Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Series 3 Episode 7-8 - The Clouded Mountain + The Botanic Garden

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

The final series of HIS DARK MATERIALS on BBC/HBO has premiered. Today, we cover the final two episodes of His Dark Materials: The Clouded Mountain + The Botanic Garden SPOILERS: His Dark Materials Main Trilogy, Novellas, and HDM Series 1 + 2 + 3. also reintroducing: our DUSTCUSSIONS, an end of episode spoiler chat covering anything from the companion trilogy The Books of Dust! Looking to catch up? Check out our full coverage of Northern Lights/Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, La Belle Sauvage and the novellas over at patreon.com/girlsgonecanon

Hello everyone and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watches His Dark Materials series slash season three episodes seven and eight aka the series finale. I am one of your hosts Eliana. And I am another one of your hosts Chloe. Eliana is really joyful right now. I told her she needs to at least act sad, as if this episode meant something to her. But here she is, proud. This episode did mean something to me. When I first watched it, I was alone. I was alone on another trip, you know, to the UK by myself, just briefly on Christmas Day. Vroom, vroom, airplane. Yeah. And it was pretty fucked up, you know, to be honest. Like, it was just me.

Well, actually, was it already out? I don't remember. Anyways, it was just me. And at 2am, Eastern Standard Time, in the darkness on Christmas Eve. Nope, UK time. Oh, Christmas Eve. Nope, UK time. Oh, Christmas Eve. Wait, wow. There's a poetry to that that I didn't think about.

So anyway. I watched mine the night before I drove through a blizzard to get to my best friend's house for the holidays and then to my parents' house. And I woke up at like 6 a.m. to leave and drive. And my eyes were red. My eyes were puffy. And then I had to be in a car for 10 hours with playlists of music.

And every single song that came on, I was like, and this one's about Will and Lyra. And this one's about Will and Lyra. And that one's about Masriel. It was a very emotional 10 hours. My poor husband. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. It was a very emotional 10 hours. My poor husband. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I've just been crying myself to sleep

on Christmas Day, technically. If you are listening to this podcast, please note our spoiler policy, which is, especially now that season 3 is done, if you're listening to this, I hope you have watched episodes seven and eight of series three. We have covered previously all of series one and series two and now series three of His Dark Materials.

So those episodes are fair game. game. And of course, The Amber Spyglass, Subtle Knife, Northern Lights slash The Golden Compass. Those three books, the main trilogy, we have covered in full as well and will be spoiling things from the books throughout this podcast, as well as the lantern slides that are in those books, little fragments and scraps from Philip Pullman, and possibly hints at the novellas. We will not be spoiling the books of Dust in the main podcast. However, we will have a little bit of a Dust discussion at the end where we chat maybe on some of the tone of things to come in the secret commonwealth and how it could be adapted if they put it on a screen. And maybe the third book of Dust might come into that. We

just don't know. We will warn you when that happens if you don't want to tune in for that but i mean this is it we're getting into it but before then if you want to discuss his dark materials with a couple of other people who are also passionate about the series we have a patreon and on that discord right uh for patrons in the ten dollar tier and above this the thunder tier and above, you get access to a Discord where we have channels where people are constantly still having discussion about the series.

And some of our friends on the Discord are graciously going to be, gracious wingsedly, going to be holding a rewatch in February of the final season with live discussions. Yes, that will be starting on our discord on february 4th so keep your ears out and check that out at our patreon at patreon.com slash girls gone canon and if you're willing to support in the stranger tier the five dollar tier

and above there are special episodes bonus episodes on his dark materials including but not limited to the novellas we have covered every novella some in extreme detail extreme detail especially some newer ones so you could check that out over there as well with some special episodes to come in the future for his dark materials and if that's not enough, to tide you over. We have previously also covered La Belle Sauvage, the first book of dust, or as our Discord friends refer to, the boobs of dust. It's a common typo on your phone, you know? If you type books of dust a lot, maybe it's not, but if you don't, you might get those boobs to start off with. And hopefully some of that could tide you over in the wait, the long wait, until we announce our secret Commonwealth coverage. We all know it will happen eventually.

It's just when will it happen? Yeah, I think it'll happen probably sooner than we think, especially because so recently the Dark Materials, at Dark Materials Twitter account, posted some of their little interviews with Philip Pullman. They're chunking them up, right? And he has revealed that he's halfway through the third book of dust. And, you know, now that that's rolling, I'm sure that's going to go pretty fast. So I'm very excited. He thinks it'll be out end of year by 24. He tweeted about the end of 2024 end of 2023. No, 2023 or beginning of 24 honestly i believe that i believe that he could have it out by end of 2023 yeah totally agreed it'll be crazy to have two

trilogies that are complete insane hey but if you are into book series that are not complete you should check out our other podcast where we covered the song of ice and fire books by george rr martin pov character by pov character because the story is separated by characters so you get chapter by chapter of a certain character's mind it's a blast it's very sad, just like this story. There are some kid characters that go through like hell and back, so you'll be right at home. It's deep, you know, there's poetry references in it. There's prose, sad, I don't know, what else do you want from it? Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of things that overlap with the two but also i mean they're very different

stories as well right and yes here we are at the end of this one once again right like i was just here experiencing this emotional turmoil a few months ago when we ended the book series and i don't know why i'm here again we just did i just went through this pain and then like we did it like over and over again in order to to prepare this coverage, right? We even delayed like a week because we're like, we're not emotionally ready for this. Yeah, overall, though, I mean, the delay really helped, right? The delay really helped a lot, because I was just so exhausted and sad. And I just don't think I could have done it justice. I feel a lot. There's a little more pep in my step today. A little more pep in my step. I know we've talked each of the

last episodes as we've only covered these as two episodes at a time of the show. We've talked a little bit about our favorite scenes in each episode or favorite scenes overall from them and kind of our overall rating of each pair of episodes. And I guess, what are your final thoughts, right, on the season as a whole, Eliana, on some of your favorite bits? How do you feel? What's your vibe check, your HDM vibe check? Yeah, so we're doing this a little differently, right? We're not giving our favorite moments from these two episodes, because I think it's kind of obvious, right? We're not giving our favorite moments from these two episodes because I think it's kind of obvious, right?

And also these last two episodes were just bangers all the way through. And I thought it was a really strong final season. It captured beautifully a lot of the story of the book, right? And it's a difficult one to adapt. they, it's a difficult one to adapt. It does a lot of stuff, goes all over like several worlds and tackles some really big lofty ideas. And I think they did a wonderful job adapting it and fleshing things out, complicating some of our adult characters and even like how our young characters feel about those adult characters as they themselves transition into that same stage. And they also really did a great job hitting emotional moments. I think that's the strength of this team and this adaptation. They're fantastic at these character moments and at these

emotional moments and really making you feel for the things that are going on in this story. for the things that are going on in this story. And I wish that they had maybe like a little more time, right? Maybe a little, a few more minutes for each episode or maybe another episode or something. Or, and along with that, more budget because I would have loved to see a couple of other things fleshed out. On the meta sense, I think more budget,

more marketing budget as well. i definitely think that was owed and to have had some even seasons right even up to 10 episodes could have helped i agree uh but at the same time i think the last season was so well paced as a whole i think that they had to make some sacrifices to get where they did. But the last two episodes, for example, they were the best paced episodes of the whole. Yeah, anything. That's like the climax, you know, there's some things that I think could have been fit in more like, I think just some of those like, sort of solemn and meditative moments, right? Like you have in the land of the dead, or you have with Mary and the Malafa, that would have been nice to see. But I mean, they captured some of the land of the dead or you have with mary and the malefa that would have been nice to see but i mean they captured some of the world of the malefa wonderfully but it just

would have been nice to insert a few more moments but um and yeah i think that comes down to a lot of the different constraints for all we know some of these were filmed and like had to be cut yeah i i definitely would be interested in seeing some of the deleted scenes or some of the deleted concepts for what they wanted to do i think that their budget constraints and covid i mean i'm sorry but covid wrecked this show's chance at survival uh they needed to be able i mean tv has evolved what so much in the last four years and they needed to be able to put out another season to grip, grasp, and get everyone ensnared into it almost immediately with a real marketing budget if

they wanted a chance to survive. And I struggle because I like the show a lot, and I think it's done way more good than bad. And I don't necessarily see some of the things that it's done that I didn't like or didn't care for, maybe not even didn't like, but just I was neutral necessarily see some of the things that it's done that I didn't like or didn't care for. Maybe not even didn't like, but just I was neutral on. Some of those moments, some of them I struggle to understand why. But most of them I see why they happened. I don't agree, but I see why they happened and I can move on from it. With that said, I struggle with this show on a plane that sometimes they make very bold choices that pay off or bold

adaptive moves. And on an adaptational level, it is a amazing adaptation. And those bold moves usually pay off. But sometimes it can be dreadfully vanilla. And I don't mean that in a cruel way. But I do mean that I can see they either go really big, and they make a really big, I can see they either go really big and they make a really big, bold move or they play it safe. And I see sometimes that current on the show. It doesn't always keep the attention or the pacing. What's an example of that? Like where you felt that they were vanilla?

I agree with you, but I'm also trying to understand and get like a more concrete idea of. Series. I mean, some of the themes being lost, for example example like later we'll talk about god in a box and why god in the box was cool to see but why was it there the reference that we're making god in a box why but like why was he there right we didn't they didn't ever take they took the religion far in droning on countless magisterium scenes, but it never meant anything in the end. So to me, they played it safe and they said, ah, these guys are bad. I don't know.

I kind of just, I'm in between on both worlds of something like that. Or like series one, they had to play it safe for series one. I mean, they were kind of hoping to get series two and series three, right? I do understand that. Some of series one, I just think was a very plain not a lot of big gutsy moves so series 3 as a whole i don't think suffered as much from that kind of vanilla problem there were a few bold moves but then at the same time there were some things that were just they were there for no reason didn didn't add any effect, and they didn't take any chances with it. The Galavespians, set dressing. That was such a big bummer for me that that was just set dressing to have Galavespians there. It meant nothing. Salmachia literally didn't come back. I'm wondering, was there something we missed? saw we saw her like there during the speech but like the gala vespians aren't really part of it

as you said it's set dressing and kind of meant to evoke the idea of that many worlds have come together for this battle but but it feels very avengers portal scene in that right like and unearned because they carry a lot of emotional weight their sacrifice in the books. But, you know, I understand why that was cut. I would have liked it, you know, but I understand why that was cut. And we'll obviously talk about this more. You're talking about some of like the bold choices that they make. I think some of the choices are not bold. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Like, for example, bold and i don't mean that in a bad way like for example changing mary's sexual orientation right like i think that was it's a quiet change in a way but not like yeah i don't think that's a bold change i think it's i think it's brilliant right i think it's a beautiful beautifully done change

but it's not like a big one and i think that actually is great that one lands great but as you said like some of the bold changes for example example, fleshing out a gunway, right? Like, that obviously had to take a lot of thought and writing out for that. They had to include a lot more, you know, filming and production to do that. That's a bold change that absolutely wonderfully pays off. I don't really consider that a bold change, honestly. Oh, okay. So what is bold? What is the bold change that you like? I mean, more like changing things that absolutely haven't happened whatsoever, like Marisa and Lee, for example, having an exchange, being a bold change or changing, you know, some of the more iconic parts of the story to fit our landscape that we have in modern tv like last season with joppery and not having his death be like a very avenged you know my

jilted lover how dare you i must kill you so no one can have me that was a good change by a witch uh i think that is a bold change yeah it's a good change and it was a bold change it was a big move to take that on and some of these adaptive choices were really great. I think season two was really strong. Series two, sorry. Series two was a lot stronger in taking bold chances and then paying off. And series three, I felt like there were a handful of moments that were, we're not going to go all the way in. We're not going to go all the way in. We're just going to get it out there and hope it speaks for itself, which is fine because that is what a lot of art is, right? Like it can be interpreted by anyone who watches it. And I do love that. I think that a lot of these

moments that did fall soft, I still felt were evocative in other ways in this series, in series three. But I do think that it was whelming not underwhelming not in a bad way i was just whelmed by some of the choices i didn't think there was a lot of that like the choices they did make the root of death was befuddling like there was no reason for it the galavespians befuddling like there were just some things that made me go why have it yeah the root of death is one that i like we we heard my feelings about that last episode so i'm not gonna rehash them but bold changes uh in that episode in this one like for example marisa you know you're talking about like the the the lee and the marisa

exchange the marisa and seraphina exchange in this one in that previous set of episodes like that was great that was i think a bold change that really pays off well and also what they have marisa do with the monkey and how that ties into like with the way that they've built out her relationship with her demon and stuff even though like it stretches credulity a bit in regards to what we hear about some of the demon rules etc like that one i think that one was a bold change that really works wonderfully. in the entire season. So some of those overarching things have really had a lot of payoff.

And I do just wish that they had chosen a few more of those. Like, a Gunway having a backstory is great, but to me it's expected. Like, it should. Sure, agreed. He should be a great commander on Asriel's council with, this is the time.

Like, if there's any time to take Pullman's book and expand on a Gunway's character, it has to be now, and it should be now. He should matter in a tv show to make you kind of care I mean these characters I don't know I mean listen to our book coverage on the Amber Spyglass to feel hear how we kind of feel more about that I guess but I just think this is the time to adapt some of those characters so some of those choices are great uh that's that seraphina scene is one of my favorite scenes probably overall of season three that's not in these final two episodes yeah i mean there's some like wonderful they gave seraphina a lot of really great dialogue no wonder

ruda grimitas keeps posting about the series a first of all because she's obviously proud of the work that she did but b uh she keeps posting like painful stuff and then you have like Daphne and Amir just doing nonsense in the comments yeah which yeah I love their Instagram comments I have to say if you're not watching them on Instagram on all the cast members posts you gotta our friend Cassidy posts them in our discord all the time and they crack me up well before we jump right in what's your overall rating of the overall season overall with everything I this is gonna sound dumb after everything I said I'm gonna say like a 10 out of 10 I I don't know I don't think it's dumb I think it's real it's 10. I really feel that way. You know, when I like think about how the season made me

feel and like the journey that they took me on with this and then also like the previous two seasons. 10. Yeah, I would say I'm in the 9 to 10 range. Yeah. Even the small things, like I mentioned to you last, last episode, you know, even the small stuff does melt away in the overall. If I watch it again, as a whole, not picking it apart and just watching it just to enjoy it again. I do look forward to that. I look forward to an entire show rewatch actually, because I think there's so much that will really stick out and be such a wonderful, I don't know, just tribute to the entire series. I know that I it's kind of funny, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,

right? You look back at my ratings from the previous episodes and none of them were 10s, but yet I give the whole season a 10 out of 10. So. They did it. That's how we felt at the end. They fucking did it. Absolutely.

Like they stuck the landing. It's missing some parts. There's a landing, right? And they stuck it. And it's missing some parts there there's a landing right and they stuck it and it's an adaptation and yeah as we've said over and over again you can feel the passion and the love that went into this project yeah every part of it from costuming to prop to the vfx and the sheer like care put into the demons right have you ever seen something so complicated to bring them to life to screen that alone was something so evolutionary as far as you know what tv can do now yeah effects and then also like they had to make so many decisions

obviously in order to like cut this and then be able to stretch that budget. And even though we disagree with, like, some, I guess, adaptive choices, they made, I think, very smart choices in what they did do. Yes, agreed. They made that work. That's, yeah, I can't knock them on that. A, end positively with, like, our overall feelings. B, let's jump into episode seven.

C, not to start off negatively about the things that weren't there, but I i was like oh my god that pink to a loppy fake out it was like uh not exactly it was not exactly at all like when they were like this isn't the roin but it was straight up do a leap of flying in the sky and i couldn't believe it i i'm so glad you thought that because that was my first thought but i was like oh i did. Oh, to a leap. To a loppy. Oh, my God. I can't even say it right. I was like, they were wrong. Like, they will be in the season.

I was like, no, no, absolutely not. Those are definitely just some big old pink birds. They were just flamingos. That's okay. Asriel holds his first war council. Must be open that. Not his first. He holds a war council.

My God. He acts like it's his first. And he comes to terms with that like wow i have to protect lyra she's the reason we have to fight my daughter yes and this monologue where he like kind of pushes and pulls with himself and finally comes to that says that he's always been a scientist right believing in the rational i like how that kind of plays in with him being like this is totally against all the things that I've worked for and believed when it comes to science, right? And it plays a little bit

with that idea of the relationship between faith and science. What you must simply believe is true and what you can observe is true with your senses and the world. I mean, love is something that you can observe and that you can sense, that you feel, and that's a big part of what these final two episodes stress. So he has to have faith in his little girl, right? Who's, I guess, growing up. Not that he's going to be there to see it. And there's an aspect of science that is kind of faith, right? Like, we have theories of things that are more or less provable, but technically, you know, you're relying on these laws as a given. And also you have, for example, dark matter, right? You can kind of prove its existence, but you can't really like show it. We can't see it. That's a matter of faith. And you have Lyra as a sort of messianic figure, right? As he talks about constantly in

these past few episodes in this one, his relationship with Marisa, how Lyra is, how can she be the chosen one? She's just this kid we gave birth to, right? And through our affair baby. And like, that plays in with that idea of like innocence right kind of over overturning that virgin birth for jesus the messiah in the bible versus how lyra is born of this act of lust this act of experience between marisa and azrael uh truly defying these structures of what what a society what women's places are supposed to look for look, that Marisa felt she needed to climb to gain power, because it sounds like she married whoever Mr. Coulter was for status. And then suddenly she's like, wait, what is this feeling? And Lyra is born from that love and lust.

You look at what Mary tells us, right, in the next episode of what she was giving up for love, what she didn't even realize she was missing and there's something laced so well between these two episodes that feeling of love even between Azriel and Marisa uh this episode you felt their intimacy kind of grow and I could actually understand like it made me want them to get that facial smoothing technology out and give me a prequel of them I want want an Asriel and Marisa prequel. I'm not kidding. I want to see them falling in love when they're younger. I want to see Mrs. Coulter with her hair up in her bow, sitting at the bench waiting for Asriel to walk by right after college. Like,

I wanted that just from watching them interact in this scene and in the scenes that follow as you just kind of understand their fall from grace and love and, you know, how it could have been for them. Yeah. I don't know. We could, I wouldn't be surprised if we got it in some form, right? Like an anecdote or who knows what someday from Pullman. Give me a novella, Phil.

A novella or a novelette. Give us whatever. A novelette, please. A novelette. That's our new word. That's our new vocab word so something else that you know talking about this idea of the fall right they really play up this idea that eve must fall in the dialogue of these episodes and you can see that they're really playing that fall here must mean falling in love which i which is more or less also evident in the books that

that is something that's being played with. I mean, Philip Pullman loves poetry. Poetry is a lot about words holding multiple meanings, and that's what the alethiometer does. But I do think that they removed a lot of the ways that the fall isn't just about falling in love right about how what dust is and consciousness in terms of they didn't have the other kinds of falls of like the malefa right who first used a seed pod to get around i just love that story so that's just a personal personal thing or like the other ways that like dust first appears on some of those skulls, right? Like 33,000 years ago or something. Yeah, we didn't quite get to see that in full. I would have loved if we had a little Mary scene with a towel of her learning about that,

about the baby, like her watching the baby Mulefa through the spyglass would have been perfect. That would have been a great little foreshadowy thing. I agree, I guess. But like the catch is the thing that I'm asking for now that I think about it. That would be like one of the most high budget things you could ask for. It's true though. Absolutely.

Make them glow a little. I mean, those Mulefa were, they took forever. They took forever. I get it. They're hard. Yeah, I love that legend of the first Mulefa to put her like little thing to grab the seed pod and the snake around it. I i love that version that retelling i love i love all the different mythos that pullman puts in stemming from religion but not just from there from other things too and

i i just think it's a cute little story myself it's part of the oral history of the whole tell them stories theme that goes throughout this the world of the malefa i want more story damn it uh but that said you know thanks for listening this is the end of the podcast we have finished both episodes i hope you enjoyed it have a nice trip see you next fall next fall get it because they're gonna go into the abyss and die soon. Yeah, that's another fall. That's so true. So true, Bestie. Eliana, can you lead us in for our penultimate HDM intro break? Probably our penultimate last penultimate ever. We could just release our own, like, episodes of just us doing the song, if that will make you happy. Every week? Promise? every midsummer's

day oh we could everyone would be like what what the hell are chloe and eliana doing every year as we re-record ourselves doing this song please granddaddy what i'll remove that are you gonna come in and join me the little yip at the end where i don't know what they're saying we're back after the intro break and will and lyra are watching the final ghosts leave through the hole in the cave to the other world to get them out of the land of the dead yeah they're talking about like do we go into that world and then he's all like oh i guess i could go check for one and then lyra's all like oh so you want

to leave me and and it's like no you don't get it we're in this together and i'm just like this is fucked up will you big dumb idiot she loves you i'm literally like dissolving within i love uh i love her immediate response was like oh so you hate me basically i said that to my husband all the time you and me sending that tweet being like why do you hate me my husband leaves the room i go oh so you hate me yep is that what this my partner doesn't answer yeah my calls I'm like, why do you hate me? Lyra's a wifey girl. I get it. I get it.

That's just how we're born. Asriel convinces Coulter that he knows what he's doing with Metatron, asking her to help trigger his end, to pull the lever. I do think it's a little uncharitable to have this dialogue that frames it as Asriel. You know, he always wanted to change the world and then it not being him i think asriel did a lot okay asriel has accomplished a lot in his life he's about to

do a lot too i think you know taking down metatron that definitely counts for changing the worlds right and it makes sense though for it to be a character trait of his for him to want to have changed all the worlds or affected them because it shows his ambition, which is a trait of Satan's, one of his defining traits in Paradise Lost, in Milton's Paradise Lost, which is, again, one of the core inspirations of this story. Yeah, at first I was kind of put off too, just that the way it was framed at first, I started getting mad because, you know, again, I'm a Coul off, too, just that the way it was framed at first, I started getting mad. Because, you know, again, I'm a Coulter fan, unfortunately. I don't know what's wrong with me, but whatever it is, it's probably mommy issues.

But I'm a huge Coulter fan. And just, I was getting mad for her. I was like, oh, Asriel's going to take him down? He's really sure of that, huh? That he's going to be able to take him down with that sheer brute strength of his. All on his own. All on his own. So I was very pleasantly pleased towards the end of the episode.

And I was like, ah, right, good. They remembered. Marisa is the true steel in this relationship. It was a team effort. And I don't know how you feel about this, but they played it a little fast and loose with the dialogue of leaving it up in the air as to whether or not flesh is stronger than spirit it is definitively the case in the books and it does kind of help explain why balthamos like disappears so so easily so quickly next episode after like you know gone give us nothing but no he gave us a lot in that moment like abs like they hit again the emotional beats but he doesn't like fight a lot right which is part of like why he dissolves because

the angels are supposed to be weaker than than the people yeah fragile sure they can light up and they can travel worlds but yeah yeah they're kind of they do some i guess physical damage as we see with asriel but like mostly they do psychic damage you know oh just like me oh yes just like colter speaks to zephania who convinces her asriel is no match for metatron but colter has a great power within her asriel gives a speech to those who will fight for freeing will today and And everyone is special, he says, even that kid he murdered once looking at his smudged hand. What was his name? Robert?

Just kidding, he wasn't special. Like, damn, Asriel. He was special. And then, forgiving my complaint from last episode, the Clouded Mountain arrives and the battle begins. Yeah, Clouded Mountain looks great. And, you know, I think really captures that idea of like that thunderous menace that heaven's supposed to kind of have in paradise lost and also maybe i've

just like never really seen her outfit in the sunlight before but i really loved the sparkles in seraphina's outfit here great battle yeah the light catching them was like dust yeah dust or like i don't know stars in the night sky great great stuff really feels like she's wearing the night you know interestingly i hadn't really considered that the angels didn't really know what was happening to the dead either because they're talking asriel's telling everyone and informing them you know thanks to my daughter we have defeated death and i'm like this is not like, I would be like, what the fuck are you talking about, sir?

If someone busted that out in our like pep speech before we all go die, trying to like attack and dethrone God. But anyway, I never considered that the angels don't actually know what happens to humans when they die. They probably do not care. That's part of it. But they also can't go down there because as we find out dust can't go down there which is why pan couldn't go down there so uh it's not dissimilar from like i mean

modernized version the good place right it going up to the good place and finding that like these angels actually don't know what suffering is going on below nor do do they care, nor do they have a reason to care because it's not happening to them. And similar kind of right to how Serafina and the witches can be blasé about certain things that humans aren't. Great point. Right, because they live longer and see more, but also see much less.

That makes a lot of sense because they talk about, you know, our humans and our fragile lives, but when your life is short, everything suddenly has so much more importance, right is another reason why the gall of espions would have been nice nice just saying something that's really smart about the speech is how they frame the rebels right as light in the darkness and usually you know you might be like oh isn't that a cliche way to do this but i think it's smart here because it creates a

sense of irony, right? Where they flip the association of heaven and the ideas of God's light into that is actually darkness, right? That is the ignorance that we are trying to fight. And then also when pandemonium, which is the city that the demons are in, I almost fucked up which pan we were talking about with all these syllables and whatnot um is associated more with darkness right like pandemonium is like the city where the demons live yeah seraphina says something about like the kingdom of heaven is nigh i thought that was just like a fun nod to you know you you typically hear similar language like that in regards to religion and and when god returns and this is just a personal this is not a critique this is just i kind of wish that there were more

angels like on the rebel side i i think that what they depicted was probably in fact correct for showing the fighting against the authority but there was just like so few of them that i felt really bad for them and i wanted there to be more i really wanted this to be a much bigger movement i it was an incredible shot of them consuming the rebels side right the authority consuming the rebels like they like swoop out at them in this great fiery flame of starlight of angels and dust and they're like eating them, devouring them almost. It was one of my favorite shots of the season. You could actually feel the sheer emotion and the loss and the pain of like, oh no, they're going to be crushed. They're going to lose.

Just because you're good, you're the good guys, doesn't mean you get to just win when you don't have enough of you. And the authority really is like a poison eating through everything so it makes sense yeah good thing they do win in the end they were just stalling anyway ish there is a trilogy that comes yeah that's true before and after this because it's because the battle is fought every day inside ourselves but actually kind of literally free will literally free will yeah speaking of free will uh will and lyra cut through to the battle and uh the specters attack and mrs coulter controls and destroys them awesome so awesome mrs coulter looked at me once mrs coulter punched me in the face once it was awesome this is another this is one of those i I think, bold choices, right? That you're talking about that makes a wonderful addition.

It's a really interesting one. And I do wish we had a like split second shot. But again, this would have consumed more of the budget, obviously, of Lyra and Will glimpsing for a moment being like, what was that? Like, almost seeing a specter, which shows that they are they are getting older right like and they're getting to the cusp of their demon settling soon but all in all i just really loved the way this worked i thought i would hate it and then i was like actually that was that was really awesome because it shows how tied marisa is to the abyss, right? She has this deep darkness in herself and it's also kind of representative of the darkness in the world. We'll talk a little bit

more about that later, but she is herself, right? So tied to the abyss because she is one. She draws in the specters the way that the abyss was drawing in dust, like attracts like in this and it's the specters are the children of the abyss. And it comes down to a lot of like that arc of hers of that self inflicted pain, that self hate, and how that becomes something that is so such an oblivion that it can obliterate other forms of oblivion. It's like that deep depression, right? That you can separate it from yourself that you know, it's there. And you know, that depression, right? That you can separate it from yourself, that you know it's there and you know that darkness is within you and that you have this hatred. I mean, it's what the whole episode is for her, right? She's throughout the episode showing that she's

transforming herself and using that darkness within her to actually propel her and being able to control that part of her, being able to take the rage and the hatred and that devastation that lives within her and transform it into something and exert it from herself and use it to, you know, she might not be able to change the world necessarily, but she could change it right now for Lyra. And I think it was just such a powerful choice, especially there and at the end of the episode with the misdirect right where she's misdirecting and telling us you know oh she's so evil look at her with metatron and his horrible googly eyes she's so evil she's so evil but you know she's not you watched her do this

you watched her control them and take them down to try to help so you know that you know you know where her heart lies yeah you know who it lies with lyra and she is help so you know that you know you know where her heart lies yeah you know who it lies with lyra and she is like still you know she is evil but it's like an enemy of my enemy is my friend you know evil different kinds of it and wonderful yeah seraphina finds the demons amidst the battle who are still pretty pained at being abandoned she convinces them to turn into birds and they fly away with her from the attacking angels. So for that brief moment, right, they haven't settled yet. And it's kind of cute, her telling them to become birds

and that sort of witchiness about it, especially when both Will and Lyra are some of the few people who can separate from their demons, yet still stay connected as the witches are. Yeah, I thought it was a beautiful nod to having that similar right that similar kind of ritual have gone on for both of them and i thought it was beautiful to have the demons before they have to settle and become adults which we all hate have that freedom of flying for the very first time together right it's love like when you're

in love you feel like you're flying and it's a great comparison as will and lyra are simultaneously realizing they have fallen in love with one another uh and kiriava and pan in the sky as birds for the very first time it's like it's everything mary describes right with the marzipan yes will and lyra it's that exact feeling but it's for the demons. And it's something so small and special and secretive that they get to do this one time. Yeah, it's absolutely that's a wonderful way of describing it. It's a really beautiful character beat moment for all three of them. And for Serafina, who knows what's to come and knows what she has to do as you know,

as surrogate mother in this series to say, unfortunately, you guys can't do this. It's a kindness. Yeah, she protects them. Yeah. Speaking of protectors, a gunway finds the kids and promises to bring them to the camp. However, cliff gas. Oh my god. Attack. And a gunway tells Lyra and Will to run to the tower and that they can hold them off and again love these agonway additions and scenes also love more moments with our murderous muppet babies these little like oh my god they're so cute i know right our weird little fraggle rock murder murderous versions and also i think lots of great additions right a gunway tells her a little bit about what asriel is doing how they keep informing Lyra about what her parents are up to and complicating her feelings toward them, which I think having to wrestle with that when it comes to your parents is a big part of transitioning into adulthood.

Yeah, that's a huge part of becoming an adult. Huge. Yeah, people are great. Good thing we're recording this after the holidays. Oh my gosh. I love them. I love them. I hate them.

I love them. I'll outsource it to my therapist. Anyways. Yeah. I love that a gunway like greets them. I love the little bits of a gunway we do get in this episode, especially the reunion with his family later. But I love that he protects the children sad about his crew i can't believe the cliff gas took the wrong side they're

really killing me here today yeah i guess they're on the wrong they're just on the side of chaos to an extent maybe they're on their own side but this must be when they dropped god you were you were saying about a gunway in the reunion with his daughters that's something that i think has was also good you know rather than playing up the whole oh yeah only just like a cliche like motherhood aspect that they really showed this concept of like positive parenting from agunwe and like positive masculinity etc yeah i think it was nice and i'm glad that he didn't end up using the motivation of ruda even even though Ruta was never brought up again. But I was really glad that Ruta wasn't, you minds basically as God, telling them to fight each other, fight your other men that don't believe in the magisterium. Except it's like

creepier. I don't know why that came off like a 1776, but also Western. I don't know what that voice was. Fight your brethren. It could have that voice, you know. This was also another interesting choice. And especially how it raises these ideas of faith once more because it made me kind of wonder like why are you all here like were asriel's teachings about metatron lying and about the crater like did you not pay attention to any of that was that not strong enough what the fuck are you doing here right oh ye of little faith though some of them obviously do not heed the voice we only of course, see the struggle with the ones who do and how they turn on the others. But it also speaks to Metatron, again, doing that psychic damage. He relies on illusions and tricks.

And he plays this role of a deceiver, which is very similar to the role that Lyra plays in the books, right? Or even as we'll see Marisa, right? They do a lot of lies, they're deceitful, and it's interesting to have him characterized as a deceiver because that's often how Satan is characterized, especially in Paradise Lost. In fact, that's one of the titles that he's given. Though Pullman turns this on its head in the book series because he makes that lying right that inventiveness a heroic trait in lyra also in azrael at the start of the books until you know the whole roger shit and then also through uh the the development of our character marisa especially interesting when you consider like metatron is as a character just in lore in the lore of the bible and all that jazz when you consider like he's both equal parts showing kind of humanity and also a mathematical equation in a

way of a person of all these units you know like there's both law and order about the man law and order it's interesting to go but yeah law and order about this angel. I love what you've called out about just like how he could get into some of the minds, not weaker minds necessarily, but people that just their conviction. Yeah. In what they're doing isn't so tied to it. Like Marisa just shrugs it off and walks away. Liver and Will, he can't even possibly, he doesn't know they're there, but he doesn't get in their heads. That's true. Yeah, for Marisa, it's kind of like she has a faith. She has something she believes in that's even stronger than this, right?

And then we have, again, coming back to like that faith versus science stuff, observable reality, right? Of course, you're gonna maybe believe in the voice that suddenly comes out of nowhere that is not your own voice in your head. Like that's something that you can perceive. that not proof of divinity right which again i'm kind of like yeah you knew angels were there like y'all saw angels come out of it was in your camp so like you know divinity exists like what were you not paying attention to anyways but it is proof to the soldiers as he speaks to them directly and also it's he he promises them

salvation if they turn on the other soldiers right so it speaks to that sort of individualist desire to save oneself versus this overall collective liberation which is i think a big part of what the series is supposed to be about when we talk about that republic of heaven stuff i'm gonna i'm gonna double up i'm gonna ante up on you, Valyana, and say, I think it's not only what the series is about, but what life is about. Wow. And what the world we live in, what the governments that we live within and under, what religious rule, what they want is to isolate you and disconnect you from the people you love, because you're easier to control. That makes you easier to control when you have less connections, when you have less things to love, less things to care about. You know what it makes you do? It makes you wake up,

go to work, do your job, go home, be a shell, do nothing like is spoken about from these people in the show that say, you know, I did everything right. And then I found out I was cursed to a hell worse than hell my entire life, a hell of nothing. I mean, I would say that that's kind of just like life, right? Like the less that you have connected to you, the easier it is to be alone. Yeah. And, and that there is strength in those connections. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Actually together we're stronger. No, for real though. Like actually that is like power comes in the collective especially when like you're up against a stronger enemy or something and that's also kind of

interesting in regards to some of the character journeys now that i think about it in the secret commonwealth i think so too and there's even some visions i won't go into not just from those books but there's some kind of moments where we cut into other worlds of suffering. In His Dark Materials, in the main trilogy, where Pullman shows that Will has cut into a world full of industrial suffering and basically slavery, people chained together and people beating. What was that one about the dog? That radioactive-looking dog.

I forgot that one. And puddles of crap. But there's just all these different visions of worlds and suffering and there's more in the the sequel trilogy that we won't talk about now or prequel sequel pre-sequel sandwich sandwich sandwich trilogy we do this all the time but there's some in that too that it just shows like you know those are the worlds if the magisterium wins, those are the worlds if the Authority wins, and if they take love, and they take having love and having these connections away from you. Well, that's a great call out of, yeah, we do see those glimpses into the worlds of, as you said, like, industrial hell, which is, that is like a world where the Authority won,

right? Or the other ones that are, have no life whatsoever right those are those are two like that wasteland and that's absolutely what they're fighting against you know that's what a world where there is no conscious thought there is no experience looks like no love and that's why they were shown in that but that's the budget that's why will and lyra won but we'll get there that's the budget um marisa meets metatron on the final plane and asriel approaches well crash lands as well they have a careful dance back and forth and they're trapped in metatron's mind palace or i guess they're in his mind cube asriel fights metatron who is cosplaying as Asriel. And Marisa has this seductive back and forth where she makes him think that she's on his side. He's all, leave Lyra with his googly eyes on. I'm sorry, I can't take the man seriously.

I wanted him to be so sexy. I wanted Metatron to be like Zaddy Angel. And they gave him those contacts. And I don't think it worked for him. And it's not his fault because he's a sexy man. But those contacts were wrong. And you need to know it. They killed me.

He was just, he was killing me. Every time he looked at me, he was a fish. I was like, who are you, Metatron? Who are you? Anyways, Metatron tells her to leave Lyra, abandon her, give up on her because Lyra makes you weak. You could be so strong with me and my doll eyes. That's so funny because i actually liked that depiction of metatron i i think you wanted i in the okay so in the books he's described as like basically

pretty much naked and and swole yeah that's and no i'm just saying like that i i want people to understand the difference why would they mess with canon god why would they mess with canon yeah plus it's hbo right you can show penis on hbo but this is they also i wanted angel dong i guess you can't on bbc and this is also like you know a lot of it is geared towards still trying to keep the tone of children could watch this if you wanted them to so yeah anyway that aside that aside no we're not i'm not done with it because i actually did like what they did with the metatrons i thought that the way they did the weird smoothing thing they did some sort of small tweaks on his face and they don't know what it's

very subtle but it's clearly it clearly makes him very uncanny part of it is the enlarging of the eyes and i thought it worked for me. I kind of got though, maybe this is not like a positive for some people. I got Lord Farquaad from Shrek Vibes. But it works for me. Well, 50% hit rate. Yeah. If that's what you're into, Lord Farquaad, Eliana, I don't know what to tell don't know i mean i wasn't looking for it to be like you know i was not here to be there for zaddy metatron i was there of like oh okay this works that's that had certain expectations and they were not met and i will remain unsatisfied about this one i'm sorry well you know what it's it's about the authority's about repression anyway so i okay so as marisa's going into the cube right

on one hand i was like is it not suspicious to everyone involved that she has left her soul behind does that not speak to her wanting to hide something but then again i was like i guess maybe it makes sense then because when we see asriel in the mind palace cube he also is kind of separated from stalmaria at that time and like also that does make me wonder again like why is asriel not in immense pain he hasn't practiced this in the way that marisa has so anyway these are some of the questions that i have yeah i don't think metatron really realized it. Yeah. I think he's also out of touch. He is. He really is. With the general human.

That's true. Speaking of being out of touch with the general human, part of that offer is to Marisa, like, do you want to become an angel? He offers immortality, right? And he says that it hasn't happened since the fall of man. And I know that's a lie. Okay. That is untrue based on the timelines that we are given both i think even it might even hold true we're not given

like exact dates in in the tv series but it has to be right it has to hold still because baruch and balthamos baruch ascending to become an angel must occur after the timeline of the fall because that's just how the placement of things work when it comes to the book of Genesis and the other books, all right? It was chronological and therefore there were angels that were once humans that ascended after the fall before, so that's a lie. Metatron says though that he could turn Marisa into an angel, which is a being of dust. And it does make me think a little bit more about like how, what are those other paths to becoming one because of Baruch and makes me think deeper about that. Even though we probably should have thought about this before, and we kind of did.

But like, did Baruch become an angel because of that fierce love for Balthamos? Which yes, we're more or less told that, but because of like this strong desire for experience, right? That deep, deep, deep fall into deep love. And then also that he would dare to love an angel being a defiance of all of these expectations and thus his own small rebellion and this creation of conscious thought that just like willed him into angeldom and also i will say though speaking of baruch that metatron's like

i'm offering you immortality and i'm like well that's a fucking lie too because clearly the angels aren't immortal I just saw Baruch die at the beginning of this season I'm going to see Balthamos die in a moment and then I am going to see cube angel die also and and Metatron so what about all the other angels also that die in this battle that we saw consumed that's actually a really good point what about them they're literally dying right outside like of this cube they're right there damn yeah very out of touch metatron hiding inside this box the box god box okay i have more thoughts on this moment apparently without the books giving us the internal battle of marisa i do think that they did a smart thing here with the dialogue of having metatron's like seer ability provide provide some of like something for her to react against

right that marisa slash ruth wilson to react against and therefore lie and show about how she's feeling and how she contorts how she feels about Lyra to fool Metatron. Yeah, I think the misdirection was done so well on this. I kind of talked about it at the top. I think the misdirection was done really well, though, especially in that it's layered. So we see something's up, right? Like something's different. And he starts to hurl kind of those universal truths at her saying like all these things about the universe that are true. And for her, they are right, like you're a filthy cesspit of moral, etc, etc, like straight from the book, great quotes, but they are true, but not for the reasons that he's saying and that he believes. And I love that moment for her because you could just see it in her eyes

i mean the bafta is in front of her you could see it reflecting in the eyeballs and ruth wilson just effortlessly shows us what marisa is feeling in that moment right like of course they're true and that's why i have to do this yeah i hope that like this gets nominated for something this podcast absolutely emmy worthy oh no i meant i meant the show but also you know it could be us could be i mean give me a razzle anyway oh my god so also you know talking about like metatron discussing marisa's capacity for betrayal he he says like he sees it in her or something and she like replies twice i am i am and it kind of feels like it might be hearkening to one of the ways in which god introduces himself to like especially the israelites on their exodus from egypt

one of the ways that it translates is i am who I am. That's not the only translation, but I'm not an expert on modern or any translations of Hebrew. So, and I'm about to butcher this pronunciation of that line, which is like, which is, I think, one of the conjugations and, like, also speaks to one of the names of God, which is Yahweh, right, which translates to I am, or some of the modern translations might be I will be what I will be, right? It's a statement. Some of the ways that this is interpreted is as a statement of self-existence, right, that God exists, right, is always has been, always will be, and also present with his people. That's another

way that it's interpreted, like I am present, and also as an expression of oneself as an active being. And so Marisa having those lines of I am, I am, and maybe hearkening to that, that statement of godhood, right? Kind of puts her and maybe as well i don't know as equals for metatron right especially when you think of how metatron introduces himself to the soldiers during the psychic damage stuff as i am your maker and i am your destroyer and that is very much who marisa is right she's's a maker, she's a scientist, but she's also maker, mother of Lyra. She's a destroyer, destroyer of destroyers, as we see with the specters. She's a destroyer of Metatron and falls into the abyss, which is sort of like

the symbol, if you want to look at it in a freudian way of both the womb and the tomb right that's very much also who marisa is that's great especially because of the cube right like we talked about this a little bit back in series two and during our coverage in the books but plato said that the five sides of metatron's cube stood for the base elements of creation, right? And Metatron's cube was kind of said to be the blueprint for all creation. So you have Marisa as an equal to Metatron here, a tool and symbol within this tool and symbol for transformation, right? For unity of finite with infinite, to understand harmony and balance and nature and all of these truths of the universe. So I think it's so great that

she's having those i am moments in the cube right and can we just talk about the awesome science fiction feel to the inside of the cube right to be in the opposite of the abyss white walls white ground but the absence of color where marisa and azrael are finally showing their true selves right like azrael has broken the fuck down he is uh his ambition has clouded the insecurities that he truly does have right himself beating himself up is a grand sight to watch uh and marisa is being her true self which she is but not in the way metatron thinks. I think it's just brilliantly done. Yeah. They really nailed all this.

So with how they adapted it. Yeah. This episode, the battle in general, amazing. This episode, I loved the last episode, episode to a lot. I really do. And these two episodes, it's so hard to like anything else because these two episodes are this one especially was solid, solid, solid. The whole entire episode was so well paced. Didn't miss a beat. There wasn't a single thing during this episode. I thought at all, you know, my brain was empty. I was just glued to the screen. They had a great, well-kept, well-contained battle episode.

Absolutely, and the tone of it sets up perfectly for the next one, right? It's great. So Lyra and Will are trying to get to the tower where Seraphina has sent their demons. They do come upon Kiriava and Pan, who are incredibly still hurt. Betrayal, right? how could you walk away like this thank you Metatron and his new sidekick Marisa approach Asriel who's lying on his back about to get Mufasa'd by Scar right Will opens a window in the tower for the demons we're cutting back and forth and cutting back and forth if you will which Metatron suddenly feels and it distracts him for

the right amount of time for Marisa to double betray him, and Asriel and Marisa start to take him down. The monkey, meanwhile, I fucking hate you guys, why did you do this to me? This was horrible, I was just sobbing. The monkey is doing what Marisa promised Asriel she would do, and works to hit the switch on the dust machines just in the right amount of time the monkey makes it there and lyra sees him after he's hit the switch making final eye contact with the monkey as the abyss blows up i really liked this a lot more in retrospect by the way the first time i watched it i didn't think anything badly of it i just was like okay interesting so she sees the monkey and so she knows something happened and in retrospect with

this with the eighth episode amazing amazing emotional beats she may never know right and she still doesn't know what they chose or how they died or why they're gone yeah but now she'll never get to know and that's horrible she kind of speculates that it happened but that's a that's a great point that's like a mystery to her it's almost like a you know there's like mysteries left for these children kind of mysteries of faith if you will and yep yes yeah that's it is a mystery it is that the battle was won and the evil big bad angel went away and they didn't have to fight him, but no one ever knows why or what happened. Just that suddenly everything disappeared and stopped. Yeah.

They did it, right? Absolutely. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, I really like the way that they adapted that with the monkey. And, you know, we got Marisa, marisa azrael and stalmaria throwing themselves onto metatron and into the abyss they're saying like for lyra and all the moments with stalmaria her just coming out of there right like he he's able to will himself like through the mind cube to bring his soul right that's his free will coming through and like

oh she's so dramatic it's so good and then she jumps and she like hits him but then also when she's dissolving in the abyss it's just so painful like all the all of those scenes were so good get me every time that's when i started crying yeah you know what's worse that she didn't get to go with the monkey i i can't tell if like they're separated or like i feel like the dust when you do that like me it sounds like there's maybe a little bit of agency and like did the monkey go with her like get swooped into the abyss to go with her no because the monkey hit the switches but like that was the sacrifice though like that's a sacrifice the monkey doesn't go and stays there so marisa can at least go but can can't the monkeys

like dust go join her at some point i mean it does like get i mean you watched the dust go yeah you just watched it but could it not like go into the air then troop i that's my faith you can believe whatever you want to believe but i know the truth which is that stell maria and the monkey did not get to be together when they disintegrated and their atoms are lost from one another and stell maria went into the abyss where they'll be forever even though it's contained now and the monkey sacrificed to go take care and make sure they could shut it off so lyra could have a better world and that's pretty much what marisa already had done like yeah herself too so it's just another great horrible sacrifice and they'll never be together and i really hate it because those demons i'm not a furry but those demons

deserve to be together no you're right like that's definitely what happened i just i need sometimes i need to like make the thing force it to be a little happy with everything that happens in the story. But you're right. That's definitely, and that is what Marisa intended. She knew that going in, but it's just, I don't know. It hurts, okay? It hurts. You do whatever you have to do to get through the episode, Eliana, okay?

Okay, honey? It doesn't get easier, right? Yeah, the Lyra thing, this is horrible. This is... So she reaches out her hand, right, to the monkey, who then disintegrates into dust. And first of all, I knew it! All right, I knew it. I knew that they were going to bring back that visual, like, of the hands reaching each

other when, obviously, like, Marisa and the monkey do, because they're one, right? And I feel very proud of calling that and and then also like it makes it it works well for like these character arcs and the themes of like she can't have the first time she touches someone else's demon be her mother that was her mom letting go that was her mom finally saying goodbye and letting go yeah the bonds being you don't have to hold on oh god yeah the bonds can be broken but also not like it this wonderful paradox that exists in there and lyra watching the monkey suddenly disappear and like daphne keen does a wonderful job of like having the little tears but they don't fall right being teary-eyed and like the kind of horror on her face and i'm like oh that's it that's a great face of like oh that's a new trauma i'll

have to process and then will's face watching the monkey dissolve also being like oh that seems like a new trauma for lyra that she'll have to process ah you're getting off easy will you don't have to be there no one would be there great i did um i have to say i did want to see speaking of will and his parents though i wanted to see droppery and will's dad obviously they can't because we closed that we closed that at the end of last like those episodes but i wanted to see them fight angels yeah i do think it gets confusing and i understand why they wouldn't put it in for a money contract reasons but also like less medicines b you just explain that everybody that leaves there is going into the air but these two fuckers get a pass yeah you know what i mean like i get it. I get that. It is confusing for a viewer. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense, but you're right. It requires too much explanation. I just wanted it.

If we're touting what we were right about, hey, Eliana, what happens at the end of this episode? Which part? That Asriel and Marisa went in this episode? Yes. I called that one, thank you very much. went in this episode. Yes. I called that one. Thank you very much. That was my call. Absolutely.

And. Cause I knew they were going to give us what we needed for the final episode, that they would give us good, slow, horrible, burn, emotional murder.

Because right now the battle's won, right? Like things are great. The battle's won. I mean, minus recent Azrael's deaths, but the battle's won, right? Things are great. The battle's won. I mean, minus Marisa and Asriel's deaths, but the battle's won. Yeah, and it's good because it gives their deaths the space to have that impact with this episode. Yeah, I don't think you can start the last episode with their deaths and then end with Lyra and Will dying inside.

Only with us dying inside, right? Yeah. So after that all happens, right, and the sky clears up and shit, we get a good shot of Lyra's clothing finally here. And I do think that their costume department is particular about the colors that she wears in costuming. They've played a big role in showing us her character story, right?

And I could be reading too much into this, and I probably am, but she's wearing red, green, and blue. And of course, that red and that blue have been representative of very different parts of Lyra's journey and her growth. But red, green, and blue, RGB, are the three primary colors in additive light. There are two different kinds of light when it comes to colors, additive and subtractive. Additive is sort of like the creation of light, and subtractive is the reflected light that you'll see, for example, mostly like with pigments, with like, I don't know, crayons, markers, paint, whatever, right? And the primary colors in additive light red green and blue when combined they don't create darkness that's what happens when you combine the pigments of

red yellow and blue those are the subtractive colors uh three primary colors but red green and blue together create pure white light those Those are all the colors together, right? And it really symbolizes this idea of lightness, illumination, illuminating knowledge, right? And of course, dust as part of that metaphor. That's beautiful. Go Lyra. One little lightness in this episode. Go Lyra.

One little lightness in this episode. Yeah, it's funny that you mention it because I'm like, oh, right. She's been desaturated for a whole episode or two before this. Oh, that's right. She was. In the world of the dead, late of the dead. Yeah. That's right. Ogunwe reunites this family next.

Soldiers are hugging. Angels watch down as the final battle's been won. And Will and Lyra come across a very interesting object lying in the field. Next, soldiers are hugging, angels watch down as the final battle's been won, and Will and Lyra come across a very interesting object lying in the field, a glowing cube. They cut it open, revealing inside a wizened figure, and the figure then begins to deteriorate into strips, wisps of dust, and floats away.

Yeah. I did like the animation of the glowing cube falling, and they do a good job of tying that to, like, here it is, right? Though I do wish, I do wish the figure inside were not only cowering, right? That seemed like a bit of the message slash themes of the books were inside of it, like, in the books, when they cut open the cube and they're like what the fuck is going on here there's like kind of a look of joy before the figure dissipates and i think that's kind of part of the point right of of being free and experiencing even though like that means that they were kind of obliterated yeah it, it's a good think piece, to be fair. Like, in general, I think it's good that it was just left quiet in some aspects, though, like we said up top.

I don't know. They missed a few of the themes, or I didn't hit on them as hard as I would like them to. They were a little too subtle. So I almost thought they could have just dropped the god thing. I didn't know if they'd do it. And I'm really glad they did as a book fan right but as a show fan i was like huh okay i'm glad they did it i didn't think we'd see it they don't really explain what happened there so that's another one of those like mysteries of faith kind of things going on which i do like that i love that they were just like what was that who knows Who knows, right? And maybe a show

watcher might not like that, but I like it. And it wouldn't have taken much. It would have just been a slight tweak in the direction to have the figure look a little happier about dissolving rather than cowering. Yeah, voldemorty yeah i mean you could still be voldemorty whatever i don't i don't care about that but just happy is that what it's gonna look like when i've lived for too long i'm worried it will it absolutely uh that's that's what lyra's imagining when she's like i'm imagining what you'll look like when you're old, Will. Exactly that. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Will and Lyra cut through to another world to go find their demons.

And now we approach episode eight, where we must experience the refusal of the return, right? The crossing of the return threshold, the freedom to live, and not experience the master of the return, right? The crossing of the return threshold, the freedom to live, and not experience the master of two worlds. There's no mastering two worlds right now. Ha ha ha ha ha. So, let's follow our heroes as they return home

in episode eight, The Botanic Garden. Yeah, we get a cold open. No, just go. That's how you know it's serious. I know. Do do do. Do do do know it's serious. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

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We had to do it. We had to get a little into it yeah i'm sorry i'll just get past all that personally when i edit this but oh that's so sad damn what a banger what a fucking banger lauren you outdid yourself yeah i did damn so will and lyra awaken they're disgusting in the woods they're so dirty so lyra wow lyra decides to take a bath right didn't wasn't that like a critique of her in season two that's growth will joins her and they talk about all the emotional trauma that they just went through like how lyra thinks that i don't know my parents might be dead but i don't know if i'll ever really know and then the scene transforms into them just splashing in the water it's very

sweet they're washing all that dust off them i gotta say i really appreciated the uh that they were dirty like that was great i know that's a weird thing but i feel like we've seen so many sci-fi fantasy fiction whatever shows where they're not dirty after a war or after a battle i really appreciated that thank you her face was dirty like it was dirty there was dirt rubbed on that she was dirty i wonder if yeah i mean they're dusty right there and they're about to get a different kind of dusty so is there also like uh this is me thinking too much into it but i wondered if there was like a baptism aspect of it too right that rebirth yes washing anew i i imagine so we talked a little

bit at the end of the hdm series books that we covered those their books they made we talked a little bit about kind of that symbolism and bathing before and i do think it's a little biblical here for them i wouldn't be surprised yeah i wouldn't be surprised there's also the jordan theme mixed in with one of lyra's themes right here as the scene opens and it's so pure and innocent and heartbreaking because it evokes those memories from series one when they were both much younger kids when we met them right in different places in their lives and yeah real sad it is it's a sad episode to the sadder stuff to the sadder stuff too absolutely and like i i really love the scene of them washing it off right and how they explore the complicated feelings that children whether or not they're like literally children or just in general the children of abusive

and neglectful parents have and and as we've seen throughout the series right the complicated feelings also that asriel and marisa have towards lyra and again adulthood is learning to have to live in those gray areas also there was crimes against us where you have Lyra. All right. Like, why would they have Will tell Lyra that she's not actually alone? Right. When she says that she is and is sad about it because he thinks he's going to be with her. And I was like, why would you do this to me?

That's psychic damage. Same reason you're bringing it up right now, Eliana. Damage me. Yeah, because she gets no one and nothing. Kiryava and Pan talk in their own scene about what if it isn't the same anymore with their humans, which is devastating. Also devastating. And we will explore that a bit more, I'm sure, today. Meanwhile, Father Gomez is on the trail with his very own spy fly.

He finds that little blanket at some point that Mary left at the tree, you know, that Chekhov's blanket. We knew it would happen. Mary watches the dust. Lyra and Will go back to looking for their demons rather casually, but instead they come across the Mulefa, who beckoned them to follow. Lyra reunites with Mary Malone. Yes.

So I noticed that the subtitles say that the background noise is monkeys gibbering, and I thought that was very interesting. Oh, how cute. They have monkeys in their world oh i thought it was it was interesting because of marisa's demon but yeah oh oh huh anyway so at all and mary watch will and lara at the fire and at all comments on how they don't have much yet and they wonder when the children will get more shroff. You say that so well.

You're so good at being Atal. You have a great Atal voice. Maybe I was meant to be a Malefa and not Yorick, but you can't tell me that. I can be whatever I want. I believe in you. Thank you. Thank you. Lyra admires Atal like I admire you with Will.

And Mary brings them food saying they'll talk more in the morning. And in the morning, they do. Mary tells Lyra, dust isn't sin, it's consciousness. And with the seed pot oil, she shows that she can see it through the lacquered amber. Will watches Lyra through the amber glass, and they talk about how to save dust. At the campfire later, they discuss their demons, both Pan and the soon-to-be-introduced to Will, Kiryava, and Mary begins to tell them stories at Atal's urging. She tells them about a woman she once worked with at a conference in Lisbon who fed her marzipan. I just had a wonderful

marketing idea for His Dark Materials. Okay, like, photo, like, selfie filter of dust coming off of you. That's amazing. Why didn't you design their viral marketing plan for season three? I don't know that it, like, would have gone viral or not. I don't know that, like, those kinds of filters are in vogue anymore.

But I think there was merit to my idea. No, I love the dragon ones they did for Hot D. Oh, that's right. They were fun. It could have worked. Everyone loves a good AI stealing your face and your business filter. Oh my God.

It didn't have to be like that. Oh my God. Sell my face. Sell it to the government. Let's do more facial recognition. How fun. I'm just saying. What?

Oh my gosh. I'm just saying. oh my gosh i'm just apple you're just selling it to the uk government you know to bbc anyway so that's my marketing idea jane tranter hired me um so i'm glad that they removed all that weird stuff about mary being like but i realized i had gone to china that was in the books because i was like mary no you didn't china's like a real fucking place you could have gone to right it's not like a place in your mind it's a real place right here yes it's a real place my friend is going to go there like in february and live there for two years like you can do this like anyway yeah yeah not missed not missed in this

adaptation no another wonderful change in this adaptation is the change in mary's love interest brilliant bravo bravo it was quietly done like you mentioned earlier and not in a bad way Change in Mary's love interest. Brilliant. Bravo. Bravo. It was quietly done, like you mentioned earlier, and not in a bad way, in my opinion. I think it was powerfully, it was just really well done that it was just, it fit right in. It didn't feel like there was anything too much added or anything too less added. It was the perfect amount of story to show them. I was in love. i don't know it felt very nice to have that for mary because she was kind of played as the queer auntie yeah for series two right when we got some time with her and her sister yeah it rocked

there were a lot of winners out there this day is what i'm saying a lot of a lot of people won that's a good point yeah like changing her love interest to be like same gender was, it makes sense. It was always kind of there, I think, in Mary. And it was there, you know? And it was- Plus she was kind of cute. I felt like there was representation for me on screen because the girl had like a nice honking nose, right?

And like good hair. I was like, I could be like that girl. You could. I mean, I think you could. And marry Mary. You could. You could. and mary malone i also love the dialogue right when she's explaining like her her rationale for why she stopped being a nun because of that right like of the there was no one there to reward there was no one there to reward me for being a good girl or no one there

to punish me for being wicked there was no one one. And it was, it was liberating. And it was, it was a bit lonely, but I just knew I wanted to experience everything the world had to offer. I wanted to experience love. And they ask her, and did you? And she says, yeah. And that's kind of what happens with Will and Lyra at the end, right? Like it, the choice they have to make for themselves, there was was no one yet it's still liberating it's lonely but they live full lives to experience everything that the world has to offer yeah it's unfair um sorry i lost myself a little there it is very akin to that especially because they just did that already in the world of the dead, right?

That they were like, there's no one to reward us for going down here and freeing everyone, right? There's no great reward for doing so. And it's lonely down there, right? They can go descend and leave their demons. But they did it for the experience because they knew they could try to help Roger and try to help other people once they got down there they didn't know it it was like that though right like they went in with blind faith a leap to faith that they take in both directions that things will work out yes that's exactly what it was like a sandwich god damn it first we're devastated then we're devastated again i feel like a sour patch kid first they're sour then they're sweet that i feel like a sour patch kid first they're sour

then they're sweet that is kind of a sour patch kids sponsor us actually yeah even if their sponsorship is just sending us free sour patch kids i will take it i love the red ones and realistically the watermelon so write that down thank you yeah i i love i think all the flavors i used the red ones used to be my favorite and i still love them but now the green ones are kind of coming up for me too interesting interesting taking notes lyra whispers that she needs pan wherever he is meanwhile gomez is continuing his mission but he's watched by an angel that we seem to know mary wakes the children bringing them breakfast and leaves them to look for their demons together they bathe in the pool and Will totally misses shooting his shot. Very funny. Lyra's like, my face is an inch from yours, and you have done nothing but tremble. Interesting.

Gomez gets very close to his target during this time, but he's interrupted by Balthamos, who protects the children. I don't know again more more psychic more emotional damage where they have them saying to another like i don't think anyone could understand apart from you and i'm like what what is this the subtle knife like in my heart just twisting again and again i'm being hurt and then will as lyra walks away, like, what the fuck? I'm going trees, beating himself up. Love that addition. Poor Will. So good.

So good. It makes sense, though, that she tries to tempt him in that moment, though, but he doesn't. She's the one who ultimately does it right, because that's the whole point. Adam, aka Will. But Adam and Adam and Eve isn't the one who makes the first move. He's not the one who falls. Adam and Eve go up a hill. Wait, that's the wrong one.

Interesting. But they do fall actually jack and jill do fall they're the same thing it's the same the same picture and all the king's horses all the king's men couldn't put will and lyra together again wow that actually that's holy fuck you know no notes that uh you know daddy youth hitler kristen cole dies here this was great i love that they kept that his mission never meant anything right like he never gets the children there's no big antagonistic moment with him because the final act isn't about him right like the final act the final antagonist is fate their fate right the worlds that they cannot keep them open and keep

bleeding out these worlds unless they want to have these adventures every other year until they die in 10 years so oh my god uh it's them growing up right like that that's that's the antagonist them growing up them having to make that grown-up decision. Not some guy with a gun who wants to be important in this story. He's not important in the grand scheme of things. Balthamos is, you know, last breath, last moments to do something for Baruch and to protect Will and Lyra and be their guardian angel. That is important. That is someone who is important in the scheme of things.

But no, he does not get to hold that importance and i love that uh yeah that's a that's exactly it and as you said right it's about balthamos and his moment and balthamos is the one who means something it's kind of like what you said earlier right like how will and i are going into the land of the dead, and no one knows that they're going to do this, right? But yet it's liberating for other people. And that's, that's what Balthamus does. No one knows what Balthamus is going to do here. No one's going to sing songs of it. But it was important nonetheless. Yeah, absolutely. It was important. And they're great actors. Yeah, exactly. I want to say congratulations on your career,

you know, Jamie Ward. I think this is more of a breakthrough role for him than it was because I think like Cobna Holdbrook-Smith already has more or less a career and also apparently sings. Yeah, I heard that. So anyway. Yeah, I hope this opens up some great roles for Jamie Ward. Maybe he can be Kristen Cole's brother.

Oh. That actually could be. I mean, they do. They do have a resemblance. Telling you. Put him on a screen and Eliana won't be able to tell him apart. I'm not wrong. I'm not saying you're wrong.

I'm watching the Tudors right now, Eliana, and I'm telling you that you would not last this show without being able to look up who's who it's it's hard it's very hard for me even they all just blend in a little those boys i bet so while gomez dies above will and lyra awaken below smooching beautifully and mary looks out to watch dust pour back into the world and seraphina and zephania watch as an aurora spreads across the land mary watches the children glowing return from their date yes wonderfully they did it they did it perfect perfect no notes um i know some people are like why didn't you hold the fruit up to his lips and i don't care right that wasn't it probably looked

silly i bet they tried it and it was dumb. Okay, so I'm fine. I want to bring back this observation from our friend Ariana who emailed us when we were doing our book coverage of The Amber Spyglass regarding, you know, Mary's story with the marzipan and what this means for Will and Lyra. And Ariana says, I'd love to discuss marzipan, how it serves as a rebuttal to turkish delight in Narnia. Why it matters that Mary tells them this story. People have been falling in love for ages. Why does it matter that Will and Lyra fall? For me, the moment on the dunes is when they become heroes. They sacrifice their love so that the window out of the world can remain open. They

could have prioritized their love and made themselves a secret window between worlds, but they choose not to. I just think that's such a keen observation from Ariana. Like, I still love this. The moment that it came in our inbox, I was like, dang, that's really great, right? About Marzipan and the rebuttal to the Turkish delight in Narnia because Will and Lyra, not only is it that sacrifice of their love and for the window to remain open, they are choosing to live rather than how Narnia frames the children dying in a random like train station like and spending forever the rest of their lives in another world that is not their own. That heaven is some other

place. That's the happy ending in Narnia, right? And we'll dig into this more later, but that's not, that's why this is in reaction to that, what Will and Laryn choose. They are the only ones that could have made that choice. And when you think back to, there hasn't been anyone else in their position. However, every person that's had that power to possibly do something that's been a knife bearer, as we hear, has been greedy, right? Has been greedy and selfish and would never be able to be selfless and choose that. But Ariana's right. They became heroes on those dunes.

God. Will goes in for the second kiss, right? Because Eve takes the first bite aka that kiss will comes in with the second one that's adam also tasting the fruit of knowledge and i love this reprise of the northern lights representing dust flowing back in and we're gonna get this a little later but again everyone we saved the bears we'll come back and i'm just gonna say we saved the bears that's it i you have like the love of eve shall heal the earth and all the world shall feel it nature will be restored right that's like part of the dialogue also hope will spark in darkness as innocence turns to experience and all

will be in harmony once more and i was like they said the thing they said innocence and experience yeah i love that so much we talked so much about innocence and experience from william blake his songs and poems of innocence and experience back in our his dark materials coverage and this is one of pullman's noted inspirations in writing it's two books song of innocence was released in 1789 and combined four times individually before it became combined with Songs of Experience for 12 editions. They created the joint copy in 1794. And there are two versions of most of the poems, one of course highlighting innocence and then one corresponding with experience, which is kind of an interesting approach, especially throughout these books, especially

once innocence here in this third one turns to experience. And Pullman seems to kind of embrace that concept of existence entirely depending on childhood and existence, depending on innocence, right? That experience will mark that loss of childhood by fear, by inhibitions and political and social corruption, and the oppression through systemic rulers. He's able to write what seems like C.S. Lewis fantasy without being too excessive, but then be able to flip some of that into political intrigue and a touch of, some might call it dystopia, some might call it realism. One of my favorites from the experience section of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience that I want to share is The Garden of Love.

You know, just tangentially related to this. Yeah, this is the section that looks at the way the adult world changes and restricts freedom and joy and love. Blake argues that those are innate in childhood, and this poem is. I went to the Garden of Love and saw what I never had seen. A chapel was built in the midst where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this chapel were shut and thou shall not writ over the door. So I turned to the garden of love that so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves and tombstones where flowers should be. And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds and binding with briars, my joy and desires. And that was the world until this moment for them. Right. In that moment, these briars came down and their kiss melted this, right? Thou shalt not no longer rid over that chapel door. The garden of love was theirs in this moment for Will and Lyra. and especially to pull this one this one because blake shares you know some of those same critiques as pullman right when it comes to systems of religion so yeah and that they made that like kind of little easter egg but also that they are trying to nail that is a theme that you know

they're they're definitely trying to keep and have been explicitly wanting to bring into the series again that shows like what we were talking about there's care there's care and love that's that's put into this adaptation that's a wonderful detail when it comes to the fall and eating of the fruit of knowledge, right? Eden is described, or Paradise is described, Paradise Lost is like full of many trees, and they talk about a bunch of different fruits, but a lot of them are described as having a golden rind on them. So I'm like, oh, I see, I see where that imagery comes from. I get it. And then also Eve in Paradise Lost is described as like, there's debates as to whether or not

she's supposed to be like the far more intelligent one of the pair, of this divine pair, of course, right? And there's different ways to interpret that, but a lot of people agree that like, yeah, so though the text within Paradise Lost might explicitly say that like, So though the text within Paradise Lost might explicitly say that Adam is closer in intellect or something to God, Eve is also portrayed as very smart and very cunning and specifically has a knowledge that grows because of experience that is part of her character. And that's Lyra. I love what you've pulled out here about the Garden of eden and i feel like it stays so relevant uh there's a couple other things coming up that i want to talk about and we'll circle back to eden with because that garden imagery sigh sigh will and lyra plan their return and they plan what you know they want to do together for the rest of their lives she just wants to go on more movie dates she just wants to go watch i don't know more paddington

right and she wants to see barbie when it comes okay yeah which so do i they don't have movies oh my god that's even worse she's not just alone she doesn't have fucking movies all right she will never be able to see the next pta flick or she won't see the next oh my god she'll never see isle of dogs she'll never see she'll never see emily in paris she'll never see riverdale she might be better off innocence experience we get a beautiful seed of seraphina naming kiryava and also telling them to stop being bad go back to your humans get ready to comfort them the worst is yet to come she's prepping them pan returns and he is settled as a pine martin and he forgives lyra kind of and will and kiryava

meet for the very first time ish I'm glad that they call out what Pan is as a Pine Martin, which of course, that was an image that Pullman was always inspired by, and like that they have Pan come up around her neck, right, as part of that moment, because he was inspired by woman with an air mine, or ermine, I've been corrected on this pronunciation, which speaking of, I would have never guessed that's on me for not looking that up more that it was pronounced kuryava i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i will say lo has called us out on it a couple of times our friend lo the links yet but lo also understands that i can never change who i am but lo may pleasantly also have noticed in this episode

i have said kuryava every time So do with that what you will. Yes. I'm so sorry that I forgot that. And I still don't agree with Stell Maria. Fuck Stell Maria. It's Stell Maria. I go between the two. I like to, you know.

Piss me off. Yeah. Bring in a little chaos. But yeah. Da Vinci's woman or girl with an ermine. Anyway. So. Pine Martin. They called that out. Thankfully for the show viewers. show viewers because you know i'm not a fucking zoologist i know it's a pine martin

because it's like i've been in this book series for a while but if i were just a show watcher i'd be like what the fuck is that so glad we did that um also yes they finally touch each other's demons though i'm like pan you little slut i know that this isn't the first time you've touched will all right i've seen it a couple of times throughout the series which again good for you pan and also good follow-up on the last episode with lyra and will you know because they do touch their each other's demons here and like they did remind us a few times especially during this season slash series that you're not supposed to touch each other's demons that that's why they had that moment with father mcphail like kind of trying to touch marisa's demon because they could so they could remind us that this is a taboo i do wish we had a little more emotional impact but again that would have required more minutes

and like you have to fit set times for all of these uh but i it's hard to make that effective too with just all of it like it's hard to i get that it's hard to make that effective too with just all of it like it's hard to i get that it's hard to make effective already with the issues they have with demons yeah i i guess like i imagine and maybe it would have come off too heavy-handed or something right like pan changing a few times changing into a pine martin they touch each other's demons and i don't know a sparkle of dust happens but maybe that would have been fucking cheesy and terrible and yeah and then them being like i don't think i'll be changing much anymore which is a line of dialogue in the books but anyways i i don't know i just kind of wanted that like moment of them choosing to stay in this form because the one that they

loved had touched their soul you know, could you fuck right off? What the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with you? Psychic damage, psychic damage. I'm about to take over Metatron's seat. I can't wait to see you in those fucking contacts. I really cannot. I haven't tried blue contacts.

You should. Don't be messed up. So Mary sees a light arrive and follows it and she ends up meeting zephaniah in the flesh for the first time zephaniah tells her that her journey's almost over and her time in this world is as well and that will and lyra must also go home to their own worlds we transition to the next scene where will is being told by Zephaniah that all of the windows must be closed. I really like the way they linked all of these together. Right. The scenes kind of flowed into one another.

Will's learning just from Zephaniah that each window makes a specter. They cannot stay together. Lyra, of course, refuses this fate and she stomps away with Will in her arm like no we're not listening to you because we don't have to because we're baby saviors and we just made out for the first time i feel that you know that's a that's a very intense teenage emotion to have been there yeah i missed an entire my dad was trying to pick me up from like a first date where i made out for the first time with some guy i liked and i did not answer my phone i had to walk home yeah i fucked up i had to walk home because he got pissed but man i'm sorry but you know making out when you're 13 to

16 years old rocks it's like yeah worth it still kind of rocks i'm happy for 16 year old you yeah that was like 14 year old me that was 13 14 i was lyra age getting smooched man i was like wow my first kiss love is real i was a big loser who didn't get kissed later i honestly wish i hadn't you know i mean guys sucked they all suck i'm just kidding not all of them i look like one they try to ask the alethiometer for an answer on what to do to fix this. But the alethiometer says, Outlook, unclear, hazy. Try again later. And Serafina says, Lyra, it's not broken. You just have to learn it again instead of reading it by grace.

And we talked a little bit with Haley Bowery from the Manimals on our last episode for the Amber Spyglass about this, but I love that they brought this in and they explained it in the show that she was reading it by Grace and now she has to put in that hard work. It reminds me of me as a kid. I could pick up anything. I could learn guitar. I could learn piano. I could do music. I could do computer things. I loved learning things. And as an adult, it's like a struggle it is a struggle to retain things i'm trying to learn a language right now and it's so fucking hard oh my god why am i not 14 13 again just picking things up and they're easy yeah it's hard it's hard work it is it is like you said you take that for granted that grace but seraphina says that it'll be

better right when lyra learns it through experience which again eve knowledge through experience meanwhile mary comforts will and then we have this i i'm gonna argue like it's a it's a great line it's a great line but i'm gonna pick at it. Mary tells him, you know all those stories that say the greatest love is the one you can't live without, the one that you're prepared to die for? That's not right. That's not what love is. I know it seems romantic to die for love, but it's much more romantic to live for it. Which, there's an aspect in which this is true, but in my opinion, it feels a little counter to some of the themes, just especially the first part of this, of the books, because the books

assert that there is a greatest love that you cannot live without. That's, in fact, a very big part of the first book when, you know, people keep getting severed and shit. And also with Macphail, right, being severed, there is a love you cannot live without, and that is the love of self, right? Lyra almost died without it. One cannot live without their soul. And I guess you could see that as fitting that concept of the idea of romance being living, you know, it is a love living for life, right? Living for love. It's also that the children, especially in the books, choose then, I think, the love of their own demons, their own life, their own soul. And I think that's a big part of the themes of the book. And it's bolstered by the fact that Lyra betraying Roger is not a fulfillment of the prophecy,

but rather that it was her betrayal of Pan, her own self, that fulfills the prophecy. Yeah, and I don't want to go too much into what comes next for this story, right? But I think that's a huge theme that is getting explored in the Books of Dust. Totally a huge theme that, because I think that not just in what the show was able to adapt, but Pullman too, right? He wasn't able to delve into everything as deeply as he wanted to, quite obviously, because he has more to say and more to tell

of Lyra Balakwa, her story's not done. But I think that it's limiting for him of what he was able to do with these characters at the time. And there's more that he can expand on them. But I actually, I don't necessarily think this was counter. I just think maybe it came at the wrong time from the wrong person. Because I think it's true. And I think it is a theme that they kind of have to learn.

But I think it might have just been the easiest way to supplant it with her in this time because i feel this is what his dad was trying to imply to him in the land of the dead but he didn't really get a chance to i wonder if maybe more of this could have come before this episode to them that's interesting for it to come from his dad to someone who yeah who died without like that love of self in a way. They are resigned to their fates, though, eventually, and Will is told he must break the knife for the angels to close the remaining windows. We'll talk more about this later,

but it does feel like a resignation here, as you have it. And I think that, in my my opinion that does strike a different tone to the active and informed choice that Will and Lyra make in the books about their fate and the fates of all the worlds which is again an important part of maturation slash adulthood making choices both for yourself and for other people and I will say this was an interesting part of worldbuilding where they said that Will has to break the knife for them to be able to close all the windows. That's not the case in the books. And it

does address some of the complaints I had of like, the angels are not fucking trying hard enough, all right, to let Will and Lyra be together, right? After they saved everyone's life, they saved your fucking lives and and for what for no one to help them my god hey that's the point eliana no i agree there's no one to reward you i agree no one's gonna reward you for being a good human and saving humanity unfortunately it's sad but it's just life you better get used to it now because if you're not used to it i don't know what to do i don't know how i got here that's why i have therapy to be fair though i will say yes they're resigned but also i don't know i think it was still an active choice that they finally came back i mean they don't really have a choice either way even in the books but they still

choose right like they still realize they're like we can't do that and in the books i do like the back and forth that they go through of like you know going through every option we can't we can't do it i think they want a little more show not tell and at least we get in the very next oh god i'm gonna puke we get in the next scene a longer version that is straight from the book yes of a very important passage i'm just gonna throw myself into the abyss it's so sad it's i was shaking sobbing screaming throwing i was i was not well during this part of the episode i don't know about you but i was unwell i was a puddle i was a puddle yeah yeah it's will and lara spending their final moments

in this world together and they give each other you know the sad speech about their Adams always finding each other and them being in this in the flowers and the sunbeams and fuck my life but you know them being joined together so tightly that people have to take if they take one Adam they'll have to take both of them together. Again, comes back to those ideas of Adam and Eve as the divine pair of, uh, they are one, right? They are one, like the Adams. The Atom and Eve? Yep. No, I actually do feel that way. No, I do. I, like, legitimately am like, oh, that was something that they were playing off of, maybe.

Or Pullman was. Adam-Adam. Oh, that was something that they were playing off of, maybe. Or Pullman was. Adam-Adam. There are a couple of myths in Judaism that, I don't know, really, they just, like, illustrate this divine moment in choice and this hard choosing and this hard fracture. They have to make this new sever, right? They have to go through a new severing of types.

There are a couple of different myths in Judaism that I really love to kind of give that color. And so rabbinic and Kabbalistic texts speculate souls originate in heaven, usually. And there are two specific myths that kind of correspond, which is first the tree of souls itself. This takes some of the different traditions about souls and their creation, as well as some of the themes that develop based on the Garden of Eden and combine them. And I really love it. If you're interested in more of these myths, I would check out The Mythology of Judaism, Tree of Souls by Howard Schwartz. It's an amazing book. And it's good to just like, even if you're not an avid, avid reader, I love reading a few stories before bed.

Right? Sometimes I'm like, these are my bed-by stories. I'm going to read about this thing today. The Garden of Eden has a tree of souls that blossoms and produces new souls that fall into the treasury of souls. Gabriel then reaches and takes the first soul that comes into his hand when he pulls souls out to put into flesh, into the meat bags that you and I walk around in today. souls out to put into flesh, into the meat bags that you and I walk around in today. There is an earthly Eden. So in theory, if there's an earthly Eden, there should also be a heavenly one as above. So below, Oh, Oh, there is a tree of life in both of the gardens as well. If Adam and Eve had tasted the tree, the earthly tree of life's fruit, they

would have gained immortality, per this myth. But because they tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, immortality gets closed off to them and they are unable to take it. In Genesis 3.24, therefore he drove the man out and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword to guard the way to the tree of life. What they did, I mean, they rose up against that, right? They guarded these trees even more to make sure no one could get to them. I feel like the continuation of this mythology of Eden really gives that further context to what Lyra and Will have done, right? Had they only been so lucky to hit that tree with immortality the windows wouldn't have mattered but they were given knowledge instead and while knowledge is powerful and immense

it's painful right and it comes at a huge price and we talked a lot in our hdm coverage of the books of another concept in judaism that i really likekun Olam and Lurianic Kabbalah, or the repair of the world and basically belief that the vessels of the last world shattered. And it is our duty to repair them and get them back together and bring the sparks of life back together. You reunite all these shattered sparks of the world as one and improve the place that we are in for not just ourselves, but others and those that come after us. And that that's our great purpose in the world, right? And this comes in like different, I mean, this comes in many different ways, not just in this mythological

sense, though I think in a mythological sense and in a meta sense, it's very beautiful, especially combined with the tree of souls. Also comes on like a sense of a legal sense, for example, in ways you should hold yourself in if you're a lawyer or if you have power in this world and if you are able to help people and what you should do with that power. And I just think it's a really beautiful concept. It makes me think of Will and Lyra, right?

Split into these atoms separated by worlds, but those atoms are desperately trying to be together and trying to be, like we said earlier more powerful together right because we're more powerful together instead of isolated and alone which i feel like lyra maybe has an opportunity to become all alone in her world the last thing i want to add to this is our friend cassidy who's been on our cast before in the past, has mentioned, actually I put this quote in the Discord a while back, and this is more of a scientific level, from Jamie Trosper's book The Physics of Death.

Jamie says, In death, the collection of atoms which you are composed, a universe within the universe, are repurposed. Those atoms and that energy which originated during the big bang will always be around. Therefore, your light, that is, the essence of your energy, not to be confused with your actual consciousness, will continue to echo throughout space until the end of time. Wow. That's what Will and Lyra want. That's beautiful. Yeah. Why does that make me even more sad?

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I said these things. I'll never leave you, Eliana. I'll never make you go through a window. Never to return to me. This is messed up. I know.

This is so fucked up what we're doing. This is so fucked up. I can't believe it. We're almost done. We're almost done. Our pain is almost over. But yeah, thank you for bringing up again you know that this tikkun olam and then you know you're talking about trees of knowledge and like too bad they didn't get the tree of immortality right like it exists that would be being an angel that's uh not to like i'm not taking the piss but like you know evangelion right takes that into a different

sort of mythology and and fantasy world right there's the tree of life tree of knowledge and humans they create the dust that creates that immortality that creates the angels and but they will you know they'll have that dust one day continue forever that in and of itself is immortal as well when they find each other again as atoms it's fucked up okay yep yep yep real fucked up oh my god everything's getting really sad at all says goodbye to mary and gives her a seed pod what could it be for what could it be for stick around to the discussion it was exciting to see like a seed pod prop though the little seeds you know they look like chestnuts yeah they're kind of cute i like the bigger like the full i think the full is really cool yeah they those ones look like coconuts though and i i know i

probably they don't eat the seed pods and you probably shouldn't eat the little ones either, but both versions look delicious. We return to Oxford, to Jordan, where Lyra and Will make a final promise to one another that every day on Midsummer, they will return just for a little while to the Botanic Garden, the same bench, and they will be with each other, right? Tell each other everything of their journeys and what they've been doing and that. God.

No matter what, they will be good to anyone they meet and love in their lives. But this is just for them. Just this one little moment. I'm sorry. It's so hard. They give Serafina all the Easter eggs. Like, for example, they have her say that this is Lyra's Oxford. And I was like, pew, pew, pew.

They said the thing. This is the thing yeah and then seraphina i was so glad there was so much that like is just classic about this ending that you couldn't keep out as far as like beats i know that you can't keep certain things out right there's stuff that like we're all waiting for we want to be sad we wanted this we all asked for this and yet here it is and we're crying. Why would you watch a film that makes you feel horrible? Lyra asked. But Serafina shows Mary her demon. It was beautiful. It was a great moment and a bit of pure happiness for Mary that she deserves. Yeah. I saw some critiques that this wasn't an

arctic chuff or whatever because of the size. I'm like, I'm not a fucking ornithologist. That looks enough like one to me. I looked it up. That is, that's fine. I don whatever because of the size i'm like i'm not a fucking ornithologist that looks enough like one to me i looked it up that is that's fine i don't care about the size that's it they did it they're all not orny enough oh got them that is kind of what the story's about isn't it orniness will breaks the knife next and the angels begin to close the windows in all of the places that we have visited before. Lyra and Will's last kiss spanning the two worlds. And I'm sorry, I'm just in pain and shock. So I had to stop.

My brain emptied with emotion. Just like Daphne Keene's acting, which was so good. When she rushes the window, when the window's closed and she like runs at it. And she's like, no, no, it's real. It's closed. Oh God, I want to die. And then she's like tearing up and she's like, I god no it's real it's closed oh god i want to die and then she's like tearing up and she's usually i'm sorry i'm tearing up why did it make us do this oh my god uh we are grown ass bitches eliana i'm wiping tears we're good grown-ass bitches uh and then they have like when pan whimpering she turns around and you see like her hairstyle this whole time they've shown it a couple times

it's the little knot right symbolizing how the atoms would be tied together and the connections the bonds for forever that can't be broken and then as you said they have the montage like first the window's closing but then when will's breaking the knife the montage of their entire time together and it's so painful and it's the worst thing ever and then we saved the bears and they close the windows then they return home and there's another montage i just need you to know that there is another montage we were really into montages at the end of this episode because we knew they could ruin our lives you see you see

so this montage is too much and this is where everyone's sobbing you're probably sobbing at home and it's of the midsummer days of them visiting one another and getting physically closer to one another as the years go on and holding hands through space time dust worlds wherever the fuck they are whatever the fuck they are from each of their botanic gardens i don't know i'm sorry that's it it's yeah i got through that line without crying so i know i know but um i didn't cry the second time i watched it because i was holding my shit together but now i can't uh uh and it's his hand right it's the hand that's missing the fingers that's holding hands with lyra she's probably the one that would understand it the most you know it's the worst the worst yeah uh and then they give us an epilogue right they give us their own little lantern slides at

the end about how lyra goes on to school even though you know she's very alone apparently um will becomes a doctor they say that he's a I guess. We'll talk more in the dust discussion about some of where the story goes in the Books of Dust, with spoilers as well of what we think the end game will be for Will and Lyra, or if there even is one. But before we do that, let's talk a little bit about this ending. Some people were bothered, I don't care, that they made Will a surgeon versus a doctor who diagnoses. These are the same thing to me. I'm an idiot. I think it's fine.

And I think a surgeon's good because of the precision. I mean, he has to be good with knives. And there's still like an aspect of it that's like the problem solving that comes with diagnosing, right? Because, you know, you have that subtlety of like figuring out like where is the actual problem and being good at fixing it and identifying that yeah i can't believe these people that you speak of these random people that don't exist in my opinion uh i can't believe the people that had issues with that had time to have issues with that because personally i couldn't read the fucking slides through my teary eyes so but that's sad yeah it was pretty fucked up it was sad and i'm happy for him or whatever or

sad for him or whatever but i'm not reading all that happy for you or sad for you i'm glad we get a little hint at lyra's future as well and this of course does give us some possible place for adaptation as we'll talk about i was wondering where the fuck farter quorum was where's yeah that's right where the egyptians they help they they help shepherd her back where is fucking everyone and i guess they wanted to stress that lyra's alone in that sadness because they went for they went for maximum emotional damage all right they went for maximum hurt but you know what else is alone their bank account oh i just don't think they could bring all those people back for those final moments i think you're right farter corm's an expensive actor but like literally yeah james cosmo expensive i mean that whole cast just just for one episode that's a lot to

negotiate to bring back like four people five people i know james mcavoy is expensive i know that ruth wilson and and uh lynn manuel like miranda i know he's expensive and so is um so is a fleabag so is the the hot priest so his hot priest i know that man's he's been a lot of things all right So I understand if they didn't have the budget. They did spend their buck. They spent their buck already. Yeah. But where's the master?

And it wouldn't be very organic, I guess. Yeah. I wanted to see a little welcome back because it was very sobering in the book, right? When she gets back and it's like, it's here and they're here and i'm here and i think they do a good job of showing this with the way that they filmed that ending even the master's not there but i would have liked for him to be there because please give our girl like one one yeah small kernel of joy my god but they do a good job of showing that same sentiment in the books of lyra has returned the place hasn't changed but she has and therefore the place feels different and maybe it's like the way that they filmed it they did a good job of filming it in a way that it feels like a different

place even though but familiar yeah we also don't get hannah ralph um they would have had to have casted her at the beginning though and maybe they were like we can't plan ahead that far like what if we get canceled and shit you know well that's the other thing if they are going to be exploring books of dust hannah ralph does have a role in them and casting now when you don't have the go-ahead will cause complications if you do get a go-ahead and need to guess for her obviously there's some age differences and what they'd be casting for, but that said, that makes it a whole other complicated thing that you have to cast for that age and then cast again.

Yeah, I get it. I get it. That's a good point. That I get. You're not going to introduce a brand new character just for the lulz there. I'm happy we did not get some of those characters. We could talk about that. Oh, you're happy they didn't do Alice Lonsdale?

Interesting. That's different. And I didn't say that. She should have been there from the get-go. So first of all, don't misquote me and I'm really sick of your shit. I just pancake waffled you, you know? Oh, you hate waffles? Oh my god.

I love them both, bitch. So in Paradise Lost, once more, I will say that there is a point in time during Paradise Lost when Adam and Eve actually do separate for a while and work in different parts of the garden. And it's during that time of separation where Eve is actually tempted to bite of the fruit of knowledge. The Bible kind of has like Eve, they kind of don't dig that deep into it, right? Because there's a lot of other stuff in the Bible. They show Eve tempted by like, how tasty, how good the fruit looks. Wouldn't it be good to taste the fruit of knowledge and be like God, right? You will become like gods upon

and knowing good and evil. But in Paradise Lost, Satan actually tries a couple of different strategies to get Eve to bite. and one of them like includes vanity right appealing to like flattering vanity and then the one that ultimately does work though is the temptation of individuality the temptation of you bite into this you'll have agency you will have self-knowledge there's like a quote from eve saying our reason is our law. And that's what ultimately convinces her and to taste the fruit of knowledge. And again, that plays back into those arguments of Milton's Eve is the intellectual of the pair. But I thought it was interesting that Adam and Eve do separate in the garden for time. And that's when knowledge happens.

Oh, are you implying that adam and eve then come back together yeah uh apparently you know they it happens much sooner in in the bible and in paradise lost and you know their whole lives in this fucking series hey hey like i said 2024 2023 not that far off eliana it. It could happen for us. It could. It really actually could. Like, legitimately. We could get Will Perry in our year of the Lord, 2023.

Our year of Metatron. Oh my god, not anymore. Not anymore. Something I would have liked to see brought up as a theme in totality, as we've kind of talked about is that republic of heaven from the story yes and building that and that asriel was thinking and building his own but it didn't actually mean anything as much as theirs would be right like that his republic of heaven was a republic of war and all the wrong reasons at first until the reasons showed themselves to be a little more, you know, a little more full. I mean, yes, killing the authority because they're hurting everybody does something that is something that that works, but it didn't have the fullness, right? You didn't

have the proof. He didn't have the proof of the free will problem besides like a handful of yes things where they're torturing people that he's also done it was a little hypocritical anyways sideways anyways we have that great end of the story with pan and lyra where he snuggled up with her and she thinks in that other oxford where she and will had kissed goodbye the bells would be chiming too and a nightingale would be singing and a little breeze would be stirring the leaves in the botanic garden. And then what? said her demon sleepily. Build what? The Republic of Heaven, said Lyra. By removing the Republic of Heaven, it kind of gives not a lot of long-lasting payoff to the land of the dead, in my opinion, and it kind of makes it less weighted than it should be. Because who gets into heaven for being good and doesn't for being bad was a lie.

That's what we've discovered. That's what we've unearthed. That was the biggest lie of them all. And now Will and Lyra know there is none of that. There is no magical place everyone gets to just be together and happy in the afterlife. They're atoms, maybe, yes. But no heaven, no hell.

None of that's real. You have to build those moments, right? Like we have to build those moments, those perfect places with the people you love. We have to build those moments right like we have to build those moments those perfect places with the people you love we have to build them now because later you can't do that right you have to find a way to spiritually do that with one another because they can't be together physically that much they've learned is the controlled variable and much like the alethiometer lyra and will have to put in the hard work for their next steps of life for happiness, right? To carve out that chunk of heaven.

As Will says, being happy starts now, right? When he leaves Lyra. And sorry, that hurt me too to say, why did I do that? Why did I just do that? They need to carve out that chunk of heaven with what they've learned and what we learned from the epilogue, right? Lyra probably needs to walk a path not quite dissimilar to her mother, make some great discoveries and work very hard and even overcome that element of darkness that probably will lie in her like it did in her mom. Will, isolated from him, and not to mention any of the trauma and pain that she might have to work through with Pan. I mean, it doesn't just get better overnight when you're hurt by someone you love like that. Someone, like you said, that self-love.

When you've broken that, that wound doesn't just heal. Especially when you're alone. Especially when you're lashing out. So I think they both have a very long path to walk through. Will, as well, with his mom. I was so happy to see that in the very end there. That was special to see her come back. There's a lot they both have to accomplish to get their life stable. Yeah, there is. I absolutely agree. Like, I wish we had that ending about the Republic of Heaven and some of the other things that the books touch on of why the children had

to come to this conclusion, right? And it's something that they do themselves because I think that this was a fantastic ending that they did in the show because, again, I think that they absolutely nailed the emotional beats. But I understand, I've seen some people confused of it feels like pain for pain's sake. As you said, they're missing, like, that hopeful aspect of why this was a choice that Will and Lyra had to make, that I think that the books do a better job of showing that they come to this conclusion themselves. Like, the adults provide the pieces, but ultimately the children really did have a choice. They could have chosen to keep one window open. they could have chosen to keep one one window open they could

have chosen to keep all the windows open open right and been like fuck everyone else we want our happiness we want our slice of joy and again that as you said like that individualistic versus the the collective um liberation and there are three things that i think record the ending right uh that aren't as like driven home in this and that has to do with like the republic of heaven as you said love of humanity including the love of self and self-edification which speaks to a lot of like these, these ideas of humanism that Philip Pullman really weaves through this series, and also he himself is an active member in some humanist societies in the UK. And also, again, this collective need for everyone to do their part towards their own, like,

good, and also the societal good. You know, as you were saying, like, when it comes to power, like, and being able to make change happen, that's something that happens when people come together. There's a reason why when it comes to organizing, like, political organizing, collectible organizing, whatever, people say you got to work locally, you got to start local, you got to start where you are. And I think that's something that's really central to Will and Lyra's story. You can't keep living for some other role that's there on the other side. That's what Mary's saying, right? Like, there's no reward on the other end in a different world. You have to make, as you said, also, the world where you are, where you're present. And I think that that, like, there's a point where Lyra and Will say to each other, and they're the ones who convince each other,

we can't just live in one another's worlds, right? Like, the other people tell them that, but they're the ones who make that argument. Will can't just live in one another's worlds right like the the other people tell them that but they're the ones who make that argument we'll sing like uh do you think i could bear that lyra do you think i could live happily watching you get sick and ill and fade away and then die while i was getting stronger and more grown up day by day 10 years that's nothing it'd pass in a flash we'd be in our 20s it's not that far ahead really isn't kids it's not uh think of that lyra you and me grown up just preparing to do all the things we want to do and then it all comes to an end do you think i could bear to live on after you died oh lyra i'd follow you down to the world of the dead without thinking twice about it just like you followed roger and that would be two lives gone for nothing

my life wasted like yours no we should spend our whole lifetimes together good long busy lives and if we can't spend them together we will have to spend them apart and then he's the one who points out he's the one who comes up with the realization of oh yeah we're gonna die if we like live in each other's worlds right like which they do show in the show and then you have like that love of humanity um including like the self which we already discussed earlier in regards to i there is a love you cannot live without it's your love of self then you have the collective good and i think that that's kind of important because you know you have people being like why didn't they

just fucking close the abyss then checkmate athe, atheists, which is a good point. It is a good point. Why didn't they just close the abyss? Or why didn't they just, as I had asserted before, they make one window every now and then and the angels will just stay there. It would be a wonderful sacrifice and they owe it to Will and Lyra to help them. I think that's the point, right? There's such a delicate balance of like,

why they can't just keep creating a window, because it would be selfish, it would ruin everything for everyone, right? They have to do their part as well, just like all of us do. And that's why the abyss can't be closed. It represents something in our world, right? That there will always be darkness in the world and how innocence easily devolves into willful ignorance and people have to be vigilant against it. There has to be a reason for people to create acts of consciousness and thought and there has to be one that inspires people to encourage each other to do those acts. And like the abyss might not truly exist in a literal sense but it does figuratively we see it in marisa and we see it every day in each other right no one person can solve and surmount it

and that's why there's no in-universe fix for the abyss that would allow lyra and will to live together because the battle against ignorance is a collective one. You know, I think the books explain it better, right? Like in terms of dust is not a constant and like how when Zephaniah is explaining, like there's only really enough for one window to remain open. Again, when it comes to that choice, Will is like, oh, perfect. We'll have that one window. And Lyra is the one who remembers, no, no, there's still one other window. It's not Zephaniah supplying it for them. She realizes, well, what we did, like, that's the thing is undoing that means that somebody else, that means all the souls get trapped in that in 10 to 20 years, someone else has

to go suffer and figure it out or the world will devolve exactly in the way it was. Yes. I mean, how could you have that many souls, that blood on your hands? I'm not going to say blood, but how could you have all that dust on your hands, right? How could you do that to others when you hope that someday you too will be able to float out like atoms? And that's why that passage is so important, right? Because they choose to become those atoms. They choose.

And it's blind faith, like you've been saying, right? Faith versus science. This one is having faith that what you have done will be there. What you have made, what you've accomplished, what you've been able to create already will be there for you to then attend someday and you to celebrate in it together and to bathe through that door and out into everything together. Exactly. It's not just that ghosts need it. We need it to reunite one day in that, through that window. Cause otherwise, I mean, yeah, as you said, you'll be trapped there too. And they need it to live because otherwise who else is going to preach the gospel, to use biblical terms, of you have to tell them stories.

People have to live their lives so that they'll have stories so that they can eventually buy passage out of the fucking window. Gracious Wings isn't just going to let you go for free. No, she's not. You already got for free no she's not you already got your freebie girlfriend no you already got your freebie it's transactional gracious wings is like i got a paid i she's like i got a family all right we got to eat what are we gonna eat story we have a nest up the road okay god damn it cliff gas need them too they have to spread rumors and lies that's true cliff gas would not be allowed out oh my god oh they might listen that's pandora's fucking cave now yeah you you quoted the ending and i think that there's two other lines from it that you know

i that i love that we were left with of we shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world because where we are is always the most important place and regarding what they needed to build of like but then we wouldn't have been able to build it no one could if they put themselves first we have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds. And then we'll build the Republic of Heaven. And it comes from that same, you know, that working hard, relearning things, relearning how to read the alethiometer through hard work and piles of books, even though it's going to suck. It's going to feel good when you do it.

It's going to feel so good when you get it back and will. it. It's going to feel so good when you get it back and will, you know, becoming a surgeon, becoming a doctor, going through that rigorous training, going through long nights on wards, volunteering your time so that you can learn and working on the floor and taking care of people, just like he's always had to take care of people around him. Learning that and learning it the hard way, it's going to feel so good when your atoms get back together. And they couldn't have done that if they only lived, you know, a half-life in each, right? They couldn't have devoted their full attention to changing things. And so they're cast out of the Garden of Eden of Innocence. And that's what happens when actually, you know, Adam and Eve are cast out of the Paradise in Milton's Paradise Lost, right?

It's a similar idea of so it ends with this having learned thou hast attained the sum of wisdom hope no higher though all the stars thou used by name and all the ethereal powers all secrets of the deep all nature's work of works of god in heaven air earth or sea and all riches of this world and joists and all the rule one empire only add deeds to thy knowledge answerable add faith add virtue patience temperance and love or temperance add love by name to come called charity the soul of all the rest then will though not be lost to leave this paradise but shall possess a a paradise within the happier far making a paradise inside yourself that it could be just as just as wonderful as like

it'd be like they never left paradise if they lived their lives accordingly beautiful great job milton that's why we're still talking about your stuff and not just you milton but great job to the entire team for his dark materials for nailing that i mean the themes were there still right like yeah there's stuff we wanted there's stuff we wish they could expand on but there's so much of these novels that are hard to translate and they work better in novels but there's so much of these novels that are hard to translate. And they work better in novels because it's, you know, the original way they were pictured. But they did a great amount of showing instead of telling, which I still appreciated because it did evoke some of these themes and it did evoke some of these motions. And I don't know, I still felt as they sat on that bench, right, in different worlds that they were doing something and they were going to change the world.

Together and apart. Yeah, they did. They did. Well, now for the next great journey, right? You followed us here through many worlds to finish series three. Thank you for listening. here through many worlds to finish series three thank you for listening uh for those of you that have not checked out the books of dust we are going to close out our series three just discussion with a dust discussion oh being cheerful starts now being cheerful starts now uh yeah we're gonna

talk about them books of dust so if you haven't heard of them, haven't read them, not into them yet, log out, log out, soldier. If you have, stick around for a minute. And thank you again. Like we said at the top of the episode, we look forward to you checking us out at our other platforms and other episodes and everything else that's going on for us. And keep your eyes and ears peeled for more books of dust coverage from us all right let's get fucking dusty let's just do it let's get dusty let's roll around in it eliana what do you got okay first you have lyra being like i wonder why my mom wanted nothing to do with me for 13 years and she suddenly did and i thought that was interesting

because we see in the book of dust right marisa like makes a whole entire like secret you know what is it secret police or whatever you know ss right just to find lyra and yes with like the league of saint alexander so i still like haven't really completely understood that you know like after reading the book of dust i still don't fully understand everything there i feel like there's gonna be a couple more reveals to come too but the gist of it is really i mean that she did always want her but that part of her was that horrible dark terrible side that couldn't take full accountability and responsibility for Lyra or for her want of her. And I think she was just very torn apart. Ha ha ha.

Torn apart about it because, yeah. Well, and also, I don't know if you got to see this, but that freeze in the magisterium that is behind Father Gomez and Macphail constantly is actually telling the story of the League of St. Alexander. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, Robin Paiba, the supervising art director, and Joel Collins, the EP and production designer, basically specially designed Freeze in the new set in Geneva to just have it kind of, it's a little fun.

There's Easter eggs, right? They carve in people's faces in it as well. Yeah, the cast, the crew. Yeah. Yeah, Jane's in it. Dan's in it. Jack. Kind of fun. Jack's in it.

Yeah. And it's obvious, they think, when you look at it, that you could see their faces. But it's really beautiful. I'll see if I can link it below. Because it's kind of just an incredible little carving. The whole entire set is really beautiful on top of the paintings of Adam and Eve, those fresco paintings as well in that chapel

in the heart of the Magisterium. But to me, that's a great Easter egg, especially if they want to launch into Books of Dust, Secret Commonwealth, especially to explore. I'm telling you, I want a Marisa prequel now i i can't

help it i really want from pullman a marisa prequel and then a marisa prequel show i mean just have daphne keen play it right we'll just dress her up a little more like coulter but i mean she wants that literally daphne keen wants her prize the role so no i mean her as coulter oh oh yeah just like in riverdale when they had all the current actors yes yes i love that stupid cordy shit i did i did see that episode yeah did you watch that episode i wasn't yes absolutely i forgot how far you got i haven't finished because yeah i haven't had a need to yeah shit's real weird now i haven't gotten caught up besides that i'm like i'll wait yeah i will eventually because i'm like it it's absolutely the most bad shit show but this is this show his dark materials wonderful show visually that shit in a different way yeah

hurt yeah it gets very crazy yeah um but in a good way and i have a couple of things to dive into in the books of dust just a couple more that I want to talk about. Yeah, I'm going to just get mine out of the way so that you can focus on that, because I just have to get off my chest. Mary telling Serafina, you'll look after her, won't you? And I've asked the same question of Serafina, and I'm like, bitch, where are you? Where are you? Where in the world is Serafina diego on our bullshit right now this is ridiculous

where's anyone no one cares right like i mean farter quorum i guess kind of i get it he was old it's harder for him to travel seraphina much older but can also fly yeah it just goes to show that stony age right that she's lived for so long that it's just a speck of paint. I'm like, yeah, you're her second mom. So I can't believe you neglected her all over again and recreated that trauma. Maybe it's hard for her too. I'm glad they kept it wholesome and pure of them on the benches being happy and like thriving. But at that same token, I was waiting to see if one of the shots of the montage on the bench was her like looking

downtrodden instead of hopeful. And I'm glad they ended on the whole like I really didn't want them to but I was curious to see not even downtrodden but just like, you know, neutral. Yeah, wistful. It was kind of a wistful scene. It was a sweet, earnest, wistful scene. It was nice. I mean, I wouldn't want them to end it that way, but I was curious if there was going to be any small Easter egg of that, of unhappiness. I was like, what? They looked pretty unhappy, but I don't know.

There was longing. There was longing. There was longing. Yeah, I meant more of, you know, just Lyra's general state of just like her being slightly discombobulated or sad. And I will say they did a wonderful job this season with all of the Pan and Lyra interactions at the end of Pan's betrayal. You can see exactly how this goes and could roll right into the secret commonwealth. Could roll right into that first chapter of Pan sneaking out. I was waiting for it. I'm like, okay, so season four, episode one, the secret commonwealth could roll right into that first chapter of pan sneaking out i was waiting for it i'm like okay so season four episode one the secret commonwealth it does feel like they are setting that up right or they're hoping for it i know that like i've heard rumors that it might not be promising but i know i've also heard that they want to do

it so you can see how this ending sets up for the secret commonwealths especially with like those those lantern slides at the end yeah that i was wondering what else they would give us toward that and to be fair they adapted the lodestone resonator to show it one and a half two times right but you know why they did that worth it worth it they're world building for the third book of dust i'm telling you they're gonna come back they're gonna come back. They're gonna come back. I'm just kidding. Probably not.

But maybe they will get a chance to use it again. They might. They also had the seed pod, as you mentioned, given to Mary. The little chestnut. Yeah, that's kind of like a Chekhov seed pod in the story itself. I definitely believe that those seed pods are akin to rose oil in the secret commonwealth, right, that is being used as kind of somewhat a psychic spiritual oil. Enhancer?

Right, it's being used for enhancing, yes, enhancing visions and etc, etc, you know, the vapors to speak to God with. I feel like the seed pods are very akin to those. We didn't get a ton of rose oil necessarily in the main series. In the books, Lyra gets rose oil in Oxford, right back at home in Jordan, she is given like the last bottle of it. the trade that's going on in the secret commonwealth, and some of the people from Oakley Street that are involved with all of this, and some of the effects of rose oil where they polarize light. So for Malcolm Polstad, for example, who also kind of polarizes light with his weird migraine headache auras. He's a polarizing character, that Malcolm Polstad. Fucking Christ.

So there's something going on with his little aura visions his aurora visions that i think will come to the fold in the final book there's also that new way to read the alethiometer that is an easy and what seems like a cheap way you know like a cheap drug is how it's described and that you feel sick after you do it but there's that crazy kylo Ren and Rey Skywalker or whatever her name is moment where she touches Olivier Bonneville, Palpatine's daughter. I'm just kidding. Where she touches Bonneville's hand, Olivier Bonneville's hand, like in her vision, she reaches out and she could touch him, right? Like she's there as she is reading the alethiometer. So it's kind of freaky and it is reminiscent of the lodestone resonators in a way.

And it makes me wonder what happens when you add seed pod oil or rose oil to this, right? Like if that gets added to the equation, what's going to happen? Especially if this causes prophetic visions. So if you're doing that through the alethiometer, which is the new way, and you can already use the alethiometer which is the new way and you can already use the alethiometer without any oils with the new way to see people in their current state or where they are add some rose oil is lyra going to be able to trip balls and see will touch him talk to him i think so it sounds like it makes sense right and we've we've likened this before to final fantasy x2's ending yes in the

video spheres but like it might not be like a lot right but it could be a little you know and and because of the having to live in that world but in the books and i i this is a cut that i think makes sense they didn't talk about like you might be able to see each other one day using your imagination uh spongebob voice imagination but that's that's kind of like what's going on between lyra and olivier right like it feels like using your imagination to see the other thing right and i think what you're saying makes a lot of sense and i mean shamans sham Yeah. Think about Will's dad exactly and how he was able to kind of contact through the worlds with Lee. Yeah.

And he guided the demons from the land of the dead. Yeah. It's very impressive. Overall, I think that Lyra and Will aren't going to be together for their human lives. I'm sorry that I have to say this out loud. I know this is a horrible mean thing to say, but I want to put it out there

that I don't think they'll be together in the last Books of Dust physically, like for more than closure. Yeah, I think that they will get closure in the Books of Dust. I think that is what will happen. I think it will be enough time for Lyra to be able to check in with him and maybe have some sort of communication. And maybe it's left open and hopeful that maybe they could be together, but we just don't know. But I don't think that we're going to see Lyra and Will get together. I think closure is much more apt. And I think that because of what Mary said in this this episode this last episode right where she's telling them you know that's not true love but not just because of that but even in the books how that is framed in the background that you may love each other and it may be true love

but you know there's no physical way out of this right there's a spiritual a spiritual way out of this in the end but i don't think there's a physical way for them to be together without it unfairly disrupting everything around them i agree and it it would kind of undo everything that happened and i think his dark materials and that ending for me if if that was how it ended up and i i think that there could be as you said closure and there's an aspect of like I think as the show tells us right every single year they come back to that bench and that shows that there is still that eternal love between them you can have more than one love right like life sometimes things evolve and also there's an aspect of Will and Lyra that is, if you love them, let them go. And you kind of have to, or else someone's going to die, literally.

Yeah, which is, I guess that's a huge theme, right? In these last two episodes, the end of Coulter. Yes, exactly. Coulter spent her whole life chasing Lyra, loving her, wanting to have her, but thinking she couldn't, wanting to have her, but thinking she couldn't. And then she realizes, in all of her toxic love for Lyra, the best thing she could have done was let her go. Not even just the last few episodes.

That was her entire journey. She had to learn that. She took the long way around. She took something around, girlfriend did. I mean, I don't know if she took that long of a way around. I mean, she learned it around when Lyra was like, what, a teenager, which is when a lot of other parents learned that lesson. That's true, too. That is true.

She's right on time. Well, to sum it up, I think that Malcolm Polstad will shoot lasers from his eyes in the final book of dust. How did we get there? I just thought it would make you laugh. I like when you laugh. Thank you, I need it. You needed it. You know half the shit I do.

My shenanigans are just to get a reaction out of you. Like, is she going to laugh? What's going to happen to her? Yep. Yep. Man, I'm fucked up after this. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Aliana, for ruining my life.

We went much longer, and so now we are, like, having an emotional hangover from... If you're still listening on at the end of this discussion, thank you. Thank you for going on this journey with us. I know it's a little crazy that we put these episodes all in one this time through with the two-for-one episode, but after

exploring it so in-depth over the last year with the Amber Spyglass when we finished that up in the summer, I don't know that we could have done it more deeply because I would have died because I'm so sad right now. Yeah. I always like want to push myself, but also I'm like, I don't, I don't feel like thinking about it. Um, it hurts. That's it. That's all I've got now for you. There's so much more that we could say on every beat of

this but please do check out if you haven't checked out these podcasts yet that will be releasing their episodes probably still releasing i know her dark materials is still releasing yeah uh the dark materials podcast check out the dust podcast there are a ton of podcasts in this community there's a great page you should check on reddit that's pinned on the his dark materials reddit that has all the podcasts i believe that are just out there right now and checking things out and you know support the hdm community i hope that we can get a sequel that would be awesome or a prequel i would love a Books of Dust movie or limited series as we've discussed. A sandwich.

A sandwich out of temptation. As Chloe said, I mean, she said everything that I feel of. Thank you for coming on this journey. I'm in a lot of pain. I'm sorry that I hurt you all too. I've been, you know, if you want to see what other projects we get up to feel free to follow us on twitter.com slash girls gone canon that's c-a-n-o-n or uh if you have thoughts if you want to write to us you can email us at girls gone canon at gmail.com please please please make sure that below

whatever you're listening on right now stop stop, follow us, like the episode, like us, whatever platform you're on, whether that is Spotify, Google Play, iTunes, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Acast, Audible, Amazon. We're on a bunch of these platforms. Please give us a follow and you will get those updates for our new episodes. And maybe the Secret Commonwealth coverage someday will pop up in that feed not a maybe hey it's probably gonna happen it's is it fate is it free will we don't have free will do we you're gonna have to find out gonna have to watch to find out somewhere that you can always find out what we're up to is on our patreon at patreon.com slash girls gone canon where again patrons in the stranger tier and above five dollars and up do get access to bonus episodes

and we have done a lot of bonus episodes about his dark materials whether it's the music of the show in collaboration with the dust podcast or we've covered a lot of the other novellas and other parts of the world of his dark materials and themes All of the novellas, if you will believe it, all of the published novellas at this time. Some of them are even public now, so give it a look. And we also have a wonderful community over at Discord for patrons in the Thunder tier and above. That's a $10 tier and above,

where our friends are hosting a weekly rewatch starting february 4th saturday february 4th times available in the discord and it'll be a voice chat rewatch for series three episode by episode week by week where you can just get sad with fellow fans and us and it's gonna be fun or you can attend our monthly brunch slash happy hour, which will be announced later on this month. Every month we gather for a couple of hours just to hang out, shoot the shit, have a good time, try not to think about how sad we are about HDM. You know, all the good stuff. So we hope to see you over there. Indeed.

This is, you know, only goodbye for now. Perhaps we, with our imaginations, will see you all again. only goodbye for now perhaps we with our imaginations will see you all again lovely listeners whether that's on our discord through these other windows or you know through weird ways of using the alethiometer or whatever and you know i mean we're just co-hosts but when they take our atoms eliana i think i think there are different kinds of soulmates in our life and And I was thinking about this. This should not be in public, right? Oh, you love me.

I'm one of your hosts, Eliana. And I've been Eliana's soulmate, Chloe. We'll see you in the next series. Goodbye.