'll be there for lyra uh and take care of her she just like kissed him on both cheeks and i guess that was like peace out kid sorry wow yeah where is she we do see in secret commonwealth like that's the saddest thing to me that i mean that whole first quarter of the book it's so good and sad that like she's alone she's isolated and alone and like she had a couple visits here and there but like people really just were like she's good it's so hard yeah well because she had to like she had a couple visits here and there, but people really just were like, she's good. It's so hard. Well, because she had to hide herself in that pain.

Yeah. And now she's just reading a bunch of shitty books, like, you know, becoming a bro. At the shot. Okay. God. What are we going to do with that girl? I hope her trip opens up her eyes.

Yeah. Praying. up her eyes. Yeah. Praying. Exactly. Yeah. I guess that's all I had for the discussion. Ladies, do you have anything else from the future books to bring into this? I don't know. I can't wait to take Serafina.

What the fuck? Okay, yeah, that's true. That's true. I'm due for a reread of Secret Commonwealth hopefully it will lead me into the third book being released and I would like that I'm also excited for the new show whenever it happens because I really

want to see how they do you know basically the end of heaven and hell and the world of the dead and all these crazy, crazy things in this book. Yeah, there's definitely a few things I'm excited to see. I know they've cut a couple things and, you know, I'm not too worried about that. Not too horribly worried.

I'm sure it'll work out fine. There's a lot to adapt, though. So it's going to be chunky. Chunky, chunky. Chunky. Chunky, chunky. Chunky. Chunk. Yeah. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure covering these books with you today.

Has it? Yeah. Shut up, Eliana. It's been horrible. It's been a horrible time. I've cried a lot. I'm very sad. I don't know if I've grown or learned, but maybe I have. Maybe I have.

Oof. I just have to hear the words botanic garden, and I'm like, oh, no. When you said that I would do these chapters with you, I was like, ugh, right to the heart. Well, I'm glad you came on to bear your soul with us, and we will have to have you back soon, hopefully for Commonwealth someday. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. This was super fun.

Love talking about it with you guys. Thank you, Haley. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. I guess you've already told everyone we're to find you again. So I guess we'll have to do that again. Yeah. For those listening at home,

thank you again for coming on this huge journey with us. And keep your eyes peeled for what's to come. Yes. And of course, if you have any thoughts, feel free to tell us. You can find us on social media at twitter.com slash girlsgoncanon. That's C-A-N-O-N. Or you can also send us an email at girls gone canon at gmail.com.

Yes. And if you haven't already subscribed to us on any of the major platforms like Google play, Apple podcasts, Amazon podcasts, I think we're on audible to my recollection and Pandora and a handful of others. Yeah. There are a couple that we would usually say, but...

But we're fighting with them. We're fighting... We're fighting the authority. I really do. We might. I'm trying. Honestly, I'm so pissed.

Yeah, and of course, somewhere that you can definitely always find this is on patreon.com slash girlsgoncanon where we will have bonus episodes about, you know, various things that we're reading, whether that's A Song of Ice and Fire. We are still going to probably do His Dark Materials episodes. We have a couple

that we definitely want to do someday, and other things. we do cover other things yeah and of course if you're interested the thunder tier and above ten dollar and up tier has access to our discord where we host events weekly and monthly whether they are episode discussions for house of the dragon or monthly brunch slash happy hour. Be sure to join up and get more details on that. Or maybe even probably His Dark Materials. November.

I don't want to put that on anyone yet. So anyways. Thank you. Truly thank you everyone for joining on this journey to read His Dark Materials. Whether it's your reread or whether you've, you know, it's your first time and you were like, I'm going to follow Eliana and Chloe on this journey. Honestly, like, this is our first time finishing a story.

I'm just emotional for a couple of reasons. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I've been one of your hosts, Eliana. And I've been another one of your hosts, Chloe. Thanks, guys. And thank you to our other hosts this time. Hayley. Hi, I'm Hayley. Thanks for having me. And buh-bye. Tell them stories. Oh my god.

I'm corny AF. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you