Girls Gone Canon Cast - HIs Dark Materials Episode 8 - Northern Lights/The Golden Compass Chapters 21-23

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

Finally, the end of the first book, here at the end of the world... this world... and perhaps the beginning of a next. But what will it take to bridge the gap? Sacrifice. Oblation.  Chapter 21 - Lord Asriel's Welcome Chapter 22 - Betrayal Chapter 23 - Bridge to the Stars A great reddit thread (that released after we recorded) compiling other HDM podcasts https://www.reddit.com/r/hisdarkmaterials/comments/dsxdwh/podcast_list_his_dark_materials_tv_books/?st=k2wpqv39&sh=30cc13a1 --- 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: liesandarborgold.com ---

you're listening to girls gone canon covering his dark materials Hello, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, covering His Dark Materials, Northern Lights, The Golden Compass, Episode 8, Chapter 21-23. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as LizaNArbor on Twitter, Tumblr, and LizaandArborGold.com. And I am Eliana, another one of your hosts. You might know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit or Arithmetic over on Twitter. Oh my gosh. This is it. We got here. This is the final three chapters. This is

do-do-do-do do-do-do-do-do That's the sound the roar makes in the sky, out that's what lyra was here fuck them kids yeah so i think we did it i can't believe we've gotten this far i know a lot of people are like what what's gonna happen next? What's going to happen next? What are we going to do, Eliana? So what we're going to do is we're going to continue coverage of the His Dark Materials show as we've been doing, and that'll come out for all of you every week as the show episodes come out. The unfortunate fact is, of course,

we are living in the past here in the U.S. And we don't get episodes until Monday evenings. Yeah. I got to see the one really early. That was it. That was my one steal. And now I am living with the peasants of the U.S. With my dog servant demon. Yeah.

And by that you mean your two cats. Yeah, no, they're two cats. They're awful. Two demons. One Chloe. Actually, though. So that's what we're going to be doing until about the end of the year. Yeah, until the show ends. I think it ends right before Christmas, so right up to Christmas.

So we'll finish then. And from there, I guess we'll wait it out. Maybe the new year you'll have some very subtle podcasting arriving to some audio near you. Some subtle podcasting with hopefully some sharp commentary. Yes, in 2020 some sharp

metallic commentary. Just some cutting commentary, like a knife. Yeah, that sounds knife. I have no regrets in life. You're fired. Holy shit. That's what shit i'm gonna tell one day when i die you know this is my story so i made a lot of really good puns here are some of my greatest hits oh yeah we are gonna start the subtle knife sometime in the new year we'll have more on that as we get closer right now we have our hands full with john dying at the end of a dance of dragons and with

of course his dark materials season one bbc hbo wow great first episode we talked about that we just put out that episode a bit ago check it out if you have not listened yet we do do some spoilers throughout the whole main trilogy so be be warned we we've come to not to jesus not to metatron on it but we we might not be the best at not doing spoilers yeah so of course what we're trying to do in this current read-through of the podcast right is reading through the chapters and addressing things as it comes up and then at the end of the episode talking about content from the other two books including la belle sauvage and the secret common mouth later on in dustier slash dustiest discussions though we might be a fairly clean episode today only yeah kind of dusty yeah not so dusty i think

this episode's important and it is important in the overall and i'll mention briefly but i'm not not gonna go to straight dusty discussion today i think that's something you guys need to read on your own but i guess what we're saying is that you should probably finish the number spyglass by 2020 yeah and i don't know if we can keep this up when we come back and do the subtle knife Knife, is what I'm saying. Because I'm... I can't be tamed, Eliana. I can't be tamed. I have so many big thoughts. I'm... You guys

are living in the Golden Compass Northern Lights. I am living in the Commonwealth. You are. The secret Commonwealth. I gotta catch up. With the Jack-o'-lanterns and the fairies. I gotta catch up. Yeah, so we've been doing it in this way again, trying to keep it more spoiler-free as we go through the chapters

and then talking about the story as a whole towards the end. And I think that's something that works really well for me in the way that I think about stories because I like to look at them as a whole when I can because that's the sort of background that I come from, right? I come from a sort of literary background. And I see stories in many ways as a large, encompassing argument, and I like to be able to parse out all those things and look at how everything fits together as part of that. They're not always an argument, sometimes they're an

exploration, but looking at that journey as a whole is something that I really value. And I think that you feel the same way yeah and that's the way the series is intended by Pullman right he's a storyteller he knows where he's going and that he wants to get there and he weaves his way there and drags us along with him obviously sometimes kicking and screaming depending what part of the book you're in sometimes we go very willingly like unfortunately Roger goes in this episode um you know it's it's a story and there's an ending and pullman has that he has that in sight and he's given us that so i like to look at it as a whole i do i think it's better as a whole yeah but there are a lot of other podcasts that are covering his dark materials and a lot of other podcasts that are covering His Dark Materials and a lot of them are doing it

and doing a much better job of being spoiler free than we are so much better we just wanted to call some of them out there as everyone starts gearing up getting super dusty themselves and interested in His Dark Materials yo bro

wanna get dusty? get dusty up all night to get dusty yeah so there are a bunch of different podcasts the amber spy cast is doing some stuff they're doing chapter read-throughs um they're doing some other different things too i think one of the people on the amber spy cast i almost said spy gassed like a cliff gas the amber spy gas yeah yeah one of them is a middle school literature teacher yeah so that's pretty cool perspective yeah and a lot of the there's three of them and they come from different perspectives yeah and so there's a lot of people doing podcasts on this and we're making our way through some of them and checking them out but here's some of them up front there's

another podcast called demon cast and i don't know that they have a twitter but it seems as though they have a facebook group and they're doing sort of like a meta commentary and looking at the story from that sense yeah there's uh the demon dust podcast they're fun i've uh seen a couple of their different tweets and things. The Dust podcast, that's actually one of our friends, Holly Hunt, is on that and she has a couple friends. They're discussing His Dark Materials about it. It's awesome. One of them,

Matt, covers the music, which I think is really, really cool. It's a different perspective. Yeah, that is. And Lauren is doing an awesome job, as we've discussed. Did you guys hear our new intro on the historic materials episodes the the show episodes because i think it was very inspired lauren i hope you like it i chose it for you and i think it's pretty cool that they're covering the

music i know that it seems as though the showrunners are very proud right now they've been putting out a lot of content about that music and i think the soundtrack's already out and it's something that i don't I don't know much about music other than I like listening to it and singing I think it's on Spotify I gotta listen to it we have a family account you guys we are family we're a household another podcast is Dustbusters and they've just started they are covering the show and their hosts have a couple of other podcasts as well yeah there's a louisa maycock who's from girls on tops they do shirts and clothing for celebrating women in the film industry which i thought is awesome and there's jake cunningham he's on

gibliotheque which is a studio ghibli podcast and also little white lies i thought that was neat definitely a new perspective to cover things from. I should check that out. I didn't know that there were Studio Ghibli podcasts. I never thought to look for them. I know. I'm about to download. Oh, man, I should do a Ghibli rewatch.

Oh, this is such, this is. What if we did a Ghibli rewatch? This is so exciting. I have, like, something to live for. I'd be interested. I'm just saying. Yeah, we could do it oh holiday season's a good time to do it too so family friendly and warm and warm and food

there's really a good idea in retrospect because miyazaki has had a lot of focus right on having these very different and stories that have also different female protagonists and main characters. So it makes sense to come from that sort of background and perspective, too, to these books. Anyway, Ghibli podcast. There's also another podcast called Her Dark Materials. You can find them on Twitter at at hdmpod. If you like Chloe and my banter, I would check them out. They're hosted by Faye and Rachel, they're pretty funny and they're also doing, they're doing chapter by chapter. As you all know, Chloe and I

are grouping these chapters and a lot of these other folks are doing chapter by chapter or episode by episode and yeah. I think they also just released, I haven't checked it out yet though, their review of the past episode. Nice. There's Pandemonium. They're covering just released i haven't checked it out yet though their review of the past episode nice there's

pandemonium they're covering only the show no books involved no book analysis they are show only it's podcast for people only watching the show so if you're looking for a not book tainted review which you would never find here i'm sorry it's just the way we are we cannot separate it it's like our demon the books are our demon for the show so check out pandemonium and then you have dark material pod and i've been really enjoying them this is hosted by ian and amy and i think they have a science background but they've been doing a really great job of diving in depth with some things that I didn't think to look into. They're doing it also chapter by chapter and theoretically like, you know, no spoilers,

but they're still bringing a lot of really great information. They also have made me rethink of the demons as Pokemon, but I'm also now thinking maybe they're more of Digimon. Hmm. You know, there's a, I was just saying there's a thread you guys were chatting about that and I think on Twitter

and I had piped in but I just downloaded a mod for the Sims that lets you have Pokemon. What? Like specifically Pokemon? Up to what number? And there's like a Jigglypuff that makes your person go, just just one you can get one but it makes people go to sleep you can have it attack people too but how many like like can you download let's say for example a gen 4 pokemon can you incorporate that no no it's all gen 1 and

it's brand new so it's like new you know but it's pretty cool it's like having your own demon for sure very meta very meta um measures of truth pod they're part of the hallowed ground network of podcasts and they're covering this as well i haven't really gotten to look into them yet there's extraneous they're doing some really good coverage and then there's also demons world uh they're at demons world underscore on twitter i think it's a spanish podcast i'm not sure so as you can Twitter I think it's a Spanish podcast I'm not sure so as you can see you know there's a lot of people covering this right now and so we're excited

to see this like blossoming podcast community I'm sure that you know these books have been around for a while obviously there are online forums and communities that have been covering this also like Twittergaze yeah right and bridge to the stars is one of those like og places where people have been talking about the books so yeah and i think

we're gonna try to work at making like a little resource with a list of all these people right uh i think that'd be really awesome if we just built up this community i mean there's obviously been great resources like sitagaze.com from the Twittergaze on Twitter and a couple of people that have contributed to all that in the forums. And it'd be awesome to just bring it over to Twitter. You know, we have Twitteros in the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom where people go in for the discourse and why not have our own little Oxford, right? Twitter's Oxford. So really cool to see all these podcasts. Can't wait to listen to all the coverage. Eliana has gotten to listen to them a little bit this week. I am taking a

vacation to listen to them this weekend. So we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. Well, with this episode, Eliana, a lot of people keep asking what our demons are. I still don't think I know enough animals. Like, honestly, when they told me, like, honestly, sometimes i see these demons and i'm like i don't know what that fucking animal is i'll like say something and i'm like googling it i'm like fascinating that's not what i would have thought that was you sent me a bunch of uh like painted birds the other day and i was like i could see that for you i could see you being a bird i don't know if that's the right one but i could see it I think that we won't they won't settle until like we read the amber spyglass I think after that we'll grow up yeah and our demons have what if

I'm an amoeba you know that's an animal what if I'm a mole just like with my patronus oh that's right that'd be awful mine was some sort of horse which like i guess a lot of people have been suggesting maybe i'm a horse uh i was also thinking while in the bathroom i have a lot of thoughts in the bathroom as i was telling chloe same uh maybe a llama or an alpaca those are those are contenders oh an alpaca very skinny and soft and soft i was thinking soft and very floof yeah i could be me i think mine has to be a feline of sorts yeah i could see it i could see it yeah i don't know what else that's all i can think of but i think i'm a feline of sorts which feels kind of plain i feel like a lot of people have cat demons in this world right but that's okay like sophie i could be a rat

oh rats are tenacious you, if you really think about it. So is Lyra. Exactly. I saw a video of, I don't know if it was a rat or a mouse, but it's climbing through. They can hold their breath for quite a bit underwater. I mean, I can't, but it was climbing. You know how toilets go? It's got that U-shape.

And it showed them doing that. And I was like, amazing. It's terrible and terrifying but also amazing i could be that i've seen some really crazy like new york rats that are like three feet yeah they're like the size of cats you know i could be a rat but like be a good companion for you as the same size are you my demon now i'm so confused okay listen we are covering chapters 21 22 23 lord asriel's welcome betrayal betrayal and chapters 23 the bridge to the stars today and we will have a discussion we're not gonna have a dusty discussion like i said yes so of course

again our dust discussion is our book spoilers after section tune out if you don't know what happens in the subtle knife and the amber spyglass we're finally at a point where like we can't we don't have to say you don't want to know what happens in the rest of the golden compass in the northern lights because this is it y'all i assume you've read these three chapters yeah i assume you've read these three chapters because you know we discussed them all together all right yeah you've been here every week doing also like the last two chapters are like bang bang they're very short punchy very short uh very punchy but all like there's so much good language it was so tempting for us to just be like what if we just quoted a whole thing

because like pullman clearly poured his heart out into writing a lot of these moments in the book. Yeah. Absolutely. Anyway, let's start off with 21, Lord Asriel's Welcome. Goodbye. Goodbye, Lord Asriel. Yeah, you can leave right now. I'm leaving.

Wrong house, sorry. My bad. I wish. I wish.. Wrong house, sorry. My bad. I wish, I wish. But instead, we have Lyra and Roger. They ride atop younger bears with Yurika ahead of them. And Spawpart is actually harder to traverse than the route that Lyra took coming up north because it's full of mountains and ice.

I really love that the world-building Pullman has extended here, covers later on when she gets to kind of that fissure in the earth. He doesn't just make the fissure up like it's a fantastical thing that happens like suddenly the earth split in front of lyra no that fissure existed there was a bridge there that's the problem um it's a normal thing right like this broken cold frigid region covered in snow so it's not surprising when we come across this big fiss fisher in land that makes it hard for her to get across to get to roger yeah and and that landscape plays a big part

in the plot right it of what happens to lyra and roger and how they're able to maneuver through it also kind of reminds me of that show didn't watch too much of it but people in the trucks and they drive across the ice really stressful show anyway i'm stressed already it's stressful i'm like can you do that anyway lyra doesn't know where they're headed but the older bear soren eiserson who i'm pretty sure after these moments is never again mentioned tells them that these fire hurlers are being prepared and soren is able to share details about asriel's imprisonment because he was there uh being basically a lawyer bear oh my god and asriel's imprisonment because he was there uh being basically a lawyer bear oh my god and asriel theoretically didn't have it better or worse than any of the other prisoners who

also i mean anyone who's imprisoned up here right so we get this idea that a lot of them are like we saw that other professor close to lyra they're all important in their own way but his jailers were pretty wary of him because everyone else was pretty scared of him and also this dust stuff is pretty weird yeah I mean know what was happening behind the scenes too right like Mrs. Coulter had interactions with Eofor

Asriel was also total dick of all the jailers they dominated Eofor which runs in the family obviously look at Lyra and eoric she doms him tops him all the time yeah yofur had yofur was big bottom energy trying to be a top you know i get that i get that he is that you yes so asriel because he's such an asshole and so charismatic he was like goldilocks in his own

dwelling place he was like the first one he allotted was too low down he said he needed a high spot above the smoke and the stir of the fire mines and the smithies he gave the bears a design of the accommodation he wanted and told them where it should be. He bribed them with gold, he flattered and bullied Eo for Ragnarsson, and with a bemused willingness, the bears set to work. Before long, a house had arisen on a headland facing north, a wide and solid place with fireplaces that burned great blocks of coal mined and hauled by bears, with large windows of real glass. There he dwelt, a prisoner acting like a king. And then he set about assembling the materials for a laboratory. With furious concentration, he sent for books, instruments, chemicals, all manners of tools and equipment. And somehow it had come, from this

source or that, some openly, some smuggled in by visitors he insisted he was entitled to have, some smuggled in by visitors he insisted he was entitled to have. By land, sea, and air, Lord Asriel assembled his materials, and within six months of committal, he had all the equipment he wanted. I really like that you used the British pronunciation of laboratory. I thought it was appropriate. Yeah, no, it is. These words have different meanings. Yeah, Northern Lights in some places, some places, Mortal Kombat, anything could happen. Anything. But I pulled out this quote because I love the way that they have been portraying Asriel in these chapters. It really digs into the whole connections with paradise lost this idea of a

prisoner acting like a king in this but then something struck me about this line of by land sea and air lord asriel assembled his materials and i felt that the language here echoed the quote from paradise lost at the beginning of this book and granted much of this quote the first part right is about the almighty maker and etc but the the last part is about satan of course and so he goes into this wild abyss the womb of nature and perhaps her grave of neither sea nor shore nor air nor fire but all these in their causes makes you follow like one of these books confusedly and which thus must ever fight unless the almighty maker them ordain his dark materials to create more worlds it's a thing into this it's the world abyss the weary fiend stood on the brink of hell and looked a while pondering his voyage so that idea of by

land sea and air materials and of neither sea nor shore nor air it's flipped it's that opposite yeah and it is kind of opposite right like asriel and we talked about this in our very first episode if you remember flashback to no i don't uh lord asriel and asriel meaning lucifer and meaning satan right and we'll talk about it later but asriel very much so is comparable to milton satan that's who he is in this story and here's the thing Lyra is Asriel's daughter and Coulter's she refuses to believe she's Coulter's but she's both she's able to trick bears which Asriel was just able to trick bears this easily that's what this whole passage was just being like so Asriel played them like his little servants and it's crazy I can't believe

it's that impossible to trick bears. Like, I'm starting to question if that's true, because anyone with a dash of charisma seems to be able to. I don't know if it's charisma or he just, like, scared all of them. Right? And they just respect, I don't know, strength. And he's like, I'm a scary man with my snow leopard demon. And they're like, okay.

Okay. Well, and look at Coulter. Same thing same thing she has the tartars scared to her side that's her army yeah that's true asriel has been waiting waiting in his prison for his final final dark ingredient to arrive which of course as we already know if you're reading these chapters it's roger lyra finally sees it at a ridge there is no aurora it's apparently formidable this place because it has expensive glass and interesting line here and so to see them here was evidence of wealth and influence far greater than yofer rakinson's Vulgar Palace. But Asriel is a master manipulator. I don't know.

I really hate Asriel. He's just not compelling. We're going to talk about it later. He's not compelling. The children support each other to get to the steps of the door. This line kills me. And within the narration it's, oh the warmth there would be inside that

house oh the peaceful rest no it's the walking dead thorold asriel's manservant opens the door asriel realizes who's arrived and at first he's like oh's Lyra, but then he freaks the fuck out. No, no, he staggered back and clutched at the mantelpiece. Lyra couldn't move. Get out, Lord Azrael cried. Turn around, get out, go. I did not send for you. She couldn't speak.

She opened her mouth twice, three times, and then managed to say, No, no, I came because... He seemed appalled. He he kept shaking his head he held up his hands as if to ward her off she couldn't believe his distress she moved a step closer to reassure him and roger came to stand with her anxious the demons fluttered out into the warmth and after a moment lord asriel passed a hand across his brow and recovered slightly the color began to return to his cheeks as he looked down at the two. James McAvoy is going to do a good job at this. This is what I can't wait to watch. In the first episode,

they actually put in the script as a meta little comment him saying to Lyra, I didn't send for you. And I thought that was interesting. It's going to make us feel sad at the very end. I think it was during the ship scene or something when he's like, I didn't send for you.

Oh. I think that's interesting, especially because there are interactions with Roger now. Yeah. They're building it up very hard. They are. It's so hard when you rere reread it you're like oh and you realize all of this is so obvious it's glaring yeah obviously i didn't catch it like

until 12 yeah as asriel calms down then like lyra explains that she brought him the lithiometer yeah and he's really snide he's like of course you did immediately he asks who roger is and lyra explains his name and says he's the kitchen boy from jordan college yeah we've kind of touched on like this classism that is part of the story in his dark materials we've talked about it even a little bit with like mrs culture saying yeah we don't use the subway, which they call the Catholic Railway because it's not for people like us. But there's a part of me that wonders, would Asriel have been less inclined to use the child Lyra had brought if she hadn't explained that he's the kitchen boy from Jordan College? Or if she had said he's Lord Boreal's son or something like that? I mean, granted, a child like that wouldn't have been captured anyway and

that's part of the whole class system but i'm like would asriel have hesitated if it were a higher class child or would he still just been like no fuck this shit it's my work yeah and i feel like there's a lot of meta that like someone who liked asriel would probably argue that he's like struggling with his demons in this moment right because he's all like oh i didn't send for you and he's like enraged but now he's totally gripped and he's like interesting so can you tell me more about this roger kid what's he what's he into you know does he like playing with blocks like what is he what's he about you know like what's he like what can i uh what can i do to comfort him before i kill him yeah and i think i mean

azrael probably would still use him for his his whole experiment regardless of his background i think because he's like fuck this i'm out yeah i feel like at this point it's time but it still sucks and i think the way that he reacts right it's similar to mrs coulter seeing lyra in the machine yeah freaks out very much so i i could see that it's very much so paralleling when she stops the machine yeah when azrael asks how they got there lyra's like if you'd stop interrupting me i came with eoricoric. But now she's like, fuck, now I have to explain Eoric. And he's super popular only in niche communities. But he's not, like, you know, well-known.

He's pretty indie. Anyway, Asriel lets them in and shows them some hospitality, finally. And he's like, I'm gonna go talk to this bear and pretend I'm a good dad. Yeah, the children wash separately. Though, in the past, they've, like, swum together naked. And then there was a line of of like, but this was different. And Roger shares that he's afraid of Asriel to Lyra. And she's like, yeah, me too.

But it's not really the same. They did it where Mrs. Coulter gives Pan a look and Pan has to turn away as Lyra's bathing. And they're all like, why? This is weird. They're like, we've never done this before. It's similar to that. It's very similar to that here. and it's also isolating them right like it's obvious he's isolating them for his own experiments but the divide of the children speaks the idea of severing and then ideas of also

dust or sin happening as well it's the first time they've been separated yeah it's all that it's like one of the first ways that we see them starting to become conscious of their sexuality. Right. Because it's not something that's ever really addressed before. We get a sort of it right with that scene with Pan that you mentioned, but Pan is Lyra. between Roger and Lyra. When we first come in he never saw me at all. He only saw you and he was horrified till he saw me. Then he calmed down all at once. He was just shocked, said Lyra. Anyone would be to see someone they didn't expect. He last saw me after that time in the retiring room. It's bound to be a shock. No, said Roger. It's more than that. He was looking at me like a wolf or something. You're imagining it. I ain't. I'm more scared of him than I was of Mrs. Coulter, and that's the truth, he splashed himself.

Lyra took out the alethiometer. Do you want me to ask the symbol reader about it? Lyra said. Well, I dunno. There's things I'd rather not know. Seems to me everything I heard of since the gobblers come to Oxford, everything's been bad. There ain't been nothing good more than about five minutes ahead. Like I can see now, this bath's nice and there's a nice warm towel there about five minutes away. And then once I'm dry, maybe I'll think of something nice to eat, but no further ahead than that. And when I've eaten, maybe I'll look forward to a kip in a comfortable bed. But after that, I don't know, Lyra.

There's been terrible things we've seen, ain't there? And there's more coming, more than likely. So I think I'd rather not know what's in the future. I'll stick to the present. So the reason they're able to talk is she's from, she's kind of like outside the door, right? so the reason they're able to talk is she's from she's kind of like outside the door right and i've actually really loved all the live action interpretations i've seen of roger thus far they show him as this really perceptive kid you know he's also very clever and he notices different things from lyra and but like he notices them as he saw here with asriel

and i don't know to be honest all he's saying right now of wanting to stick to the present practice some self-care is some major vibes but it's too bad did you know and this is uh this is a no spoiler fact but roger is actually cousins with the housekeeper mrs lonsdale yeah i did not know that he's yep they have the same uh her maiden name was his last name he's got quite a few people that he's uh related to right there's the also the other he's like the baker's son or something yeah so interesting after lyra holds the alethiometer for a bit for comfort and the two have washed thorold takes roger away for bed but lyra is to join asriel in the library which is a beautiful library it has a great view rent's real good up in svalbard it's real good

it's real good apparently so he's got a sick place yeah mtv cribs yeah actually though that's literally what this chapter is it's uh asriel's mtv cribs chapter his summer home and by that i mean winter home i guess i don't know yorick is like outside though he doesn't come inside because he being you know the panther bjorn prefers the cold asriel asked lyra so he's like really a king now and she's like yeah yorick never lies unlike some people i'm thinking it that's exactly what it feels like it's what it feels like that's literally what this feels like though it's like the whole time she's just like i can't believe you lied to me and all of us are like we can yeah but also at

the same time when i think about she's like york never lies unlike me i lie all the time oh right she uh she also thinks eork is watching over her because he's following john fa's orders but obviously we know it's not true it's because he also signed those adoption papers with lee and seraphina and the master and the master so lyra confronts him about being her father and says he should have told her. She says, I would have been proud. Yeah. Oh, you know, all our parents disappoint us. Yeah.

He continues disappointing her, too, because he does not give her anything in this. Oh, he gives her a hell of a lesson at the end. Moral fiber. Something. he does not give her anything in this oh he gives her a hell of a lesson at the end uh moral fiber something azrael sorry so who told you all this and she's like and he says so do you know about your mother and she's like yeah i do and he's like all right word so i have nothing left to explain here then did my parenting for the year good job babe he doesn't want to be interrogated and condemned by an insolent child he says so he's like what happened on the way here and lyra's like i brought you the alethiometer yeah and she goes on this whole tirade where at the same time she's like i didn't even get a thank you you look like you didn't want to see me you're a shit dad i love farter corman york more than you this is actually an accurate summary of what she's saying i'm gonna throw this out there and at the same time as her throwing all of this shade she's also giving a summary of her trip up

here and truly the skill the mastery to do both at the same time the charisma the petty i'm so envious uh azrael is like didn't you say eoric doesn't love you but and then he's like if you're gonna be emotional i'm not dealing with any of this and she's like fine i'll go take your alethiometer i'll just go deal with the whole entire world that's falling apart but azrael doesn't move to take it and lyra's like oh yeah by the way mom's coming with an army holy fucking dysfunctional family it and lyra's like oh yeah by the way mom's coming with an army holy fucking dysfunctional family yeah poor lyra she had a family back in oxford yeah that is the language in like the first chapter it's like but it felt like a family probably she knew what it was like that's what it felt like in lyra's oxford in, too. That's true. Aw. Anyway.

It was her Oxford. It was her home. Lyra gives her whole summary of what happened and asks what dust is. She says she has a right to know, and Asriel looks at her seriously for the very first time, because she's a very small girl, and says, Dust is what makes the alethiometer work. He goes into an explanation that the church always knew about it and had been preaching about it for centuries,

but that they're elementary particles discovered by a Muscovite, Boris Mikhailovich Rusikov, is it Rusikov? Rusikov? I think Rusikov. I don't know. It's up in the air. Like electrons, photons, neutrinos. It didn't react normally. It was difficult to measure, and they clustered around humans, especially adults, but not really children until their demons settled. Rusikov got in trouble with the church especially with the consistorial court of discipline for this and they exercised and interrogated him and then had to accept he wasn't lying and that it was real the church decided it was physical evidence of original sin yeah so quite the info dump here.

And there's actually a lot of different examples of the church questioning people who are proposing scientific progress or theories. And I think a really good corollary to all of this that happens in our world is what happened to Galileo and his assertions of heliocentrism. Of course, which means the earth revolves around the Sun, and this was actually deemed heresy which we've seen thrown around a lot throughout this world of people going no this is heresy and in fact in an interview that was released on November 8th 2019 so very very very recently literally like less than 24 hours, probably, as of recording this. Pullman has discussed Galileo. He actually provided a foreword for a book about, I don't know, philosophy and scientific thought by someone named Philip

Goff that just came out recently. Two Philips, galileo never mind anyways but pullman in this interview which heavily talks about the secret commonwealth says in just the same way that the catholic inquisition of the 17th century persecuted galileo who brought new ideas like the sun being at the center of the universe the church persecuted them because they seemed to contradict what the bible said and the church being in control of everything wanted to command people's thoughts as well as what they did they were very fierce and severe in defending this knowledge that we now know to be untrue so the magisterium in my book is doing the same sort of thing with this idea of dust hmm yeah these are all very much so tied together such an interesting connection

i love that pullman's so open with what his influences are right like there's the change Yeah, these are all very much so tied together. Such an interesting connection. I love that Pullman's so open with what his influences are, right? Like there's the change in William Blake's terms, innocence to experience that he talks about regarding what the magisterium and what this kind of child's journey in the story is. I'm interested as we go forward, especially in exploring the subtle knife and the amber spyglass to see more of this tied up together. Yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely going to see more of this tied up together yeah yeah it's definitely gonna be more of a thing but for now lyra doesn't like being asked what what she understands does her original sin to be because she feels as though she's being quizzed on something she'd been half taught it reminds reminds her of her days over in Jordan College. Yes. And Asriel's like, all right, go get the Bible. All right. And then we have this quote, which we actually discussed in our recent review of the first episode of the BBC slash HBO Historic Materials live action.

And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and your demons shall assume their true forms, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to reveal the true form of one's demon, then she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat.

And the eyes of them both were opened and they saw the true form of their demons and spoke with them but when the man and the woman knew their own demons they knew that a great change had come upon them for until that moment it had seemed that they were at one with all the creatures of the earth and air and there was no difference between them and they saw the difference and they knew good and evil and they were ashamed and they sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness so that's supposed to be from the book of genesis in the bible but here's what it sounds like in real life the language is incredibly similar so here's the part only part that's really markedly different right where the serpent explains forgotten is that when you eat from it your eyes will be open and you will

be like god knowing good and evil when no one saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom she took some and ate it she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it and that's more or less like the part that's different in lyra's world this is tied to the settling of demons which shows us very much where pullman is taking this story yeah and asriel says it himself that that is how sin came into the world sin and shame and death it came the moment their demons became fixed so there's your canon demons get fixed and then dust settles upon you yes and interestingly mrs culture's the one who makes that discovery but we'll talk about that in a bit lyra protests

that the cassington scholar said that adam and evara fairy tale and azrael's like yeah well that's the whole reason why he has that scholarship he's supposed to challenge faith which it's fascinating to me that this is a designated scholarship within jordan college and it's not fake like this is a real scholarship type thing that happens like people are granted money to challenge faith on these things yeah interesting it's just so fascinating. That, I mean, is a classic sanctuary, but also it's being funded and meant to happen. I understand that there's this idea that one challenges faith

in order to strengthen it. It sounds like the Castington Scholar really doesn't fucking believe it. You know? Yeah. Anyway. Asriel, though, explains, it sounds like he believes it because he says but think of adam and eve like an imaginary number like the square root of minus one you can never see any concrete

proof that it exists but if you include it in your equations you can calculate all manner of things that couldn't be imagined without it found that interesting that is interesting he says the church decided that's what dust was god more or less says it too to adam and eve at the end of that chapter in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return this is this is a bible quote like it's literally a bible quote that's all it is yeah this is literally what's in there there's nothing different oh my god um as real explains the church thought dust was maybe a mistranslation or it was about the ground and returning it to death but

the word was good so they just kept using it yeah and that's why we use it in discussion it's a good ass word yeah it's lit god damn it ly discussion. It's a good-ass word. Yeah, it's lit. Goddamn it. Lyra asks about the Gobblers, and Asriel says Coulter was always clever, that the Magisterium lets different agencies happen to compete against one another, and they always pick the winning side. So we've never really gone that in-depth, I think, about some of the implications behind the church and how it was formed in lara's

world compared to how it evolved in ours and i again highly recommend checking out the dark material podcast you can find them at dark material podcast singular material alright dot com and their episode on chapter two the idea of north for a great breakdown of what this all means in the context of like john calvin predeterminism, and different branches of the church. Also for insight on Jackie Chan adventures. Oh my god. Truly, our brethren. So there's this quote

about Mrs. Coulter. You see, your mother's always been ambitious for power. At first she tried to get it in the normal way, through marriage, but that didn't work, as I think you've heard. So she had to turn to the church. Naturally, she couldn't take the route a man could have taken, priesthood and so on. It had to be unorthodox. She had to set up her own order, her own channels of influence, and work through that. It was a good move to specialize in dust. Everyone was frightened of it, no one knew what to do, and when she offered to direct an investigation, the magisterium was so relieved that they backed her with money and resources of all kinds yeah knowing

kind of what we know now with the church saying dust is sin they seek to control it still because it's powerful right coulter tried to harness its power and learn what it can do she evaded laws of the land in places like bulwanger and Svalbard to start doing cruel experimentation. And Asriel is out here harnessing it to get into other worlds. And the Faith probably surely seeks to control that, as we may think maybe might happen. If they had the power to do so, or are they already? We just don't know. But dust is only bad if you're just a peasant, right? Like dust is only bad to keep you from wanting to obtain its power they tell everybody in their world it's bad but there's literally nothing wrong with it they don't even like know what it does right they're just like

yeah fear-mongering yeah they don't even know what it does and like you said they are using it to control some people but they're like i don't really know what this is lara continues to be appalled at intercision wonders why the church would allow it asriel's like well they let them more or less do it to boys just for music for a long ass time and we have this quote from azriel saying but the church wouldn't flinch at the idea of a little cut you see there's a precedent and this would be so much more hygienic than the old methods when they didn't have anesthetics or sterile bandages or proper nursing care. It would be gentle by comparison. Yeah. Lyra insists, well, it isn't gentle. And Azriel was like, of course not. That's why they do it up here in the darkness and obscurity of the North. Why? Like, same thing I

said, why did marisa put her business there what do you think uh and why the church was so glad to have someone like your mother in charge who could doubt someone so charming so well connected so sweet and reasonable yeah it seems evident from the aforementioned passages but apparently mrs coulter actually like we said is the first to realize that dust settling happens at the same time as demons settling so very interesting give us the marisa van z backstory we deserve it yeah i i want to know she's she's such an interesting character and i think that obviously there's something a little

off about her internally, or else she wouldn't be able to do the things she does, but... I think my theory's right about the severing. I really do. That she's been... I don't know. I think she did something. I don't know that she was severed, but she did something on her travels, I guess. Something, and she's so hollow um i enjoy these three chapters

are basically asriel telling lyra like your mom is a clever smart bitch she's crazy and the sex is really good because look at you like that's basically what this chapter is he's like she's crazy she's just fucking nuts uh and she is smart though she's so smart it's something we're noticing she's always there foiling the plans showing up lyra's like how did she get here so fast always it's interesting that azriel's not the only brilliant one like lyra always thought right marisa's 10 times as clever she works 10 times as hard and she's had to do all of this villainy the hard way azriel just laughed and smiled to the bank right like marisa had to an empire. I'm just putting it out there as far as villains go. And Lyra,

of course, she spent all this time refusing to see Asriel as a villain. Like, she just wants to praise him and wants to love him. But he is so classic textbook Milton Satan. He's arrogant and powerful and charismatic. He has that same kind of charisma. And Milton Satan he's arrogant and powerful and charismatic he has that same kind of charisma and Milton Satan was the most beautiful of all angels who was cast out from heaven after a failed rebellion condemned to hell and the most famous quote of course is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven Lucifer said and shout out by the way to Lucifer's mom because shout out, by the way, to Lucifer's mom, because he was born of the Aurora. Did you know that? I did not. Thought it was interesting. It is interesting. I agree with

everything that you're saying about Marissa Coulter. And like you said, she had to work 10 times as hard. I think that this shows, you know, her sort of ambition her deadly ambition and what she's willing to do for it which is appalling and terrible but at the same time like you can see that she's grasping for power but there's there's something that you have to like sort of think that it sucks that she had to take these unjust roots she was going to do something terrible no matter what probably whenever she had power but i mean what if she didn't right what if she had like normal roots to power available to her what if she had normal like ways to be a person and had more choices in her life what if they had kept lyra what if asriel had denounced it all like and just said let's just run into the countryside together

what if coulter had gone with him well i guess we're going to question that soon too what if coulter had gone with him every time we asked that but what if coulter was allowed to have her own job right and have her own career while having a kid what if she didn't have to be an evil villain femme fatale yeah what if she could have both yeah right men get to have both. What is this world? How come Asriel gets to be handsome and sympathetic? Because it's book one, not book three. But even then, no spoilers. We'll talk about this later. Okay, let's just keep going.

We got to talk about this in the dust of your discussion because... Yeah, and speaking more about, you know, Marissa Coulter's ambition and all the things she's done, when she said she was an explorer to Lyra at the beginning or something like it, it's true. She's been to a lot of different places. It was in Africa that she learned that something like intercision was possible at seeing zombie slaves there, which are kind of likened to the phantoms in the northern forest. Right. And Asriel explains that something else happens when a child is cut. Yeah.

They didn't see it. The energy that links body and demon is immensely powerful. When the cut is made, all that energy dissipates in a fraction of a second. They didn't notice because they mistook it for shock or disgust or moral outrage, and they trained themselves to feel numb towards it. So they missed what it could do, and they never thought of harnessing it. Is this adrenochrome? You know, the shit that the cabal gets off on, you know, of torturing little babies, adrenochrome? It's like, basically, it's what your body elicits when you're made to fear or like induced fear or like you know anxiety oh i mean that's the other thing that i've always

thought this was like i just don't say it because it's government conspiracy shit but you know it might be i think so i'm just or there's like that spiritual like also yeah they're spirit cooking that's what they're doing. He hooks it up to the demon. Yeah, this is spirit cooking. That's literally what it is. They're spirit cooking. Gross.

Weird. Yeah. And Lyra also is too disgusted to listen to this. And she's like, Asriel, have you ever done any of this cutting? And interestingly, he never says yes or no. He just says that he's interested in something quite different i don't think the oblation board goes far enough i want to go to the source of dust itself red flags i don't think they go far enough oh you don't think the oblation board goes far

enough oh my god my god oh my god i hate him so much so speaking of paradise lost we're gonna reference it a lot throughout this episode one of the people that runs around with satan is moloch who is uh something like a deity known for child sacrifice and here's that here's the passage about him in paradise lost when at first with first moloch hor King, besmeared with blood of human sacrifice and parents' tears. Though for the noise of drums and timbers loud, their children's cries unheard that pass through fire to his grim idol.

There's also another one that accompanies Satan called Mammon, who symbolizes greed and wealth, but I really only put him in here because I wanted to talk about this cake in the Philippines called mammon who symbolizes creed and wealth but i really only put him in here because i wanted to talk about this cake in the philippines called mammon oh fawn slash sponge cake it's kind of like the cake that i fed you but not quite it's a little lighter than that that was really good when you were here yeah anyway mammon is not the point of what i was referencing here it was moloch yeah absolutely child sacrifice

i don't think the inflation point goes far enough what is that that's like a huge like nine one one siren emoji like i know right red flag oh this is dateline oh my god chris hansen um so he wants to go to the place on the other side of the aurora lyra thinks she doesn't love her father but she admires him and the extravagant luxury he'd assembled in this desolate wasteland and the power of his ambition how about you appreciate your mom's power you've been living in this horrible society that has taught you that misogyny is okay lyra respect your mom and we see that actually at the beginning of the books, right? In the way that she regards

Mrs. Coulter versus Dame Hannah. Mm-hmm. There is a bit of that internalized misogyny on Lyra's part. She has no clue what Dame Hannah has been through, either. Mm-mm. I liked this,

all the references to this, like, great kingdom- great kingdom-ish, fancy ass whatever cottage that Asriel has up here, and how he's been going about his work, because it reminds me of this other line that is used to describe Satan's power, right? In Paradise Lost, of, Receive thy new possessor, one who brings a mind not to be changed by place or time the mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven what matter where if

I be still the same and that's what Asriel does he makes his own little paradise up here in the icy north where it's pretty shitty and he's a prisoner of the kingdom and while I'm talking about heaven and hell I want to talk about a different religious

epic poem The Inferno The ninth worst circle of hell is super icy, people are trapped in the ice and stuff and Dante's Satan is trapped there and it's the circle where those who

commit the crimes of treachery or betrayers are kept. Brutus and Cassius amongst Julius Caesar's assassinators are up there. So it makes sense that we might find Asriel up here in the icy north, Satan, right? The coldest circle of hell.

Especially as he betrays his daughter. And it's also in this icy wasteland that Lyra unknowingly ends up betraying Roger and begins her journey to the other worlds. Asriel wants to go to those other universes, the ones that witches

have known about for a very long time. Theologians who proved them were excommunicated 50 years or more ago. Crossing was thought impossible until now. Until now. time theologians who proved them were excommunicated 50 years or more ago crossing was thought impossible until now until now light can do it so why can't azrael azrael is like figuring out how to become a new god basically basically the other world yeah the other worlds are basically alternate realities from different probabilities and possibilities coming to pass and azrael's like i'm peacing the fuck out goodbye and he says i think that the dust in this universe comes from that one but here's his quote

after explaining the the energy from kids being severed, he goes, it needs a phenomenal burst of energy, but I can do it. I wonder where he'll get that burst of energy. There's so many red flags right now. Lyra is too disgusted with him and herself to figure any of it out, too. Yeah, she's still blinded by like that slight admiration of like she's got some dust in her eye as you'll say somewhere out there is the origin of all the dust all the death the sin the misery the destructiveness in the world human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it lyra that's original sin

and i'm going to destroy it death is going to die i don't i don't know about all that asriel maybe maybe we're going to talk about this in the discussion yeah lyra asks if all the stuff her uncle dad is spouting is why he's imprisoned he's like yeah they're afraid of me and they should be and then he and still maria are just like preening and lyra's like wow he's crazy as fuck too but who am i to judge i admire him oh lyra's leaving and azrael's like oh by the way i don't need the alethiometer idiot she realizes i guess the master never actually told me to give it to him she just kind of assumed because uh i don't know why else would she have it? Asriel's like, it's yours.

Yeah, and she sits by the fire and she just watches Asriel leave. She's kind of surprised about it. And she's kind of sitting there thinking, if that's not what he needed, then what did I bring him? He's so uninterested in the alethiometer, which holds answers. He and Coulter are opposites here. She wants what she can't understand and the power that it may hold and he doesn't want to spend time on something like that it's very interesting but i can do it chapter 22 here we go eliana what are we gonna

read chapter 22 betrayal oh my god i can't believe it's back. It's here. It's betrayal. Lyra's awakened by a trembling Thorold shaking her, telling her Asriel's mad and he doesn't know what to do. He's been packing instruments and batteries and he took the dogs and the boy, Roger. Worse, Roger!

Yeah, that too. The dogs are fine. I think that they end up being fine. Okay, can you show a little bit of sympathy to Roger then? oh my god what was that cheer for the dogs but nothing for roger uh i just i'm trying to like not think about what's gonna happen for roger thorold tells her asriel needed a child to finish his experiment and that asriel has a special way of bringing about what he wants libra realizes what she's done she thought he needed the alethiometer he needed a child she remembers his words to bridge the gap between worlds needs a phenomenal burst of energy but i can do it oh my god asriel commands thorold to help her dress using uh whatever asriel energy

inside of her she can find faces wet with tears while she's ordering him around. I'm thinking now of, you know, that TikTok video of that girl dancing while crying? Have you not seen this? No. It's great. You know, later Coulter's face is described as a sheet of tears. A mask of tears. Yeah, a mask of tears.

Interesting, with Lyra's face full of tears here i mean yeah there's a lot to cry about as you said roger pan's pacing across the floor and they run out calling for york she's like come i need your help oh amazing i love their bond she tells them the sitch and off they race And the other bears are behind them following Asriel's tracks. Until they seem to find him ahead. And Pan flies above as an owl. To see Asriel lashing his dogs with Roger on the back of the sled. Pan tries to listen to a sound that they can't quite hear.

But Lyra can. It's the final countdown. That's the sound the Aurora makes, everyone. That's the crackle. Surprisingly similar. That's what I hear. No, it does crackle, though, apparently. It actually, it's about 230 feet up in the sky

it crackles it makes kind of like a crackling muffled noise a finnish study in 2015 or 2016 did a study they did a study where they put microphones up up up and recorded and pinpointed the weird surging hiss during a magnetic storm. Hmm. That is super interesting. Yeah. Good research, huh? Great job, Pullman. Yeah. I didn't know it made noise.

Interesting. The bears seem to stop. There's something troubling them. And Lyra looks up at a cry from one of the bears. It's witches! At first she's excited, and then she's like, oh shit, these aren't my witches. As an arrow narrowly misses her

yeah they're bad witches bad witches that's a good payoff to the whole not all witches are on the good guy side right uh that we got earlier also the good guy side is kind of like asriel's side in this so it turns out there really is no good guys there's just lyra yeah it's her first time doing it this episode we did good yeah we did good the bears move into a defensive formation and when the witches dive toward them they try to attack the most vulnerable point as they thrust up lyra hides behind a boulder she's watching the witches begin to peel off and leave but it's only a temporary relief because even more witches come to join flying against the aurora and worse from the same direction comes mrs coulter zeppelin with an

army aboard are you ever like which side are they on i have no regrets in life. You should. The bearers trust to their armor when it comes to the bullets and they are like, alright, this fire hurler that we have, here it is. We're making our flamethrowing machine. They scoop pitch into their bowl and throw fire into the sky.

A bunch of witches fall into the flame but the bearers are actually aiming for the zeppelin the zeppelin again has a machine rifle mounted to it sparks are flying off of the bear's armor and lyra's worried and yorick's like no trust in the heart of the cards and they continue to use the flamethrower hurtling it into the zeppelin's gas bag and eventually they do it the silk grips yeah the seppelin catches fire and uh drifts to the ground it's so much action and he's really juggling it well uh it feels natural somehow i mean i say that in the very next moment witches and soldiers are like setting up a machine gun turret to kill armored bears with but it's as uh it's as natural you know as an action sequence. It just makes sense, and I can't wait to watch it.

Yeah. You thought it was going to be like a quiet action sequence. No, there's an entire battle being fought here as Lyra chases after her dad. And for her, it's just about Roger, right? Mm-hmm. It's all about Roger. I want this scene so bad. I'm excited to see this scene.

The bears split. A group begins attacking the tartars on one wing lyra's hidden she wants to be in the fight but she knows she can't and all she can think about is roger and asriel eoric knows this so he keeps moving them onward to find her friend pan's still an owl he can't see any movement ahead at this point they can only follow asriel's tracks there's this line here that i like because it's pretty much about the end of this book right i loved it so much whatever happened behind now was simply that behind lyra had left it she felt she was leaving the world altogether so remote and intent she was

so high they were climbing so strange and uncanny was the light that bathed them. I love that so much. Lyra had left it. It's a foreshadowing. Yeah. About like, I don't know, 20 pages before it happens. She asks Eoric to update Lee and Serafina on their position. She feels like she's dreaming. She's being carried to the stars by a bear. They come to the edge of a chasm, a big crack in the ice,

but a bridge of snow remains, strained and splattered with sledge marks, and Eorik can go no farther. Lyra has to go alone from here on out. She turns to Eorik. I got to go across. She said, Thank you for all you've done.

I don't know what's going to happen when I get to him. We might all die, whether I get to him or not. But if I come back, I'll come and see you to thank you for all you've done i don't know what's going to happen when i get to him we might all die whether i get to him or not but if i come back i'll come and see you to thank you properly king yorick burnison she laid a hand on his head he let it lie there and nodded gently goodbye lyra silver tongue roar he said her heart thumping painfully with love. She turned away and set her foot on the bridge. I feel like your roar is kind of sultry. That's what I was going for. They're in love.

Oh, my God. Pan and Lyra cross the bridge. Pan's in leopard form, interestingly. And the bridge crumbles behind them. As she jumps into the snow There is no way back She's emulating Asriel to try to be brave She is And Yorick stands on his hind legs

As she waves to him Her love Her last fair love He heads down the mountain To help his subjects battle Mrs. Coulter and the soldiers. And the last line is, Lyra was alone.

But she's not alone. And that's the end of the chapter and that's the end of the book. It's over and nothing bad happens. Nothing bad ever happens. This is it. This is what the story was about. Yep. Good story. Thanks for listening to our podcast. You can find us on line at okay i guess we have to read bridge to the stars damn it really just all happens here this is it you guys this is the last

chapter of northern lights the golden compass lyra is frightened and tired and she tells Pan she wishes it were someone else instead of her. She's sobbing, and she's holding him, rocking back and forth in the snow. And she doesn't know what to do. She even got there. Like, what if Mrs. Coulter got him first? Anyway, she's like, I don't know. She refuses to believe Asriel's

about to do this. Yeah, he's already there. Like, it's too late. I just want to, like, hold her and be like honey sweetie it's probably over like yes you have to keep trying but asriel has him i don't know it's hard it's hard when you're like a 12 year old kid right the entire fate of like the world and your best friends she just has to remember your dad's hands she just needs to remember that culture's not the only villain here yeah yeah well she's about to learn that though so she begins to wish out loud but she stops herself there's no point in wishing right now the stars are at least gorgeous and

dramatic in the aurora and the sunlit city peeks out from behind it solid and clear everything on the ground is bleak flat and white it white. It's lifeless. End of the south as well. Pan flies up to sea and he finds Roger and Asriel. They're just beyond the peak. Roger can't get away and Asriel has all of his instruments laid out. As soon as Pan says this, the aurora flickers and goes out. Lyra can feel dust, like air full of, quote, dark intentions, like thoughts not born. And here's Roger cry for her. She yells that she's coming and begins climbing through the heaps of snow, fighting against what little strength she has left. Pan is changing form rapidly as she struggles, from air mine, to lion, to eagle, to wildcat, to hare, to salamander, to owl, to leopard,

to lion, to eagle, to wildcat, to hare, to salamander, to owl, to leopard, any form he had ever been, shrouded amongst all the dust. So something that I thought was interesting here is how Lyra stops from wishing. It kind of makes me think, is this something about Pullman speaking about prayer, right? Like prayers don't do anything. You have to go do it. You have to go make that change happen because Lyra's like, never mind, there's no point now. I have to just try and try and save Roger. And I like this scene of Pan changing rapidly as Lyra's struggling forward, because what it is,

understanding as we've discussed before that demons, especially for children, and you've talked about how Lyra keeps trying out these different sort of occupations right these different roles to figure out who she is Pan's doing that right now he's going through every form partially out of nerves but he's like who do I have to be what do I have to be who who's going to be the person that Roger needs right now that I need to be right now in order to defeat my dad. And she's not the only one whose demon is changing. The scene's laid out when she gets there. Asriel is working in the starlight and there are wires leading from the sled,

laid on batteries and jars, snow's frosting everything over. Stelmaria's crouched beside him. Her coat is glossy with power. And Roger's demon is in her mouth, struggling and changing as well. Bird, dog, cat, rat, bird. And Roger's a few yards away, straining from pain in the cold.

He keeps trying to distract Lord Asriel, begging and pleading, but Lord Asriel knocks him to the ground like it's nothing. Rude. Yeah, absolutely. Rude, yeah. and pleading but lord asriel knocks him to the ground like it's nothing rude yeah absolutely rude yeah so roger yeah as you said doing the same thing trying to be anything that'll get out asriel's wires connect and the starlight reappears blinding and glowing he leads power down from it through the wire that is off a rail on the sledge and the other leads into the sky fascinating he has a witch actually assisting him who had flown here and larry realizes this when she sees a raven that's swooping down and then asriel beckons to roger who comes begging

and crying meekly oh the nature of a servant it makes me so sad because like he's just like got the power over him I hate him so much and it reminds me of Thorold last chapter with his pincher demon oh Thorold he was really mean to Thorold all the time yeah Asriel's a fucking prick I hate him

though I do wonder does Roger partially come because still Mario is holding Roger's demon? I think so. As we see Mrs. Coulter, you know, the monkey would grasp the sparrow, right? Yeah. Radder with Tony Macarios. So I think that's part of what's at play. Mm-hmm.

And Roger is still, you know, I don't know if it's just a servant. Like, kids, they trust the adults around them because they've been told to the adults are supposed to look out for them and what happens when they don't yeah roger's already seen that they don't all do that but he's grown up with asriel being around ish admired stories of him well he's heard stories of him that have been admirable and also the ones that lyra made up of like yeah they were fighting with swords probably well and like i said earlier satan is charismatic right that's his thing like he's attractive of course roger's going to come to his beckoning call that's what satan does he lures people in same with colder yeah lyra tells roger to run and she hurls herself at asriel pan

tries to fight stalmaria and snatches it to get Salcilia back, but Stalmaria fights back and Pan lets go of Salcilia. The two young demons fight Stalmaria, changing forms rapidly. Both children were fighting her too, or fighting the forms in the turbid air, those dark intentions that came thick and crowding down in streams of dust, and the aurora swayed above above its continual surging flicker picking out now in this building, now that lake, now that row of palm trees, so close you'd think you could step from this world to that.

I mean, yeah, kinda. So, they don't actually use Cecilia's name, as far as I know, like that much in the chapter, but her name name as we've linked in the demonomicon.tumblr.com I don't remember the exact post it talks about how Cecilia's name means salt

and I kind of wonder what that means in the context of there are a lot of biblical references and religious references throughout the story it's literally based off of Paradise Lost and this phrase called salt of the earth from the bible which references people of great worth and I am a little worried about what it means in the context of this line from Matthew 5 13 ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt have

lost his savor wherewith shall it be salted it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men yeah that's probably right i mean that feels like the right reference here it's kind of demeaning though yeah but roger's not good for nothing oh i agree but that's what azrael sees it as yeah that's true roger was a great one lyra jumps and pulls roger from asriel but roger's in pain from his demon being caught asriel reaches towards salsilia with a wire and lyra empathizes knowing the pain of separation but also knows they have to keep going except then the cliff is collapsing so they have no choice they They have to keep going. What are you going to do? This is it.

This is the climax of this chapter and of a lot of the book and the language is just... It's good. It's horrible, it's good. You know. An entire shelf of snow, sliding inexorably down.

The frozen sea, a thousand feet below. Lyra her heart beats leaping in anguish with roger's tight clutching hands his body suddenly limp in hers and high above the greatest wonder and profound, was pierced as if by a spear. A jet of light, a jet of pure energy released like an arrow from a great bow, shot upward from the spot where Lord Asriel had joined the wire to Roger's demon. The sheets of light and color that were the aurora tore apart. A great rending, grinding, crunching, tearing sound reached from one end of the universe to the other. There was dry land in the sky. Sunlight, sunlight shining on the fur of a golden monkey. Just, yeah, all of those beats and how you find everything through just sensations. They don't tell you what happened, but you know. And that's the one nice thing. I know golden compass didn't want to put it on a screen

right they didn't want to show it and show dead kids they didn't want it i get it whatever i don't get it it was awful but it was a horrible experience and i never want to experience it again thanks new line but um this is just so beautifully and subtly done and sad. Yeah. It's just, I don't know, very masterfully written. And it's beat by beat. And you go one moment, tight clutching hands of Rogers, and then suddenly nothing. And then it pushes you over,

and you're back with Coulter and Asriel's demons. Yeah. All of these things are juxtaposing with one another, right? The wonder of the sight, the horror of Roger's death. And the next thing you know, like you said. There's almost no time to recover. Yeah, it's both like the beauty and the wonder, but the horror of it being the sunlight on the monkey. Everything's here in this moment anyway the cliff stops falling and lyra sees the monkey and the leopard confront each other and the monkey

puts its hand out to let i don't know the leopard sniff it and then like pets it and when lyra looks at mrs coulter is in azrael's embrace and lights are all around them she's not sure how but her mother uh crossed that chasm and followed her up here that is the line uh as her parents embrace each other though roger's own body is still mrs coulter laments that the magisterium won't let them cross and asriel says allow it we've gone beyond being allowed as if we were children. I've made it possible for anyone to cross if they wish. Mrs. Coulter fears they'll forbid it, and Asriel says they can't. Too many will want to cross. They go back and forth, and Asriel says he knows how strong the church is, but dust is going to change everything. Marisa fears he wants to kill

everyone with sin and darkness, and Asriel tells her to feel the sun and the wind of another world on her face. He's basically negging her into going into this other world. He's like, Lyra would go. Asriel negs everyone into doing things. Absolutely. Absolutely. I did like that line, though, of like, we're beyond being allowed as if we were children with, you know, the juxtaposition of innocence and

experience in this book and story and how the adults treat the children yeah with all this anyway marissa says lyra is more asriel's than hers anyway and she's like she was too coarse too stubborn i left it too late well where is she now i followed her footsteps up you want her still twice you've tried to hold her and twice she's got away if i were her i'd run and keep on running sooner than give you a third chance parenting talk about this yeah in the discussion also is this is azrael projecting right now he's like i'm giving you a second chance right now marissa but i'm not gonna give you a third one is what he's saying he's like we can get back together all of this is so good and it's so intense and it all says so much about their relationship so hard not to quote the whole thing i, but we did pick out the good ones.

We did. They keep going back and forth about whether or not Marissa should come, and I've pulled out the language of their bodies and their demons for this. His hands, still clasping her head, tensed suddenly and drew her toward him in a passionate kiss. Lyra thought it seemed more like cruelty than love and looked at their demonsemons to see a strange sight the snow leopard tense crouching with her claws just pressing into the gold monkey's flesh and the monkey relaxed blissful swooning on the snow lewd it is it's so vulnerable

then you have and their mouths were fastened together with a powerful greed also lewd their demons were playing fiercely the snow leopard rolled over on her back and the monkey raked his claws in the soft fur of her neck and she growled a deep rumble of pleasure their demons were apart again lord asriel reached down and curled his strong fingers into the snow leopard's fur. Then he turned his back and walked away without another word. The golden monkey leaped into Mrs. Coulter's arms, making little sounds of distress, reaching out to the snow leopard as she paced away. And Mrs. Coulter's face was a mask of tears.

You know what? This is a young adult slash children's book but they should have they should have had a cookie out on the snow yeah basically they basically did that but like didn't say that they did that's really what it was yes if it were a children's book they would be they would have fucked on his bench that he made out of his sled actually though i mean that might have been what just happened maybe we just don't know because she was traumatized from seeing it yeah that's true and it's like i don't understand roger just died yeah yeah he tells her that he won't think of her again if she doesn't go with him yeah and then there's a line of you and i could take the universe to pieces

and put it together again, Marissa. We could find the source of dust and stifle it forever. And we're going to come back to that later. But finally, she refuses. Lyra watched her coldly and then looked up toward the sky. Such a vault of wonders she had never seen. The city hanging there, so empty and silent, looked new made, waiting to be occupied or asleep, waiting to be woken. The sun of that world was shining into this, making Lyra's hands golden, melting the ice on Roger's wolfskin hood,

making his pale cheeks transparent, glistening in his open, sightless eyes. She felt wrenched apart with unhappiness and with anger, too. She could have killed her father if she could have torn out his heart she would have done so there and then for what he'd done to roger and to her tricking her how dare he how dare he she was still holding roger's body okay deep breath i'm fine during all this i'm not upset or anything this is fine i've had like tears in my eyeballs for like 20 minutes yeah they just like they haven't like left them but they're there yeah i can't really read it's fine it's fine so talking about roger still always we're reminded throughout this last chapter of lyra holding roger's body again and again and

i think the image that i see is this idea of the pieta The most famous of these is a sculpture by Michelangelo. But the Pieta is a term that in Christianity refers to art of the Virgin Mary cradling the body of Jesus. And of course, as I'm sure many of you know, the idea of Jesus is, you know, he's a sacrifice, he's innocent to save people from their sin. And the moment of his death, actually, on the crucifix in a temple, the curtain is is torn this is the temple that houses the ark of the covenant and i don't know if we we've discussed this in a previous chapter but like so the curtain or veil had symbolized that barrier between the humans and the holy of holies and again this is where god was where the ark of the covenant was kept in the temple and in its tearing it's seen that what jesus's death did is open the way for people to commune with god open their way to salvation and while allegory and symbol aren't always like one-to-one

in the story right in this moment with the tearing of the veil between lyra's world and the one in the sky i think roger becomes a stand-in for christ because his demon hasn't yet settled right roger's a child he hasn't done anything wrong he's he's the innocent within this story and this world and he becomes this ablation or thing presented to those dark intentions to god whatever like the body and blood of christ in this moment and his death that energy coming from it i guess tears open the curtain between this world and that in the sky the language keeps reminding us that it's a curtain of light and taking the story in the context of like a reaction to the chronicles of narnia i mean that christ-like figure doesn't

return right ro Roger doesn't come back to life to tell us like yeah it was all about mercy as it was for the Pevensies and like the grace of the giant lion dying for Edmund right it's not that the lesson here is about the death of innocence

symbolized by Roger but also the death of Lyra's innocence as she realizes the cruelty of the adults she trusted around her but again like death of lyra's innocence as she realizes the cruelty of the adults she trusted around her but again like in this story roger's not the only one to occupy this role like lyra will have messianic elements to her story similar to what's in the bible and we'll talk about that a little in the discussion yeah we're also going to talk a little more about roger in the discussion than just here uh because there is some stuff that encompasses all three of the main books that we cannot talk about.

So for now, we'll leave it at that. But it does also remind me of leading a lamb to slaughter, which is what we know Lyra did here, right? And you have Isaiah 53, 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,

so he openeth not his mouth. You also have Jeremiah 11, 19. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter, and I did not know that they had devised plots against me. Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living that his name be remembered no more yes i thought those were very very relative passages from the bible right now um yeah i mean like that's absolutely what roger is being a lamb led to the slaughter especially you know christ is called Lamb of God all the time.

And by severing his demon, what's going to happen to him? You know, all we know is that he dies. They killed his demon. They killed his soul. They killed him. So what happens next for Roger? He's just dead. He's one of the ones who we hear earlier that they got, like, what, the mortality rate of severing to below five percent

but apparently roger's in the five percent apparently or apparently all statistics are made up i remember he said that guys chloe said this one's at brunch she made it up literally she made up a number she's like did you know x amount of percent of like statistics are beta she made up a number she's like did you know x amount of percent of like statistics are beta something like that it was after i said one in five people are furries yeah so the whole time this is going on pan's been trying to get lyra's attention and he's talking to her about dust and he's talking about asriel and the oblation board the church coulter all of them want to destroy it and he says if they think dust is bad, it must all be good. Pentalimon.

Okay, boomer. Literally him right now. That's literally what he's doing. He's like, these boomers. Everything they've seen these people do is evil, and they only believe them because they were grownups. And Pan's like, maybe it's not bad. Yeah.

And Lyra's like, yeah, maybe it's not bad. Yeah. And Lyra's like, yeah, maybe it's really good. They think of a time when maybe dust would be cherished and sought after. And so they decide that they, too, will go and find the source of dust. We're just going to read the entirety of the last, the ending of this book, because it's incredible. And it's been a long journey, you guys. So let's take it on out and go on our next journey as roger was saying earlier let's just be here for the present the enormousness of the task silenced them lyra looked up at the blazing sky she was aware of how

small they were she and her demon in comparison with the majesty and vastness of the universe and of how little they knew in comparison with the majesty and vastness of the universe and of how little they knew in comparison with the profound mysteries above them we could panel amen insisted we came all this way didn't we we could do it we got it wrong though pan we got it all wrong about roger we thought we were helping him she choked and kissed roger's still face clumsily several times. We got it wrong, she said. Next time we'll check everything and ask all the questions we can think of then. We'll do better next time. And we'd be alone. Yorick Burnison couldn't follow us and help, nor could Farder Coram or Serafina Picala or Lise Goresby or no one. Just us, then. Don't matter.

We're not alone anyway. Not like... She knew he meant not like Tony Macarius, not like those poor lost demons at Bolvangar. We're still one being. Both of us are one. And we've got the alethiometer, she said. Yeah, I reckon we've got to do it, Pan. We'll go up there and we'll search for dust. And when we found it, we'll know what to do. Roger's body lay still in her arms. She let him down gently. And we'll do it, she said. She turned away.

Behind them lay pain and death and fear. Ahead of them lay doubt and danger and fathomless mysteries. But they weren't alone. So Lyra and her demon turned away from the world they were born in and looked toward the Sun and walked into the sky. That's it! That's Northern Lights! We did it did it yeah that deserves a clap we did it this is the beginning of the coming of age right this is the journey lyra's on a journey that's going to change her from here on out a journey to other worlds and i like the way this novel ends right of her and pan realizing that turns out following adults

now they're twisted morals the whole time and deciding to set off instead on her own journey as you said it fulfills the master's sort of last charge to her of keep your own counsel she and pan realized maybe they're all fucking wrong. We're gonna do this. God. Well, that's the end of Northern Lights. We are gonna move into our dust-scussion. Like I said, we're not gonna do a dusty-scussion today. There might be hints at what's to come, but there's nothing that's gonna be spoiled for you. There's too much to think about with the main trilogy with the end of this book, in my opinion, to warrant a dusty discussion. So we'll keep it with the main trilogy, main spoilers.

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast, you guys. If you're not caught up, we hope you get caught up starting in the new year. We're going to work at putting out Subtle Knife for you so you have till the new year. Make sure you're listening to our show coverage as well, but that is covering spoilers of the main trilogy so watch out and enjoy our discussion so to start off betrayal but not the betrayal eliana for some reason so after all this build-up in northern

lights and you said something earlier about roger about uh that he's just dead and i was like bitch he's not just dead you can't just say that he's stuck between worlds i have to say that okay i know they have to be surprised i have to i have to protect their innocence i'm i'm cutting them off only when it's time can they know that they have to be the betrayers god i betrayed roger yeah so this is supposed to be the betrayal in our minds if you only read one book and you read northern lights you're going to read this and go ah roger was the betrayal because lyra led him like a lamb to slaughter but the real betrayal is when she separates from Pan to go get Roger from the underworld and save his soul.

The journey through the underworld provides not only the closure for Roger's plot, torn from Lyra's world so cruelly, but also reform to her character. Pullman has said she leaves fantasy behind and becomes a realist. There's definitely a change in Lyra's manner moving forward, and it makes sense. At this point, Lyra's been betrayed by those she trusted, she's seen people

die for her, she's learned she can't trust anymore, and she leaves the land of the dead as a different person, especially afterwards with what comes with Will. It carries even over into the secret commonwealth. I highly recommend it, um if you've ever heard of it i recommend it but uh speaking of lamb to slaughter i also wanted to add did you know roald dahl had a short story called lamb to slaughter and there was a character in it named mary maloney i didn't know that yeah you know mary malone m Maloney. I don't think it's, it could be something he's pulling from for the name, but I don't think it has anything to do with this. But I thought that was crazy.

She kills her husband. She leads him to slaughter. Like she leads everyone to slaughter like a lamb on that. She tricks all the police officers, et cetera. She literally takes a lamb leg and clubs him in the back of the head. Oh, wow. And she has like an alibi. She goes to the grocer, to the market.

She has an alibi of talking to the guy at the grocery store so when she comes home and finds him dead and calls the cop she's like i was just at the market damn yeah interesting nothing to do with this interesting it is interesting mary maloney yeah i i'm still not jazzed as you know about lyra leaving pan yeah as being the fulfillment of the prophecy i'm like literally you had this right here pullman like this is it everyone knows all right everyone can see it anyway i would argue once you get to commonwealth it does work i think but i still think this is right here i understand it and again like i understand it from that humanist perspective of pullman saying yeah betray yourself right because even here azrael's like don't lie about what you want marissa and that idea that betraying yourself is like one of the worst things you can do but i'm also just like it was roger anyway uh You were talking about leaving the fantasy world behind

and becoming a realist in Lyra's story and that change in her manner. And interestingly, this end of this book, right? Lyra's journey through the underworld is in many ways an echo of what's happening here. But Lyra doesn't have the same amount of agency as she does at the end of her journey through the underworld because she's like narrowly crossing close to this chasm in the ice which is in my opinion I think it's kind of like crossing past that bridge right that abyss in the underworld and then at the end she crosses all that into a window that goes into another world for both

and i want to talk a little more about this multiverse thing as we get towards the end because this is opening up obviously the next two books right like this is making it like oh it's not just this one story about getting the egyptians kids back it's about worlds different worlds and we're about to go into different worlds when we come back to this but um death is going to die asriel says he's gonna destroy death even though he's really just restarting the cycle with himself as like some sort of godlike figure but uh it's hard because asriel's just not compelling marisa coulter is a very sympathetic character that you could start to feel bad for feels compelling Asriel I feel nothing for

nothing yeah when Metatron and goes out the window with them it's not compelling to me enough like to really care like for maybe for Marisa but for him no yeah nothing I feel nothing I care in that like it sucks like what they've done is they've

damned themselves for literally all the rest of eternity but they're like martyrs almost they come back almost but they don't because when they die right their souls are gonna leave from where they are which is in that abyss and they're just just going to do that for eternity. I just meant that by going there and killing God, they really were martyrs to save Lyra. But that's even weak. It was weak. I don't think that what they did was weak. I just don't have an emotional connection to Asriel. That's what I mean. It doesn't do anything for me.

It does nothing for me. Asriel does nothing for me. Sometimes he's hot. I could imagine hate sex with Asriel, but i can't imagine me caring about asriel. yeah. yeah and we'll talk about that as we as we get there. and this book ends also with pan being like what if the adults have it all wrong and regarding asriel saying yeah death's going to die, he has it all wrong because he misunderstands the nature of death and thinks that destroying it is going to end death. And I think in this, this is part of how Lyra becomes another Christ-like or messianic figure because she's venturing into the underworld, right? That's part of the whole thing. And she destroys death because, yeah, part of the whole hero's journey.

death, because yeah, we're the whole hero's journey. And that idea of triumph over death is very tied, I think, to ideas of Christ and the resurrection. And Lyra overcomes the destructive power of the sad shitty limbo in the underworld and saves all of life by restoring the flow of dust, not by destroying the source of dust. Because that would be idiotic. Dust comes from us. Absolutely. God, there's that line, Asriel says, You and I could take the universe to pieces and put it together again, Marisa.

We could find the source of dust and stifle it forever. Yeah, it's a good line because once again of how things are reversed with the misunderstanding again of dust in this with the last book and you know you're talking again about like marissa and asriel instead of taking the universe to pieces finding the source of dust and stifling it forever, what they do is the opposite, shows character growth, I guess, of hurling themselves into the abyss that is sucking dust away, and they destroy Metatron. So speaking of abyss throwing, Lyra would have almost separated Roger in the fall,

like herself, but so had the wire not reached Salcilia in time, Roger might have just been forced to separate from her. Right. And later, like she later does from Pan. And we've learned in some of the books of dust that it's more common than we think. It's still unnatural and rare and kind of like frowned upon to be separated from a demon. And it's still unnatural and rare and kind of like frowned upon to be separated from a demon and it's still very very unnatural but had that wire not reached roger could have almost lived yeah i think it's another one of those like 50 50 chances right like it's either you take the chance of he can basically do the witch thing. Yeah. And be far away from his demon. Or he dies versus this, where with the wire touching,

it's 100% basically assured that he's severed. It seems like... 5% chance of dying. If it's something that's for a reason, like if you're severing for something that's full of heart and soul or something for a reason, it seems like it's more successful is kind of what i'm getting in the books like if you're doing it out of protection

for yourself or for others it seems to have that devotional blessing on it that's interesting i wonder if that's a correlation because that's kind of what i'm picking up as i go along um yeah i don't know um i haven't read those books but yeah roger he could have survived i think maybe she was just like you got to power through the pain and pan and sal cilia are going to join us in a second it's going to fucking work and it doesn't yeah i want to talk about the barnard and stokes theorem which was the multiverse theory that was posed by them in this book that we hear about. The Magisterium silenced it.

They theorized there were thousands or millions of worlds even, and we learn of a lot of them by name now as you go through the books. You have Libra's world, Will's world, Sidigase's world, the world of the dead, the Galavespian world, the Mulefa world, the Republic of Heaven, the Kingdom of Heaven, and then a bunch of minor worlds. There are three worlds. Will goes to a desert, a city with factory workers and chains, which reminds me of earlier when you were talking about something about slavery above, the zombies. And then also a meadow inhabited by blue bisons.

Are they humans? Are they alternate humans like the malefa i hope so i hope so uh will baruch and balthamos cut into a moonlit beach will shows eoric a tropical rainforest he cuts into lyra's himalayas the gallivespians and lyra and will go through a dutch or danish farmstead with massacred soldiers and raised villages and will sees through to a rainstorm area when trying to break the knife so lots of different places that we're going to see in different worlds and we're talking a lot about the multiverse idea earlier and in the real world Hugh Everett proposed this theory in 1957

of the plurality of worlds according to his work we're living in a multiverse of countless universes with copies of each of us and things that are similar and they all kind of stem from making decisions which we'll talk about everett wrote to einstein when he was 12 actually as well and einstein responded so this kid knew what he was about he was definitely brilliant the leading physicists of the everett's day in particular neils bohr one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, could not stomach his theory. They couldn't cope with the idea that every decision we make creates new universes, one for all possible outcomes. Everett had to publish a watered-down version of his ideas. Thoroughly disgruntled, he left physics. He then went on to work for

the Pentagon instead." So that's good. Fascinating. Yeah. But it's very similar that idea of a universe being ripped open uh every time you make a decision just like the subtle knife opening up universe holes etc so i thought that was interesting yeah it's like one born each time yeah i think that's definitely what pullman is pulling from as we say. And bummer about Everett, I think I remember reading recently that so it was it that Everett was saying about decisions? Or was it also that on a quantum level, like each different particle, like each minor change makes a different universe, but other people have also theorized and are saying there's a possibility that it's actually

there are less, it doesn't happen on that level of frequency or something like that that there are less occurrences parallel universes than one would think or something like that anyway i'm not a physicist me either but i think that's um a good a good framing as we move into the next book coming back to coulter and azrael i thought some of these lines were interesting of marissa asking but where is she now i followed her footsteps up and then as we mentioned of you want her still twice you've tried to hold her and twice she's got away if i were her i'd run and keep on running sooner than give you a third chance and we discussed how this is a little bit of Asriel projecting, right?

A bit of foreshadowing as well. Because he gives her a third chance, you know? They're going to spend eternity together now with a third. And there's a lot of ways in which we see how Lyra and her mother are similar, especially as the story

shifts focus more towards Mrs. Coulter in later books, but I realize that we've been talking about how Lyra is like her mother, as though she has inherited some of this from her, but could it be more of that Marissa?

We can see her as more following in her daughter's footsteps, not just in the physical sense, but how her story mirrors Lyra in later books with um between what lyra does with the ophir and marissa's encounter with metatron oh yeah as opposed as opposed to it being the other way around it's marissa becoming more like her daughter and becoming more heroic because of her daughter yeah uh especially like as we go forward with coulter you start to learn her intentions aren't just i want my daughter because i'm an evil villain and i want her to help me take over the world and eat children which i know isn't what's happening but you know what i

mean but that's that's like what you think it would be but then obviously you get what happens in the amber spyglass um where she knows lyra will run so she forces her to stay yeah and she was trying to protect lyra in a weird very weird weird fucked up way yep and i don't know i think there's something to be said that we can discuss later when we get to those portions of, you know, Tana, when she came on, talked about how Pullman doesn't handle gender and gender roles always in the best way.

And I think there's a criticism to be made of how Mrs. Coulter's redemption arc has to come through her suddenly becoming more maternal and loving her daughter, even though she's still like kind of bad at it. She's still pretty bad at it, honestly. But anyway, the point is there is a third time. Lyra doesn't exactly run because she's still like kind of bad at it she's still pretty bad at it yeah honestly but anyway the point is there is a third time lyra doesn't exactly run because she's unconscious but she does get away whereas for the third time between her and asriel yeah kind of kind of works

out and kind of doesn't not at all yeah do you think they have sex while like metatron watches or like maybe it's a threesome? Maybe. Like at a certain point it has to be, right? What kind of parts does Metatron even have? Are they like metal? Angelic? Robotic? They might not, he might not even be able to, right? Because he doesn't have a body. Yeah.

What is Metatron even doing in this threesome? He's the third that no one wanted. Is he a voyeur? I don't know. know i don't know he'd have to be right yeah i think that azrael and coulter could get off on that yeah absolutely i mean that sex is so lit i don't even know how to explain it you know that's good sex that's true you see it with the monkey raking raking the leopard's fur yeah anyway a couple last thoughts of the language in this last chapter of lyra and roger running and trying to wade through they they keep

saying the dark intentions up there and we've touched on it before about the unseen intentions of the subtle knife because it's so small and talked a little bit about whether or not the alethiometer has any which i think is still a question right did the alethiometer and dust does it have its own dark intentions because i mean we know that dust is you know it's self-sufficient it can think it we see mary like we see mary malone's uh research yeah and it's kind of like it's kind of snarky at her yeah just like the alethiometer sasses lyra a little bit yeah so because of that i kind of wonder like we see in later books how marissa has other powers ish like she's able to have some sort of control and protection from the specters in sitagaze right and thorold tells us that asriel has a way of sort of manifesting the things that he wants.

Like, does Asriel just like have such a strong will or something that he's able to mold the dark intentions of the universe to sort of manifest things happening to him? Or does the dust, you know, because it wants to keep existing, is it aligned with Asriel and therefore makes things happen for him? Because they're like, yeah,'re about this i don't know i don't know i i think maybe it's even the mastery of they they've mastered their own dust you know in the sims you can uh if you get good at beekeeping in the sims you can collect swarms of bees and make them do things for you isn't that basically like what happens in jupiter ascending i guess yeah that movie that story had a lot of promise and it just yeah it didn't turn out the way it did you know yeah well

lots to think about and lots to chew until we come back with the subtle knife man i kind of i'm kind of excited i really want to do the subtle knife now but we're gonna die if we do yeah absolutely we will be definitely bringing the subtle knife back in the new year though but we do need to finish up on john in a song of ice and fire and the his dark materials season one episode reviews yeah so of course keep up that. You can find it at the same place. Keep up with us and what we have to say on the live action television show at Girls Gone Canon on Twitter, C-A-N-O-N,

or shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. Yeah, and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes or a comment on Podbean if you so wish. If you are not already subscribed to us, make sure you're subscribed to us, make sure you're subscribed to us on your local podcast provider, whether it's Podbean, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast, you name it. Yeah, Lord knows there's a bunch of other aggregates out there that we might be on. Yeah, we didn't ask for it.

Countless other worlds that we don't know. Yeah, countless worlds, multiverse. Yeah, every time someone makes a decision to add our RSS feeds to somewhere and of course we do have a Patreon for patrons $5 and up we have special episodes, a lot of them are about

A Song of Ice and Fire, we recently covered our watch through of the Golden Compass movie but as you might notice we did not cover the lantern slides that are at the end of northern light slash the golden compass we are going to do a special episode at some point covering the lantern slides as a patreon episode yes it might be released to the public eventually, but for now, it will be a patron-only surprise. As always, I have been one of your hosts, Chloe.

And I have been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Thank you so much for traversing this book with us, you guys. We did it. We got to the north. We got to the north, and now we're going into the city in the sky. 2020. 2020. Subtle life 2020. the city in the sky 2020 2020 subtle life 2020 the city in the sky

castle in the sky that's a ghibli movie too oh my god there's a castle in the clouds that's a you know what you call it les miserables oh yeah cosette i was cosette all right i'm stopping this recording