Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials: Episode 5 - Northern Lights/The Golden Compass Chapters 13-15

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

Northern Lights/The Golden Compass - Chapters 10-12 New members join Lyra's party: an aeronaut, an armored bear, and soon - however fleeting - a severed child. PART TWO: BOLVANGAR CHAPTERS 13, 14, 15 THIRTEEN Fencing FOURTEEN Bolvangar Lights FIFTEEN The Dæmon Cages   Interested in making a difference in children affected by tra.fficking?    Many immigrants are not informed of their legal and civil rights as they pursue asylum or face deportation. Several nonprofits are providing free legal representation and other services for immigrants and the families of those detained. United We Dream, the American Civil Liberties Union, Mijente, Immigrant Families Together, Save the Children and the Immigrant Justice Corps are coordinating advocacy and services at a national level. Local organizations providing legal aid include the New Sanctuary Coalition in New York, Las Americas in El Paso and Raices in Texas, Americans for Immigrant Justice in Florida and the Denver Immigrant Legal Services Fund in Colorado. Most charities say the best way to help is through financial donations, not product donations. Well-vetted groups that provide humanitarian aid to migrants include Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an organization with two shelters along the border of the Sonoran Desert, and Border Angels, a volunteer coalition that provides water, free legal help, and emergency services. You can also donate to Immigrant Families Together, a group started by women in New York, working to raise bond money for parents who were separated from their children at the border. They also work to arrange long-term housing and pro bono attorneys for immigrants while they await trial. (In one instance, Kristen Bell helped the organization reach the $30,000 bond goal for a mother named Delmi.) Organizations United We Dream, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Mijente are also helping coordinate advocacy and services for families.   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

you're listening to girls gone canon covering his dark materials hello and welcome to girls gone canon his His Dark Materials, Episode 5, Northern Lights, The Golden Compass, Chapters 13 to 15. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as Liza Narber on Twitter, Tumblr, and LizaNarberGold.com. And I am another one of your hosts, Aliana. You might know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit, or maybe as Arithmetric on Twitter. Hello, everyone. So as we don't need to give you the spiel anymore, you're here. It's episode five.

You know what we're doing. All right. It's His Dark Materials. We know what we're doing now-ish, I think. Debatable. Debatable. Every week it's different this is so different uh if you've followed us before our podcast before it was a song of ice and fire and game of thrones

based now we have added a new series i'm excited because i'm really dedicated to it and also eliana promised me we could do another series at one point, too. So I'm like, we could just do books forever. I love books. I was talking to my landlord and I'm about to move out of this place, but he's going to start a book club rereading some books that we've already read. They're the Three Body Problem books or Remembrance of Earth's Past, depending on what you feel like calling it. Three Body Problem, in my opinion, is more catchy, so whatever.

And yeah, I was like, yeah, for sure. I definitely want to come to those because if there's anything else that I need, it's to reread more books than I already do. Yeah. I feel like consuming books is so important. I'm glad that's our key solidarity right there. Read books, read them all. Just read them again and again. Even if they're bad, at least you don't have to do it again.

That's true. Something that I learned at some point is that if you don't like a book or anything, you can stop. or anything you can stop yeah you really can you can it's a great thing i i miss book fairs and stuff like that i remember that as a kid that was like my favorite thing the library i love the library i still do yeah someone tweeted recently they're like it's october and outside it smells like the first tuesday of the scholastic book fair and I was like, whoa. Whoa, what a throwback. Yeah, it kind of does. So. Did I ever tell you about the time I bought a book about skateboarding

to impress that guy? Wasn't that in our podcast? Let's rehash that. When did we talk about that? Was that a Song of Ice and Fire? It obviously had to have been a Song of Ice and Fire. When was that? If you remember, let us know. I think it was a Sansa chapter. Same.

Hard same, Sansa. But we are reading the His Dark Materials series, and today we are going to cover three chapters from Part 2, Bullvangor. Chapters 13, 14, and 15. Chapter 13, Fencing. 14, Bullvangor Lights. And 15, The Demon Cages. cages after that we will have a discussion it's our book spoilers after section so tune out if you don't want to know what happens after the golden compass slash northern lights and after that usually is a dustier discussion

however i think eliana and i are almost head and head right now with where we are. Yeah, there's nothing that much dustier. I think some of our listeners are actually ahead of us in terms of material that they've consumed. Yeah, dark material. Oh, wow. I know Warren, our friend Warren is ahead. I know a couple other people that have already probably finished the secret commonwealth. So we need to get our crap together well it's secret to me now

of course we are trying to finish this by november 4th when the series premieres in the u.s for bbc hbo his dark materials we're very excited about that we have a very special patreon episode coming up for all of our five dollar and up patrons we do have a episode based solely around his dark materials everything you need to know about the upcoming his dark materials series we're gonna also talk about everything you need to know about the golden compass and what the hell happened the movie when it came out the movie yes i think it did win a razzie let me check i hope to know this information yeah it wasn't wasn't a well adored movie by fans by canon fans and as we are canon fans eliana has not seen it it's going to be the opposite of our read through

eliana's the one that's going to be new to seeing the golden compass and it's uh gonna be good because i'm going to see her live in the flesh watch it so it did not win a Razzie but it did win a yoga award for worst foreign actress and worst foreign film and both Nicole Kidman and Chris White

won not the best received movie but I think it does hold merit we're going to reveal some secrets if you guys listen to we had a patreon episode patrons for winter is coming the first episode of game of thrones and we did that with Manu from a scene of ice and fire my nuclear bomb on twitter and we're gonna do something similar with this we're gonna be covering the first foray into his dark materials the golden compass and everything got canceled but now it's coming

back it's been resuscitated as a television show just when you thought it was leaving the world like matter it actually seems to happen a lot chloe's making faces at me she's trying to she's trying to tell me things but i'm not going to spoil all the humor not in the discussion yet she's trying to tell me things but i'm not going to spoil all the humor not in the discussion yet anyway so yeah that seems to be like what happens with a lot of things for example it sounds like the avatar the last airbender movie which there is no movie in bossing say is being in that tanked and now they're trying to make a live action version i think on netflix as a television show so you know it's the future everything is a chance at new life now yeah absolutely well i'm glad that even though a new line kept the rights to this series which we will continue on the path and talk about in this patreon episode coming out

towards the mid end of the month we will uncover some of this and i think his dark materials as a series really has a lot to offer i think it will do well i think now it has the right people attending it and maybe the right audience for it i think at the time we just weren't ready for that media shock of all this crazy satanist oh my god we've been reading. It's obviously Satanism, right? Yeah, it is, pretty much. It's so bad. It really is. Along with our Patreon episode, though, we have some other exciting His Dark Materials

X-Girl Gone Canon news. Oh, wait. XOXO Gossip Girl Gone Canon? Yes. We could do that book series. I would totally do that. I'm just putting that out there. I've read two.

I need to read the books. I liked the show. I was in middle school. I need to actually finish the show one day. But anyways, so we have a special guest, everyone. Yes, tell them I'm so excited! It is our very first guest to join us for His Dark Materials. To put it all up, we talked about this person a few episodes ago.

We were very excited to have our friend shoot us an email and show us some of her artwork about His Dark Materials. Everyone, everyone, Tana Ford from Westeros Weneverly, aka whenever lee aka whenever lee is going to be joining us and you might actually know some of her art if you're a marvel fan she designed cindy moon for a couple different issues of silk silk yep silk and amazing it first appeared the amazing spider-man number one The design she's done are just amazing. So check it out online. So we are super excited to have Tana on

for this. We are big fans of her and she definitely thinks that I drink poor beers but whatever. I'm gonna have to step up I'm gonna have to step up my beer game when she comes on the cast apparently yeah Tana did some really cool

art of Tony Macarius is a fish fish house and we're gonna talk more about that fish house again today maybe we should ask her to make us a cocktail as they do on whenever they for this episode that would be really awesome

yes the Westeros wheneverly way we will have to ask tana for a cocktail choice we'll hit her a message well no emails or tweets a note today to chat about we will have some probably next week it looks like but for now let's jump into chapter 13 fencing lyra wants to run or puke or something upon seeing this awful awful sight as you'll all remember it is a human with no demon which is unnatural the poor boy in front of her cries for matter his demon and she asks his name it's tony macarios you'll all remember him from from the earlier episode he was the one the first boy that we saw taken by mrs coulter lyra swallows to stop her nausea and goes outside to sit in the snow together with pan oh to be cut from him as this little

boy had been parted from his ratter. When I was first reading this chapter, do you remember? Well, not even this one, like all of it. Every single little bit of thing like this. I was just like, Eliana, no. Is this going to happen to Pan and Lyra? Please don't say something bad's going to happen to Pan and Lyra. My heart couldn't take it. Bad things happen to Pan and Lyra.

Bad things, but no spoilers. Just know in your heart, gets better well maybe not better it gets worse but i mean things things are okay they're all right you'll be fine you'll live you'll live through this series i have a friend that's listening to us and reading through the series for the first time and she was texting me today and she's like what are you doing to me this is awful i'm like i know and, Eliana said it was going to be bad and you guys, I believed her but like, then it was worse.

It made my heart break 800 times. It was the best book ever. Best, best. So good. I think this was a formative experience for me. I know. Oh, that says so much about you. Wow. I know, I just keep saying, like saying I want to reread Amber Spyglass

I want to reread it but we'll get there you know I thought Ratter has so much there's so much to talk about Ratter in this chapter this is a Ratter chapter first of all Ratter is not

this is not a laughing matter but Ratter isn't really a rat very often. No. Doesn't change much, and we'll learn that soon. But, you know, there's a lot of that representation of souls we've been talking about in Demons. And I feel like this chapter and the following chapters really do a lot to remind me of Plato and Socrates versus Aristotle on souls.

In Plato, Plato aligns with Socrates on thinking that nothing could actually affect the body that could affect the soul, right? Like death, age and sickness wouldn't affect the soul in his mind. But Aristotle seems to think almost more like Pullman in that the soul can't be separate from the body unless humans die. It exists only in a specific person at a specific time and in a specific place. And in a way, I feel like it almost represents the two forces of like the order and the magisterium and company versus humanity, right? Like Plato despises the body and thinks separation of body and soul is optimal but aristotle thinks that the soul is the life force right like that is what makes us who we are yeah i think there's a little bit of both going on here and i think um you know

in terms of the mind and body dualism it's really interesting because in these series the soul rather than necessarily being as it is in the real world this ephemeral idea that people philosophize about it's tangible right so you can have so the discussions about it are very different but i think that and i guess that's why they're doing these experiments yeah to figure it out these are like actual experiments but yeah and we can talk about that because that happens in this episode and therefore isn't a spoiler no you all have to have read this by now and if you haven't i'm very what are you doing you already know we're loose cannons we're loose girls you know we're on loose girls chapters 13 through 15 you know where we're at yeah we literally put it up top i can't be held

responsible anyway especially not for my own actions anyway so yeah i think there's a little bit of both going on because it sounds like aristotle thinks that the soul also dies when the living organism dies, but it's up in the air. It's debatable. Yeah. We'll come back to that. We'll come back to definitions of death in a later episode. Yeah, I mean, what is death? It's a little of both.

Yeah, that's why I guess, yeah, it is a little of both. It's a little of both yeah that's why i guess yeah it is a little of both it's a little both i could see both sides at play and i think it's interesting you mentioned the research portion of it because we're about to come across a very much so research oriented scenario um we'll see we'll see but at first pan and lyra are just whimpering and sobbing no they're just sobbing about the boy without his demon and lyra finally gets it together and calls for tony to come out so they can get him somewhere to safety i'm really appreciating in this it's kind of like my second read through now i guess of this literally is your second read through the series it's literally wow at this point i've lapped myself but i'm appreciating the intimacy right

now between pan and lyra like every single chapter in my hdm life here because once you appreciate that intimacy and see it as a whole picture especially like how the souls and people operate it's it's very intense i cry a lot more now you know there's that and also i appreciate there's so much that i appreciate about lyra like yeah, she goes outside to sob, and, you know, she has to take that time to collect her feelings, but she doesn't do it in front of Tony. She doesn't make this lonely, cold boy responsible for her feelings and for seeing her pity for him, right? and foreseeing her pity for him right she goes she handles it and manages her feelings on her own and then she comes back and she takes care of tony in the fish house and tony comes to the door with his dead fish in hand and the fisherman with the lantern calls to them with yorick saying yo this guy wants you to pay for the fish and loy was like fuck that fuck that we're taking this boy away from him that's payment enough and the man's like

you right that's the thing is like he's just been staying there right he's been crowded for cover huddled up just staying there and I think that's very sad no one's bothered to do anything

it's also messed up because it's an ice house, so it's preserving him, too. Oh, yeah, that's true. There's a lot of weird things going on with this ice house and the fish. There's a thought that I had earlier while rereading. Maybe it's out there and too deep, but the idea, you know, another perversion

of the fishers of men, as they call people who, sorry, I'm trying to come up with words. Fishers of men, that idea of spreading the gospel, right? And that's what, I don't know, that's an undertone. Not going to touch on it too deeply. Yeah. I have a similar thought. We'll come back to it in just a little bit, because I do have a similar thought. So Lyra helps poor little Tonyony macarios mount yorick and all he can do the whole time is

say that he doesn't know where router is lyra gives a speech about punishing the gobblers if they can for what what they've been doing that reminds me a lot of john faz speech in chapter eight frustration that we read just a while ago. He says, when the time comes to punish, we shall strike such a blow as will make their hearts faint and fearful. We shall strike the strength out of them. We shall leave them ruined and wasted, broken and shattered, torn in a thousand pieces and scattered to the four winds. Don't you worry that John Fah's heart is too soft to strike a blow when the time comes and the time will come under judgment not under passion it just makes me think of lyra

really embodying those leaders that she's getting right these paternal and maternal figures that are kind of showing up into her life again yeah she learned so much from all of them i don't know if she we can say she really punishes anyone though no she doesn't i think what i really love about this series so far is just how it zooms in on lyra right and her actions and the ripple effect that her actions have on all these people and their people right the people they come from um the lands they live on and lyra either protecting or in some cases being detrimental to those people's causes right the antagonist of the story for lyra it's weird because the povs aren't like in a song of ice and fire which we've read where it's each person's thoughts and actions consistently we get just kind of this pan view haha this panel a-mon view of of just

everyone around her and what lyra really has brought as a cause yeah it's all for her for this little girl all these people are so you know we have to help her we're helping lyra excuse me that was a spoiler for my heart but for, Lyra can feel Pan and want to reach out and cuddle the child. But the great taboo stops him from doing so. They ride through the village, seeing the horror on the villagers' faces and relief as well, as they take the child away. And even though Lyra also feels revolted, she keeps her arms around Tony. And from time to time, Tony speaks asking if Radder's going to know where he is.

It's like the worst. And Lyra is just like, not to agree with her. Like, you know, obviously we know Tony's been in awful conditions. And yes, it's gross because no demon and that's a big taboo and culturally it's just like weird for anyone that has a demon in her world but just my arms to keep him safe and we're gonna get him there and things will get better yeah i just loved the line that they have and how they physicalize this like in lyra's heart revulsion struggled with compassion and compassion won and i think that we've been talking

about who Lyra is and her values this episode so far and a couple of previous episodes and I think that this is absolutely just so indicative of who she is that compassion wins sigh it's

yeah and that's that's kind of every choice she makes right like even when she's lying and she might not be telling the whole truth or even when she's doing questionable things the reason she's doing it is usually very good-hearted and strong-hearted um for good reasons to protect people and to help people. Except for when she's at Jordan College wreaking havoc. Yeah, and that's just being a kid, though. Yeah, exactly. She's just doing nonsense.

She's just being a kid, dude. But no, it is, though. It's a bummer, because they're just trying to do their damn jobs. They love her. They love her for it. They do, somehow. Well, yeah, and we'll see that, too.

They all do. But yeah and we well we'll see that too they all do but yeah it's it's hard because it's very indicative of lyra's character and it's worse because she's a kid and she shouldn't be doing this or having to do this yeah we have a lot of characters throughout the story saying that wow shit okay so it's all on her shoulders they're like she's so young the master thinks that you know the story Lyra soothes him with the answers that he wants to hear

Tony is very upset so she has to calm him and tells him that yes we'll find Radder they make their way back to the camp Fardercorum, Lord Fa, and Lee Scoresby all leap forward to help them, but silently fall back at the other child with her. Fa asks what child she's found,

and she tells him he's called Tony and that his demon has been cut away. The men stay back, fearful, and E. Yorick shames them. Again, another, uh, kind of another callback to Chapter 8 with Frustration when Jon Fah was shaming Raimund, but here Eorik is shaming the men. Shame on you! Think what this child has done! You might not have more courage, but you should be ashamed to show less!

They get it, dude. Jon Fah, Eorik, they get it. Yeah, they do. They see eye to eye. There's a lot of people who are similar to one another in the series, but not in a bad way. They're all clearly different people or bears. So Jon Fah agrees with Eorik,

and he commands that fires be lit and soup be made for the children lyra tries to tell john fa about the witches and what she learned but she's tired and she falls asleep temporarily lyra sleeps a lot in these few chapters she's a very busy baby girl me too dude me too i feel you lyra Very busy baby girl. V-tired. Pan awakens her, and Eoric is there. He wants to chat. She thanks him for helping in the journey and asks him to tell Jon Fah

about the witches. She falls asleep and wakes to a misty, pale sky, and the Gyptians are packing up their sledges and dogs. She's asleep in a heap of furs from Fardricorum's sledge, and pan runs around as an arctic fox before reverting to his air mine form so i'm sure that many of you actually already know this but one of pan's as you know favorite forms is an air mine and the reason for it is

kind of meta part of philip pullman's inspiration for the demons and the story was actually a da Vinci painting, Lady with an Air Mine. It's pretty straightforward. If you take a look at it, in that it is a lady with an air mine. So Eorik is asleep nearby and Coram's busy. He limps and he wakes Lyra. Lyra tries to tell him what she missed on the alethiometer about Tony and his demon, but he interrupts her and he gives a very sad, Maester Aemon-esque speech. Lyra, I'm afraid to tell you this after what you've done,

but that little boy died an hour ago he couldn't settle he couldn't stay in one place he kept asking after his demon where she was was she a coming soon and all and he kept such a tight hold on that barreled piece of fish as if oh i can't speak of it child but closed his eyes finally and fell still and that was the first time he looked peaceful for he was like any other dead person then with their demon gone in the course of nature they've been a trying to dig a grave for him but the earth's bound like iron so john fa ordered a fire built and they're going to cremate him so as to not have him despoiled by carrion eaters child you did a brave thing and a good thing i'm proud of you now we know what terrible wickedness

these people are capable of we can see our duty plainer than ever what you must do is rest and eat because you fell asleep too soon to restore yourself last night. And you have to eat in these temperatures to stop yourself getting weak. I love Chloe's grandpa voice. Barter Chloram? It is! You have such a good grandpa voice. Thanks, I wanted to add like a tiny touch of south, but then I was wary of a character we're going to introduce more and more of, Lee. And I'm like, what about my southern twang if i noticed i noticed you know i was like i want it to be a slight little southern twang but a

little ancient but not too ancient yeah not maester amon dial it back like a couple decades so thank you thank you he's he's still strong he like goes on this boat journey you know and he's totally fine oh i mean compared to mr amon yeah and no rum barrel that's true so lyra after all this then asks to see tony's body and friday quorum's like seems right and she and pan who is in this moment a white hair bound over to where the men are piling brushwood she closes tony's eyes and sweeps Pan into a hug, thinking of how devastating it would be to be apart from him. And she remembers that all Tony had was a piece of dead fish from the fish house in place of a demon. And then she realizes, where is it? Where's the fish? Oh my god, her emotion here is really intense.

I love this little passage, like couple of passages, because it's just, again, indicative of Lyra's character. And Pullman does an amazing job writing some of these characters. They get real into your heart. I do want to establish that, since I pointed it out, I guess, Pan turns into a white hare here as they go over there and i thought it was interesting because obviously anytime pullman says that the demon is white you want to think of more purity right you want to go pure virgin yada yada we get it here the savior whatever i don't know but we want to go pure

and a white hair is totally a very big purity symbol so i thought that was really interesting because lyra is going over there with the most pure intentions and her heart is obviously and her soul is she's just pure she's we know she's innocent her innocence as a child is what kind of like gets her out of a lot of shit obviously that's what children are like um they get out of a lot of shit by their innocence and purity in their their young age but another interesting thing is this whole fish house thing um ice was this huge import in kind of the early 1920s from scandinavia into the UK. Factories eventually started cropping up so they didn't have to worry about it.

And they still exist in the UK. They're usually too far gone, broken down, debilitated to use or fix. But the fish house we find Tony in is probably a mix of something we in the US would look at as like a shanty or ice shack. Something on the ice, something in the U.S. would look at as like a shanty or ice shack something on the ice something on the water but mixed with what was introduced to Britain in like late 1600s usually domed brick line structures with a drain and kind of some insulation so they could keep food and ice in there game larders also marked on surveys for many many years ice houses and Scotland has like long ruined decrepit ice houses that have tunnels

underneath which is really interesting i thought that was very interesting i was like oh tunnels i want to know where they go and to follow up on that dead fish symbolism in general that we were kind of chatting about the fish earlier and that whole you know fishers of men yes fishers of men situation it almost makes me think about that very basic christianity fish symbolism it goes back kind of farther even than its first record the first written record was the clement of alexandria from 150 who implemented wax seals with fish or dove to mark people as believers, so if they were sending a letter... Were they seals or were they fish or doves? I'm about to get fired.

You've been fired. So, wax seals, Eliana, with fish or dove imprinted on a seal, which is a wax seal, not an animal seal. They're on seals. But it would mark people as believers when they sent mail.

So even if you were sending an innocent letter, you could probably use some diplomacy to see if you were on the same side, et cetera, because, you know, there's war and shit, I guess, whatever. But there's also even older Roman monuments like Capella Graeca erected in the first decades of the second century that use fish as symbols in christianity as well and here we are with tony holding a dead fish it's like a twisted abandoned child believer of god thing right like he's been forgotten by this god whoever this god is overseeing this story if we ever meet him he has abandoned this

child after he has been cut he is worthless his his soul his creature has been cut from him and he is worthless in this plan for god now and i'm gonna just come back to a comment about that later on in this episode but yeah i think that's absolutely that's absolutely like nail on the head it was i was hoping that because i was like am i just reaching too deep because all this religious symbolism it's like of all things this kid comes across it's a dead fish yeah chooses his i'm like a half zombie kid demon i think that's definitely for me it feels intentional and even if it's not you know it's a known in my opinion a symbol especially within christianity so i mean you see a fish you know what it's from the water it's on

a license plate it's on a bumper sticker lyra is furious and no one responds to her when she asks where the fish is and one of the men begins to grin sheepishly and she says don't you dare laugh i'll tear your lungs out if you laugh at him that's all he had to cling on to just an old dried fish that's all he had for a demon to love and be kind to who's took it from him where's it gone i'm like afraid i'm looking down at my shoes right now as i imagine those men are yeah i mean she's damn not the first time she has shamed them in recent times yeah and in recent times in the past 24 hours past like 10 minutes i love like even when she showed up to the gypsians she was like ferocious and annoying she reminds me i think everyone can find a little bit of themselves

in lyra right as a youngster like you don't have to be super brave or super this or super that like everyone has a little lyra in them somewhere and just that whole like nope shamelessly like i am lyra shamelessly i love that i love that about Yes. But what's really crazy about this is Pan then turns into a snarling snow leopard, just like Estelle Maria, her father's demon, Asriel. But she then thinks she didn't see that. All she saw was right and wrong. Wow, that was an Asrielism. Yes. That's interesting. Maybe that sentence is a little bit closer to home than she knows, right? Like, you could replace Asriel in that, probably, pretty easily. All he saw was right and wrong. And greed. But that's neither here nor there. Maybe later. Yeah, maybe. He's definitely ambitious. He's definitely a Slytherin. lutheran yeah absolutely it's weird because i really thought that lin manuel was playing him originally i was very confused just because of the way the articles were i was like he's azrael

i would love to see that i just think the range is crazy like that would be nuts i do like the the moment in the recent trailer where so as you all know everyone another trailer came out for his dark materials and they have lin manuel Lee scores, be hopping up on something going, has anyone seen a bear? I'm like, love it. You're out there in the audience like, roar! I'm like, yes! It's me. No. I'm right here!

too does this man who says that he was sorry. He has a pretty innocent reason. He thought the boy had been eating it and he took it out of the boy's hand because he felt it would be more respectful so that the dad's not going off with this half-eaten meal and then he just gave the fish

to his dogs. And so that sounds good to us. We're like, oh, we get it, but sounds probably pretty bad to lyra how does she take that yeah i mean she doesn't take it absolutely terribly right she understands now that they're she understands it's not just right and wrong in this room she's like i guess that was innocent enough he apologizes but lyra does clarify that it's not me you need to apologize to and then she borrows a knife from the man who i i'm sure was hesitant to give it to her at first when she's like give me your knife and

be like oh and then she takes a gold coin from her pocket and scratches the demon's name ratter and slips the coin into tony's mouth so that he can go off into his afterlife like a jordan scholar this speaks just volumes about her yes again indicative that's the word of the day we're gonna talk about the scholars again actually in chapter 15 there's a little bit of a nod there but stay tuned on that um good for you lyra what's this chapter good for you lyra she heads back to farter quorum who gives her soup and they talk about witches she wonders to him if one of the witches flying for the wrong team that they saw overhead has been quote unquote his witch lyra it's rude to gossip leave farter quorum alone he is an old man

and he has had a very long life it's been a yeah he has maybe he just wanted some closure with his summer fling yeah that resulted in stuff like a legacy or heirs or so he says that he wouldn't presume that far he's like don't meddle where you shouldn't be meddling kid is basically what he's thinking he's like please leave my horrible bachelor life alone uh but he's like they can go wherever they want they're witches and then he mentions how witches live a different life than they do and we're gonna learn a lot about this next week with tana during uh the witches episode but illnesses wars they're all different for witches right they're battling a lot of different stuff it reminds me of endgame the avengers if you haven't

seen it spoiler alert but captain marvel is like there are other planets dude earth isn't it like there are other places that are suffering and there's not a lot of us that are saving it so sometimes you got to be where you got to be and that's pretty much the witch in question here in my opinion but uh far decorum wishes he had seen them flying off and he tells her you better eat up before we get ready to go she watches them lay tony to rest she closes her eyes during the prayer and later she watches them burn him they set off to travel and the journey is snowy and cold and empty and on this journey along with them there are snow doggos someone call up cuba gooding jr because we are out here we have snow dogs and that's actually the movie

we're going to watch for our patreon episode you know there's a song from snow dogs and i'm gonna say the song name in a second oh you're gonna be like i barely remember it do you remember hoku no i let the song another dumb blonde it was in snow dogs if i recall i don't remember this song well it was on the soundtrack and I remember it like it was yesterday. So I can sing it to you, I'm not gonna. Okay, wow, what a tease. If you want me to, I could. It's like, that's alright, that's okay, you didn't love me anyway.

I do know this song. And I think it's time for you to find another dumb blonde. I think I do remember this song. This sounds familiar. I had it on Hit Clips. Oh my god. Yeah, I said it. Hit Clips.

So, sliding past Cuba Gooding Jr. on the ice here, they stop to rest, and Jon Fah and Lee Scoresby discuss balloon travel. Lyra asks Sparta Corum, what happened to the spy fly? I like that they're calling it spy fly now. I do too, and I like that there's like a little dash. It's cute. He soldered it super tightly, and it's in the bottom of his kit bag, which has just some helpful supplies. And Fardercorum speaks to the other leaders,

and she takes that time to take the tin to eoric and explain her idea to him she remembers that eoric could slice through metal of the engine cover beforehand and she's like can you please do something with this and he folds the tin into a flat cylinder with his weirdly opposable thumbs those exist apparently he has opposable thumbs he's not like other bears well he's like the other bears that are like him yeah yeah yeah that's true he he's still not like that though but he scores the tin for folding so that it stays taut and he turns it into a case for the alethiometer and then he makes a second case that's filled with grass and dirt

and he puts the spy fly in there so it softens the buzz and solders it together she sits with him after and asks him if he gets lonely without a demon and he's like i'm a bear i don't really know what lonely is it doesn't really bug me and she's she was so concerned the spy fly would bring coulter to them she had him do all this. Like, she hid it on her person and kept the spy fly with her. She literally took it out of the kit bag, had E. Oric score this tin and put it all together for her

and make two separate tins, one that's a fake so she can put it back in the kit bag and scored the alethiometer with the spy fly just so she can keep it close to her, keep everyone safe and keep Coulter away from them.

That's some courage. That's our girl. That's my daughter, dude. I birthed her. Move over, Mrs. Colter. I taught her everything she knew. Yeah, sorry, Marisa. We're the Jordan Scholars now. Scholars, sisters. Oh, that's a Hamilton reference. I'm sorry.

I still don't get it. You're fine. Lyra asks Yorick about the small bard bears that there are thousands of them and she's like don't you want to go there and he ignores the question but then she admits that she's asking because she's interested in what's happened to her father who is captured and held there and yorick's like i can't really help you i I am a Svalbard bear. But now I'm not, because I killed another bear and have a dark, brooding backstory.

Uh, Sandor? Sand Yorick. They took his rank and armor and they made him live at the edge of the world and he tells her, I was out of control. And Lyra says, but they treated you like you're treating my father. You know, he was wealthy and high ranking and killed someone. So they also took all his wealth away.

He's the beast. This is what he's done. These are his horrible crimes. And we know Pullman actually likes a lot of fairy tales. He's talked about it often. He had an interview in The Guardian where he talks about how the modern novel envelopes a lot of the qualities of a fairy tale but he says a fairy tale isn't a text in the literary sense it's not made out of words that are carefully chosen so no other word would do it's made out of events and he said that the sense of justice

that tends to drive the story children have a profound and unshakable belief things have to be fair. We see this in characters like Lyra from His Dark Materials, in Arya in A Song of Ice and Fire. These children like stories in which the good people are rewarded and the bad are punished. And we see that in Eoric and Lyra, especially in their relationship and how she regards him and his armor and his soul that he's lost. And it reminds me of a couple of different fairy tales I'm sure Pullman might be Pullman-ing from in these books. I think he might be pulling from the Snow Queen a lot, and we're going to talk about that at length, but also East of the Sun, West of the Moon. It has bears in it,

and it has this kind of Beauty and the Beast kind of story and journeys to the cold north. Snow Queen's definitely much closer suited to Lyra's story, and it's actually told in seven parts. It's long. We'll talk about it mostly in the discussion. But I do want to give a short blurb that the Snow Queen is Hans Christian Andersen saying your spirit dies when you abandon love and stories. And Eorik seems pretty jaded he's kind of seemed like he's abandoned living amongst his people and his spirit his real armor was taken from him he has nothing kind of to live for

Lyra tells him the only thing she knows about Spellbard where he lived is that it's deep in the north over a frozen sea and Eorik comments and is like you couldn't get there from this coast over the sea you'd need a boat or a balloon or the right wind. Too bad they have neither of those, right?

A what? Fascinating. He eats reindeer and Lyra remembers the witches and she asks about Svalbard again. She listens to stories of glaciers and rocks and seals and narwhals from him. She asks where the new armor he has is from, and he answers it was made in Nova Zembla from Skymetal, and he was incomplete without it. She thinks out loud,

bears can make their own souls. She asks who the king of Svalbard is. He answers Eofur Ragnarsson. It's- Is it a new name to Lyra, though? She suddenly remembers that a scholar spoke of him at Jordan in the retiring room when she listened to Asriel. I just wanted to call out this line because I liked it of how Lyra remembers the Jordan scholar voices, which is, quote, precise and pedantic and lazily arrogant. I'm like, damn.

It was the Palmerian professor, too. He was a dick. Yeah, he was. I mean, they're all dicks, but... And he was like all, hence you're born. Yo, for his vain, he could be flattered, and Lyra retained that. That's all she remembers, though. She can't remember anything else.

She loses the rest, and Eeyore is like, there's no way your father... Yeah, she does. But she's always yeah she falls asleep a lot is she okay same i mean yeah is she i don't know i don't know you work though is like such a bummer he's like there's no way your father's gonna escape by the by he says there's no resources for him to make a boat he'll be treated fairly though they might give him a home to live in with a servant and food By the by. He says there's no resources for him to make a boat. He'll be treated fairly, though. They might give him a home to live in with a servant and food and fuel till he dies, which is nice.

You know, a light to die by. That's nice. Yeah, it's not the worst. It probably is for a Slytherin, though, like Asriel. It's like definitely not. Lyra asks, well, could the bears ever be defeated? And he says no, because they cannot be tricked or defeated. And then he tells her, you've seen my armor.

Now look at my weapons. And then he holds out his hand paws. Look at the little bird. He does do that. But Lyra's like way more excited. She's like, wow, cool. Because his paws are thick black pads and each claw on it is sharp as a knife and as long as Lyra's hand, at least, on each. Oh my god, that's huge!

She's like, one blow would crush a seal's skull or break a man's back just like an egg. And it throws me back to that scene in Wreck-It Ralph. The villains. Oh my god, she is Vanellope. Oh, you're right. There's similarities. And Yorick is Ralph.

Yeah. Wow. Anyways. And he's like a hero. He is a hero, just like Ralph. He's gonna wreck it. I'm gonna wreck it! Oh my god. He makes her fence with a stick against him, which is where we get this chapter title

fencing and she fails he flicks it aside super easily you know he's like i was in snow dogs and i won't stand for this shit two references one episode two girls one canon trust your heart yorick isn't surprised in the least by her fans honestly the way that they describe him in the scene actually sounds adorable and not scary i know that lara comes out of it feeling like more afraid of it but no he's like sitting on his haunches and he's like by being non-human no one can me. I can see deceit and trickery easily, like limbs, in ways that Lyra has forgotten. But I do want to say, like, yes, but, you know, it's Lyra practicing this painting. I just want to say, like, Lyra's not an experienced fighter. And I know I should take this at face value because, yes, as Philip Pullman just said, you know,

it's not like all that deep but also like at the same time maybe an advanced fighter could do it lyra is just a little girl i'm like maybe someone who's more advanced with fighting could do it that's true and lyra is more advanced in other factions of life right like she's amazing at reading the alethiometer which other adults really aren't good at. She's different than other adults, Eork says. He says that he's different than just

humans that fight. He's not like other bears, either. I'm not like other bears. Oh my god. Roar! Adults can't read the alethiometer like she can or fight like he can. She worries this means she'll forget when she grows up.

But Eoric doesn't really know the answer to that. She wants to consult the alethiometer about all of this, but it's too cold and the adults are calling her to come talk to them. So she puts the tins back, the empty one in Bardicorum's kit, and the one that holds both the alethiometer and the spy fly and her pouch lee scoresby is planning to fly up and spy at their next stop in the balloon and she wants to join him but they won't allow her she ends up riding with him on the way there and she's asking him a ton of questions i love this line also naturally

lyra was eager to fly with him. And naturally, it was forbidden. But she rode with him on the way there and bestowed him with questions. So she didn't. Anyway, I'm just like, natch. Lyra, no. Lyra, yes. That's this moment. Everything she does is like that.

Even when she gets to the the facility we're gonna talk about she's like that you know she just it's lyra she's like this is gonna work out it's gonna be fun well one of the questions she asks him is how does one fly to spell bard well a gas engine a zeppelin or a good wind to start but he would never try yeah scoresby says that spalbard's basically the dead end of nowhere and it's very inhospitable but let's be real lyra's really into places like the dead end of nowhere so yeah and lee scoresby's already been like i'd die for that girl so pretty much it's timely pretty much i just met you all are, all of them are like. Literally all of these grown ass men on this ship on this journey are just like

okay. And the Jordan Jordan College. Yeah. Damn. She important. She's beloved. Lyra lies to Lise Goresby and she's like, so I was just curious if Eorik ever wants to go back to Spellbar. What do you

think? And Lise's like, he'd be killed because he's in exile. And she's like, hmm, interesting knowledge. Thanks, Lee Scoresby. And she's like, how are the balloons inflated, by the way? And he's like, oh, yeah, there's two ways. Let me tell you. He's like Arthur Weasley. Aw.

I miss shit. It's cute. He's like, I can make hydrogen by pouring sulfuric acid onto iron fillings, which fill the balloon. Crazy science shit. And he's like, or if I find ground gas in a vent near a fire mine, I can fill it there and I can make gas from rock oil and coal. Nerd. up to six people. And Lyra's like, but what about a bear? And he's like, yeah, I've carried a guard before when we were in trouble with the Tartars. And I assume that this is what the short story Once Upon a Time in the North

is about, but I haven't actually read it yet. I haven't... I started it. Yeah, it's like really short, I think, 40 pages, but now it's packed in a box because I'm moving. So, rip. Rip. lyra asks lee lyra asks if lee knows about the tartars

drilling holes in people and he tells her yeah they've been doing it to each other like willingly all the time for thousands of years some of them even have two holes they cut partway around the circle of skin and the scalp and lift up a flap exposing the bone then they cut a tiny bit of bone out and cover it all back up all just so the gods can talk to them which actually really surprises lyra because she thought that this was done to hurt and punish their enemies i really love that this series is so interwoven right this whole world like if you haven't finished the books yet you're definitely in for such a treat when slash if you do uh when it's all said and done it's so

good it just is so so woven together i love it so much we're clearly struggling with this whole format like not talking about everything how does davis fingers do it yeah i don't know they're they're brave men but we learned a lot from doing this and being like them and in that we're not like them and we are sucking at this and we're trying so hard yeah newfound respect we're just like oh wait shit oh shit all the time it's just like i feel like i can't openly discuss everything on my brain there's a lot i can't be myself i know i can't be myself on this podcast anymore anyway i i totally agree with you about the way that story's formatted which is why yes we're having such a hard time but also in this moment you know with the tartars right now just as with egyptians we learned

that they're not quite what we thought that a lot of the things about their culture were misportrayed to a lot of the people and this line and talking about the tartars and their customs is showing us that oh hey maybe they were also a little misunderstood at least their customs were too it's almost like they've been lied to for so long about other people who would do such a thing not the government um so she asks if he knew of someone that we haven't talked about in a minute you're gonna be like what who stanislaus grumman i do really like that name it's a fun name like. Like Cancer Bjorn. So, Cancer Bjorn. Lee Scoresby has heard of Stanislaus Grumman, and he tells her it's likely that he had that hole drilled into his scalp as well,

as he went to live with the Tartars. But Lyra insists, no way, he's dead. I saw his head. And Lee tells her maybe Asriel misled them. She says he was asking for money and people gave the money when they saw the head. Lee thinks, oh, that's a good trick. People wouldn't look too closely at something like that.

And this moment, I think, ties back to the beginning of this chapter really well because Lee says that with something so horrifying and gruesome, people want to get away from it. They don't want to look that closely right which is why they throw their money at asriel and i think this chapter makes the argument that lee is right because we actually see this happen earlier with men who are less prim and proper than the jordan

scholars like they shied away from tony macarios this repulsive thing, even though Lyra did not. And if you'll remember, back then in the room, Lyra actually asked to see the head again. And Lord Asriel's like, ha ha, no. Yeah, because, so if the head was truly Grumman's, it wasn't the Tartars who did it. And his whole story is just kind of moot right like interesting to imply asriel might be lying about something he wouldn't do that right you mean lyra who's really good at lying you don't think her father would lie you don't think you would just go on the internet and tell lies eyes they were wide currents full of meaning flowing fast around her the gobblers and their

cruelty their fear of dust the city in the aurora her father and spell bard her mother and where was she the alethiometer the witches flying northward and poor little tony macarius and the clockwork spy fly and york burnison's uncanny fencing she fell asleep and every hour they do closer to bolvanger miss this time she fell asleep i know she fell asleep again twice in one chapter my god i envy this life of sleeping big mood big mood and so that brings us to chapter 14 bovinger lights they don't tell lyra but this adult squad is kind of worried that they haven't heard anything about mrs coulter but turns out all on her own lyra is also worried because now azrael has become a father in her mind but mrs coulter has become the opposite and she knows that mrs coulter's hunting for her and pan and the

alethiometer yeah but the first enemy to catch them isn't mrs coulter the party takes a break to give the dogs and people rest and prepare their weapons and regas the balloon for ranging in the sky, but a thick mist descends and Lee can't fly the balloon, so he works on his equipment. Arrows come in the night, killing three Egyptians so silently no one hears, and by the time it's noticed it's too late, arrows are coming at them. Jon Fah understands it all first. He yells commands out. Lyra's in the open. Pan knocks her over. He gets into the form of a leopard and takes her down so she doesn't get hit.

She hears a mighty roar and Yorick enters the fray in his armor, followed by crunching and tearing and screaming sounds. Yes, because Yorick is good at fighting in this, unlike the squishy humans whose hands are stiff from the cold york is floofy and therefore not stiff from the cold this is his jam man this is gonna look great with all that cgi i can't wait to watch york fight in the show that's that's exciting bear dad more men fall permitted the enemy is still not in sight who is it lyra begins to despair but is interrupted in this despair by another demon hurtling toward them and knocking down pan then suddenly strange hands are hauling her and tossing her into the air and she is pushed face down into the snow dizzy and in pain someone lashes her

wrists together and the hood is put over her head to muffle her screams and pan tries to comfort her and free up her mouth so she can breathe better yikes and it's obvious because not only did they say it's not mrs coulter but like mrs coulter is a little like she's flashy she wants to stand in front of you and dangle you, you know, and be like, Oh, this is what we're doing. I'm an evil villain. Here's my monologue. Yeah, and she doesn't want to take in that way. She wants as much as she can to first try and coax people. She wants people to come to her.

Yeah, she wants to coerce them. So she's not really the villain in her eyes. Yeah. So Han tells Lyra that the people look like Tartars and Lyra's like, I should have foreseen this on the alethiometer. But he hushes her and she has to pretend to be unconscious. She worries they'll take them to Gobblers

and she thinks about the word severed. Pan tells her he'll fight. She says she'll fight too and kill them. And Eorik will too. When he finds out, they'll be ripped to pieces. I think it's kind of funny that, and I don't think, again, that I'm supposed to think that hard about it, but Lyra asked Pan, where are we? Do you think we're close to Boltfinger? And Pan's like, yeah, I think we're pretty close. And I don't know how good anyone is at navigating a place that they don't know and with a hood on their face but okay also it's like

literally just acres and acres and acres and acres and acres of land and it's just covered in snow yeah like sometimes there's nothing in between but snow the places like how do you know yeah i mean i guess she learned a little bit well with the egyptians right to navigate using the stars yeah but like there's a hood over her head and it sounds like pan is inside the hood with her so after a while they do pull the hood from her head and the man who de-hoods her has a wolverine daemon who snarls back at pan and so they haul her to like sit against the side of the sledge uh just to give a quick animal corner we did talk about the wolverine last episode a little more positive light the man

with the rifle in the fisher village was who had the wolverine but here it's obviously in a bit more of a negative tone and if you remember what i said in episode four it was that it can be a premonition connected to evil or negative energy hmm and yes i quoted myself i mean you're very quotable thank you eliana so lyra keeps falling over so they untie her hands and tie her feet instead uh the man speaks to her but she doesn't understand his language he finally tries some disconnected english and asks her name so let's say real talk for a moment because this guy lands on english as the third language that he tries and she could still more or less understand his meaning and i just think that's really fucking impressive absolutely impressive and also it also shows that like she's in a new land dude a weird land these are people that are not like you don't just show up and she's noticed it when she went to tony too

right like you have the people that do not speak her language whatsoever they are just showing up with a rifle or yeah it's wild but instead of them like talking to the bear than her you know this guy can do it i'm like damn good for you yeah good for you liars relieved because this means that they didn't get her because of mrs coulter they just happened to grab her because she says her name is lizzie brooks to him and he says that he's a samoyed hunter and he's taking them to a nice place. Okay. He laughs that they took her even with the panther bjorn there. He's like take that. Take that motherfuckers.

He asks who the people she was with are and she says that they were traders who sell smoke leaf and buy furs. And then she tries to see where they are but all she sees is snow. Okay Chloe. What? She tries to see where they are, but all she sees is snow.

Okay, Chloe. What? She and Pan feel each other's thoughts, and they try to stay calm, but she's worried that Jon Favreau could be dead, and she doesn't even know what happened to Fardricorum. I'm actually way more invested in Fardricorum than Jon Favreau. Yeah, big mood. Also, is this like how twins feel?

If we have any twin listeners, twin twinisters when um i got nothing if we have any twin listeners please let me know is this how twins feel because like it sounds similar i'm guessing really sensations of a strong natural intuition that they share not telepathy but different like she says she's feeling pan's thoughts hmm is this a thing i don't know i don't know we're both only children i know i'm just trying to relate to our twin listeners today i know she worries about eeyore killing off the other men and wonders if they'd be able to find her beginning to worry after a while the man gives her a strip of dried reindeer meat, and she chews it to feel better. She carefully finds the alethiometer, slips it into her boot, hand helps to push it down, and she closes her eyes. She's exhausted by fear, and she falls

asleep. She awakens to a smoother movement in the sledge, and opens her eyes and finds bright lights above her, pulling her hood up to soften them the sled is taking her under ambaric light poles with a low building ahead tunnels connected to other buildings attached to it and outlined by a high metal fence talk about uh our last chapter fencing here's the real fencing yeah this is the nice place everyone this is supposed to be the good place yeah she's thrust inside like a trophy and given to a man who could have been the jordan scholars which he thinks he looks nothing like the samoyed or the tartars the man asks if lyra speaks english and then asks her if her demon always takes that form so in response pan changes into a falcon to answer his question then

this guy gives the Samoyed men money for their catch gonna throw it out there Pan changing form wrong answer also throwing it out there the Samoyed men are literally literally

child traffickers yeah this is their industry not all of them literally child traffickers. Yeah. This is their industry. Not all of them, of course, but these guys up here are. The ones with Wolverine, like, I guess, demons. Because obviously there must be other people in their society who have different demons who have decided

this is not a good occupation. I definitely have some thoughts on Pan changing, and we'll talk about that in a bit. He does change into a falcon, too, which, on top of that, falcons are kind of outlandish, right? They often symbolize protection, though, which I

thought was interesting, especially in the situation with Lyra. So, this sudden change was almost like a chest puff, right? Like a, come near me, bitch. Sure. But tell me about marmots. I'm not gonna do that, so. I wanna know about marmots! You know,

the man asks Lyra's name. Goddammit. And she notes that he looks like the type of person she would meet at Mrs. Coulter's get-togethers. He looks English, educated, smart, and she thinks he could have been a scholar, as we said. the type of person she would meet at mrs coulter's get-togethers he looks english educated smart and she thinks he could have been a scholar as we said now knowing what we know about mrs coulter and the church's involvement it turns out um the church is running everything

like as you go deeper in this facility it's very obvious. Yeah. And we're going to obviously talk about that a little more. Lyra tells this guy, she's Lizzie Brooks, sticking to her disguise, and he invites her in, saying that they'll look after her, and she decides she's going to play dim-witted and reluctant while here, and drags her feet inside. And then inside, turns out it's unbearably warm. It's a brightly lit white surface in stainless steel. She can smell food, bacon, and coffee.

And also underlying the perpetual quote-unquote hospital smell. And a low humming noise comes from the walls. Pan has now turned into a goldfinch and is whispering and reminding Lyra to be really slow and stupid. He says, after being a falcon. Animal Corner, for a second. Goldfinches often indicate simplicity. I thought that was very interesting. That is interesting.

I wouldn't have thought about that. Just a little food for goldfinch thought, little goldfinch. Lyra's brought into a room of adults nurses and men in white coats discussing whether she was found the quote-unquote usual way through the hunters and her backstory they have a woman named sister clara who's here to take her to get checked out lyra follows her they pass the hall where children are eating passing the sound of forks and knives and spoons and lyra thinks the woman is about the age of mrs coulter she seems brisk blank insensible with a white trotting dog following her that is lyra the chills lyra tells her her name yeah and the age when asked lizzie age 11 she thinks she'd been told she was too small for her age so 11 works she shrinks physically as well making

herself seem and feel small and insignificant sister clara seems to show little interest though and her demon is very unresponsive oh yes they enter into what seems to be a medical examining room and the nurse has her take her clothes off for a quick checkup and then gives her a shower and new clothes because flower is pretty dirty she feels shame at her nudity but then she acts dumb in order to hide that shame i find that really interesting the church causing shame i would never believe it i yeah um it's not the first time either right right this is last time lyra was naked in front of like you know another woman like this mrs coulter made lyra feel shame it was something that lyra had never really thought about before, but it's because Mrs. Coulter made Pan look away, her own self, right? But if this is a story, right, inspired by the fall from innocence, inspired by a paradise lost, and Lyra is Eve,

well, one of the first things that Eve and Adam notice upon biting from the fruit of knowledge is that they are naked and they look to cover themselves and this gradual realization I think shows Lyra's movement into the world of quote unquote knowledge yeah we'll see kind of how that path goes going forward too yeah for sure

the woman comes across Lyra's belt that holds the alethiometer even though this is interesting wasn't it in her shoe For sure. The woman comes across Lyra's belt that holds the alethiometer. Even though, this is interesting, wasn't it in her shoe? No, she moved the alethiometer into her furs and then stuffed the spy fly into her shoe. Ah, okay, I see. Lyra says that it's a toy and the nurse seems not to notice that it's anything special. She sends her into shower after her shower the nurse takes her temperature and checks her eyes and ears measures

weighs her takes notes gives her pajamas and a dressing gown they're clean and good quality like what tony mccarius was found in but lyra feels uneasy like there's a secondhand air to them the nurse says that they'll wash her clothes and lyra asks where they are the nurse calls it the experimental station lyra asks for her toy back and the nurse asks if she wants a pretty doll instead or a bear uh she does i didn't even think about that she does uh want the bear back but lyra takes a toy to please the woman and asks for her belt as well to put her lithiometer in the woman allows it and after answering a phone tells her they'll find her some food to eat and ushers her into the canteen a dozen round tables are assembled and they're

covered in sticky crumbs and a steel trolley is out with all these used plates and utensils there are no windows there's only a photogram of a tropical beach and the man from the front reception area who brought her into the room with the nurse tells her eat up i i i like this like photogram right that we're told there are no windows there's no outside world or like natural light and just this like nice looking tropical breeze nice looking tropical beach it's feels to me in the theme of everything else here the illusion of utopia the illusion of heaven reading too much into it i think that's an interesting illusion to have right especially for these kids that are completely hopeless and their lives are dashed i mean all these kids know why

they're there people cared about the kids right no one cared enough to stop this governmental body this governmental body and allowing them we're gonna do it now and allowing them to take these kids to steal them like lyra's literally stolen right she says it's from her parents they're stolen from their parents and put in here and they act like it's okay. And we all know that it's not. And I think that a lot of people here have already probably read this book or if you know, you've seen what happens to Tony Macarios, you know that this is an institution that does this. And I just think it's horrific to see it in this book. I think it's horrific that it's happening in real life. It's happening in our country.

Every day, every moment. Every day. Here in the US, children who are stolen and parted from their parents, right, and being held in government facilities and detention centers and concentration camps. For what? They were just trying to have a better life and no one listened to them or cared about them in the way that people didn't care about the Egyptians because they weren't, you know, the right ethnicity or race. Look at adoption. Why do you think it's that much money to adopt someone oh oh i'm just saying like if if you're horrified by the things that are happening to these children in the golden compass

like literally children babies are being taken away from their parents and this is traumatic like it's it's a traumatic experience for them in the way that i think having maybe your demon would be traumatic like this is a formative experience in formative years it's an absolute horror and having that taken away from you yeah horror absolutely lyra eats stew and mashed potatoes and tinned peaches and ice cream because it's not you starving and the man and nurse talk quietly they bring her a warm glass of milk the man comes to sit opposite of her and asks her where she came from why she was so far north and she mumbles her responses keeps her eyes down and says she came with her father

trading with a load of new danish smoke leaf and to buy furs he asks if they came alone and she says no they came with her uncles and some other men. She tells him two years ago he brought her brother and said he would bring her next, but he never did. She kept bugging him and asking him to bring her till he would. Very smart. Lyra's like peak Asriel daughter mode right here. And to be fair, Mrs. Coulter as well. She's just laying it on, the charm the charisma she's got it going man those two must have played so many mind games with each other they still do i feel like

the sex was amazing oh for sure he tells her that she's a lucky little girl that's weird after that discussion sure is and the huntsman who found her wandering brought her to such a good place. It's not a good place. This is a nightmare. Lyra says, that's not how it happened. They attacked the traders with arrows. He tells her, no, no, no, that's wrong. You must have wandered away from the party. And she begins to speak louder and starts to cry to him, saying, no, I saw arrows and I want my dad.

And he tells her, no, the cold must have given you bad dreams. And she couldn't understand that it was real or not. And your father is safe and sound and he's gonna come here and find you soon because this is the only place for hundreds of miles and he says Sister Clara is gonna take you

to the dorm and you're gonna meet other children who've gotten lost in the woods lately and like, damn, this is some hardcore gaslighting but i mean dude this happens in real life it's messed up because it's like okay lost in the woods kids don't just get lost in the woods and end up at a half medical facility they're not dumb all these kids as we're about to learn know what they're doing and lying about it to their face makes you worse than the villains that tell the truth like those guys are just serial killers these guys are something worse yeah so pan settles

into mouse form in her pocket and she gets into bed ever so sleepy somebody shakes her awake though eventually and she checks immediately for the alethiometer she feels it at her waist i mean like dude this is like the third it actually might be the fourth time. It's the fourth. That, yeah, that she's fallen asleep just in this moment, in these two chapters already. To be fair, it's covering, like, five days or so. That's true. I just think it's funny that

it's called out every time she goes to sleep. More like his sleeping materials. It is. Big mood. I wonder if, like, granted this is, I think, a little mature to be read as a bedtime story but i imagine you know a parent or something reading it to their kids and every time lyra goes to sleep they're like now it's time for you to go to sleep that's how i feel are you my parent are you my mother thoros so lyra tries to wake up but but she's so tired. There are three girls around her age gathered at her foot of her bed,

talking about how Lyra must have been given sleeping pills. And they start to question her. They're asking her name, if other kids are coming, and where she was gotten at, where she was taken. She doesn't remember taking a sleeping pill, but she thinks her drink could have been drugged. She asks where they are, but none of the girls know. The girls seem kind of confused. Usually they bring an amount of children that is massive at once. Lyra asks what they do here in the facility, but none of the girls know exactly. One says they measure dust, and the other girls start to argue with her. They take us away one by one, and no one comes back. They tell her it's the Gobblers, and Lyra is starting to slowly wake up,

and the girls have their demons guarding the door. The red-haired girl is Annie, and the dark, plump girl is named Bella, and the thin one is named Martha. And it turns out in this facility they keep children of different sexes apart for the most part, but it's also mostly boring, the facility. Except for when Mrs. Clter comes says annie and lyra and pan have to stop themselves from crying out and then pan ruffles his wings it really speaks to that iconic moment of the golden monkey demon pinning down pan that this is reliving that moment every time that she thinks about mrs coulter it's reliving that agony once more and it recurs throughout the chapters we've been reading and it keeps going too

it really ingrains itself in our brains right it really does that's what she thinks of her that's who that is to her yeah i mean it was the woman who hurt her yeah lyra asks who mrs coulter is playing dumb and they tell her she tracked most of them and that when she comes you know kids disappear she likes to watch them says the girl they reckon that they kill them and she watches they never stop measuring the kids the demons dust. Lyra asks what dust they're talking about, and one of the girls says it's not real dust, it's space dust, and everyone gets it in the end, but if you don't have any, that's good. Bella says she heard a boy named Simon say the Tartars make holes in their heads to let dust in. Hmm, that's interesting. Annie says she's going to ask Mrs. Coulter when

she comes, and Martha says you won't dare. Lyra asks why Mrs. Coulter when she comes, and Martha says, you won't dare. Lyra asks when Mrs. Coulter is next coming. They say, the day after tomorrow. Dun-dun-dun. A cold wrench of terror went down Lyra's spine, and Pantaleon crept very close. She had one day in which to find Roger and discover whatever she could about this place. And either escape or be rescued. And if all the Egyptians had been killed, who would help the children

stay alive in the icy wilderness? The other girls went on talking, but Lyra and Pantaleon nestled down deep in the bed and tried to get warm, knowing that for hundreds of miles all around her little bed, there was nothing but fear. Ugh. Horrible. I hate that she's there. Yeah, it's very nerve-wracking. It's my daughter!

It is. She's there. Well, you guys were on the last chapter of the episode. Chapter 15, The Demon Cages. Children are being kept in cages. In real life. Lyra, it turns out, is not actually imaginative. She's just a good liar, which is why her lies have wide-eyed conviction. So I still kind of low-key don't understand this.

I kind of do and I kind of don't. Like, doesn't someone have to have a good imagination to be a good liar? Like, we've seen Lyra embellishing on stories and her lies. It's really, really imaginative, in my opinion. But at the same time, like, I guess this is supposed to be, I don't know, some part of consistency because Lyra's alleged lack of imagination is probably what also makes her good

at reading the alethiometer. Like, we brought this up last episode in regards to like the label savage where they discuss that those who are less imaginative are actually better at reading the alethiometer because people with too much imagination tend to kind of read anything that they want into the symbols yeah that makes sense too and i wonder if it's another metaphor of reality of sorts. Like, to Lyra, she's not lying. She's saving her own ass all the time, right? She's starting a war for some bong. It's not lying. They're just words and things when you're a kid. But as we age, those acts and those things and those words become imaginary and play and distance something we don't visit as often so when we do they're imaginary so i guess like life becomes real eventually is what it is damn that's real that's fucking real right i i mean that's that's all i can think of when i think about it is that for lyra it's not lying And I think it also has a lot to do with our

consequences of actions and how like you're going to have unintended consequences that follow actions. And as a kid, you don't feel those unintended consequences, right? As a kid, especially if you have support and family members that are willing to be there and support you or are there and support you, you don't, as as a kid you don't worry about those unintended consequences you have to pay for your actions and your consequences but if they're unintended you don't always have to pay for them as a kid yeah and there's all of that and also like i think what you're saying also about how these become real for her is interesting because she... Isn't there a point where she tells Makasa, she's like, yeah, I know this story so well now.

Like, I've told it so many times that I basically feel like I was there. I was there. I remember all of it. But she was an infant. She doesn't remember it. Makasa's like, there weren't swords, Lyra. Where did that come from? Yep, I love that. So I think that what you said makes sense for all of that. Someday we have to grow up, and even regarding what you were just speaking about with the alethiometer,

someday we have to grow up. Can't just be looking at pictures all day. God, I wish. Lyra isn't afraid for the Gyptians, though, because they're all good fighters, and they'll be along to rescue her soon because apparently because lyra has a lack of imagination according to this she's like yeah it's gonna be fine because she doesn't imagine all the terrible things that could happen

right she's like yeah they're gonna come they're gonna rescue us york's gonna be fine he's gonna come in we're all gonna fly and save asriel from svalbard and lee Scoresby's Balloon and I am going to find Roger and it's going to be great. And the next morning she does. Finally! We've been hinting Roger was going to come back up. And now she's found him. So this was a good book.

This is a good book. Everyone can go home. Yeah, I mean, like I was talking about earlier how sometimes you just stop reading things at certain parts and there have been shows that i've just stopped i'm like this is a good ending yeah here you go this is it guys uh chapter 15 this is the end of the books so the nurse wakes them and ushers them into the canteen roger sits with five boys and lyra drops a handkerchief next to him so Pan can talk to his demon, Celsilia, who is a chaffinch, fluttering around everywhere, an animal corner. Chaffinch, a type

of finch, which we've already talked about in Golden Finch's episode. Chaffinches tend to symbolize joy, celebration, happiness in spiritual totems. And in Christianity, its coloring is really celebrated. It's fire, it's fire red water blue and ether white and it also has a little bit of darkness and light and symbolically it's also been linked to grain which i thought was very interesting uh it's named for its tendency to pack the grain out in farmyards so like fucking ho-oh from gen 2 pokemon yeah and it's tower yeah yeah oh i love that storyline pan pins down salsilia and he's like chill chill and roger goes white i had never seen anyone lose so much color in their face and his face then brims with color and joy as he realizes it's Lyra and Pan then shakes Salcilia to keep Roger from

shouting out yeah this is kind of a comical scene it is cute it does also remind me though of like the anti-Coulter's demon attacking Pan Pan has to pin down Salcilia to be like, girl, get with it. Yeah. I don't know. Get with it. Roger immediately falls back in line, right? Like this is his commander who just showed up and she's here. And he follows Lyra's social cues. He acts like they don't know each other.

Just like the battles they faced in Oxford. She doesn't have a chance to talk to Roger again until mid morning. And they have to make it look supernatural. Most girls don't speak to boys anymore in this age group, so while the children come in for a snack, she sends Pan to talk to Salcilia in the form of a fly. She pretends to look rebellious and bummed while they talk, sipping milk with the other girls. Not a very Lyra scene, but she hears a name said from a blind girl that piques her interest tony macarios i do think lyra could do it though right because i think she's had the

good fortune of constantly shirking the jordan scholars to go meet with the other children and play with them and find bugs and even though she was like raised in a really stuffy college with a bunch of like old men she did have the opportunity to meet and mingle with other kids and all kinds of people which allows her that experience to be able to bond with the other kids here yeah because up until this point it was only coulter and it's disappointing because it's like that's the only female female influence obviously you see yeah besides my costa which we don't see before then uh interesting we do get some other female influences in lyra's life later which i'm excited about i don't know if i'm excited about it

what do you think you don't like i was kidding of course I'm fucking excited. I was being sarcastic. Oh, I was like, how dare you? She's a doctor. She didn't work this hard for you to disrespect her like that. The girl says they took Tony because his demon didn't change. They thought maybe he was older than he said. That's ironic because Lyra just said she was younger than she actually is. It turns out his demon didn't change because he didn't think about things much. Lyra has been acting dull, but Pan keeps changing

shape, as we noted earlier. I thought this was interesting. He's kind of like giving them away, especially when he turned into a falcon. That's not normal. Yeah, that's true. Especially because it was a very spirited,ited take yeah it was like oh you want me to change i'm a refer here i am demon puberty yeah as opposed to like lyra answering herself i think that's a that's a really great catch the kids argue about why do these people take us and the young girl speaks up she knows why why they took Tony Macario's because she was with him in the linen room when they did. Interestingly, there's a, there's a line about how no one like makes fun of them or says anything. So she goes on talking about how the nurse came saying that they wouldn't hurt him.

We just do a little operation after we put you to sleep and then you're going to wake up and you're not going to feel a thing and your your demon's going to go to sleep, too. But Tony didn't believe her and knew that she was going to kill his demon. And she said, oh, it's just something to make you more grown up. A cut. That's all the grown ups have it. It's why their demons don't change. I can tell you right now, not all the grown ups have it.

Oh. So Sister Clara and a new man in a white coat interrupt all this gossiping and they ask for the blonde girl with the squirrel demon to come with them bridget mcginn her late her face is lit up with fear and this is so sad i didn't get sad about this really as much until now but bridget was tony's lyra right like that's roger's lyra that's tony's lyra they hid in the linen closet together bridget was so brave she didn't want him to be taken she stayed with him uh it is sad i'm so sad now it's her. Yep. Because she tried to spread the truth and she was shut down. Damn.

Yep. So the rest of the morning is spent exercising in the small gym. Lyra had never played a team game before. Like the one they began playing. And of course she quickly becomes the leader. And she excels at the game. It's

the perfect activity for her. Even in some weird medical facility where they basically keep killing kids to harness magic, Lyra is leading her own gang. Naturally. All of them. Girls, boys.

Just here she is. Naturally? Yeah, that's what I love. It's so nonchalant. It's just like, so then Lyra led a whole gang. Yeah. Oh, they're going to find the bung of this facility.

And so at lunchtime, they all line up at the canteen. And Billy Costa finds her. She tells him that her brother and John followed everyone else. They're all coming to rescue you and take everyone home. And I'm just really excited for billy and ma costa me too ron and his mom ron weasley and molly weasley yes and i guess and his brother too but i'm more excited for ma costa yeah she tells billy though you gotta call me lizzie all right and then they sit together with roger nearby and the boys tell lyra everything that they know

and roger points out that there's a hiding place by the tropical beach photogrammed her there's a ceiling tile that they can get into to crawl inside and hide and escape but later on they're interrupted a doctor bangs on the table and alerts them there's gonna be a fire drill later on how convenient lyra's like this is an interesting event hmm all the cards happen to be falling in place for our protagonist all i needed to do was not have any imagination before the fire drill lyra and four other girls are being tested for dust the doctors don't tell them what the tests are for, but Lyra can tell. They're taken one by one into the lab. Lyra complains.

She says, I was measured yesterday, but they're like, we need different measurements today. They have her stand on a metal plate and hold pan and stare at a green light. Clicking and flashing noises go on. She asks them if they're measuring for dust and says a nameless girl at lunch told her and that she knows she i ain't dusty they say it's a special unseen dust and continue to test her having her rest her hand on a brass globe sending ambaric currents through her yeah the sticking her hand in an unknown thing gives me dune vibes there's also like earlier they talk about how what the demons and

stuff like get weighed and they make them change and i i need to know now does their weight change i desperately want to know this it's not it doesn't affect the story at all yeah and we don't really get to know yeah we should ask that's a philip pullman question oh my god he's probably not going to answer it hour of the questions that i have hour of the demon pan is in his tense wildcat form and he prowls around the apparatus lyra keeps asking questions because she's now in disguise and she like asks, she tries to do it simply. She's like, why do they cut daemons away? Saying, this girl told me

so. And now the doctor's agitated and is like oh no, that's not true. That doesn't happen. When we remove children it's to move them to another place because they're older now. And he asks, which girl is it? What does she look like? And the doctor goes to speak to the nurse quietly and

the description Lyra gives is someone oh, it's someone with, like, light brown hair. And I'm like, you? Is this you, Lyra? Yeah. Yeah, so their demons also converse, the doctor and the nurses. A very neat blank bird and a heavy large moth speak to each other and the demons are both awake but lyra notices they aren't animated and they're not really moving the word severed comes to mind again yes especially with that creepy poodle earlier

yeah the dog for sure the doctor comes back weighing lyra and watching her from a special screen then the fire alarm goes off and he directs her to go with the nurse sister betty but lyra is like i have no outdoor clothes it's really fucking cold out there and then she remembers that her clothes are in the closet of one of the nursing station rooms and she asks if she can retrieve them betty lets her and they head outdoors and lyra is bundled in furs and it's chaos outside because for some reason even though they have fire alarms and fire drills they've never gone over a plan for it i guess this is the first time they've done this like my god so kids adults everyone are milling about some are irritated some

are dazed i'm irritated too lyra finds billy and roger immediately and they use the chaos to their advantage lyra starts a snowball fight between all the kids very quietly and then they immediately bail to go explore i just want to say this is a plot device in Avatar The Last Airbender with the riot. Yes. It's brilliant, truly. It's very good bioware work. It really is. It is. They find a small building that's set apart from the rest

of the buildings. There's no tunnel attached to it and low ambaric lighting is around it with entry forbidden stamped in red on it. They're about to head into the building when they see a bird no a plane no it's a witch's demon it's kaisa the snow goose the goose is loose the goose pew pew honk honk honk honk honk honk

it's Kaiza, my lovely demon, Serafina Pakala's demon, I love it so yes, Kaiza followed her here and he's been waiting for her to come out in the open once more Kaiza needs zero animal corner because Kaiza's the best

yeah, the goose symbolizes insurance uh the goose symbolizes owning your ass okay kaisa owns you all most of the egyptian party are safe john fa is wounded but not severely and they're all just about a day away lyra has the boys keep watch she tells kaisa what they're doing here they're cutting children's demons away kaisa repulsed helps unlock the door and then kaisa pan and lyra enter their seat then they enter and they see the demons of the children kept in glass cases they They're frightened and pale and scared. And of course, we'll see in a second, but some of them aren't there anymore.

Ugh. God, it's awful. It's disgusting. She tells Pan not to look at it. I love how protective she is of Pan. And Kaisa cries out in anger, wondering where these children have gone. Lyra explains about what happened to tony

and she can hear the faint cries and misery from the demons there's a name in front of each of the cases and an empty one with tony mccarius on it and four or five other empty cases with names on them and this is kind of like a chilling thought but like so if the cases are empty that means the demons didn't make it right like and it's is it possible for them to make it though like i i fear that this experiment that we're seeing happen yeah that means it's it's like there's no way to do this there's no way to sever a child from their demon successfully. Do all these demons just die? It's something that I've, like, kind of been wondering. Like, it's a question that's kind of haunted me.

I don't know if they die, and it's something that, like, is it empty because the child died? Is it empty because the demon died and then the child died? Like, for reasons that we'll discuss later it kind of gives me more comfort right if it means like the child if the child passes away and the it kind of gives me more comfort if like you know it means like the child died and then the demon died as opposed to like if the child passes away and the demon survives or like the other way around both of those like unnerve me but if both of them pass away then i feel more comfort in that for reasons that we'll discuss later in the story yeah absolutely and i don't know it just makes me think because we're seeing the nurse and the

doctor with these plain demons that don't really feel or respond so it's like they're likely severed but that means adults can do it and children cannot i do think that that's what i think and this really isn't spoilers or anything because it's just not it's happening right here it's happening right now and it's yeah it's implied it's not like a direct answer so i don't know that's kind of what i've been taking from it i'm glad we're on the same page because it's gross and sad um and lyra is upset right like she sees these cases and she wants to smash them she looks around for a weapon but kaisa interrupts and is like we have to do this the smart way if we make it look like they forgot to lock it and the demons escaped on their own it will be much

better yeah lyra's anger is really righteous it's not always strategic but i also think in her defense maybe you don't always know that you have a magic goose with you you know because kaisa tells her all right here's what we're gonna do we're gonna get some snow we're gonna blow on the cages when i tell you to and then bam it's gonna unlock the cage wow i didn't realize kaiser had like snow powers i know i read this but now i'm like wow is kaiser just like sprinkling snow and going bitches and magic i don't know i don't know probably that's probably what he does like on his journeys when he's bored he's, flaps his wings into the snow, like, bah, bah, bah. Oh my god. So,

the demons begin to stumble out. They're confused, they're discombobulated, they're cold. They cluster around Lyra. They try to touch her, but the taboo keeps them away. Kaisa tells Lyra to be brave, that the Gyptians are coming for her, and that he will help the demons

find their people. But then he adds, they'll never be whole again. Kaisa says he'll cover their tracks, but hurry. Lyra stops him before he flies off, asking him one last thing. If witches fly, could they pull a balloon? And will Serafina come? Kaisa says there isn't enough time to explain witch politics, that Serafina would have to guard her clan's interests, but they'll see what happens. Roger watches the demons drift out of the building

and exclaims it's just like the demons in the crypt in Jordan. Like I said, here we are again. Kaisa gathers the demons, convincing them to turn into birds, and they follow him, rising in a ragged line in the sky. Roger and Lyra join Billy and the rest of the children, who line up by the door now. Lyra tells Billy and Roger to pass the word out. They're going to escape and to wait for the fire line as the signal.

Yeah, the Job staffers are disorganized as they count the children back in, making sure no one's wandered off. Done a terrible job. They're disorganized in many things, it turns out, because from the outdoor clothes to keeping children in a line, Lyra thinks, oh,

I'm going to be able to use this to my advantage. She's not worried. Like, she's not freaked out. I'm like, Lyra, girl. She's like, this is going all according to Kekaku. And the caretakers are actually almost finished. But then, no, a new distraction arrives. Lyra defeated the boss over at Balvangar. And now here's a round two.

Because it's the last distraction that Lyra could want. It's a zeppelin. It's an engine roaring in the sky. Pam turns into a wildcat. He's hissing in hatred because there's no mistaking who the new boss is in the zeppelin. It's Marissa Coulter. Ugh. Sitting in the cabin of the zeppelin with her golden demon in her lap.

I'm a boss-ass bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Oh, were we not gonna sing oh we could wrap it i mean we could do that no i was thinking i'm bossy i'm the bitch i'm bossy i'm a bitch y'all love to hate it's true i'm the one that raised the stakes i'm okay she is yeah i mean i died too yeah oh my god what stuff on your mom oh okay um it's a sex thing i guess i don't know anyways this is yeah i i think the way you feel is the reason why pullman loves ending

chapters with mrs coulter though like she's just he ended with coulter just being coulter like she's just there and dramatic all on her own like it's like what I was saying earlier, right? That we knew the villains that kidnapped her weren't Mrs. Coulter because this is Mrs. Coulter. She's like wearing stiletto heels, walking down off the Zeppelin. What up, bitches? Hello, orphan children. You all smell like poor people, but I'm here. Yeah, it's like the moment she appears, you can hear, you know,

you know, the dramatic foghorn sound that happens in soundtracks and then drums and then bam cut episode over i can totally see them ending the episode with this whatever the episode is yeah oh yeah i'm really excited to see i'm really excited for the show me too but first before we get excited for the show let's move to our discussion our discussion so as you all know if you have only read the first book which we've done a terrible

job of keeping unspoiled for everyone tune out now we'll see you next time but now we're going to talk about everything that happens in everything which again we've kind of been doing anyway and now that i'm caught up i've finished the amber spyglass i'm working on labelle sauvage so hopefully eliana and i will be on the same page very soon literally the same literally literally literally i'm trying to say it like chris

trager literally okay and perkins so in these chapters pan longs to comfort tony right panel a man sat inside her hood warming close and full of pity lyra knew panel a man's impulse was to reach out and cuddle the little half child to lick him and gentle him and warm him as his own demon would have done. But the great taboo prevented that, of course. I found this line to be quite meaningful because later on we're going to see Pan, of course, break that great taboo of his own accord to comfort will who has who still has his demon it's just like invisible but like will's feeling like real sad and shit and like to show that pan wouldn't even break it for this poor severed child really emphasizes the strength of the feelings between lyra and will yeah it really serves for that contrast and i could see bullman trying to build up to that

right he wants it to be a taboo part of me doesn't know like if it is that taboo in my heart i'm like okay but i see what he was trying to build i i i understand it in the way of like it's weird it would be weird to have someone like reach into you and touch like yeah your heart and soul or whatever in a way i try to think of it like it's a service animal yeah no i think of it as like if my lungs and heart were literally on the outside of my body but i could still feel it on the inside and someone touched that it it uh no i see that sounds gross that actually does sound really gross i think that's what we're supposed to feel but like it's normal to touch your own

you're well i guess you don't feel it as much if it's like your own body and heart right because you don't always feel it that much when you like touch your hands against one another unless like one's super cold or hot or whatever, right? I mean, people say that, but, like, I can't touch my eyeballs. It freaks me out. Like, I bought contacts once. Oh. Literally trying to put them in, I started freaking out and having a panic attack.

So, I don't know. I guess it depends on who you are. Maybe it's like touching your, yeah, think of it as, like, someone else touching your eyeballs. Okay, well, that's horrible. Think of it as like someone else touching your eyeballs okay well that's horrible um think of it like that you know something else that you talked about you expanded on earlier i want to bring back is sexuality lyra was ashamed of her body naked with the nurses and doctors and like you said we've seen it before when cououlter ordered Pan to look away when Lyra was naked. But this does kind of come back into play, right? Everything Lyra knows and everything the church has taught her and that she's learned in Jordan about the body is that, you know, that's shameful.

That's kind of the world that Christianity is in as well. It's a shameful thing. But you already mentioned her briefly this episode. I think I might have to cut it out. as well it's a shameful thing but you already mentioned her briefly this episode i think i might have to cut it out uh mary malone teaches her that it's not shameful yeah and and it's something to in fact be celebrated right uh pullman i think stresses that when he talks about how you know when you're alive enjoy it Enjoy the sensations that you can experience. Yeah, I mean, Pullman fucked. Yeah.

And I mean, and we see it also in the way that later on how the witches are described, right? They aren't hurt by the cold in the way that we squishy humans are. And so they enjoy feeling everything with their body. They love to feel the moonlight on their arms. Yeah, sometimes. And I think it goes back to that plato discussion and aristotle and socrates discussion in general of like the soul and what it actually is and what makes a human and what fills a human no sexual innuendo intended

full of life i think it all comes back to that yeah i think there's a lot that we'll talk about in amber's my glass with you know shame related to religion and a lot that lyra will experience and we'll talk about um yeah exactly a line that i thought was a cool catch i didn't notice until now uh when roger is watching the demons drift out of the building and he's like it's like the demons in the crypt in jordan uh kaiser gathers them all up and convinces them that they should turn into birds and they follow kaiser in a ragged line against the sky this reminds me of lyra and will leading the dead out of the cave yeah i think all of bull banger is like that in miniature i was thinking like is the small

tile that small like hidden window in the fake heaven the window yes i was thinking that too the the tile right that the a crack in the wall imitation utopia yeah yes there's there's a lot it's so weird that there's so much in this first book that connects with the third book yeah when i said earlier about how good how interwoven all this is oh my god yes it's so good it's a it's amazing world building especially if you're something that's so tight and concise you know like yes he's making other books but he told his story and he finished it no shade intended to any other authors but he did he told the story he put it out there and the way he writes is different than other people and he finished it no shade intended any other authors but he did he told the story he put it out there and the way he writes is different than other people and he was

just like boom boom boom also i built all these hints into here that are gonna relate to the future and then he went from there and i think that's awesome and i really want to finish labelle yeah sam i have commonwealth sitting there waiting for me so i haven't bought it yet i need to do it i'm like excited and that that's gonna just have to be my motivation i drunk pre-ordered it i'm gonna try and buy it like at a local bookstore smart smart another thing that stood out to me um and you called it out with lyra and the toys about how, oh, she's choosing between the doll and the bear. And I didn't realize that there was a bear there, so great catch. But yeah, it's fun rereading the story again in such quick succession, knowing things more.

Because Lyra looking at the drawer full of the toys, there's the stuffed animals, and they're described like dead things. Like Lyra looking at the drawer full of the toys. There's the stuffed animals and they're described like dead things. And it kind of reminds me of Tony Macario's and his dead fish or that idea of like the dull dead demons, which really bums me out. But also instead, as we talked about, Lyra chooses a doll and she's kind of acting like a doll now, right? She describes like it's vapid eyes. But also I think dolls pop up a lot in this book, as we see in a bit at Svalbard as Lyra tries to imitate, pretend to be a doll.

She's inspired by Joffre Rakinson's doll. Interesting. I didn't really think about that. That's a great look. And then there's the whole idea that like, she's choosing that obviously now and she doesn't mean it, as we know. And like you said, that dolls, you know, they, they're also symbolizing innocence and she's playing that role because it's

obvious from what we've now learned. They do not like older children because older children are not suited to their experiment. Um, and Lyra is calling herself 11 saying she's younger than she is and now she's choosing the doll Tony Makarios would be a specter in Sidigase, wouldn't he? He is basically Lyra's world's specter

that's what these children are I think that's interesting, that comparison but it's sad Yeah, I think that that's interesting, like that comparison. But it's sad because while the specters in the other world, right, they hunger for dust, they're never going to be able to get it. They're never going to get to grow up. Oh, that's why they die. Yeah.

Because there's nowhere for them to go. You were asking earlier, like, does it just mean like the kids can never- It works on adults, but not on kids. They're like spiritual refugees. Damn. Because they've just been traumatized and can't, like, move past it, I guess, as part of the metaphor, maybe? They're stuck in this world. It's fucked up. Fuck.

Okay. Ugh. I'm gonna move on to something a little less heavy. A little less. It's not that much less heavy. It's still about Tony Macarius, everyone. Because as we discussed, right, he dies. And Lyra, in the very moving scene, pays homage to him by placing the coin beneath his tongue.

And on one hand, yes, she's honoring him, trying to give him a death in the same respect, right? The same station that would have been afforded to Jordan scholars, even though Tony was a boy and no one came to look for him. No one cared about him, but he mattered. And Lyra is trying to show that. But there's also something to this whole coin beneath the tongue thing and the dead that I want to talk about like in ancient greek mythology and culture the dead had a coin placed beneath their tongue it was called charon's oval and it was something that was given to the dead because when they came to cross the river from the land of the living into the dead they would use it to bribe the ferryman charon maybe it's pronounced karin but why would

you put an h there i don't know into their death across the river's sticks and atron and in the context of his dark materials there's significance i realize now to the demons names being written on these coins and and referencing this from greek mythology because when Lyra, Will, and the Galavespians seek entrance into the world of the dead, they also have to be ferried into it. And the boatman tells them, no, they can't come. You have to leave your demon here on the shore.

And Lyra, though, is the only one who knows her demon. So she's the only one who at that point knows what it costs. So for the demon to be upon the coin is very on the nose because the price for lyra's entry into the land of the dead and quite frankly for all of them as we're going to see is to lose their demon or soul that's the price so that their spirit could enter the land of the dead and i think we're going to talk a little more on this difference of the soul and the spirit in another episode, building on, you know,

what you were talking about regarding Aristotle and Plato and that body soul connection, bringing some other stuff from theology, but I don't know. I didn't put it together earlier and now I'm just like, Oh, this is the price. It's the price. it really is though. The price for a fairy. The price for a fairy is that your spirit must lose its soul. God, public transport sucks in the afterlife. It sucks, and then so does the final destination too, apparently.

Oh, apparently. And then after that, you know, there's no more public transportation you gotta fucking walk your way into the smallest door it's just like the little mermaid like i said last episode you're right you turn into freaking mist on the on the water and you go do good deeds until you get a soul but in a happy way after that as opposed to the little mermaid yeah i mean in the way that like you couldn't kill the guy you were in love with that married some other chick even though your family sacrificed a bunch to get you a magical sword to do so so you go back to your own life and you sacrifice love

um look just watch jane the virgin and you learn that if you sacrifice things for love it means it's real um jane the virgin is a brilliant show uh we're on season one we're almost finished i'm very happy about it oh my god i'm so excited for you it season two can be i think a little difficult some people really like it i think season two towards the end i was a little frustrated season four and five are masterpieces i know i like i've never balled so hard in any show to uh ignore some of the sad i do want to go back to that snow queen stuff i was talking about earlier uh regarding the snow queen and lyra's journey i didn't go very much into it because i feel like it spans over several of

the books there's a lot of little elements from lyra's story that really match up but the snow queen basically is a story where the devil has a magic mirror. It distorts anything that looks into it. It doesn't show the good. It magnifies the ugly. And he has a brief stint as a professor and he brings this mirror to classes to distort things. His students try to carry it to heaven because they're like, haha, let's go make fun of God. But it shakes with laughter as they get closer and it breaks.

The splinters get blown into people's hearts and eyes and shards of it get into this boy named Kai. He's a friend of a village girl named Gerda. And the Snow Queen comes to town. Kai hitches a ride to her. He goes back to her palace, but everyone thinks he drowned in the river. Gerda wants to find him. So she tries to trade a really everyone thinks he drowned in the river gerda wants to find him so she tries to trade a really nice pair of shoes to the river for him back the river's like

no sweetie the queen has him don't waste your shoes on us so gerda journeys to find him she gets distracted on the way she stops to visit a sorceress who's always wanted a daughter and traps her with very nice things so nice she doesn't realize she's being trapped sound familiar at all until the very last minute one day she wakes up and sees a rose that reminds her of her friend kai and she cries remembering her mission and it raises a rose bush above the ground that tells her where she can find it tells her that it can see all of the dead under the earth, but her friend is not among them. Hmm. That's interesting. So she goes on.

She tries to ask other flowers, but the flowers don't know other stories. So she leaves. She feels like she wasted her time. She is cold. It's getting colder and she has no warm clothes and she meets a prince and princess on the road. They gave her nice warm clothes and a carriage,

but she's kidnapped and meets a robber girl who ends up freeing her in the middle of the night and gives her a reindeer to ride. The reindeer first takes her to a fin woman's house. The fin woman tells the reindeer that the only way to save Kai is with Gerda's innocent heart. She says, don't you see how strong that is?

How men and animals are obliged to serve her and how well has she got through the world barefooted as she is she cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart i thought that was great very much so lyra it is and it sounds very much like the language in the third book where they talk about how Lyra read the alethiometer because of Grace yes and she's the only one that can solve her destiny

because of how she is yes and how men and animals are obliged to serve her everyone's like yeah I would die for her i know right it's lyra we gotta help lyra and it's also very garden of eden and like you know them with all the aminals yes absolutely so lyra reaches the palace it's guarded by vicious snowflakes apparently don't question uh she prays the Lord's Prayer to gain entrance,

and her breath takes the form of angels that clear the snowflakes away. Kai is alone and immobile and despondent on the lake, much like we find Tony at his own lake. He can't leave because he's under a spell. He has to use the pieces of ice to form a word to break the spell, and if he figures the word out and does it, he can leave, the Snow Queen says. Gerda runs to him immediately and she hugs him and her tears warm him and cause him to move and dislodge the ice mirror shard that's in his eye.

And they dance happily. The ice shards he was arranging dance with them and they fall from the air to spell eternity, which was the word he was trying to spell how is he gonna figure that out i'm not really sure ask hans it's a difficult ass word it's complex while in honestly the friends they made along the way helped them get back home and when they get home everything looks the same but different because it is they who have changed and grown up not the land it's no longer winter it's summertime and at the end the grandmother reads this passage from the bible it's matthew 18 3 assuredly i say to you unless you are converted and become

as little children you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven hmm hans christian anderson often lets his big villains go unpunished and punish his antagonists first sometimes severely like in the snow queen before they're triumphant so while lyra doesn't get to save tony or even roger coleman does the opposite of that right she gets to do what gerda does not she has all these characters support her and help her get to the end of that, right? She gets to do what Gerda does not. She has all these characters support her and help her get to the end of her journey, good or bad. And these characters end the big bad because of her.

Yeah. I think that, I think this like whole Snow Queen catch is really, really right and on the nose considering how Pullman has written different Snow Queen but likely the same inspiration right in in the the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and how Pullman reacts against the way that C.S. Lewis wrote his stories so yeah it's very much so the anti-C.S. Lewis yeah but I think all of these parallels as you started reading aloud

all the things that Gerda does like you can really just see the similarities in the way that the beats in their journey yeah the journey to find the friend that's not even a friend anymore yeah though I still think that like who is gonna guess the word eternity from random like

who knows how big these ice shards were I'm actually they were shattered into tiny pieces some as small as grains of sand I'm mad on behalf of Kai well the thing is he actually turns into a dick like

because of the shards like I left that out but he's totally mean to her and just like before he goes off to the ice queen and he thinks the ice queen is gonna solve his problems and she's like no only you can solve your problems no yeah oh but yeah i mean even the snow queen and the way that coulter is portrayed so terrifyingly so great anyway that's all we have for chapters 13 through 15 right now

there are a lot of other things that we're inspired to talk about but we gotta leave content for some of the other episodes you know yeah we only have like three episodes left there are other books too oh no like the Gossip Girl series

oh my gosh I'm really not against it me either but you know you love us xoxo girls gone canon girl wait no gossip girl gone canon but we'll work on it it's workshop girls gone canon yeah it is the best. Gossip Girls Gone Canon. XOXO. series, some production information from The Golden Compass, and my reactions to watching The Golden Compass movie the first time. Like I said, it seemed like it was going to be a hot mess as someone who had read the books and loved them growing up, and I was like, I don't... You know, if you hadn't read the books,

I would say you won't even feel bad about it, but you have. But I had. I had tasted from the fruit of knowledge, and I knew. I was going to be disappointed. So I just saved myself that pain, as I did with Ella Enchanted and with Avatar the Last Airbender. And here we are now. Also, of course, in our next His Dark Materials episode, we have a special guest.

Yes, Tana Ford will be joining us. Look forward to that. Tana from Westeros, whenever we... And of course, from their amazing art skills. We will definitely leave some links for that around the internet this week. You can check that out for sure. And be sure that you're subscribed to us

on podcast platforms. We are on Podbean, on iTunes, on Spotify, on Google Play, on Stitcher, on Acast, on Overcast, you name it. Check it out. Subscribe. You'll get all the updates of when we release episodes. And of course, be sure to follow us on social media. We are Girls Gone Canon

on Twitter. And, you know, maybe you liked this episode. Maybe you didn't. Shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. As always, I have been one of your hosts flowy and i've been another one of your hosts aliana thanks guys