Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Season 2 Episode 1 - The Magpie City featuring Lo the Lynx

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

Finally, Girls Gone Canon enters a new world as the second season, er, series of His Dark Materials kicks off. And we're not doing it alone! We meet with our good friend Lo the Lynx whom you may have heard us refer to over and over again throughout our many episodes for their insight and analysis on both HDM and ASOIAF. In this episode, worlds collide and so do two fated children, while war brews around them.   WHERE TO FIND LO Lo's Twitter: https://twitter.com/lo_the_lynx Lo's Wordpress: https://lothelynx.wordpress.com/ Lo's Tumblr: https://lo-lynx.tumblr.com/ Lo's discussion with Aemy Blackfyre on Colonialism & Orientalism in His Dark Materials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSm7I0HeYzk&feature=youtu.be LINKS MENTIONED Emnozz's embroidery: https://www.reddit.com/r/hisdarkmaterials/comments/jp1rh2/i_attempted_to_embroider_my_favourite_book_cover/ The Dust Podcast (for insight about music!): https://twitter.com/thedustpodcast More of The Dust Podcast: https://mattsaudioblog.com/2020/10/29/dust012-his-dark-materials-music-review-and-preview/ ------   Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro: Waltz Of The Skeleton Keys by WombatNoisesAudio | https://soundcloud.com/user-734462061    

🎵 Hello, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watches His Dark Materials Series 2, Episode 1, The Magpie City, featuring a very special guest, Lo the Lynx. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliotta. But yes, as Chloe said, today we have crossed worlds for Series 2 slash Season 2 of His Dark Materials and have another one of your hosts. Hi, Lo. Hi.

It's so good to talk to you. I'm super excited about this. I'm Lo, or Lo if you're talking English. You can find me on WordPress sometimes when I have the energy and time. And that's lo.thelinks.wordpress.com where I write about historic materials, A Song of Ice and Fire,

and other random stuff from a sort of intersectional feminist perspective. And I'm also on Twitter at LodiLinks, and I sometimes write relevant stuff there, but I mostly post pictures about my cat, who is another, another, another one of your hosts. Yes, it's true. And also a lot of politics so be warned yes and you've written so much on his dark materials and i've enjoyed a lot of the pieces a lot of nordic influences if you've listened to any of our episodes you've heard us talk about our friend lo who's written about blah blah blah these things include nordic influences and his dark materials power relations scandinavian folklore the witches dangerous women colonialism lo has written pretty

much everything now lo writes so i don't have to and it's awesome i love that that's what i think i just think lo's gonna write that essay so yeah we'll be fine. And so we thought, how better to kick off series two than to bring Lo on. Yes. Well, before we jump into the episode, feel free to tell us about your current projects and what you're working on. I know you've recently been teaming up with people and writing stuff, so anything fun we should know about? Well, I think by the time this is up, a video essay discussion thingy i did with our friend amy

blackfire should be up as well and we talked about colonialism and orientalism in historic materials because like you said i've written an essay about colonialism and she's also written an essay about orientalism in historic materials that i got a sneak preview of because we were discussing this and that's super interesting so you should all go read that and listen to our discussion we had a lot of fun talking about some real life things and some opinions we have on how the world is not great not our world nor Lyra's world so yeah that should be up and then we're also doing me and Amy a collaboration essay in A Song of Ice and Fire about Lysaun Amar inspired by your episode on Liz because I was listening to that and I was like oh my god

why have I not written about this guy and why have I not talked with Amy about this guy? So yeah, that's coming up. And I've also said previously on Twitter, you can probably find the receipts of this, that when Eliana finishes this year's Commonwealth, I will write an essay about sort of unsafe spaces and moving through spaces as a marginalized person in society about these dark materials and specifically the secret commonwealth um low's like do not spoil

the book for eliana cannot do it but at the same time low's like i so want to spoil the book for eliana so this is hinging on me? Finishing? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I didn't realize there was so much on my shoulders. No, it's fine because I haven't even started. Oh, good. I just have an outline in my head and know which theories I'm going to use.

But I was like, it's going to take a while before Eliana finishes, so I don't have to start it yet. I'm making progress, but as we were discussing prior to recording this episode, there's just some infuriating stuff that makes me have to take breaks every now and then. But some really good stuff, which is why I keep coming back anyways. yes well thank you again lo and we will move into the quick little housekeeping notes we have speaking of because this episode is coming to you well as we've discussed in some of our previous uh online chatter we now know that america is not getting this episode at the same time as the uk lo unfortunately is also a part of this crew that does not get the episode

in quite time. So our episodes, to be fair to all crowds from UK and US, will be released on Mondays. You will see a review for Series 2, Episode 1 right now on Monday when this is released, and next Monday you'll probably be listening to us talk about Series 2, Episode 2. So keep that in mind. And the last week of the month, you can also catch La Belle Sauvage episodes if you're reading any of the other Pullman-published works or have read. And that is in the Book of Dust. It's the very first Book of Dust from Philip Pullman.

And so with this episode, though, that means what you can anticipate for the spoiler scope. Seeing as how they're playing a little with the chronology in the show, and I think to good effect, this episode is going to contain spoilers from the entire main trilogy. That means Northern Light slash The Golden Compass,

The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, including some of the supplementary material, the smaller supplementary material, such as the lantern slides, which offer insight into some of the fragmented notes from Pullman's brain that were published in the later volumes of the books, but I think originally in the short story Lyra's Oxford, but was eventually distributed amongst the later editions of the book. So we will be discussing material from the entire book series.

Yes. And afterwards, if you have not listened to our episodes before, we read the series with a non-spoiler lens. And at the end of the episode, we do have what we call a dust-scussion or a dusty-scussion. It really just the levels of dust vary, right? We measure them with our alethiometers and we figure it out. But the dusty-s discussions at the end do spoil the books of dust. I think today we're only having a dusty discussion, which will spoil all published Pullman works in the Lyra universe, in the His Dark Materials worlds, right? So look forward to that. If you have not read any of the Outer the books of dust etc you may want to tune out eliana herself will not be listening because she's not quite there yet but she is getting somewhere

if you've been keeping along with eliana's journey as she journeys with lyra with pan in the secret commonwealth eliana is actually getting far said yeah with malcolm polead. But Eliana has been getting in there and we over at our Discord, we have a Discord server for patrons in the $10 and up tier where we're doing a read through on the Secret Commonwealth because this book is loaded and I don't remember half of it is what I'm learning as I reread it. So we just started chapters one through five. So we just started chapters one through five. Please come on down to our Patreon at patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon and get in on that Discord action and chat with us because we have some spicy takes, a lot of Malcolm Polstad discussion. So maybe Eliana will finish the book is all I'm saying. Maybe. Maybe.

But until then, we have this show with some new material, but old material. Something both new and old for all of us who have read the books. And so to start us off, let's talk about it. You know, here we are, a new season, and there's a lot that I think has been done really well. But everyone, what is your favorite part of the episode? Okay, so I had a hard time choosing. I was asked this question beforehand, and I was like, I can't do this. How do I choose?

But I'm going to go with Omelette Part 2, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But also, as a bonus part that I will have to choose anyway, because the choosing has always been hard. So I'm going to also have to choose the red panda scene because floof. Yes, that one was so...

They're doing great with the demons, I think, this season. But yes, the red panda was a treat. I have to agree with you. I think just all the Omelette, everything Omelette related in this episode was great. For me, the standout, though, is Lyra. I rewinded it the first time I saw it. I was like, wait, I got to see that again.

Her poking the Omelette and being like, what is this? And I was just like, wait on iconic related i also just love because also again i can't just pick one uh lyra saying that she doesn't need to stand up shower in that entire exchange when she like slowly inches her head into the shirt i'm doing it right now if i sound muffled when when she just puts her face in the shirt and just shares this dark look at pan it's like oh yeah pan is you pan knows what you smell like lyra but then she's like i guess my favorite part i'm not choosing a deep part i like that we're not choosing a deep part because we have the next eight million hours together to discuss the

the deep the deepness of this episode. But I love when she and Will, when Will and her get married in this episode, I mean, when they decide they're married and she's like, oh no, I'm staying here. And he's all, there's every, everything is abandoned. You can go stay anywhere else. Why do you have to stay with me?

And she goes upstairs, looks at the beds, and she chooses the smaller bed. And she's like, I want that bed, the smaller one. And he's like, that's, you really are making me, kicking me out of my bed. And he goes downstairs. He's like, yeah, whatever. And she just looks at the bed, stares at it for a while. And she gives this very matter-of-fact shrug and goes, hmm, hmm.

And then she just goes, like, and gets in the bed with Pan. And she's like hmm and it's just that matter of fact hmm is probably this season's ain't like when when daphne in series one said ain't for the first time i was like it's lyra that's lyra that's our lyra but when she did the hmm in this episode i was like yeah that's ly Yeah. I think those character moments, Daphne's just done really well, and they've done a great job of writing it in in this episode. I think they probably heard people wanted that more. And they're just so great.

They have great chemistry. Yeah. It's great. But I just love, I don't know, I love those moments. Yeah. Well, previously on His Dark Materials, the episode opens up and we have a little bit of a backstory from Series 1. So if you miss out on Series 1, this will be like our lightning rounds that we do in our Song of Ice and Fire podcast series.

And I guess we'll jump right in. The witches hear immortal whispers of those who pass between the worlds. Kaiza narrates and illustrates Lyra and Will's destiny, right? We get the repetition from series one. Asriel is with his photograms, and he's presenting on the Grumman expedition. Yes, and then we have Mrs. Coulter and Lyra's journey, which is highlighted,

and Asriel and Coulter's parentage reveal. And Lee Scoresby is highlighted with Cliff Goss and his girlfriend Seraphinna Pecula. Yep, thank you. Well understood. Mrs. Coulter and Boreal's involvement in Will and Jopari's lives and the search for

the knife for the Magisterium. And then we also have Elaine and Will's relationship highlighted. Yes, and Lyra, Asriel, Roger, Thorold, and the tragic end of Season 1 is the next part that we see with this beautiful glimpse at the city in the sky. And then we get Roger's demise and all our hearts break again. And then also some super hot culture and ethereal goodbye mmm that monkey petting the leopard

that's what I'm into are you not into this you guys? is this not? then we have Will and Lyra's path into Chittagaze and you know as soon as this whole like previously on historic material stuff ended my partner was like oh my god I forgot how devastating the end was.

It was just like, oh, my God, that was horrible. What happened to Roger? And we had a whole discussion about it. I'm glad you should keep his dark materials in the family. I think keeping it as a family discussion. It is devastating. That was awful. And if you've listened, you know, a favorite of mine is that Azuriculture goodbye.

I really like that scene. And they did it really well. Like the swoon. It's the swoon of the monkey. The mean, awful, malicious monkey that's always nasty and psychotic. But then you get that vulnerability. And all of a sudden the monkey just swoons into Stelmaria. And I just think they did that really well. get that vulnerability and all of a sudden the monkey just swoons into stell maria and i just

think they did that really well yeah and you know we're gonna talk about it in the episode but demons as ali hana mentioned they really made it a significant part of this episode to show the demons every five seconds doing things being involved being near their people uh their humans and i thought that was great and i'm excited to see what else we get of that this season because haha eventually it won't be the same just kidding yeah did they get a bigger budget this season that might be why come on yeah yeah good i'm sure good i'm sure the show is freaking amazing there was a lot of lyra and pan moments and i i think I made some notes about that.

For instance, like the scene that Chloe mentioned when they're snuggling up on the bed. And I'm like, oh, they're so close to each other. That's so sweet. Yeah. The way that they portrayed that was really nice. And of course, you know, that's how this episode kind of opens up, right? It opens up on Lyra and Pan together with that light in the sky

in the background and together Lyra and Pan walk into a new world they're hiding for shelter in a cave and talking about missing Roger when they come upon the city in the sky yeah at the very top it opens with Lyra and Pan right but you get

this echo and it's Roger calling Lyra's name, but it's just a dream. And opening with that, I was howling. I was hooting. I was hollering. I was like, that's how we're going to end the season. Like, they pretty much just guaranteed we're going to end the season with Roger calling Lyra's name and probably Lyra in a cave. Yeah. That's the last scene. that's the last scene.

That's the last scene. Boom. They kind of had that in the, in the trailers. One of the trailers where he's yelling. And then I was like, Oh my God, why would they just do this to us?

But I, I'm glad the way that they've been carrying over the pain of losing Roger for Lyra's character. And we talked about this during the episodes covering the trailers, which we're going to refer to quite a few times because they've taken a lot of scenes from this first episode and put them in those trailers. But Lyra wandering the forest before coming upon the city in the sky, we all know its name, but we'll get there, whatever, reminds me of the first few stanzas of Dante's Inferno, which, as we know, was a large influence on Pullman in creating his dark materials. And I encourage you all to reread it, because last time

I read it aloud, and I don't think everyone wants to relive that moment. So it's got a lot of imagery of finding oneself in that shadowed forest and being partway through a journey and feeling very wearied in soul and body the way that Lyra is right now. Yeah, she is very, very weary. It was sad. She uh as we go through

this she seems no hope bummed so will is her hope will is going to be the the reappearance of hope in this arc but first we get this shot of witches and they're flying through the sky with zeppelins that seem to kind of be flying as well toward light bursting from a hill which we know is the window into the other world. And we get a voiceover. And this is a very significant voiceover because if you were watching the show, you did not, unless you follow production and all that stuff,

you probably did not know who this was just off the top of your head or who it was supposed to be. But a woman's voice is speaking, discussing what Asriel has done, explaining the witch's prophecy and who it's about to be, but a woman's voice is speaking, discussing what Asriel has done, explaining the witch's prophecy and who it's about, about Lyra. And at the very end of the episode in the credits, we get kind of

a thing of witch voices and angels and demons. This is Zephania's actress, the rebel leader of the angel army who allies with Asriel. This is Sophie Okonedo, and if you are a big Doctor Who fan, like Yes.

Hello, and Pandorica opens. She played Queen Elizabeth X, or Liz X. She was in Secret Life of Bees, as Mae Boatwright, Stormbreaker, Skin, Neon Flux. She's been on Broadway, National Theater. She's a singer, a narrator,

and she's been credited since the early 90s in many, many films and shows. And she's just like a powerhouse. She's a great name to be playing Zephania. So where series one, we start with Kaisa narrating the prophecy, Zephania narrates this time. And she's likely to be the closing in this season, possibly have a scene in the end of the season. But also, she's the close on Will and Lyra's relationship, right? She drops the figurative window bomb. And if you listen to her voice in the narration in the beginning, they've done something really cool.

They've layered it. And there's two to four layers of her voice. There's two layers that are your left and right that seem really solid. to four layers of her voice. There's two layers that are your left and right that seem really solid. And then you have at least one to two layers below that are her voice, but a little more sinister and almost layered with a distortion on it. And it makes her sound like this other worldly like I am an angel from a place I am the rebel leader voice and it's insane. Like listen to it, get your ear up to your speaker and listen to it again because i did this like four times today i had to get my ear real up to my computer but it's

really cool sounding they did an awesome job there it's a cool technical touch interesting yeah i i kind of assume that we'll meet i say zephania um of course you do of course I do when Ruta Scotti meets the angels and then like you know Zephania will like speak and will be like wow it's the narrator there right there so I assume that's how it's gonna like be like wow like a reveal

kinda but which won't be too long I wouldn't be surprised then because we might get it with Baruch and Balthamo scene as well because they are cast in this series yes that's true they're at the end and they're like good fucking luck kid they were down there right oh yeah sorry about your friend yeah whatever oh that was Lyra shit. Man, okay. Well, the Magisterium is the next scene. We get Magisterium finally.

They're here. It's fast. It's the beginning of the episode and we're already getting screwed over by the Magisterium. But we see the Magisterium in a submarine doing some work. Yeah, and something I noticed right away when I was watching the episode the first time, both on the submarines and airships,

there's a lot of focus on the Magisterium logo of the cross. And when I first saw it, I was immediately like, oh, that looks like Nazi airships or planes and shit from World War II. That symbol really reminded me of the Luftwaffe symbol. I think it's pronounced like that. I don't know, German. But yeah, I think when they they really focused on it and I actually went back and looked through different episodes of season one of airships and I couldn't catch the same focus on that symbol in those episodes so I really thought that that must have been on purpose, that they really focused on the symbol, on this sort of authoritarian, Christian, white supremacy thing.

They're really pushing it. Yeah, and also the soldiers with their badges later in the scene for the ministerium. The symbol is everywhere, and it looks really like Nazi imagery. I think it's really good that they're choosing to, not good, it's good that they're choosing to distinguish on a metal level that, and I think that's another big thing they have to focus on, putting a symbol on it, because there's going to be a lot of airship fighting going on as we get through. I mean, if they're going to show the war,

how are you going to illustrate this war and this giant freaking kingdom and the air and airships and understanding who's who i i know they can i'm not saying they're incapable but i think this is good this is going to provide that foundation towards season three or series three sorry uh and i also think now that you mentioned it like it's it's great when you look at that aerial of the magisterium it looked a little more detailed this time it looks like maybe it's the foliage that's encroaching more or something there was more greenery but it looks just that symbol from an aerial and it does

very much so look like that now that I've pulled the image up it's a little blatant a little on the nose which a lot of stuff for the magisterium is I think this season so good good good good it's good it's going great yeah it is interesting um because as far as i know in our world religious organizations don't usually just brand things by putting a cross on it so i think it's really telling that the way

that they're evoking that through uh the connections that lo was saying Mrs. Coulter and the monkey are also on the ship. They're reading formulas. And Mrs. Coulter looks at some photos of Lyra, including a little baby one. They're precious. That was a precious photo. It was so precious. And even the first couple, the first baby picture, like the smallest is very cute cute and then you even have one where she looks a little younger than when we meet her it looks more like maybe she's 10 11 and then one from current Lyra and it's absolutely this is so much set up for the bomb next season for Coulter right and even for the end of the season with her and Lyra her looking through these pictures and deciding you know what is the worth, what is what am I choosing? What is my end goal? And I think Coulter, there's something interesting that if you don't know what's gonna happen, which we know

what's gonna happen. But if you don't know, they're really sending you in the other direction right now. You know, like they're showing Coulter as this mean, like, stiletto wearing, like, bitch who's going to kill some people. But if you, you know, you see what happens at the end that she becomes this woman who, you know, bets and ends up going for her daughter finally instead in the psycho, toxic manner that she does. And right now, if I didn't know what happened, I would probably be like, oh, fuck that lady. Oh, man. Oh, man. You know, I would have no clue. I mean, she still is a mean stiletto bitch who kills people.

She just kills an aspect of God. She just kills different things. Yeah, she's my mean stiletto bitch, though, and that's what matters. Yeah, and I thought the photos were really interesting, because, like you mentioned about

in the lantern slides that we're going to talk a bit about here in one of the lantern slides we get that asriel sort of insisted that photos would be taken of lyra each year and someone had to like cut her and comb her hair and wash her and trap her long enough to take a photo and then Asriel would get these photos so I think the fact that he has apparently kept them in this journal with all his formulas is like one of the small instances

of him not being a total asshole that's a great point and it's absolutely that and I forgot all the fucking grueling things that they had to go through in order to get Lyra to just take this photograph. And you can see it in her expression in those photos. She doesn't look happy. She's just like deadpan in all of them. She looks like someone went and wrestled her to take a photo.

I also want to talk a little bit about that notebook because this is a redemption arc for our podcast here right now. We saw this scene of the notebooks in the trailers and had actually discussed some of the formulas and what's written in them more in depth in one of those

trailer episodes. I want to say it's from the one that was released on October 15th or so. And yes, the formulas in the notebook, a lot of these actually are from real physics real world physics and represent um things in it and i recruited some people who actually do know physics from the asswolf mod team not me and they helped me decipher some of these such as the like uh that a lot of these formulas are probably related to electrodynamics or unborrowed dynamics, as we'll talk about in this episode. E meaning electric field. So maybe that should have been an A. I don't know.

Or maybe E means something else then. B is magnetic field. R would be radius. Our friend Fat Baldo suggested it could be about deriving field strength, which would make sense in the context, again, of what we're seeing on this page and what we know about the ruzakov field and all those things uh and also to again redemption arc because we would like to correct ourselves from the trailer and thinking what are these formulas what the the large one there towards the bottom was just like technical ease to like make it look technical but not real but in fact as our friend zionis pointed out after further research but it was after we had finished recording the episode it came in just a bit too late and i was like god damn it

uh but anyways is actually an equation used for focusing a lens there are a couple things i want to talk about with this because that's interesting thinking about it deeper i thought after we heard this from zionius i thought that uh the lens could be obviously the camera, right? Taking the pictures of the dust and doing the photograms. But it could also refer to a lens later that is used to see dust as in the amber spyglass. I was like, huh? So that's an idea. ass. I was like, huh. So that's an idea. But I would also argue about the E not A for the Anbaric versus electronic Eliana or Electro. This is tied in directly from Coulter's plot

opening on the Zeppelin. The shot they show right before during the catch up shows Thorold and Asriel's lair when Coulter comes there at the end of the season. So this implies that the books she took are from Asriel's lab and the photos are as well. So these are his photos, like you were saying from the lantern slides low, but huge foreshadowing because she took them straight from there. Asriel was using those to research for Chirigate and the city in the sky and other worlds. So he was probably also trying to make sense of what Electro means in the other worlds

in comparison to Anbaro. Oh, that could be interesting. That's my thought, because he's trying to break into another world. Yeah, or they were pulling things and put that in there so that people like me, who tells their physics friends, please tell me what this is we'll be able to decipher it okay it can also just be that like it could just be a poll but yeah i'm just trying to say devil's advocate or maybe you know uh metatron's advocate here that

it could be good it could be it could also be electric field in that like they just put an e you know how sometimes in math they'll like just pick a random fucking letter or symbol and be like this stands for this thing like pi you know they're like pi is this or you know what i mean they'll pick random letters and it could be in their world they just happen to pick e they're just making shit up half the time you know i know they're not but it feels like it all right then lyra and pan again are crying in a cave sheltering from the rain they fight their way through the thick foliage to see the city in the sky but now it's a city in on the ground slash the water it's a week hike away city in the sky yeah i was jamming to that about this

I'm thinking it right now I'm like singing city in the sky alright Eliana I'm gonna say something I don't say often you were right um I'm going to expand on that thought now now that I've gotten the hard part out

you know you kinda just gotta like get the hard part out. You know, you kind of just got to, like, get the hard stuff out first. Eliana was right. These are the shots from the trailer, in our trailer episodes. I just, because I was like, what if, what if they're her in the cave at the end? And Eliana's like, no, she has her coat.

This is her in the cave. This is her before she did God say, Chloe, no, stop. I don't sound like that. You're right. That's your voice. But that's what you sound like to me. I don't know. No so you are right that's your voice but uh that's what you sound like to me I don't know no it's not it's not your voice but I think though it's still purposeful because again we're opening with her in the cave sheltering after we just had the Roger

voice so this is foreshadowing loves xoxoxo gossip squirrel gossip squirrel gossip demon demons do spread gossip but yes i see and also the cave oh cave foreshadowing two cave foreshadows caves and caves um but yes and a cave in the third book if you really want to get technical there's another cave yes true true i'm just saying uh you know it's a podcast they can all hear my voice um there's this scene in 30 rock uh if you've ever watched 30 rock where tracy jordan turns to his friend dot com and dot com has said so he goes no one can hear you dot com and that is a common quote around our household right now and that's how i feel about this moment no one can hear you okay you're not real oh okay i'm just kidding i can hear you i know your voice doesn't sound like that well i can't hear you over the new intro which isn't

that crazy but it's still a banger just putting it out there it is a huge banger that song is it's in my head like every day i have to listen to it at least once a day because it's that good it's that good it actually is very good have you deciphered the new lyrics in latin yet i have not but i haven't tried yet lo have you or have you heard anyone doing so yet i haven't uh but I have been singing it. I was watching the episode with a friend last night, and we were obviously yamming along while listening to the intro. It's just like...

It's so good. It's so good. Like, right from when it starts with the little tinkling. Anyways. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, guys. I got a little out of control there, but that's what happens. It takes you. You got to let the intro take you.

I didn't even really, I haven't watched it with subtitles yet. And I always watch things with subtitles. And I didn't have the subtitles on. So I didn't even really like, I didn't listen hard enough. So I'm going to wait my next subtitle watch. I'm going to look and think and i'll get back to you i'll see what i think about it i forgot to probably be in the subtitles i forgot that um yes i try to i try to cheat you know and find easier ways to see things like that sometimes i do it because i can't understand their accent oh i don't have that issue i'm unfortunately a very heavy Doctor Who fan,

and that's not even hard. I've watched Broadchurch. I've watched Doctor Who. I've watched Skins. I've watched, you know, I've watched Misfits. I've watched, God, what else am I caring about these days? You know, a lot of Bake Off. A lot of Bake Off.

Yes, yes. But, yeah. To talk about the intro, before we into some of like the really great stuff that they've done and adaptations i wanted to call it something that i'd never noticed in the intro and this was still there in season one in terms of the entire aesthetic of it when it's opening and turns out it might be a nod towards one of the publishings the editions of the amber spyglass uh perhaps chloe has uh supplemented a note the folio society version of the amber spyglass um which i only know now because of user embnaz uh embroidering that cover and sharing it on the his dark materials subreddit.

And it was actually their first time embroidering it. It looks really good. I'm going to drop the link in the show description so that you can see it, but it looks a lot like the, that dust, you know, pulling up, pouring up into the sky.

So check it out. Great job. Congrats, Emdaz. It's really pretty and they did a great job. I kind of wonder if they would embroider it for embroider something for me i mean maybe i will pay you will you make me this this is it's beautiful and sad with the dust it's just

real sad it's really sad because the best part about this show right now is that will's finally in it but like that also means that we're closer to the end you know what i mean and i'm sad so sad yeah very sad beautiful job i knit i don't embroider i'm jealous so i should learn teach me teach me and benaz but the new stuff is really exciting so i don't want to overshadow the embroidery but the new stuff is so exciting oh my god we get to see the subtle knife y'all it was so good it was so cool

the flip and the zh and it makes the knife sound it was amazing and it just looked great I was not expecting it to be so beautiful and the angel in it looks gorgeous. It's really cool because last season you saw the knife in her back and it explodes into the actual metal alloy that is in the blade of the separation.

And also with that, with the knife. So then now it's just the knife actually came out of her back and it flipped around and it had an angel and the description which I'm sure we're going to talk about this probably in the next episode or the episode after that it might be episode three I think we're getting a lot more of the tower in it but in the subtle knife we get the description of the subtle knife which is he saw the rosewood was inlaid with golden wires forming a design he didn't recognize till he turned the knife around and saw an angel with wings folded on the other side was a different angel with wings up raised the wires stood out a little from the surface

giving a firm grip and he picked it up he felt that it was light in his hand and strong and beautifully balanced that the blade was not dull after all we'll talk more about the beautiful swirl of colors that is in the blade uh but it looks amazing i know this isn't obviously we're gonna get some way better shots of it from the trailer but i didn't actually expect the angel to be so visible in the hilt i don't know why i didn't i just didn't it's gorgeous and we get the tower right we get the beautiful tower with it as well. Yeah, that mirroring of shape. You know, I was noticing

now, like, that Mobius strip kind of formation of the many, now it looks like it's the many knives. I get it now. I get it. You know, the circly, spirally thing. So now we get to that sort of cleared up, but it also mirrors again

that idea of many worlds but perhaps even a wing-like formation so it's doing a lot of different things there um and that refraction but i'm also feeling that the movement of those those spirally mobius like knives kind of feels a bit like the movement of what we're going to see are the specters bodies in this show depiction that billowing yeah the shroom you know i didn't even think of that okay okay and it all goes right into the tower right so that all transforms right into the tour de l'angely which looks amazing with beautiful stained glass and kind of guarded, flanked by angels. I'm out here trying to enhance right now to see if I can read the stained glass. I'm like, enhance, enhance, because there's definitely something written on it. And I'm sure it's

going to be some sort of Latin phrase. It's probably something from the books. And we'll be like, oh, it's the thing someone says in the books. And it's probably something that Giacomo is going to say in his episode. Mr. mr paradisi we'll hear what he has to say for sure yes and the addition of more stairs of course in the intro which not only plays up that mc escher uh sort of vibe that we've discussed in some of the trailer episodes and we'll come back to again but also mirrors of course the architecture of chitagaze itself and speaking of chitagaze the worlds the different little like horizontal worlds now ends on chitagaze yeah and okay last season all i did was again enhance looking for mulefa but like that was me the whole time like Mulefa Mulefa am I gonna see a tiny Mulefa anywhere so I did that again still no Mulefa that's okay that's okay I know I'll be

patient I keep looking I keep hoping but no yeah there were more like sciencey things too like there's one part of the intro where you see this corridor that I think looks sort of like a hospital or a scientific lab or something. And then that turns into some like wiring or something. And my first thought was that this was a cave, like Mary Malone's cave, because of the laboratory feel transitioning into it. But then I listened to the dark material podcast episode breakdown and they said that they thought it would be the bomb and that we will get more like sort of teasing of the bomb throughout the season yeah you actually and i were messaging right when the episode came out and i was like oh i thought it was the bomb i didn't even think that was the cave

but that makes sense that it would look like the cave but i think that's probably what the magisterium plot will be in the background after coulter is kind of separated severed from them at some point i'm guessing that they'll be making the bomb and we'll hear about it at one point so i i like that it could have a dual purpose interesting well i I think that you two are the bomb aww aww oh as you all know I haven't listened to the Dark Materials episode breakdown yet I wanted to go into this

not yet dusty not completely dusty check out the Dark Materials podcast fellow Shroffies the term coined by the folks over at Chittagaze in the online forum, not in the book series. People in our world. And, but yeah, the cave, I thought it was the cave. I didn't think it was the bomb. And I think that's interesting. But what I noticed was

the way that the wires, it comes out of that room, goes into the wiring, right? And then as we're zooming out from the wires, I'm going to just keep fucking calling it the cave. It evokes that image first of the angel wings, the way that the show is depicting them with that symmetry coming out. And of course, the way that we've seen that the lines are coming from it. the way that we've seen that the lines are coming from it. And it also, in a way, repeats again that string motif, that idea of string theory, which the show has been doing a great job using and bringing into the intro to depict those multiple worlds.

So it's doing a lot of different things there. And that enters us into Chidigatse. We have Lyra staring up at a huge stacked city in front of so many stairs, lots of stairs and large windows, large arches. And often in the show, in this episode, they have been placed in front of Will. Watch out for that when you rewatch this episode. There are great visuals. And I get that the stairs are symbolic of the whole different worlds, right?

But man, stairs suck. So I think this is such a good symbol of a long journey ahead. Because every time I look at stairs, I get exhausted. So I'm sure these kids are exhausted. You know, they're tired. Tired kids. They're in an abandoned city, though. Right?

So Lyra enters this city with no one else around. Just food and bugs crawling everywhere. And I think I saw some unfinished risotto on a couple plates. I'm just putting that out there. Oh, my favorite. I didn't see that. I figured that the fruit just lying around was the replacement of the risotto

and also the clothes on the clothing line thingies. But yeah, I really liked how Cittagazzi looked. The architecture and how the streets and everything looked really reminded me of southern Spain, for instance, Cordoba, just because I've been to that city. And like other parts of Andalusia,

which has had these Western Islamic influences since during the so-called Golden Age age which was what they said when I was visiting and going to museums and stuff anyway their golden age was under Muslim rule from the 8th to the 12th century and that was like a really big a good part of their history there was a lot of like progress and visiting people from all over the world and I think Eliana is going to talk a bit about that later but yeah the architecture and everything really reminded me of Cordoba. And also fun fact if you're a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire in Cordoba the Roman bridge which is Roman but like the way it looks now is

mostly from the Muslim rule time. That bridge was the base of the long bridge in Volantis in Game of Thrones. So that's fun, I think. Yeah, also just seeing the city this time, with all these steps and everything that Chloe mentioned, with it being on a hill and everything, it really reminded me of different paintings of the Tower of Babel, which seems fitting, because I know you've all talked about how Sitagate and the Tower of Angels in particular is really similar to the Tower of

Babel. Yeah, Eliana spoke about it in a little depth back, I think in the Subtle Knife, I want to say chapter five or six, when we get to the actual tower. So I know it'll come up again in the series, but that look, just the stacked look blowing through the clothing and we actually get a shot of the alleyway. They kind of zoom out from the cafe area, which I saw the risotto on a cafe table. It looked like it was risotto or noodles. Yeah, if you pay attention, it was like a left corner, but they have little cafe tables out,

kind of Mediterranean looking, beautiful view. And I could see some plates of unfinished food. But right during that, they flash to kind of an empty alleyway before Lyra enters it and the wind is blowing through the clothing but if you listen there's a wispy kind of creepy noise underneath and it's really quiet it's like a weird rustle and at the very end of the episode when we have the wheel shot with the specter behind it kind of rolling out in that uh way kind of like the magnesium alloy it's the same noise that is being played so I kind of was trying

to watch this time and see that rustly creepy noise underneath and the wind blowing during different areas and see if I could hear it again but it looks like they're going to be using that to show specters are near quietly and I like. They also have the flicking of the lights in some scenes to indicate that, I think. Well, that's because they have weeping angels in their town, Lo. Yes, yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah.

If you watch other BBC productions, and you see all this anger, you're like, okay, this is creepy. I've seen the reference, I know what it is someday we'll get you there we gotta work on it well we gotta get eliana into doctor who but that is exactly what i thought i'm like this is the lights flickering and the angels this is definitely a pbc production absolutely but yeah like the the sound stuff and as you were saying about tower of babel and both of you and

that it looks like some depictions of it that chittagaze like physically looks like the way people have portrayed it in art i think that goes to show like you know some of the care that's been given to producing this show and as you said like i mean it comes through the sound but also you know watching it and seeing it actually come to life it really hammers home as lyra walks through the city um from the start how this city in the sky was sort of like portrayed as this incredible like otherworldly heaven surrogate right like up there like it's gonna be paradise we walk in it's empty it's worldly and it's devastated and we've talked about it as a sort of movable garden uh of eden again we see that it's populated by children who are supposed to be innocent um but something that low said

regarding the fallen fruit representing the people having left kind of made me think of fallen fruit the fall and and biting from the fruit of knowledge in that garden so yeah i'm gonna talk a bit more about fruit later i think but yeah never touch the fruit symbolism yeah i'm like we have at least three eden conversations to get through today still so everyone just hang in buckle up let's get through some scenes because we do have some garden of eden stuff to talk about and in the discussion we'll get there we'll get there lyra is not asking the alethiometer things they're on a break you know and we know what that means that usually means that you're actually just gonna break up so lyra and the alethiometer might break

up she does not trust it after roger's death she thinks it led her astray or withheld information from her. Pan and her go back and forth about this. He's in his Pine Martin form being adorable. He changes a bunch this episode for you demon complainers out there, Eliana. What? I mean, yes, but some of us are just happy with what we get. Okay okay some of us have had bad adaptations of books to shows and are just happy with what they get eliana in my defense i was just being a critical asian mom that i am they've met my expectations look at them rise look at them i knew that they could do better and they did i think that the only thing that could make this better, what they've done in response to your demon critique, Eliana, is if they sent us our demon statues. Anyways, send us demon statues.

Statues of angels are outside the tower. Again, as Lo and I discussed, that's never a good sign in a BBC production. In Doctor Who, specifically, ends a few arcs, let's just say. There are angels guarding at the top and angels flanking the bottom, and the immediate two angels that we actually see at the tower are very masculine bodied, so I'm guessing, in my mind, this is kind of the foreshadowing for our Baruch and Balthamos, even though literally everything in this season is technically foreshadowing now that I say it out loud. It's a visual TV show. But it seems that

that kind of is there. They look like what I expect Baruch and Balthamos will beautifully sparkle and dazzle onto our screen at the end of the season and look like. I also just want to contribute this important fact that our friend Emma on Twitter calls Baruch and Balthamo's the

gangels. Oh, yes. I think that is very important. That is important. That's good. That's good. Yeah, regarding Lyra distrusting the alethiometer, I think it's interesting that they're setting that up and giving her reasons why to distrust it this early on.

And they might be using that rather than her refusing to use the alethiometer unless will tells her to uh as in the books i'm curious to see if that's setting it up for something that they're going to change a little with her motivations later at least they set it up from the top so it's not as much changing for a boy yeah exactly likes to utilize in his works which is yeah which i think would be a positive change so i'm it's just something that i've noted coming back to something that we mentioned in the opening credits we were again discussing the influence of mc escher in the alhambra palace which is in southern spain and as lo has pointed out um a lot of chittagaze really seems to emulate

that sort of architecture and it's something we've been discussing throughout our episodes covering the show, including I think in season one in the trailer episodes we might have discussed it in the book episodes, but you know, I'm getting older and the Alhambra, so coming back, the alhambra and its tiles were a large influence on mc escher but the production team i think has done a great job of using these and balancing them together and separately uh to build out this world in his art materials and weaving it into the opening credits and the sets really making it cohesive and i'm going to talk about

some of the stuff that i've discussed before, for those of you who weren't able to tune in. But the chevron-like pattern that we see on the tower, we kind of actually see now reflected throughout the rest of Chittagaze's planning, such as the bricks on the paths. And we also see a lot of these other geometric patterns

even on the vents and grates of the place. And it's just really great detail. And I think that chevron-like pattern, especially on the tower, is quite reminiscent of tessellations which M.C. Escher liked to employ in his art, but also if you really look at how it manifests here and in the influences on Chittagaze

we start to see some of those elements from the opening sequence really come to life the tessellations feel derived from some of Escher's work in that way of that iron pattern, even though he's not the first to explore those. Especially if you look at his arts,

the woodcuts, Metamorphosis I and II, as well as Convex and Concave, which really brings together this idea of a crossroads, especially with all those different stairs. And we see stairs being a big part of the way that Chittagaze is structured. You have that cube slash rhombile tiling that creates that illusion of interlocking. Again, geometry, but also kind of looks like cubes laid together, but flattened. And it goes well, I think, with the visual cues of the different lines,

the way that lines have been operating in the opening sequences and throughout the visuals in Shirigaze, which, again, speaks to the idea of those interlocking worlds, that cross-section, of course, of mathematics and art, but also pushing the boundaries of physics, which is what's happening here. I don't know enough about music, but I wish I did because I would love to pay attention more to the way the music is composed. If any of you have ever read or looked at the book, Gertl Escherbach, which talks a lot about that intersection of art, music, mathematics, and how those come together. There's also this idea of transformation that M.C. Escher explores in his art, those themes of things changing. transformation that mc escher explores in his art those themes of things changing um and things are changing in this season right but also with the alhambra as we said before chittagaze is a place

of cultural exchange exchange in general within our real world but also uh chittagaze here in this interdimensional crossroads and they've done a great job the The team has done a great job, again, weaving that through visually when it comes to the stairs in Shinagaze. But, you know, almost every street, right, and room in this house, with the way that the stairs and the doorways work, it feels like you're going through a new world, you're exploring, everything's winding and maze-like. And you can see how the tower and the knife would influence the actual cultural development of the city and its people and how it all holds together. Yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned the music. There's a lot to be analyzed with the music. And I love music and I am a musician,

but I am busy doing this and I just haven't even thought to work on analyzing it because we have other people that do it for us like Matt from the Dustcast. If you have not listened to the Dustcast, check them out. He actually has a review up right now on the music, a music preview kind of of the music for Series 2 that is really great, and I can't wait to see what they come up with with him, Holly, and anyone else that comes on this series to discuss it. So we'll see what they say.

It does remind me of the lantern slide from the subtle knife all the time in chitagatse the sense of how different a place this could have been if it hadn't been corrupted how easy it would have been not to make the knife if they'd seen the consequences a world of teeming plenty of beautiful seas and temperate weather of prosperity and peace. And they still wanted more. I think that sums up Chittagatse so well. And visually with that in mind, just of how beautiful and perfect it is. And that interlocking,

like you say, of these worlds coming together and not just worlds, but these fates, these people, these destinies, right? With Will and Lyra. Oh my God.

Exactly. That's a great song to sing about it i was thinking of lyra by kate bush oh yes but as always as i always am but it that interlocking those worlds colliding i think that's going to be a lot of tension coming up not just for the lyra and will plot but for other plots moving forward yeah then we return to the mediterranean to the mediterranean boys and girl and we have some returning cast members we have fra pavel who's portrayed by frank burke this frank dude has been in the last kingdom and surprisingly also he was in 2019 wait that came out already

yeah he was in Dumbo in 2019 and none of us saw it right none of us I would watch it for like Colin Farrell because I think he's an incredible actor but I'm also like why is this the project he chose I mean I feel like I should aren't there less racist movies you can remake

yeah I didn't know it already came out oh yeah that came out and it's over girlfriend it's over very fast well we also have Daphne Keane's dad Will Keane in this scene and his father McPhail

which I would prefer to spell with an F instead of TH but anyway and then we have Cardinal Sturck which I would prefer to spell with an F instead of a PH. But anyway. And then we have Cardinal Sterk who is Ian Peck and he's been Curly in Peaky Blinders. But he was also apparently a Death Eater in Deathly Hallows Part 2 which I had no idea about. And then according to the credits there's Sean Gilder as Father Graves

and David Langham as Garrett so we'll see if they turn up again The Cardinal is surveying photos of the mountain and discussing what Asriel has done with Father MacPhail and Fra Pavel and the other white dude

that looks like the other white dudes in the scene I'm not gonna lie, that happens to me sometimes when I watch things. I totally forgot I wrote that. Oh god, I'm so sorry. I committed. The cardinal calls what

Asriel has done heresy. But Pavel and Macbeth are like, alright, but dude, it's there. Alright, it happened. It's probably always been there. Everyone can fucking see it. It it's enormous this is not at all relevant to current political uh situations no not at all not at all yeah the cardinal doesn't like their approach though uh again not relevant to current events uh pavel offers the witch that they captured and he's like oh we can just torture her for info right mrs coulter turns out it has been here the entire time uh in the corner blink

and you might miss her from the opening shot because you can just barely see her legs she interrupts and then puts on her act begging them to let her take care of it then father mcphail is afraid of mrs coulter taking control. Then Mrs. Coulter gives a little speech on like everyone fails even me. Y'all failed. And then she's like I'm never gonna fail again.

She asks the cardinal to test her on what she discovers. And he makes her kiss the ring to seal the deal before she goes and tortures the witch. It's really really really weird if this is foreplay but hey whatever gets you off and you know what pullman has written in the lantern slides that marisa has never had a lover she gave a shit about and she didn't keep servants didn't keep lovers crazy shit uh azrael must have been the only one she had actual somewhat weird feelings

about but we talk about the magisterium on the regular. I think there's so much great setup here. Lo and I are going to have a field day when we get to the dusty discussion. Sorry, Eliana. But if you're looking for a great view at the Magisterium in comparison to some of the real religious organizations, check out Dark Material podcast discussion of Calvinism in Northern Lights, The Idea of North. You know, there's a sequence of events here that I think is really interesting. They block it well. We don't see Coulter.

Like, you almost don't see her. You see her legs. She's revealed eventually. The men are all in black, seemingly alone. And Coulter is revealed in scarlet to signify that she's the outlier. And, of course, her being a woman is very much so highlighted because Macphail says, oh, we can't have this woman do it. We all know the magisterium,

the setup that they're kind of, you know, sexist, etc. The whole thing. So she's wearing red in this highly Christian kind of environment. Very scarlet letter. It fits really well, the scarlet letter. It really reminded me of it because you have Haster Prynne, who's a young woman made to wear a scarlet A to mark her indiscretion of having a daughter out of wedlock with a man she refuses to name. The whole town thinks that she and this unnamed father should be punished. And her long lost

husband returns out of nowhere and is like, yeah, stone that guy. And I don't really care what you do about the wife, but we'll figure it out. The town at one point later on tries to take her daughter away from her. The story gets a little different direction-wise than what Mrs. Coulter goes through from here, but her lover does die in her arms after confessing their affair to the town square, and eventually she dies too. Hester's story is reminiscent here for me because Coulter is very much ostracized in this scarlet outfit, and she is consistently volunteering to get the upper hand to try to take the fall for these idiotic men to use it to her advantage and exploit the situation. Hester and Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter has a really strong theme recalling the story of Adam and Eve, with sin resulting in expulsion and suffering.

It also results in knowledge of what it means to be immoral. For Hester, the Scarlet Letter is a physical manifestation of the sin and reminder of her painful solitude, which later in the episode we get Colter saying, it will be my sin. Hester contemplates casting off her A to obtain freedom from an oppressive society and a checkered past, as well as a place without god the absence of god society excludes her and it rejects her and expels her from it and she considers that the possibility of traditions being upheld by puritan culture might be false i'm not designed to bring her happiness yeah exactly lots of transformation lots of stuff there. And the scene is framed in general as after we get that idea of like the scarlet,

the scene's kind of framed as a last supper as well for the cardinal with that wine being pushed toward him. She then moves to the desk and she pushes wine to him to say, please drink the blood of Christ. I'll take care of all this and torture the hell out of the witch. I think this wine was a great foreshadowing of Boreal's death that we're going to see this season, I'll take care of all this and torture the hell out of the witch. I think this wine was a great foreshadowing of Boreal's death that we're going to see this season, I'm sure, as well. But it's very much so framed that she's the outlier, the men are out to get her, but the cardinal wants to let her take the blame. She lies to them. She says, I didn't make it to Asriel in this scene, because they say, what did you learn from Asriel when you got to him on top of the mountain? And she's like, I didn't even see him, though we

saw her macking on him. Like we know. And when you think about that, and this line that she's doing in this scene, when Ruta stabs the Cardinal and all that chaos kind of happens, that was the happiest chaos that she could have asked for as we see her exploit that moment and use it it all starts to fall into place yeah and i mean her lying about kissing azriel that's what makes it hot for them that's what they get off on this scene really reminded me of uh that scene in the movie downfall where hitler is yelling at people that everyone makes memes of like when they edit what they see yes and i don't know if that makes sense but like nazi vibes and dude being in denial so yeah it made me think of that but yeah like chloe said we'll talk about this later because there's some stuff there so stick around if you've read The Secret Commonwealth.

Something that I also found interesting was when Macphail and Cardinal is fighting about what they should say. That's sort of read as a struggle over discourse, according to me. And this is something I talk about in my essay about power relations in historic materials. But the way that Foucault describes discourse is discourse is something that determines what is said and what can be said. And it impacts how we understand the world. So, for instance, if the discourse about sex and gender, just like hypothetically speaking, would be that there is just male and female and men and women, this might hypothetically possibly impact how those of us who don't identify that way are treated by the rest of society. Lyra's world heresy is sort of a discursive limit you're not supposed to talk about heresy things

that are heresy so that impacts what can be said what can be done or can even be fought and I think that's very clear in this scene when as soon as Macphail says something that's a tiny bit heresy the cardinal just shuts it down so that you can really see that this discourse they have really impact what you can even do or think in that world. I think that's an interesting point you bring up regarding Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, and what Foucault has said about the discourse, again, as you said, on sex and gender and, you know, that inability to define it. And as you said, for there not to be a place for people who don't, don't identify as within that binary of male or female men or women, you know, that inability to even speak of it because it would be considered heresy. I don't remember I read this, a few years a while ago, impacts their ability to even exist in such a world, right? And that seems to be something that the cardinal is doing here saying, well, if it's heresy, a world, right? And that seems to be something that the Cardinal is doing here,

saying, well, if it's heresy, it doesn't exist, and that inability to exist therefore makes them marginalized. It seems, though, what Mrs. Coulter is doing here is exploiting something from a different philosopher, that idea, this Freudian idea of repression, and bringing that to the forefront. You know, Coe and freud two different ways of looking at things and i think there's a it's not lingered upon in this episode necessarily but

there's an interesting i think theological discussion that arises from what's going on in this scene where the cardinal almost seeks to deny that again that city was there or is like wow it suddenly appeared there by acts of humanity people made this happen right and whereas father mcphail is like wait hang on hang on i think that city was actually always there right and that there actually may be many more cities many more worlds like it and i forget which and so we've actually discussed this in a previous episode uh episode eight apparently of northern lights slash the golden compass depending on which world you live in uh the new world or the old world um chapters 21 and 23 about that tension between galileo and the church and questions of faith and how to integrate that

with new scientific discoveries. Pullman talks about that specific situation with Galileo, and we're going to just summarize that quote directly in an interview of how the church had been seeking control of people's thoughts and then denied the truths that Galileo was saying about heliocentrism. I was i was gonna say something and i thought it was actually uncontroversial for a second where i was like we all know that the world revolves around the sun then i remember that there's flat earthers and then i was like i hate everything some of us do not know that apparently yes apparently this is actually not something everyone believes bob the musician i loved him Turns out he's a flat earther and I was like, fuck my life. Anyways,

Pullman compares this struggle to what the Magisterium does with the idea of dust and its connection with consciousness and, of course, eating of the fruit of knowledge, which is going to come back up throughout this episode and this entire series. And we're seeing two different philosophies

here, the Cardinal taking that conservative stance, calling the acknowledgement of what's clearly there again heresy, and that's still tied to dust. But he is the position of most power in this room, he's trying to hold on to that power, and the Magisterium's power in denying that this world bridge exists. Whereas I think it's kind of interesting that father mcphail is taking what some might argue is a slightly more progressive big emphasis on the word slightly very slightly uh progressive stance and being like whoa no no it's there all right and then seeing it as something of like how do we actually reconcile this how do we reckon with this in our faith when we're seeing it there and it's an act and it's sort of saying that it is we as an institution as a faith as a church need to be the ones to adapt and then on the other hand though we have mrs coulter who's kind of offering a middle road

um offering an adaptation that kind of preserves the magisterium's power and again that control of knowledge and thought by interrogating the witch. And Chloe's spoken quite a bit on Mrs. Coulter's outfit, and has before in some of the trailer episodes, I believe, and we'll probably come back to that in a bit. But it's interesting to see her in that red outfit, and also

offering that cup to the Cardinal. It's a move that we've seen Mrs. Coulter do quite consistently throughout the series, especially in the first season. And because it's that consistency in her character, it carries weight. And I will say, you know, I think that the show, again, has adapted well to criticism this season from this episode. And if you pay attention to the visuals and the sound, uses it well to carry the storytelling. Mrs. Coulter constantly offering people drinks for some reason, almost feels like Hades offering the pomegranate. And I think we, again, saw Father Macphail in the first season refuse a glass of anything from

Mrs. Coulter. And here the Cardinal's accepting that glass of wine. And I think, of course, it's laden with that sexual energy. But in the context of this interrogation, it's almost violent, right? The liquid in in this light resembles blood which is one of the things that wine i think you pointed this out earlier in the episode chloe does signify in the catholic faith with a transubstantiation of the wine into christ's blood and if i'm not mistaken i wasn't able to re-watch this scene on doing this The cinematography kind of conveys that shift in power here as well. At first, we kind of had the shots of the cardinal looking up at him. And then we have the shots of the other priests straight on.

But then eventually the camera, at first it's kind of looking down at Mrs. Coulter when we introduced her, starts shifting focus. It starts shifting to look upwards at Mrs. coulter as she begins to take the upper hand and power in this scene that's really interesting because later when she tortures there's something interesting about how it focuses on her demon and it starts the feet and it pans upwards as she walks out of the door but yeah that's really interesting well after that great cinematography we're going to get something even better it's beautiful it's lyra and pan meeting will it's what we've always wanted we've all our lives our careers everything has been moving towards this moment will and lyra on a screen meeting and i thought we should start this off with one of the lantern slides from The Subtle Knife. Chittagatsay under the moonlight, deserted and silent and open. The colonnades drenched in soft shadow, the casino

garden so perfectly clipped and swept, the gravel paths, every house lit, every door open to the warm night. It was the first place where will had ever felt entirely safe and entirely welcome and entirely at home lonely yes at first but he lived in that condition like a fish in water he would never know how inconceivably strange he appeared at first to lyra i'm sad sorry i didn't mean to get us all sad but i'm just you know what i just want to share my gloom it just uh i i have to cherish the good thing while we have it i have to stop being gloomy about it but some of the best parts are the gloom of it so lyra busts into will's new house that he has uh safest place he's ever lived and she's like rummaging through this house and he taps

her from behind and the funniest crap in the world is that like lyra's like whoa how dare you it's a throwback actually to series one episode one she pulls an asriel on him she puts him in a lock hold slams him down on the table and she's like don't sneak around even though she was the one breaking into where he's staying and lyra introduces herself as lyra silver tongue to him not lyra balacqua and i think it's also super cute that they also break the bottle or whatever in their fight which is also a parallel to episode one of season one and then will cleans it up because he's a good boy who cleans things up. It's okay, yeah. Yes.

And then she calls him a servant, like the servants that cleaned it up. Good job, Lyra. Shit. We'll get to that. Will hasn't seen a demon, right, ever. So he's like, what the fuck? And Pan is like, do not touch me. Please do not touch me.

And Lyra's a little taken aback, right? She's like, like whoa you have no demon uh foreshadowing yes a little bit they're actually illustrating that well we'll talk about it i know in a bit but they're doing well to illustrate it the kind of the little things you don't know if you haven't read the books right to make it like that is a that's the sin right there and she and pan kind of get freaked out because of it like they actually make it a very important part of the episode which i'm into they freak out they back away and she leaves him she's like uh-uh uh-uh but it's also kind of weird because didn't

she just help billy costa even though she was so disgusted at his lack of anyways i digress i think that it's it's jarring right because she's seen what it means for someone to not have a demon and then she's like whoa but this person seems fine he could have been a witch um or as they've discussed other where um in other places they have like men who are witches and you know seeing how large chittagatse is i think you really get a feel of how faded will and Lyra's convergence is. Like, of all the houses she could have broken into, she picks this one. Well, the next scene is another beautiful, fateful scene, because it's Lee and Hester soaring around in the sky, being sweet.

And Lee is actually, if you blink, you'll miss it it he's whistling the song that was the song they sang in their first appearance in series one Old Best Friend by Joshua James so he's whistling it right at the very start of their scene very quietly just whistling away can you whistle? no I cannot whistle I can't whistle though can you whistle?

I can make sounds but I can't like whistle a melody like I can make sounds, but I can't whistle a melody. I can make sounds. Same. I can do one really high-pitched whistle that's useful for dogs, and that's all I need, I guess. Oh, that was almost a whistle!

That was almost a whistle. Okay. I just wanted to understand, Beryl, why I wasn't whistling the song to you, because otherwise I would have been going whatever. Beatboxing. Okay.

Well, they find the witches, right? They see the witches, they see Laganara, and they head that way yeah i i thought it was interesting because i was like this has to be lake inara right because they're heading to seraphina so i i did some googling because i was like i know where like inara is i have not seen pictures of it and i think it is but it's like way more dramatic than it is in our world because tv but yes lake inara in our world the english name for that lake is lake inari and in finnish it's inari järvi and in inari sami the name is anara järvi so like you might have gotten from my different pronunciations of names, this lake is the third largest lake in Finland.

It's the largest lake in Sápmi. And for those of you who haven't read all my bullshitting about Sámi culture and Nordic influences in historic materials, the Sámi people is the indigenous people of sort of the Nordic countries. The Sami people is the indigenous people of sort of the Nordic countries. And their land, Sapmi, is in contemporary Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia. But it has been cut up by colonialism. And yeah, I've talked about how I think there's some interesting links between Sami culture and the witches. It's not one-to-one, but there's some interesting things. And one thing that I found now when just reading up on Lake Inari

is that this lake and this area has been really important for the Sami people living there, the Inari Sami. And some of the things that are important for them or has been historically is these islands in the lake. There's more than 3,000 islands in total in the lake. But two of them that I wanted to mention. The first one is in Finnish is called Hautumasari. And in Inarizami it's called Hävdiennaumsauli. I think I got this right. I tried to research. I can pronounce Finnish things. I can't pronounce Sami things. Well, this lake, anyway, is served as a cemetery for ancient Sami people. And then there's this other lake, Ukunasari or Eisoulia,

which was historically a sacred site for the Sami people in this area. So I think it's just very interesting that Pullman decided to specifically call out this lake as an important lake for the witches. Maybe he was just like, well, witches, they like nature. This is a cool lake. It's very big. But considering some other things that we'll talk about later that is pulled from the Sami people and Sami culture, I think it might have been on purpose and I'm like in two minds about this in general because I think it's interesting that he's pulling from these people who have historically sort of been ignored as many indigenous people have and like their culture hasn't been appreciated and things. But also I'm like, if you're going to use their culture,

maybe just like actually have them in the story. And another thing that connects to this is how in the books, they mention that the witches are from El land. I don't want to say that word because that word consists of two words one word starting with an L and then land and the word starting with an L is a slur in Swedish and other countries for people it's a slur for their ethnic group so and it's also the name of this area in the north of Sweden and Finland where they have traditionally lived. So, I mean, he's saying that these witches live in a land and that land is named after the Sami people in our world,

but he uses a slur for them. So I'm like, obviously you're pulling on some stuff here. Maybe you just like do it properly. But anyway, I have some... It doesn't seem like he's like educated about it in whole like he's using some of it but he doesn't know the extent of it anyway colonialism um listen more to my episode with amy blackfire i have some more thoughts about colonialism and talk about talk a bit more about how the swedish state actually sucks and don't put low

on a new list keep Keep Lowe off lists. I'm already a traitor to the nation. This has been established by the Nazi people. I'm not straight and I'm not cis. And I'm like anti-nationalism and the state. So I'm already on the list. It's fine.

What's another one? What's on more lists? Yes, absolutely. To echo what you and Chloe were saying. It seems like what's a more list yes um absolutely to echo what you and chloe were saying it seems like you know there's a sort of um lifting of other people's cultures without necessarily paying respect or as you said there could showing that they actually live there on a different note entirely hester has her own heater that's what Leigh is fixing. Oh god. It's the best character. Hester? Yeah.

Yes. Hester and Sophonax. Didn't she? Someone was saying, I don't know if it was you who was telling me this, the Demons actors, because of the pandemic, had to record in their closets and then send the audio over. Yes, I've seen videos the audio over to well some did yes Christella Alonzo who did

Hester she especially she had to do all of her stuff at home and she doesn't have like a good sound set up so she was recording in her closet I don't know you used to do that that's true oh I did didn't I you used to record in your closet

oh my god 2018 yeah wow holy shit i did yeah you could be a demon i could be hester but i'm not christella alonzo is back as hester and doing an amazing job nice and sassy uh there's a point actually with the witches where she's like we're out of our depth lee like straight up just looks up at him is like we do not belong here with these ladies lee and he's like tell me about it yeah but he's like shh be quiet don't be gross but yes she has her own heater which i thought was cute she calls it my heater and uh speaking of demons pan has a soul to soul moment with lyra says that you know ly, we need new friends. Starts to imply, like, chillax, you know?

And then Will shows up and apologizes for any offense that he caused because he's a good boy. And Lyra and him further discuss demons. And then he gains a better understanding of, like, ah, yes, this is what a demon is. And he's like, I'd like to stick around and explore for a bit. Yeah, and I really liked in this Soul to Soul that they, once again, they bring up Roger and like, we had a friend

and everything like that. Because I think it's really good that they're keeping Roger in the back of our minds because obviously, hopefully, he'll come back in season three. the tv audience i think needs to remember that he exists yes and it's gonna be very easy to forget him like i mean you have will now so i have will i don't have to think about roger who died for our sins. Roger did die for our sins.

Will says that he followed a cat through a hole. It's the best line in this fucking episode. She's in the grin. He just gives this shy, goofy grin. Like, yeah, I followed a cat through a hole to get here. He's like, I don't know. It sounds crazy to me too, but I did it. They do a really good job of like there's a lot of plot summary like i said earlier the the demon info drops that maybe the casual watcher wouldn't get they do a really good job of cementing like

this is the lore about demons you don't touch demons don't forget that like uh here will this is what it means blah blah especially for Will who quote unquote doesn't have a demon but he does we're gonna find that out later for sure I think it's a good job I think it keeps us aligned to what the lore of the show is

the world building on a less wholesome note Mrs. Coulter then tortures the witch that she has in captivity the shot is framed so well like we said they they enter through kind of the hole and she examines her torture weapons through the porthole kind of looking at them and she holds up tweezers you think she'd take the big stuff but nope she goes tweezers and she takes off all of her finery the witch's demon is trapped in a cage and coulter then begins to tell her look you can share your

info or experience torture she asks about lyra the witch refuses to speak and then there's a bunch of mutilation a lot of body horror very creepy she starts to tweeze the witch's cloud pine out of her body uh and it is like look the only thing that i can relate to this is that one time this girl told me that she had her nipples pierced and one of the nerves in her nipples like came out of the hole it was pierced wrong and that can happen yeah it's the only it's why i'll never think about getting a nipple piercing because of this and she said that like the way she saw the nerve ending and like she touched it and that she like barfed and pooped at the same time and so yeah so that is what like this reminded me of this like i was like oh oh because the whole time i just felt like something was being pulled out of my body

while watching this. And I can't watch it. I could not finish watching that moment. Like I had to look away in the middle of it and have my partner tell me when it was over. But this did prove a popular fan theory. And I'm not 100% sure it existed before the show, but it more than likely did. I have to go do some deep diving at Bridge to the stars or chitigaze online the chat uh forums but people have theorized the pine sprays are their source of magic which makes sense when you

think of the pine spray test and why you know the the console has all of their pine sprays just on file uh and that is what's in their body so we talked a lot about how it looked like designs made by lightning striking skin for example in series one how they have these beautiful tattoos kind of henna style tattoos but it turns out it is their pine spray grown into their body it is the source of their magic and i don't know if i trust the console i think we're gonna get a look at mr lansalias again this season and i'm interested to see if they use anything from all published works about him. So I don't know if we should trust them yet there at the console, especially in the way the witches are being framed. Maybe we'll see a new subplot kind of come up. But in book, when Serafina frees Katya,

the witch we're going to meet here from her suffering, she ends up traveling to Lansalius afterward. So I'm guessing that's what we're going to see in the next suffering, she ends up traveling to Lanselius afterward. So I'm guessing that's what we're going to see in the next episode, because we saw a picture of him from the preview. So either Seraphina or Ruta will go and speak with him, probably Seraphina, she will probably chat with him about what Ruta says in this episode, and talk about Asriel and the Magisterium's war. So let's move on to the torture. I'm calling it Coulter's torture porn because that's what it feels like. Like for her, this is quite obviously how she gets off in life or survives in life by being cruel to other people and capturing that cruelty. It's quite more physical

in the books. She breaks the witch's finger in the books and tortures info out of her about the cloud pine spray test. but this visualization was so much better in the book the men actually are in the room watching it so it's a lot more intimate that the men are not in the room watching right now that she is just her her demon and the witch and the witch's demon she removes her rings which at first thought of a movie you think oh you know they're gonna keep their rings on and fist fight but that is not the torture that she is going for and there's something in it that kind of reeks of power control and her internalized misogyny if you think about the transition between her last scene to this scene she's made to kiss

the cardinal's ring in the scene before and then in this scene the first thing she does is she removes the trappings of power her rings her finery her jewelry and tortures the witch one-on-one uh because of how she feels she is treated by the men mostly she's proving herself to be a part of them and continuing that illusion of being a part of them and playing as hard as them and being harder than these men and when you kiss that signet ring it's a form of power a form of submitting kissing a ring is submitting and she has everything in her life controlled due to her status her wealth her family no spoilers but we learn a lot about her extended family in the books of dust

and she's had everything in her life pretty much controlled mostly right and she doesn't have her own control so having to kiss that ring and submit and then being allowed to go take it out on a witch is disgusting and just that internalization coming out to play that we see with marisa yeah and i i think it's a good point that you tie these together um her removing the rings and then as you pointed out that here she's in private as opposed to in the books her removing the rings and being in this private space it almost feels like it's something an unleashing right she can be herself and herself is quite terrifying in this in this space where no one can see her and remove uh the way as you said her finery the way she

portrays herself as submissive that's the face that she has to put on then we get to we go back to wholesome things thank god there's a lot of whiplash but it works it works it's fine um will and lyra are exploring chitagaze and they discuss dust lyra explains that people think that dust might be sin first of all final fantasy 10 called okay pull them in no i'm just kidding uh that's a final fantasy joke thank you gamers that's a pro gamer joke you know we get a great shot here of will they're checking out the alleyways and he peers through a very dusty window like just straight up it's a grimy window and he's staring straight through it and i'm like i see you he's looking through his window and it's a dusty

window i get it i get it great framing shots of that throughout this for a lot of the characters and that plays into you know a lot of the great visual storytelling that they have in this series and also some of the acting that they do to establish character. Like in this scene, Lyra's doing her spunky Lyra thing. She jumps onto the steps when she's talking about dust. Whereas Will, what he does, he immediately bends over and he puts a crate right side up. Starts trying to clean everything up, putting fruit back inside the crate. And so we get that reinforcement of will as being responsible and caring i also really love that they have uh

more of a like playful dynamic than they do early in the book yes with liar talking about dust and and she asked if they have dust in will's world and he said something like yeah we have dust but I don't think it's the same thing sort of jokingly and they're very cute and I love them. He actually stays that way we're going to see too he's very like he's a lot lighter than how he's introduced in the books I

did notice that in the books you know he's kind of harsh and stressed because obviously it's that John Mulaney joke that it's very small very stressed you know uh and he I don't know he's like not as aggressive in this as I expected and it's fine I like this too I'm fine with it but I expected him to be like angrier and madder all the time so maybe we'll get some mad will stuff in the next couple episodes when he has to get all like lyra shaking his finger at her or something but i was surprised he doesn't seem as aggressive and it does look like that from some of the things we've seen in trailers

or like those shots right where he's yelling so that's true i think i think it works well they've got good chemistry they hear a noise and then they see kids and then they run they're two youngsters named angelica and paula they're sisters you might recognize at least one of them leona mormont from game of thrones bella ramsey is playing angelica and then paula which in the books is paulo swapped out for paula is played by ella Schray-Geetz, who it looks like this is her breakout role, and they are both very cute in these roles. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna get mad at them at all, or like, be

upset with them, which I couldn't really, because they're helpless. You know, this is just how they are. Nature. Nurture. But Ella, Paula, she's adorable. Her little, like, when she accidentally says Tulio's name, and Angelica just looks at her like, excuse me? We talked about this, Paula.

Yeah. They've got a good dynamic, too. And I will say, in their defense, of course they ran. Lara just fucking runs at them. That's suspicious. That's a weird thing to do. Conspicuous! That's a weird thing to do! And another thing that's fun, again, in that visual storytelling,

as they're doing that chase scene, which gives you great shots of the city, Will actually peels off from the chase and meets them on the other side, which gives us a little bit of insight into how Will's mind works. He's a sharp kid, but also, if you will, he takes a short cut to meet them on the other side going through something else kid oh i didn't do that get out yeah i didn't catch the sharp one but the cut the cut was intentional because i'm not gonna fire you in front of company but i want you to know i'm thinking about it it's not meant to be a pun i think it's literally something that they did on purpose i mean chloe i actually didn't notice that at all

you can't listen to the dark material podcast breakdown because Ian makes this joke like every time there's a cut between a scene he's like and then we cut to this bless him

I love Amy and Ian though so they can make as many puns it's just different when it's Eliana you know well have you ever noticed my puns are celebrated you know my puns are celebrated it's just eliana's are damned motherless i love you all right i love these orphans they're great they offer so i just i feel if you listen to our subtle knife breakdowns, like, I probably was a little empathetic with them. My stance was very empathetic because these kids, as we learned, they've lost their parents. And they offer a soda to Lyra and Will kind of as a truce. Again, how am I going to dislike them? That was very kind and they give us a beer at first maybe it's a ginger beer it could be a ginger beer you know they give us an info dump though all about these specters and they talk about losing their parents and paula mentions tulio like we said being an adult and susceptible to the the specters and angelica's like

yeah and something that stuck out to me when i watched it the first time was that when they're describing what the specters is um specters are um i think it's paula who says uh that when you've been attacked by a specter you're still alive but everything that makes you human is gone and that really struck me because the specter seems to be some sort of metaphor for mental illness, maybe specifically depression. And I've been in two minds about how to think about that for a long time because I don't really like the idea that being depressed means you don't have a soul. You're not a human anymore.

But also, being depressed can sometimes feel like that. So, I don't know. I have a bigger point on a related thing later. But I'm not sure. But it stuck out to me. That is interesting. We'll talk about it in length a little thing later but like i'm not sure but it stuck out to me that is interesting we'll talk about it in length a little more later because i do think that it's interesting that having your demon torn from you or severed from you being severed uh and pullman said like it's

an allegory for depression and self-hatred not just all mental illness but again i also wonder if that's in the category of to an extent and i think everyone analyzes it differently or like in a way you know it'll mean different things to people and how you've experienced it so i don't know that pullman was writing like one a couple different kinds of experiences but i do think it's interesting that like the idea of like having no drive or no not ambition that's a poor word to use but having like your demon ripped from you takes out the get up and go you know and makes you not able to do things i find that interesting and it i mean it it crosses such problematic like thoughts by making the specters that allegory because then you think of like people that are in a vegetative state that is

so depressing and awful and sad like that have no control over their limbs or bodies and can't even do things and it's like i don't know there's there's a lot on the table there so hopefully the show wrangles it in which i think they will because if there's one thing about adaptations of shows i've noticed is they like to try to push like a a theme like this thing mostly resolves unless it's game of thrones so themes are for eighth grade book reports yeah well which is when i read this book fourth grade book reports yeah and i will say it might be more of like the writing i don't know that in the books, they say that having being attacked by a specter means that everything that makes you human is gone. No,

I don't think so. But I think it's a show only line. Maybe clumsy writing. Yeah. It seems a clumsy, just, I wonder also if it's just to give her something to say for the contract. You know what I mean?

I mean, that's the other thing is she has to say something, you know, they have to give her something to say for the contract. You know what I mean? I mean, that's the other thing is she has to say something. You know, they have to give her some sort of damn info dump. And and like they don't have a lot in this episode. There's this scene and there's the one other scene with the cat that we'll get to. But they they say, you know, we're happy this way. We don't need parents. You know, our island, our rules.

And they leave. They're like, see you around. See you later in our city. We run apparently uh and that's kind of cute in a way too like they're just rowdy young young chicks being rowdy i like that will leaves money and lyra then teases him for it also which i love for paying for food he's like what like you pay for food you take and she's like okay yeah and i love that they included the line that if you start behaving like grown-up suspectors will get here yeah and i love that they included the line that if you start

behaving like grown-up suspectors will get here i i'm pretty sure that's in the book too and i just i i just love it lyra is adorable it's very cute i thought more deeply about that line and it's like if you the idea that you pay for things right and that makes you a grown-up that responsibility and that's it lyra and the other kids see this place as a place of providence and that garden of eden but what moves will into adulthood is that idea that and outside of that realm of innocence is that idea is that no there is a price for things so anyway oh yes there's always a price no okay i like that only death can pay for life or you know it's yeah things like that you know that things aren't just given because you know all that stuff that happened in genesis which is equal opposite

reactions the things the things yeah yeah you know you guys know words which are made up i also just want to state like lo earlier you were saying like i can't pronounce american names and i can't pronounce anything even real words because words are made up okay it's all fucking made up so who cares but we care a little just enough you know the next thing that i'm excited this is y'all know that I'm over here just like it's Lee Scoresby and the witches time and Lo and I are probably very excited about this section

so Lo I'm gonna let you take it away because Lee Scoresby has joined the witches council and there's a tree and there's three symbolism yes so my first thought was obviously is this the tree of knowledge and then i thought is it maybe yggdrasil and i'm gonna be annoying and pronounce it in swedish all the norse names

now but anyway yggdrasil is from norse mythology and is the world tree and the gods generally held their court which is called ting in sw or fing, I think, in English. Anyway, they generally held their court below Yggdrasil. So there is this connection between the worlds with Yggdrasil. One root of the tree goes to Midgård, that is where humans live. One goes to Asgård, where the gods live. And one goes to Jotunheim, where the gods live and one goes to jotenheim where the giants live and one goes to nifelheim which is where the dwarves live i think i didn't write this up anyway i'll return to this

later in the discussion but yeah i thought that was really interesting this moving between worlds with the witches who know the whispers between the worlds and everything. And something that my friend pointed out to me when I talked to her about it, because she's even more into mythology than I am, is that some trees in different mythology have fruit that will make you immortal. For instance, in Norse mythology, the golden apples that is kept by the goddess Idun is what makes the goddess immortal. golden apples that is kept by the goddess idun is what makes the goddess immortal so that's interesting with witches and the people being immortal and stuff at least in a symbolic level so yeah so much eating and drinking things that leads to immortal could that ever be important

no no of course not how why would that ever be important, Chloe? I don't know. Like the milk from somewhere? I don't know. From the blue milk that Luke Skywalker gets? Yeah, the blue milk that Luke Skywalker gets? Yeah, that's exactly it. Or the milk that tastes like rum. I don't know. That could be a thing. No, stop!

Is that when Pullman starts writing about that? That's when George R. R. Martin writes about it. Different book series. they could be a thing stop is that when Pullman starts writing about that different book series I just look it's bad enough where it's at right now when he starts that up mm-mm

that's true all these authors exchanging their their lactation kinks but speaking of trees that are make people immortal

in the Garden of Eden there is also alongside the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Life. And they don't eat from that tree, which is allegedly why we all die. Thank God. Just end it. You know what I mean? I feel like this is also very me,

because I know Norse mythology, and then you'll say something about Christian things, and I'm like, oh, right. Because I'm a horrible heathen also from evangelion sorry different series also besides the lactation series seraphina lets lee speak that is so kind of her to just let lee speak you know lee's very lucky that he's allowed to speak in front of women this is like a man being allowed on Themyscira with all the Amazons around him this is the one guy the Amazons

have allowed on their island and I really like that he's very intimidated so what you're saying is that Lee is Chris Pine? yeah Lee is Chris Pine absolutely one of the okay Chris's but he's very intimidated

by his new sister wives. It's very obvious. So I saw something hilarious, and I'll take this out. Where someone called Chris Pratt Chris Pratt killed me. I don't know why you take that out.

Sure, I'll keep it in. Maybe. We'll see how i feel when i ended this is uh is is lee in this meeting supposed to contrast mrs coulter's presence in that magisterium meeting i believe so that's a great thought i never thought about that because like this is this is absolutely the meeting from the book but it's very sped up which I think is super impressive how they did it like it's a very quick fleeting scene but it gave me a little like lasting like I have impressions about it right because he swears his protection about Lyra where Coulter swears she's going to do whatever the magisterium

wants mm-hmm mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. A contrast there. And in that moment, you know, as you're saying, where Elise wears his protection, Serafina then gives Lee something to take with him and you used to call for her help. Listen, now that I have a sobered mind, I've rewatched the episode many times. I have some really interesting things to say about this

and the thing i have to say about it is sad that's it that was the thing that's it sad i did not expect this i did not like i thought we weren't gonna get because i've been saying well she didn't give him the flower she didn't give him the flower. She didn't give him the flower. When's she going to give him the flower? And this isn't the, I don't think it's the flower, which I think Lo is going to mention in a moment, but it's, I didn't think they were going to do it.

I didn't. Yeah. Like, I was also like, oh, she's giving him a thing, but it doesn't look like the flower. What is it? And then, like I mentioned, I listened to the Dark Material podcast,

and they theorized that what he got was some cloud pine from Serena to contact her instead of a flower. So what do you think? Yeah, if you look at it straight on the screen in high def, it's super bright. Like, it's light colored. It does not look like a flower. It looks like something that's almost glowing. It doesn't look like it's glow glowing, but it's light colored. It does not look like a flower. It looks like something that's almost glowing.

It doesn't look like it's glow glowing, but it just looks very light. It does not look like a flower. You can almost see it. Like you have to kind of zoom in and look at it. But I think it's probably cloud pine spray. Like that, that makes sense,

especially with the reveal that the cloud pine spray is within you or within the witches. Because if we connect those dots, it's literally literally deeper uh it's that she's giving him a part of herself a part of her magic wow a piece of her i'm just saying that you know who ships lee and seraphina besides me his dark materials on bbc hbo oh i thought you're gonna say low yes but okay no i mean i was like damn you should just push low aside like that no no i i do want to add in the what is it i believe this is in the subtle it's either in subtle knife or it's in northern lights

lantern slides there's a lantern slide that pullman put in there that is lee scoresby attracted north by the money being made in the gold rush and making none but acquiring a balloon by chance in a card game he was the lover of a witch from the corellia region briefly but she was killed in battle she spoiled me for woman younger than 300, but he had plenty of lovers all the same. So I'm just saying that's a pretty like, that's a pretty bold statement that Lise Gorsby says he was spoiled

for lovers younger than 300. Pretty specific. I'm just putting that out there. And to be fair, this is a pretty big thing because the meeting goes on and the next topic we get is actually Queen Ruta Scotty, who is mocking we a little bit. And I believe she does this in the book a little bit, too.

She's basically there and asks, OK, witches, you're going to be a whole bunch of centrists your entire life, like in our clan, or will you join the war against the magisterium? Hook up with me and Asriel's crew and go save my witch friend. And it's a very strong scene. All of this scene is pretty strong. Anything with Jade Anuka is strong in this. Jade Anuka is killing this. She is slaughtering this like she slaughters the cardinal. And I love that. And I think it was well done. Like I said, super swift. We have a lot of exposition given to us from the demons. Sergi and of course, kaisa are sitting

there speaking providing the interior while ruda asks for them to help rescue katya who's the witch being tortured by coulter katya in this also is played by marama corlett and this is a good role for her she's been in this she was in this show called blood drive, a series, and she played a character named Aki. And it's a crazy series, dystopian, alternate 99 world, 1999, where a former cop has to take part in death races where cars run on human blood as fuel. Oh, God. Crazy, crazy. So this is a cool role, a big role for her. I'm sure that's all I really know her from otherwise yeah i think she worked really well and i actually think she really nailed the accent uh katya did it really sounds like how a finnish person would speak english i think so that was really cool ah i really like that i didn't really even think much about that but that she like i really like just her look i like that they're

really going into the whole world building for witches. And it was also obvious that she was from a different tribe, right? That she was not from Serafina's tribe. She didn't have the same look as the witches from that tribe. And you also see a lot of that when Ruta comes to for the first time to them and you see all the witches kind of illuminated in front of the tree. You can see different costumes and lighter dresses compared to the darker dresses. And I think there's a really interesting split that's being portrayed because I joked about the witches being centrist, but and maybe something to talk about in the discussion

when it comes to serpentine chatter. But this has interesting implications. Like it changes Serafina's role in comparison, right? Because in the books, it's a good change, but it adds more depth between the factions. But Serafina's clan is portrayed as centrists who are not really taking a side. They're choosing to help Lyra, but as Ruta and as Sergi say, Lyra's not all there is. People are suffering right now. You know, like, yes, this Lyra thing's important, but that's not our only help.

There's bigger things happening to change things. Witches in general don't really take sides, as we learn often, which implies this war is a big deal. Ruta's implication is that she's willing to do something about the Magisterium and that Seraphina should also be mad, but she's not really doing anything about it. It implies that the Magisterium could do what they're doing to Katya to all witches, not just Ruta Skadi's tribe, not just Serafina's tribe. Serafina should be angry about that and for her own people being taken rather than just trying to protect this random girl, prophesied or not. And that seems like the overarching battle, free will for all. I'm pleased to see that they're actually arguing the opposite side and that it ties

better into Asriel's plot than Ruta just being the ex-lover. I think we'll get to that too, but on the other hand, I also see where this could diminish Serafina's role and Lyra's role in the story. I like the media that critiques this though and critiques its sources, and I think this is a really fair way to give Serafina an obstacle and some tension and not just seem like a complacent reluctant leader because as we recall she had to lead her tribe in the face of her mother dying and in the face of her son dying and she chose her people instead and was afraid to continue with the quorum. Lee's death is going to drive her out of this complacency so I think that's what this setup is for. Her handing the knot flower, the pine spray, whatever it is, to him.

When he dies, that's a huge loss. It's blood on her hands. She told him he has to be more, and she said, you need to rise up, Lee. You need to do better. You need to protect this girl, and you need to stand for what's good, Lee Scoresby. You can't just wait for the money to come in.

This isn't just a gamble that you can go on. And I think that's what's going to be played on for her. That's really going to drive her character for the last season, because I don't think that this should be on any one witch, but it does give us a lot more witch time to explore what Serafina's choices will be. I mean, that's the other thing, though. When we don't have her point of view, we don't know what Serafina's doing in the books. We just hear, and then we find out, oh, and's the other thing, though. When we don't have her point of view, we don't know what Serafina's doing in the books. We just hear, and then we find out, oh, and then I did this, by the way, earlier, and now we're going to this thing in my POV. So I think this also gives a lot of good drive behind what the hell Serafina's gonna do for the next two seasons.

This'll give her something to do. Yeah, and I mean, I like the changes that they're doing for Rita Scotti. I mean, I like the changes that they're doing for Rita Scotti. She didn't feel, to me, fully formed in the books, and I felt like her motivation was just Asriel's dick. And I think that this is better than that. And also, regarding what you were saying, it might not just be Lee's death that motivates her, but when she gets more involved, she goes to Chittagatse,

and some of her witches I believe get attacked by the specters so I think that could end up being a motivation a motivating factor for her as well and then we get to the emotional crux of the entire episode the climax of the episode the best

part of the episode the greatest scenes yes it is the omelette scenes and yeah will is a sweet boy and he's made omelette for lyra and he looks really good good job will um and lyra asked if he was a serving boy in his world and no lyra it's's just that capitalism makes us do things and actually do work instead of being rich white girls who don't have to do work. And I think one thing that's interesting in this adaptation is that they have made Will into a black character. And that, for me, gives even more like, oh my god, Lyra, stop it it vibes when she calls him a serving boy like Lyra is literally a white rich girl and from like a noble family her dad is a lord so yeah I think that's

it's interesting yeah and there was kind of a shade of that in series one right with Coulter and with Benjamin that came out and that death kind of the way she treated him so it reminds me of that with how she sat on him and tortured info out of him and then killed him and wouldn't give out but like she also used some kind of provocative language of calling him boy and saying that you don't know what you're up against and uh it was obviously that was a bad use of that white aristocracy that is built kind of into these few characters. But Lyra, I mean, she's lived most of her life rich, as you've said, and like had every

pleasure provided to her. And yes, she's friends with all the servants. And so her, yes, she's thinking like, oh, well, you know, just like Roger or someone. But it's like when in the first season when Roger was trying to speak to her and she ignored him for Colter. You know, it's just Lyra over your head. Come on back in the game. when Roger was trying to speak to her and she ignored him for Coulter you know it's just Lyra over your head come on back in the game lots to learn lots to learn Lyra yeah she's trying to make sense of it in her world and it's not like an awesome way that she defines it blinded by her privilege but then we do get to the scene though that is my favorite scene

again Lyra poking her omelet going what is this very suspicious it's remarkable to me that her world doesn't have omelets like that's kind of weird or do people just not make her omelets i don't know omelets can still be like fancy anyway then just her eating it with her hands holding it the whole time like it's a fucking burrito i'm like glira it's novel it's not a burrito but it's amazing will then tries to offer pan food and they both look at her like what what what he doesn't look at him like yeah and i think it's an understandable assumption with an animal there and pan is very polite throughout this episode to be honest makes up for Lara's very brusque attitude and I mean I think it's just because Pan's already

in love I think it's interesting that he's obviously in love with Will, Pan is and the idea that maybe a demon can be more in love with someone than the person is is an interesting thought

i don't find it very interesting at all lo and i wish she would not say these kind of things on my podcast and that is all i'm gonna say i am gonna come over there i'm gonna come through my window which is my computer and i'm gonna get your ass so you better just settle down i don't know who you think you are making jokes, love. Oh, I hate Melvin Polstad. You know, Will tells Lyra, so this is the cute thing we talked about at the top of the episode, my favorite. He's like, we should stick together. And she's like, okay.

And she like stands up, grabs the omelet, you know, eats it like a burrito and she's walking around she's like i'm gonna move in and she kicks him out of his bed and she makes that noise of non-caring like when he goes downstairs to go find another bed and the thing that i really thought was interesting in that scene is that there are two beds in that room so my assumption was that lyra thought oh I'll take the small bed and be nice. And you can take the big bed. And then Will was like. Oh inappropriate. I have to sleep in a laundry room.

Because he's more grown up than she is. And that was just very cute. That's so good. It's so cute. What a good boy. I can't tell if she thought she was being like humble and be like i'll take the small bed and then he's like that that one's mine but then she doesn't budge and then i'm like maybe not but it's not just that if it's inappropriate i mean

it's a big ass house you know why not use all the different rooms so will was probably thinking the same thing he's like god damn it this is a big ass house why can't you go to a different room so Will was probably thinking the same thing he's like god damn it this is a big ass house why can't you go to a different room yeah you stubborn bullheaded little shit they're both just stubborn I think that was definitely like the first like rah ramming of horns ah Pam's cute in this he thinks that saying here's

a good decision yeah and then he sleeps on my arm and they're so close and like cuddling when they're sleeping and I'm very happy that they so close and like cuddling when they're sleeping and I'm very happy that they are close and cute yeah it's sweet it is good it's an improvement it is

yeah I also just love animals resting their heads on your arm it's very sweet it's the best animals we get a really well constructed scene of Ruta Scotty flying for Katja, and it's intercut with Katja being tortured by Coulter, and you get to hear kind of what Katja is saying

while we get Ruta flying through this horrible thunderstorm, and I think she's bringing the thunder at this point. Ruta is flying to Katja Cirka. She's flying there, and she can like telepathically hear what she's saying and I'm confused. I don't know if she could actually hear it or if it was just supposed to be visually for effect but then

you get the Will scene later where he actually has a vision. So I'm like, I don't know. To me it seemed like maybe it was just for effect and she wasn't hearing it. But Sergei says she has called out for Yamba Ake she's called out for that oh yeah

yeah I mean Seraphina could hear the witch and like find her so I think they at least have psychic-y pine spray-y whatever it is right like they have to be able to locate each other maybe I don't think we are ever gonna know how witches work on that level

right that would ruin the magic personally but but it must be pine spray related like roots is katya part of a a ruta's tribe because maybe that's a thing like you can hear your other tribe members especially the queen of that tribe can to protect them but you know and i was gonna say we probably won't ever know but we did get a lot of witch expansion in serpentine recently that pullman released so i don't know i don't know maybe we've learned a lot of stuff in that as well and then we get to the meat of it mrs culture questioning katya she asks uh if the witches travel between worlds and what Katya told Lord Asriel and Katya's like, whoops, but she

doesn't actually say that because she's in the middle of being tortured. Mrs. Coulter mentions that she knows that Asriel had a witch lover and that witches know things. So is the witch lover still Ruta? I think so. I think so. I think the way it showed Ruta

interchanged with it while she said like i know azriel had a witch lover and the fact that it's the witch lover that showed up to fuck her day up actually really worked here yeah that's true yeah yeah i think so yeah and then i really like the line that mrs coulter says to Katja when she says, all you have is the information you carry. Share that information and we can become productive. And productive people, well, they are generally treated very well. And I'm just like, oh, capitalism. That's it.

Is it the C for Coulter or is it for capitalism? Coulterpolism. Nope. Coulterolism. Coulter or is it for capitalism? Coulter pulls. Nope. Coulter-alism. I thought I had something. Coulter-alism? I don't know. Coulter finally pulls the prophecy and a huge chunk of the cloud pine out of the witch as Ruta makes for the ship. And we have dialogue back and forth between them where Katya is saying that the prophecy is about a girl

named lyra she's known by another name she says she will not betray the child of the prophecy and then she asks for yambeaka to come to her uh and in between this coulter is asking what she knows of lyra and asking her to tell her who lyra balakwa is and then rudas gati shows the fuck up then delivers katya to Janbe Aka and then tells her to be at peace and then on the way out she fucks up a lot of other guards then like

goes up against the wall and then stabs the cardinal and it's a very emotional, very fun, very superhero-y. Yeah, and I also just want to point out again, Janbe Aka is a part of Sami religions. No, I will not shut up about the Sami people in this episode. Yeah, we actually explored it a little bit in episode nine of our Subtle Knife Run because of some of the stuff you've

talked about and about kind of the female spirit in Sami shamanism, which is Aka. And Finnish and Estonian mythology actually has different variants as well. And it's interesting because there are three daughters of Madaraka, known as the mother of the tribe. There's Saraka, Jyksaka, and Uksaka. And Saraka is the goddess of fertility and love. There's actually a special porridge that I won't knock anyone who's into it. It didn't look like my thing that gets eaten after a woman gives birth what's in it it just like look lumpy ish as porridge with like

stuff in it i don't know it just doesn't look good to me i don't like porridge i hate texture like that i love porridge okay i like tapioca which is weird like i like tapioca pudding but i don't like porridge i'll make you some of my porridge sometime maybe you'll like that though girl i love your porridge oh my god never mind sorry i mess everything up so back to the three daughters jukisaka is aka with an arrow who protects children and uksaka is who shapes the fetus and the womb and gives the child their body And Uksaka is who shapes the fetus and the womb and gives the child their body. So all in all, Yanbeaka translates to old women of the dead and was in charge of the underworld where departed spirits would walk on air.

The entrance was thought of as the mouth of a river that gave into the ocean of ice. And that is where Yanbeaka ruled from in that gloomy, gloomy realm. And there's a lot of really interesting mythology of the old women of the dead. gloomy, gloomy realm. And there's a lot of really interesting mythology of the old woman of the dead. Before the advent of Christianity, they thought death doesn't sever your spirit and body. And it kind of reminds me of Syrian tradition, which is when a person sleeps, the spirit emerges in the form of a mouse or other animals, the souls often assume animals, etc. And this mythos. And I think a lot of this, this again has become so much more interesting since serpentine released but talk about that another day another time because lo and i could go for

hours on that what does it mean what does it mean and then of course we get the money shot this is another one of the really good scenes in this episode, other than the omelet scene. This is also right up there. The lithiometer is up on this little pedestal thing in the middle of the room. There's light milling around it, and Pan tries to convince Lyra to read it. I want to point out quickly that this is something my partner noticed

throughout the Chittagaze scenes, including here, as you said about light milling around it, and there's all this like debris or like fuzzy shit floating around chittagatse and my partner was like oh that's like the dust it's dust floating around them it wasn't dust but it evokes that so yeah congratulations wow officially a girl gone canon let him know yes this is the money shot though like this is why i watch the series right like this is what i want they know how to feed me because as soon as you show me that beautiful golden aletheia whoever works on the vfx and the props in this series they're all doing

keep it up keep it up keep it. I'm giving you my demon statue. This is the money shot. This is what I expect from his dark materials when I watch it. Yes, I want to see light in dust motes milling around the alethiometer with its beautiful brassy look shining in the sunlight. And it's gorgeous. It is the shot that I want to see. Lyra says she wants to know who her father is and what his place is or maybe if her mother's following her

or if Roger would ever forgive her or what she should do now. And Pan's like, well, you can read it for a reason, Lyra. So read it. Let's find out. We need to find out about dust. Will simultaneously is downstairs trying to make the shower work,

which he then does also through a window we see this and then he comes upstairs and offers a shower to lyra first and she's like i don't know what a shower is you are just saying made up words at me and he's like it's like a bath but standing and he's like i'll take the first one but after if you'd like to use it you can and she's like i don't need a stand-up bath do i and then she smells within her shirt she's like ah fine as i am and i'm pretty sure that's eliana that's literally her maybe i will neither confirm nor deny fine as i am i love that will brought a towel and soap so hospitable even though she still has been uh but also in the scene where he's fixing the shower uh you were talking about earlier the framing of windows that's shot if i recall correctly that's

through a window as well when he's fixing the shower yep yeah yep it's through that it's really cool window because it's like not a see-through one it actually has a pattern on it it's almost like a fence looking window also when i was watching that scene with my friend she was like should he be standing underneath the shower when he's fixing it and i was like you know what's gonna happen and then like a second later he gets all wet i'm like yeah yep yep yep and then after this fantastic scene pan and lyra go downstairs they try to make Will an omelet. They're like, whatever. It's not that fucking hard, right? And it is in the book.

And the omelet does not go great. Yeah, no. Lyra, like, steps on it. Like, she breaks an egg. And then she steps on it and smooshes it around on her foot to get rid of the broken egg evidence. And she's just, like, stomping eggy bits all over the floor I'm like crying watching that that was so much I'm like Lyra honey

sweetie no it was the best I'm like just why would she think this would work it's just the best but also like I have specific memories of like baking when I was like a teenager and like dropping flowers pumping with sugar on the floor and doing that

to try to not have to clean up and not let my mom know that I messed up the kitchen. But not with an egg. Just with... Yeah, not with an egg. Just with some salt or something. And that's sticky. When it dries up, it gets all gross. God.

Not with something damp like that. Maybe she thought if i break it up i can kick it and then like the rest of it will evaporate i don't know i don't know they fucking have eggs in her world can't cook well she's never done it ever yeah lyra can't she's so helpless and it's like an ice cube i do that with like an ice cube like if an ice cube melts i'm just gonna be like who did that but an egg lyra get some responsibility in your life do that with ice cubes but like i so the fun part about ice cubes especially if you have an animal which i guess pan isn't really but the fun part about ice cubes is they're on the floor and the animals love them

oh yeah i have not tried this with my cat i must must do so. Oh, you should try it. Yes. I put ice cubes in my cat's water sometimes for fancy effect. Push the ice cubes around so that they see it slides across the floor. I don't know if Tutiki will like it, but my dog will like it. I will try and report back. So Will is watching her as she makes this

omelette through the floorboard. Guys, he's watching her through a floorboard, like he's watching her through a floorboard like he's watching her through a window oh yeah it's sad bitches he opens the floorboard and it's like i'm watching my girlfriend from afar make an omelette also he's seeing what a terrible job he's doing he's like shit i'm gonna have to eat that aren't i he's like oh is it worth it because every guy like you know if a girl makes you food and it looks like that i don't know that's pretty i'm just saying girls guys let me know about your girls that make omelets like that and what you think but he eats it like that he eats it he's straight up things we do for love jamie lannister's

got nothing on that he He's a fucking... If there's big parts of shells, you can, like, take them out. But if they're broken down into, like, super small things... I think they were broken down also. You can only get so many big parts, you know? She was, like,

smooshing it with her spatula in there. She's like, see, look! And it didn't cross her mind that she could break it once and empty the contents like that's the problem here it did not cross her mind that one break would let her empty the content of the egg or she was like or maybe she thought that maybe it'll soften she didn't know how eggs work because like how is she not like interesting my omelet didn't have anything crunchy that girl is gonna go get to the mulefa and they're gonna be like you stay away from our seed pods lyra you stay the fuck away god well they discuss the tour d'alianjoli and what could be inside of it and will takes a photo of this tower lyra is running ahead of him

so we discussed this a little over on our discord our patreon server and our patron friend cassidy mentioned that this picture that will takes has lyra in it likely and it could be used in the end of the series maybe sadly right like will looking back at this photo of lyra saddest yeah and eliana mentioned it parallels the coulter photos from earlier right the pictures of lyra from the beginning of the episode. And then I came across this thought that what if Will uses it when he's looking for Lyra when Coulter's taken her? Yeah, that makes sense. Saying, have you seen this girl?

Yeah. Have you seen this tiny, small monster? She stole my bed. Bitch stole my bed. God. Bitch stole my bed. In my heart. Gave me broken eggs. It's awful.

And a broken heart. Okay. Broken eggs, broken heart. Then they come across their first victims of the specters. Lyra kindly pushes the man that they came upon, guides him away, and speaks to him gently. Yeah, this reminded me a bit of the harpies no name in the amber spyglass and how she tells them stories and of course in freeing the dead as well there's a lot of foreshadowing going on here there's that kindness in her eyes

in this and it's very soft and very sad and Daphne King did a really great job in this scene yeah and like we mentioned above the victims of the specters, Holman has said that this is a sort of metaphor for depression or self hatred. But to me, the ways portrayed here in show so seems more severe than that. I mean, the person like looks like a zombie, basically. And I think maybe another read of it could be that it's a psychological disability of sorts, maybe. I don't want to, like, diagnose anything, but I feel like the way these people are treated by their society is similar to how people with some sort of disability might be treated in our world as less than human, as we talked about before. Anyway, I have some thoughts thoughts as i often do about this sort of topics my thoughts are about which lives are valued in a colonial capitalist ableist

society and also like specifically in this situation what happens with the people who have been attacked by defectors are there like care homes for them i want there to be care homes for them where they're treated and valued but i I don't think there is. So once you've gotten this disability of sorts in this world, as a result of the colonial capitalist society, you're just as possible. And just like to clarify what I mean with colonial capitalist society. In this world, the rich, fancy science people have gone into other worlds, literally into a new world, getting resources, and then messed up their own world because of consequences of that. So just a thing to think about.

And I think one way of thinking about how these people are treated as disposable is by thinking through what Michel Foucault termed biopolitics. And Foucault writes that while at previous times in our history, regions such as kings and queens have had a power over their subjects' lives or death, such as like capital punishment, they literally can't decide to kill them or not. But in the sort of contemporary world, the state's power more lies in the power to support life or let them perish. And Foucault describes their current time as one of biopower, where the state controls our bodies to make them as efficient or productive as possible for capitalism. And then other researchers have sort of expanded on this. And one of them is Jasper Poir.

which has sort of expanded on this. And one of them is Jasper Poir. And she's written about what she calls the bio-necropolitical collaboration, which she describes as something that is about how inclusion or exclusion of certain bodies or people in society indirectly produces life and death. So certain bodies get support to live and thrive, while other bodies, such as disabled bodies or bodies from the global south, is not considered worth investing in. So, for instance, in our world, society supports white, able-bodied people living in the global north. But black people working in mines in Congo to get minerals for smartphones, they don't get that support. Those bodies and those people are seen as expendable.

Society is fine with them being harmed and becoming disabled. And I mean, it's not like a one-to-one parallel, but I think you can see the alchemists of the Tower of the Angel as a colonial capitalist regime of sorts, who in their attempt to get resources from the new worlds sacrificed everyday people in their own world. And once these people have been targeted by specters and sort of become disabled they're just worthless and disposable

it's interesting because last series in series one obviously the focus was the gobblers and the children being taken uh which i mean you see that in a lot of different motifs in media right something that comes to mind is the runaways for for example, that they're cannibalizing these bodies that no one cares about. These people that are, you know, poor or on the streets or addicts and don't have connections or family and utilizing them. And it's seen here that the specters here don't make that discrimination, right? They don't have prejudice against who they affect besides besides are you old enough to be affected by me uh in series one lyra's life is saved because she's the daughter of coulter and she's about to be severed and coulter shows up last second and she is saved but there's no saving if you don't have the knife the subtle knife as we know if you don't have

ace a hater like there is absolutely no saving for you and we'll see tulio of course in later episodes be devoured by the specters and be cannibalized but i think that's a really great way to look at it because we're series one you had a look at these expendable bodies that were absolutely targeted for a reason like these people were being targeted and their children were being taken for a reason and that series two has changed in a way right like now it's just this is taking over people and rendering them quote-unquote useless yes yeah absolutely i think both of those are great observations of two sides on the same issue i think for the way that the world is now it's kind of hard for them to have homes because everything's just kind of

it's descended into anarchy after Asriel released like a bazillion basically specters but they don't know that yet are you saying that the rich white man had an impact on other people and like their climate and social circumstances

when he was trying to do his thing yes absolutely in his own war yes and social circumstances when he was trying to do his thing? Yes, absolutely. In his own war, yes. His personal little war. Hmm. Interesting. So after Lyra gently goads a man who has been attacked

by a specter, and they see that they hear a cat being hurt. Then Will saves the cat from the kids and the kids turn violent fast yeah and this has really big lord of the flies vibes as i know you've talked about in the book episodes yeah and okay i guess if i'd get a level with you both and if i had to choose one thing that disappointed me yes the critiques begin So everyone stop listening now all the negative stuff comes out. No, I'm just kidding. This was a good scene, but it was not how I imagined it. And

I don't know that it had as much weight as it does in the book for me of building these kids up. And I know that they had a huge operation with these children. They had like 70 children there. Daphne Keene talked about the first day on set the first day they finally came back from filming in other locations to come build on the set that they had made and the set had not existed yet so when they came back it was like tons of kids everywhere in this beautiful huge island and like that they had all these kids being led probably for the big scenes being filmed at Tour d'Angely and when they make their escape out of Chittagatse. But I just didn't feel the weight here. Like, the books does have huge Lord of the Flies vibes

and it makes you realize, like, holy shit, these kids are just wild. Like, they just have now grown wild. They have no structure. All because of the specters that have taken over the city. And I don't know that I felt that weight here. That's all. And they don't explain why they attacked the cat

because in the books it's like yeah that's in the books it's like oh cats are evil but here they're just like oh we we're having fun we're attacking cat and and i mean it moves on obviously will gets the cat and it's a huge nod toward kajava but uh I just think that especially that setup that's what the setup is there for cats are evil cats are bad like oh well guess whose demon is a cat in the end that comes out of him I don't know but it was cool to see Pan

he turns into a wolverine to scare them off I wish it were a leopard it's fine I'll move on whatever I read on IMDB that this is apparently a nod to Daphne Keene being in Logan, which is fun, I guess, but it would make more sense with a leopard. So, yeah.

Yeah, that is sweet, though. But yeah, wolverines are smaller than you'd think. Yeah, I expected it to look like Stalmaria. The scene didn't go how I wanted it, is all I'm saying. I'm sorry. No, but I agree with what you were saying and those critiques. I know I've heard people say that

they felt that the pacing was quite fast in this episode, and we do cover a lot of ground, and I would agree the pacing is fast, but I think it is especially so here. As you said, it doesn't have that weight. They don't linger on it long enough. You don't feel like Will's actually in danger in that moment. You know, like...

Lyra was supposed to save him. Like, that was the point that Lyra and Pam were like, not our Will. Yeah, like, he doesn't get into it with any of the kids. You don't see them really, you know, if you film that, it would be... And granted, they do things that their way but it would be within that circle of kids and looking out at them you know as they're like kind of threatening him and will having to reckon with like oh shit do i pick this cat like picking your battles does he pick like the cat or does he pick and dealing with all these kids or does he let it go and that kind

of shows his values you know he's grinning and holding the cat and they pet it and and i think that's pivotal because this scene right and the preceding one with lyra they go together they are back to back even though the scene of lyra encountering someone who's been attacked by specters um and that happening so early on is a show only scene but I think it works well together with this will scene though again I agree with your critique I do think that they should have given it more stakes right because it displays those key character traits for both of them that complement one another it's Lyra's compassion and as you've said this plays role in the later story and then it's will's role as this protector figure

and we don't get the stakes then of what it means to be a protector when lyra arrives as soon but there is that parallelism to their stories um and setting these moments side by side that they carry through in this episode yeah not bad just a weaker scene is all uh wasn't i was just not i'm disappointed as a super fan as a fan of the show and a fan of just watching media and having something interesting on the tv for 45 minutes it was a good scene i don't care but you know just me as a fan who reads the books and breaks them down line by line chapter by chapter exhaustingly apparently you know it was sad in that manner. But I mean, things were a little fast in general.

So and we'll talk about some of that pacing soon. But first, Coulter strikes a deal with Father Macphail in the next scene. Yes, Macphail, as Lo would like us to make sure we're reiterating, and proposes a coup if the cardinal dies. She pledges her loyalty to Macphail's leadership, and she's talking him up, making him feel like a big guy, and she's like, I'll personally tend to the cardinal's wounds. I'll make it my sin as a first act of service.

Yes, and also, Dusty discussion things. Yeah, there is some stuff that Eliana cannot hear about because she will be spoiled. I'm just so pure I don't understand murder plots dusty discussion things so after that scene you know once more we come back to Chittagaze and the lights are flickering specters are strolling Chittagaze like they own the city uh Will and Lyra talk. They discuss the differences between their worlds.

They're sitting on separate stairs. They talk about that difference between Unbaric versus Electric. Electrum versus Amber. And then they find that they have a similarity. Finally. And that they both have and are from an Oxford. Though I do think that's changed, right? Isn't Will actually

from... Winchester. Yeah, Winchester. But I think it's fine that they're both from Oxford whatever it simplifies yeah it simplifies it for the audience and it's actually really adorable right that uh I rewatched it and she is all I have to go find dust and he's like Lyra wait don't you get we're from the same place girl and it's really cute because she, wait, don't you get we're from the same place, girl. And it's really cute because she's just like all theologians and oh, I got to do this. And I know he's like still stuck on it. She's like already three miles ahead. He's still like, Lyra, you're from Oxford.

It's very cute. Will's just like, I'm still on that, you know, Very cute. She plans to go to his Oxford to learn about dust and asks if he'll take her there. And he's like, kind of not safe for me to go for some reasons. But, you know, I need to check up on some stuff. So we'll pull through. Lyra, we'll pull up to Oxford. So at first light, they're going to go.

They agree. And she says to him, oh, my God, I almost, I almost died at this line, it was so good. You do have a demon, and one day I'll see it. Ah, yeah you will. He's gonna show you the D. Foreshadowing for the demon.

Oh, wow. What? Wow. I guess they've aged them up in this at least well so watch Jack Thorne's biggest artistic like sin of the whole series is instead

of like a cute kiss in the third book he makes them fuck just kidding it's gonna get dusty yeah I don't think he's gonna do that it's BBC right no it's yeah it's gonna be far too pure for that I know he won't I'm just saying ridiculous things that we're gonna put in our episode

Lyra takes a shower finally dirty ass and Will pulls out his green envelope and he decides to go on a walk to read through his own dark materials yes and one of the most important his green envelope and he decides to go on a walk to read through his own dark materials. Yes, and one of the most important scenes in this whole episode

is happening here because while Lyra is taking a shower, Pan is a red panda and he's sniffing Lyra's dirty stuff and he's just so adorable. I'm just gonna usurploe's demon corner because i

had to google what uh red panda symbolizes and according to the super professional site called the astrology web it symbolizes gentleness compromise and, and patience. The symbolic meaning also includes balance, independence, security, as well as nonchalance, while representing tree wisdom, tree divination, and recognizing the individual tree spirit. So I'm like, this is

kind of pan, like it's the pan part of Lyra. And also like tree stuff. There's so much tree stuff. Lots of tree stuff. The independence. The pan duh. I also really appreciate that

Lo's listen up. The most important four seconds of the entire episode is happening. I mean, it is. And if you like red pandas, I want to recommend this documentary that actually heavily focuses on the red panda. It's called Kung Fu Panda.

And there's a lot in there about the red panda. It plays a big role. I have a couple questions, maybe a critique. But you know what? I'll save them for later. So yes, Will is reading through his materials, and Lyra decides to read her dark materials, not the podcast. You should listen to them, though.

Her and Pan decide the alethiometer is telling the truth, but often it's not the whole truth. Pan's like, well, what have you asked about Will? And so she does. It tells her that he's a murderer but a good murderer and simultaneously will while reading his envelope starts to see a flash of the subtle knife he's a hater yeah and he's sitting by a tree when he's doing this so i'm like is this another world tree because he's maybe sort of traveling the spirit world

and I thought about if it was maybe a connection to his dad like his dad sending him with visions but I don't know if that's just me bullshitting but also just like faith, destiny stuff but yeah I have some more thoughts that me and Chloe might talk about later

Lyra tells Pan while Will is walking toward the tower that he is connected to this place and he's a good murderer as I said they both have something to do here not just Lyra but Will as well. Yeah and so both of these scenes together is another moment of that parallelism that I was talking about earlier where you can see what they're doing converges and it does a good job of bringing their stories together and tightening that bond using that kind of storytelling

and yes I did note that Will was under a tree and I thought that was interesting especially with all the tree of knowledge stuff that's going on in this story and with that green envelope symbolizing or standing in for that knowledge as he's there and he's about to find it all out. But then a different kind of knowledge approaches him, perhaps from the dust even, you know, because Lyra's consulting the alethiometer at the same time, which is another source of that fruit of knowledge.

And both of them have questions. time which is another source of that fruit of knowledge and both of them have questions and you know again it's just something that that they've structured about with both of them doing that at the same time and i also you know brief pause moment admiring this little city square in the cafe behind will um i don't know that it is but there's like vibes that it gives me that reminds me of van gogh's painting that cafe terrace at night yeah that's so i thought about that too in general with the chitigatse scenes and i think that you're on to something there it very much so represented it and that folio society version of the art from uh the books that you talk about for the intro earlier, it reminded me of that as well with that, just the way the trees are and the gold sparkly look

to it in the dust. It was very shimmery, very dark, very beautiful. Some really great cinematography there as everything becomes shrouded and yeah, it just looked nice. But it doesn't look nice for long, right? Because then it pans over to Will looking up at the tower and a specter materializes behind him and he stares at the tori d'angeli and he has no clue and i'm just like will he has his ear pods in air pods out will somebody get him someone tell him oh shit that was a way

to end an episode like what a way to come in on a bang with a first episode and go out with a bang they yes that's how you do a first episode adapting a book like that is it yeah I think it was a strong episode and

a lot of it leans on the chemistry between our two main characters i think does a great job of that they are both main characters right i feel like you know i was reading through comments on a recommendation thread somewhere or something um the aswaf subreddit and people this one uh reader felt like they were betrayed they felt like it seemed like pullman did a bait and switch where will was the main character i'm like i don't think so no will doesn't become the main character they're both the main characters and lyra is a driving force especially in the third book she's the reason why they go to the underworld she's the reason why they do a window her parents are a

main focus of it and then of course her story carries out through the other books so um they've done a great job of setting both of them up here and and showing what they're like together and showing their characters yeah and i think the way they did it in the show with introducing will in season one made it less abrupt here in season two so i think yeah that worked really well for me, I think. Well, what's next after this episode? That was just obviously episode one. But after this, I'm curious to see what we're going to get in the next episode. We only have seven episodes total since they kind of had to chop off that Asriel bottle episode they were planning on doing.

And it seems like we covered about three chapters in this episode, right? The cat and the hornbeam trees among the witches and a children's world. And guessing the next chapter and episode that'll be covered through the chapters will probably cover chapters four through five, if not maybe part of chapter six, which is trepanning, airmail paper and lighted flyers. This would cover a visit to Oxford with the museum, Boreal, Mary Malone, Lise Gorsby starting his search for Stanislaus Grumman. And there's also been a production note that we are going to meet Will's grandparents, who only appear in the lantern slides, though I think this could be in the next episode or episode three,

while Lyra looks for her theologian or whatever she can find to get some sort of idea. And that lantern slide is will and his mother visiting an elderly seeming couple in a large house and getting a cold welcome he was puzzled he was too young to understand the conversation the murmuring voices his mother's tears later all he remembered was the contempt on the older woman's face the feeling these two regarded his beloved mother as dirt and the savage resolution never to let her be exposed to that brutality again he was six he would have killed him if he could very much later he realized they were his father's parents i do think that's something they have to add in to give him kind of something to do maybe while ira's off

searching and dealing with maryiam alone so I wonder if that might be his subplot during that and then maybe they call Boreal's crew on him is my guess I'm guessing they have some sort of magisterium connection we're gonna learn about yeah and just first of all why would you read that and make me cry that was very rude i'm upset um but also you're returning to something i sort of mentioned earlier i'm wondering about like the implications of the fact that they made will black in this adaptation and like just to be clear i really like that they have done that but as someone who's like interested in these social structures i I think that that should matter, that they have made that decision.

For instance, here, with this grandmother having this look of contempt on her face in the lantern slide. Will that translate to racism in this adaptation? And also, when it is like running around oxford doing shit will it matter more that the fact that he is a young black man or well he's a boy but people see it will probably see him as a young black man um because i mean it's harder to be invisible in the world when you're part of a marginalized group that is made like hyper visible in the world as we all know it's hard for young black men to be treated well in

this racist white supremacy world i'm curious how they handle it i think they'll do a good job with it the one thing i do think is that having will be outright stated to be black in the show or having him physically be black is i mean obviously i don't think pullman probably had it in mind when he was writing it right back back in the 90s i don't know if that's what he was thinking but the way will is written and coded it doesn't seem to be a huge change especially when he comes to tell lyra like I think it'll reinforce a lot of what we already have in the story of him telling Lyra hey you have to act like this if you don't want to get caught by cops hey you have to do this Will has had to live it he's had to learn it his

character already had that in the book so I think it just reinforces some of this really well no that's true because you have Lyra being veryra going up to police people and talking to them, and obviously Will would not do that, because that would be more of a risk. So yeah, you're right about that. there as we see she's very easily preyed upon in series one she was so easily preyed upon by boreal because of these vulnerabilities in her mental kind of place that she's been in and yeah i can't imagine that the grandparents are going to be anything good or nice yeah i mean i don't know if how they'll play it out i don't know what it'll be they could make the grandparents racist i don't think that they need to. I think that it's not always something where we need to always portray that trauma for people of color,

regardless on any show. But all the things that you're saying about the realities and the social dynamics are true. And I think it'll bring a different dynamic when they try to tell the lie of like, oh yeah this is my sister lizzie or whatever and people will question that and that is something that um of course happens with mixed race families yeah in our world uh and will does technically exist

in our world not not in real life but like the world that he is from is our world yeah and oxford necessarily may not be the most melting pot place but i mean the uk is very very very strong variety of different people so i think that we won't see it specifically focused on but i do think that it's going to reinforce those ideas that are already in the text yeah i i'm interested to see how they play it out. And I think that like, obviously, race and class have correlations with one another, right, and a strong relationship. And so I don't know if that's going to be part of it as well. Like my understanding, to an extent of British culture is that class can be much more pronounced in terms of the dynamics than it is

necessarily in the US. Obviously, class is a big part here, but it's not always something people think of in terms of who you associate with, right? There are spaces where people mix more easily, and that's supposed to be

a big part of American culture. As to whether it happens in practice or not, debatable, but it is like... Supposed. But it is a big part, right? It's a thing that's touted about American culture. Unless you move out of a city where you're forced into the melting pot and you can go live in the

suburbs on a lake or on a huge lot of land that's an acre or so of land and be racist. Yeah, and i mean just thanks for bringing that up alian about how we don't always have to watch black pain that's obviously important to remember and i think it's sort of hinted in this quote that chloe read about how they go to this big house and that like reads to me as upper middle class or upper class as well. And just if you think about how someone from a very proper white English family would treat a black woman who's disabled,

and perhaps, I don't know what background she comes from, but maybe she doesn't have the same class background. It's not clear, but maybe they just think that, no, she's not being proper. She's not acting respectably or whatever. And then they're being rude to her because that's unfortunately how the world works. People think that you have to act proper and respectable and whatever. And if you don't, then you're just trash. I do want to see where this plays out as far as

what we learn about jopari john perry because i mean you think about his character and we'll discuss him as the series goes on this series a season but you think about the character and like obviously he had opportunities and had money afforded to him so they have to be upper class because he was a scholar he was a well-known scholar like everyone knows who Stanislaus Grumman is the name is on everyone's mouth and he ends up kind of forsaking this wonderful college education he probably was given by his parents uh to go you know walk through a window and walk into this other world two other worlds and become a shaman and I think that's an interesting perspective to look at a lot of that and I hope that's what they're going to do is give us some Joe Pari background as well in this scene with

Will and the grandparents that does come to light I think that'll be its best use that we can kind of understand the family Joe Pari came from his education where he went with it etc I just find that very interesting yeah I also wonder if we're going if we're going to see Joe Pari's actor, if we're going to see Andrew Scott actually as John Perry, like in this episode. I mean, what we've seen of him so far in some of the trailers, he kind of looks like a bit of a hippie, you know, so I wonder like if the parent his parents feel that Elaine has torn him away from that world. Yeah, things like that. That's kind of what i think too like in the princess diaries um or lily and rufus and gossip girl yeah i hate rufus humphrey though um anyway so like if that's part of it but also i'd just be interested if they start bringing in andrew scott

already in the episode stanislaus grumman like feels like this thing that lee's like learning more about chasing after for a lot of it but also i'm like I mean how much does Andrew Scott cost right like could they afford to put him in in all these episodes or not like that's what part of our issue with James McAvoy right other than like scheduling because he's an in-demand actor but I'm just curious well that is something we will definitely get discussing as the series goes on and i'm very excited to see it in the next week's episode but for now eliana we have to kick you out because we have to rush through a dusty discussion real quick with some secret commonwealth outer works spoiler stuff so if you would eliana take a step out and Lo and I are going to take it away.

Okay, nobody fuck up because I'm not editing this portion. Yes, ma'am. All right. Lo, I am so excited that you are here for a dusty discussion. This is very wild. I never thought we'd have this beautiful day. Still no Eliana, but... No, this is super fun because, I mean,

obviously we've talked privately about this, a lot of DMs back and forth, but it's really fun to present this to the world now as well. Yeah, this is pretty much what our inbox looks like on Twitter.com with each other because we are constantly talking about The Secret Commonwealth and the other Book of Dust, La Belle Sauvage, and now Serpentine, this short novella that Pullman has put out. And it felt like there were a lot of magisterium parallels from the Secret Commonwealth to this episode. They are for sure reading the Books of Dust, as we know.

Yeah, and I sort of hinted at that earlier but that take oh i hinted at a lot of stuff um but specifically i hinted at how this takeover that mrs coulter and father macphail has that seems uh very similar to the one in the secret commonwealth but unlike her dear brother mrs coulter can't had it had it herself because patriarchy um but yeah the death of the cardinal really reminded me of the death of the patriarch in the secret commonwealth um where marcel de la mer uses that to seize control um and then also the way that Father MacPhail discusses how they should sort of spin the revelation of these multiple worlds,

that also reminds me of what Delamere says about how they could handle dust. So I thought I might read that passage from the Tinker Commonwealth. And this is when Delamere talks to his dear

mother about how they should handle the rose business and dust and everything and he proposes some different options and he says there are several things we could do first we could suppress all knowledge of it by rigorous investigation

by ruthless force. That would work for a while, but knowledge is like water. It always finds gaps to leak through. There are too many people, too many journals, too many places of learning who have already known something about it. The second possibility is to go to the root of the problem and wipe it out. There is something unexplained in that desert in Central Asia. The roses will not grow anywhere else, and we don't know why. Well, we could send a force to go there and destroy the place, whatever it is. There's a third option. We could embrace the facts. The roses exist. They show us something we've always denied, something that contradicts the deepest truth that we know about the 40 and these creations. There is no doubt

about that. So we could admit it boldly, contradict the teachings of so many millennia, proclaim a new truth. Revealing the truth in the way I've described would not work. There are too many habits of thought institutions that are committed to the ways things are and always have been. The truth would be swept away at once. Instead, we should delicately and subtly undermine the idea that truth and facts are possible in the first place. Once the people have become doubtful about the truth of anything, all kinds of things will be open to us. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Government. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Election. This is funny. It's fiction, right?

This is fiction. Lo, this is funny. We're laughing. We're laughing, everyone. This is a fun day and delamere it's interesting because even before the patriarch delamere gets laws passed to reduce his council size he strips rights that protect lyra and then by chapter 14 at the magisterium conference he bargains and manipulates to form his own small council that

is allowed to take action quicker and cut through red tape faster. So that's how we get Saint Simeon as the first leader of the high council. And then, as you mentioned, he is murdered at Simeon's coronation in Constantinople. He and a bunch of his other priest men are slaughtered by a bunch of men in white. And then Marcel is installed as new president and he gets his power. The show definitely had these vibes going on, though for very different reasons. And there are also some more visual parallels with Marcel in this episode that I think you'll like. Olivier Bonneville, Gerard's son,

notices in the books that Delamere has an obsession with Lyra that's unhealthy and out of the natural bounds of the magisterium being obsessed with a little girl. He notices it and it's when he's holding a photo of Lyra that's unhealthy and out of the natural bounds of the magisterium being obsessed with a little girl he notices it and uh it's when he's holding a photo of Lyra and trying to read the alethiometer he ends up seeing Marcel's room instead and ends up seeing a photo collection of Lyra creepy so he sees Marcel's photo collection and his photos of Lyra Coulter holding these photos of Lyra both of these people these photos of Lyra, both of these people, Colter, his sister, and Marcel, these two siblings have this unhealthy obsession with Lyra. We see

for Colter, it's kind of a natural unhealthy obsession, right, as her maternal figure, her mother that was not there. And we see for Delamere that it's unhealthy in the other way, because he wants power. I think in the end and this is a totally other topic but olivier will abandon the magisterium probably and turn sides more than likely to the good side in the last moments especially because marcel is sending ccd men after him but i digress i found that interesting with the photos it definitely reminds me of marcel's obsession of Lyra yeah that family is not very healthy in general uh they should get some therapy and maybe then they wouldn't destroy the world

I don't know um but yeah I also had another point that I wanted to run by you, which is this tree symbolism. And in the episode, we get a lot of trees, like we've discussed, both with witches, and we know they have a connection to the other world, and then with Will. And both those things made me think about Yggdrasil and how it connects different worlds in Norse mythology

and we'll also guess this vision that we discussed that maybe sent from his dad maybe some dusty things maybe it's destiny, I don't know but it's sitting by a tree anyway and I don't know what it means

but maybe there's some symbolism there. And then also just that moment of him having this magical connection is interesting. Because I think they tried to make him more magical, more like Lyra are we and him having these sort of premonitions or maybe spirit world travels could set up some things that you've talked about possibly you know interesting you say that actually now that you say that i didn't think about it but this is and we could have left this in the main episode had i thought about it early enough, but the fever dreams of Joe Parry and Lee in the end. That's what this reminds me of, that he is reading it and he gets that flash of the subtle knife. It seems that maybe his dad was giving the person seeking the knife a vision, though his dad didn't really realize it was him, obviously.

Or I don't know, something, but there has to be some sort of connection and they have to strengthen it and i do think that they're going to build up because we obviously we don't know that it's his dad yet i mean we know but we don't know it's his dad yet and i i think that they're gonna build that connection for the viewer a little more we do know in the show technically i guess they showed the picture of him but we just don't know what lee's searching we don't know stanislaus grumman is his dad uh we don't know anything about this for will so i think they need to build that mystical magical connection for will up because i mean doctors medicine men shamans uh that's what he goes on to be. He goes on to be a doctor. So it stands to reason that he could have a little bit of this medicinal magic like

his father does in him. And I do wonder, like all this tree symbolism, there's not as much in the book of this tree symbolism. There's a little bit, but there's not as much tree symbolism in the books. So this has been really great visually. I think that uh we might be on to something there and i just think look the deal is is that pullman refuses to outright deny that will will come back he he won't say it he doesn't say no he has never said no every time

he is asked he has never said no and recently there was a waterstones event and me and eliana watched it was a webinar pullman was asked what the importance of the roses in the secret commonwealth are and when he was asked what the importance of roses are he responded with something that completely just do to do misdirects us and he goes well if you remember in the last chapter of the amber spyglass there is a doodle of roses that have their heads facing away from each other roses very much symbolize will and lyra's relationship they are very symbolic of them and those roses have their heads turned away in order to show the parting of the roses and he's like so they are definitely very important to the story interesting now all this happened within a 10 minute span that he would not say Will's not coming back.

He also said he wants to write a book about Will, a novella, and he plans on it. And then he also said roses are symbolic of Will and Lyra. Do with that what you want, Lo. Do with that what you will. Also, the subtle knife has rosewood in the handle. And that can cut between worlds so you know oh yeah i don't know i don't know so we'll find out i i am curious how he can bring him back in the only way that i think it'll work is with the other way of reading the alethiometer right the new way of reading the alethiometer the rose oil uh and lyra

and the blue hotel and pan and all these demons like there's got to be a connection there that drags them all together it's a recipe you know throw it all in a bowl and we'll get somewhere so and speaking of recipes uh just like to to be super clear. Immortality, fruit, trees. Maybe. I mean... Is she immortal? Is she immortal? I think she might be immortal. She might be immortal. It makes sense.

Well, these are a lot of thoughts and I have a lot more to think about when it comes to this so let's bring eliana back uh i think that she can eliana can come on back to us now and remain unspoiled for the secret commonwealth although she is getting through a lot of it she is she's very she's close she's getting there chloe knows that i am because i scream at her i was so you know what you sent me a message about something that i did not know you already knew about and i was like oh my god so i can talk to you about this much of the book now yes yes

so it's happening it's happening well hopefully we'll have more progress to tell Lo about soon for Eliana so that Lo is ready to write their essay. Lo is like, Eliana, don't finish, don't finish. I have so many essays planned. I don't know what I'm doing. What about essays that you have coming up soon on the horizon well um the next thing will probably be an essay i'm doing with amy blackfire about lysa and omar in a song of ice and fire and then i'm gonna get started on this historic materials essay i think and i also have some other vague plans about the song of Ice and Fire things. Maybe Lyanna. Maybe the Night of the Laughing Tree. Maybe something else. About how virginity is a social construct.

And a part of patriarchy. I don't know. I'm excited to hear that. Those two sound really good. Yeah. And you know. I'm also quite often rambling. Feminist thoughts on Twitter,

if you want to catch those. That is Loaded Links with underscores between all the words. And then you can find my essays whenever I actually get time for them on loadedlinks.wordpress.com. Thank you so much for coming on with us, Lo. Your essays on Nordic influence have obviously been really really instrumental dark instrumental darkly instrumental well uh to us in our discussions i mean our dust cushions we uh we've had many good discussions a lot of them due to you so thank you

so much for all of your great emails and for coming on to chat with us all the time whether it's just a quick message to me saying hey what do you think about this thought and then i expand it with aliana and we just talk about you for an hour i think it's really fun to actually have you here in the almost flesh the skype flesh so thanks again for joining us well thank you for having me it was super fun to talk to you about this and thank you so much for inviting me i was like literally jumping up and down when I got your email and I'm like oh my god they want to talk to me? Oh yeah I want to kick off the whole season with you

would have been smarter to have you on for the Upsala episode but I'm not on my game. Well hopefully this won't be the last time so we'll have you on again for sure we have lots of his dark materials to cover in the future I mean like we said there's materials to cover in the future. I mean, like we said, there's how many chapters in the Secret Commonwealth?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, thanks so much for listening. If you found your way here to listen to us for the first time, be sure to subscribe to us over on a platform where you listen to podcasts. We are on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast, Amazon Podcasts, we are on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast, Amazon Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, you name it, we're there. Yes.

And, of course, be sure to follow us on social media if you want to keep up with all that. You can find us on Twitter at Girls Gone Canon, C-A-N-O-N. Or, if you'd like, you can shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com, as Lo has done with us. And of course, be sure to follow Lo on Twitter as well. And yeah, you can tweet or message us. Yes, we'd love to hear your thoughts and what you're excited to see

in the rest of the series for Series 2 of His Dark Materials. You can also find us over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon we would be so appreciative for your support but it is not mandatory absolutely not we talk about his dark materials every other month for patrons in the five dollar and up stranger tier we will do some special episodes talk about some special stuff and hey if you're into a song of ice and fire we are also doing a reread of the song of ice and fire series point of view by point of view character you can catch that there as well

and every other other month we do episodes on that for five dollar patrons and this month currently we are doing our read-through of the davos chapters and our five dollar and up episode will be about we're finally going to get to the Lycene Spring. We keep thinking we're going to get there but there's just a lot that happens in the Lycene Spring. We're finally doing it. Yes, the Lycene Spring is

so detailed but we're excited to get through it and get through some more of Fire and Blood. Thanks so much for listening. As always, I have been one of your hosts. And I have been been one of your hosts and i have been another one of your hosts eliana oh i'm chloe i'm so sorry yeah i was like wow should i tell them who she is do they know do they know that she's chloe well now you do thanks so much well and we had our other hosts right wait hold on i want to just remind everyone

that actually lo has hosted an episode of girls gone canon before with the co-host to tiki yes and to tiki was uh more or less support under during this episode she unfortunately did not have uh like verbal uh contributions to the episode but uh she cuddled my leg while I was talking to you. You know, that's sometimes how a Girls Gone Canon episode goes. Sometimes one of us is moral support and the other isn't. I thought you were going to say sometimes one of us cuddles the other's leg

and the other does, and I was like, what? Am I missing out on some leg cuddles? What is this? Did I misunderstand something? Oh my god, thank you for listening, everyone everyone we'll talk to you next week bye goodbye