Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Episode 10 - The Subtle Knife Chapters 3-4

Episode Date: February 28, 2020

Will and Lyra return to Will's Oxford and learn some very important information about the universe, Dust, and dads.  Chapter 3 - A Children's World Chapter 4 - Trepanning --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro: Waltz Of The Skeleton Keys by WombatNoisesAudio | https://soundcloud.com/user-734462061

bees in a world with no bees no bees no bees you're listening to girls gone canon covering his dark materials hello everyone and welcome to girls gone Canon, His Dark Materials, the book series, episode 10, The Subtle Knife, chapters 3 and 4. I am one of your hosts, Eliana. You might know me as Arithmetric on Twitter. And I am another one of your hosts chloe you might know me from the internet as lies and arbor on twitter and tumblr well everyone we're here we're returning to the subtle knife and i mean like if you don't know what's happening yet for some reason you just jumped into our subtle knife episodes we are doing His Dark Materials reread with re in parentheses

because we do this first part with the chapters without spoilers. And then we have a dust discussion where we talk about information from all three of the books. And then usually we have a dustiest discussion where Chloe talks about everything from all of the things. But now I kept my promise and I finished La Belle Sauvage.

So in between the Dust discussion and the Dustiest discussion, we have a Dustier discussion that is just for me. This is getting a little out of hand, Eliana. You should just start like wiping things down with some paper towel. Probably. Not just a paper towel, you know, like, straight up wipes. Yeah, some Windex, maybe. I don't know, something. Eliana, you get to get dusty with me.

I do. That's kind of exciting, but- A bit dusty, only a bit, a smidge. Yeah, only a little. You have to bail afterwards so that I can get us as dusty as it gets. The dustiest discussion where i talk about the secret commonwealth which i am like very very excited about the secret commonwealth right now you guys because i'm rereading it for the very first time

since i first read it uh i can't wait for eliana to fit it well start it i guess right you have to start it yeah step one step one by the book. But I am going to get to talk to some very good friends about it before Eliana and I talk about it with you guys. And that is for our Patreon episode this month. For those of you that may not know, we have a Patreon.

It's patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon. $5 and up patrons every other month get a special His Dark Materials episode. And patrons every other month get a special his dark materials episode and every other other month our patrons get in a song of ice and fire special episode that's five dollar patrons and up that get that and this month we are doing a secret commonwealth general chit chat a world's colliding if you will with her dark materials as Faye and also Ian and Amy from the dark material podcast yes I'm so excited for you and also kind of jealous but you know this is my own fault

because not only have I not read the secret commonwealth I am abandoning Chloe yes Eliana is abandoning me she is going on her own trip to seek out the secret commonwealth. And she will be gone just for a hot second. But that's okay. You guys probably won't notice since this comes out towards the end of the month. We will be back next month in March with some more Subtle Knife for you. So patrons are not the only ones that will get this episode. We are going to share our patrons are being very awesome and sharing with the public this month so you guys can all hear about the secret commonwealth on march 6th i believe we're going to be releasing that yes and until then you know here in this episode we are going to be talking about chapters

three and four chapter three a children's world Trapanning. Yes, and after that comes our discussions of many sorts. But first, I have to pull this awesome tweet. Our friend Candid59, friend and patron, found this great tweet exchange between Philip Pullman and Julia Muhammad on Twitter, where Julia says, I feel like I know your answer, but I'm asking anyways. I can't get the thought out of my mind. Is there a chance we'll be seeing Will in the third volume of The Book of Dust? Philip Pullman responded with, I can't tell you that yet, but perhaps you'd guess that.

Ooh. I'm going to go ahead and say this confirms it. I mean, I don't know. I don't even know what to expect. I only have one thing that I keep telling Chloe, and I'm just like, is it going to be the Final Fantasy 10-2 perfect ending? Or is it going to just be like a video sphere? I don't know.

I don't know. Well, in our discussion, we are definitely going to talk about a couple of things that Eliana is going to say today that she has no clue. You guys, like she has no clue the thing she's saying. But yet she's inspiring me already. I'm like like mind blown. I think I have the whole next book figured out. It's great.

So without further ado, without further ado, we will get into the first chapter, which is a children's world where Lyra is waking up from a horrible dream. horrible dream. She dreamed about the severed head of Grumman, Stanislaus Grumman, in its flask, and she kept trying to open the flask. Terrified, she does, and there's nothing inside of it. She wakes up crying and sweating, and she's in someone else's bed with someone else's pillow, and Pan is nuzzling her. She remembers how eager she was to see the severed head when she was a kid, and now, war-torn and exhausted, the difference between it.ed head when she was a kid. And now war torn and exhausted the difference between it. And then when she asked the alethiometer, like, what did my dream mean? The alethiometer just sasses her and is like, it's a dream about a head. I'm like, damn, damn, bruh. I like the way she kind of she treats the alethiometer because the alethiometer seems to be more like a person, if anything, a consciousness.

Yeah, that really comes through much more in these two chapters. And it is something that's discussed quite a bit. I do kind of appreciate the idea that, you know, sometimes dreams are just dreams. But, you know, it's a story. And you don't like throw in dreams usually for no reason, even though everyone else in the world for the most part dreams for no reason. I mean, there's probably a real reason why we do it, but it doesn't mean anything, you know? Yeah, I've heard that if you take a lot of vitamin B, you can have really lucid dreams like that you'll really remember them a lot easier. I remember a lot of my dreams for the most part, especially like the morning after and then I remember there's some it was some intense ones I remember. But right now Lyra maybe kind of feels that way. Not quite. She almost wakes up the strange boy because she had I don't know, a bad dream or is hungry and then she's like, No, I'm gonna just make the omelet on my own. She burns it. She proudly eats it, even with all the shell bits. When I read shell bits and all, like the phrase, she ate it, shell bits and all.

And I was just like, I mean, been there. Like, I remember probably the first time I learned to cook, cook, quote unquote. I remember I had like a home at class when i was in sixth or seventh grade when i really learned you know this is how you make an egg not just like pour the cereal in a bowl so this i totally relate you know i get you lyra i get you i i do not understand i struggle to understand so much about lyra in this chapter okay well not everyone makes fucking like crazy ass steamed eggs every

day, okay? Lyra's just trying. I fucked up my steamed egg this past weekend anyway. See? Don't be mean to Lyra, she's just doing the best she can. But there were no shells, Christ. It's her first time on her own.

Have you ever had to move out when you're 13 years old? Settle down. That's true. That is, in fact, true. Will wakes up. He doesn't want to share this meal with Lyra. He does not wish to share. He looks at it.

He's like, no. I'll pass. I'll pass. He gets milk and cereal. Speaking of milk and cereal, instead instead he notes that the milk expiration means it can't be too long that the city's been empty and he's like how did you get in here she tells him about the foggy bridge that her father created and the cliff she and pan wound up on where they were eating berries which is a fruit eating reference for those keeping track

at home interesting i didn't think to keep track of these, but definitely, definitely interesting. Now I am. I'm like, oh, oh, oh. And then Lyra and Pan said that they saw the city and came down after that. And now here they are. Will and Lyra confirm after talking with one another that this is not, in fact, an extension of their own worlds. And Will's like, all right, cool. So that's like at least three worlds that we know of.

And Lyra's like, hair flip. There's like a million., cool. So that's like at least three worlds that we know of. And Lyra's like, hair flip. There's like a million. She learned it from a witch. Actually, the witch is demon, Kaiza. I love that this is such like a kid brag. You know how little kids are like, well, my dad said that if I do this, well, my dad said that. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I learned it from Kaiza, you know? Dude, like it's like i learned it from kaisa you know dude lyra

is like the master of that that's like her favorite thing in the world to do my father had a sword fight what and now she's like my father blew open the doors to all of the worlds like she literally says no one could get from one to another before my father made this bridge and i'm just like okay okay lyra settle down. Yeah, because Will basically says the same thing. He's like, but what about the window that I saw? And Lyra's like, I don't know. Okay, whatever.

My dad could beat up your dad. Lyra, stop overcompensating for him. He's not worth it. He's not. He's not. She tells Will she's looking for what in her world is an experimental theologian and might be the same in his oxford she plans to go to jordan college through his jordan and she explains to him experimental theology is all about elementary particles and fundamental forces and ambaromagnetism he's like um, um, do you mean electricity? That's what that is

in my world, I think. And they start to understand each other a little bit. He tells her she seeks scientists in his world, not theologians. Yeah, it didn't include, I guess, the part where both Lyra and Will, we had discussed it in a previous episode, exchange the electrum

versus amber and ambaric and electric iconic scene to be honest I also want to note that as I was starting this book series for this reread I hit up one of my friends who actually went to divinity school and like studied

theology for his thoughts on his dark materials and he was just like oh yeah I remember reading that a long time ago so there's those weird passages and then he was just like not helpful that's it that's the story he was not helpful nice nice guy anyway they hear a child's voice in the harbor but the place that they're in is still a ghost town they're bewildered and then suddenly these two kids appear there's a girl who's maybe like i don't know 12 to 13 then a younger boy so pan flips into being a mouse from being his goldfinch and hides up in her pockets because they're like oh my god these children don't have any visible demons the children bring baskets and sit at a table near will and Lyra. The girl asks if they're from Chittagaze or Santalia. Santalia's

modern city design is really something that popped out to me when I read this. So me and you have discussed, obviously, you know, the magpie city. We know that's what Chittagaze stands for is the magpie city. But I didn't ever notice. Are you guys from Chittagaze or Santalia? I never noticed that because Antonio Santalia, he did tons of modern city design. And he actually made one beautiful work. And he had no completed physical pieces, which I think is crazy. This guy never had anything erected or come to life. But he had beautiful sketches about futuristic works. And one of his works was La Chittà nuova the new city uh this was around 1914 and he really front ran all of italian

architecture with futurist uh movement the futurist movement basically was an industrialized and mechanized future look where he just imagined cities as machinery, right? Like cities already have so much going on within them. And it really reminds me a lot of what Tana Ford said when we were watching His Dark Materials season one with regards to Will's house in the show, with how Will's mom has all these oddly placed openings in their house at the stairwell, and she counts all the planks on the walls, and how it all looks like long vertical slices separating it from the rest of the planks, and how there's missing walls and holes, and you see sections of stairwell and rooms through each other.

It's very, very modern. And we're going to have to post this maybe on our Patreon and on Twitter. We'll post it. Please log on and check it out to see the pieces, Massagio and La Cittanova. There's something that he actually had said in a book once where Santalia was quoted saying, rearranging its lines, not a question of finding new moldings, new architraves for doors and windows, but to raise the new built structure on a sane plane, gleaning every benefit of science and technology, rejecting all that is heavy, grotesque, and unsympathetic to us in tradition, style, aesthetics, and proportion. So it's almost like very, very just nothing fancy, nothing deco. I mean, if you go to a city, you'll see the remains like in Philadelphia, you see remains

of beautiful art deco, but you also see industrialism popping up everywhere. And Santa Lea saw this future where this is what would happen to cities and what they would need. Now, the irony here is that Chittagatse has become stagnant, the complete opposite of what Santa Lealia's vision is with futurism, and the great ambitions have failed them. The city is pretty much gone right now. The city would be lively in almost any other setting, something that was really made clear in the last chapter that we talked about. But right now with the specters and only the children,

the city's dead. There are no futurism ambitions here yeah there's like potential for it but i mean maybe who knows who knows what's gonna happen with the children we'll talk about that a little later um and and i think this was such a great catch like we had discussed during the show season some of those nods to mc escher and like the intro sequence and i think you can see some of the similar styles in terms of the usage of lines etc and what they've created and like now as i read this chapter with what you've brought up and like especially with the technology and everything that comes in the next chapter i can't i can't help but think how are they going to adapt this in the show like

obviously we know that they're gonna in some way, but it's just so interesting to think about what it's going to look like. I'm just very excited. I know they are actually building the set. So this is a built set inside the Cardiff Studios, the Bad Wolf Studios, which they've created a ton of amazing sets.

They did a lot of the Doctor Who stuff. I'm really excited to see what they build for this, but it's very private. We aren't seeing it at all will and lyra learned that the adults are gone because of the specters which we started talking about and continue asking questions that reinforce to angelica and paulo that they are not from here and for some reason they just like don't get it the first time when lyra and will explain and then they talk about how they're they have an older brother tulio who is doing something very secret and it involves getting something and angelica keeps shushing her brother about it lyra and will can't see the

specters though because they aren't grown up we have an explanation here of how specters work when a specter catch a grown-up, that's bad to see. They eat the life out of them there and then, alright. I don't want to be a grown-up, for sure. At first they know it's happening, and they're afraid. They cry and cry. They try and look away and pretend it ain't happening, but it is. It's too late, and no one ain't gonna go near them.

They on their own. Then they get pale and they stop moving. They're still alive, but it's like they've been eaten from the inside. You look in their eyes and you see the back of their heads. Ain't nothing there. Man. Specters, that's too real. Do you ever think about how fortunate it was for Lyra and Will that Angelica and paola like happen to speak the same language

as them yeah it's pretty uh not to bring up doctor who actually again speaking of but like the tardis and doctor who you know translates so no matter where you go with the tardis which can go anywhere in all of space and time uh no matter where you go you understand so i'm kind of like maybe maybe the alethiometer is doing them a solid maybe kind of like maybe maybe the alethiometer is doing a solid maybe they don't know maybe the alethiometer is translating in their brains i mean maybe i i just like didn't really think about it until now i'm like it's pretty fortunate for them pretty fortunate everyone speaks english huh yeah you might hear us talk about this on our Patreon episode for the Secret Commonwealth, because I feel like there's a little bit of like a similar feeling.

I don't know if it's like melancholy or what it is, but that similar like sadness of adulthood. And holy shit, though, do the specters resemble adulthood, my friends. Holy shit. Like this is this is how I felt this morning. I like drove to work today and I sat in the parking lot in my car and i just stared at the building and i was like guess i gotta go in yeah i mean there are days that i do feel like that but there are some days that i'm just like i don't know being an adult is pretty great for me because my childhood sucked and angelica here says whatever fuck these kids let's go get some

ice cream and as an adult now i can just be like whatever i want to go get some fucking ice cream that's pretty great see i can't always go get ice cream though i mean obviously there are times that i can't always get ice cream but i don't gotta ask anyone permission to eat ice cream that's true well gotta ask your wallet but if your wallet's like it's cool girl you could like, I'm getting that ice cream. Yeah, exactly. And then you can also end after you get the ice cream, like Paolo, who ends the exchange with, kill the specters! He just jumps on back at them, kill the specters! Fucking love kids, man.

Gotta love them. Doesn't even know what he's talking about. Sinagaze is so interesting, and we'll see it a little bit later and it's it's like a warped garden of eden right we were talking in some episode at some point i think maybe at the end of the historic material season one about like this idea of the movable garden of eden yes right and you kind of have that here with Sidagaze. Sorry, sorry. Sidagaze. Sidagaze. Sidagaze. And in some ways with like the way Angelica and Bala act, there's like something that kind of feels like the Lord of the Flies. Oh, yeah.

you know there's abundance there's a sort of providence and like yeah there's food here and you don't have to do much you just have to reach in and eat it like the milk and the cereal the coke that lyra will have and then of course instead of apples the kids are like yeah whatever i can just eat ice cream but of course you could be lyra and put eggs in eggshells in your omelets whatever but you know i think you're onto something there, especially though that there's no adults and they're like, ah, I can just reach on in but the price that was paid for that was the specters. Yeah. Yikes.

And the souls of adults. So I hope every kid that's ever happy, I hope any kid that's ever happy in their whole life, I get to look at them in the eyes and just stare at them. I feel like one day, you two can have ice cream whenever you want yeah but what will it cost you will it cost you your soul kid i don't know see for adults sometimes getting out of your house to go get ice cream might cost you your soul you don't know so will gets another surprise when pan speaks and he's

like what the fuck a talking fucking ferret um he's like pan's like the children didn't know about the window be careful about exposing it we get like this mild exposition about demons through will's surprise about the demons talking and he's trying to sort out how it is both lyra and not lyra he's like okay it looks like it's not lyra like it looks like an animal but it's talking in part of Lyra's voice uh instead of trying to think too hard about it though he tells Lyra to get other clothes if she's gonna go into the world because she does not look like she fits in yeah and by this he means like his his Oxford Will's Oxford you got to look as if you fit in

you got to go about camouflaged I I know, see, I've been doing it for years. You better listen to me or you'll get caught and if they find out where you come from and the window and everything, well, this is a good hiding place, this world. See, I'm, I gotta hide from some men. This is the best hiding place I could dream of and I don't want it found out. So I don't want you giving it away by looking out of place or as if you don't belong i got my own things to do in oxford and if you give me away i'll kill you yikes will will again chill the fuck out i mean he is an intense kid yeah like all notions aside and i mean even his physical appearance is intense like we talked about last time like pullman totally gives him these stark dark eyebrows and this jawline and

like this angry face and this kid that's holding all of this pain and fear in his heart you know uh but they're both intense kids i mean lyra's the same way she's like a feral cat charging at him in the dead of night and constantly i'm just sitting here and i'm like where are your fucking parents even though we all know where they are but like where are your fucking parents no spoilers i'll kill you okay anyways and lyra i mean she believes him she's like wow he'd really fucking do it i believe it sexy what a murderer yeah Yeah, she's like, oh no. Lyra's like, I love the way your vein just popped when you said you were going to murder me.

Will explains that to Ben Blenden. Lyra has to clean up, and Lyra's like, I've never washed my own hair. Um, what? Yes, I just want, we need to take a pause. Never. Right now?

I mean, I don't do it often, but. But you do your own when you do it. I mean, yeah. She's never done it. The quote says that she gives is the housekeeper done it at Jordan. And then I never needed to after that. After that. What does she mean?

What's never needed? That is my question. I'm like, I don't understand what she means by this. Because like, is she telling us that somehow she never needed to wash her hair while with egyptians also we saw mrs coulter wash her at one point but i'm confused here she did wash at uh um azriel's laboratory but i still i'm just like what did she just not wash up? I guess the seal skins like keep it all in. Yeah but she said those smelled bad and now I understand why.

Of course they did. I don't gotta wash. Dude wasn't she like rolling around in bear poop like two episodes ago? That's true. I'm just saying she's probably really gross. That's true. But I do want to point out the real mvp of that sentence one of my

favorite characters the housekeeper yeah at jordan anyways moving on favorite character i i mean the way that we're reacting to all this will's just like uh all right too bad you're gonna have to learn how to wash your hair but i you i'm sure on the inside he's just like surprise pikachu like what what do you mean? What do you mean you don't know how to wash your hair? And yet Pan is over here being fucking indignant. He's a little rat and he's just staring at Will like what of it?

Yeah what? Imagine Pan as the Ariana Grande gif and what about it? And what about it? Also I like that Pan is a rat in this. He's a dirty rat too just like lyra that's my animal corner analysis pan's like i can't deal with this right now will cleans the rest of the house and he wants to open his green writing case that has letters in it and he's like

all right i'm just gonna put off reading them till i take lyra to my world then i'm gonna read them finally yes they take lyra shopping and she refuses then I'm gonna read them finally. Yes, they take Lyra shopping. And she refuses to wear pants because no one has taught Lyra that gender is a construct yet. It's improper for a lady of scholarship. God. God, I mean, like, yes, Lyra, she'll rebel against everything

except for the gender norms. I mean, but also, maybe she just likes skirts and dresses, man. Anyone ever think about that? The show didn't really go into it, but the show maybe she just likes skirts and dresses, man. Anyone ever think about that? The show didn't really go into it, but the show was like, here's pants. That's true. And I guess it makes sense there. Because that was all, like, Makasa had there.

She was literally wearing Makasa's overalls. Yeah, which I think was a great look. It was. Will takes this time to teach Lyra looting is bad. And Lyra threatens Will, like, if you keep behaving like a grown-up you're gonna be vulnerable to the specters but also she just made that up but she's not like wrong i mean you're right she isn't uh we'll come back to that i'm sure another day chita gotze has beautiful buildings but they're old and the city is falling apart. It's a city of architectural band-aids. Will and Lyra are drawn

to a tower in a little square and they move on, looking for a cafe to serve as a landmark for the window. Will's like, you'll know it when you see it. And the risotto is now rotting. That's how they know it. Yeah. They're like, I remember this risotto. It used to be

fresh. And then they find the window and this time lyra is a surprised one on the other side lyra hears traffic but she doesn't really understand what's going on will's like lucky you know he doesn't see that that's me will actually explains uh the time of day being busy, but that night is too difficult in terms of finding places to go to keep hidden. The other side doesn't really look like Lyra's Oxford, so she kind of doubts it for a minute, but then they cross. And then she almost gets hit by a car immediately. Mood. Who has it?

Right? Exactly. It's just how I'm going to put it out there. We live in cities. Yeah. right exactly it's just how i'm gonna put it out there we live in cities yeah as people gather and wonder about lyra's safety will lies that uh she's his sister will and lyra try to leave asap but they need to be witnesses in the insurance claims for all of this and he's like I'm Mark Ransom and this is my sister Lisa and he doesn't give them their postcode which I will

explain to you if you are not from England that a postcode what we think of as just like a zip code in your general area in the US my understanding is that a postcode is like literally your house or something in England it's like a very, unique little code that is just you and your abode.

Someone explain it to me. I think that seems like, I think that was an explanation. It's all right. And then Will's like, I do not have time for this. I said, good day. And then just bolts. They pass the hornbeam trees again. And Lyra, she's like a a bit hurt but she's not that hurt

she's like I'm fine. She checks on the alethiometer and Will's like excuse me what is this like fancy ass thing that you have? Will warns Lyra okay you know at this time don't get hit by a bus also don't get lost because then people will realize that you're not from this world as though that is

the biggest problem when one is hit by a bus or worse expelled that's all i thought of actually will right now yep he doesn't super get why he's angry he just knows he's mad and he's like fine we'll just we'll pretend you're my sister and i can show you how to cross roads without getting killed which is literally the cross the quote is i can show you how to cross roads without getting killed which is literally the cross the quote is i can show you how to cross roads without getting killed what a good brother i love that they learn they each offer the other like some sort of new knowledge or experience points that they might want to like imbibe in right maybe they should try to trust each other their relationship is really built well when you think about how will behaves with lyra and put it in relation to how he behaves to his mom will's relating to lyra the only way he knows how by stepping in

as this protector role he sees lyra's beat up and hungry and dirty and tired and weird and he knows that he too is also beat up hungry dirty tired so they both realize that for now this is kind of what they have yeah two misfits in the world many worlds lyra proves that she has money by shaking out literally gold coins she's like i'm fine and bill's like okay cool lisa i get it but what if i just kept going by lizzie i've gone by that name before and then lyra worries that oh i kind of look a little bit abused after being hit by car and this bruise where will hit her because they literally fought when they first met. And then Will's

worried that the police are going to notice it. Which, I mean, obviously all of Will's concern has to do with his upbringing. We talk about, as Chloe was just saying, how he had to be a protector with his mother. And part of that was protecting her from, I guess, the authorities.

Because he does think about the prospect of if it's going to look like child abuse. Because he was worried about his own family looking like neglect and being taken away. Yeah, this is something he's used to. It's really sad, actually, when you put it in those terms. And that's why they're so important to each other. Man. Man. Imagine having the best characters.

God. Will is like, all right, I need to get some money out because, you know, A, we don't have much time to keep getting money out. The authorities will be on to us soon. And B, this bitch has gold coins. So he tries to take his money out. And the whole process, he's like, am I going to get caught? And Lyra's like, this is magic.

You mean you just press a button and that's how you read this machine, which tells you how much money you have? She's like, mine just back sasses me. That's true i wonder how like this is another one of those things that i wonder how it's gonna go in the show right obviously like there were atms at this time but oh it's gonna be so funny so there's so many things that are way more like followed now you know now that you say that though it's gonna be the funniest shit in the world i can see daphne keen and him and her just sassy and be like yeah why do you do that but why does it do that though but why'd you do that though like so stupid and then he's gonna be so annoyed exactly i can't wait what what a relationship a friendship

as they go through oxford lyra's like this is the same this is different this is, this is the same. This is different. This is different. This is the same. But then she realizes there's no Jordan. That's what's different about Oxford. This is a whole different Oxford. Yeah, it finally sinks in for her. And here's the quote for that. I wanted to call it out. He wasn't prepared for Lyra's wide-eyed helplessness. He couldn't know how much of her childhood had been spent running about streets almost identical with these, and how proud she'd been of belonging to Jordan College, whose scholars were the cleverest, whose coffers the richest, whose beauty the most splendid of all. And now, it simply wasn't there. And she wasn't Lyra of Jordan anymore. She was a lost little girl in a strange world belonging nowhere.

Well, she said shakily, if it ain't here, it's going to take longer than she thought. That was all. That's my girl. You'll find it, honey. What a blow. God, what a sad ending to the chapter. I mean, this is the only thing Lyra knows. She's in a strange world with this strange kind of nice guy, and Jordan's gone. It's just gone. This is like Harry not going back to Hogwarts, right? Unspeakable.

But speaking of Will being a strange boy, I think we need to talk about the Mulef, I mean the elephant in the room, which is that Roger's's fucking dead right remember him guys don't move on fast i've seen all of you replace roger in your hearts with will already i've seen every one of you listening to this podcast in your rooms at work in your earbuds in your fucking car and you're like roger who the fuck was roger yeah roger's dead and lyra

has lost not only roger she's now lost her home and she's stuck with some guy and she's lost she doesn't even know what she's doing she spent her whole life being an active little shit running circles around adults knowing everything being the biggest know-it-all playing tricks on people and this is where her psyche is blown up. She's left home, she's been kicked out of home, she's unable to get home, now she knows nothing, she's realized she's had it wrong

the whole time. Between this and Spectre's, dude, I feel you, Lyra. Girl, I feel you. Yeah. Everything she thought she knew about the world doesn't hold true in this one that's life homie and so that takes us to chapter four trepanning this chapter starts with will calling his father's lawyer to find out if he's still alive but turns out 12 year olds don't have a

lot of legal power also by will i know you're trying to trust someone but i think the big thing here is don't trust adults yeah that's true never trust anyone over 30 unless they're friends with lyra yeah that's very true but also i mean i get i can see why he's like i'm protected by the law. Confidentiality? By client legal protection? Okay, but you're supposed to have confidentiality with God, too, and we see how that's gone for this whole series. That's true. Also, he's 12 years old, so who knows what sort of legal power he has.

The lawyer asked him questions, and Will's like, so can you tell me this very confidential information that you are legally not supposed to just divulge over the phone, over this pay phone or not? And the lawyer, for obvious reasons, is like, I first need proof that you are who you say you are. Also, I don't know if he's alive or not. And then Will's like, okay, but what about all the money that's been coming in? And he's like, Will, I'm going to lay it out for you for a second. You are a trust fund baby.

Your father has vanished. Will's like, okay, but wait, how? And the lawyer's like, do you read the news? Like, do you have a newspaper? Do you get a newspaper? It's in the news, dude. Look up the newspaper. I mean, it was the year he was born but he's still he was like everyone fucking knew yeah he's also like you of all people 12 year old boy should know this news by now and this is like one of those things

that's gonna have to probably be a little different in the show because like what are they just gonna be like yeah they're gonna be, why didn't you just fucking Google it, Will? Yeah, with all this technology and your smartphones, why didn't you just find Lord Boreal and app? Anyways, as I say, it's a matter of public record. There were several newspaper stories at the time. You know he was an explorer. My mother's told me some things, yes. Well, he was leading an expedition and it just disappeared

about 10 years ago maybe more where the far north alaska i think you can look it up in the public library why don't you and then the payphone will's collect call i guess or whatever just runs out he's at a payphone the urge to to call his mom. It's very tempting. And he decides to send a postcard instead to assure her that he is fine and safe. And he writes, Dear Mom, I am safe and well and I will see you again soon. I hope everything is all right. I love you.

Will. Aww. What a good boy. He's a good boy. I love him. That was so sweet. I wouldn't have written my mom. Well, maybe now you'll think about it

and maybe next time you will. That's true. I just silenced her Facebook call. I was like, Mom, I'm recording. I actually did that, everyone. Just now. Will himself then tries to vanish because he's playing hooky from school. You have this quote that I love. Will could vanish easily enough because he was good at it.

He was even proud of his skill. Like Serafina Pecola on the ship, he simply made himself part of the background. Yes, it's like everything we were saying last episode. We've had a lot of discussion about this, and more to come, for sure. While Will is buying school supplies, Lyra struggles to find somewhere to sit and look at her lithiometer.

She struggles to read other things, like smashed chewing gum, stoplights. She finds finally a college that she recognizes, which even has Simon Parslow's initials she saw scrawled. There might be a Simon Parslow in this world. Perhaps there was a Lyra. A chill ran down her back and mouse-shaped panel layman shivered in her pocket. She shook herself.

There were mysteries enough without imagining more. Hmm, I do love this. Because Simon Parslow... I mean, we know that last name right we do and that makes me super sad i'm like what the fuck he was friends with uh lyra and roger and it isn't said that he's related but i'm guessing he's actually somehow really cousins which not the only cousin of roger parslow in uh in jordan believe it or not not the only that's true i digress so lara is surprised that this oxford that she's visiting is in fact very multicultural and again that women dress like men according to her and i don't know it's something that I find

interesting right because yeah some of these cities in England right are are multicultural like London very much is of course Oxford not the Oxford not as much right like the percentages are a little different

but it's not too far but it makes me think of whether or not the british empire exists in lyra's world the way that it did in ours and what the time frame of the story is right because there was a period of time where a lot of people immigrated to to britain from my understanding because the british commonwealth was accepting people from across the empire across all of the different territories and that fueled that immigration and that multiculturalism and then within this story right the way that lyra thinks of people

they're kind of referred to by ethnicity as opposed to race and it seems like she like has an idea of like maybe this is what someone would look like and that is interesting to me because the social construct of race in the way that we think of it nowadays between like white and black and brown etc and the way we think of that as opposed to through ethnic groups or ethno-cultural groups etc was something that was developed specifically to reinforce white supremacy and chattel slavery which was a different kind of slavery that came up of course like especially with america right and and as a part of that system and like that inheriting of slavery and making people property within infinity and i wonder that because maybe it didn't, especially with

how the Americas don't exist in Lyra's world the same way that they do here, right? Texas is its own country, then you have a bunch of the other, like, conglomerates of states split up across America. It's not one huge, like, United States. So it almost makes me think, well, America. It's not one huge, like, United States. So it almost makes me think, well, it might not have had, like, that economic system that was built on the backs of slaves in that same way. And so the way that people view each other within Lyra's world is more of, like, this xenophobia, if anything, if that's what's going on here when it comes to ethnicities versus race. Well, and of course, we know from our own followings of Pullman, but we know that he is not at all quiet

when it comes to Brexit. He's very vocal about that on the Twitter timeline. And it shows in his works. I mean, once you finally get through the secret commonwealth, Eliana, I think they're very much so is going to be among the many oddities

that he has to wrap up in the books of dust. I think the immigration and multiculturalism is a very big thing that is introduced, obviously now in these first three books, but I think really perpetuates the notion he wanted to travel to more lands with Lyra and wrap up more in this world. So hopefully you'll read it soon enough and we can figure out some more because I have ideas like

right now that i can't say out loud because i'll just spoil you and you won't be happy with me soon i shall i mean i'm not gonna lie there's a part of me that was like kind of like what if i just like didn't read labelle sauvage and just read the secret commonwealth and found out what happened to lyra but i know that's wrong yeah it wouldn't have been as special honestly i know i know um i mean because truly labelle sauvage i mean you get so sucked in it's not even you don't even think about lyra yeah and she's just like a wee bab yeah but yeah i i mean i i was just saying it was a it was a thought that briefly flitted through my mind and as as you were saying you know like it's not surprising that pullman would be

writing around those ideas especially at in this age of that anxiety around Brexit, like at the time that he was writing it, and writing the book, I would assume, it was being voted upon. And now it's passed, you know? Like, they're trying to set limitations around it today. Like, that was a big announcement, and quite frankly, the limitations fucking suck

yeah absolutely lyra is at first afraid because no one has demons in this world and then she decides i guess they're just all inside of them whatever and then she buys chocolate and she thinks that the shopkeeper is looking at her funny because he is and this is the quote from the indies and probably doesn't understand her accent is her is and this is the quote from the indies and probably doesn't understand her accent is her is her thought but obviously it's really just that lyra is using a fucking 20 pound note to buy a bar of chocolate one bar of chocolate but also she is mildly healthy in that she buys a fruit somewhere god that guy's transaction average must really suck thanks lyra oh he's like this girl like just tipped me a fucking lot she sits in front of a museum which looks familiar

to her as the buildings in her world she decides to kind of go on a little field trip she heads over to an exhibit that has arctic history and she's like oh i know this stuff right she's getting comfy but then she sees there's relics from every part of the world. Some of these relics play on how the museums and historians tend to get some things wrong. And of course, on the alternate universe world. Yeah, this quote was super freaky. Those caribou skin furs were exactly the same as hers, but they tied the traces on the sledge completely wrong. But here was a photograph showing some Samoyed hunters, the very doubles of the ones who'd caught Lara and sold her to Polvangar. Look! They were the same men! And even that rope had frayed and

been reknotted in precisely the same spot, and she knew it intimatelyimately having been tied up in that very sledge for several agonizing hours what were these mysteries was there only one world after all which spent its time dreaming of others dude that is some crazy acid shit i know i was likera, this is drugs! Tripping balls. This episode of the Twilight Zone is very freaky, and by that I mean actually the alternate universe episode of the Twilight Zone is in fact freaky, as is most Twilight Zone episodes. But it does raise interesting questions, right? Of like, how does timing work between all of these universes? That is a great question. How does it well there's more stuff that feels familiar to lyra than just that lyra sees an exhibit of skulls with holes in them allegedly made when still alive except for one with an arrowhead in it

she thinks this is what the tartars do and what stanislaus Grumman had done. She pulls out her alethiometer. It's her fancy smartphone. It's her Galaxy S9. And she does a Google search about people with holes in their skulls. And while she does this, someone is watching her. Yes, the description is a powerful looking man in his 60s. Leave her alone. Get a job.

Yeah. A real job. Not like fucking scamming people out of their money, you fucking money laundering asshole. He's wrinkly with pretty eyes and licks his lips a lot. Get a job. Bringing it back.

In his pocket is a handkerchief with a cologne that smells like a hothouse plant. There's a couple things at play here. If you guys are our patrons over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon, you might remember our lantern slide episode. I'll give you a little peek now at what we talked about, which was about the lantern slides that exist as of the 2007 publishings in all three of the books.

In The Subtle Knife, there is one that reads, Sir Charles Latrim every morning applied two drops of floral oil to the center of a large silk handkerchief, which he then bundled and tucked into his top pocket in a meticulous imitation of carefree elegance. He couldn't have named the oil. He'd stolen it from a bazaar in Damascus, free elegance. He couldn't have named the oil, he'd stolen it from a bazaar in Damascus, but the Damascus of another world, where flowers were bred for the flesh-like exuberance of their scent. As it developed through the day, the fragrance of the oil rotted like a meddler. Sir Charles would lean his head to the left and sniff appreciatively, perhaps too frankly for the comfort of most companions. So the oil that Charles is is wearing here this man charles this old

man is a floral oil it smells like dying flesh and then a hothouse flower is a flower that's too weak to grow naturally and has to be grown in a greenhouse or a hothouse so it's meta for a couple reasons the fact he had to travel to other worlds to get it obviously and a discussion reason that we can't talk about right now. Sorry, Eliana, you will not be involved in that one either. And of course, because it's basically a high maintenance nod, Sir Charles Latrim, a fancy schmancy knight in a couple worlds or whatever, and also a prick but drives a fancy car, would absolutely positively have to wear the essence of a fancy-ass oil that must be grown in super

special circumstances. Yeah, and there's something weird about his fascination with one that smells... Yeah, deathly. Yeah. Along with things that are weird about this Sir Charles, the language that is used to describe him in this moment he watched her closely taking in all of her her rough untidy hair the bruise on her cheek the new clothes her bare neck arched over

the alethiometer her bare legs he shook out the breast pocket handkerchief and mopped his forehead and then made for the stairs why why is this the language predator he is and i'm like this is not okay it absolutely is very okay like he's very much so preying on lyra the the fact that he appears from a vantage point that she does not have any control over that he's watching over her shoulder while she's doing something so intimate which is reading the alethiometer to me that like feels like an intrusion it feels gross yeah absolutely

let lyra scroll her phone in peace right and she's too busy scrolling to notice that he's creepy she's reading basically and these skulls were unimaginably old. The cards in the case said simply, Bronze Age, but the alethiometer, which never lied, said the man whose skull it was had lived 33,254 years before the present day, and that he had been a sorcerer, and that the hole had been made to let the gods into his head. And then the alethiometer, in a casual way, like it sometimes had of answering a question Lyra hadn't asked, in a casual way, like it sometimes had, of answering a question Lyra hadn't asked, added that there was a good deal more dust around the Trapanskulls than around the one with the arrowhead. Hmm.

Hmm. Is this almost like by opening it instead of stabbing and killing it? Like you let more flies with honey and vinegar, you know? More dust? Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, the aleth More dust. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, the alethiometer. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe it was just, you know, glad to be taken, like, on a field trip today. Oh, no, I meant more dust if you put a hole in your head instead of stabbing your head. Oh. That also. A lot of things are better for you when you don't stab your head. Believe it or not. Or get hit by a bus.

Mm, also true. or not. Or get hit by a bus. Also true. Or expelled. Or worse. So, yeah. And the alethiometer, as it says now, is feeling talkative. I guess it was just, like, in a mood at the beginning of Chapter 3, right? With the children's world. Because, like,

with all of this, it suddenly seems like in fact, yes yes that dream was significant as a lead up to learning about skulls and dust and what else happens in this chapter i just also kind of love this entire little segment of lyra looking at artifacts again like that tension of like how much is lost in terms of history and context that scholars do try to piece back together in general, right? And sometimes they do so wrongly in their interpretations of history and what things are because of their biases. One fictional story that I enjoy that plays with this is called

The Power, and it's really fun in how it looks at the way current social structures inform the way that we interpret history, sometimes incorrectly. And an interesting real life example that people are now like, revisiting is the Venus of Willendorf, which is like this really, really, really old sculpture of like the female figure. And it dates from maybe around like close-ish time 30,000 ish BC right and so people thought it along for a long time it was like a fertility thing right because of like the exaggerated breasts and roundness etc but then some women have realized wait the way that this figure looks and if you look at it from the vantage point from above it actually looks the way that a woman sees her body when she's pregnant and looking down so like

just like re-centering the perspective with which we look at things in the past anyway sorry tangent again no that's a great way to look at it especially because it really does feel and i mean past the main trilogy feels like this is a super significant thing uh the fact that everybody has this in history just like this is when it happened and it's not at all it felt significant at the time on first read and then later on we do learn it has some significance so and history's like that man because the rich people get to write it i mean the winners i mean the men right now they just erase all the women's whatever so lyra finally notices the creepy guy that's preying on her they make small talk about the skulls he jokes about hippies he's like you're

too young but drugs were more effective seriously i told you and lyra's like how do i get away from this old motherfucker mood they exchange names his name is charles her name is lizzie mcguire i mean lyra and pan half remember something about a smell because of him of dung of putrefaction oh there you go there's your dying flowers yeah that's the that's the actual quote and description of it. And it says that the smell reminds her of like Joffre Rackinson's palace, which is, as everyone remembers, full of poop. Which is where Lyra was, if you recall, for so long before she took a shower. Yeah, I was like, I didn't wash her hair.

I appreciate the story, though, like using that description to signal to the reader hey something's off by drawing that connection between these characters it is a very subtle haha subtle knife oh a way to do it especially considering like he doesn't want to give away that this guy's bad I'm gonna spoil it for you this guy's bad news you guys uh Lyra Lyra's like I don't know man I'm really into skulls you know she's like that's what i'm into yeah she's like i'm edgy she clarifies though yes skulls are cool but i do not in fact want to put a hole in my head and sir charles is like want to meet someone who's done it little girl you go to my white van and find out and lyra like thinks about it for a

second and then he does that weird tongue thing again she's like absolutely not absolutely not sir as she leaves he hands her his business card his linkedin linkedin.com slash charles latrum or slash lord or i don't know whatever you want to call this guy. He's like, do you want to just tap phones against one another? Oh my god. Finally, Lyra's like, I'm going to ask about finding scholars. And she gets directed to a specific room and the alethiometer

is having a mood again. It's like, I'm talkative. And it tells her, you must concern yourself with the boy. Your task is to help him find his father. Put your mind to that. I think it's important to note that, like, yes, Lyra heeds the warning, but I don't

think she really, like, actually listens right away. I think she waits a little bit until, you know, she realizes she should be listening to it. That's true. And I mean, it's not like it isn't, like like a fortune teller right it's like this would be good for you to do if you fucking did it well i was like will that that kid

he's important interesting the murderer yeah she's like i thought he was a rando only i am important the lithiometer has one more thing to add, which is do not lie to the scholar. And so she goes off to go find the scholar. And Will actually, in fact, uses the internet. This is not me making fun of things. He's in a library and he's using the internet to find newspapers from the year of his birth. It's on these

rolls of microfilm, which I assume we're not going to do in the televised version of this, because it is not the 90s and we don't use laser discs. Catch Will downloading WinRarer or WinZip. He's out there. He's like 7-zip. He's like let me get this zip unzipped.

Pretty much. He's like, are these newspapers on Napster? No. Not Napster. Will downloads BearSh share onto the library computers against like 80 viruses bear share with yorick oh my god will and yorick are networking too literally oh and then there's a slideshow the last story in the slideshow is about an expedition that reached the north american arctic survey stationed at noatak alaska and then two months went and then they never heard from

them again they were missing well well that's no good that's no good that's a disappointment no good a bunch of folks search for John Perry, but Will finds little of actual substance other than he was in the Royal Marines and became an explorer, which is all stuff we all knew already. Will tries to access the Institute of Archaeology next by lying about his field trip from St. Peter's,

not in Oxford, but in Hampshire. And then we snap back over to Lyra. We're like, all right, what's she doing now? Yeah, she's just waltzing into academic buildings. She gets stopped by a porter and she's like, oh, this feels familiar. Being told I can't do things at a university. She lies and says, I'm looking for Dr. Lister. Name she just read off of a pigeonhole on the wall.

She gets redirected and then talks her way into the building. Lyra is now convinced that she knows this world very well. I really like that she's like back in business. She's like, back in business! She's like rocking out. She's like, I'm lying. I'm doing stuff. I'm doing it.

She's a person again. Yeah, she's like, I think I know this world better than Will even. And I'm like, oh my god. Don't get cocky, kid. She's gonna get hit by a bus. Or worse, expelled. Expelled. And I do want to include Lyra's impressions of this university.

Speaking of the girl who has never washed her hair. These rooms, the walls of this corridor were all flat and bare and plain in a way lyra thought belonged to poverty not to the scholarship and splendor of oxford and yet the brick walls were smoothly painted and the doors were of heavy wood and the banisters were of polished steel so they were costly it was just another way in which this world was strange again very much so futurist right just very slick and uh manufactured really interesting they're not concerned with like

the pop they're like we study things because she finds a room that says dark matter research unit and funnily there's an rip and director lazarus huh director lazarus a woman invites her in and on the back of the door is a chinese poster uh or a poster with a chinese design upon it and lyra is surprised because she's like wow women can be scholars here and which of course it's like lyra you've actually met a female scholar before but well no that's in the first book but okay, Lyra. They kind of, like, introduce her as that, too, don't they? Yeah, absolutely, because, I mean, she runs a fucking school.

The woman is working on a computer, and... Eliana, I can't do this. This is all you baby cakes. You go. This is your girl. You just, you get out there for this woman. You get it. I'm just so excited.

I do really love, I do really love dr mary malone she's pretty great i love that image that chloe posted that you posted i thought you would i it was so great a first of all i love that illustration so she posted a picture that someone drew of dr malone it's so beautiful and great yeah if you guys follow us on twitter go check it out we retweeted it in the last like week and it's just amazing yeah um i don't know why you were asking me like oh you were asking who's going to read aloud the mary malone parts is it you are you mary yes this is what chloe was saying to me and i agreed i think i'm dr mary malone i think that i am easily distracted in the middle of Malone parts. Is it you? Are you Mary? Yes. That's what Chloe was saying to me. And I agreed.

I think I'm Dr. Mary Malone. I think that I am easily distracted in the middle of sentences and explanations. I don't know why I'm here and what I'm doing. Big slut. A mentor figure. All in one. I'm multifaceted. That's definitely me. Mary Malone. You know when people talk about you, Eliana, this is exactly

what I tell them. You are a slutty doctor. She doesn't know why she's here. But you don't know what you're doing. She stops in the middle of sentences. She could just get it together. Lyra tries to ask about dust, but they don't call it that in this world, apparently. So she tries to describe it and how dust generally behaves.

And she goes on one of her usual tangents and she like ends up asking a bajillion questions about the bronze age yeah dr malone explains oh the bronze age that was 5 000 years ago and lyra's like well that's wrong because the alethiometer told me that the skull's from 33 000 years ago Dr. Malone's like, hold up, where are you from? And Lyra's like, fuck, I gotta tell the truth. But she gets lost trying to explain it. And then Dr. Malone becomes distraught and says like, uh, maybe this is the only place you can learn about your dust.

But guess what? It's being shut down too bad. And then she gets lost in her explanation. I find that Dr. Malone and lyra have very similar speaking styles in some ways it's actually a really cool conversation when you think about it because it's really the first female interaction lyra's had in this book and it's the coolest most badass female she could have right i agree i well hannah r Hannah Ralph is pretty cool. Yeah, that's true, too.

But she's not prominent in this book. Let's be real. Let's be real. No, she's not. She's off being a scholar in a different world. Well, she's doing a lot of important shit. That's for sure. So Lyra and Dr. Malone have coffee.

And Dr. Malone tells Lyra a little bit about the Yijing. And Lyra's like, I don't know what this is, but maybe we have it in my world. I've just never heard of it. And Yijing is an ancient Chinese divination oracle. And it's one of the oldest Chinese classics, widely influenced by changes of Zhou, with more than two and a half millennia's worth of interpretations. It's a super influential text read throughout the world. Like it became part of the five classics in second century BC. It basically informed divination moving forward in the East and a lot of what Western culture perceives of it as well. A lot of people have adapted to using coins to decide the numbers

that kind of allege the hexagram readings. And that started in the Zhou dynasty with more of a clarimancy influence with yarrow sticks, which we actually see Mary use a little later on a more ancient way of reading it. That by the way, there is no clear translation of how they do it to this day. Like it's some ancient shit. They just know it,

whatever. I honestly, I watched like four videos about it and I really, yeah, absolutely. I watched this one hour long Tao four videos about it and i really yeah absolutely i watched this one hour long taoism video about it it was nuts um there are i should watch that you honestly should it's really interesting there are two main lines that get used that parallel each other in yi jing which like represent the dark and light forces like yin and yang and balance i'd relate it probably more to like tarot or help dyads but

a lot of people feel it's really more explorative of the subconscious uh harnessing the capacity of the subconscious arbitration you know kind of like the alethiometer in a way right uh something you said earlier reminded me of that that it's like it's giving her advice and she's choosing to follow it and sometimes it tells her things she didn't want to know or ask to know uh but it's like it's giving her advice and she's choosing to follow it and sometimes it tells her things she didn't want to know or ask to know but it's doing it for a reason so it's interesting that it brings up things that a lot of times she actually knows

to be in her heart she just hasn't really faced and I mean that's just growing up it's intuition and yada yada not even that sometimes you just gotta disobey things every now and then to find out like oh I should have done that yeah like ow that hurt my hand when i put it on the stove yeah it's real life yeah the ishing is very interesting and yes you're right this will happen at some point because we're bad at being spoiler free in this first portion um they talk

about dark matter and you know originally here i just put like all the things that dr malone said because i was like let's just let her explain all of it and chloe was like what the fuck is this eliana so we're gonna summarize it now okay i left i left a quote in i got at least a couple fine fine dark matter is what my research team is looking for no one knows what it is there's more stuff out there in the universe than we can see. That's the point. We can see the stars and the galaxies and the things that shine, but for it to all hang together and not fly apart, there needs to be a lot more of it. To make gravity work, you see.

But no one can detect it. So there are lots of different research projects trying to find out what it is, and this one of them dr malone's like it's probably an elementary particle it's almost undetectable undetectable but i think we got it we don't really know how this particle that we found fits in but we we have this this particle and we call it shadows and they're particles of consciousness. And Riri's like, no wonder we can't get funded. But what she really means is that capitalism is destroying academic progress. Anyway. What?

What does that mean? What does it mean? Capitalism would never do that to someone. It would never. Bust out those gold coins, Lara. Contribute. You can make a... She can out those gold coins Lara contribute you can make a she can donate these gold coins and probably get a building named after her that's how like it works

right actually not not untrue not untrue where'd you leave off sorry I could read something for you if you need I don't know where you are oh no you can pick up here. So Mary basically says, or Mary and Lyra discuss,

and it turns out you have to be confident and relax at the same time, which is kind of like having two drinks. So Lyra, when she finally gets into that mode, that's why she's probably like, yes, this is so cool, because she loves wine. But just kidding. Don't drink if you're a kid.'s not good so it's not good but she describes a state of mind using a quote from a letter from keats capable of being in uncertainties mysteries doubts without any

irritable reaching after fact and reason yes so as dr malone said this comes from a letter from the poet John Keats and this quote is actually what Keats called like a few words before this showed up like negative capability uh and it's described by literally literally this quote it was kind of like an artistic philosophy about being open and being open to ideas especially and like in the same letter uh he contrasts shakespeare and the poet samuel coleridge keats felt that like coleridge was really interested in like pursuing singular philosophical ideas that his work would like argue towards that whereas he felt that shakespeare presented a lot of different kinds of like ideas and philosophies through different voices and wouldn't like really judge or weigh or tell people like this is the right one this one isn't

and i think that's kind of like an it's kind of like the concept on exploration of ideas right which i think is apt and interesting in an idea that you know is so driven by explorers and liars so into explorers and other later scholars have looked at this idea of negative capability as being about like breaking against the hierarchy i don't know if that's what like keats is actually saying or not i think he was just like this was like a private letter that eventually came out but the idea of it breaking against hierarchy is interesting in the context of his dark materials because of things that come up in the discussion but um i don't know pullman pullman might be more interested in that yeah i think so and uh i'm very excited to hear what you have to say about that in the discussion

actually but i don't have anything i'm just saying that this is this pertains to things later in this book series. Well then, fine. Well then, fine. No, but it's an interesting comparison, right? When you look at the analog, but the fact that he would say, you know, like Shakespeare is more about this. And I think it really says a lot about fate, right?

Like, can you choose your own fate? Is it your destiny, et cetera? Free will, all that. will free him free will oh and then mary malone explains you talk to shadows by going into the cave which is what we call the room for my giant computer because this was written in the 90s her giant what computer oh what did you think i said nothing i just heard the first letter and you said giant so i just thought you were talking about mary malone's giant she she does have big dick energy i was gonna say no that is what i was gonna say cock you're right i was like what could i say i was going to say she's like it's too late she knows me she got my number

dr malone's like yeah we named it after plato's allegory and then you use it to talk to shadows we get it pullman you like ideas and philosophy he's read a book or two maybe maybe britain maybe written a book or two who knows um it is it is pretty straightforward right like yeah we get it it's a fun nod especially when you think of i mean like like if you think about it right like young readers are reading this, and they're, like, being introduced to the ideas. That's cool. That's pretty rad. And like you said, we get it at Pullman. So we're not going to explain to you Plato's Allegory of the Cave. I will do you all the dignity and not do that. Today. I think we already did it, like, for one of these book series. And I think, like,

that's it. You know, you got it once. If you want to to go back we have our catalog of courses you can go find it it's maybe like a little ironic calling it the cave because i mean like i guess the shadows here like reveal the truth and the way that lyra does it soon like the symbols on the alethiometer they're symbolic though and and it's not the actual true representation and experience of the real. And I don't know, there's something a little interesting about it in the context of the alethiometer, because

you go deeper in the levels, and it kind of makes you think you're moving further and further away from the first, maybe impurest form of the meaning in terms of the platonic forms. I don't know we'll come back to it in the other discussion like lyra says you know she's like it's like she has to dig deeper a level yeah um she can get a concept at the surface and then she in her brain

she has to go three slots down to get further in which is really interesting in comparison to some other stuff in that we can talk about in like five chapters or in the discussion so before that let's talk about the skulls a little bit we're gonna come back to this in the discussion too i was coming to that oliver pain him my colleague was fooling about one day testing things with the cave and it was so odd it didn't make any sense in the way a physicist would expect he got a piece of just a lump, and there was no shadows with that. It didn't react. But a carved ivory chess piece did.

A big splinter of wood off a plankton, but a wooden ruler did. And a carved wooden statuette had more. I'm talking about elementary particles here, for goodness sake. Little minute lumps of scarcely anything. They knew what these objects were. Anything that was associated with human workmanship and human thought was surrounded by shadows. And then Oliver, Dr. Payne, got some fossil skulls from a friend at the museum and tested them to see how far back in time the effect went. There was a cutoff point

after 30, 40,000 years ago. Before that, no shadows. After that, plenty. And that's about the time, apparently, that modern human beings first appeared. I mean, you know, our remote ancestors, but people no different from us, really. It's dust, said Lyra authoritatively. That's what it is. But you see, you can't say that sort of thing in a funding application if you want to be taken seriously it does not make sense it cannot exist it's impossible and if it isn't impossible it's irrelevant and if it isn't either of those things it's embarrassing i just included the last part because i thought it was funny it's very science

it's just so dr. Malone. Yeah. We'll come back to this, but real talk, it's his name, Dr. Pain, and I guess this is also jumping ahead, whatever, because he's a big pain. He is a pain in my ass, a pain in your ass, and especially a pain in Mary Malone's ass. Yes. Anyway. Okay, sure. anyway okay sure after lyra audits this one single chorus from dr malone she has to see the cave and dr malone is you know what sure why not we might not even have a cave tomorrow so she brings lyra to a room full of electrical equipment and an empty screen that needs to be linked up to i really want to know what this is going to be like in the show i love that like mary malone also goes from zero to hundred like she

goes from like i shouldn't let you into my office to like now she's like fuck it fuck it let's just do it let's just fucking do it all lyra dude that's me zero hundred she brings lyra into that room lyra convinces mary to let her have a go at it by showing her the alethiometer and demonstrating how that works through this we get mary malone's backstory she used at it by showing her the alethiometer and demonstrating how that works through this we get mary malone's backstory she used to be a nun then she became an atheist instead lyra's like i don't think they just let you leave in my world like that lyra says she learned that from the alethiometer by the way the backstory which works by dust which she thinks is like mary's dark matter the sound in the room as the machine

starts up is similar to the sound in the separation chamber at bull vanguard you don't like that yeah that's i thought that was interesting powered by dust the screen turns on color brightens up some small letters some figures mary malone slathers gel on lyra's head and then hooks her up with some nodes and i'mone slathers gel on lyra's head and then hooks her up with some nodes and i'm like ah an ultrasound for lyra's head to figure out what's happening what is in there what is in there oh my god which oil i gotta know it's great she's so funny she's so she's so weird here's my gold coins dr malone explains well this is all full of the shadows and lyra pretends then that the screen is an alethiometer it flickers and

then she tries again and she gets a response like the aurora on the screen i'm sorry the rorer thank you thank you for respecting it first off second off whoa so she like pretends it's the alethiometer and immediately gets an aurora gets the northern lights that's awesome it's like such a good part every time i read it i'm like pullman good job yeah and that's why we pulled out this quote too a stream of dancing lights for all the world like the shimmering curtains of the aurora blazed across the screen they took up patterns that were held for a moment only to break apart and form again in different shapes or different colors they looped and swayed they sprayed apart they

burst into showers of radiance that suddenly swerved this way or that like a flock of birds changing direction in the sky and as lyra watched she felt the same sense as of trembling on the brink of understanding that she remembered from the time when she was beginning to read the alethiometer. Lyra asks if this is dust and the light swirls, which probably means yes, it's supposed to be a sign, I guess so.

Dr. Malone is like sitting there with her eyes wide, just surprised as this is the clearest it's been. And Lyra's like, well, this machine you have here is a fucking bucket of bolts. It's useless. It's a fucking rust bucket. And then she tries again. She really pretends it's the alethiometer this time. And it appears on the screen.

She explains the answers in her language, the language of pictures. I love, by the way, that this is literally all of Lyra's knowledge of computers happening here. Let that sink in. It was like teaching a grandma about Wi-Fi. But now all of a sudden she's like, no, you're using it wrong, Mary. Fucking Gen Zs.

Is that what they're called? Yeah. Zoomers. Is she a zoomer? She is kind of a zoomer. She zooms the fuck around the plot. And the entire all the world. So actually though. Lyra, a zoomer. We love her.

The scene with the Aurora responding. I thought of Xenon Girl of the 21st Century. Do you remember? Yeah, I just watched it like three months ago when disney plus came out i haven't re-watched it yet i'm missing out it's worth it it was worth that that and uh smart house were my first watches oh my god i was just talking about smart house smart house is my favorite movie of all the disney channel movies at least really i will always that's my favorite disney channel movie smart house interesting i was re-watching johnny tsunami oh another good one a classic classic

luck of the irish classic but garbage also yeah i agreed lyra then uses the cave like in the and she asked okay how can the people of this world understand the shadows? And it responds with, you can program it to respond in words. Wow, it's so easy. I wish there was an instruction manual. I know, right? She's just like, Mary, you know, she should just make it use words.

How hard can it be? We get this little passage from Lyra where she talks about the alethiometer and the symbols she's getting. And Mary's like, how are you doing this? And Lyra's like, well, the lightning meant ambaric. I mean, electric power, more of that. And the angel, that's about messages.

There's things it wants to say, but what it went on to that second bit, it meant Asia. Almost the farthest east, but not quite. I don't know what country that would be. China, maybe. And there's a way they have in that country of talking not quite. I'd know what country that would be. China, maybe. And there's a way they have in that country of talking to dust. I mean shadows. Same as you got here and I got. I got with pictures, only their way uses sticks.

I think it meant that picture on the door, but I didn't understand it really. I thought when I first saw it there, it was something important about it, only I didn't know what. So there must be lots of ways of talking to shadows. I love that passage. I like that it expands what everything could be. Dr. Malone says that it's the Yi Xing, a Chinese form of divination. Lyra is surprised to realize there are many ways to speak with dust, and the alethiometer also tells her Mary's important, but she doesn't really know how or why she's like probably has to program all the words and that's why it's the only important thing about this woman i love that

lyra just like it's like i don't understand why these other people are important right she's like i don't want to deal with these people why should i i mean also mood i mean betrayal i get it betrayal you guys uh there's like i don't know what the list is, and I don't know how SEO etc. works for this, but we're one of the best betrayal podcasts. I agree. Did you know that? I really do agree. If you Google Gryffindor's Gone Canon. Lyra finally gives a better understanding of where she is from to Dr. Malone.

We're not going to explain it y'all came on this journey with us she explains her ability to clear her mind to understand the lithiometer clearly she doesn't know how to clean her mind then lyra wonders why people in her world hate dust slash shadows slash dark matter and think it's evil but what they do is evil and dr malone is like i don't know it's kind of weird to talk about good and evil in a scientific library. And I actually kind of disagree, because I think that scientists should talk about morality and ethics,

and it should be a part of the study. That in and of itself is, I think, maybe part of science a little. And Dr. Malone says she became a scientist so she wouldn't have to think about those things. And I think Pullman agrees with me to an extent because the story seems to be making the case for otherwise

based on the kind of science that was pursued by Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel, because Lyra then points out but you gotta think about it said Lyra severely. You can't investigate shadows, dust, whatever it is, without thinking about that kind of thing. Good and evil and such.

And it said you got to remember you can't refuse. Yeah, Pullman's definitely making some commentary here. And what Lyra says here gets into Mary's head. It's going to come back in a chapter or two in a much harder way. Lyra may feel lost, but she's been really found now that she remembers her journey, right? Reigniting that determination to understand shadows and dust. And this is kind of a strong recurring theme, what we're seeing here with the idea of science versus progress, right? Like what's more important, progress or ethics when it comes to science? In Northern Lights, you see it with the Bulvanger nurses who are doing things in exploration for science but for the wrong team for coulter and asriel if shadow and dust research would get in the wrong hands like the magisterium and the oppression that could come from that as we've talked about

in our northern lights episodes as our friend lo has told us a lot about some of the past of the european regions um it's a very big quandary you could be the motherfucker that looses something that destroys half of civilization you know just why because they're different color or shape or size yeah and i think it's definitely something as you said with the bovanger nurses working for the wrong people it's something that's raised of course with Roger and Lord Asriel and what happens when the high lords play their game

of thrones yeah and I think bringing in the nurses is very interesting because right they have their demons severed and that means that they're not in some ways right it's almost like it's removing their capability to think of good and evil and that means that they're not in some ways right it's almost like it's removing their capability to think of good and evil and because of that therefore do more evil and it's

almost like a question of is it progress is it progress right if evil is the cost of it and i think it's a question that's being posed this is that negative capability yeah like why do we do good or do evil and what kind of connotation does it have when you're looking to make progress and evolve as a race the human race yeah

but for now funding is gonna run out at the end of the week so Lara's like okay well you can just program it all tonight funding is going to run out at the end of the week. So Lara's like, okay, well, you can just program it all tonight. Drink a Monster. Drink some Fur Loco. Get some espresso.

Mary. Mary. Program it tonight. And then you can show them. You're going to go get your funding. And then you can also help me. Because I need help figuring things out that a truer statement has never been made lyra oh lyra oh it's fine you can do it right and mary is i mean jamar's less is kind of like yeah and i i'm going to reiterate one of my favorite

tweets from when the his dark Materials show came out, especially the first episode, was like someone saying that they knew that the show was fantasy by how quickly and easily Lord Asriel got funding from like the college. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Academic funding. They're like, that's made up. Absolutely made up.

No way. Yeah. I mean, Dr. Malone does call that out somewhat here. She's like, like i guess you know it's the same amount of effort as it would take me to do a funding application why not stay up all night anyway lyra says that she guesses she could use the e-jing but nah dr malone asks lyra to return tomorrow when she leaves and Lyra has a brand new mom I love this mom

me too better than the other literal real mom good call sorry not real better than the other biological mom there you go then we cut to Will

who is the second person now in a month other than a journalist question mark to ask about the ninia talk dig the other person who had asked about it wanted to know uh was in connection with one of the men who disappeared during the cold war apparently or this world's cold war will lies about why he needs the information and he gets this huge info dump it was basically a survey to see if it was worth the investment a bunch of scientists came together who split the cost in their journey geologists physicists and an ex-marine who was an explorer polar bears also had a shout out in this info dump and then they all vanished radio

signals stopped after a blizzard bears ate ate their stores. Typical bears. The journalist is most interested in the man named Perry. The journalist that stopped by was big and blonde with pale hair, Will learns when he asks. And it turns out Will's like, that's not a journalist. That's one of the guys who came to my house who seemed like he had no eyebrows or eyelashes. So Will ducks into a library. He goes and has a mini panic attack. Because he's like, I fucking killed someone. I fucking killed someone.

And like a half hour later, he calms his ass down. This is like the saddest thing. Like, have any of you had a panic attack? Like in public? It's awful. It's terrible. And like all these people are just there walking by. And he's just here freaking out because he's like killed someone.

And then it's like the worst is if you're in public and you have one and like other people see you having one. And you're just like, please just do not look at me. Like, I wish you would just never look at me. That's all I care about. And that is how Will feels. And he just sits so still that i guess kind of works out like no people don't notice him we we get this quote of what's going through his head during part of it like and how he calms himself down justifies it all to himself he'd been defending his mother

they were frightening her given the state she in, they were persecuting her. He had a right to defend his home. His father would have wanted him to do that. He did it because it was the good thing to do. He did it to stop them from stealing the green leather case. He did it so he could find his father. And didn't he have a right to do that? All his childish games came back to him with himself and his father rescuing each other from avalanches or fighting pirates well now it was real i'll find you he said in his mind just help me and i'll find you and we'll look after mom and everything will be all right oh sweetie i do like the line in there and didn't he have a right to do that? That was a very Lyra-esque line. I thought the same thing. Yeah, you can really see where they're parallels and where, as characters, they will find refuge in each other here.

Yeah, they have similar ways of thinking. Even though, obviously, they seem very different at first. That's for sure. Can't use coins. One can cook omelets one can't do anything at all will feel safer having somewhere to hide where he's also hiding his papers uh he finally realizes the museum's closing so as he exits the man with the pale eyebrows is getting out of a car and he immediately is like freaking out have to go invisible to wait for lyra and just like breathes and finds a place to go and i love that

this is basically the answer to the question of will as a murderer here like if you weren't already convinced of his role in this story will is afraid because he killed this guy he's afraid of him uh he's afraid for him he's afraid for his mother he's afraid for everyone involved here of this guy uh a murderer that did it in cold blood would probably not feel that fear yeah i mean like already there's just so much writing on his shoulders and you know what there's just gonna be more it's fine. Fuck it. It's fine. Doing it live. Doing it live. So now we roll into our discussion. Yes, so any of you who have not completed all three of the main trilogy,

please sign out for now. We don't want to spoil you, but feel free to stay if you are ready for the spoilers. We will be covering, like I said, all of the Subtle Knife, the Amber Spyglass in the discussion, and after that we will start working on the outer books. So to start off, let's revisit this quote. He wasn't prepared for Lyra's wide-eyed helplessness. He couldn't know how much of her childhood had been spent running about streets almost identical with these and how proud she'd been of belonging to jordan college whose scholars were the cleverest whose coffers the richest whose beauty the most splendid of all now it simply wasn't there and she wasn't lyra of jordan anymore she was a lost little girl in a strange world

belonging nowhere well she said shakily if it't here, it was going to take longer than she thought. That was all. So this was immediately, like, when I read this, all I thought about was Lyra reading the alethiometer and losing the ability to read it easily. Oh my god! That's what it reminded me of. It was going to take longer than she thought. That was all. I like the hopefulness that she had there. And again, it reminds me of

that as well that you know she's like i can relearn it we'll we'll figure it out in the end at first she's upset and then she's like okay i'll figure it out i'll figure it out um and for this you know it's she's lost a home she'll figure it out which she does eventually end up toward there but uh i think she's looking for more than that yeah oh my god i didn't even think about it like that and you're right like it definitely has those same vibes but it does goes to show how she is very tenacious you know she's just like all right that was a setback and she's yeah i mean earlier you were joking you said we'll do it live but that's absolutely lyra you know she's like we'll do it live we're gonna figure it out yeah and the first chapter of this you know she's very hopeless and kind of bummed

in the second chapter especially when she meets mary very hopeful you know i mean that was opening up a whole new world to her that she worked with a female scholar who understands dust ish understands as much as she can she yeah she she's open to learning and trying things like making omelets i mean she doesn't do great but she tries to do it you know she's trying to be self-sufficient you gotta respect that absolutely it's a small thing uh coming back again to the computer room as the cave and plato speaking of sad things you know it reminded me of the underworld right where lyra and will explore it and that's where the dead reside and then their own journey leading the dead out of the world of the cave and then into that world of sensation it's like a literal manifestation

of plato's allegory and people exiting the cave cool say the real world it is but now i'm really sad it's just such a beautiful moving scene thanks you're welcome thanks something i noticed during this episode particularly that i just like i don't know how i missed this maybe i just bloop bloop over my head but you know how charles makes like a weird tongue thing in this chapter and then it recurs i'm not into it i'm not into it it's very gross but it's so it's very much like his demon right a snake it is it's so interesting and what's crazier is you know snakes when they do that it's not because they're gonna eat you it's because they're smelling you but in this he's smelling her But in this, he's smelling her.

Oh, you're right. He's smelling her. He's getting her scent. Like his weird flower thing. Yeah. Ugh. Ew. You're right. He is also getting her scent.

That's so gross. Yeah, I hate him. But also, like, I didn't notice that. I wonder, you know, such a good giveaway that maybe you're like, oh, that's kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really creepy, like, and I mean, I didn't even think about it in relation to the fact that he has a snake demon either.

I just really didn't even think about that. And it's really off putting. He writes him so off putting because like we got him a little bit, right? And he was incredibly off putting, remember, in The Dinner Party. Yeah, that's very true he was and not even just that but as you get through other books i mean there are other villains that pullman has written in this series in this outer series especially that he's just very good at making off-putting like incredibly good at just really freaking you out i'll quickly react to

that i guess in the dusty discussion oh my god i've been like hollering about it to chloe all week very off-putting but you're right i mean it goes to show to an extent like i trust your instincts sometimes amen sister so i want to talk about the holes in the skulls that are allegedly dated at 33,254 years ago. 1,600 minutes. Oh, I'm sorry. Is that not what we were doing? It's okay.

No, but we can't. I actually have never seen Rent. I've seen it twice. Can't tell you shit about it. I just like used to paint the theater sets in school and therefore have heard that song a lot. Yeah, I've heard it many times. You know what I mean? I mean, it's a good song.

It's whatever. But yeah, so they're dated at that 33,000 whatever years, according to the lithiometer. also says that thing about regarding the measuring of the dust on the skulls of like dr pain finding out that skulls older than that time like didn't really have any dust on them like about 30 to 40 000 years ago and about it being like when the first modern humans appeared and i do think that that time period is significant right because like we hear about its significance grumman was studying societies that were or civilizations that were 30,000 years old. And some of the researchers that Scoresby speaks to

are like, that's bullshit. And then Grumman's like, no, it's not. Asriel's done the greatest thing since sliced bread was invented 35,000 years ago. And by that, I mean not bread. He's just like, he's done the greatest thing ever since then. Of course he fucking likes Asriel. I'm sorry, but if you really think

that John did no wrong, Perry got attacked and murdered by a witch for no reason, you're wrong. Yeah. I mean, they were definitely like friends to some of some sort, which is interesting because I think Will and Lyra will never discuss that and not know that their dads were friends yeah they were definitely bros but coming back to this time

period there's this quote from with mary with the malefa and it's like and it was connected to what the shadows had said to her on the computer screen just before she left her own world whatever it was this question had to do with the great change in human history symbolized in the story of adam and eve with the temptation the fall original sin and his investigations among fossil skulls blah blah all over pain and then mary thinks something had happened then some development and evolution to make the human brain an ideal channel for amplifying their effects she said to atal how long have there been malefa and atal said 33 000 years it's almost like life has been around for much longer it's been around actually for much much much longer but um later on mary's like what happened to give you this trough and they were

like we discovered how to use the wheels one day a creature with no name discovered a seed pod and began to play. And as she, and then Mary asked like, she? And they're like, she. Yes. Her? Her? God, Klaus, I got you. Thank you.

She had no name. Before then, she saw a snake coiling itself through the hole in a seed pod. And the snake said, Mary's like, the snake spoke to her? Like, no, no, it is a bakelake. God, don't you have any fucking imagination, Mary? That's what they're thinking internally. The story tells that the snake said, what do you know? What do you remember?

What do you see ahead? And she said, nothing, nothing, nothing. So the snake said put your foot through the hole in the seed pot where i was playing and you will become wise so she put a foot in where the snake had been and the oil entered her blood and helped her see more clearly than before and the first thing she saw was the shruff it was so strange and pleasant that she wanted to share it at once with her kindred, so she and her mate took the seed pods and they discovered that they knew who they were. They knew they were Malefa and not Grazers.

They gave each other names. They named themselves Malefa. They named the seed tree and all the creatures and plants. I really wish you would just read the Secret Commonwealth. I'm sorry. No, you're not. I will, I will. It's just you're pulling all

these things that i'm like oh they're gonna be so good for her to talk about someday she's gonna be my blown and i didn't even think about like it's you're pulling stuff that i haven't thought about that like all of a sudden i'm relating it to it and going oh shit did i even read these books who read these books did i read them you read them and you actually read more more of the books because you're clearly thinking of things that i've never thought about because my mind is whirring uh and i mean you know this whole showing this whole analog of the mulefa it's showing a whole entire new civilization and their own little humanity they're not humans they're they are considered humans you know like they they say in the books that like oh they're

just a different kind of human they look hmm well sometimes i look like a mulefa when i wake up so oh that's adorable they sound so adorable i'm like is it adorable? did I look like a Mulefa? I don't know they sound so cute I love them there's an expansive idea of what humanity is right and that's what Lyra comes to see in the underworld and I assume

they all have a story like this because you got those similarities between this Mulefa who puts her foot through the seed pod and then the story of Adam and Eve the biting into the apple from the tree of knowledge and

it coinciding with like demons settling in the story for Lyra's world I think that they gave a time period for that I don't remember and then from the lantern slides right you have that like in Lyra's world demons in the world of the Malefa the oil bearing wheels both ways of making the workings of dust apparent in our world what and like the the story explicitly tells us that dust is human consciousness but the concept that pullman is talking about here i think and uh mary malone does say that

this is when modern humans appeared now homo sapiens had been around already for a while like i think so homo sapiens sapiens which is what we here are you and i chloe and you and i dear listener um has existed so so homo sapiens sapiens is like maybe estimated to be like around depending on like which which line of thought you subscribe to maybe 500 000 years old maybe like 300 to 200 000 years old that's actually a huge ass range people make your fucking minds up um it's crazy to think how much like we don't know because history's been going on for so long that it all blurs together and they're like fucking fight well i'm sure people are fighting over those thousands hundreds of thousands i mean it's a big it's a big difference literally

hundreds of thousands of years but the the concept that he's describing here i think he's talking about what's called behavioral modernity which describes when modern humans right not just homo sapiens sapiens but the idea of the modern human developing the capacity for language, symbolic thinking, culture, art, things like that. And some people describe it as also the ability of transferring important information from

one generation to the next generations. That's a big part of modern humanity as well. And a big way that archaeologists sort of determine what constitutes all that was like, one of them was through seeing evidence of tools. And again,

like, so it's interesting that Pullman, because this is a story, right. And it's a fantasy story has decided to pick out like a singular moment as this is when behavioral modernity started because it sounds like it was evolving to a point it was a process on and off over like 100 like i don't know 50 000 years they're like oh we're doing it oh we're not doing it we're doing it

we're not we forgot but he stays faithful to the depiction of behavioral modernity through using tools as a way to depict it like with the trepanning like and the boring of the holes which homo sapiens like were doing in order to make beads that was a thing people were into you see it bone in those heads yeah bone beads shells shell beads things like that shells made out of your bone my fucking god uh yeah the the abercrombie model behavioral modernity before civilization and then the usage of tools with the malefa right like that's why it's so it ties in with that wheel it's evolution yeah it's it's like that switch, that evolution in the mind of human consciousness. And again, the timing is a little different by about, I don't know, 70,000 to 20,000 years.

Again, a huge range. And it was a process, but there's a connection between that and why dust settles on those carved objects and some and dust more on some of like the more intricate ones yes oh wow chloe just has a note here that says i can't talk about what i want to hear can't say shit can't say anything that everything you said has to deal with the secret commonwealth for me so i can't say anything about it it's okay but that's fine just read the book when you can someday you know i'd be happy no pressure i can't see it but you know what's really cool is that we get to do a dustier discussion that you're

invited to we literally made this just for me hey we actually did this a while back we brought the dustier in now the fun part about that is eliana's allowed into it now yeah but it's dustier not the dustiest yeah but we did a dustier discussion at one point yeah we the dustier discussion's a placeholder yeah i think that was when you finished subtle knife right it was only up to subtle knife got it got it you're right yep yeah so first i want to talk about you know the villains as you were saying i just i i can't i can't unthink it i can't i cannot unsee in my mind's eye the hyena licking the pug and the pug being super jazzed about it it's awful it's so like it's so jarring and in general bonneville is jarring like uh when i once you get into part two when they're actually

like on the water and you think about how voice travels on the water i mean god the garden yeah fuck eliana i've been waiting for so long to even talk about any of this um and it's like the fucking terminator it was nuts right and and he just would appear and you just hear his voice carry over the water going ha ha ha ha ha like the fucking titus laugh from final fantasy 10 here we go final fantasy 10 again like it's the titus laugh on but deeper it's awful like that haunted me i got into part two of that book and I couldn't put the book down, A. B, I was tapping my foot with anxiety

every time he appeared. I mean, he's very scary and I'm just like, how are you still going, sir? What is happening? I know, there were some times I was like, he should be dead. I mean, I guess that's why he's scary right now he's again terminator and okay so so things that are not about hyenas licking pugs gonna talk about the allegory of

the cave again uh i loved i as you can tell i loved dr hannah r Ralph. Not yet a dame. So now I'm curious how she becomes a dame. I want to know. How does she get knighted but for women? Oh, okay. Interesting. Interesting. Chloe seems to know the answer. Anyway, they have that discussion about symbols around the alethiometer, that chicken and egg

sort of discussion regarding symbols and concepts. They go through a couple of different examples, such as like whether or not the Pythagorean theorem would hold true in a world with no Pythagoras or someone like him or in a world with no bees. Bees? In a world with no bees. No bees. No bees.

I'm going to cut that into a spot or like as a preview for this but yeah there's like a world with no bees but maybe there's like still people and they could taste things like how would could they symbolize sweetness without the hive right and like then malcolm has this passage well the connection would be here in our minds but not there if we can think about that other world we could see a connection even if there was no one there to see it that's good now we still can't say whether that language you spoke about the language of symbols was definitely invented or definitely discovered. But it looks more as if... As if it was discovered, said Malcolm.

But it's still not like Pythagoras' theorem. You can't prove it. It depends on... on... Yes? It depends on people being there to see it. The theorem doesn't. That's right. But it's a bit invented as well. Without people to see it it would

just be it might as well not be there at all hold up hold up pullman it's okay if it's there anyways um so we'll probably dig into this more when we do finally i don't know are we gonna do like a discussion or maybe i think we're gonna have to the read-through or something? I mean, I think we're going to have to read LaBelle Sauvage in general for the cast. Yeah, but do we do it after the Amber Spyglass? Are we going to be able to last that long between the seasons? I don't know. We'll think about it, dear listeners. Let's see how fast we finish The Subtle Knife. You never know. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

But yeah, we'll dig into this more eventually um but you know this passage brings in like ideas of subjective idealism the relationship between perception reality existence whatever but for now we're just going to focus this conversation around the alethiometer and shadows slash dust whatever why it's interesting in this context because it seems like this argument is playing into the idea that yes yes there is a platonic form or platonic ideal of like this concept of things like sweetness right like that there is a pre-existing pure form of that idea of sweetness or something which is what a lot of this discussion hinges on out there, which is why through their discussion, they talk about how like the symbols seem to be discovered. They're

not created. It's not something that someone like thought, oh, yeah, we'll do that. Like, it has that connotation of pre-existing. And a few episodes ago, within Northern Light slash Golden Compass, we talked about the lithiometer and its symbols and linguistics, right? And here Lyra calls the lithiometer a speaking in, quote unquote, her language, that language of pictures. I mean, like, I

have conflicting thoughts here. Like, it almost feels as though it's arguing, like, that there's something intrinsic to the meaning that goes with the symbols. And I know that, like, pictorial semiotics is its own thing that's a little different like in the depiction but it's like the story is laying out an argument that like this language of pictures is closer maybe to the forms or the ideal or lyra can get there with that state of mind i don't know i i'll do more thinking around a deeper dive at some point but it's something it's an interesting

thought agree on that absolutely and I think it's really funny that you took a lot more of the symbol side of it because I started thinking about what conceptually especially with subjective idealism and the idea of like perceiving like well if I know it's real but no one else is there to see it is it real uh is it a real experience if no one else is there to see it is it real is it a real experience if no one else saw it happen to me that kind of you know if a tree falls that's kind of more what I started thinking about but I

would love to tell you more but I can't tell you more about it dear Eliana because I'm about to go into my dusty discussion I know you have something you want to start the dusty discussion with before you leave but the dusty discussion is going to be covering the secret Commonwealth and anything to do with it. Yeah, this isn't really technically the dusty discussion, you guys.

This is just an offshoot of the dusty discussion, but I just wanted to throw Chloe off if I type under that header, see what happens. I'm like this troll that I am. And I preface, I'm not looking down. I just wanted to say that my understanding, I think, is that Lyra is pursuing education right now. Maybe she's trying to become a scholar. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. The lantern slides seem to indicate that.

And I think it was important for her to meet Mrs. Coulter. And obviously, like, studying with dr sorry dame hannah it's an important title she worked hard for that title however the fuck she did it if charles latrum gets to just be a knight yeah she could do whatever she wants yeah and like especially like also meeting dr malone like i don't know it makes me think of how we always discuss the need for children to see themselves represented in stories, for them to see heroes that, like, look like them, so that they know that there are possibilities for themselves. And, like, for me, I'm like, yeah, that's Lyra. She never thought about, like, female scholars being a thing until now, and now she's like, wow, yeah, I can totally be one and, like, save the fucking universe. I mean, she already did it once without, like, any any sort of uh qualifications other than you know destiny but whatever it feels very unfair in book

one that mrs coulter is like the fake shiny scholar you know that she's not really a scholar uh she's just tinsel on the outside and lyra's life is so charming and amazing for like two days and then she's like oh this bitch crazy and it's great that dr malone comes along in this book it's like well deserved right like she is the female role model lyra deserves and we get that especially you know later on when she tells her like yeah you guys should fucking make out you know yeah she's like kiss boys lyra kiss everyone yeah like love love is why i quit being a nun because it stifled love uh i was sick of the rules i wanted to have sex and i mean that's basically what she said yeah i mean i get you

mary it's like honestly at this point i think jesus is worried about like all the serial killers and rapists you know like maybe that's me i don't know for sure whatever uh and i sure don't think that jesus really really actually would care whether or not you had a piece of paper that you paid the government for to get married with i'm just putting that out there i do not think that he would i don't think that he made sure to go to the office and get the papers drafted and printed out chloe and i now air our grievances about jesus but But I do, you know, coming back, yes, Dr. Malone is like, I mean, she's the good role model for Lyra to be like, wow, so I could be smart and have possibilities and a job. Because Mrs. Coulter felt like she couldn't get that, right? She couldn't have everything she wanted.

Without sacrificing. But she also was smart. She could have been a scholar in a way because remember, she's the one who made, and it's considered a groundbreaking scientific discovery that she discovered, okay, the moment that demons settle is the moment that dust starts settling on people. She was the one who somehow fucking connected that. So yeah, and it's like, it's that same idea that we get with our A Song of Ice and Fire analysis of like Sansa versus Cersei, right? Yeah. Ruling through fear and love, you know, the differences between the two and Coulter felt she could not get anywhere without sacrificing her quality of work.

Yeah. And soul. Yeah. Basically. Yep. Literally. I mean. her quality of work yeah and soul yeah basically yep literally I mean from you're right literally she does too yeah well that is true Eliana take a breather do a couple laps you know this was big

for you dusty discussion join us in just a second Eliana I'll make this one brief don't worry goodbye bye Join us in just a second, Eliana. I'll make this one brief. Don't worry. Goodbye. Bye. So you guys, I'm not going to go into too much this week with the dusty discussion, if not only because I want to save some of the really juicy stuff for our guests when

we record with them this week with Her Dark Materials, Faye, and Ian and Amy. We are so excited to record with them. Eliana's really bummed out that she can't be there, but she probably should have read the book. You know what I'm saying? She's on to me, you guys. She said so much good stuff this episode. I sat here with my mind blown during her dustiest, or sorry, dustier discussion, and she has no clue. No clue, but someday she'll have a clue. First, I want to talk about kind of that feeling of loneliness and sadness in this episode that we had from Lyra and how it really reminds me of Lyra right now in the secret commonwealth,

age 2021. Adulthood, specters, that horrible, bland feeling of hopelessness totally shows itself in Lyra when she's just lost the flavor of life as she's grown older. I had to bring that up today. I thought that was a good one. Lyra losing her way in totality just really rang true, even in that passage where she says, if it ain't here, it was going to take longer than she thought. That was all. Some other things in this chapter that really, really, really screamed the secret commonwealth to me, especially after our lantern slides episode. If you haven't checked it out on Patreon, I really recommend it. We got pretty deep and pretty dusty in those. But when Lyra is telling Mary about her language in

comparison to the cave's languages and languages of pictures in the alethiometer, she talks about what she actually sees on the alethiometer and how she reads it. And she sees an angel. She sees something that means Asia. And she sees, of course, dust. So when she's reading these, she thinks about China specifically. And in the lantern slides, Pullman actually had written stuff about the flower oil that Charles Latrim is wearing and some more stuff about Asia. And lo and behold, here we are with Lyra heading towards Central Asia. So speaking of all this Central Asia, and Lyra someday getting there maybe in the next Book of Dust, I kind of thought about a couple other things that I want you guys to chew on until our episode comes out with Her Dark Materials and the Dark Materials podcast, which is Central Asia. Isn't that where the Pantsy are born headed off to? Hmm. Hmm. And didn't Yorick talk to Will about what he'd do if they found a new enemy?

I'm wondering if the Pants are Born are going to come to Lyra's aid once more in that last book. I guess we'll find out on that one for sure. But another person that I'm starting to feel like we're definitely going to see, not just because of the joking tweet we read from Philip Pullman earlier on in the episode, but also because of the quote from LaBelle Sauvage that Eliana brought up tonight. Again, brilliant stuff from her today. From Malcolm. Well, the connection would be here in our minds, but not there. If we can think about that other world,

we could see a connection, even if there was no one there to see it. That line absolutely positively brings to mind two things. The first thing is Lyra seeing Olivier Bonneville with the alethiometer. The second thing that that brings to mind, though, is the idea that when she sees Olivier, he almost looks like Will. And my heart, your heart, and Lyra's heart stopped, came out of our butts, like, freaked out, like, what is it, Will? But no, it was this punk-ass Kylo Ren, Olivier Bonneville, and of course, now we have to wait. So, I don't know, I'm just saying that we might see Will. I'm starting to think that Lyra really, really desperately needs some closure to move on

from her 20-year-old phase that she's going through. And it makes sense, right? Pan fell in love with many other people in this time, but Lyra has not allowed herself to move on from Will. Pullman has said in interviews that Lyra is kind of hanging on these older men like Georgio and, uh, of course, Malcolm because she doesn't, she feels like it's safe. She doesn't want to cheat on Will. So there's a lot more that we'll be discussing about this, uh, this Sunday. Actually, we are recording with these guys about the Secret Commonwealth.

So please tune in. We'll have it out on march 6th for the public if you're not a patron but patrons will get that episode for five dollars and up monthly well guys i guess it's time to bring eliana back and we'll go from there well eliana thanks for joining us back after the dusty discussion we did miss you and we did talk about you just so you know but true i hope that someday you do go back after you finish the secret commonwealth and listen to these dusty discussions i think it would very much so behoove you or you could just read our notes but i do plan to listen to it

sometime i have to um figure out which ones like where we started doing them oh smart and then like obviously i'm not gonna like re-listen to all of the episodes when did chloe surpass eliana yeah i need an alethiometer tell me i'll just put it out in the internet hey can any of our listeners please tell me when did chloe start doing these yeah well thank you so much you guys for listening this has been chapters 3 and 4 of the subtle knife we are going to be back next month covering hopefully the next couple chapters

if not the next three chapters we will let you know when we figure it out yes and again this month I am not joining but you get a very and by this month I mean like next week you get a very special and by this month, I mean, like, next week, you get a very special episode of Chloe joined by guests, Faye from Her Dark Materials and Ian and Amy from Dark Material Podcast. I should, like, I think I'm going to breeze through, like, the secret Commonwealth just so I can listen to that discussion.

Well, I hope you can get through it while you're gone for the next couple weeks. And you can join us refreshed and maybe ready to join the dusty discussion. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like a club that you don't get to be in. So maybe do you want me to like just stay out of it so that you keep having a cool club? No, I'll find a new club without you. Make my own new club. Thank you so much for listening and tune in next month when we're covering more subtle knife be sure to keep up with our schedule by following us on social media

you can find us at girls gone canon on twitter c-a-n-o-n or if you want you can shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com absolutely make sure you subscribe to us on the podcast platform where you listen to all of your podcasts we can be found on many of them including Apple Podcasts Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher Acast, Podbean you name it

but you won't find me next week I you know having been one of your hosts Eliana goodbye and i have been another one of your hosts chloe see you guys soon you guys i wrote this short ditty. It was like, I want to know. Can you show me? I want to know about John Perry. Oh, my God. For Will, going through the internet.

Goodbye, you guys. Goodbye.