Girls Gone Canon Cast - The Book of Dust Episode 5 - La Belle Sauvage Chapters 12-14

Episode Date: January 29, 2021

Malcolm receives two warnings from a friendly stranger named Coram Van Texel: The flood is coming and avoid Gerard Bonneville. Malcolm believes but will everyone else?  CHAPTER 12 - Alice Talks CHAPTER 13 - The Bologna Instrument CHAPTER 14 - Lady With Monkey LINKS MENTIONED Maya Shav's Art Lyra with Ermine  Marisa Coulter  --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro by Alexander Nakarada

Hello everyone and welcome to Girls Gone Canon reads La Belle Sauvage of the books of dust episode 5 chapters 12 through 14 i am one of your hosts aliana and i am another one of your hosts chloe i am excited about these chapters we're starting to get into the thick of it but before we get into the thick of it we want to remind you of our spoiler scope. We are going to be covering all three of the original trilogy, bits and pieces of the novellas, and of course, the entire book of La Belle Sauvage. So know the Secret Commonwealth discussion. We'll save that for our dust discussion at the very end of the episode. We'll let you know so you can log off. Yes, but we are covering the entirety of the first book of Dust so you know if you're not ready to talk about that or hear about that feel free to join us again later but for now we

are going to talk about chapters 12 alice talks 13 the bologna instrument and 14 lady with monkey And 14, Lady with Monkey. I love these chapter titles. Lady with Monkey. Lady with Monkey. I really like the naming, the nomenclature that he's giving these titles is really fun, especially because it's instructing us to escalate the tension in our mind. That's exactly what these chapters are, because as soon as we get into the next chapter, we out of this. It's a doozy it gets the river goes very fast my friends it sweeps us upstream so chapter 12 alice talks is great

framework because alice does talk very briefly and it's for like a page and a half and then it's over that's the alice part of the chapter but what she talks about has so much more bearing on this, right? What she talks about is very important and will come back in the story. So before we talk too much about it, I guess let's jump right into Alice Talks. No one came to the back door of the Trout as a rule, which is why Malcolm is utterly surprised to find egyptian man standing there chestnut skinned lean calm with an autumnal colored cat demon it's quorum van taxel he speaks to malcolm's mom and sophonax speaks to her demon yes so we get to see him again once more in this

book which is exciting and i do think it's interesting that i think this might be the first time we've really heard this description of farger cora maybe earlier on in the book but that he is described as brown skinned yet in in both visual adaptations of him right in the movie and in the show he's the one who like ends up being adapted as white in both of those i just think it's interesting but we didn't get it until la belle sauvage yeah and you know when they were casting for the show if you recall that's actually why i was surprised to see who they cast because i was like oh oh they're gonna have him play farter core oh no jerem warmont yeah i was very surprised i thought it it was going to be the opposite.

And I love the way that James Cosmo has portrayed Farticorum. Don't get me wrong. I think he's done a great grandfatherly thing. But I really was interested in this isn't the only physical change in this book. Actually, we'll talk about Mrs. Coulter in a bit. So I think it was fun, no pun intended for Philip to kind of flesh some of this out and i think that i know that the people that worked on the show especially in casting and in executive producing all have read the books of dust right so they are caught up too so i know that while this didn't make it to the screen they did give a lot of diversity to the gyptians which i found yeah really comforting really communal right like the sense of community was very strong yeah yeah i agree with that i just

thought it was interesting because they like chose to adapt other characters in that way but not for the quorum so it was it's interesting and speaking of their casting just a quick aside of you know i'm i'm finally watching downton Abbey like a decade after I guess it started and Mr. Carson who was cast as Jon Fah in the movie is in it. He's a prominent character and

I look at him sometimes and I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. It's Jon Fah. I love that. Yeah, he's got intense eyebrows. Yeah, so Fargacorum here, he's been charged with bringing La Belle Sauvage back for Lord Asriel, but he's also come back with a couple of upgrades. The boat has been repainted green, its name is now in red with an outline in cream, and brackets were installed on the gunwales, which means it's better to hold the oars. cream and brackets were installed on the gunwales which means it's better to hold the oars and quorum says that they also installed a tarpaulin a special weatherproof silk to keep them dry and safe if ever needed that will stay up thanks to these brackets and oars then quorum goes on and

he's really giving a sales pitch here even though it's already malcolm saying that he knows that he's been meeting with a certain hannah ralph that malcolm is allowed to tell her about this meeting and if he needs to reassure hannah malcolm can just say oakley street nothing more and that she will understand i have a couple thoughts here and first i want to come back to tarp holland eliana i'm gonna blow your mind you know what it is it's what we call a tarp a tarp that's literally what this is it's a silk covering and this is coal silk right so it's a little different than the plastic tarps that you or i might my cheap ass tarps cheap shit

right like plastic bullshit that looks like it's been duct taped no uh this is different but it's a similar idea right so tarpaulin silk covering is okay first of all this is one of the most life-saving things that happens to the boat right as we go through this story this keeps alice lyra and malcolm somehow warmer and safer than they would have been without it and in the mid 19th century tar pollen was actually not abbreviated as tarp it was abbreviated as pollen uh hysterically and it was used as cloth or covering it originated though as a mix of tar and palling and basically that's a tarred canvas that they would pall over covered ships and the sailors would also tar their clothes in similar manner. So it would stop it from being porous, right?

When water came down on it, it was weatherproofing. It was waterproofing. Sailors were often called jacktars, actually, because of this strategy. It's commonly referred to of the seamen of the merchant or royal navy then, particularly during the British Empire. So I thought that was very interesting. I didn't know the origins, the etymology between tarp, what it actually came from, or jacktars, that sailors were called jacktars. It doesn't feel the obvious thing I've been thinking is like.

Asriel's not the kind of guy to find a poor kid and be like, I'm going to upgrade your boat out of the goodness of my heart. Maybe that's just my read of Asriel. OK, it could be biased, but he's just not the kind of guy that's like, I have the time to do this, so I'm going to do it for funsies. I think like there's also the obvious bond of malcolm caring about lyra right and that asriel knew he was saying goodbye this kid was helping him say goodbye to his daughter for what he thinks is the last time he'll see her because he's you know being chased but he saw the genuine care in malcolm's eyes and knew lyra was in danger so it's kind of like like Asriel did a what if scenario while he rode that boat away and was thinking, wow, this boat would never save Lyra's life in the condition it's in right now. I think it's obvious that Asriel was like, Lyra might have to be in this boat at some point.

I think there is a self-serving aspect there. I think we're supposed to read it as Lord Asriel like I don't know if this book and some of this is supposed to be like Lord Asriel rehabilitation right but I refuse to let it be I refuse to let it be rehab I had a question everything I agree but I I just think like I don't know if that's how we're supposed to read it of like look lord asriel's a stand-up guy he not only borrowed the boat and returned it he made it better but but as you said like it's hard to believe that of lord asriel sacrifice the poor kid and kill him and tear his demon apart you mean lord Lord Asriel, orphan killer? Yeah, Lord Asriel,

orphan killer Balakwa. Yeah, Asriel, orphan killer Balakwa, or Asriel self-serving Balakwa, or Asriel ruin the entire environment ecosystem of the entire fucking world's Balakwa. That's true. Yeah. Asriel has a

demon Balakwa. I mean, that one was kind of nice sorry but that one's from the perspective of Mrs. Coulter you know um but yeah I think as you said there's definitely a little bit of

a just in case element going on there and I mean he's close with Egyptians right so he might have been aware of like, yeah, something could be coming along. Obviously he sent the boat through Farger Coram. So for now, they get to more serious business. And Farger Coram asks if Malcolm has met a man named Gerard Bonneville. Before Malcolm can answer, his mom is calling for him in the trout

and Coram Van Texel leaves him with two warnings. One, don't be fooled by the weather improving over the next two days. It's going to flood like no one alive has ever seen. Be ready, and then be wary of the man with the hyena demon. Don't go near him. And in this moment, I think Farger Coram's taking on this role as a sort of like, angelic messenger to the prophet Malcolm, warning everyone of the flood. And that's what Malcolm's going to do throughout these next few chapters. Yeah, it increasingly becomes Book of Prophets, not just Book of Dust. Absolutely. Malcolm asks Coram if he's Egyptian and if all Egyptians are against the CCD.

He answers, yes, he is. But not all Egyptians are against the CCD. Some are, some aren't. He tells him, again, stay away from the man with the hyena and watch out for that flood, shakes his hand, and off he goes. A good hashtag, not all Egyptians, and it is a good reminder that there is very much a diaspora amongst Egyptians, that there are many different tribes, right, as we saw at the roping that's that's a time that many of them come together and they're not all aligned as Coram says and it's kind of reminiscent of the witches how they're portrayed in the books of having many different factions

yeah the only loyalty that they rely on right like the witches are the air and the earth and Egyptians are the water that's the god they pray to inside malcolm's mom asks what was that all about and tells him get on and serve dinner it's the busiest saturday they've had in a while and malcolm is picking up a good amount of tips as well as tips that are information he listens in on some men discussing the riverboard and the rain stopping. One man mentions the weather office has philosophical instruments to weigh the weather with and that they say they have fine weather coming for them. Most of the men agree they're looking at a whole month of sunshine. And one dissenter mentions, well, my granny keeps saying. They ask Malcolm to grab them another round of badger.

I love this because it's so science versus faith, right? It feels important. This man's grandmother, who's alive and old, thinks it's gonna rain, judging on her life experiences and on that feeling of faith or just knowing or seeing patterns over time. Then you have everyone else who's saying, ah, but the philosophical devices the news reports on measure weather that there's going to be sun. The next chapter actually opens up with a little more framework on philosophical machines, so I'll save it for then. But it's an interesting argument of who's right here, the woman who's lived it or the person who's predicting it. Yeah, it is, especially when there's, I think,

a lot of emphasis right against religion in these books and the emphasis on science and believing that. So it's an interesting, I think, tension. But also, I just kind of low-key think Philip Pullman hates, like, meteorologists or other men. Oh, he's definitely unkind, right, during this. He's not, like,

flattering. Not at all. Not one bit. Later, Asta in Robin form says that Coram Van Texel knows more than the men in the bar though, which is probably true. Malcolm agrees. But he knows they would never have listened

to them. And instead, they sift through the dictionary, trying to understand the migraine auras that Hannah Ralph had mentioned. She pronounced it knee-grain. His mom pronounced it my-grain. And, you know, I say my-grain. Yeah, I say

my-grain. I've never, hold on. I've never heard. What's the Hannah Ralph pronunciation then? Me-grain. I don't know. Me-grain. I don't know. I like my-grain. Yeah, same. My-grain. Because it's mine, not yours. Your grain?

It's not like, because otherwise the opposite of a me grain, right? It's not a your grain. It's a two grain. It's a you grain. Yeah. Is that a country? It does kind of sound like that. But that's not, this isn't what Malcolm wants to understand, right?

It was the aura, which turns out he also, anyways, misremembers that. And we have a quote here. Robin Asta peered at the page from his forearm and read, Aurora, a luminous celestial phenomenon of

unbearable character seen in the polar regions, with a tremulous motion and streamers of light, sometimes known in the polar regions with a tremulous motion and streamers of light sometimes known as the northern lights you sure that was the word it sounded more like lyra two syllables no this is it said malcolm firmly aurora it's the northern lights in my head okay so i learned recently i don't know how to count according to eliana about what syllables are i was thinking that from the the first book when lyra says the roarer it was the aurora three syllables but no it's two syllables this is a callback right it has to be a callback to roarer

i think this is pullman playing with the roarer which maybe it's just my favorite part of the entire book. But what about the bug? The bug is up there. Well, down there, I guess now. But well, so Velcom decides whatever causes the northern lights also probably causes his aura. And he's thrilled at the idea of his brain being connected to them. Okay, maybe we'll talk about this more in the discussion but i have speculation here because this feels really big

there's no payoff for it in this book there's a few weird things about malcolm that do get some small payoff in this book but this doesn't get any payoff and it doesn't get payoff no spoilers in the secret commonwealth really either i thought there would be some sort of payoff so i think this has to have payoff in the last book of dust we'll talk in our dust discussion it probably does it's probably a third book thing and i'm sorry i'm still stuck on like so the proper term the term he is actually looking for right he does get it wrong ass is right it is aura but i'm still trying to figure out because she's like it sounded more like lyra two syllables and i'm just trying to like figure out how aura and lyra like sound the same other than the ra at the end i guess the ra um i mean but here's a thought, though.

I mean, Aurora does mean dawn, right? Or goddess of the dawn or light. So morning, light, dawn. I mean, Asta could have been being deep. I mean, maybe. Because I'm just here trying to say the words over and over again. Like, how do I make them sound the same? If Lyra is a constellation, right, taken from the lyre of Orpheus.

Just discussion. Then, you know, the goddess of the dawn kind of sounds like her too. It reminds me of Eve. Interesting. Yeah. Well, speaking of the dawn, when Malcolm wakes, he wants to look at his boat, but he has to help his dad clean up the bar first.

Sigh. But something is off today. Alice seems distracted, not her usual sullen self. She keeps looking around, clearing her throat as if to speak. Mood, been there. I know. Alice is a mood. She is malcolm mostly ignores it but finally later

she speaks up asking if he knows the nuns and about the child they're taking care of saying that there's a man and trailing off also mysterious at all there's a man dot dot dot they're interrupted by mrs polstead's return, and Alice says she'll ask him later. Malcolm goes off to continue his duties, finding his dad and asking his opinion on the flood talk. His father's like, those men in the bar don't know anything, and then he changes the subject back to LaBelle Sauvage's return. Malcolm explains how he loaned it to Asriel and how the Egyptian brought it back and then about the peculiar things that the Egyptian said about the flood. Steering that conversation right back. Good job, Malcolm. Mr. Polstad's like, the Egyptians are water people, so it's interesting

to think, but I don't want you spending time worrying about it, Malcolm. And Malcolm's like, the man was serious, dad. We might want to think about respecting what he said. His dad kind of laughs and he's like, well, what do you think? Can we get into La Belle Sauvage and fit with you? Lol, foreshadowing. No, but a baby and a teen girl could fit. Yeah, it is kind of adorable that his dad asks, though. That's like something, I don't know, I think my parents would ask me like oh can i come to you

and i'd be like no it does feel very organic like a family thing yeah like parents breaking into your bed and bugging you when you're a kid yeah yeah malcolm mentions that you know what maybe your dad you should mend the punt it's a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, so they must have another boat attached to their dock. They're very associated with the River Tam, and it's like a big thing. People usually have parties with them, and it's a whole thing, I guess.

Oh, fun. Yeah, they should have a nice punt. Yes. Yeah, they can have parties, expand outdoor dining. Anyways, Malcolm says that mother should move her flower up from the cellar. That's all. He's just saying, you know, you don't have to believe me, but please take some steps. His mom enters the bar, so he uses this opportunity to scurry back to ask Alice to continue talking about the man.

She doesn't know if she should tell him anything, but she goes on anyway. Turns out it's, yes, the same man that we are all thinking about and have all been talking about this whole time. The man with the hyena demon. She tells him that she spoke to him a bit the night before and blushes.

Red flags. The man had told her he was the father of the child at the priory and went on talking about the priory and the nuns to her, asking about the security at the priory. More red flags. Mal is taken aback as he knows that Asriel is Lyra's father. Yeah, Alice's demon had tried to talk to the hyena, but the hyena wouldn't speak back,

which I think is really great when we look at Mrs. Coulter later, right? And that Asta doesn't go to talk to the monkey. back which i think is really great when we look at mrs coulter later right and that yeah asta doesn't go to talk to the monkey so great to look at this in a three chapter run just for that alone yeah malcolm didn't know what else to ask it was clearly important to find out whatever he could but his imagination was limited at this point he couldn't conceive what a grown man would want with a solitary girl at night, or what could pass between them. Nor could he understand why she was blushing. I'm staring into the camera.

I wish you all could see us staring at the camera. I do appreciate, to keep it positive, I love how Pullman stays in Malcolm's mind, right? That for him, this is probably remembering how he was as a kid and fancying out the details a bit to fit the story. But I appreciate his consistency with like the aversion to sexual and not understanding things because you know, like you're dumb when you're a kid, and adults being dumb to you. And it's all these themes of innocence right like in this chapter where people are refusing to tell him why he needs to do things just constantly telling him

to do them stay away from gerard don't talk about this don't tell people this growing up is all of secrets and betrayal and malcolm is on the cusp of that betrayal quite obviously yes absolutely yeah that's true about the betrayal betrayal betrayal well malcolm warns alice about what corbin van texel told him stay away from the man of the hyena but malcolm's also like he doesn't say stay away per se. He's just like, you got to tell me and keep me posted if you talk to him again. And he explains to her that everyone keeps acting like this around the man. So he must be bad and that they act like he had been in prison or something. And she says, the man didn't worry her, though.

He asks again if she'll tell him if she hears anything. And she laughs at how worried he is for this baby he says she's exactly that a baby and she's like well how are you gonna keep the baby safe like you know all alone from this big bad man and then it's like but you know what fine i'll give into your request of keeping you updated and i think this exchange you know as as a much older person now this exchange really reveals to you how young i think malcolm is at this point in immature especially when you contrast how he deals with the information that he got from quorum and knowing that alice has been talking to gerard and you contrast that with like how hannah reacts later on because malcolm tells alice to just tell

him whatever gerard says to her as though he thinks he's kind of making alice a spy in the way that malcolm is kind of being a child spy right now but he's not really thinking in regards to her well-being or safety not not because he's necessarily malicious but because he just doesn't really think about that and have the ability to especially knowing that quorum was like y'all should stay away from him whereas an adult would tell alice you need to stay away from that man this is deeply concerning whatever's going on here and it's exactly what hannah tells malcolm to do stay away from gerard yeah and it's unfortunately uh alice has met with the consequences of that later on which shouldn't be consequences it's bullshit it's a shame that like there weren't adults you know around who cared enough about her to be like

yeah they just found her like this sullen girl that wasn't particularly pretty and not particularly too ugly and she didn't work fine enough and so they paid her enough to live and off she went and what she did parents could have done more but that's the thing is like could have done more you know they could have done more in a lot of facets and i feel bad because obviously they couldn't have in some manners right like they were just trying to i mean the flood is a metaphor for them in a lot of ways too they're just trying to keep their heads above as you know low income in owners and all this in a lower area right like it's obvious this isn't being there's not just stuff being handed out and life is harder for them than it is for eric and

his dad cop dad you know court dad but like i don't know they could have cared a little more you know when malcolm was like so i learned this thing today mom and pop and i'm not saying they didn't care they cared but they could have just like shown a little interest it's very obvious as we got into the hannah and malcolm interactions that she's the miss honey of the situation right yeah and his parents like't neglectful of him, right? But, as you said, they could have shown more interest in Alice, especially because we see that they exchange a look of concern in a bit when they hear about this, but...

Yeah, but it's not their business. Well, later he inspects the improvements that were made to the boat malcolm even tries out the coal silk roofing he thinks of taking the bel savage on the water but decides against it as the rivers are rushing pretty quickly today and he was like is it gonna rain again i don't know the inn's dead the polsteads even have time to make dinner and hang out. They let Frank, the assistant barman, take over. Malcolm daydreams to the sizzle of fried potatoes, me too, until he's interrupted by his dad asking what he and Alice had been speaking about. His parents found it pretty odd to see the two getting along, it's a rare sight.

Malcolm admits they were talking about the man with the hyena demon. Gerard Bonvy had been asking Alice about baby Lyra and the nuns in Jericho. Malcolm kind of tries to stand up for the man, saying, hey, he was nice and Alice likes him, but his father warns him of the man's nature, that he heard he had a history for violence, specifically with women. It seems there's kind of like a changing, evolving backstory for Gerard, right? Most people thought originally, as we hear from Hannah, it was a violence offense, but Mr. Polstad and Nugent get it right in these couple chapters. Bonvy is not just physically

violent, but sexually violent, and the differentiation being made is not just coincidental, especially because we just learned that he's speaking to alice and kind of exploiting her vulnerabilities hannah will tell us more during the bologna instrument though i forgot that his name's pronounced bone v i will never forget and i will flaunt it in paris all the time gerard bonvy bonvy gerard bonvy it's so pretentious listen when i heard coleman say this in his event interview when he said gerard bon vie i was like oh so pretentious i love it so much i'm gonna say it i say like you will catch me saying it today as we go along i mean you are saying it right now and then i was like oh shit i've been doing it wrong I wasn't gonna say anything but I was thinking I was like I wish she was saying Gerard Bonvy you know well you're just

gonna have to have all the class in this podcast Chloe and I will be talk about an arc truly and I will be the plebeian pronunciation I guess Malcolm's dad says that the demon was the worst of it though when it came to gerard bonneville and malcolm argues you can't control what your demon settles as though and his mother's demon a badger speaks and it's a very rare occurrence so he's like oh i gotta pay attention he says that you know what malcolm you would be surprised you can't choose but you can definitely usually on accident pause help what your demon settles as and then malcolm tries to ask more but the demon pulls a classic mom move and says you know what just eat your supper and then you'll find out mrs polstead changes the conversation to worrying about her mother and checking in on her and malcolm asks if his grandmother has enough sandbags for the flood,

a la Coram Van Texel's advice. And Malcolm's dad has an aside then to Malcolm's mom, whose name is Brenda, turns out, asking if she had seen the Egyptian man and if they should be trusting him. Hell yeah, Brenda. I was so hyped that she gets a name. Yeah, dude, she gets a name. I don't know if Malcolm's dad even gets a name. He probably does, and we're just fake fans. Has he earned one? I don't know. I don't know Malcolm's dad.

Reg. Reg. Oh, Reg Catermole? You weren't gonna guess that. You weren't gonna guess fucking Reg. I wasn't gonna guess Reg. You don't know that I wasn't gonna guess it. I could have gotten to it eventually. Reg Catermole. It's not at the top of my list ever. It's honestly the most Polstead name though. Reg Polstead. Reg, Brenda, and

Malcolm are wishing you a Merry Christmas. Chloe stares off into the camera. Season's greetings. So his parents ask Malcolm if he's warned the nuns about this whole flood shindig. And Malcolm's like, yeah, I'm

going to tell them later and they can come to the inn with Lyra if they need to. We have the space. And they're like, no, Malcolm, we do not have that space. We are poor. First of all. And Mrs. Polstad's like, we're not holy enough for them. Malcolm's like, they bring the holiness with them, mom. Don't worry.

Adorable. Children. Precious. Gotta enjoy the stuff he says now. Malcolm's dad asks, what's for pudding? Stewed apple. Yum. While Malcolm dries dishes and then says goodnight.

Upstairs, Malcolm studies the symbols of the alethiometer, with Asta reminding him, be systematic about it. He writes down the names and meanings of as many symbols as he can see, like the skull and the hourglass, but he leaves a handful that he knows he has to ask Hannah for help with. He's unable to sleep, so they go peer into the night through the guest bedrooms, where the windows face the river. They can just make out the priory from there, and Malcolm tells Asta to transform into an owl to better see. Asta notes a window's open, and Malcolm's like, shit, I'll have to tell Mr. Taphouse. They wonder if the nuns have ever dealt with a flood before, and they plan to

ask Sister Fenella about it, thinking if it had had happened there'd probably be stained glass of it malcolm starts to wonder what symbols would symbolize a flood on the alethiometer noting to ask dr ralph and that he needs to warn her about the flood too he thinks about those gorgeous books and how he'd have to save all of them that is my boy right there that's what he's worried about he's like fuck the people he's like hannah will be fine she can float but those books but those books yeah fuck hannah that's his future man which uh just like hannah i mean he's faced with it that's his future going up in water and hannah's sitting here like my future is going up in water quite literally ahahaha that's about to happen but first amidst Malcolm's heroic fantasies

of saving the books something in the distance moves and Asta freaks out they argue like maybe it's Mr. Taphouse with the tools but unfortunately it is not Malcolm feels a dread in his stomach because it's Gerard Bonneville carrying his demon intent to break in and kidnap Lyra they can't understand why Gerard Bonneville carrying his demon, intent to break in and kidnap Lyra.

They can't understand why Gerard wants a baby, or to hurt it, and Malcolm thinks that maybe he should tell his father about it. He says that even Alice was afraid of him, and Asa thinks he's definitely a murderer.

Interesting that in this series, murderers are inherently bad suddenly, right? The OT3, the original trilogy, said they were good. We love murderers in one decade, but not in 1986. They're different, you know? Malcolm's like, murderers are bad. Lyra's like, hot? Hey, maybe you should have heard Bone V is hot.

Maybe this is the problem when you have a heterosexual boy as your lead. Yeah, that could be it. Where's all the angles? Okay, I'd like all the angles of Gerard Bonvy. But it could be also maybe because Gerard Bonneville, right? He doesn't feel bearish enough. That's the problem. Lyra looks at him and would probably see probably see like he doesn't seem enough like a

polar bear i don't see him eating a klondike bar or in the coca-cola commercial well we get this line the shadow appeared around the side of the building again and then the man staggered and the burden on his shoulders seemed to squirm away and fall to the ground. And then they heard a hideous, high-pitched cry of laughter. The man and the demon seemed to be spinning around in a mad dance. That uncanny laughter tormented Malcolm's ears. It sounded like a high, hiccuping yell of agony. He's hitting her, whispered Asta, unable to believe it. This is sad.

I feel super sad for the hyena, and I am a noted monkey sympathizer. I think that's happened a few times, as we all know by now. Monkey apologist. I am a monkey apologist. It's just the way he's written. It's not his fault. But also, great use of that haunting laughter that comes back throughout the story. When I read this book, I was gripped.

Like, every time that haunting, high-pitched laughter was happening and echoing, I was like, holy shit. The language here about Gerard's dancing, right, that he seemed to be doing a mad dance with his demon, reminds me of tulio actually from the subtle knife tulio's wild dancing with the knife with isa hetra that's interesting and i can see you know there's there's something similar there they both kind of are a little off right after their big fights a bit just a bit but this part about the hyena as you said it is pretty heart-wrenching right like and that sort of duality of it's a sound of happiness right it's described as a laughter but we know that it's actually pain and it really i think plays up that hidden nature thing

that's going on with the hyena and showing that sort of apt choice for Bon Vil and the hiding and the masking of the emotions. You almost converted me, Chloe, but I caught myself. By episode end, you'll be a Bon Vie. No, it is, though, and this is like Bon Me. Well, like I

said, Bon Me. Bon Me? I would eat a Bon Me. Reminds me oficky martin what's that song bon bon shake your bon bon oh yeah if we're gonna talk about the 90s here uh different 90s different world that's true so this whole situation in contrast to the hyena who's cackling in fear and pain and madness uh with bone v it terrifies malcolm and asta asta has turned into a cat and is in malcolm's arms and they're shaking together in the horror of the act later along the way at the priory the sisters have realized an intruder is coming and a commanding

call is made by benedicta amidst the agonizing laughter of the man and hyena. The two run off and he's beating his demon along the way, thrashing her with a stick. Malcolm can see the nuns flinch as they watch what's happening. So another sad thing that happens here with the hyena is that the man runs because the hyena has started sort of running away first, limping away as the window has opened. And Malcolm notes that part of it is the man is chasing the hyena because it's pulling him right the the pain from when a demon

is far away and though he's also beating the hyena at the same time and being pulled it's like the hyena is pulling him to save him from being caught by the nuns despite everything that's going on so not to sidetrack what you're saying but i kind of read all of this and this is just from the reread that he is severed from his demon because of his experimentation in the russikov particles and the way he's able to treat people and his demon in beating his demon and hurting his demon to me says that he is separated from his demon and doesn't feel the pain that you'd normally feel from a demon so i thought so i took it that way personally and that he was trying to catch the hyena before it ran off oh so i thought that like

and again this is a reread and i haven't this is my first time rereading this book right everyone so i might be misremembering things and i thought when i was reading this is like i thought he was kind of severed from his demon so i thought it was interesting that malcolm said that but obviously he doesn't know yeah he's definitely projecting some of this because i mean it's again it's along the way like the priory is not just like next door it's half a mile down you know like you're watching from many many many feet away. But I don't know. That was my read on Gerard Bonvy. And, like, just because I don't know how you could actively hurt your soul like that, especially with some of the speculation on Mrs. Coulter, the behavior she has towards the golden monkey,

and just especially the idea of, like, the experimenting on yourself and being so far into your vengeance and into your fucking goal of, like path of power that these two are so obviously hell-bent on it feels very similar and there's a lot of uh comparison going on with their demons in these couple chapters yeah i think if he isn't severed i think there's something almost then more or sinister and dark yeah then of that sort of self-flagellation then of beating your own demon well both malcolm and acid discussed the nuns watching the man as well and think how they likely will be able to share this discussion with them the man and his tormented demon had gone, and there was nothing now but the darkness and the sound of the river. So after another minute, Malcolm and Asta crept

out of that room in the dark and felt their way to bed. When they slept, he dreamed of wild dogs, a pack of them, 50 or 60, all kinds, racing through the streets of a deserted city. And as he watched them, he felt a strange, wild exhilaration that was still there when he woke up in the morning. I have a couple thoughts on this. This dream is recurring, right? Like, we get more wild dog dreams as we go along for Malcolm, and he ends up embodying them later on in the final confrontation with Gerard Bonvy. Most of these specifically revolve around Gerard and they're obviously linked to the hyena, right?

Because the hyena is one of the more commonly known wild canines like the dhole, the wolf, coyote, or like a fennec fox. Malcolm seems to manifest his rages and his frustrations as well as his inability to react because he's a child, right? Like he has no agency and he seems to manifest his rages and his frustrations, as well as his inability to react because he's a child, right? Like he has no agency. And he seems to kind of manifest that in dealing with this Bonneville situation into this dream of wild, angry dogs. So much that later during his confrontation with him at the end of the story, he feels like he can hear them and feel them like they're there presently in his conscious in present day. Like he can hear them and feel them like they're there presently in his conscious in present day. This strikes me more and more as we get into the Bologna instrument and hear Hannah's worries and frustrations at Malcolm's involvement in Oakley Street business and that he doesn't have a strong support system to tell these secrets to or any support system.

Right. He's an only child with three adolescent mini cops as best friends and his parents that love him dearly, like we said, but they're really busy trying to scrape by. And then he has Alice, right? Which at the time, right now, as we say this, isn't much later. It's everything. She's one of the best friends the world could ever ask for. And Hannah's kind of that first adult to make Malcolm like that bold part of the day. Give him the time of day. Give him what his brain needs the first adult to just even uh say instead of saying Malcolm listen to us and you'll be fine

she's saying Malcolm are you okay I think that's something really special and important especially because as we look at this wild dog dream manifestation it's kind of symbolic of puberty in a way right like this is him facing his puberty and his growing up. If the original trilogy was a coming of age story for them, it's been a coming of age story in LaBelle Sauvage for him as well. so far in the year that he's turned 10 and i think it's interesting to think of the dogs as expressing puberty i think there's a lot that can be read into that but boys get ragey right like that's what i get ragey that i mean there's a lot of feelings to be had during puberty i don't know that i had wild dog dreams but i definitely i always have weird dreams. Yeah, that's true. But next we have chapter 13, the Bologna Instrument. The fried Bologna sandwich. No, I'm just kidding.

So the framework of the Bologna Instrument, it's interesting to me because it's referencing philosophical instruments are fallible and that it's up to the people who interpret and read them and how the interpretation moves to the people and how it's used. This is first brought up with the philosophical instruments of the weather office, but I do think we see it brought up later in the chapter with regards to what Hannah Ralph reads on her lithiometer, right, as she accepts the job. So first we get a passage.

The philosophical instruments of the weather office, so highly regarded by some of the drinkers at the Trout and so disdained by others, did what they always did and told their attendants exactly what they could have seen by looking at the sky. of rain. Further out in the Atlantic than they could perceive, there might have been all sorts of bad weather. There might have been the mother of all depressions, and it might have been heading towards Britain to bring about just the sort of inundation that Coram Van Texel predicted to Malcolm.

But there were no instruments that could see it, except perhaps an alethiometer. Wow, there's a lot in there. First off, I love the idea that, that like they're straight up pullman straight up narrating saying like you can't guess it no instrument can guess this except the alethiometer even all these philosophical instruments they're just telling you exactly

what you can see with your own eyeballs if you go look at the sky which is true like as someone with rheumatoid arthritis i can tell you that my body knows exactly what the weather's going to do all the time. I can tell you if it's going to snow. I can tell you if it's going to rain. I know. I am all-knowing. It's like my boobs can tell when it's already raining. Yeah, absolutely.

I am Karen. Yep. But that's right. Her name was Karen. Listen. Yep. Gretchen was the other one, which I also relate to. Yeah.

To be honest, I love all of them. Gretchen was the other one which I also relate to to be honest I love all of them I find this interesting in general from also a broadcasting background that like the way news and TV and weather actually works it's not always meteorologists

reading the weather like you might have somebody reading the weather and people might title themselves that but people lie this may shock you like those who report on the philosophical weather reading devices don't always read from them themselves on TV live or on radio live. In the news, you get given stories, usually from a reliable source, right? Like in the US, AP is common. Actually, it's common for like all news to report on so when your primary source of news is the ap that's one thing but if your primary source of news instead of ap is coming from the magisterium dot dot dot holman gives them an out in this passage saying no one could have guessed this with weather tools but it does make, like, if the magisterium's already seeped into your lives, what could they gain from continuing a narrative that a flood isn't going to happen? Who would the flood affect the most out of their people?

Yeah, I mean, it's not like we've ever seen anything in real life where a larger governmental body has lied about the impact that some sort of disaster could be causing is this this reminds me of the 2000s so hard there's also something i don't know it feels like i've been living this the past almost year but i don't know my god could be could be in my head yeah no i didn't really think about it but like even just comparing it to like katrina i'm just like oh yeah that's that's definitely one of them absolutely and i don't i don't think it's implied like that like it's not implied obviously they knew and they would i thought about it but but i'm just saying we don't know for sure no one knows it's all that and again like what you were saying this is a little off topic but regarding

people telling you the weather you know I love watching those videos of or like when the green screen stops working and then you find out that the weather person telling you the weather is just really gesturing over they're just gesturing and someone else is making it seem like they're really telling you real

shit but they're just good at. And someone else is making it seem like they're really telling you real shit. But they're just good at moving their body, I guess. Yeah, I've done it before, and it's actually really fun, but it is a lot of bullshitting. I'm sure. I used to do TV news at school, and I was going into broadcasting, and we were the best of the country, all that jazz. I worked my way up to weather. I had to do sports for a year. And you know me.

Oh, sports. You know me, Eliana. I just want you to know that I had a seminar teacher, like a study hour, study hall teacher that said to me one day, he said, Chloe, you look real good reading that news up there. You sound good. You sound like you understand what you're saying. He's like, but I absolutely know you have no clue what you're doing. And I'm like, yep, absolutely. Absolutely, Mr. K.

Sounds like you were a good sport, Chloe. I was a good sport. And you know who else is a good sport? The people of Oxford during all of this flood talk, because they're just going on like nothing's wrong, but the level of the river is rising more and more and it's not showing signs of going down and even a dog fell into the river and died it was rolled away into the waters it's the most awful thing it's the worst it's horrible

hannah on the other hand though she's sitting pretty living at home sitting at home working on her project to learn more about the hourglass emoji and its depth and symbolism she's like but you know it's novel if we put a skull on top of the hourglass emoji

two emojis the emoji combiny thing that people do on social media in the late afternoon, a knock comes to her door and her brain thinks, tea time and break time, bitches, but then it's Malcolm! This is not their usual day, so she's quite surprised to see him. She offers him some tea or

chocolatel, which is amazing. He refuses, though, and she makes him come in anyway and makes him some chocolatel while he tells her of Coram Van Texel's visit to the Trout. Then he passes along Coram's message and he's just like, Oakley Street. The Lannisters send their regards. Hannah's like, good grief.

And she actually says that later after the council meeting. She's like, good grief. I like that Chocolato's back here, right? Even though he says no, that's distracting from the real issue, right? She's like, I'm just going to make Chocolato and everything will be okay. Spoiler alert, it's not. It's not, but how can you turn that down anyway? Well, and there's something there, right?

Temptation, turning down the temptation. Interesting. Yeah, but he has it anyway because she's like you gotta it's too cold out there for you to not have a warm beverage yeah and she explains to him look oakley street's not a place not physically but in our hearts she's like it's being used as a password and he explains some of the other weirdness that's going on he's like okay cool well oakley street isn't it i also want to talk about gerard bonvie and she's like oh i know that name i heard it at college i stayed for dinner recently i don't often do that and one of the lawyers mentioned his story he wasn't long

out of prison for either assault or grievous bodily harm why not both a famous case because the chief prosecution witness was Lyra's mother. She basically did him in and Bonvy had sworn he would get revenge against her. Yeah, Malcolm tells her what Bonville had told Alice, that he was Lyra's father. But turns out he is actually trying to hurt Lyra. Malcolm says that he must tell the nuns this evening and help them fix that shutter. Hannah says that maybe they need more shutters,

and it's like, you know, if only the police could be trusted. That's a quote. She literally said those words. It's literally in the book. Hannah gets it. Malcolm brings up his next point, the abuse that Bonneville dealt to his demon

he says he thinks it was likely that Bonneville is the one who cut off her leg as well they both turn to the fire thinking of how awful it is and I do want to think about that for a second because we know that the leg was severely injured by his encounter with Coram Ventexil and therefore probably unusable so there's something weird there going on right like on one hand yes Bonneville was probably the one who cut

off the leg but was it like a necessary amputation at the same time and it's awful either way you think of it yeah but it definitely wasn't just him who did it on that one. I mean, Coram did beat the shit out of that demon, too. It was not great. It was a fight for his life, which I get. I get it, I do. And I think there's something to that, too, right? Because we're about to see the duality of Nugent, for example, of how you think he's a nice dude, and then you're like,

oh, he's a ruthless prick. So there's something to that, too, not saying Coram's ever done anything wrong because he's perfect, in my opinion. I agree. If there's one perfect character in these books, he's going to put that Coram on a pedestal. Put that Coram on a pedestal. Malcolm breaks the silence. He's like, Coram's right about the flood, I think. And Hannah's like, I'll take precautions. I'll move the books upstairs to start. He's like quorum's right about the flood i think and hannah's like i'll take precautions i'll move the books upstairs to start he's like thank god uh she asks what he's gonna do

about the nuns and he's like i can't just say oakley street to them and hannah's like you can't say that to anyone malcolm actually point malcolm she says he'll have to be persuasive and he thanks her for having some tea he He'll come back Saturday. Hannah's anxious about the whole situation. She wonders if he told anyone, specifically his parents, about what he had seen that evening before in the bedroom, and she's pretty sure this could deeply traumatize the kid she's worried about his well-being. She also wonders about this Gyptian man and his knowledge of Oakley Street. Is he a friend friend a foe

or an agent perhaps later that night she gets an invitation or more of a command right to come to dinner just as she's trying to figure out what the fuck to wear to this dinner with george papa dimitri she receives a follow-up envelope with an address 28 staverton road 7 p.m which i looked up today and if any of you live on staverton sorry i creeped looked up and down that street wanted to really get a feel for the dinner scene you know lots of shrubbery lots of shrubbery well they arrive at the villa at one minute past seven a bit north of jericho with a gorgeous garden filled with, yes, shrubbery and trees. It's difficult to see past the road.

She's welcomed by a woman who looked North African, about 40, Yasmin Al-Kaissi. And three people lingered in the drawing room as she entered. One of them is, yes, Professor Papa Dimitriou, who seems to be in charge of the room. It's a

room that's low ceiling and decked out with naphtha lamps, pictures, watercolors, drawings, all adorning the wall, and the furniture is neither antique nor modern, but comfortable. She's then introduced first to the hosts, Dr. Adnan Al-Kaissi and Mrs. Yasmin Al-Kaissi, and Dr. Adnan has a desert fox demon. I thought that a demon hour was totally necessary for this for several reasons. As we mentioned, the wild dog dream happening earlier. Adnan has a desert fox, or more commonly known as a fennec fox, as I'm sure Eliana will reference soon. So his demon is a fennec fox, and it is indeed another wild dog.

is a fennec fox, and it is indeed another wild dog. I do think this is interesting considering that Adnan, Yasmin, George, and Thomas are all trying to use Malcolm, as we learn, right? So the dogs that are chasing him are not necessarily just the hyena, but also here, these people. The fennec fox is a small crepuscular fox it's native to the sahara and the sinai peninsula which connects with yasmin looking to be of north africa i thought that was a good connection on pullman's part it's an omnivore it digs its den in sand either in open areas or places sheltered by plants with stable sand dunes so when a family of these foxes lives together they have these like underground bubbles basically that are all interconnected it's so cute they're so smart they're very weird right because foxes

are solitary creatures so the fennec fox is different they mate and pair for life and roam in packs of like eight to twelve oh well i mostly know this fox from the Gen 6 Pokemon Firestarter, Fennekin. It basically looks like a desert fox, but poofier and in the colors that you would associate with a Pokemon Firestarter. Either way, Hannah's introduced to Lord Nugent. The Lord Nugent. She's offered a drink. She chooses white wine. And George doesn't beat around the bush

in telling them the purpose of them being here. This is an Oakley Street meeting! The words! He said it, and everyone here knows about Hannah's role in the society. Though it turns out she doesn't know about theirs, and he plans to explain the very complicated situation to her in hopes that she will help

them to resolve it. Lord Nugent will speak first because yes she may know him as the ex-chancellor but here he's the director of oakley street his demon's a lemur next to him in the chair as he speaks and looking back at the start of the book he did have the lemur he did have the lemur demon with him at the trout. I didn't really pay attention to that. So I thought that was a cool catch. And Pan is a lemur twice in the original books. Not a ton of meaning to it at the time,

but lemurs are interesting. They're really high ranking spiritually. They're usually like symbols of bossiness, communication, social interactions, manipulative behavior, because they're very strong cognitive ability and that stands out very much with mr nugent i did learn a lot of things from a lemur in my childhood named zabuma foo but oh my god actually i guess i was kind of older. I don't know. It's just like there's nothing on TV.

So interestingly about lemur demons, the man who speaks to Lyra in Northern Lights slash the Golden Compass after she escapes from Mrs. Coulter's apartment, and he's actually like super creepy about his interaction with her and being a little too friendly in a way that's like stranger danger. He is a lemur demon. And then as we might remember from chloe and me saying like oh what a shame that lemur was so cute the astronomer that lee visits in the his dark materials show also has a lemur demon yeah absolutely adorable and it's

really again such a shame sad such a shame that these creatures are so manipulative and bad always but that's true he was being very overtly creepy though that guy that speaks to her in northern lights i was looking at that and i didn't really think of anything i wanted i was like yeah whatever it was just a moment i'll just stick to this but i'm glad you bring it up because overtly creepy overtly nice and that is kind of what nugent does he goes on though with his charisma he's like you're not the only alethiometer reader you're dispensable haha just kidding but what if uh for oakley street and he says we have others in upsala and bologna but we rely heavily on you hysterically they actually don't have one

in bologna he's about to reveal uh geneva's alethiometer is in the hands of the magisterium he mentions and when hannah asks he answers that the other oxford readers are all scholars none of them are secretly co-spies yasmin pipes in and is like unless they're magisterium readers and lord nugent gives her a smile but the smile fades quickly because he announces well Bologna's reader was murdered, and the alethiometer was stolen. Had we not acted quickly, our agent captured it, it would be in the enemy hands, and then he reveals it under a naphtha lamp within a battered box. They want Hannah to take it for a compromise. She must set aside her academic work and read for them full-time. She would have the alethiometer in hand 24-7.

Before Adnan can speak more about the situation, Hannah has questions. She says Lord Nugent referred to the Magisterium in a way that made it clear it's the enemy. She has associated the CCD with a lot of those same things, and she assumes that that's connected. She's happy to fight both of them, but she needs to understand who Oakley Street is. She can't keep going on blind and hopes Dr. Alkaesi will make it clear. He promises to take extra care, and his fox demon settles neatly near him. He explains that Oakley is a secret agency of the government, set up in 1933 with the purpose of messing with the magisterium's work. Just before the Swiss War, Britain, with a Y, had been likely to fall to the armed magisterium forces. They

survived with a large portion of credit being to the Office for Special Inquiry, or what is now Oakley Street. Their purpose was to defend democracy freedom of thought and expression they were lucky with the monarchy over time king richard had supported them the director of oakley is always a privy counselor and the old king also had a passion in what they were doing king michael not so much but his son the current king was supportive quietly so you know how this is like an alternate britain right like this whole map is alternate as we've discussed yeah this is an au an alternate universe i kind of wonder to bring up some kings with this talk here of king richard and the old

king i'm wondering if this michael they're referring to is mich Abney Hastings, the 14th Earl of Loudon, who had a really disputed claim to the throne. In 2004, there was a documentary made about him actually about this claim. And it was broadcast in the UK. It repeated this claim that Abney Hastings, as the senior descendant of George Plantagenet, First Duke of Clarence, is the rightful king of England. And it basically involves two claims disputed claims first edward four of england was illegitimate based on the accusation his father richard duke of york was absent when edward was conceived second that the plantagenet crown should have descended by male preference instead of agnatic primogenitor and conquest also henry six placed

an attainder on edward after he was restored to the throne and named george duke of clarence heir to the throne so there's all this like alternate history and it makes me wonder if pullman's trying to follow that because of king michael there's no king michael but there is a possible king michael in these later years which would have been him interesting yeah i don't know i also didn't realize that the magisterium's influence or infiltration of britain is so i guess kind of recent in this universe in some ways like i i think we kind of think that it's been there since the for the foundations of britain for a while but it seems like it's saying here that it feels like it was in 1933 yeah right like it's

much more like creeping into it so i think that's interesting because i've never really thought of it that way yeah well either way the parliament knows very little of oakley street their activities are funded very poorly out of the general defense fund and a group of highly pro-magisterium MPs would love to discover them and ruin them. Adnan tells her their paradox. We can only defend democracy

by being undemocratic. Sounds like something the bad guys would say but okay, every Secret Service knows this and some are more comfortable with it than others America looking at you yeah that brings up the next paradox that Hannah needs to understand

wait so who owns the alethiometer then and why didn't you return it to Bologna they're like ethically the governing body and the university in Geneva was giving it to the magisterium and the murdered reader had likely been murdered in a scheme to take it from it to the magisterium and the murdered reader had likely been murdered in a scheme to take it from her

by the magisterium and then looking around Hannah's like oh my god we're fighting a war a secret war yeah that paradox that paradox right there is great because then in the next sentence they literally say it all over again they're like well ethically

it was gonna go to the bad guys so we thought we shouldn't return it we should just keep it you know ethically which i agree with but i'm like don't like call it ethical like moral sandwiches here you know like yeah stop patting it like i feel that way yeah i'm just like if you're gonna do it own it yeah like that's the thing about the government. If you guys just told the truth. So they promised to keep her protected because the last person in her position was killed, right? We just learned this. And they reiterate, oh, yeah, this will be full time, by the way, like real full time.

And George is like, remind us what you do with your time, which, first of all, I've never felt so attached. mind us what you do with your time, which first of all, I've never felt so attached. Second of all, she explains that she juggles her tiny bit of Bodleian alethiometer time with 12 others in the research, as well as getting her Oakley Street missives done. But also, if she didn't fulfill her part of the research, she'd get kicked from the program in the Bodleian library. So the Bologna alethiometer could definitely solve that little issue, but it also means she'd be giving up her future and her career, right? Like, she's been working so hard on this research, as well as putting herself in major harm's way and possibly others. She tells George that he surely can see what kind of sabotage this is to her. He tells her he's asking this of her in this great time of war and sacrifice because of her prowess.

She may be slower than some of the other readers on her study, but she's the one who has learned the most and it's clear to tell. She needn't worry about her career. She had plenty of aptitude for this. Yes. So first I wanted to say a side note while we're talking about the Bodleian Library. I came across a line when I was looking at some stuff in the original trilogy and lyra calls the boldly and library boldly's library it's cute cute so cute but coming back to this and and hannah's career i think that this is quite pointed because in the next chapter, we do get Mrs. Coulter's formal appearance

in this story. And it's just a few chapters, of course, from Lyra's father making his appearance. But anyway, Hannah and Ralph's concerns here I think are extremely valid, especially when we contrast it and see what Marisa's life has been like and how difficult it's been for her

to sort of climb that ladder because yes, the work that Hannah's doing may be for the greater good, but what they're telling her isn't like very reassuring in terms of her academic work or career, right? Like they're just like, oh, but it's okay.

You're doing such great work already that no one's going to think any less of you. And maybe that's true. Maybe that is how the academic world works. And I do think this is an area that philip pullman is knows much better than i do there are many things that he knows better than i do but this is definitely one that he's lived throughout his life right that's that's where his bread and butter is so maybe hannah ralph's career is quite safe but i think it is a really pointed protest on her part, considering that not only is she a scholar in this field, she has a doctorate. It's a prestigious and very rare small field.

And then when you look at how the original trilogy shows Lyra's upbringing at Jordan College and the framing of the academic world in the original trilogy, and then this is the first book that you read after that women's scholars kind of seem to hold a lot less esteem right than men's scholars and maybe that's not true overall from some of the things we see within the later series it is and it isn't there's definitely a lot of i think barriers and if it those didn't exist right barriers and if it those didn't exist right then it wouldn't be an issue that marisa has faced her entire career which explains like the deep lengths that she has gone to in many respects like for her career and it's part of why she even gave up her child so this is a big thing to be asking of hannah ralph yeah i don't think there's really a contest for how Pullman feels about this. I think he's saying it on purpose

that he wants us to sit here and think about what she's giving up if she says yes to this. It's a little bit of a remix on Lee and Serafina's conversation, right? About free will and democracy and everything. But it's also a little bit of a remix here on Mary Malone, right?

Hannah obviously brings Mary into the past with us here. She's that similar character. And Mary is told by angels of what she has to do. And she's convinced by Lyra and by the angels to have faith and give up her career and her research, which is obviously going down the drain anyways. But Hannah, I mean, her career is blossoming, right? Like she's really close to a breakthrough. And I think that this is really, really well contrasted

when we get to the point where they reveal in the next chapter, we have George revealing, you know, like, yeah, by the way, we're also half bad guys. These were the warning signs. These were all red flags. And it's not easy for these women for marisa for hannah as you said to just pick up their career you don't just pick your

career up after you put it in the trash like oh you know what i think after trying to earn this my whole life after everyone scrutinized every single thing i did from breathing to shitting to whatever i wore to what I ate. Like, I don't, you know, I'm just going to put it in the trash. It's not just what you do. You know, like they've been raised against all odds against this and they've succeeded. And this is a big ask. This is very big.

Yeah. And I mean, you brought up Mary Malone and I think that's an apt comparison because she does give up a lot. She gives up the potential for big funding for her project, which could greatly advance her career, but she knows that it's going to be used for nefarious purposes. So she goes against it and then destroys the computer. But I mean, it's a lot easier to answer a calling from angels than it is from like random men that you don't really know. And you keep saying like, I know this is unethical, but also ethically, it is. It's easier to say yes to angels than to that. And it is kind of that same question of when Mary and Oliver are faced with the funding, right? Like it is that same thing of Charles saying saying i can give you everything you want and hannah thinking like do i want to throw my research away to help these guys when i don't

even know what they stand for yeah yeah and she's only had this is like her only conversation with them right this is the only time they court her on this. When I feel like usually people get a lot more, there's a lot more discussion and back and forth, negotiation and stuff. But anyway. Yeah, she's not in the position to negotiate at all. There's no negotiating. She's been put in the position. Like they came to her, they let her in.

She was not let in prior to this. And that is made very obvious. Yeah. Next level of clearance baby well lord nugent addresses her fears he's like we were stretched too thin to properly guard the bologna reader we have less of that problem here we're all here adnan pipes in as well reminding her this is protecting the freedom of our world. This is a war worth fighting. Yasmeen asks, how many alethiometers are there in total? They tell her five, and that there's a rumored missing sixth. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Yasmeen asks, why don't we just make a new one? And George says, Hannah might have more to say about that, but I think it's something to do with the metal alloy.

The needles and alloys are made differently, and any replication doesn't seem to work. One can't really live without the other. Adnan calls it one of the many mysteries that they are working to solve. Lord Nugent got up from the table and brought the little box with the battered corners over to Hannah. table and brought the little box with the battered corners over to Hannah. It looked like rosewood. A painted design on the top was only just recognizable as a coat of arms. I love this. It's a much prettier long form passage, but the language here, it talks about how this is an antique, but it's not an antique in the way where you think it'd be some delicate, beautiful thing. She's gazing at it and it's worn, worn right just like the bodleian alethiometer is worn but this

one's deeper in size it's chunkier it's less decorated it has an engraving of the sun rising behind the needle and hands and as soon as she puts it in her hand although it might not have been as beautiful and ornate she knew she wanted to be alone with it that's a little dude but is this a vibrator i that's what i thought that's honestly and then i came to the doc and you had written the same thing and i was like i'm glad both chloe and i were like that's the language you use with the vibrator i mean she literally then says it felt right for her and i'm like well when you know you know if you know you know she's a guy she just wants to be alone with it

and I was like alright I feel that girl mood well Hannah goes and gives it a test drive continues to be lewd I just want to say it keeps being lewd this is all

you know how like there are scenes in the song of ice and fire where like danny when she rides drogon out of the dragon pit to talk about that other series that we cover like yes yes that one the language there is very sexual yeah yes yes higher like that's absolutely it's a very sexually charged scene and that's Hannah with the alethiometer um she's letting her mind slip further setting the alethiometer to the baby the beehive and the apple

you know lots of different settings lots of different speeds and patterns on this alethiometer and so each of those symbols stands for a person productive work and inquiry respectively asking if she should take the job and she receives the marionette in return after six six swings which she says that in this sort of simple construction of a question usually just

means yes so she says yes she'll do it and i'm just like i don't get it though like how does the marionette mean yes and i'm like is it the association of the words pull or like obey and i'm like is there something i'm missing like on how the marionette means yes i think it's obey um it would be the tone right in the moment and so for the moment it serves as affirmation to take the job but as the reader and i would never i mean she's a decorated doctorate you know like she reads this shit every day and i don't do shit with my life except you know like hang out with you talking about hannah ralph this fictional character but like to me that says that she's the puppet on strings which we learn next chapter because they explain the blackmail and how they

need malcolm and she's like oh i I was Boo Boo the Fool the whole time. That's what it says to me, the Marianas. And there's more than that, right? Because it's hysterical because she uses the beehive, the apple, and the baby. So the baby and the apple and the beehive, that to me is pretty much reminiscent of Lyra's whole story, right? It is, it is. The beehive representing dust and honey and, you know, work and productive, obviously,

but like sweetness, yes, sweetness. The apple as Eve, yes, and the baby. So I thought that was really interesting. And she is a puppet in the scheme of everything happening around the girl just like mary yes i think that's a great that's a great catch and interpretation that's absolutely another level of what's going on here and i think that what you said for the marionette makes perfect sense because i was just like i don't understand how this like if i were the person reading this i'd be like i don't know that i don't know that this means i should take it

yeah that means you're being manipulated sweetie that's what it says to me i was like i don't know that this means I should take it. Yeah, that means you're being manipulated, sweetie. That's what it says to me. I was like, I don't understand how she read it like that. She has a doctorate is what I'm saying. I get it. But I'm just like, are you sure you do? What she needs is a vibrator. Oh, my God.

Well, to be fair, she does say she's like, you know what? If we're going to do this, I need the books because I can't do this without having the books. So apparently not. I don't have the books and I did it fine. But whatever. No, I'm just kidding. They promised to find her all the books she needs, but they start to argue within themselves about how, how are we going to buy them? We have to cast a false lead. So no one realizes why we need these books. In the earlier days of Oakley Street, they would write these kind of things on green paper, which was their term for false leads. So they're like, we need green paper in the earlier days of oakley street they would write these kind of things on green paper which was their term for false leads so they're like we need green paper to put out there we got to put out some green paper they'll put out rumors that maybe they've made another alethiometer they'll figure it out they say hannah reminds them she's like what about income and lord nudin's like we'll take care of you sweetheart an uncle or something we'll call it left you money we don't have a lot but you won't go hungry yasmina's like oh do you have a safe and she's like no and they said they'll deliver one maybe in the disguise of like a boiler or stove

yeah and then after all this hannah remembers to ask lord nugent her own question. She's like, so do you know Coram Van Texel or Gerard Bonneville? And Nugent says he doesn't quite know a Coram, but Hannah senses a lie in his voice. Though Gerard rings a bell and he explains that Gerard was an experimental theologian who had been leading research into the Ruzakov field, who lost his bearings and was jailed for what he thinks was a sexual offense. And Hannah tells them that the man has actually been in Oxford to Malcolm's father's pub. She asks George how to contact them, and they plan to meet Fridays at 3pm to talk about a book she means to write for his advice in being a scholar.

Quote. And- Week. Yeah. Book. It's the third book of dust and it's never coming out i think it's gonna come out it's gonna come out i think we'll get that before the wins winner oh i absolutely do i really do so lord nugent gives her her first task ask the alethiometer why the child the priory at god's toe is important before they part nugent says one last thing your young friend the boy from the inn matthew is it malcolm polstead uh yeah malcolm we won't put him in danger but he could be valuable

in a number of ways keep in touch with him tell him what you think he can keep quiet about pick up whatever you can the energy in the room completely goes dark vibes are not great everyone's quiet they're all like in their coats and goodbyes are being said and it's over they're gone and once they've left hannah like leaves she looks at jesper and she's like what the fuck just happened in there and jesper says they knew that he meant something underneath what he actually said and they didn't like it hannah says i got that far myself i wonder what it was yeah so in a conversation about instruments with secret meanings levels and meanings right hannah ralph

can easily read the alethiometer for the most part but turns out reading the other meanings of people's looks and the subtext of the words turns out to be much more difficult and opaque no that is interesting that she's understanding i mean the looks in the subtext are making way more sense than the alethiometer though right now right like she doesn't know what they're saying but she at least is like something's wrong from their looks where the alethiometer is like screaming at her and she's like nah we're good it's all good she's like that's not a red flag she's like oh i love the color red and there's more than that right so okay so the end of this chapter it's not just that that makes her uneasy the idea of nugent calling malcolm matthew yeah dude like what come on dude you gotta put some respect on your child spy i think it's quite obvious that they're trying to convey here

he's on the good side but he's not a good guy, right? Later, Hannah says Nugent is ruthless, and it's obvious that his ends might not be justifying his means. And you know who it brings me right on back to is a little ditty named Asriel Belacqua, who sacrificed Roger and was willing to sacrifice Roger, not knowing who he is or caring who he is, versus Nugent being willing to sacrifice Matthew. I mean, Malcolm.

That stood out very strongly here yeah i think that's a great comparison and i i didn't really think about that but you're that's absolutely true he doesn't care about nothing he pretends to just like you know asriel pretended to with roger and is like, I mean, he cares about Roger, but he cares about Roger for Asriel things. Yeah. And he cares about Matthew for Matthew things. Wait, fuck. Malcolm thing. Well, speaking of people who care deeply about children, chapter 14, Lady with Monkey.

I love this chapter title. So I'm realizing it's also, I think, a play on the painting that inspired Lyra and one of the forms that Pan takes frequently, which is the ermine, and is entitled, it's by Da Vinci, it's entitled Lady with Ermine. That's interesting. I didn't really think about it but it definitely is and not only is it that but it's also a reference then to the collectors because there's the artwork of the lady with monkey as we talked a little bit about during our show coverage in series two uh but layers yes layers in the collectors the A story inspired by Kate Bush, Philip Pullman's dear, dear friend who's always running up that hill.

That was a Kate Bush joke, everyone. Thank you. I know. Thank you. But yeah, she inspired a story about two art pieces that keep ending up in the same collection. So he wrote a story about the same idea.

One is a photo of a beautiful young blonde girl smiling right and the other is a statue of a golden monkey and it's supposed to be marisa and the monkey but lady with monkey lady with monkey well i want to take this quick moment to plug our friend maya maya draws who has made a recreation of Lady with Ermin but with Lyra and Pan as the figures in it and we'll I think we've linked it before but we'll link it again

it's so great, it's really, I also love her Marisa art, her Marisa art with the monkey, we'll have to plug some lady with monkey, yes her lady with monkey art is also good and I think it's some of the first stuff that we saw of maya's so definitely check that out all of you yes the nuns at the god's topriory are preparing for the feast of saint scholastica which isn't quite a celebration but

a day of ritual and oratory devotion malcolm arrives and Sister Fenella greets him. She had excused herself from the events to watch Lyra because a baby obviously can't sing hymns and pray. Pantelamen is doing his favorite thing with Lyra, changing rapidly into different birds while she's screaming with laughter. Malcolm asks if he'll be able to speak with Benedicta after the service, but Fenella doesn't think it's likely. She's like, I can i can relay a message though while she cores into a cabbage malcolm tells her he's brought warning of a flood from the egyptian man quorum ventexel he tells her no one believed him when he told them about it we have this line of i just wanted to make make sure Sister Benedicta knew, so she could make everything safe. Especially Lyra.

Cause you're a little lying here on this bank. I told my dad and he said you could all come and save the trout. Only it probably wouldn't be holy enough. She laughed and clapped her old red hands. So cute. It So cute. It is cute, and you know, Sister Fenella smiles at his earnestness and thanks him,

but tells him not to worry. When she was a novice at the Priory, there had been a flood 50 years prior, and they survived well enough. Malcolm comments that there was one other thing, but he'd wait till tomorrow and tell Benedicta then. He asks Sister Fenella if she'd seen Mr. Taphouse, but she had not.

Malcolm had hoped to speak with him, but he didn't know where to find him outside of the Priory, and Sister Fenella didn't either. He decides to wait for the worship to end so he can speak with Benedicta after all, filling the short wait while he hangs out with Lyra. He tries to teach Lyra to say his name and it's so cute she just dribbles and Asta thinks it's so funny because it is. Fenella and Malcolm watch Pan and Lyra and Pan starts to turn into a mole. Finds it rather clever. Malcolm's like how does Lyra and Pan know how to be a mole when they've never seen one? And Fenella says it's a mystery only the good lord can understand. Fenella's demon, Geraint, remembers being a mole once. She says whenever she was frightened, she'd just turn into

one. Asta says, yeah, you just feel mole-ish. Malcolm tells Lyra she can teach Pan to say Malcolm then, and Asta turns into a monkey to entertain them, and they laugh. Malcolm tries to get Lyra to say, FUN-EL-LA, and Pan turns into a squirrel while she giggles. Very clever indeed. It is clever. It's cute. And I do have some dusty discussion thoughts about this little scene and Malcolm teaching Lyra, but the question, I remember the question regarding how does Lyra know to turn into a mole if she's never

seen one reminds me a little bit of that sort of semi-platonic in terms of uh the philosopher plato and and the forms uh discussion that hannah and malcolm had a few chapters back oh she's like well if we've never seen it if you've never experienced it if humans didn't exist in this world does the concept of sweetness still exist? Does this idea, like, does light still have an association with beeswax and candles? And I think that there's a little bit of something there, too, with that idea of, like, what is intrinsic knowledge? What is something that we are born with or just know in terms of the universe? And the questions of how does Pan know what a mole is?

Huh. So. Huh. Yeah, that's a great thought. I didn't really put it together and we did discuss that at length. We discussed that once, once upon a time. Not too long ago, actually. The nuns are

let out of service and Malcolm hears them stirring around the corner benedicta joins them and says she's glad to see him because she needs to speak to him as well he's definitely not in trouble he notes by her tone which is good and she asks him if he remembers the man with a three-legged hyena and he had told her about before and he says wow amazing that's actually precisely what i'm here to talk about and how he saw him breaking into the priory's broken shuttered window and benedicta tells him it wasn't broken someone had just left it opened i totally forgot that i

thought it had been broken and on this read-through i was like oh that's foreshadowing oh oh it's foreshadowing uh which we find out of course in the next chapter is malcolm goes oh shit that's what i thought too it was left open open like that way and very sneaky very sneaky just little wait a second it was left open especially with last chapter being alice talks and of course kind of the introduction of him being gerard bon vie being a sexual manipulator deviant abuser uh yeah interesting how he's tying all these ideas together yeah benedicta stops malcolm she's like i want you to stay absolutely as far away from that deranged mentally ill man as you can she knows malcolm has a friendly disposition but that man's dangerous she asks what he wanted to warn her about and he's like of the flood but to his dismay she

doesn't believe the flood is a real threat and also is like the egyptians are full of superstition poor malcolm his dad's like don't worry about it son vanilla's like, don't worry about it, son. Fenella's like, I don't think you should worry about it. And now even keeled and stern Benedicta is saying, oh, it's nothing to worry about. All of these adults suck, is what I'm saying. There's certainly an element of Cassandra to this, right? Like, obviously, there's the parallel of Noah, but there's certainly a Cassandra element of this, of the chapter of Malcolm being sent to spread the word and everybody denying him no matter what right Cassandra daughter of Priam king of Troy Apollo gives her the gift of prophecy because she was super mega hot but then she's like I'm not gonna fuck you Apollo and he's

like well I'm placing a curse on you so no one's gonna believe you ever bitch so that's how that story goes uh but I could see it loosely having the framework to this chapter. And another close example besides Noah or Cassandra to me is Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah's commission, Isaiah 6 from the book of prophets, Isaiah is called basically to be God's messenger, right, to the people of Israel. And he's sent to foretell the ruin of God's people, but the people of Israel don't wish to hear it. God tells him to be ever hearing, but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving, and to make the heart of this people calloused, make their ears dull, close their eyes, otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed malcolm has been tasked with an

incredible thing to believe of an 11 year old boy much like libra was right of spreading the word of this flood though not necessarily the word of god but the word of quorum van texel here which you know when you think about it later on quorum has become farther quorum hand of the king right to john fa i'd say that's a pretty importantam, Hand of the King right to Jon Fah. I'd say that's a pretty important exchange that Hand of the King is telling him to go on. Not only is it Coram tasking him but also Hannah. We see the stress

of that in the Bologna instrument here stacking up on Hannah but we're going to see that stress rack up on Malcolm finally much more. Yeah, absolutely. We definitely see, as you said Malcolm put into this sort of prophet position and as you were saying you know regarding the adults who don't believe him i think it's interesting that it's the nuns right they're closely associated with the church and they're

the ones who don't have faith in malcolm's prophecies And since we are discussing the rest of book one within this, regarding those floods and the non-believers, it's interesting because that flood, right, is fulfilling this really archetypal role

and along with retribution and drowning and destruction being part of what happens in those sorts of flood narratives, there's of course a really cleansing element. And first of all, we've been discussing how Lord Nugent, it turns out, is pretty slimy and will get there soon. But the flood prevents Malcolm from getting caught up in Nugent's schemes, I think think based on the timing yeah so that's that's one element it does that too and it also disrupts the league of saint alexander we're going to come back to that in a second uh i i think that it plays a big role in breaking that apart because the disbandment its eventual disbandment is part of like the whole reason why the League was made fails Marisa.

She ends up losing Lyra anyway, and then Lyra's put in sanctuary, so she's like, well, I know where she is, but, like, what's the fucking point anymore? But it also means that the schools are closed. They're not meeting as usual because there's a whole, like, natural disaster and rebuilding period. So that kind of just breaks apart the league of saint alexander's ability to have power and then there's also again that religious aspect represented by the nuns that's sort of wiped away it's i think a much sadder note because i think we've seen that the nuns have been very benevolent but the nuns were non-believers when it came to the flood and most of them die right right? Pretty horribly.

It's pretty horrible because they're all super nice. I mean, God told y'all. God sent Isaiah and here he was and y'all didn't want to listen. They didn't. And it is sad because I think that part of it has to do with like, they do represent still that religious, that Christian entity in the story, right? They're not the magisterium, but they're within like

that system somewhere. And I don't know if we could interpret it as them also being cleansed and washed away and keeping with the sort of larger story theme, both within this entire His Dark Materials world of, like, undoing religion. Interesting, especially then when you consider mary being the ultimate you know undoing religion in casting aside her nun her nunnery when you compare the these nuns to her it's very interesting to see them have lived this long life in god's toes priory and like this is their life this is their home this is who they are as people and they've never wanted it differently and then you get to meet mary in the main series who always wanted something different and it's it's really sad actually like i mean the nuns are so sweet yeah yeah they are vanilla and benedict are like

yeah yeah well malcolm follows up and he's like hey ben, Benedicta, do you know where Mr. Taphouse is? And she's like, yeah, he's had a few rough days of work. He's not feeling great. So I sent him home to rest. She sends him off and she's like, remember what I said about the man? And exactly what Coram said. And Malcolm works towards his next target, his teachers. He couldn't warn the nuns properly and he thought teachers might be easier.

But no, they weren't. None of them believed him. They gave him the same excuses. Gyptians are superstitious or untrustworthy, which obviously there's something there, especially in comparing them to a marginalized people, right? Like the Roma, that you're calling them superstitious and untrustworthy. It's drivel. It's pure prejudice. It's touted by the government because of the resources they hate to have to provide to right just like with sanctuary and why they're spending all this time

hating it malcolm's friends eric and robbie they sort of believe malcolm but eric says he understands though why no one believes egyptians his father said they have a hidden gender he's trying to say hidden agenda but eric says you can't believe anything they say but malcolm calls eric out for being daft saying what sort of secret plan could they really have and robbie mentions that eric had stopped wearing his alexandria badge and then he's like but have i really he doesn't say that he just flips it over he's like i got my league badge it's hidden in my collar he's like that's a special second degree league members way of wearing it and robbie's like that's pretty sneaky though to hide it like that he's like because you know he wears his badge normally at least people know where he belongs yeah they're both straight up sitting here like

dude you have to tell us if you're a cop legally legally. Like, if you're a cop, you have to. But no, that really is the reference, right? Because Malcolm says, if you see someone's wearing a badge, you can just not say anything they could report. But if they hide it, you could find yourself in trouble and not know why. Yeah, it's unfair. It's bullshit. It's bullshit. Yeah, it's pretty shitty. And I think we have spoken about this pretty extensively in the last episode. But that continuation of the breakdown of social trust and this sort of next level of silencing people, that aspect prevents people from also banding together, right, to challenge the League. You know, we also have talked a lot about revelations right the last couple episodes and uh even over in a song of ice and fire we've been talking about the mark of the beast on and off and just prophecies here from book of prophecies but the badge kind of reminds me of the mark of the beast

yeah i could definitely see that which is a little well that's how it goes right yeah i mean it's a little heavy but they well no i was gonna say the irony of it but i mean that's how it goes, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a little heavy. Well, no, I was going to say the irony of it, but I mean, that's the whole point, right? That they tack on to religion to do horrible things. But I mean, in this book series, religion and God are bad. In this series. Yeah, well, I mean, ideally he's benevolent, but... Yeah. he's benevolent but yeah they do they try to get what the second degree of the league membership is out of eric but eric's like i'm not gonna tell you and then robbie and andrew are like

so you're gonna tell us within a week and eric's super offended by this he's like how dare you it like goes away and everyone's like he's gonna tell us in a week i mean that's your track record i know right and i'm glad they make fun of him for it because someone has to you know that boy's gotta know his dad's gotta know oh yeah well his dad he obviously gets it from his dad though he got something from his dad that's for sure the league's influence had grown mr hawkins the previous principal's successor had compromised with the little terrorists so now they reign supreme throughout the entire school we get this line that eric said mr willis was at a special training camp but he was believed as much as he usually was so no one knew for sure i thought that was interesting that eric no one

believes him saying that mr willis is at a special training camp. But as we know from some of the stuff said in the last few chapters, he's probably at a reeducation camp, which is not a fun special training camp. And it's kind of in relation to people not believing Malcolm with the flood, right? Yeah, it is. I mean, like Eric's not wrong.

He's at some sort of special training camp. It's just not the kind of special training anyone wants. Just like, yeah, Malcolm's not wrong. And like, it's fascism. Yeah. Some of the teachers had left the school. Some took a leave of absence

or suspension and came back chastened. Well, sullen, we should say. Others vanished with no replacement. The real authority lay in the never named, never described pupils who met with Mr. Hawkins each day. And the next day, their word would be announced as law in the assembly. Each time they'd present their word as the word of god which protected them from mr hawkins arguments against their wants and that actual use of god kind of feels significant here huh it really does and it does feel intentional because they are saying that anyone who goes against them or argues

back against their like random fucking school announcements are going to be considered blasphemous like literally in a religious sense, I'm pretty sure. And it's quite different, I think, from some of the other religious orders, right, and departments that we see in this specific book, again, like with the nuns who are very nice and lovely. But it's also absolutely right, more of that critique of how religion is used

to further those hungry plans of some humans. The pupils in this group were guided by two or three wordless adults rumored to be special governors who roamed the halls taking note other teachers seemed to regard them as powerful and acted submissive to them no one knew why they were here though but everyone knew not to argue about their presence half the school had joined the league at this point and it was a bit odd. We have a line of It was as if it had always

been there, as if it would be strange for a school not to be pervaded by this half-enthralling, half-frightening miasma. Uh. Reminds me of COVID. Yeah, they go on to say that lessons have been normal,

though now they were preceded by a prayer. Oh, must be awful. Don't know how that goes. Pictures and paintings that once hanged in classrooms were replaced with posters of Bible quotes. People didn't seem as ill-behaved, but now they walked around with an air of guilt hanging over them. Okay, some of the language here is really good work. Like, you can tell this passage was written out of passion, right, for the topic.

Obviously, we know Philip has a big passion for education, being an educator himself. I mean, he says obsequiousness, right? He uses the word obsequiousness in this passage. This passage is not for us. It was for him to flourish and tell his story of oppression come to the elementary school in the lower side of the area. It was just great to see, I don't know, just some fun creative writing. It was a beautiful passage of just all these gorgeous like you read half enthralling half frightening miasma uh just a lot of fancy frilly text of him just explaining how

far they've fallen yeah it was for philip saturday comes and malcolm is finally able to test ride lavelle sauvage quorum was right she's stiffer and faster. Asta rides along as a kingfisher, a lovely bright birb, and Malcolm tells Asta he thinks they need a new bigger boat. Maybe they could find a boat builder after talking to Mr. Van Texel. Asta's like, how will we find

him? And Malcolm's like, I guess I didn't really think about that one either. I love this because he keeps thinking, how will i find mr tap house i guess i never thought about it how will i find mr van texel i guess i never thought about it and soon the water will rise everywhere so he can't find anybody dude shit was hard when you didn't have cell phones yeah and when the water level was like eight feet off the ground and you couldn't just like tell everyone and everyone.

Anyway. Malcolm wonders if Coram Van Texel is a spy. And he mentions Oakley Street to Asta trailing off while Asta is busy gazing at fish in the water. Malcolm could feel his demon's eagerness to plunge into the water and catch the fish and silently urged her on. But she held back. into the water and catch the fish and silently urged her on but she held back i thought this line was interesting in the context of that earlier lesson that malcolm had from his mother about like how he can't completely like control what his demon becomes but he can like maybe kind of accidentally help it when it comes to the final form because i feel like if he was the kind

of person if asta was the kind of demon who goes after the fish, right? He is trying to urge her on, and I guess she doesn't. But, you know, then Asta could maybe be a kingfisher, right? Or a demon that likes to go in the water and hunt fish. But she's like, nah. Nah, not for me. No. So, they tie off the boat and make their way to Hannah's, but Hannah has a visitor.

They debate staying back and not going at all, but finally go toward the door, eyeing this vehicle. Its grandeur is putting Malcolm off, driving the want to not knock on the door. Mood. But Asta insists that they are expected, and Malcolm says that they'll just have to be proper spies, and be polite and keep their eyes open. They knock, and Hannah invites them in. Jesper? Jesper!

Murmurs for them to be careful, while Hannah says louder that her visitor was just getting ready to go. Asta changes into a robin, then into a jackdaw, and Malcolm feels one with her uncertainty and her black feathers. He assumes an expression of being dumb

and mild to go along with it, and then Hannah introduces him to Mrs. Coulter. The woman's name hit Malcolm like a bullet. This was Lyra's mother. She was the most beautiful lady he'd ever seen. Young and golden-haired and

sweet-faced, dressed up in gray silk and wearing a scent, just the very faintest hint of a fragrance that spoke of warmth and sunlight and of the South. She smiled with such friendliness he was reminded of that very moment with Gérard Bonvy, and this was the woman who wanted nothing more to do with her own child but he wasn't supposed to know that and nothing would have made him admit he knew anything about the baby there's a lot going on here almost a little foreshadowing there of her name hitting malcolm like a bullet i didn't really think about that uh her scent that he smelled her scent this is something prominent right will smells her scent when he meets smelled her scent. This is something prominent, right?

Will smells her scent when he meets her throughout the main series. And I'm wondering if she got this scent when she went south to learn about the zombie, maybe? That could be something. We have a couple different things about her scent throughout the books, right? In the amber spyglass,

Will smells the fragrance of some scent she was wearing combined with the fresh smell of her body. He feels disturbed by it. In the northern lights, Lyra notices her scent in her skin, the slight perplexing smell of her flesh, scented but somehow metallic. Her envelopes in the northern lights are scented with her fragrance. Her hair is scented heavily. Metatron smells it in the amber spyglass. In the northern lights, we find out that she has rose soap and that her handkerchief is scented as well. And of course, in the amber spyglass, Lyra recounts trusting Mrs. Coulter

because of her beautiful smile and her sweet-scented glamour and how wrong she had been. Malcolm immediately sees these things about Mrs. Coulter, her scent, her smile, her warmness, and immediately associates her with Gérard Bonvit from The Disposition. I thought that was really interesting that he just immediately saw through it and immediately said, ah, it's an empty smile. She is bad. Yeah.

So he's learning right he is picking things up now that he's been told about charred bonneville and is in is applying those lessons to others and i think what you're calling out her scent is interesting and also um her rosy disposition that and and that she doesn't have the metallic scent here yeah she also she's like very much wanting information here and it seems like she's not in control where the times that the metallic scent were present were obviously when she had the upper hand over lyra as far as just like overpowering her there's two parties here so malcolm entering also helps right uh well and hinders as we're about to learn i'm just wondering if it's like before the severing she might have

been severed that's what i i think it probably is i mean i'm guessing the decade she spent apart from lyra had to have been a pretty rough decade right like a when we meet her she has black hair not blonde hair first of all so you know must have dyed her hair a few times right pullman just kidding i think it's just a mistake or a change that he decided to make but she is blonde in this book and in the main trilogy she has dark hair so he chose this because of lyra's hair right no so lyra also has like dark brown hair in the books but he changed it after the movie came out after the cinematic adaptation of nicole kidman portraying mrs coulter and he in seeing nicole kidman's portrayal and her casting was like of course mrs coulter has

blonde hair and so i think in later publications of or some versions of His Dark Materials, you'll find that actually Mrs. Coulter has in the main trilogy blonde hair. And so I think this is keeping in that that Philip Pullman was just so moved by that. But I'd like to think that Mrs. Coulter is the kind of woman who dyes her hair. Yeah, because she's had a rough decade, right? Like an experiment. She's just fancy. Also that. Also, she just like wants to dye her hair. Why not? Like,

you can just dye your hair. Girl, she gets a full set of gels every other week. Like, that girl is on it. She gets everything waxed. Like, every three weeks she is in that spa spending a day, right, commanding her demonless, weird

crony slaves. Crazy bitch. Yeah, I think she's just someone who dyes her hair. Yeah, that too. She's a stylish woman. Let me know of. I mean, I feel like I don't even know her. She's changed her hair in front of my very eyes. I mean, you know, people do that after

that's usually significant, I guess, in books, but sometimes people just do it like i cut my hair after after cora cut her hair in legend of cora i was like i'm gonna cut my hair i that legitimately happened oh god i i i i suddenly understand so much more things make so much more sense right now about you mrs coulter asks what dr ralph was teaching malcolm which he responds to with the history of ideas she's like well i think you found a very great teacher just for this he feels very put off by her demon her monkey who sits

behind her very still usually asta would have flown over to greet a demon very warmly but not this one she asks malcolm how he found hannah he lived, and what he wants to be when he grows up. He gives her a vague version of Hannah leaving her book behind and lying pretty smoothly, although the monkey did perk up, about living in a village called St. Eves. He responds to her career question with, Well, I was thinking of working on boats or the railway and she responds with this bitch ass sickly sarcastic sweet remark of oh well the history of ideas should be very helpful there he retorts telling her interesting i met a friend of

yours the other day coulter in the scrivener arms, he had a three-legged hyena demon. Yeah, so we're seeing Malcolm being a little troll right now, and maybe using some interesting kind of espionage things, but this feels like a very Lyra-esque move on Malcolm's part, right? The want to poke and then lie in retaliation to mrs coulter's condescension and i think it's another example that displays malcolm's again recklessness and youth like that earlier lack of caution that he shows towards alice yeah and i mean hannah told him at the door please please please just be careful kid and first thing he, he lets his emotions get the better of him. He's like, I think I will cause problems on purpose. Mood.

That was a horrible shock for her. Malcolm could see it, Asta could see it, and Dr. Ralph and Jesper could see it too. But all that happened was that the golden monkey leaned forward and put both paws on Mrs. Coulter's shoulders and the faint pink left her cheek. This is classic lady and monkey, right? Like Coulter and her monkey, classic them. Pretty much any time the monkey wants something in the books or is distraught, he almost always gives her away.

Here is no exception. Like when he's anxiously leaning forward when they're about to open the spy fly case in northern lights or when the monkey watches lyra sleep in the bed waiting to put panel layman back to sleep if need be in the amber spyglass this entire exchange is an argument to me against having demons to be honest like i think there are a lot of times where like of course it's so cool to have a demon to have like a best friend that is an animal and that is you and they seem very cool and useful in many ways but they also completely just snitch on your emotions seems inconvenient for that yeah absolutely and it depends on the demon too like what if you get stuck with like someone that's way too outgoing and really snitches on you all the time won't shut their mouth.

Or you could have a bug. If you had a bug, it's harder to tell. Man, maybe I need a bug. Yeah, we need a butterfly or something. Well, Mrs. Coulter was like, I don't know any such person, and he asked if he should tell him hello then when he next sees him

or any news of Mrsrs coulter and she says he shouldn't speak to that man at all and he also shouldn't listen to such nonsense asta and hannah just watch wide-eyed and in shock the entire time but snap out of it asking if mrs coulter needs anything else or if she was leaving malcolm and the monkey have a staring match during this time malcolm thinks that the monkey if it had a name would be named malice get it it's the thing he said the thing he said the thing it's now canonized half canonized it's it's malcolm's head canon marisa thanks thanks Dr. Ralph and says a very impersonal goodbye, Malcolm, to Malcolm and leaves. Immediately, Hannah's like, what the fuck did you do that for? And Malcolm's like, I wanted to see how she responded.

And it definitely shook her. Hannah's like, she came here to ask about Lyra and she seemed to think I had some connection to the child. Which is true, I guess, through you, Malcolm. And then the gears start turning. Hannah realizes Coulter must have somehow learned this through an alethiometer because of the oddness and the distance of all the facts that Coulter had. And she starts making tea, super distracted by her thoughts, piecing it together. She explains Coulter feigned interest in the Oxford alethiometer group

and then moved on to discussing a child that's being kept out of the city. Hannah, of course, had told her nothing, but she does want to tell Malcolm something. She immediately blurts out that she's left the Alethiometer group for a new job with Oakley Street, once he is sworn to secrecy, and that she feels as if Coulter knew she had one hidden in her home. I will say, though, I feel like Mrs. Coulter is doing a bad job researching. Because as we've established in the earlier chapters, and as Malcolm's mom sort of points out, literally everyone in this town knows that there's a baby at the priory.

I mean, we know how she feels about doing PR jobs with the poor people, though. You know, it's kind of hard. She'd have to actually talk to poor people to find out like in the northern lights with the kids when she's got them writing the letters and she's just gritting her teeth like don't breathe near me orphan pretty much so I mean I'm just like she couldn't have been trying that hard I really feel that way Hannah still doesn't know if she thinks that malcolm should have said anything about gerard bon vie to mrs coulter and he's like we needed to know if she knew about him and then he tells her about the priory window how someone left it open and they

both start to speculate if it was on purpose she once more swears him to secrecy about her new job and he starts asking her more questions. She tells him they've asked her to ask the alethiometer about Lyra and also about Dust. He promises he won't ask any more intrusive questions, and they move on to choose his books before being sent home. The next day, her safe's installed, the alethiometer is home sweet home, George, Papa Dimitri and Hannah chat. And she asks him, hey, what was up with that really awkward silence at the end of the meeting the other day? Well, it turns out there's an agent they want to turn to the other side and they were hoping to find blackmail on him.

He was rumored to have an unhealthy interest in young boys. Hannah flips her shit. She is not having it. She's like, uh, no, uh, no, no, no. How dare you, first of all. George is like, he's not gonna be in real harm. And she's like, oh, it's just a fake guy with a fake unhealthy interest in young boys?

Then okay. She says she would rather return the alethiometer that she can't believe he would try to trick her by telling her after she already committed. He tells her to calm down and come talk to him when she's become calmer. The chapter ends with, No, of course she'd do anything to keep Malcolm safe from that. And she saw Lord Nugent in a new light too.

Under that patrician charm and friendliness, he was ruthless. All she could do was ask the alethiometer about it, and make what sense she could out of the swings and pauses of the silvery needle. As ever, the deeper she went, the more questions she saw. That evening, the rain started in earnest. Yes, as earlier saved by the bell this doesn't come up again because everything floods and malcolm's whole course of life is changed because he ends up having lyra lyra secures him and alice in many many ways she is the golden ticket hannah here is kind of like a late stage coulter or the anti-coulter right that that she's sticking up uh against against this agency that wants to use this boy for greed and for bad and we don't have to discuss how

real life this is but this is a real life thing that happens in a lot of secret service agencies like they said that are very comfortable with what they do and do not feel guilt about what they do in our letters of the alphabet uh this is absolutely how blackmail is used. This is kind of an odd, I get it, it's supposed to build up Nugent, but it is an odd one-offer that never comes back. Not at all. Maybe it drives Malcolm in his career to understand how these systems will power up used children and use children as pawns in their schemes but i'm not

sure just never comes back i wonder if it's something like pullman was gonna address and then dropped i don't know i guess this will drown it all yeah i think that that's mostly it he's like whatever that's solid now um but yeah it's it's pretty shitty, everything that's happened. And it's pretty shitty that he tells her to calm down, like, as though she's being... There's an element of it that feels kind of gendered, like, telling women, you need to calm down, you're being too emotional. It's like, no, Lord Nugent, you're fucked up. You're trafficking children to complete your little blackmail scheme to turn an agent. And that's the thing is like if you traffic one child, then that opens the floodgate doors and this isn't the first one that's been trafficked for them to fulfill their needs. interesting because I kind of also you were talking about Hannah as this like anti-Coulter or something and there's part of me that kind of wonders what happened in the time since this

meeting that when Lyra first meets Mrs. Coulter Hannah Ralph is there alongside her yeah and I think that there's a lot of this that, and we can talk about this more in discussion, that he's had ideas for from the very beginning. And there's also stuff that kind of is like, there's a lot of retconning, right, that happens left and right. But this does feel a little bit like late stage culture. Like something about this younger driven culture is still reminiscent of the culture we meet in Amber Spyglass in the end of subtle knife in her search for lyra and something about hannah yeah standing up for malcolm here against this is the the mega version of colter standing up against the bomb for lyra and trying to keep her safe right like it is that kind of mega version of these people that have kind of trusted the system and trusted it to support them and as the system has ruined their life they finally lash back but i also like i think it's different because hannah would do that for any child i think right it is different whereas mrs culture is like a verse yeah because i'm like mrs culture's like she'll do that for lyra but she's like all those other kids fuck them fuck those kids and the other problem there is also she's like still not sure if she's really doing

it for lyra or if it's like she's 50 50 she's like am i doing it for lyra i think so but i also could be doing it to find out what her fucking prophecy is and exploit that haha yeah well yeah but when she finally dies at least you know there's no there's no contest there but that's for sure but yeah i i just wonder like is there something like hannah ralph despite kind of fearing mrs coulter and and being very wary of her there's a part of me that wonders does hannah like respect mrs coulter as a colleague on some level right and that's why they're both there at jordan college together and it feels like they're presented together you know yeah that is interesting and

and we learn like there aren't it's not unheard of that there's female scholars obviously because they exist we're literally talking about them but like i do think it's interesting they're presented together uh as you know i mean i've done comedy shows and podcasts and whatever and had to you know be professional with people i didn't really love or whatever but it's interesting that it's like oh here's the two smart girls in the room we're gonna pair them up even though their values and morals probably don't align whatsoever they just happen to get like a degree but they didn't have to both like be there at the same time to to approach lyra right so that's what i don't get or i think that i guess hannah ralph is there to show to an extent how lyra grows from the beginning to the end yeah and i also think that like he didn't probably get his full want for hannah into the main story he

probably had ideas to put her in other ways or use her in other ways that just never came back because obviously he has a lot of i mean once you hit the amber spyglass it's fucking over okay there's so many new little characters and asriel's council and the magisterium council and then yeah exactly and the chevalier it's yep cialis it's it's too much there's so many characters and i don't mean that in a negative way because i think it's a perfect amount of characters personally but uh hannah ralph like there just wasn't a chance to come back to her from you know beginning then end but there's no chance in the middle so i am glad this is the revisit this is the revisit you know we're revisiting her now and learning why she's so important but there are things that are a little bit screaming retcon that i'm like i really wish this was worked into the main story and we could talk about it in a second

in our dusty discussion which is where we spoil the hell out of most of the secret Commonwealth up to where Eliana has read. So if you have not read the secret Commonwealth, this is it until next month. We will chat with you next month for episode six. We have lots of fun in store as the flood rises to now. Don't get spoiled. And we'll talk to you soon so about a dusty discussion where we spoil the hell out of the secret commonwealth and to

return to what we were saying the scene in the secret commonwealth where all of a sudden everybody just like info dumps on lyra and alice is like I got raped by Gerard and everyone's like yeah they saved your life Malcolm really saved your life Malcolm's the best like that whole scene is probably the most retcon scene of the whole series to me it's just so unnatural yeah it was it was weird it's it's fine but it was so like here's a bunch of information that i'm writing into my book yeah that's part of that's part of what feels retconned but also i think what felt most retconned to me and i think that's significant it shows like a strange i don't know so much of like look at what a great guy malcolm is yeah throughout the second book and like he is great right like in this first book we didn't

need like more of that hammered home it feels heavy handed in the second book but for me and I know this is small and it's a strange gripe what feels retconned is I'm like it's also kind of very rude of Lyra I'm like girl

Alice Lonsdale was 26 years old and you're just like that woman's so old and i'm like you are so rude yeah alice lonsdale's such a young woman um but i i i think that's a retcon where he re-envisioned her later right as as being younger younger and a part of the story because you wanted to incorporate her i will say something i noticed today on my read is and i didn't bring this up during the episode but when you mentioned the man with the lemur demon who was overtly a little extra creepy towards lyra and trying to be overly friendly from the northern lights uh he's like trying to get her drunk you know what she tells him her name is? Yeah, I noticed that.

Alice. Yep, she tells him it's Alice. So it's probably just a coincidence, but I wonder if there's something there. You know, if he did at least plan for her to be Alice Lonsdale this entire time. That's interesting. I think he might have, but I also think that it's I think he might have, but I also don't think

Vladimir knew her name was Alice. No, I don't either. And I think that's said in the Secret Commonwealth that she's like like i don't know mrs lonsdale had her first name yeah and that's the problem like it does take a certain suspension of disbelief for some of the stuff in the secret commonwealth and some of the stuff is like mind-blowing good where you're like holy shit i can't believe you just came up with this philip pullman but then at the same exact time some of it has me just going like like some of the stuff with pan is like heartbreaking and tear-jerking oh god yeah i was like in my blanket crying i was like i can't believe eliana made me read this shit

yeah but there's other things that i'm just like, I don't know. And one of those is like, so I do think this is an interesting foreshadowing. And I think it's something that comes out even before The Secret Commonwealth, because the Lyra's Oxford novella comes out only a few years after the main trilogy, and even prior to the publication of the book of dust and the prior to the publication of la belle sauvage malcolm's teaching lyra to say her name right he's trying to teach her these syllables and he's doing a pretty fucking bad job of it turns out but i think this is foreshadowing foreshadowing of how later on in her teenage years malcolm does uh act as her teacher for a small bit of time, right? And just as he feels the teacher ought to speak, turns out he's not a very good teacher towards her, and they're like, this isn't working.

That's a really good catch, and I didn't understand where that teaching moment was. Like, I knew there was a reason. That's a really good catch. It has to be foreshadowing of the teaching later. It's really funny because she's defiant even as an infant. Yeah, she's just like, I don't want to learn from you.

Nope. Yeah, that's a good one. I didn't even think about that, huh? Yeah, even the toy and everything, she rejects his toy, right, earlier, and they didn't want to let her keep it because she would have eaten it anyways. But, anyways, interesting. Yes. his toy right earlier and they didn't want to let her keep it because she would have eaten it anyways but anyways interesting yes you know the other thing that was very dusty in this that i want to bring back up is malcolm's aura uh he says to asta whatever causes the northern lights

also likely causes his aura and he's thrilled of the idea of his brain being connected to the northern lights this feels really big like a very small sentence with a very big idea especially considering the secret commonwealth like malcolm i think he's gonna be able to access this aura straight up blue skidoo weekend to jump into it or something and portal somewhere i don't know i spent this whole book thinking it was going to be important and it never became important it wasn't the climax it didn't help him save the day it just appeared and did nothing so i'm expecting there will be payoff because it also didn't really i mean it came up in the secret commonwealth but it sure didn't do anything i think the payoff is going to be in the last book of dust and i think there has to be some sort of connection to this kind of a different way

of reading the alethiometer as we've discussed and how there's some weird combo of rose oil is rose oil gonna be involved we don't know uh i'm wondering even if malcolm's gonna like put rose oil in his eye and make that into some sort of portal between worlds or open a window with his eye, Will style, right? Will with subtle knife, but him with his eyeball aura. Especially given the Raylo scene, right? The Lyra-Olivier scene. Will Lyra be able to alethiomate or see through Malcolm's brain aura or something?

I mean, the northern lights had a city in them in the original trilogy so now they're in malcolm's eyes and brain it has to mean something yeah i don't like that that's too intimate i know it's too intimate but if he dies it's okay i i yeah that's really mean and i really hate that because i know i don't want to feel that way about malcolm because this is like he's a sweet little boy in this book and he is a good boy he's a very good boy but malcolm does not continue to be a good boy because polman does not continue to be a good man in writing him okay yeah yeah um yeah i didn't realize um i'm not far enough to know so i still had hope i was like yeah the halo is gonna fucking mean something and it's fine it's fine to know that it doesn't but it's

just so fascinating to me that like when he gets older right there's that scene the first scene where we see the aura come back for him in in the secret commonwealth and everyone's just like oh he's just doing that thing and everyone just lets him like sit there quietly and they just all like chill and are fine and just like live around it and just let him go through the whole thing for like a half hour like he never found anything to further it he never got any more information nothing developed in the 10 20 years but it's just like no one does anything about it right they're just sitting around and letting it happen all right well i guess that's all i have for the dusty discussion uh i am very curious about his eyeball aura i really am yeah yeah i think the idea of the rose oil and putting

it in his eyes is interesting because we are introduced to that concept i think that it has to be connected right it's the rarest substance we're finding it's on all these magisterium people like charles latrum and marisa has roses and rose soap and rose everything i i mean it it has to be used and there has to be a reason why it's so rare. And the idea of like oils and anointment oils being used and possibly even being used for like shaman type purposes is also introduced in the book. And then you think about the seed pods from the Mulefa. Yeah. I want the seed pods to mean something.

Well, I mean. But I guess, you know, when I think about it, Mary brought the seed pods to mean something well i mean but i guess you know what i think about it mary brought the seed pods with her and guess who lives with mary though yeah but it's interesting that lyra didn't bring any and there were none brought into lyra's world but she was just given the vial the rose oil at least yeah but but eliana would have been cool if there were seed pods in both. But Eliana, if she has rose oil and Will has seed pods Yeah. I'm just saying. I'm just

saying for the biological diversity, but maybe it would have been bad for, maybe it's bad to just randomly bring plants from other dimensions. I don't know. You can't do that at like borders you know that right yeah dude you're not supposed to do that in our own world so i'm like maybe that was a bad idea like what if it's an invasive fucking species it's not like grow your own

okay aliana yeah and even then you know we talked about starlings and sparrows ones and like turns out those cute ass birds a menace a menace to society a menace in North America well thank you so much for listening to this episode of La Belle Sauvage that was our dustiest discussion our dust-cussion

so to speak since there is no dustiest this is the most dusty. Thanks for listening. We will be back next month with episode 6, which will cover several chapters from La Belle Sauvage. We'll reread them with you and talk about them then. Yes. But until then, perhaps you have reactions to this episode

or something else. Feel free to shoot us a tweet on social media or or follow us on social media you can find us at girls gone canon c-a-n-o-n on twitter or maybe you have something else to say you can shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com yeah and if you're not already subscribed to us on the platform that you listen to podcasts to make sure you hit subscribe leave us a review whatever you like eliana loves reading reviews it's like her whole thing you can find us on spotify google play apple podcast stitcher acast amazon

iheart radio you name it we're there and of course we do have a Patreon and we have special episodes for patrons $5 and up this month is going to be an episode about A Song of Ice and Fire the other series that we cover but next month as we switch off

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a Discord where you can continue to talk about His Dark Materials. Yes, there is a lot of His Dark Material talk, and recently on our Discord, we have actually split up the segments so that there is a spoiler section for His Dark Material talk and recently on our Discord we have actually split up the segments so that there is a spoiler section for

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And also, once a month, we do a sort of brunch slash happy hour virtually and you know when this episode comes out our brunch slash happy hour for january will in fact be tomorrow saturday january 30th yes so so if you have time you're so totally still welcome please show up we don't care whenever you want two to four eastern time but if not maybe we'll see you next month for february's brunch and happy hour yes well thank you again everyone for coming and listening to the book of dust la belle sauvage chapters 12 through 14 i have been one of your hosts, Eliana. I have been another one of your hosts, Chloe.

And goodbye. Oh man, it's gonna flood soon. It's gonna flood. I'm gonna get wet. Oh my god. Hannah Ralph's got her vibrator. Father Tem just out there spraying champagne on everyone's ass. Oh my god. Who's that?

Is that religious? I don't know. Goodbye. I don't know.