Girls Gone Canon Cast - HIs Dark Materials Episode 9 - The Subtle Knife Chapters 1-2

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

We open the story on our protagonist abandoning their childhood as they enter a new world  - that's right, Will Parry! (But don't worry, Lyra's in this, too.)  After we get introduced to faces new and old, we'll hop onto our cloud-pines and catch up with Serafina Pekkala.  --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: liesandarborgold.com

you're listening to girls gone canon covering his dark materials Hello, everyone. Happy New Year and happy New His Dark Materials episode. It's episode nine. Also, New Year, new us, new book, The Subtle Knife, chapters one and two. I'm one of your hosts, Eliana. You might know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit, or as Arithmetic on Twitter. And I am another one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as LizaNArbor on Twitter or Tumblr. Hello,

hello, hello, hello, everybody. We're back. We're back with His Dark Materials in 2020, covering the second book of the main trilogy the subtle knife you guys no spoilers but it's the one with will well the one of two that's true one of two with will and we are so excited uh because will's introduction and the next chapter right are just there's a lot going on. It's really dense. Sometimes I'm like, Philip Pullman, you could have made these separate chapters. Let's be real. We are

only going to do chapters one, The Cat and the Hornbeam Trees, and two, Among the Witches. We're slowing it down. So we can cram it all in at the end. Yeah. It's going gonna be followed by our dust discussion our book spoilers after section so if you haven't listened to our his dark materials episodes yet we did cover the first book northern lights or the golden compass if you're in the u.s

and have not seen the uk version uh we covered it we covered the first season of the show and the first book loved covering that it was my first time i was new popped that dust cherry and so we are going to be spoiling listen i don't know what i'm on today i have caffeine so we're going to be following all of this discussion with no spoilers or minimum spoilers as few spoilers. Spoilers for the first few chapters only of The Subtle Knife will be in this. After that will be a dust discussion where we spoil the main trilogy. We're just going to spoil the heck out of it. We're just going to spoil, spoil, spoil it.

And then after that, Eliana is going to have to tune out because I am going to spoil the books of dust and monologue like a supervillain and it's going to be fun for me. So stay tuned for that. technical difficulties. We came up with a deadline. I work well with deadlines and set timelines and feeling obligated and accountable to other people. So I have made a very romantic promise to my sister wife, Chloe.

It's me. It's her. You guys, Eliana has committed to me that she is going to you guys thought this was like a real thing like an announcement well it is she's going to finish La Belle Sauvage

by Valentine's Day that is so romantic this is actually a big announcement gentlemen ladies pay attention this is how you do it this is how long-term relationships are formed. Read the books that your partners want you to read. Yeah, what is this in love languages?

Act of service, maybe? Yeah, I think so. Then it leads into quality time. Those are my two big love languages. They like tied for me when I took that quiz. And it's love languages, not just for me, but it's going gonna be for you guys too, because it means

Eliana's gonna read these books. I'm gonna finally get her to do it. I'm gonna finally, I'm getting her to commit to reading these books. And then she's gonna talk about them with us in the dusty discussions. Because it's really lonely. It's lonely without you there.

There are gonna be two dusty discussions. It's just going to keep being different tiers, right? Because we're doing baby steps. You know, you got to cut the steak up into little bite-sized pieces. Yeah, I haven't made you commit to the other one yet. Just LaBelle. But I know once you commit to LaBelle, I think the rest will so we'll see we'll see like medium rare you know just bloop on the grill off the grill read it read the secret commonwealth so i'm excited about that

if you guys have followed us at all we have Patreon, patreon.com slash girls gone canon. And, you know, I would say that there are some people that did sponsor this episode. Our patrons over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon are really the sponsors of this episode. We really against all odds should not have probably been able to add a second book series, since we've already committed to one our Song of Ice and Fire read-through where we are just going through all of the chapters, point of view by point of view, for

years. We're gonna do it for years. A huge shout-out to all of those patrons in our Honor, Stranger, Thunder, Chestnut, Sweetfoot, and Zorse tiers. Those are our tier names. They are the names of horses from the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

They're important names. One of them is an entire species, though. Shout out. And it's better than the rest. Yes. To Warren, whom we cite often, who asked George about Zorses's on behalf of us and George explained that they are in fact based on

the real life zebra horse hybrid which I needed to know. That was actually really important to me. I think it's been really necessary for us to branch out into other things for us to feel

free excited and I mean for us to branch out into other things, for us to, you know, feel... Free. Free, excited, and I mean, a lot of you came on this journey of His Dark Materials with us, with Chloe especially, right? Starting it for the first time, and I cannot thank you all enough. Like, I was just like,

you guys, what if we did this book that I read when I was growing up? And so thank you to those of you who were excited, who like me had read it before and were supportive of that. And for those of you who were supportive in just jumping along and be like, sure, let's do it. Let's take on this new ride. Yeah, over in the history of Westeros podcast group, we had some people talking about some Sansa analysis that they kind of changed their mind on uh talking about our podcast in game of thrones a song of ice and fire sansa stark and it really made me think you know like reading these books now i didn't read them when i was younger like you and many of our listeners did this is my first time as some of you also have

come along this journey like eliana said with me uh and there are some things like the harry books I read them now and I'm like oh I feel way differently about this than I did then so I love that nostalgia factor that some of you get from this it's really exciting for me and I'm really excited that I feel so accepted into reading it you know like I don't feel like I was missing anything at the time but I feel like I had a demon within me all along no spoilers no spoilers yes and i mean along with that as we all know maybe d chloe's demon has settled before mine i youthful are you calling me old you're older than me i know chloe's chloe's younger than me but i mean she as you all know by this discussion of a dusty

discussion has surpassed me so yeah that's true maybe my demon settled first you know they say that Chloe matures faster uh I'm gonna be immature forever on that Jason Mendoza grind well thank you so much to our patrons who make Girls Gone

Canon His Dark Material episodes possible they make them a privilege grind well thank you so much to our patrons who make girls gone canon his dark material episodes possible they make them a privilege a privilege for all to have so speaking of you know our supporters in general we got a lot of messages between ending our coverage of the last book slash the television series which we will be touching on very very lightly every now and then technically none of it is really spoilers based on what we have in this book but anyways um by this point we are going to address all of those messages at a point that is not this episode yeah because it's a lot and we want to be able to give you some time we've got some funny funny questions that are in a way a crossover between the two series that we read yeah they literally are there's a lot to be taken from it

right like a lot of you are listening to both sides of the story, A Song of Ice and Fire and His Dark Materials right now. So in listening to both of those, in crossing those streams, you're getting a lot of these same thematics because, of course, we're reading both of them at the same time and we're picking out those thematics, whether consciously or subconsciously. We'll

try to keep them as focused, obviously, as we can, but for now, we will get back to your questions like eliana said at a later date we don't want to clog you too much we've talked so much already we will leave you with a review we got on itunes from candid 59 it's i don't know this is heartfelt because they said that we were their favorite his dark materials podcast and usually we're in a song of ice and fire podcast, right? So this is so cool to hear.

This is one of our first ones that was purely His Dark Materials. Yeah, I love both of my children equally is what I want you guys to know. I do. Candid59 said, discovered them while looking for podcasts that covered His Dark Materials show. Love that not only are they super insightful, but also critical to a fair extent. True. They're also funny.

Aw. Thank you. Thank you so much. Totally could see myself vibing with them in real life. Just finished listening to their coverage of the books as well. Can't wait for them to cover more HDM. Truly deepen my lore and knowledge. Keep up the great work, ladies.

With a less than three heart, which I think ties it all together. Great review. Good job. I give you five stars. I'm going to give them a five-star review. Thank you. A five, nine-star review. 59.

Almost nice. I was going to say that. I'm so glad that I didn't. So, yeah. I'm glad that we're on the same wavelength. We are both five. That was a lot, though. That was emotional. I'm like,

oh, we're a Histarch Materials podcast, too. You're a Greyjoy and a Stark. But are you a cat and the hornbeam? Wow. But are you a cat and the hornbeam trees? Bella, what are you talking about? So chapter one, Bella, Bella, I don't know. We are about to see some other worlds is what I want to talk about right now with you, Eliana.

As we start the cat in the hornbeam trees, we open in a world that is different than ours and different than the world that Lyra went into. We open to Will's world. So there's a boy. His name's Will. Can I make it any more obvious? If you haven't read this yet, what are you doing? Go read the first couple chapters and then we'll talk. But if you don't know him,

Will, he is in a different world. He's in a world that imitates ours. It feels kind of like an anachronism to us because we just spent so much time getting obsessed and into the framework of Lyra's crazy world, right? But now we are home with technology. And that's what makes this meeting of worlds in Chittagaze so powerful and the themes in the story moving forward as well two people are coming together from two different worlds and I think we could say they would unite a little bit of humanity

in a war soon for their free will free will free will I want shirts that say Free Will. I think you could do that. Maybe. Are people going to think it's like a Free Willy reference, though?

Yeah. Just a thought. Yeah, and I think that his name being Will is really significant. It's something that we're going to obviously deepen our exploration of as we go through these books, but for now, I'm going to just kick us all off with Two Worlds, One Family by Phil Collins.

Let fate decide to guide these lives we see, including Elaine Perry. Elaine Perry will not follow her son down the narrow, dimly lit neighborhood. She's afraid, but time's running out to get her to Mrs. Cooper's house. Mrs. Cooper smells like lavender water, and she looks at Will and his mother, who he strongly resembles. They stand

out to the eye, even beyond their resemblance. Obviously, it's a different circumstance from the beginning of book one but i i just feel like there's like a similar anxiety underpinning these openings right because you know when we start book one with lyra there's that need to hide because she's in a place she's not supposed to be whereas for will right he's he's out in the open but there's still suddenly that urge and need to hide and get out of view. Yeah, it does kind of, it's a repeat, right? Like you open with the girl hiding in the closet. We open right now with the boy trying to hide in plain sight, I guess, you know, trying to get somewhere to hide, really. And, you know, there's something interesting there in the

lavender water with Mrs. Cooper that really stuck out to me on this reread. Because for me, this is now a reread. If you guys listen to our Patreon lantern slides episode, there's actually a lantern slide included at the end of the book about a character named Lord Boreal, who uses a fragrantly floral scented oil. So I might bring it up in the Dusty discussion without Eliana's ears and eyes to hear and see. And nose to smell. And nose to smell. You're getting too sensual for me.

So Will is glaring unhappily, strong-jawed, and his mother has musty clothing, untidy hair. Half of her makeup is on. Both of them have straight black eyebrows and broad cheekbones. Like I said, the resemblance is strong. Will asks Mrs. Cooper if his mother can stay there for a while. He offers her food packets in return. And Mrs. Cooper is kind of nervous to accept this is kind of a weird situation.

She asks, you know, does your mom need a doctor or is there family or social services that could maybe help you guys but will quite obviously has no one else he's pretty desperate yeah he promises mrs cooper it's fine it's not gonna be for long i'm gonna be back soon and then i'll take her home and his mom throughout all this is just watching him so trustfully and will returns back that warm smile and gives her as much reassurance as he can this moment like moves mrs cooper she's really touched same as all the rest of us in this moment crying big tears and she's like all right all right elaine can stay for a few days and it's like she can stay in my daughter's room my daughter has moved to Australia.

And she's obviously never coming back. You don't just move to Australia. What a joke. The animals will get you. Drop bears. Not even once. Not even once. Nope. Drop bears. So Will says he'll be with a friend, and he'll phone often. He hugs and kisses his mother clumsily and his eyes are wet with tears he stops before leaving though and shakes hands with mrs cooper thanking

her she wants him to tell her what's really going on but he says it's complicated mrs cooper and then he repeats she won't be any trouble yeah Yeah, we have this quote of, that wasn't what she meant, and both of them knew it. But somehow, Will was in charge of this business, whatever it was. The old lady thought she'd never seen a child so implacable. I love the parallels of Will and Lyra so far, right? Like, you open this book and you're like, okay, who's this kid? Because you expect, like, we're in another world. Oh, it's

not lyra right this is not lyra um and while while lyra's not exactly i don't know she's not called implacable in the books at all right like will is called implacable but lyra is most definitely described as determined and ferocious and unyielding throughout the story. You get in the Northern Lights in the Egyptian Council. She looked fierce and stubborn as she sat there, small against the high carved back of the chair. And then Farder Coram, his emotions on Lyra in Northern Lights as well. He took pity on the fierce, desperate little girl and didn't send her away. They become,

in the end, Will and Lyra, no spoiler spoilers, but they are kind of fire-forged friends after they meet, right? They're both kind of ferocious and they go through a lot and that's kind of a big part of their relationship. Absolutely, that determination.

For now, though, Will is turning to face his neighborhood and goes back to a loop of houses. Many of them look the same, except their house stands out just a little bit, because it's not the best kept in comparison to the rest of them. His mother, though, had tried to

plant a garden, but it died of dehydration. Everyone hydrate yourselves chloe tells me that uh her partner reminds her all the time to hydrate chloe don't forget to hydrate listen i hydrate as much as i can um so i'm so excited for this next part if you guys watched his dark materials the adaptation that recently was on hbo bbc we loved it we covered it please go watch it if you haven't it was worthwhile to watch even as a super hardcore nerd book fan um i couldn't the grievances weren't too big you know

it was no game of thrones it was thank god God. I was worried. It was all right. It was a show based on the books as opposed to. It definitely thematically resonated with the books I have read is what I'm saying. As opposed to books based on the show. You know, it's real different. It made me feel. It made me feel. And the part that I felt the most about was Moxie, the cat, who I love.

Moxie. It is the family Perry cat cat comes out of one living plant the only living plant outside a hydrangea and wraps around will's legs and moxie's meowing he's like have you seen him girl and will makes himself invisible as he returns into his house listening at the door for any activity before he enters. He knows he's on a limited time crunch before quote-unquote they come back and moves quickly, looking for a green leather writing case. The introduction of both Will's mental focus on invisibility comes back into play in not just the next chapter with Serafina, who's focusing on being unseen in the ship, but also in the secret commonwealth so

we'll note that later in the dusty discussion for those of you keeping track will looks through his mom's drawers and he's ashamed as he passes her other drawers her underwear and he goes to look through other rooms yeah and then it gets dark right and he makes himself some beans and toast and then the phone rings 26 times and stops because this book was published in like i don't know the late 90s and not everyone had cell phones where you could just turn off the ringer because i am a millennial who does not turn my ringer on ever and will still hasn't found his writing case he's exhausted and he falls asleep half past one and dreams vague awful dreams of anxiety in his mother mood and then he wakes up after three

hours and when he wakes up he knows two things immediately he knows where the case is and that men were breaking into the house downstairs he moves Moxie off of him and quietly gets himself into like an evacuate ready situation. And what I love about this is right from the get go of meeting Will, we're getting this characterization of him. Of his like sense of intuition. We don't get any explanation for why Will knows where the case is or that the men are downstairs and like that's the point it's meant to be very uncanny that he has this this strong intuition yeah absolutely like he drifts off he goes to bed and like drifts off and then he wakes up and he's like he knows he knows that they're there you know that that's insane um and he has such strong traits about his character in general

right like a very strong intuition really actually a strong young man he is strong uh fierce loyalty when he trusts someone or likes someone he's a bold character and i like that pullman worked his facial features into that right like his broad cheekbones and strong eyebrows that accentuates this about him uh whereas lyra is kind of described as like dishwater blonde you know like small tiny feral creature comes in the night i don't know she's a wild yeah wild feral bad absolutely bad cat um but will is just you know he's, sharp creature. And he does a lot to contrast against her. He leaves his bedroom silently as he realizes the men are in the house. And he finds a sewing machine at the spare room at the top of the stairs.

He very carefully opens a compartment on the machine, looking for the catch to open it. He finds the case there, and then he realizes that he's stuck he uh cannot move because they will find him and they're gonna find him anyway male voices drift up the stairs they say they need to keep looking for it upstairs and up they come a flashlight beam sweeps across the floor will crouches in the dark his very last move he's unable to hide anywhere else at this point and as soon as the door opens he springs up into the guy that opens the door. But wild card, Moxie the murder cat decides to come dance under their feet. She trips up the big guy and down he falls.

He crashes with a crack down the stairs, his head smacking against a table, dead. And Will leaps down the stairs and out the door moxie the murder cat the bust truly the best we have to pause and give moxie the murder cat her due space will then bolts out passing the milkman jumping across a fence into a garden past a house over a garden wall down a lawn through a hedge into shrubs house, over a garden wall, down a lawn, through a hedge, into shrubs, and then under a bush. It's all very fierce Bueller's Day Off. And Pullman uses this scene to describe the technology that's in this world. He says that the men will come after him with their cell phones, which is probably a little different than my cell phone that I never turned the ringer on for. And the milkman's electric cart has lights on it. I looked into this.

And apparently the term for these electric carts, right, that's a descriptor of it, is called a milk float. And they all use electric battery power. Once upon a time, they were pulled by horses. They are apparently common-ish throughout Europe, especially in the UK, and were run by local dairies, though have been phasing out a little as more supermarkets stock milk more regularly. These carts tend to go really slow, about 16 to 18 miles per hour. Kind of sounds like it's a golf cart that you know has been that also carries milk which word uh some of them go up to 80 miles per hour and i personally assume that these are the teslas of the milk float world wow He is trying to stay undercover.

He waits to enter the main road. It's too early. Fewer people are out and about. He wants to blend in. The crack of the man hitting the table and his dead body keep haunting Will's mind, and Will feels guilty. He's not just guilty about that, though. He's guilty about a lot of other stuff like

mrs cooper and his mom for example what if they find her he thinks and moxie who'd feed moxie would moxie worry about where they were would she try to follow them what a sweet boy will literally worries about his cat. Yes. I mean, like, that's how you know someone's good and sweet. Though, I think what's even more endearing about this is like, yeah, I think Moxie might wonder where they are. But also Moxie's a murder cat and she can fend for herself. Like, she's not going to go hungry.

She has a whole corpse there. She's quite obviously proven herself capable of defending yeah against humans like i have felt i have felt this giant yeah and like humans were the worst so if you can defeat a human you're good she's gonna be fine will checks through all of his belongings and everything is still there so maybe he'll be fine he searches the bag that he grabbed on his way out the door. It's a tote of his mother's and in it are letters from a lawyer, a map of southern England, chocolate, toothpaste, spare socks, and pants. When Will was younger, when he was seven, he started to notice that his mom was different than other people he interacted with and that he had to kind of look after her they would go to the supermarket and she would play a game with him where he would

tell her if people were looking or not and they would only put things in the cart if no one was looking he would be the lookout he would go now when the coast was clear uh and they would snatch items quickly but by the end of the game they would reach the items quickly. But by the end of the game, they would reach the checkout, and that was when it would have to end. His mom would suddenly not be able to find her purse. She would tell him that the enemy must have stolen it, and they would go restock the items on the shelves one by one. And then the enemies would be tracking them

because they had her credit card numbers and her purse, and the fear would escalate from there. And then will eventually realized that the real danger of these enemies was a game that his mom was making and it was so clever she didn't want to scare him so he would pretend not to be frightened to reassure her but then they had to change bank accounts a few times and then they would find the purse at home and will realize that the enemies they were very real but they were in his mom's head uh you couldn't visibly see them but they were still there and from that moment will knew

that he had to protect his mom and he was very sensitive to her needs and he had to be the man in the house of course because his father john perry had vanished a long time ago. A lot of book one focused on Lyra's slow realization, right? And I say slow just because it was stretched out throughout the entire book. Like that was what it was about. That her parents are humans infallible. We discussed this during our coverage of Northern Lights slash The Golden Compass

that like it's that same realization you have when you're like a teenager and realizing your parents aren't gods and but turned up to like 11 i guess you know maybe your your parents are like fallen angels instead whatever um and the subtle knife explores that for will and we start off with that backstory right and it condenses it and shows how Will had to come to that realization about his parents much earlier than Lyra because

both in many different ways put their parents on a pedestal right first in for Lyra it was in the way that she thought about her parents death as explorers and like the glamour of Mrs. Coulter later on and then in the exploration of Lord Asriel, learns there's more to them, and that idolization isn't real. Will's story, on the other hand, much more mundane, probably more similar to many other

real people's stories, and by real people, I mean all of us here in this world listening. And because of that, it's a lot lot more relatable the way that he comes to realize oh my mother is also just human and he has his own journey as he comes to terms with like who his father was and i think that's going to continue for the rest of the book that's a lot of what the subtle knife is about for will and the way that book one is that for lyra yeah most of uh the majority of normal society not in fantasy you fiction books we uh those of us that don't have father figures or don't know our father figures we have questions about our fathers right and most of those father figures are not evil villains who murder children so it's a little different right like i say most

i'm sorry you know it's not yeah it um we have a little different right like i say most i'm sorry you know it's not yeah it um we have a very different experience like lyra has a different experience obviously than most people will you know he has so many questions though about his dad and it's kind of an open-ended story right because like all he knows is that his dad led expeditions that he was once a marine officer that he goes to remote parts of the world, and that he's been lost ever since, and that he was handsome and brave and clever. And his mom, that's all she can tell him.

There are no photos that prove these adventures. So the only thing that's really stuck with Will over the years about his dad is one time when she told him, one day you'll follow in your father's footsteps you're going to be a great man too you'll take up his mantle yeah she believes in him she believes in both of them yeah and it's a certain sense of pride right it gave him a big amount of pride a big amount of confidence it led him to keep her secret to take care of her to cook

you know learn to cook from her when she was lucid learn to conceal himself to keep attention off of them from neighbors from people at school um it forced will to obviously grow up very fast definitely and we we see that difference and the different ways that Lyra and Will have grown up very shortly. But some of it also, interestingly, came through these games, right? And that's what's prepared them for what's to come without even realizing it, because

no one ever tells you you're going to go on a great adventure to literally alternate universes. That's not a thing. People were just told. As you'll recall,ra's jordan that the chapter speaks of her time playing at war with the other children in oxford and a lot of how she learned to you know spin yards her lying right will's own games with his mother taught him about secrecy and about hiding and then you know he becomes a child caretaker and it stops

being a game but through that he learns different skills for survival was afraid though that like his mother was going to be taken away from him even though he was taking care of her or that it might end up with him being taken from her things were smooth enough with this bumpy give and take for a while until you know the men came and these men were all like where is john perry has he contacted you what do you know about his whereabouts yeah the first time the men showed up will told them off and they left at first they were like what is this kid doing but then they were like all right well he's kind of aggressive they're like we'll just leave this time.

It's impressive, honestly. But it really actually is. It did strengthen the fantasy of his father, though, that they left, you know, because it clarified that, yeah, his dad might actually be out there and in trouble. And it made him kind of be like, oh, my dad, my special heroic father heroic father you know romanticizing that uh but the next time that the men come will is at school and they unfortunately prey on elaine's good nature one of the men talking to elaine and keeping her distracted while uh the other men are searching the house but will comes home early just in time finding them there and he yells at them to leave and they can tell will isn't going to take this to the authorities obviously because they found his mother is the weak spot right they could take his mother away just by calling

the authorities and then after that they become more persistent in their approach something that came to mind as you were saying you know the way that um it is impressive that this child was so aggressive and terrifying to these grown men that like the first few times like maybe we should leave and i think that we're gonna see that will sort of bravado in being able to do that sort of intimidation is another one of his skills yeah uh he's fiercely protective they come back again though to break in when neither are home they're just like we'll just not deal with that elaine is at the park will has gone to fetch her and then we have the scene of it was getting worse

for her now and she believed that she had to touch every separate slot and every separate bench beside the pond will would help her to get it done quicker. When they got home that day, they saw the back of the men's car disappearing out of the clothes, and he got inside to find that they'd been through the house and searched most of the drawers and cupboards. He knew what they were after. The green leather case was his mother's most precious possession. He would never dream of looking through it, and he didn't even know where she kept it, but he knew it contained letters, and he knew she read them sometimes and cried and it was then that she talked about his father so sad i know i'm so sad for elaine what a strong woman yeah she's doing she actually really is

in that situation i mean i'd be a fucking mess so and good on will good boy what a good boy i i do think if you've seen the adaptation on the bbc hbo production uh this last year season one i think they expanded and did this they did this really well they showed just all this some life they breathed some life into it and i think it's sad that this is it though uh we don't get much more of elaine perry i don't feel like that's too bad of a spoiler we just don't you don't hear much about elaine she's not a main character obviously coulter and asriel are big main characters right like those two will never change we get tons of asriel and tons of coulter coulter, Asriel kind of background.

But Elaine, this is it. John Perry? John Perry gets so much backstory and drama and heroism, right? But Elaine, who held it together in the face of all of this strife, this is her ode, this intro chapter to Will. So I guess we have to appreciate it while we do. I do worry that John Perry kind of almost falls in that good guy, just a little rough around the edges stereotype that Coleman likes to do with Asriel. And oh, but he helped in the flood, he said. I don't know. You know, is he a bad guy or is he just a renegade?

Big energy, big energy. guy or is he just a renegade big energy big energy so will decides to send his mom to live with mrs cooper the only trustworthy neighbor and now we're caught up because this is where the story starts to flash forward and it goes at a speed that we can keep up with yeah uh there's this line though you know as we come back to the present of well he was good at not being noticed he'd have to not be noticed harder than he'd ever done in his life before and keep it up as long as he could till either he found his father or they found him and if they found him first he didn't care how many more of them he killed will zero to a hundred. Wow. So fucking quick. Will, chill the fuck out.

He needs to get some chill. My baby boy's grown up, killed everybody. Maybe this is puberty. I don't know for him. Man. I guess technically it is. I mean, I guess my puberty was also bloody, so. So here we go to Will the murderer speaking of bloody and the green leather case

and his journey to oxford yes because in will's world there's an oxford so he hitchhikes he jumps on two buses he walks he ends up in oxford after six hours he's exhausted he hides in a cinema he eats at a burger king and then he tries to find somewhere to hide and sleep and i just have to ask if you had to eat at burger king like gun to your head i don't know why there'd be a gun to your head but if there was what would you eat right now wow like you really like changed the stuff on me um i haven't eaten at burger King in a long time. I prefer McDonald's and Taco Bell. And I can tell you what I would order there for sure.

But for Burger King, I recently saw some commercials for the Impossible Burger. And it has me feeling intrigued. I would like to know what the Impossible Whopper tastes like. Salty, I hear. You hear? You haven't tried it? I haven't tried it, no. I've had Impossible Burger. I just have had it on its own.

Like, I cooked it. I do hear that the sodium content is out of this world on those things. Quickly, quickly for context about where Will is and his journey to Oxford. Will's story starts out, he and his mother live in Winchester, which is about like an hour, a little over an hour's drive south of Oxford, maybe a little over an hour, hour 15 or something like that train ride between the two places. For those of us, you know, who don't have as much um geographic knowledge but also just just to set that reference that he's in winchester that explains why his mother has a map of southern england um will though right now is in a traffic circle lined with hornbeam trees when out comes a

tabby who looks a bit like moxie yes he's full of junior whoppers and he uh he sees the cat he's watching the cat and i'm excited about the hornbeam trees because there's so much symbolism having these here uh they are you know small trees in the northern hemisphere and they have a smooth fluted beach like bark straight veined leaves, and they bear fruit. The fruit they bear is a nut. It's in a little lobed leaf like bract. And it's very hard wood like they're very much so known for how sturdy the wood is. Also referred to as the iron wood or muscle wood because of its smooth bark and muscular trunks.

So very much so symbolic of Will to me. Like this is what I think of. This works. These trees are much like him. Hardest wood of any of the trees found in England and it was typically used to make gears and pegs for water wheels and windmills. And there was even a tonic

made from hornbeam that was said to relieve tiredness, exhaustion and the leaves can also be used to stop bleeding and heal wounds according to the woodland trust interesting i'll say no more interesting will longs for home so much after being away from it for six seven hours that seeing this cat has tears welling in his eyes just saying same um everything is lit up and it makes it look like a child's drawing or a stage set and i love the way pullman describes this it's a great bit because will in the last scene just finally rid himself of his childly possessions.

And by childly possessions, I mean his home, his mother. He's leaving all of that. He's giving that up and sacrificing it to cross the threshold of growing up. He's going to his next phase of being a hero. He's searching for answers. And this is the moment for Will right before it all changes, right? Like he's homesick and then the window appears. And he's already suspected something's different than what the world presents itself as, especially because of his father.

But this tiny tear in the fabric of his world is the beginning of that abandonment of childhood of seeking the truth. Yes. yes and he discovers it because the cat reaches out it paws out the air and then her tail and fur stand on end and this is strange for obvious reasons will watches and then the cat suddenly vanishes in front of his eyes even more strange into thin air will immediately goes to see where the cat went and he finds it there's a square patch it's nearly invisible but it has a slightly different patch of grass on the other side will knew without the slightest doubt that that patch of grass on the other side was in a different world he couldn't possibly have said why he knew it at once as strongly as he knew that fire burned and kindness was good he was looking at something profoundly alien and

for that reason alone it enticed him to stoop and look further so again we have another example of will's uncanny intuition he just knows he just knows it's another world which is fascinating i don't know if that's like the same conclusion i would have come to especially in this day and age i'd be like oh yes hologram no i'm. No, I'm joking. I don't know. Probably. You've only got so many, I guess, conclusions you can draw. Oh my gosh.

Will goes through the window to new trees, and he's now surrounded by palm trees growing in a row in a broad boulevard of lit-up cafes and shops under a sea of silent stars. And so chloe has talked about just now the hornbeams in the park so i think it's really interesting the role that trees play in this story we've already like discussed this aspect of the tree of knowledge

especially in terms of the edenic overtones of lyra's childhood um in the previous book and maybe there's an aspect of that here too with Will in this park and leaving his own world in this moment, but I think it's more just like it's quick, it's simple, it's easy to use trees in this story and the visuals and imagery to just tell you this is another world. We had hornbeam trees, now they're

palm trees. Different. Yeah, it's very much so indicating brand new place. he spends so much time describing every building and you really get a sense of deco right in all of this uh just like this art deco feel of all these buildings it's not the same as just the normal industrialism in a city it's really nice to read it's nice that he filled these pages with all of this world building but it did take up a lot of pages so could have been a different chapter it could have

it's a bridge through the worlds we needed this book so the stars will looks through the window one last time seeing oxford and then he turns away into the new world i love that these chapters all kind of have that theme right like the last chapter with lyra was looking one last time and then walking away and here with will and then with seraphina very cool very cool progression um he can't find the cat the cat that went through the window so he walks around yep typical cat things just disappearing yep the place is totally mediterranean or caribbean vibes full of narrow streets and gardens and it feels hip and young like a place people would eat and drink and dance at but the problem is that there are no people everything is eerily quiet. He stops at a cafe. It has an espresso

machine and a bar, and he looks at all the stale, half-eaten food on the counters and tables. Yeah, and what I love again about the imagery and the description of all this is that we aren't told that something is wrong. It's never said that

something's off here, right? We get the vibe of it because this place isn't portrayed, right? Like an abandoned ruin. It's lit up. And Will notes that the glasses are still half full, which shows that they're unfinished. There's that cigarette that

was burning in the ashtray until it was at its butt. You can usually tell that from where the ashes fell. And together with the staleness of the food. And that there's just an unfinished risotto left. We know that this was some time ago. But it wasn't so long ago that the food is all rotting already. And it just gives you that eerie vibe that something happened to the people here.

And it was so bad that it was very immediate i'd like to go back because you had said that will saw the glass is half full but i think lyra would see it as half empty i don't actually know what the language is there and i was thinking i wonder if this betrays something about me because i'm gonna just say that they were half full it's really funny because when we failed at recording this last night, you said it and I wanted to make that joke, but I didn't know how to word it. And now tonight I'm stronger and better. So. Oh,

it says half empty. On some of the tables glasses stood half empty. Wow, that does say something about you. Will walks and he sees a harbor where rowboats lie against the calm sea. He touches things every other second, making sure they're real, they're actually real.

He ends up jumping into the sea, takes off all his clothes, naked as fuck. He feels safe, finally, for the first time, from these men that have been chasing him and his mom. Once he's dried off, he puts on his underwear, then his jeans, and then he's like, I am hungry. so he tries a couple of hotels but they're just too big and creepy he doesn't feel safe he does find a cafe with bars

and photographs of boxers and flower pots and chairs and it it feels right he opens the doors to let air in because it's hot and musty and then he goes to look at the other rooms but then the very last room he comes to he realizes he's not alone yeah so again with finding just the right place and feeling that he's not alone we got will's intuition never realized how goldilocks has felt until now yeah and the suspense that builds makes you think like something horrific is gonna happen to this kid oh it is and it is something horrific his whole life is about to change this is a story all about how will's life got turned upside down i can't believe who you are as a person he thought how odd it was that this day had begun with someone outside a darkened room and himself waiting inside and now the

positions were reversed and as he stood wondering the door burst open and something came hurtling at him like a wild beast but his memory had warned him and he wasn't standing quite close enough to be knocked over he fought hard knee head fist and the strength of his arms against it him her a girl about his own age, ferocious, starling, with ragged, dirty clothes and thin, bare limbs. Dude, Lyra, you gotta stop bursting out of doors at people.

This is just, that's, this is how it is. They react to people at doors the same, you know? It's starting to become a problem, Lyra. That's all I'm saying. Um, this feral child. I love her. I love her. i love her i love her i missed her didn't you miss her no i did this is such a perfect welcoming i'm so happy that her and will found each other at all but like i missed her this is good this is more for me than it is for will

sorry will uh so it's been like five pages. The girl pulls back. She crouches like a cat. Speaking of cats, there's a huge one next to her, teeth bared. It's Pana Laman, as you and I know. He asks the girl who she is and she's like, I'm Lyra's silver tongue. And she asks where they are and more importantly, where his demon

is. The cat jumps into her arms and within a heartbeat, changes shape, which leaves will astonish jaw drop staring at a brown red stoat moments before it was a cat will has no clue what the fuck a demon is by the way and he tells her so they both realize neither of them are from his world and they both came here by chance. She still watches him intently. And he stays calm and quiet as if she were a strange cat that he was making friends with. Such a good line.

It's just so good. Yes. And then she tells him, oh, well, you know, I came here looking for dust, which he knows nothing about. And he says okay cool i'm hungry and they go scampering through the kitchen for food he's actually really surprised that lyra hadn't looked for food in the fridge yet and lyra's like why would i think that what's a fridge what the fuck is this i love that that's such a subtle line a subtle knife line of like poland being like lyra doesn't know what the fuck a fridge is.

She just like has blocks of fish and ice from the outdoors. No, she eats seal fat. And so then Pan changes into a bright butterfly at this point. And Will asks, if so, have you never seen a fridge? She's like, no. And then he gives her a can of soda and opens it for her since she doesn't know how which is really fascinating because lyra again has been living in a coca-cola commercial for like one third of the previous book gallivanting around

with polar bears but yeah yorick would use his claw it's true he would just tear actually Yorick would use his claw. It's true. He would just tear. Actually, Yorick would very neatly tear off the little circle, you know, like the Coca-Cola can. Yeah. I just love this passage. She licked it suspiciously and then her eyes opened wide. This is good, she said, her voice half hoping and half fearful. Yeah, they have coke in this world, obviously. Look, I'll drink it to prove it isn't poison. He opened another can.

Once she saw him drink, she followed his example. She was obviously thirsty. She drank so quickly that the bubbles got up her nose and she snorted and belched loudly and scowled when he looked at her. I do like how, you you know with all this pullman just weaves into the sea and like all of that technology so we know where we're at here in sinagaze and then will's like all right so i'm gonna make us an omelet and she's like i don't know what an omelet is he's like all right you can watch and learn and then he starts asking her to fetch some things

while he cooks then he shows her how to tip the eggs in after whisking them she tries to taste the eggs in the pan when they're not cooked yet and he bats her pan away and I'm just like Lyra why? wild, bad, bad cat I can't believe they haven't

had omelettes he finds out too that she hasn't had a meal since Svalbard, which was days ago. She's been surviving off of bread and things that she's just found here and there, like a trash panda. Lyra, why? She's not socialized, okay? Lyra! Lyra! Lyra!

She does know how to cook food so will starts to cook and he burns or so he turns the gas on and he folds the omelets he has refined plates and clear a table and he notices like ah so she will take orders if they're sensible and they have like a nice little awkward evening meal together pan changes into a goldfinch and he's flitting all about and will surveys her she has innocent look about her but also a very wary battle-worn expression he forgets her name and calls her laura and lara which is really rude and she corrects him good for you lyra he asks how she got there and she's like i don't know it was really foggy and when it cleared i was here he asks about the dust finally and she's like, I don't know, it was really foggy, and when it cleared, I was here.

He asks about the dust, finally, and she's like, good comprehension, it's special dust, though, and I haven't found anyone yet to ask about it. Pan changes into, like, a black rat with red eyes at this, by the way. It's very cute. Yeah, very interesting.

Will watches Pan, and Meyer tells him, you know what, I think you have a demon, or you wouldn't be human, I've seen someone I think you have a demon. Or you wouldn't be human. I've seen someone who doesn't have a demon and they do not act like you. So she's also shocked. So it must be inside of him. And she's shocked that Will has never seen demons

or heard of them. And then he watches them both together and suddenly feels super alone. And then he announces that he's going to bed oh well baby boy he asks if she's staying here in the city she tells him she'll find scholars here somehow some way and she plans to stay he says oh well there are scholars in my world in Oxford. And then they're like, whoa, we both have Oxfords. She wants him to show her how he came into this world. But he says, in the morning, it's the middle of the night.

We can't do this in the middle of the night. Yeah, and you can really see the difference now in Lyra's upbringing. And how Will notices it beyond all of the parts where lyra doesn't know how to cook um and i well that's a big part of it right that she doesn't know how and will has had to know and it's it comes through when will notes that lyra says to him show me yeah in terms of how he came into the world and he says it he thinks that it's a command and it's not a request which i i mean it speaks to how she grew up grew up at jordan college right he's like i'm not having any of this he tasks her with doing the dishes and she declares in retaliation then that she's no servant so what's will lyra i know lyra they start to argue a little too right like they get tiff

into little tiffs back and forth and he's like well i'm not going to show you how to go through the window if you don't wash the dishes marriage my friends it's marriage it's really marriage it's like 12 year old marriage um like he finally puts his foot down and he's like look we need to tidy up because it's the right thing to do. And he's like, I'm going to go brush my teeth with my finger, which he does. He finds some toothpaste. He's like, going to brush my teeth.

Super indicative of who Will is as a character, though, in like who he is, who Will is as a character when he chooses to do the right thing, right? Like he doesn't know the people that own this place. They could be assholes. Doesn't matter. He's just doing the right thing. He used their place, and he's gonna clean it up. And he did that

earlier in this chapter, too, right? He took a lemonade from somewhere, and he paid for it. No one was there to accept payment, but he gave it anyway. And he's brushing his teeth. An honest murderer. I will kill however many of them i have to i'll kill them all speaking up he goes to bed yeah he goes to bed lyra's waiting till he's asleep and then she washes the dishes she waits

until he's asleep to do so i just want to point that out she's a petty motherfucker she waits she washes the dishes she drives them she steals another coke wild ass fucking feral child feral stinky cat and she creeps into his room pull or she goes into her room creeps in gets the alethiometer out sneaks back into will's room to observe him while he sleeps and be closer because it works better when she's closer. And then she asks the alethiometer if Will is a friend or if he's an enemy. And the alethiometer is like he's a murderer.

Lyra, this is good? Just like with the coke. This is good? That is the exact same tone pretty much. She's like, this is good? That is the exact same tone pretty much. She's like, this is good? This is a good thing? And Pan's like, yeah. Yeah, they're like, yeah. We trust

murderers. Murderers can find food. They're gonna get us to Oxford. And he's brave like Yorick. We're not as wise as the alethiometer which if it has any sentience, it is kind of interesting. It doesn't answer the question Lyra asks at all whether he's a friend or an enemy it's just like he's a murderer sometimes the search engine just knows the answer you really are looking for but not about moat float races apparently

you know everyone lyra knows it's kind of a murderer, right? Lee, he's a murderer out of necessity. Asriel, Marisa, the master, tried to be a murderer. Will, Yorick. Yeah, Seraphina, which we see in a moment in Among the Witches. Yes. Chapter two. I planned the segue. You really did. So chapter two, Among the Witches.

Seraphina, Pekela. Pekela. We're working're working on it i don't know i'm not broken down yet seraphina pekala has been on quite a journey she's worried she rescued lyra and the other kids from bull vanger she took lyra to svalbard and then she was lost in the sea when the global warming hit some of her sisters were able to hang on to lee scorsese's balloon but seraphina was thrown into the fog she's worried for lyra and she doesn't know about yorick's crowning or anything after uh after losing everyone she and kaisa have been flying along searching for lyra they've been searching for hours and suddenly she feels a familiar but unsettling tingle on her skin. They have entered another world. Yes. And a bit later

Kaiza points out a shape that is sharing the sky with them. It's another witch's demon who is in need of their help. This demon's witch is of the Tamir clan and had originally actually allied with those directing Bolvangar, but she escaped when she

learned exactly what it was that they were doing. But apparently she didn't escape very well because now she has been captured by the woman with the monkey demon. Hoomst. Obvious evil villain music. Like the show did that one episode.

It was really cheesy. Oh, that one. I'm guessing Pullman named Tamir after the Tamir Peninsula in Russia where, interestingly enough, the Samoyeds live there in our real world. Some of the Samoyed live there.

I thought that was interesting. Yeah, he's kind of, I mean, we know Pullman is just like reaching into a basket and choosing, you know, different names for some things but I like seeing that with some of the witch clans. I mean, my mother has always said creativity is, you know, how you put different things together to make a new thing. I like that. I like that. They have her on a- The demon says that they have her on a ship. And the demon, which is a tern, says that they have her on a ship and they go lower looking for it.

They swung around and above the tern demon, keeping close like a child to its mother, and watched the steersman adjust the course slightly as the foghorn boomed again. No spoilers, but it almost feels like foreshadowing how the turn demon is hanging around it's almost like seeing the opposite of roger and tony mccarrie it's almost like seeing the opposite right like a demon separated from its its person obviously this is a witch's demon it's different as we know with kaiser and demons that are able to separate um but it's just so taboo that to me it makes me think of the opposite of that you know it makes me think of a demon separated from its human that's awful yeah serfina asks if there are still witches on the side of those working at bulwanger and he confirms that there are mostly of the volgorsk clan unless they fled and she asked she has this demon stay with kaisa while she goes to look for the witch a man on the ship confuses

seraphina with one of his quote-unquote own witches and tells her to guide them into port this is set up so well especially when we learn in just a minute from coulter that the witches have left uh she hides in the shadows she sees no other witches and mrs coulter goes by in a hooded fur outfit a dark clothed man rushes at mrs coulter exclaiming lord boreal has started the torture without her coulter snaps at him saying she ordered them to wait and that she may need to increase the ship's discipline. Coulter asks where the witches are, and the man replies they left. And Coulter says, what? I just watched a witch guide us in, though. Which, that's just, to me, that's so interesting.

Like, Coulter goes, what are you talking about? I just saw a witch. And the guy goes, oh, shit. And he gets sidestepped, right shit and it gets sidestepped right like completely sidestepped they they she gets so enveloped in torture and the greed and lust of torturing someone that she doesn't even think that could be a security threat i think the story is doing a really great job at illustrating each side in the war interacting with groups of people that are not themselves like how does asriel treat witches in comparison to the magisterium you know like what witches do for the magisterium they guide

the ships in what they do for asriel well they fight for him but in a different manner and they fuck him okay well that was one that we know of that we know of seraphina shrinks further back uh at all this and seeing how things are going but coulter is flippant she moves on quickly to go watch the torture her favorite seraphina follows towards the saloon that it seems like the festivities are occurring in she hides her pine spray because she realizes she can either take her pine spray or her knife and bow uh she can't see anything closer unless she gets rid of one of the set so she takes her knife and bow she slips along to the window she can't see much or hear much so she uses what magic she can to mentally focus and

make herself unseen she has to focus completely with this mental magic to turn up unnoticed she could pass through an entire room without being seen, but it would be exhausting. invisible in in plain sight and seraphina is doing the same here obviously though with magic but i mean in will's world right like ours there's no magic and if being invisible is such a great exhausting mental toll on seraphina who does have magic i think that's something that we should take into account of how difficult it is for will and for the many who are trying to hide and the great effort that it took Will to have to fly under the radar at such a young age all the time. Yeah, if it's hard for Serafina, imagine it for them. Serafina tests this method out with a sailor that's heading toward her. He sidesteps her.

He doesn't even glance at her. Amazing. She gets to the saloon, opens the door, and it's actually empty. She sees another door, though, that has stairs that go downward, so she follows them down ambaric bulkhead lights and pipework quietly, listening for voices, which she finds. A dozen people are sitting in council. A cardinal chairs it, there are some clerics, Mrs. Coulter, the only woman at the table, and a strange man with a frog demon, leather-bound books, and he's reading

an elite diometer, Fra Pavel. One of the clerics declares that she knows something about the child, and one of them explains the prophecy to Mrs. Coulter. Yeah, there are quite a few things that are thrown in mrs coulter in this moment but i wanted to call out this quote about lara's prophecy it concerns the child you see mrs coulter all the signs have been fulfilled the circumstances of her birth to begin with the gyptians know something about her too they speak of her in terms of witch oil and marsh fire uncanny you see hence her success in leading the gyptian men to bolvanger and then there's her astonishing feat of deposing the bear king jofer rackinson jofer racknison this is no ordinary child fra pavel can tell us more perhaps so maybe this is addressed in la belle sauvage which i will find out by

february 14th but it's interesting that the circumstances of lyra's birth are part of the prophecy which kind of makes you wonder in in my head how many fucking parts does this prophecy have like people have been piecing together and i also think it's interesting because i wonder if the egyptians knew about this before or if it's something that uh they only are discussing now after dr lincelius you know martin lincelius right this is right right though after the witch consul told um farger quorum about the prophecy regarding lyra while she was like off gallivanting around uh because here's the language that Ma Costa describes Lyra with to herself we're water people all through and you ain't you're a fire person what you're most like is marsh fire that's the place you have an Egyptian scheme you got

witch oil in your soul deceptive that's what you are child but both of them we get that call back to the whole witch oil and marsh fire thing we sure do and you know eliana the answer i can give you without going too dustiest on you oh my god is that it's it's all about them jackie lanterns and the secret commonwealth my friend interesting pumpkins no the secret commonwealth exciting exciting fairies and jackie lanterns and the secret commonwealth and you'll get there someday child february 14 oh wait no secret secret commonwealth we don't have a goal yet we're gonna wait on that one the one step baby steps you know crawl before you walk. Baby steps. The whole council is kind of getting into a bit of a spat with Mrs. Coulter.

She wants Fra Pavel to look for Lyra with the alethiometer, quite obviously. And he's like, she's already in the other world. There's no point looking for her. And then one of the clerics is like, more witch torture, which I thought was like, oh, that's good. Like, that's pretty much what he says. which i thought was like oh that's nice like that's pretty much what he says and coulter is quaking with anger at this point upset that no one will tell her the witch prophecy about lyra the cardinal is the only person who doesn't even flinch beneath mrs coulter's wrath and he says if the prophecy is true that he won't explain to mrs coulter by the way the prophecy they're withholding then they are in terrible quote responsibility i love that the way the prophecy they're withholding then they are in terrible quote responsibility

i love that the way that's phrased that we are in terrible responsibility like we have to do something awful something awfully responsible like drink eight glasses of water in a day they really do feel that though about themselves it's like the democrats i mean the good place people in uh the good place oh yes uh did you watch the latest episode already i did did you yeah i mean i cry we are is the next one the last one i'm pretty sure i thought we had like at least two more this is it anyways terrible responsibility yes and and then he turns it back on mrs culture asking her so what do you know about lord asriel and myra and then mrs culture goes chalk white and accuses them of interrogating

her and of withholding information and finally how dare you assume that i am keeping something from you do you think i'm on her side or perhaps you think i'm on her side? Or perhaps you think I'm on her father's side. Perhaps you think I should be tortured like the witch. Well, we are all under your command, your eminence. We've only just snapped your fingers and you could have me torn apart. But if you searched every scrap of flesh for an answer, you wouldn't find one because I know nothing of this prophecy. Nothing. Whatever. And I demand that you tell me what you know. My child, my own child, conceived in sin and born in shame, but my child nonetheless.

And you keep from me what I have every right to know. We're going to talk about this one in the Dusty discussion for sure. Sorry, Eliana. There's a lot you are not going to know for a while. Um, Ruth Wilson really brought this culture to the show. So if you haven't checked it out, like I've said,

check it out. Uh, that's enough reason to watch the show. In my opinion, Ruth Wilson really embodied. I feel like just my Yorick might be better, but not my Mrs. Coulter. Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. No offense. No, not at all. She's, she not my Mrs. Coulter. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No offense. No, not at all. She was like next level in her delivery. An icon. Truly. Well, in this passage, Coulter seems like a woman that's really backed into a corner, right? And I think we started to feel that in the end of the first season of His Dark Materials.

started to feel that in the end of the first season of his dark materials so i'm glad that bruce wilson really embodied this because i don't think that the first time i read these books i got that but right here it's like you could tell she has let asriel slip through her fingers as we know from seeing that last scene she had no chance um the way those demons swooned together i mean she wanted to all of her was like you should go yeah her vagina was like you should go she did it for herself gotta be true to her not her vagina and so yeah you know she weighs her options deciding that you know the time that it would take to ask the lithiometer what's going on like Like, that's a waste. Let's just go torture the witch. And I kind of do love, you know, as you said,

like, this is the Mrs. Coulter that Ruth Wilson brought to the show also. Like, they describe that when she rises and gets up from the table, some of the men are just so in awe of her that they also all stand up and follow her. Like, wow. Yes. That's actually what they're thinking. Like, so powerful. powerful very magnetic very much so seraphina gathers herself because she is like upset obviously because she realizes they're

talking about torturing a witch in the long run to get their answers so she's staying unseen and she sees the monkey's fur bristling he is swung up onto Coulter's shoulder and off they trot down a corridor to a smaller room, bare white and hot, and a witch tied to a steel chair in pain. They've broken her legs and they're twisted and her face is gray. Mrs. Coulter demands the witch in the chair tell her about the child, but the witch refuses. Coulter gives her a speech about how the church has had thousands of years of experience in drawing out suffering and this witch will suffer more before she gets to die she breaks her finger saying she'll break each one one at a time if she

doesn't tell them about the child yeah the line about the thousand years of like experience is chilling to me that thousand years of experience of just torture like my god like they know and i also kind of wonder what mrs coulter means of they can make her suffering endless like is it a bluff or like is the church actually capable of making it happen well this one i don't know i guess in a way we learn they are later on don't we so i am referring to something we will talk about maybe later in the dust discussion yeah i have a similar thought maybe it's the same one whatever anyways um so after a few more fingers break the witch finally spills she tells them about the cloud

pine test in trorollisand, and her voice gives out. Mrs. Coulter slaps her to help her find it. And then there's this line that I wanted to bring up because it reminds me of the Northern Lights, actually. Mrs. Coulter went on and her voice was all bronze now and ringing with passion. Interesting that it's kind of metallic bronze, not the same metal as what we talked about in northern lights but she did have that metallic alloy-esque scent that came up when she got angry so i wonder if this is something similar but now as it all goes on seraphina moves ever closer still unseen thinking that she needs to end the witch's suffering soon, and she's now fingering her knife at her waist.

The witch that's being tortured confesses, She is the one who came before, and you have hated and feared her ever since. Well, now she has come again, and you failed to find her. She was there on Svalbard. She was with Lord Asriel, and you lost her. She escaped, and she will be. But before she could finish, there came Svalbard. She was with Lord Asriel, and you lost her. She escaped, and she will be. But before she could finish, there came an interruption. Through the open doorway, there flew a turn, mad with terror, and it beat its wings brokenly as it crashed to the floor and struggled up

and darted to the breast of the tortured witch, pressing itself against her, nuzzling, chirping, crying. And the witch called in anguish, Jameraka, come toka, come to me! Come to me! Ugh. The worst. What a violent way to start a book,

you know? I don't really think about it much, I guess, in terms of things that happen. You just think, like, then this happened, then this happened, but then when you think about it, like, this is the beginning of a book. Reading this for the very first time is like tense. This book is very tense. I read it over a flight back and forth from Michigan and home over the holidays.

I reread it. I read it on the way there. I read it on the way back. And I read it, I think, on New Year's. I went to New York and I read it on the bus. And I finished it on that first half of the ride. Yes, that first leg. And so it took me like, maybe six hours, six hours to reread Subtle Knife. So not bad, not bad. And it really caught me this scene was so intense, especially

the next part and just the weight for Serafina and how, how much this scene is to her and how it really gives her a stake in the war more than ever, right? Like seeing all this happen is a huge stake. And there's a lot of mythology to talk about when it comes to Yanbei Aka. Aka is a female spirit in Sami shamanism and also in Finnish and Estonian mythology. Madaraka, the first Aka in Sami mythology,

was also known as mother of the tribe and the goddess of woman and children she who gives humans their bodies and she had three daughters kind of a triality and it reminds me a lot of heikade in my opinion it just totally reminds you of the three facets there's seraka the goddess of fertility and love a woman would even eat a special porridge after giving birth in tribute to Soraka, very much celebrated as fertility. Jukesaka, Aka with an arrow who protects children, much like Seraphina, in my opinion Jukesaka is very much what she embodies. And Uksaka who shapes the fetus and womb and gives the child their body. And overall Aka and Yambay aka translates to old woman of the dead in lat mythology she was in

charge of the underworld which is similar to the regular world but it's where the departed spirits walk on air the entrance to the underworld was thought of as the mouth of a river that gave into the ocean of ice yambe aka ruled that realm yeah I found that very interesting, especially with all the northern-ness that we've experienced in the last book. And something more interesting, not so much in a north place, is Syrian tradition. The mythology of the old woman of the dead is that before the advent of Christianity, they thought death doesn't sever your spirit and body. So something in Syrian tradition is that when a person sleeps, the spirit that emerges can emerge in the form of a mouse. And in other religions, in the east, the souls of the departed often assume animals, birds, or insects.

Hmm. Hmm. Interesting. Right? I was like, wow, this all makes so much sense. They have demons ah it maybe it is like slightly inspired by that i mean maybe there are a couple of religions that felt that i mean we know that philip pullman was like but what if what if like there was a thing

going on with this da vinci painting but i like that seraphina is the only one to understand what is meant by this request for Jambiaka, the goddess who came to witches before they died and Serafina is ready. She steps out and she reveals herself for all to see. Kisses the witch's head, sliding a knife gently into her heart.

The turn looks at her and then vanishes. It's a moment um interesting in this moment we're starting to get a lot of the different prophetic elements of the book and those influences of like paradise lost in this chapter and how people sort of are assuming the roles of different religious figures um this witch started talking about it a little. But here in this moment, Serafina kind of, right, is stepping into the role of this goddess of death, Yanbei Aka.

Yeah, she's taking it upon herself, playing God in this moment to give relief to her sister. And the thing that's so important here, she doesn't know this woman, right? Yes. She doesn't know her. And she is still giving her this gift of relief and this gift of passage to another world permanent other world uh and and then there's this really badass line i don't know if there's ever been such a badass line so early in any fucking book but it just goes and now seraphina pakula would have to fight her way out

yes i didn't even think about that absolutely it's so good even just a one shot if you take that line as a one shot that's just like a uh action sequence go um so good that way sometimes in video games yeah and in this book subtle knife has a lot of action now that i say it out loud a lot of action amber's high glass has some good action but there's still a lot of in-between moments but subtle knife is uh lots of action so mrs coulter's screaming sees her seraphina is already a step ahead she has an arrow in her bowstring and she looses it a cardinal falls and he chokes another man falls in the corridor as well two sailors are attempting to stop her escape but she tricks them saying the prisoners loose downstairs go get help mrs coulter's like

shoot her from behind and rifles are firing but seraphina avoids them she jumps on her pine spray and kaisa joins her in the sky yeah she doesn't know where they're gonna go next but they decide to just fly away she wants to go far far away from these awful people she literally is like get their stench out of her nose she decides in that moment interestingly that one of the arrows in her quiver is meant for Mrs. Coulter's throat. And as she flies, Seraphina thinks, what's Lord Asriel doing? What's that motherfucker up to?

She could track anything that was happening when it pertained to nature, using other nature-y things. She's like, I don't know where to find out about Lord Asriel. She decides then to start with Dr. Lanselius and Trollesent, who invites her in for some tokay. They discuss their fear of Mrs. Coulter,

and Serafina seems convinced, even more convinced, about killing her. Dr. Lanselius tells her rumors of the Magisterium, that was something in army, one that is made up of many who have been mistreated in the same way that the patients at bull vanguard were he asks seraphina do you know the word zombie and she's like yes i too have heard the song by the cranberries and the authorities are trying to keep them hidden the cranberries but yes oh the singer died right yeah and the authorities are trying to keep them hidden uh this army of zombies but they fear nothing for they are mindless um if you're not into mythological horror or cosmic horror any sort of horror you might not know the real roots of zombies i really didn't until a little bit back one of the oldest allegories for zombies began in 1600 to 1800

haitian lore sparked by actually by slavery and the awful conditions it's analyzed that slaves were subject to the congo word for soul is zombie and voodoo has a strong presence in haitian culture and in voodoo people are said to die two ways naturally by god's will or by sickness or unnaturally through murder before fate does dust in them too if you died unnaturally you would linger at your grave in between the worlds unable to rejoin your ancestors until god lets you since they're vulnerable during this time people believe that the souls could be snatched by a powerful sorcerer boko and locked into a bottle where their undead living body could be controlled and i'd like to add that whilst researching this yes i'm personally choosing voodoo for the pronunciation, but I didn't realize until 1986 there was actually no orthography for the language.

And scholars, there's actually like a lot of debate back and forth online from scholars back in the 80s and 90s about what was the right word. And even now, getting things certified by dictionaries, different names that are accepted. And the term voodoo is often played on western prejudice it's kind of laden with lore like we mentioned before but when people say voodoo they think of a voodoo doll they think of you know like some stupid western lore of uh just a doll made of your enemy's hair that you could torture and it's so much more it started off as a dahomian word uh voodoo it's a distortion of it at least voodoo meaning god or spirit has been used by many scholars like darren or laguerre but unfortunately is it laguerre i always say laguerre or laguerre no i i was thinking of a different scholar entirely i don't

know just say but unfortunately in popular literature and films the term voodoo has been misconstrued as sorcery in witchcraft alone and in some cases can be cannibalistic practices in lore and in movies all of which are pretty false it's kindled many foreigners prejudices not only about voodoo but about a lot of the culture in general yeah and i mean it goes to show you like how much is being drawn in from different different places but i think that bringing in all this information on like this other culture and this influence and the beliefs that uh people had and i mean it reminds you you know right like lo was telling us a lot about history and i think that there's one of the fun things right about being on this journey of literature is all the different things that we get to learn yeah and there's a lot

that this is going to apply to not even just in this book in the next book as well uh but i think it has a lot to go with cultures that are uniting i mean we're seeing he's spending time right now in this chapter world building the witches. And I should be grateful. I'm not. We'll talk about it later. Why not? I'm grateful for this scene. Absolutely.

And I really love this expansion of Yame Aka and a lot of the mythology I did. But we'll chat more on this later for sure. Okay. Yeah. Serafina asks news of the witch clans and who they're allying with. Most have gone to their homelands, but they're all waiting for what comes next. Because no one knows what Asriel plans to do, not even Lanselius. He's like, why don't you go speak with his manservant, Thorold, who's still in Svalbard.

She's like, all right, peace, and climbs onto her pine spray. I love this passage. I think it's just beautiful. So I'm going to read it. Serafina's journey to the north was made harder by the confusion in the world around her. All the Arctic peoples had been thrown into panic and so had the animals, not only by the fog and the magnetic variations, but by unseasonal crackings of ice and stirrings in the soil. It was as if by the earth itself, the permafrost were slowly

awakening from a long dream of being frozen. In all this turmoil, where sudden shafts of uncanny brilliance lanced down through rents and towers of fog, and then vanished as quickly, where herds of muskox were seized by the urge to gallop south and then wheeled immediately to the west or to the north again where tight-knit skeins of geese disintegrated into a hawking honking chaos as the magnetic fields they flew by wavered and snapped this way and that seraphina peccola sat on her cloud pine and flew north to the house on the headland in the wastes of Svalbard. Okay, we get it. You can prose, Pullman. He's flexing. That was a flex. Every once in a while, Pullman's like,

in case you forgot, I can write prose. Good. I've exercised the prose. Now we can move on. Back to the story. Like, that's exactly what this is. Yeah. It is. It is. It's him sort of pontificating through it you know the uh

the electromagnetic pollution that kind of idea of uh of global warming that asriel's causing here i googled up some electromagnetic waves if i was a smarter scientific person i would have more to tell you about them but uh i guess electrosmog is the closest thing like the idea of microwaves or smartphones causing radiation on a larger scale or a small scale so i'm guessing like it's not believed to be dangerous now having like your phone next to you while you sleep but asriel what he's done is probably amplified the radiation coming from that to like 100 yeah at what point are they just like waves not microwaves you know that there's probably actually a real answer to that and how big does the microwave have to be for those waves to Yeah, and become macrowaves. Me, Jason Mendoza, scholar. Serafina then finally arrives to Thorold, who is being

attacked by cliff gas, and she helps to scare them off, because they don't fuck with witches, and she lays her bow down to appear as a friend to Thorold, and says that she's looking for Lyra, also as her friend. She's like, we're both concerned for her welfare

and tells him so Lyra's entered another world and he welcomes her inside and tells Seraphina you know I don't really know much I was just Asriel's manservant doing his bidding washing his clothes feeding him meals and then we get this really strange line you know yes we were admiring Philip Pullman's prose just a moment ago

but we get this strange paragraph, with a lot of exposition, about Thorold being old, and Serafina looking young and beautiful, and Thorold loving the attention from this beautiful, young-looking woman, and then how he's so good, because

when Serafina asks him for information he doesn't string it all out to get more time out of it, and I'm just like, why is this here i cannot say because he wants us to reward him and when you get to the secret commonwealth he'll want a fucking cupcake about it too it turns out once you read the secret commonwealth i can tell you the answer to this question eliana sounds like i have all my life sometimes men are disappointing sometimes sometimes i think we're constantly going to be disappointed by the men in our lives in our literary lives especially so he says that he doesn't know all of the philosophical details

but basically asriel never agreed with the church's message and he's striking a rebellion against god he's gone a searching for the dwelling place of the authority himself and he's a going to destroy him that's what i think it shakes my heart to voice it ma'am never call her ma'am that That's calling her old Thorold. Call her miss. I learned this. I worked in retail for like five years. You just call them miss. She's like 300 years old, though. Like, what makes you think she's married?

Maybe that was his way of scoping out the situation. Thorold, keep it in your pants. We started to get a taste of, again, this whole idea earlier with the witch and Lyra's prophecy. But once more, you know, that Paradise Lost stuff, it's really starting to come to the forefront of the story with this chapter and Asriel being like, waging war against God. Yeah, and even like, you get a lot of that angel imagery when it comes to seraphina with her bow uh there's a lot going on very much so it's a like i said a violent beginning right a very violent war is on the air and the world even seems troubled here he's like asriel's just a man but if any just a man would do it it's this two percent milk right here lord asriel his ambition's limitless he's already torn open the sky and he's already gone to another world

and so is lyra though so i'm like okay and uh seraphina leaves with this knowledge and she's like all right well i'm pretty troubled. She thinks these were human affairs she was inquiring into. This was a human matter. Lord Asriel's god was not hers. Was she becoming human? Was she losing her witchhood? If she were, she could not do

it alone. I like that. It's a good mic drop moment. We could have ended this chapter right here and then the next part that we're going to chronicle could have been its own chapter but, you know, it's a good mic drop moment we could have ended this chapter right here and then the next part that we're going to chronicle could have been its own chapter but you know it's all one chapter we're all one big happy chapter family so speaking of big chapter families seraphina returns home to her lake inara tribe her fellow witch sisters and she finds many of them in the forested caves on the lake including lee scoresby

and those that came with him arrow which rides again my brothers and sisters scoresby uh lee i don't know pecklesby pecklesby someone someone else came what pecklesby was the one that yeah i like that one it's very cute uh it rides again the witch has offered lee shelter while he meets her sisters and her family i mean while he fixed his balloon he's happy to see seraphina although she brings no news of lyra still happy just writing it down she invites him to sit on the witch's council that night because they have big decisions to make and he is very honored to do so lee is the only one invited to the witch's cookout they're like yeah lee you're the only man that we're inviting into our lives.

That actually is. Some of them are probably like, why the fuck is this guy here? Most of them are like, ooh, is Serafina going to get the mustache ride? Yeah, she is. Oh my god. Witches arrive throughout the day, and a great witch summit is about to begin. They hold council once they've eaten that night, and Seraphina sits at the center of the table. Her scarlet crown

nested in her hair. Lee sits to her left, and a visitor of the Latvian witches, Queen Ruta Skadi, sits on her right. And Seraphina has this whole thing where she ponders about how, you know, like, Mrs. Coulter was pretty cute for a mortal,

but Ruta is way prettier she thinks with her large black eyes and dark curly hair and all of the knowledge and shit in her eyes. And the rumor is that Asriel and Ruta fucked very hard.

Good for them. She has heavy gold earrings and a crown in her hair. It's winged with snow tiger fangs. Yeah, that whole story goes that Ruta killed the tigers because the Tartars that worship these tigers that she came across didn't honor her when she came into their territory. And she was like, I'm going to kill their tiger gods. And then they went into into their territory and she was like i'm gonna kill

their tiger gods and then they went into melancholy and they were like ruda let us worship you instead and she's like nope and she's like because your worship didn't do much for these tigers that i killed because that makes sense ruda but don't google tiger teeth crowns i was like just looking for inspiration don't do it because you'll be scarred and sad you'll see their teeth on dead tigers and i was sad so i did the research so you don't have to i think that's very important that we do that here on this podcast you know yes absolutely absolutely there's this line about ruta scotty that um i think needs to be described by a quote from mean girls and the quote is i hear her hair's insured for a hundred thousand gold pieces in trollison i hear she did pine spray commercials in sitagaze rudiscotti punched me in the face once

it was awesome just kidding it's actually the real line is uh such was rudiscotti beautiful proud and pitiless i can't go on a diet seraphina i'm on an all-carb diet god um we get it as real fucks just putting it out there i get it as real fucks exotic dark brunette thick-lashed babes that are sexy with tiger crowns and bossy. We get it. He is a type. We get it. Asriel fucks. But also, picturing James McAvoy fucking this much is too much for me.

I guess we haven't seen him do that yet, thankfully. I don't want to see James McAvoy fuck, I don't think. In this? I mean, I don't mind. I really like Detonement. I like that movie a this? I mean I don't mind I really like Detonement I like that movie a lot I just feel like he has a skinny

body so did you know that Ruta is actually a super popular Lithuanian name but it also has a root no pun intended of Rue which is an evergreen subshrub basically native to the mediterranean and southwest asian regions and it's used in teas today to cure physical maladies

and it's strong and bitter so it's not like a popular cooking herb it's extremely hardy too i didn't know that ruda does sound strong and bitter yes she is strong and bitter and i like that about her yeah seraphina gives a welcome speech telling your sisters the world is broken and they we need to decide whether we're going to interfere with these human issues including the one regarding the chosen child lyra's silver tongue the first she opens the floor of discussion for her honored guests beginning with ruta scotty and lee scoresby they get to give their opinions ruta speaks first i love this description of her her white arms gleamed in the firelight her eyes glittered so brightly that even the farthest witch could see the play of expression on her vivid face i gotta know what girl this is based on philip who broke your heart who was the one that got away

with the luscious dark eyelashes i gotta know about her who killed your tigers uh philip i would never let them kill your tigers i'm so sorry she speaks of the church's oppression and of the war that's coming ruda tells them bullvanger was not the only place of horror the southlands are doing the same and worse they cut their sexual organs yes both boys and girls they cut them with knives so they shan't feel that is what the church does and every church is the same control destroy obliterate every good feeling so if a war comes and the church is on one side of it we must be on the other no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to interesting the dnc 2020 oh my god uh she tells them that azrael is the key to all of this and that

he hates the church and what it does and that they should join him then she's like his dick's great she doesn't say that but we all think it we all know that's really what this is about right she's like we should join Asriel

if anyone had a 7 incher it was him oh my god I kind of do wonder though to what extent Ruta and Asriel were drawn together because of their like theological political views you know she's out here right

she's into killing tiger gods and she's just like you know what what if we just kill gods in general she's just very into destroying religion and maybe asriel's like i respect that i'm about that also it is interesting how they like obviously had a fling together and how it went like it went well um does make you think does make you think they're out there like voting third party right now they both they're both very ideological in their um ideologies of killing gods yeah and ruda feels like it's black and white like we obviously

take this side huh yeah well lee is a little more sensible uh it's his turn to speak and hester is crouched at his side i I love her. Her golden eyes are half closed. Totally perfect. He thanks them for their hospitality and he brings a different journey to the table. He tells them what he's learned from Lyra. He learned that Stanislaus Grumman, Stanislaus Grumman,

Stanislaus Grumman. Lee learned that Stanislaus Grumman was dead, but he also remembers something else that at the time he couldn't put his finger on when she told him that. He remembers, oh, Stanislaus probably isn't dead. A Tungusk hunter told him that Grumman knew whereabouts of an item that protects anyone who holds it, and he thinks Asriel was full of mischief and trickery and lied about Grumman being dead. He then tells them about the magical object that protects whoever has it

and that he wants to do one last crazy job before he retires to Texas forever for Lyra and find Dr. Grumman to protect her with that weapon. He decides to go to Nova Zembla to find Grumman and the object, then Lyra. Serafina asks if Scoresby

has ever been married or had children. Scoresby says says no because he was saving himself for seraphina thanks eliana you're welcome i wrote that line for chloe i did this for you he actually says no i've never had any children but i kind of had always wished to be a father and i was thinking like maybe i could be one for lyra and seraphina's like lol too, because I have commitment issues after that one guy that I did love that was human and he's gonna die any day now. And we had a son that did die. So, um, yeah, that's how they, you know, talk about their relationship problems together in front of a room of people. And I really appreciate, I think you should read this line you wrote, Elionic

because it's beautiful Yeah, I wrote, Chloe, a lot of things in this moment For example, I wrote that Seraphina is then deflowered and by that I mean she takes off one of the small scarlet flowers from her crown to give to Lee to call her if he ever needs help

and that the witches will make a wind to help him right now Okay I'm just saying this is very like this floral imagery you're not wrong eliana and all of you guys are going to suffer with me for this whole entire book so sorry not sorry um i do love the imagery in general behind seraphina's flower crown because the witches kind of seem like this hardened crew right uh it reminds me a little bit of ovid's metamorphoses actually daphne in ovid's metamorphoses escapes the god apollo by turning herself into a laurel tree apollo cuts off a

branch from the tree and exclaims although you cannot be my wife you shall at least be my tree i shall always wear you on my hair on my quiver oh laurel he keeps his word and he's often depicted wearing a laurel wreath as a symbol of his love for daphne he's the god of poets and writers and the term poet laureate that we use today comes from that myth so i feel like with all the wedding imagery and her giving the flower to lee that has a little bit of residence and queen victoria also comes a bit to mind here as far as crowns go because she popularized wearing orange blossoms in her hair from her wedding to prince albert in 1840 and orange blossoms generally represent chastity and purity but seraphina's crimson is kind of daring, right?

Scarlet flowers, they depict strength and passion. And there are things that we see her carry with her throughout this book and the last. And actually there are things that she presents to Lee Scoresby in this, especially when she talks about Lyra and destiny, right? The speech she gave him in the Northern Lights was impassioned, explaining to him, you know, like this is what it is to us.

Like the tides change so simply simply so so easy so lightly for witches it's not the same for you humans you know if if we have to take interest in these little things and they aren't little after all yeah um i think that's a really really good catch with all of this um and and with the blossoms and queen victoria's hair i didn't know about that it's interesting i do think regarding you know daphne and apollo i feel like daphne would have preferred to be alive if apollo had like not been a fucking stalker just throwing it out there well listen the greek uh the greek kind of ideas and the different books and mythologies, listen, they're all just exaggerations. They're not great on consent.

I get it. I'm looking for themes, Eliana, not consent. The floor is then opened up to the rest of the council. is then opened up to the rest of the council. Apparently, witches have democracy in terms of everyone gets a voice, but it's actually not really a democracy because only the queen gets

to actually decide what they're gonna do. So really, she is Queen Victoria. Damn. They debate on what to do next slash first. Their choices are open war, exercise caution, or build a coalition. The story tells us that the wisest are the ones who suggest building a coalition. Ruta and Serafina agree.

Let's do that. But as for the most immediate next steps, Serafina picks out 20 of her best men. Women. Stop. But actually, no, I cannot make this up. Literally, the line says, Seraphina picked out 20 of her finest fighters and I don't know why the world

hates me. So she wants these 20 best fighters to go north and find Lyra and assist her. Ruta Scotty says she's gonna go find Asriel and learn what he's doing from his own lips. Okay. Or with his own lips. Okay, Ruta.

To her own lips. She says she's gonna sit on his face. That's pretty much what this line was. I'm not alone in that, right? Like, you agree? Yeah. They're gonna fuck. I agree. I agree. They agreed to journey together, though, for a little bit before then

and but also before then what is this before everyone goes Judah Kamanen has something to say she's young she's only over a hundred and then Elder Witch has forced her to reveal to Seraphina that she

hates Cynosos Grumman because she once loved him and seraphina tells judah okay you know what great not not what i wanted to hear so why don't you just stay close i'm gonna keep an eye on you because you know what we all need grumman alive right now you know just because it's foreshadowed doesn't mean i have to like it just putting it out there anyways um i feel like pullman thinks he's expanding on the witches but maybe the expansions he's doing are detrimental to how he's presenting them and maybe no one told him maybe the third book of dust will have the answers i crave who knows who knows maybe but then before that third book of dust far before seraphina and her witches go to the new world where no witch had ever flown

before so again very reminiscent closing line of lyra stepping into her new world and will as well a three chapter jump into new worlds good job gang well that wraps up the first two chapters of the subtle knife and now we can move on to our dust discussion so for those of you listening at home if you have read all three of the main trilogy please stay tuned for the dust discussion where we talk about how these chapters intertwine into the rest of the story or stuff it makes us think about and stay tuned as well if you have finished the books of dust to hear the dusty discussion where i monologue like an evil villain for a while like mrs coulter um yes so to kick off the discussion here's a quote he felt for it

delicately listening all the while the men were moving about downstairs and will could see a dim flicker of light that might have been a flashlight at the edge of the door then he found the catch of the compartment and clicked it open and there just as he'd known it would be was the leather writing case are you ready to have your mind blown? I'm ready. I'm always ready. It took my third read-through of that quote ever to notice this is Philip Pullman teasing the actual subtle knife. This is exactly the way that Will cuts holes, cuts windows with the knife. the knife, the flicker of light that he sees at the edge. And then he finds the catch and he clicks it open. And there, as he knows it would be as a window,

but this time it's a leather writing case with his intuition you so strongly talked about. Yes. Yes. And so stupid. Like when I read it, I was like, oh my God, that's the subtle knife. That's him putting the knife in, twisting it just the right way, finding the actual catch of the window and pulling it open. good i didn't even notice oh my god i think what made me think about that more through this read-through is because we had that discussion

about the lantern slides in our patreon episode and um you know there's that one lantern slide at the end of the amber spyglass where will's like a doctor and he has to like pretend he doesn't know he doesn't know like how he diagnoses things or like sometimes he just like has to lie and misdiagnose a little bit and then get it right like that's his super experience yeah it actually is because he's just like well it's weird how I always know. He's just always had that. The thing about the subtle knife, something that I was thinking about is like, Thorold's so into the idea of like,

if any man can do it, Asriel can do it. He tore open the sky into another world. No one's done that before. And then I'm just like, gestures at all of sitagaze yeah um i mean it's not a whole like a hole in the sky right but i'm just like many people have done this before and now will is also doing it yeah they're kids right but we're supposed to see that wow these kids are powerful actually though, though, for real. For real. And it brings me back to that line about Will that he was implacable, right?

And the only other time implacable's really used is in the Amber Spyglass when Serafina's watching Will, his demon. And the quote is, Serafina watched from close by and felt nothing but compassion until she looked at Will's demon, Kerjava the Nightingale. She And the quote is, this little brown bird was radiating an implacable ferocity as palpable as heat and serafino was

afraid of it when i talk about passion and strength on will's character this is what i think about his demon's essence is just like fury and heat and ferocity yeah yeah um absolutely whereas like lyra's marsh fire and witch oil there there's a sort of heat and fire, as you're saying, to Will as well. Yeah. Well, so I wanted to ask you first, I guess before we get to that, so what were you were saying that you had an idea of what the like endless suffering the church could impart upon that witch could be. I mean, the thing is, is that Coulter obviously was A, talking about her ass because she's been backed into a corner. She had to make herself seem like big machismo. I mean, that was obvious.

She had to like kind of turn up the torture in that scene. I'm not excusing it or saying it was a justification. Obviously, I'm saying she was also acting a little bit because she was under scrutiny uh just before that her bosses were chewing her out which is never good as a woman in business i can tell you but you're totally right that she was bluffing and i mean that's one of her gifts right bluffing um but i asked because i was kind of wondering like if in a way it almost ties back to mrs culture's story like she doesn't end up giving this witch endless suffering thankfully but in a way it almost ties back to Mrs. Coulter's story, like she doesn't end up giving this witch endless suffering, thankfully. But in a way that kind of ends up being Mrs. Coulter's fate when she jumps into that like abyss in the can separate their demon and that later on when we get to the actual underworld, when Lyra gets the underworld to find Roger, you know, you get these people that have been endless suffering, right? And if you're caught up with the good place, definitely you should tune in. But they just did an episode about people that were in heaven, but it wasn't heaven because it was actually endless suffering. It was just like meaningless. And that's, that's endless suffering too, right? So Coulter saying, you know, the church could make you suffer for thousands of years. I also thought there's something in, in the subtle

knife with, you know, that back and forth where Lyra and Mary Malone and Charles or Boreal get talking in their separate ways. And Lyra, you know, says, oh, well, those years are wrong. It's really this many years. The fact that she said thousands of years of the church, maybe think about that kind of conflation of how many years has the church and have they been torturing people? You know, that time conflation has been really prominent in The Subtle and in the amber spyglass yeah that is interesting i she just pulled thousand but it could have theoretically been more right that's what i mean is like it's interesting she said for a thousand years why not hundreds of years or you know why not thousands well i guess it couldn't be thousands it could be like it couldn't be thousands because they're not like by the year 2000 yet but it could have been like over yeah over a thousand

but yeah we just don't know interesting interesting words it is interesting speaking of charles boreal very very subtly done but when they get on the ship someone asks where's lord boreal he's not there because we're gonna see him in a bit he's in he's in will's world as we all know now but interestingly enough they said he started the torture ahead of time or like started it without her and she was mad so i thought they said that boreal started the witch torture he probably started it and was like um i need to go maybe he it might be and will like i i don't remember it could be like he heard something about the knife right from the witch and was like oh oh that's smart so i was gonna say otherwise he was in that room and we just

didn't know he wasn't he wasn't in the room they told him, they said that he wasn't here right now. So another thing that I thought, there's a lot of sad things. There's a lot of sad things in these first two chapters. One of them that I wanted to start out with is the way that as you said earlier will and lyra bickering it's kind of like you know and who washes dishes kind of like a marriage i'm like isn't it super sad that this is like the closest to the domestic life scene together that lyra and will will ever have marriage like just the the making of food together and cleaning up. That's it. That's it. That's the closest you're going to get.

Also, throughout the first chapter, Will's greatest fear is the authorities coming and taking his mother, which is part of why he hides her and what's going on. I mean, that's one of his biggest fears losing his loved ones and that's exactly what ends up happening to him and Lyra the universe takes her away from him oh okay so the two cannot be together yeah

this is it I was like let's just make everyone sad right now um you're the worst you're literally going to hell oh my god and I mean it is sad because we also have a couple in this that are basically a married couple that also never get to be together Serafina and Lee

oh my god I'm not kidding wait okay so I also noticed they're like yes it's that trope it's the trope cause Lee's like alright I'll delay my retirement to Texas he's literally like I'm going he literally says he's doing it for her, dude. And Lyra. He's mostly doing it for Lyra, but

he's delaying his retirement, and you know whenever someone says like, yeah, he's just about to retire after one last job. My fucking god. One last job means you're gonna die, asshole. Yeah, and it happens. I can't believe that he wove that it was all right that trope in i know it really was it's also interesting that like

and seraphina gives him the flower and she's late it's awful and she's never been late in her life dude like seraphina i get you like never. Always 10 to 15 minutes early. And for the first time, she's late. And it's awful. The cost is so high. Wow, I didn't think we'd have to talk about this right now, but here we are. Okay, let's wait until we get to that chapter. We have how much time in this book? Forever, because we're only doing, like, two fucking chapters right now.

Yeah, so we're going to just, like, make Chloeloe sad every all the time look i know it's silly but it's so like they're they are very much so connotated romantically together lee and seraphina are here like it's very much so like her giving him the flower and saying i'll help you like that's romantic that's very much so opposite chivalric like i'm just saying yeah yeah it's meant to be romantic they're in love they just never got to consummate it that we know of things that are not so romantic or about love thorough being like okay so lord asriel i've heard of him um allegedly uh he's like i don't know how he's gonna accomplish all this overthrowing of God things like the angels couldn't do it and they were powerful

they had all the power of the angels and yes the angels are indeed powerful but as we see in many ways later on the angels are actually kind of weaker somewhat because they don't have bodies and I really hope that someone comes back and tells Thorold this

like but also I hope someone comes back comes back and tells Thorold this, like, but also I hope someone comes back in general and tells Thorold, you know, like, Asriel's gone and dead, right? Like, you can leave this house and live your life now. Yeah. Free Thorold. Well, something you and I talked about in the last His Dark Materials

Northern Lights episode was that, you know, poor Thorold, dude, like like he's just been a dog chasing a bone like nothing to do and Azrael didn't even say like hey you know what Thorold come with me yeah Azrael's just like gone in the new world bye time to fuck off I know he didn't even like he's just like do this job just left him we'll probably see him again in the show i hope so you know for like these scenes rip rip thorold we don't know what happened to him but rip yeah someone free thorold i hope you free for someone tell him my god uh there's no more paycheck coming

for you and my last thing is again, coming back to sitagaze and a lot of the imagery that's in it. It's chitagaze. Say it right, Ariana. You're being racist against me in Italian. So the last thing I want to come back to is chitagaze. And

how so much of it, like, we start seeing how much of it doesn't make any fucking sense. Right? Like, obviously, there's the creepy stuff about everything disappearing. And we all know what that's about. But the whole idea of like, Will describes it as feeling either Mediterranean or Caribbean, different sides of the world, but okay.

But like the temperature, I guess. And then when he peers inside of this little tin to figure out like, Oh, what kind of currency do they use? Interestingly, the currency that they use is a called a, is called a Corona C O R O N A. Is there lime?

I hope so. Maybe, maybe there is based on like this, this climate, but the Corona, of course, means crown. And there is like a British like currency, like a coin like the crown. have a currency called the corona k-o-r-u-n-a so that's like one way in which like it's pulling from random ass places and then they talked about how a lot of the windows and doors are draped with the bougainvillea which is a flower that comes from like south america um Let me make sure I got that right. Which is a flower that comes from South America, yet it's all the way

over here. And I mean, of course, we in our modern day and age have just brought plants from all over the world to different places, but it's starting to show you, like, oh, there's been a lot of cultural exchange here in Chittagaze. So that's all coming through.

Chloe's smiling because I said it, I said it right. Chittagaze. In my household, the thing has been all week. Chittagaze. As you finally see it, I have a last like random thought. And you touched on this a little

when you were watching the His Dark Materials series but as will uh was talking about his mother and the enemies that were real but inside her head or like that he couldn't see well we get like literal unseen enemies soon yeah that's very true yeah that's a great connection and you know we did talk a little bit in those episodes. Something that I want to weave in. I don't think that we'll have another opportunity. So please go back and watch some of the later episodes of that season

one and listen to our season one coverage. But there's a lot of description on the panels of the wood on the benches that Elaine counts. and in the show the actress that plays her plays her really amazingly really well and she looks out of the corner of her eye kind of and there's a shot that almost pans down and makes us think like maybe elaine was just seeing

worlds or seeing you know more than the normal eye was seeing um she was obviously very open-minded obviously open to the idea of all this craziness because of john and the letters he sent her and there's some lantern slide letters that are included in some of the versions that kind of say as much so i don't know i don't know man man. Interesting to think about. And also, is Moxie Elaine's demon? We don't know. We don't know. Murder cat. Murder cat. Murder cat. Well, that was our dust discussion. However, Eliana, I am going to have to ask you to leave because right now we are going to have to do our dusty discussion, which is me and some of our trusted listeners the listeners at home so if you have not read the books of dust book one and book two at the time of the publishing of this podcast in 2020 january 20th or 27th uh eliana goodbye goodbye she'll be back you guys she'll be back to talk out with us but for now we are going to talk about uh some dustiest dustiest discussing you guys uh there's been such a flurry of people that are reading the

secret commonwealth lately i'm so excited we've got to get eliana on board but we are going to spoil the heck out of these two books for just a second and there was surprisingly for me, a lot of stuff that had to do with the Books of Dust. Whether it was the lavender oil that Mrs. Cooper smelled like in Will's world, I don't know. I don't know. But a lot reminded me of it, especially Will and Serafina's mental exhaustion in, you know, pretending to be invisible, pretending to be unseen. That's something that very much so comes up in The Secret Commonwealth with Lyra. There's a couple of these lines. So now she composed her mind and brought all her concentration to bear on the matter of

altering the way she held herself so as to deflect attention completely. It took some minutes before she was confident. She tested it by stepping out of her hiding place and into the path of a sailor coming along the deck with a bag of tools. He stepped aside to avoid her without looking at her once. So that was Serafina in the last chapter here that we just discussed. There are 30 mentions of the word invisible in the secret commonwealth, and half of them have to do with witches or Will.

in the secret commonwealth, and half of them have to do with witches or Will. She carried herself modestly and kept her eyes down, trying to think like Will, trying to be invisible. She hoped that she looked uninteresting, as Will made himself look, as the witches did when they made themselves invisible. Invisibility is such a strong theme in these books, like Roger bleeding between the pages of the amber spyglass while Lyra's passed out, and the garden where Malcolm and Alice are invisible in La Belle Sauvage. Invisible people, invisible demons, all of it very connected. Coming back to Hornbeam and the way the streets are lit like a cartoon or a drawing, that also reminds me of the garden in La Belle Sauvage. It felt like the space between the

worlds, and I really want more answers on that garden, that Edenistic feel to it, but almost like Nega Eden, right, all punctuated by a hyena and that awful, haunting laughter. The lawn sloped up to a terrace that ran along the front of a grand house where every window was brightly lit and where people, too small to see in detail at that distance, moved about as if at a ball or a reception for important guests. They danced behind the windows, they stood talking on the terrace, they wandered here and there among the fountains and the flowers in the garden. Scraps of a waltz played by a large orchestra drifted down to the travelers of the grass, and scraps of conversation, too, from the people who were walking to and fro.

This right here feels very romantic, of course, with Malcolm and Alice, and it's kind of the nega-eden. It's not really supposed to be romantic, especially with that horror punctuating it from the hyena, punctuating it from the hyena and of course uh of course and of course uh it's it's human copart but this time almost the nega eden of lyra and will together in the end of the amber spyglass the fact that will is slipping unseen amidst these horn beams about to cross over into a world in a place no one can see him much like like Malcolm begged to pass the gate to save Lyra, comes to mind. So much more sacrifice to come, and all of it really just makes you think. I really hope that the next time we are talking, Eliana will have finished La Belle Sauvage, so maybe she can join in at least for a couple of Book of Dust chats. I don't know how we're going to

schedule it yet. I don't know how we're going to move things around. We are also talking about a possible team up with Her Dark Materials and the Dark Materials podcast. Maybe do a mini episode about the Secret Commonwealth. I am itching for it. I really am. If you guys want to reach out, hit me up on the internet on Twitter at Liza Narber and message me about the secret commonwealth because it is in my top percentile of interest right now. Alright guys, we're going to keep it really light on the dusty discussion right now because I know we'll have

lots to talk about in the coming weeks. So we will welcome Eliana back onto the podcast. That didn't even take me that long this time. No, you know, we kept it light on the dust we all oh i meant me noticing you weaving oh no you were very reactive i don't know how long i took though i don't know we got dusty that's all you need to know very dusty will doesn't know what it is yet

lara does he'll learn he'll learn truly he will he will you guys we covered so much ground tonight covering chapters one and two of the subtle knife yes um and next time you know we're gonna have to figure out are we doing three four and five we don't know we don't know we don't know you know we started off with the idea of doing this one but doing this uh first three chapters but honestly there was so much in the first two and i feel like the subtle knife is a quicker jog than the amber spyglass obviously i think we'll be doing the amber spyglass relatively a much longer amount of time so uh let's savor it you know let's savor it until season two of the show for those of you that are following the show.

Also, The Amber Spyglass is a long-ass book, you know? Yeah. It's time to bridge ourselves until our final couple worlds. Indeed. So, until then, we will be doing, for the most part probably once a month these His Dark Materials

episodes and every now and then a Patreon episode about His Dark Materials but this month it is about A Song of Ice and Fire yeah we're doing a Patreon episode for $5 and up patrons

it's about the Maiden Vault in A Song of Ice and Fire about some early Targaryen era people. Hear all about it if you're an A Song of Ice and Fire fan. Check that out at patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon and feel free to reach out with ideas for a His Dark Materials themed episode.

We are trying to alternate them every other month to keep you guys interested. So hopefully next month you'll have something special coming your way. And of course, you know, keep up with whenever these episodes come out. We, as we said, also doing a Song of Ice and Fire read through and episodes usually come out on Fridays, but we are doing these Historic Materials episodes last month. Dark Materials episodes last of the month. You can find us on social media at Girls Gone Canon on Twitter, C-A-N-O-N, or shoot us

an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. We have quite a few messages that we will be getting to soon in an episode. We appreciate everything that everyone sends to us. Yes, absolutely. Please keep reaching out. We'd love to hear from you. And

if you want to keep up on our episodes as they come out, we are on several podcast platforms. Check us out over at Podbean, where we're hosted at Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast, and more. So everyone, thanks again for starting off this new year with us starting off the subtle knife starting this series with us in general i have been one of your hosts eliana and i have been another one of your hosts chloe thanks for listening guys we'll see you next month