His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife with Ella Risbridger

Summary

Podcast Summary: Sentimental Garbage
Episode Title: His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife with Ella Risbridger
Hosted by: Caroline O'Donoghue
Guest: Ella Risbridger
Release Date: August 7, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Sentimental Garbage, host Caroline O'Donoghue delves into Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, focusing specifically on the second installment, The Subtle Knife. Joined by literary enthusiast and former nun Ella Risbridger, Caroline explores the intricate layers, themes, and character developments that make this novel a compelling read for both young adults and adult audiences alike.

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Exploring The Subtle Knife

Initial Impressions and Personal Anecdotes ([02:15] - [06:27])

Caroline begins by sharing her childhood experiences with His Dark Materials, recounting how her mother selected books like The Subtle Knife for her during holidays in Kerry. Her initial frustration with the book's title—"the ugliest word she had ever seen"—sets the stage for a deeper exploration of its complexities.

Ella Risbridger echoes Caroline's sentiments, revealing that she too first encountered The Subtle Knife out of sequence, inadvertently reading the second book before the first. This mutual experience underscores the book's capacity to captivate readers regardless of their order of discovery.

Notable Quote:

"The subtle knife. Why the fuck have you bought me a book called the Subtil Knife?"
- Caroline O'Donoghue ([04:05])

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Diverging Worlds and Character Dynamics ([07:48] - [15:00])

The discussion shifts to the book's narrative structure, highlighting how Pullman introduces new characters and settings seamlessly. Unlike the magical and enchanting first book, The Subtle Knife presents a grittier, more realistic Oxford, focusing on Will Parry's tumultuous relationship with his mentally ill mother.

Caroline comments on Pullman's portrayal of old creators like Philip Pullman himself, suggesting that myth-building around authors can sometimes distance listeners from the authentic human experiences behind their works.

Ella adds depth by analyzing Will's character as a complex lateral thinker, always strategizing several steps ahead to protect his mother. This contrasts with Lyra's instinctive and spontaneous nature, creating a dynamic interplay between the two protagonists.

Notable Quotes:

"Will is this complex lateral thinker where he's always had to live in this kind of cloaked way."
- Caroline O'Donoghue ([11:00])

"Lyra is completely like, you are really filthy... she's like, I'm a researcher here to look for Dust."
- Carolyn O'Donoghue ([26:35])

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Themes of Morality and Consciousness ([15:00] - [33:02])

Caroline and Ella delve into the philosophical underpinnings of The Subtle Knife, particularly focusing on the nature of Dust—a metaphor for consciousness and original sin. They explore how the book addresses shifting moralities, where actions deemed right or wrong often depend on perspective.

Ella highlights the complexity of the narrative, noting Pullman's skill in weaving action-packed sequences with deep philosophical discourse. This balance ensures that the story remains engaging while prompting readers to ponder profound questions about free will and the essence of being.

Notable Quotes:

"It's about innocence and experience. It's about the problem of people being able to have free will and think for themselves."
- Carolyn O'Donoghue ([16:10])

"It's all tied up together. Will's like, where is my dad? Will's just obsessed with trying to find his dad."
- Ella Risbridger ([43:04])

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Character Development and Interpersonal Relationships ([33:02] - [57:09])

The conversation transitions to character arcs, particularly focusing on Mary Malone, an ex-nun turned research scientist. Caroline praises the portrayal of Mary, emphasizing her nuanced relationship with science and spirituality—a central theme in Pullman's work.

Ella discusses the evolving relationship between Lyra and Will, noting how their uneasy alliance gradually transforms into a deep friendship. This development is crucial as it sets the foundation for their joint quest and the moral dilemmas they face together.

The hosts reflect on the ethical complexities presented in the narrative, such as Will's act of killing an adult to protect his mother, which challenges traditional notions of heroism in children's literature.

Notable Quotes:

"Mary Malone is the best Irish person in all of literature."
- Carolyn O'Donoghue ([38:11])

"You must be true to the things you like. And that's the subtle knife."
- Ella Risbridger ([97:08])

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Plot Analysis and Emotional Impact ([57:09] - [100:00])

Caroline and Ella provide a detailed plot breakdown, discussing key events such as the theft of the alethiometer, the introduction of specters in Chittagatse, and the tragic deaths of pivotal characters like Stanislaus Grumman and Lee Scoresby. They express their emotional responses to the book's intense and often heartbreaking moments, highlighting Pullman's ability to evoke deep emotions through his storytelling.

The hosts analyze the climactic events where allegiances shift, and moral boundaries blur, culminating in a devastating battle that leaves characters in dire straits. Ella shares her profound emotional reaction to the deaths of beloved characters, emphasizing the book's departure from conventional children's literature by not offering a hopeful resolution.

Notable Quotes:

"He is dead. He’s just dead."
- Ella Risbridger ([88:59])

"It's the most horrible, terrible, monstrous things who have, by the way, ripped up the balloon."
- Carolyn O'Donoghue ([67:16])

"It's a complete murder of character arcs and plot strands all coming to a tragic end."
- Both Hosts ([98:33])

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Key Insights and Themes

1. Moral Ambiguity: The podcast explores how The Subtle Knife presents a world where right and wrong are not always clear-cut, challenging readers to navigate complex ethical landscapes.

2. Consciousness as a Cosmic Force: The concept of Dust symbolizes the interconnectedness of all beings and the profound influence of consciousness, a recurring theme that bridges science and spirituality.

3. Authorial Depth: Caroline and Ella commend Philip Pullman for his masterful storytelling, which intertwines action with deep philosophical inquiries, making the narrative both engaging and thought-provoking.

4. Character Complexity: The hosts highlight the depth of characters like Will and Mary Malone, who embody the struggles between personal desires and overarching moral duties.

5. Emotional Resonance: The discussion underscores the emotional weight of the book, particularly in how it handles loss, sacrifice, and the harsh realities of a crumbling society.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "It's impossible to tell."
  - Carolyn O'Donoghue ([01:15])

• "Life's hard because life's hard, life's long, life's busy."
  - Ella Risbridger ([02:29])

• "The word bed. Yeah, exactly."
  - Ella Risbridger ([05:35])

• "The alethiometer is stolen by Lord Boreal."
  - Carolyn O'Donoghue ([53:04])

• "It's all dense, interwoven philosophical themes."
  - Ella Risbridger ([33:02])

• "I have synesthesia for the word subtle."
  - Caroline O'Donoghue ([05:05])

• "We need your alethiometer."
  - Carolyn O'Donoghue ([53:04])

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Conclusion

In this comprehensive discussion, Caroline O'Donoghue and Ella Risbridger provide an insightful analysis of The Subtle Knife, shedding light on its thematic depth, complex characterizations, and emotional intensity. Their exploration reveals why Philip Pullman's work continues to resonate with readers, transcending the boundaries of traditional children's literature to offer profound reflections on humanity, consciousness, and morality.

For those unfamiliar with the podcast, this episode serves as a compelling introduction to the layers of His Dark Materials, encouraging both new and seasoned readers to delve deeper into its rich narrative tapestry.

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Note: Advertisements and non-content sections from the transcript have been excluded to maintain focus on the episode's substantive discussions.

Transcript

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[Ella Risbridger]

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[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Hello and welcome to Magical Garbage, the podcast where our research is at risk of losing funding. My name is Carolyn o' Donoghue and I'm the gang of roving children terrorizing a cat. And joining me is the ex nun with a zest for life and a hunger for the truth. It's Ella Risbridger.

[Ella Risbridger]

Hi.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

How can all three of those things exist in the same novel? For 11 up, that's what I ask of you. How is this book real? And how is it actually for children?

[Ella Risbridger]

I guess the main questions are how is this book real? And how did this book get published? And do you think you'd be able to get away with it today? Some big questions. I'm just starting us off with the light ones.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Easy, impossible to tell. I know, like, the thing about Phil Pullman is that he's very old now and there's no getting around that. And so, like, he's been answering questions about his dark materials for so long that I think there's some kind of. There's kind of an interview sickness that falls over creators who've been talking about the same thing for a long time, which is that they often, they build a little myth or they build a kind of a series of stock answers that they just kind of sort of wheel out to sort of protect their own mental fortitude. And so it's gotten to the point where I'm no longer interested in hearing from Philip Pullman about how he made these books. What I'm fascinated in hearing about is the people who behind the scenes. Like, I would love to talk to the editors and publicists who were dealing with this at the time.

[Ella Risbridger]

And also I actually, I feel like I should know this, but I don't know how this book was like, marketed at the time. I don't. You know, it's sort of always been in my life. I mean, what year did it come out? We should say what book we're talking about.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Girl, that will be in the episode description. But it is the Subtle knife. It's the second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy and it is also a book that we said we'd cover in July. And if anyone who has a calendar will know, it is now August.

[Ella Risbridger]

Life's hard because life's hard, life's long, life's busy.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And as I keep saying this week, July is the November of summer.

[Ella Risbridger]

As you know, I disagree and think that August is the November of summer in that it's the worst month of the year. It drags along and everyone's always away.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

So what I. So my general November's are always like, ooh, I want to, like, eat soup and stay indoors and watch films because I know I'm gonna be going out a lot in December. And, like, I feel that way by July. Like, I know I'm gonna go out a lot in August. I know I'm gonna go to the Fringe. I know I'm gonna go to music festival. I know I'm gonna be doing stuff. So I'm just gonna stay inside all the time and do nothing in July.

[Ella Risbridger]

We lead such different lives. What I feel is that everyone I know is going to music festivals in the Fringe in August. Therefore, I'm not going to those. E G U. I'm not going to those places because I like to be indoors. I like to be indoors or on a hill and not at a funeral.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

On a hill.

[Ella Risbridger]

Well, you know, like in the nature.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, sure.

[Ella Risbridger]

Breathing deeply. I'm not really a sort of tense in a field or crying in the road in Edinburgh person. Those are the options.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. We've been lax in covering this book series, but doesn't mean that we're not going to do it diligently today.

[Ella Risbridger]

Also, it came out in 1997, so we're either 18 years too late or, you know, right on time.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Right on time. So my experience with this book is I only really read His Dark Materials in my early 20s and was completely gobsmacked by them. But when I was very young, maybe like 11 or so, me and my mom were on holidays in Kerry, where there isn't a bookshop that sells books for kids for, at the time, at least an hour's drive. So my mum kind of like would go and make the drive and pick me up something. Sometimes I'd go with her, sometimes I couldn't for whatever reason, and she would find me something. And that is how I ended up with the Harry Potter books. That's how I ended up with half the books like Chinese Cinderella that I loved as a kid because I would have one book for the week or the two weeks, Hummel Day, and that would be the thing. And she picked up for me the Subtle Knife. And I've never thrown a bigger temper tantrum at her than that day because I disappeared into my room with it for a while and I. She didn't know it was the second in a series. I didn't know I could not follow it at all. And I also thought the word subtle was the ugliest word I had ever seen on paper in my life. I had, like, subtil. I was like. I had, like, synesthesia for the. The word subtle, except it made me want to get sick. I was like, the subtil knife. Why the fuck have you bought me a book called the Sub Till Knife? She was like, it's subtle. I was like, that's not better.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's a weird title for a book for kids.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. It's not. It's so unlovely in the mouth. Like, it's like.

[Ella Risbridger]

I really love the word subtle. The subtle.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Nice.

[Ella Risbridger]

I love that it's got a little. The B is so subtle. It's like a drawing of itself. Yeah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Like the word bed.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah, exactly. What's interesting is my experience is sort of similar. Ish. In that I also did not know it was the second in the series and read it first. And, I mean, I'd read lots of Philip Pullman, so I was just like, I'm gonna have a good time. I always have a good time with Philip Pullman and loved it. And then went back and read the Northern Light and then read the other one. But I loved the Subtle Knife so much that I stole it from my grandma's house.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Where did your grandma have it?

[Ella Risbridger]

She had a lot of books.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Okay, fair enough.

[Ella Risbridger]

Don't know. She's a primary school teacher.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, that makes sense. Okay.

[Ella Risbridger]

But, yeah, I just stole that middle one. And, like, I can still picture the copy that I was reading. It was. It got so wet. Because I was always just, like, reading it in the bath or in the rain and rereading it. Whereas I never, like. I love this book. I say it's my favorite of the three.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Really. Okay.

[Ella Risbridger]

But I really treasured this book in a way I didn't necessarily treasure Northern Lights. Like, I loved Northern Lights, as we all do, but Northern Lights, Northern Lights to me was like, oh, this is. This is a one amazing story. But it felt kind of in the realm of things that kids read.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Like, it was pushing me, but it.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Was still like, yeah, there's like talking.

[Ella Risbridger]

Bears and like, there's witches, there's magic, there's snow. It's a little girl in a brave adventure. This book is not that book.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Mm.

[Ella Risbridger]

This book starts with essentially, like a child carer.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It has notes of the Tracy Beaker about it, notes of the Jacqueline Wilson about it. Right. There's that kind of vibe to it.

[Ella Risbridger]

So I think maybe a small recap, which is that this book is the second in a trilogy. And the way Philip Pullman does that is he opens it by introducing you to. By literally starting with a brand new character in a brand new world, none of whom you've ever heard of or met before. And also, the world is our world, so there are things like cars and supermarkets and washing powder, which, if you remember Northern Lights is nothing like that. So if you came to it off the back of. And we're just about to. We've just crossed the bridge into a brand new world. What will happen there? And then you open this book and it's like, here is a child carer living in some neglect in 1990s Oxford.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Mm. Or Winchester. And then he goes to Oxford.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. 1990s Winchester. What, what? What A pivot. What a shift.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And it's. It's like. It spares. It's really, really smart and really bold to be like.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

He's not just like a random kid from our world. He's really living in the kind of sort of detritus of sort of functioning poverty. It's like. It's a lot of baked beans. It's a lot of fish fingers. It's a lot of scrabbling change together. It feels dirt under the fingernails. It feels very like of our world.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's very of our world. And I think. So the key thing about Will is that Will lives with his mum in Winchester. And Will's mum is some flavor of mentally ill. Possibly, or possibly she has got a sickness from another world. It's actually not that relevant. What's relevant is that she is not taking care of him. For example, whenever they go to the shops, if they leave the house, she thinks she might be being followed.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And a central question of the first chapter is, is she paranoid? Is she a paranoid schizophrenic? Or are they being followed? And if they are being followed this time, does that mean they've always been followed? So Will's mum, for instance, they'll go to the shops and there's this instant where she's like, someone stolen my purse. One of the enemies. One of These followers has stolen my purse, so we have to go back around and put things back on the shelves so no one notices and I'll just pay with these coins. And they go around and it's a game. And Will suddenly realizes halfway through the game that his mum is genuinely terrified. And then when they go home, the person is in the middle of the coffee table.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And that's Will's childhood.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And Will's dad is, you know, gone. Dead, possibly. Will's not completely sure. He thinks he's gone exploring somehow. It's all kind of quite fuzzy because Will's main job is keeping his mother safe. And it's such a change. It's such a change from Lyra.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. I mean, if you compare that first chapter to the first chapter of Northern Lights, where it's like Pantalyman and Lyra are hiding in the cupboard of this grand room and Oxford fur coats and smells wine and poison and, you know, all these beautiful, like, severed head and all kind of stuff.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's magic.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's magic. Sparkles, glitter, and the words that you've never been seen before, like demon words like Pantal, which are just so immediately arresting and like ambaric light. And you're like. It's like this really world full of majesty and the unknown and just sort of like twinkling, sort of phosphorescent, like, ooh, something crazy is gonna happen. And like, to then open your second book on like, as you say.

[Ella Risbridger]

Well, it starts with Will is taking his mother to try and drop her off at the home of his old piano teacher. And it's this immediate reversal of parent child, sort of parent child setup in that he's desperately trying to persuade his piano teacher that she should look after his mum so that he can go off and do something.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And it's such an unsettling thing to read as a child, be like, but why is he taking his. That's what mums do. Your mum takes you to. The piano teacher is like, can you look after Will for a bit? I gotta go. Rather than Will being like, please, I need to sort something out urgently.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And it's like, you know, over the course of this book and over the next book and over the third book as well, you know, Lyra and Will obviously come together and they become like dear, dear friends. But like, Lyra's brilliance, as is like, you know, highlighted so much in the first book, is like, that she's this kind of courageous, spontaneous thinker, this expert liar, this sort of like, she her. It's all instinct with Lyra. But like Will is this like quite complex lateral thinker where he's like, if this happens, then this will attract suspicion, which will then attract this, which will then bring the police, which will then that. He's always thinking six or seven steps ahead because he's always had to live in this kind of cloaked way of like, yes, like sort of have the least suspicion as possible. He speaks about how his sort of trick for survival is like sort of blending in and becoming like part of the furniture. And like, I remember when I did eventually get around to reading this book, thinking it was so genius that like he's trying to. He's out in Oxford and he's not in his school uniform and he knows that he's gonna attract attention for being a kid alone. So he buys a clipboard from like WHSmith's and just tries to make it look like he's doing a research thing.

[Ella Risbridger]

I mean it's a perfect disguise.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I came with a clipboard. It's like, oh, instantly. Oh, you're doing some kind of project. It's some kind of away day, some kind of school time.

[Ella Risbridger]

You're asking me questions about like, how do I think that the recycling system could be improved, you know?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it's so that.

[Ella Risbridger]

Hi, do you have two minutes? Where are you sick? Primary school and we're doing a project about what residents think of recycling.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Fantastic. It's so like that thing of like, if you gave any man a high vis vest, he could do whatever he wanted for a day. He could just like set up a traffic cone in any street. And if you give any child a clipboard, they can do whatever they want. Because I was like, oh, yeah, schools that you do that kind of thing, aren't they? You going out, you count the trees in the park or whatever.

[Ella Risbridger]

Three 11 year olds holding clipboards.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. I'd be like, no questions here, do whatever.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah, I'll literally answer anything you ask me. That's spooky. Someone don't exploit that loophole anyway, so what Will has to do. The reason he needs to drop his mum off at the piano teacher is because he needs to go home and search his house for a green leather writing case that his mum is hiding from him already to be like, I need to overrule my mum's authority here. And he searches the whole house and he falls asleep because he's tired and he wakes up and it's one in the morning and he knows that the men are in the house and he's right. So this is the. The real, like from the beginning. We're like four pages in and already you have the sense of total destabilization, which is that the parent child relationship is all wacky. You're not in the world you expected to be, even though it's your world. So your world already feels weird and discombobulating to you because you're like, well, where's everyone's demon? I picked up this book expecting there to be demons and animals and magic, and you're saying there's none. Like you're already on slippery footing. And then. And then Will kills one of the men. Chapter one.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. He's 12 years old and he's just murdered an adult man.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. He pushes him down the stairs, I think.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And I remember as a child being like, well, he's not dead. And then quite soon after Will meets Lyra, Lyra asked the alethiometer like, who, who's this guy? And the alethiometer says, he's a murderer. And I was like, oh, shit.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, that great Lyra thing of like. So she knew she could trust him.

[Ella Risbridger]

He killed that guy for real?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

I mean, it blew me away as a child, the idea that it's like, oh, he's the hero of the book.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And he's this lateral thinker. And we already know that he's a real logical, step by step kind of guy.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And we know that he's. We know that he's a good guy. He's so worried about his mum and he's just murdered this man who's come to his house.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Would you say, like.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

All kids books have some kind of dealing with morality in some function or another? I think just naturally it's dealing with characters who are moving through the world, growing up through the world and trying to decide what's good and what's bad. But because like so much of his dark materials is caught up with sort of religion and the right thing. There's this really interesting sense throughout Sudden Life in particular, that's like. Of shifting morality and how things are different kinds of right and wrong depending on your perspective. Like, for example, skipping ahead a bit when they're in Chitigatze, which is my favorite of any sort of imagined world, even though it's so scary and terrible. They talk a lot about how they've stolen the subtle knife or they've taken the subtle knife from this character who dies soon afterwards. And then this band of children, two of whom are his family, try to get revenge on him and try to kill him and Lyra. And both Will and Lyra are like, yeah, we do the same. Do you mean? It's like.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's like. Fair's fair, guys.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Fair's fair. We killed your brother.

[Ella Risbridger]

You want to kill us. Yeah, we killed your brother. We stole his magical knife. Anyway, so, like, just to jump back so we can actually thread straight through to Chitikatse.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Will is then obviously wandering the streets of Winchester.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And he doesn't know what to do because he knows that quite soon someone will come looking for these men. These men aren't the police. They aren't the social services, but they have been asking Will's mum a lot of questions about where his dad is. His dad's a guy called John Parry, who was an explorer. Will finds the green leather case. And it's like, I have to get out of here because quite soon, the guy I didn't kill is going to come back and kill me. And that's my best case scenario because the other one is social services and the police and being tried in court and someone finding out that my mother is kind of not. Not okay. And so he's kind of just wandering the streets following a cat. And he likes this cat. It's like his own cat. His own cat's called Moxie. I hope she's fine. Following this cat.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Does he go to Oxford first? He gets like a.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yes. Yes.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Why does he go to Oxford again?

[Ella Risbridger]

It's because the.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

In the letters, his dad's lawyer lives in Oxford or something.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yes.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Just there's so many details. He goes to Oxford. He changes. He says he goes by a false name. Then he gets on the bus and goes to Oxford. He goes to the lawyer. The lawyer says he can't tell him anything. Then as he leaves the lawyer's office, he sees the other guy, the one he didn't kill, going into the lawyer's office. You know, it's all murky. He's like, oh, yeah, I've not successfully left. So he's walking around Oxford. He followed this cat. He's like, oh, that cat looks like my cat. Sad. Sad, because, of course, he'll probably never see his cat again because he is, you know, running from the law, but also about to go into a different world. And what he finds walking around Oxford is a window in the air.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Exciting.

[Ella Risbridger]

And the cat steps through this window in the air and it's gone, completely vanished. And Will follows her. And on the other side is Chittagadze. I think not to make this podcast be about Skipshock, but I do think that that moment of stepping through a space on a sort of rainy Oxford day and ending up in Chittagatse has a lot of common DNA with the skip shock thing of being like. And it's different here and the air is different and it feels different. Because I think that's one of the things that Will notices first. Right. Is that he's like, oh, it's hot. Like, it's kind of like a. Like, I picture it like Italian La, or not la, but like maybe like Venice. I don't know. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's very American. I think I. I sort of more.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Pictured like, South America.

[Ella Risbridger]

Oh, yeah, that's probably Italian. Mediterranean American.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I guess.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

America's Mediterranean. South America. Yeah, Like. Like a Peruvian city or something is kind of how I imagined it, but I guess Chitagaze. I don't know. You know, it's. It's. It's all different things, but I think the. What Chittagaze looks like isn't as important as what it feels like. And to me, what it feels like is like a surrealist painting kind of thing. Like, you can feel like the melting clocks on the landscape kind of thing.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's very mel.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's so melty. It's so dreamlike. And it's like every. And that's my favorite thing about this book is reading about Chitikatse and just the sensation that I have physically when I'm reading it. Like, the sense of kind of walking through a dream of, like, meals abandoned halfway through eating, like, the risotto that's been abandoned.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's like an abandoned cruise ship.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's like, you know. You know when you're on a holiday somewhere hot, and it's like. And there's all adverts everywhere. And there's adverts everywhere for, like, drinks that are almost like drinks you recognize.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

You know Fanta Le Mans.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, sure.

[Ella Risbridger]

You know when you're like, oh, and this is. It's called Kaika Cola.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, yeah. Or you know when you're like that sensation of when you're, like, driving through some sort of like. Like. No. Horse town in the middle of, like, Portugal or something, where it's like, literally, it's like two cafes and a church kind of thing. You know, that sort of vibe and. But there's a cafe. The cafe has, like, umbrella sort of awning that's walls, ice cream, and it's that weird, strange feeling like, oh, you have those things.

[Ella Risbridger]

We have that too.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And also the feeling of a siesta.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Oh, my God. That feeling of a siesta. The feeling of going into a town.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's like when you go into a. I mean, I've been to other countries, but France is the place that I know best, where my family live. And it's like if you accidentally go to a French town between 12 and 2 and you're like, or on a.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Sunday or on a holy day or something where closed.

[Ella Risbridger]

And it's like, certainly everywhere's closed, that feeling. And it's like you can kind of like. And because people are usually having lunch or like, if it's very hot in the south of France, like a siesta, it's like doors are open and fly screens are down so you can see like, oh, there's food on the table in there. Like, oh. Like the shop has just got like the mesh screen over, but the door is open and you're like, yeah, but we just got here and I'm so hungry and it's like, we can't get in. Yeah, these are locked up. These are like little like museum dioramas to you.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And it's that feeling of walking, like around a town and being like, surely we'll see someone.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

What's great about, like, every time I reread the Subtle Life is that I completely forget why Chittagatse is like it is every time. And it's like, it unfolds to me completely new.

[Ella Risbridger]

Because Chittagatse is like the Marie Celeste, right?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Ella Risbridger]

Everyone has left except for kids. And the reason for that is any adults in the town are in like, the most horrendous danger you can think of. I don't really know how to talk about the specters because they're such a rich theme. Specters are invisible to children, but they essentially eat away at a person's soul.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, they eat your demon in some way. They're kind of the reverse of what was happening at Bolvanger, which is that they. They were. The intercision process that was happening in Bulwanger with Mrs. Coulter of, like, separating children from their demons is happening here, but in a more kind of primal, predatory way with these sort of. Yeah, these spectres who I'm just kind of imagining as ghosts, really. These kind of just malevolent ghosts who are just eating. Eating the demons. Eating the souls of these people. These people in Chirikatsu don't actually have demons, so they're Just like eating their life force, eating their consciousness. Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

They don't have demons. They're not, like, going around eating the animal.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

But the part of you, as you know, if we were in Lyra's world, we'd all have a demon, and that demon would, if we went into Chigatse, be eaten by the Specters. And that part of us that would be a demon, even if it's not outside our bodies, can also be eaten by Specters.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Ella Risbridger]

And the effect of this is to render a person, a non person, essentially. Like, sometimes you see a person who's had their demon eaten and is still alive, and they're just kind of like, picking at their skin or just like. Just like shuffling, doing nothing. There's a part a little bit later on where Lyra is watching. Lyra's with the witches, and they're watching Chittagatse from above, and they see that there's a band of kids and adults all fleeing. And I know Lyra's not watching. It's just the witches, I think. And they can see the specters are coming on this little band of. It's like maybe like two or three families and they're fleeing. And the second they see the specters come upon this family, and they also see that suddenly the man and the woman with the horse just ride off. They abandon the others, and they gallop and gallop and gallop away, and they're all furious. They're like, who are these cowards? And after about 20 minutes, the spectres have finished feeding. They've killed every adult. They've left all the kids, including a newborn baby.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And they realize, oh, no, the people on horseback have to get far enough away so that someone can come back and look after the kids, because otherwise the kids will just die.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And so, yeah, Cheddigate is full of these kind of gangs, really, of roving kids who kind of go around together, who are just kind of wild, Right?

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. Because there's no adults, because they have all been. They're not even dead. They're just gone.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. They've just fled. But, like, when Lyra. So Will goes into Chitigante, and he's like, this is perfect, because I can sort of, like, provide for myself. The climate is nice. The architecture is lovely.

[Ella Risbridger]

There's eggs, there's Coca Cola.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And he's, like, looking after himself and, like, you know, he's very sort of moral and leaving money on the counter.

[Ella Risbridger]

Leaving money on the counter of shops and, like, breaking into a house and being like, okay, well, I'll keep it really nice.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Exactly.

[Ella Risbridger]

He's like, it's quite dusty in here, but there is food and the fridge is still running and things.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. And that's when he runs into Lyra. And this is the first time we've met Lyra since the end of Northern Lights, where she steps into the new world in order to, like, find Dust. Da, da, da, question mark.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. And you realize, of course, that Lyra's new world is chittagaze and Will's new world is chittagatse. And now they're here in this one house. And they're both quite surprised, I think, by each other to be like, and you're not from here. And obviously Lyra can't let anything go. Like, can't let that be like, no, I actually know my way around. I'm really. I'm here. I'm a researcher here to look for Dust. You're a very dirty child who hasn't eaten in days.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's great seeing, like, Lyra through the eyes of someone from our world. Cause, like, we, like everyone who's met Lyra up till now has been like, God, this kid was gutsy and full of vim and vigor and I would do anything to protect her. And Will's just like, you are really filthy. Like, this is. You are. And also maybe dumb because she's never heard of like, an omelette or like, she doesn't know how to cook for herself. She's never washed her own hair before. And it's so strange because we've known Lyra for so long in Northern Lights as like this completely self sustaining, like, independent spirit and. But like, in a sense, there was always somebody kind of looking after her in Northern Lights and her looking after herself.

[Ella Risbridger]

I don't know. Baked beans.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I don't know baked beans.

[Ella Risbridger]

And he's just like, there's some baked beans. You can open them. And she's like, I don't know, baked beans. And also that part where he's like, I cook so you can wash up. And she's like, I'm afraid not. That's what servants do. There's loads of clean ones. I'm sure a servant will deal with it. And he's like, you have to wash up. And you suddenly realize, like, how far Lyra is. Like, even her language is different.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Mm.

[Ella Risbridger]

They're like, where did you come from? And he's like, Winchester and then Oxford. And she's like, I came from my father's house on Svalbard, but I'm glad you also know Oxford. And it's like no 10 year old in our world would be like, from my father's house.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

In that world she's a princess. And in this world she's just a little urchin who tries desperately to make an omelette and doesn't know you can't put the shell in.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, God.

[Ella Risbridger]

When she makes her foul, burnt little omelet.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Burnt omelet. Horrible.

[Ella Risbridger]

And the thing is, okay, so we've had that major shift of like, finally we've got Lyra. We've got Lyra and this murdering boy Carer.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And they're trapped in a whole new world. And that is chapter one.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Is that just the first chapter?

[Ella Risbridger]

Certainly, because chapter two, we abandon them both and go to the viewpoint of Seraphina Pekala, the witch.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God. That chapter is like the thing about like sudden life in general is that it very much is a bridging book. Like, it's setting, it's following along a lot of the ideas from the first book around kind of dust and consciousness and what that means to different people. But like, it's very set up Y. In terms of like, we're getting all these new characters and people who are going to aid in our eventual sort of goal in killing God. But like, in order to make it not seem like setup, it's filled with these like, what feel to me like miniature action films. And like when we open on Seraphina Pekala in chapter two, it's like a witch is being tortured for information by Mrs. Coulter and her people. And like, it just feels like, I know nobody has a gun, but it feels like everybody.

[Ella Risbridger]

Everyone's got a knife.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Everyone's got a knife. Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

But like, so this. So chapter one, a child kills a grown man who is trying. Who is chasing him. And then he goes into another world with Lyra where you realize that Lyra is completely like helpless looking after herself. Chapter two, Seraphina Pekla. You're suddenly in the viewpoint of this very sexy and powerful witch who is trying to choose which side of killing God she's on. And then she makes herself invisible, goes into a room where Mrs. Coulter, someone we know, is torturing a witch to death. And then there's that bit where the witch is just like yanbai AKA come to me. And she's like praying for death. So Seraphina Pekala slits her throat.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Chapter two, chapter two of the children's book. We've had two on page deaths.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Real deaths as well. Because that's the thing about when Will pushes that guy down the stairs. He's like, yeah, the angle of his neck, the way his limbs fell, it's like, oh, that's vivid.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it's vivid.

[Ella Risbridger]

The way his limbs are on the carpet and you're like, oh, I see it. I see what it would look like. How you would know instantly. I mean, I feel like that's how.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

The way a lot of this book is structured, where it's like, it'll be Will and Lyra, like doing something. Doing something that they're kind of japes or whatever. And then it will flick to a random adult, which is really interesting to me. It'll be like, you know, one of the witches or Lee Scoresby or one of my favorite characters ever, Mary Malone or whatever. And it's really interesting because, like, so much of the received wisdom in writing YA is that you don't write point of view characters who are adults.

[Ella Risbridger]

But there are so many in here.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

There are so many. And they're like not even having these sort of like, you would think that to have an adult in a children's book or a YA book, that they would constantly. To verify their kind of existence at all. They would be like constantly talking about the child characters, but they're really not like, they're talking about, like their love affairs, their funding applications.

[Ella Risbridger]

There's so much in here about governments control research based on what they'll grant funding to.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, a hell of a lot.

[Ella Risbridger]

And as a child, I was really like, yeah, fantastic, need to have this in there.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And you do.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah, you do. You do need to have that in there. I think this is part of why these books were and are so successful is there is not a shred of talking down to children. Like, there's a kind of understanding that like, oh, you may not have heard of, like, grants, but a grant is money that a government gives you there now, you know. Yeah, depending what research you're doing. And if they like the research you're doing, they give you more, and if they don't, they give you less. And it's like the implication there is good. No, you understand there that governments control what information we learn. And it's like, it doesn't say that. You just have to figure it out. It's like, oh, I guess governmental control of scientific thought is bad. File that one away for 15 years time. I'm nine.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And I am nine.

[Ella Risbridger]

I'm nine.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I mean, like the whole sort of like. I mean, as I say this, this is a Book, kind of a bridging book that has a lot of little action films scattered throughout it and that are brilliantly brilliant fight choreography. Brilliant. Like, you know that scene where they're trying to flee the children into the gatse and Will cuts a staircase in half with a sudden life is like, breathtaking and incredible. But then in between, you have these adults who are essentially having conversations, as we say, about their lovers, about their grant applications, and very much about quantum physics. This is a book about quantum physics.

[Ella Risbridger]

Quantum physics. I just opened it. A random page and it's just like a long conversation with Azrael's servant about how he's waging war on God. What are angels? They're beings of pure spirit. And it's like. Okay, a lot of information here before we get back to the adventure. Like, if you look at the back of the book, Will is 12 and he's just killed a man. He's on the run. His escape will take him far beyond his own world to the eerie disquiet of a deserted city and a strange savage girl called Lyra. Her destiny is linked to his own. And together they must find the most powerful weapon in all the worlds. Wow. Wow, wow. Go, go, go. That's true. However, interlinked is a lot of philosophy. And it's never boring.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

No.

[Ella Risbridger]

And, like.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

But, like, it is quite. I still feel like I. I mean, I understand quantum physics basically. None at all. Like, I know about, like. Like the. What's it called again? The slit experiment or whatever. Do you know what that is? No. Oh, my God. It's such a ghost story. Can I tell you about it really quickly?

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah, tell me about it. But slowly.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Okay, so this is. This is everything I know about quantum physics.

[Ella Risbridger]

All right?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

So the double slit theory, right. Is. Imagine if you imagine a cardboard box that has two sort of coin slits cut in it, right?

[Ella Risbridger]

Yep.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And then if you shine a light through those double slits, you. You'd get like two shafts of light on the other side, right?

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Now, if you were to shine a. Not a beam of light, but a gun filled with atoms. Right?

[Ella Risbridger]

Okay.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

A gun filled with atoms that are constantly, like, darting through those slits as well. What you would might expect on the other side is similarly to how the light behaves. Right. The kind of two double slits. Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Of light.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

That is not what happens. What happens instead is that they kind of muss up and they go all the protons and they all fuck around and they just create a sort of a random pattern. Fine. That's atoms behave Differently to light, right? That's okay. We're cool with that.

[Ella Risbridger]

We're cool with it.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Here's the scary bit. If you set up a camera, the atoms will behave like light. They will just go in straight lines. If you have an infrared camera that is charting this, they will know they are being witnessed.

[Ella Risbridger]

How do we know that? They will all go crazy.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

What do you mean?

[Ella Risbridger]

If we're not looking at them, how do we know they've all gone crazy?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Because there's like evidence afterwards. You see this? Oh, yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Okay.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. I really urge all this. I feel like knowing about this, this time around of reading the subtle a book for 11 up has really increased my sort of enjoyment of it. And then also if you turn the camera off, they go back to being fucky. I really urge you to go through this.

[Ella Risbridger]

I certainly won't. I don't want to know anything about it.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's so scary.

[Ella Risbridger]

What's important to me is to know that I do not have the mind of a scientist.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, well, neither do I. I mean, this is.

[Ella Risbridger]

No, but when I want. When someone tells me something like that, my instinct is to be like, that is the great stuff of God. And I'm not religious.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's not. It's not my business.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's not my business. I have no right to know. I have no place knowing that that's the atoms by themselves. You guys go on. I'll just be over here eating a biscuit.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I'm sure there are lots of physics minded people who's gonna write to me and be like, you actually explained it wrong, but I think I'm pretty much getting the gist of it right.

[Ella Risbridger]

Although I don't care if you explained it wrong. But isn't it spooky as hell?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And also I feel like so, so much of. Okay, so to talk about the sort of like philosophical main argument in life, like. So we know from the first book Lyra is on a quest to look for Dust because Dust. And we kind of understand Dust to be this kind of original sin thing. Right?

[Ella Risbridger]

I think before we get into this, it's worth saying that what happens next is that Lyra asked the alethiometer what she should do. And she's like, ah, it's going to tell me to go and find Dust. And the alethiometer's like, no, no, help will find his father. And she's like, what? No, that's not right. And she kind of fudges it a little bit, I think. And then she's just like, yeah, okay, well, My mission's finding Dust, and yours is finding your father. So let's go to Oxford together.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Ella Risbridger]

Because there's a scholar. The alethiometer says that the. There's someone I need to talk to in Oxford. And Will's like, okay, great. And I can go to the library and find out, like, do some research and what's pre Internet? So it's microfiche. And he's having to, like, look at things on a little slide. Because this book would suck if Will was just, like, Googling John Parry, missing John Perry, explorer.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

What's good as well is that they're not really property friends yet. They're just kind of uneasy allies.

[Ella Risbridger]

So, yeah, they're only allies because the alethiometer is like, you have to help. You have to help. Lara's like, I hate this. He's a weird boy.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And, like, there's a lot of like, okay, well, I'm going with you because you can't survive on your own. Like, well, I'm going with you because you can't survive on your own.

[Ella Risbridger]

I love them.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's very nice.

[Ella Risbridger]

I love them. So they go to Oxford, where Will finds out some things about his father, and Lyra goes on a separate adventure to meet Mary Malone.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I love Mary Malone.

[Ella Risbridger]

Mary Malone is a research scientist and.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Also the best Irish person in all of literature. And I know with what I contend with when I say that she is the best Irish character in anything. Okay. I love Mary Malone so much. Mary Malone is an ex nun who is now a research scientist working in Oxford. And her whole thing is that she is. Yeah, she's basically researching dark matter. Right? Like, and she has found these kind of traces of what Lyra calls dust and what she calls shadows in these kind of like, like, carved things from, like, dating back 30,000 years ago. Like, essentially from the beginning of when people started being people, when they started, like, making things and building things or whatever. These shadows, these particles, this kind of cosmic matter that is like, the essence of what these books are about. She finds them on this material, and she thinks that they're conscious. And she's built this kind of extremely complicated computer where you can communicate with this kind of cosmic junk.

[Ella Risbridger]

You can't really communicate with it, but you can make it do stuff. You can attach the electrodes to your head and fit yourself up to the computer, and you'll be able to see evidence that something's moving independently. Your thought is controlling the computer, in a way. Is what Mary Malone thinks is happening.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes, exactly. And, like, she's we meet her and she is on the brink of losing her funding, as we know, very important. And she's setting that setting, getting ready to, like, basically shut down her entire department. When Lyra just kind of like walks into her office with the alethiometer and is like, oh, yeah, you're into dust. I'm into dust. Let me. Let me show you. And then she sits down at Mary's computer and she's like, oh, yeah, I can use this. Like, the alethiometer. It's just a matter of, like, focusing.

[Ella Risbridger]

Your brain and, like, and just asking it questions.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And it's forming pictures in the same way the alethiometer does in order to communicate with her.

[Ella Risbridger]

And Mary Malone's mind is blown because she's like, no, it does things like the aurora borealis, like, it makes shapes and colors and you can't control them. And Lyra's like, would it not be easier if it was words? And she's like, what do you mean? She's like, no, but.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Right.

[Ella Risbridger]

Like, the pictures are pretty. Like, the random swirls of light are pretty, but, like, I can't read swirls of light. So it would be easier for me.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

If we could just.

[Ella Risbridger]

If they could just speak English. And obviously Mary Malone's like, what are you talking about?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. He's like, yeah, we'd all like that.

[Ella Risbridger]

We'd all like that. And once again, Lyra's kind of put to the test, right. Like, you know, in the first book where it's that thing of.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

With the witch council.

[Ella Risbridger]

The witch council of like, which broom is it? And also, what are the intentions. Why is this sentence so clearly lodged in my brain? What are the intentions of the Tartars with respect of Gamchatka? Which is the question. Which is the question that the consul asked her to check. Why is it in there? It's been in there for 20 years and it's not going. Just a disease I've got. I guess what Lyra does to prove to Mary Malone that this is true is she says, I've just been to the. I've just been to the museum and there's some skulls in there and they've got the wrong date on. And Mary Madone's like, what? And she's like, yeah, they're way older than everyone thinks. I know that because I asked my machine and Mary Malone is obviously like, what are you talking about? And she's like, so the one that had the skull that had trepanning in, that's really old. And the dust was all around it. Mary Malone's like, what are you talking about? How can you. And these are all like ideas that are in the back of Mary Malone's mind about her research, which ideas that she thinks of are so crazy that she can barely voice them. And indeed her colleague Oliver Payne thinks that the reason that they're about to lose their funding is that Mary Malone is too wacky.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

So the important thing about Mary Malone is, I mean, I love her as a character. I love the way Ruth Wilson does her accent, which I find to be very true. And I love the way that she is like an ex nun turned physicist, because it really gets to grips with what Pullman is really fascinated by, which I think is the kind of relationship between science, faith, spirituality, and just human beings being sort of conscious. Which is like we then learn that across these worlds, whether it's Lyra's world and Dust, whether it's Chittagatse and the Specters, or whether it's our world and shadows or dark matter, everyone's obsessed with the same thing, which is that human consciousness is not just this kind of ephemeral thing that happens inside of us. It is like cosmic stuff that falls down on us from space and it has like. It is a real substance. Like it's like an element almost.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. Like it's like atoms.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Right. And if that subatomic. The fucking double slit experiment, as I.

[Ella Risbridger]

Said, self atomic particles. What do they call them? Rutherfords. Yeah, yeah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

They've got plenty of different names.

[Ella Risbridger]

Everyone's got different names. Yeah, particles. But what becomes clear is that Lyra knows about these particles which are Dust, that also have a scientific name and that Mary Malone calls them subatomic particles. In the problem of consciousness.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes. And everyone is every like sort of governing body in all these worlds are obsessed with controlling this. And like the person who controls Dust basically controls humanity. Right. Is like what they're saying but not saying.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. It's about innocence and experience. It's about like the problem of people being able to have free will and think for themselves and make decisions and be kind of, I guess in a way open to the divine.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Agony of saying that on a. About a book for 11 year olds. But it is about that. It's about being connected to things bigger than. Bigger and wise than yourself. It's about being. It's about being connected to all humanity through this common sense of we have consciousness, we have free will. Yeah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And like the way it's interesting as well, because like so much of it's not that Philip Pullman, vis a vis these books, believes that God doesn't exist. He just believes that God shouldn't exist. Like, he thinks that God is a real officer and like the Authority or whatever. He never says God outright, really, but the Authority is a real sort of office. Like he says about angels, they are not. Angel does not represent their character. It represents their station. You know, it is the job. They do not who they are. In a sense, what they are is beings of light. Beings of light and like. And there's one beautiful part where it says when the angels show up, it's crazy that there are angels in this book, but like, that they only take human form because we expect them to see human form. If they were their true selves, they would look more like architecture, which I think is just so brilliant. But, like, he doesn't see science and religion as being separate. He sees them as all as part of the same thing.

[Ella Risbridger]

This quest for understanding. Yeah, it's all the quest for understanding. And I think one thing that's very moving to me about Mary Malone is that Lyra, thrown into our Oxford, is pretty bereft because Jordan College does not exist.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

I mean, and what a nifty way for a children's book to get round the thing of, like, I'm telling you, an 11 year old, a savvy 11 year old, a story.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

To be like, oh, I know Norton College doesn't exist. Actually, you know, I think that kids do it, being like, well, it's obviously made up because I've been to Oxford and that Jordan College isn't real.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

You know what I mean?

[Ella Risbridger]

And then to be like, I thought.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Jordan College was real, but to be.

[Ella Risbridger]

Like, it's not real. Like, when Lyra finds out that it's not. Doesn't exist in our Oxford.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And she's so bereft, she's like, but that's my home.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And she's in this city that's nothing like her city. And she's like, but I wanted to find the scholars.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

I wanted to find the Dust Scholar. And.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And when she finally meets Mary Malone and she's in this, like, pokey little.

[Ella Risbridger]

Office, she's just like, you're a woman in an office with loads of, like, long wires. Why, who are you? But nonetheless, the quest for knowledge is the same. And she's like a woman. Huh. Mary Malone also sets Lyra a test. Everyone's always setting Lyra a test, saying, like, what do you know? Like, find out something that no one knows. And Larry says, You used to be a nun. Anyway, Mary Malone says, come back same time tomorrow. She finds Will, who's been having some big revelations about the fact that his dad was an explorer. And there's a picture of him, his dad, holding him in the newspaper to be like, you know, man leaves baby to do exploring. Goodbye, my wife.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Goodbye, my wife. And is this the point where he also discovers the letters from his father?

[Ella Risbridger]

They go back to Chittagatse, and Lyra goes to sleep, and Will stays up reading these letters. And what the letters reveal is that John Parry, Will's father, has also climbed through holes in the Worlds and has also gone to a different world, which explains why he couldn't come back. He writes these letters, and the letters basically say, we were climbing up this mountain. At the top of the mountain, there was a window in the air, and I went through it. See you when I see you. And it's quite staggering for Will to find out that he and his dad have had the same magical experience as I imagine it would be. And.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I have to say, I do think the Will's dad parts of the book are boring.

[Ella Risbridger]

Do you? I love them.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I don't care for Stanislau Groomin. I just don't care. Every time he comes up, I'm like, I don't care.

[Ella Risbridger]

Okay, Right. So a spoiler that Caroline's just introduced is that Will's dad is not dead. Will's dad is, in fact, a shaman, who we don't know is Will's dad for a long time. We're looking for a guy called John Parry. We've also heard a lot about the explorer Stanislaus Grumman, who, you know, it always feels so exciting to me because you remember that at the start of Northern Lights, he holds up a head and he says, this is the head of Stanislaus Grumman.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

We quickly find out that Jon Parry and Stanislaus Grumman are the same man. Wow. Wow, wow. So he's dead for sure. But he's not. He's living as a shaman in the mountains because he couldn't. He obviously couldn't find the window again, because you climbed through a window in a blizzard.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Fair enough.

[Ella Risbridger]

Fair enough. It's blizzards on both sides.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

If there's, like, one good excuse for abandoning your wife and child is probably that you couldn't find the window back to the world you came from.

[Ella Risbridger]

I climbed through universes in a blizzard.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And now he's become like a shaymin.

[Ella Risbridger]

And his name is Jopari.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Jopari. Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Which Is very nice. Oh, how excited I felt when I found that out. And he is now there hanging out with our old friend Lee Scoresby. Yep, Lee Scoresby, the hot or not hot balloonist, depending on your viewpoint.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

After our last podcast, I discovered that, yeah, nobody really thinks Lee Scoresby is hot. Everybody would fuck the bear.

[Ella Risbridger]

I think that says a lot about your listeners.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Everyone's a grimy little pervert who seeks to be overpowered by an armored bear. Speaking of Jorwick Berenson, he's not in this book, but he's invoked several times and every time it moved me to tears.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's the idea of having a mighty king who's on your side somewhere else.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And the ways he comes up are always the ways in which boldness of.

[Ella Risbridger]

Having a massive talking bear who everybody loves and then being like, not in this one.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Sorry, not in this one. But we remember him fondly. The bit where she's kind of like, her and Will are becoming proper friends and she's really growing to love him. And, you know, because she keeps comparing aspects of his character to Jorg Brunson, where he's like, he was a fighter. True enough. Like Jorg Burns.

[Ella Risbridger]

Like Jorg Burns. So Will finds out and then immediately, immediately will finds out that his father didn't abandon him and got, in fact stuck at a window in the trees. A window in the mountains. We switch to the bloody witches again. You can't. Can't make it up. Off we go back to the witches to see what's going on with the witches. And what's going on with the witches is quite a lot of philosophical debate. Well, what happens with the witches? The witches meet Lee Scoresby. Oh, lovely. We all love witches. And Lee Scoresby. And the witches and Lee Scoresby figure out what's going on, which is that spectres eat grown ups, which is the first time we've really understood. We see some adults get eaten by grown ups. And then this problem with this book, this intricate fucking puzzle box of a book, is that you're like, so how did we get from the witches? The witches essentially tell us what they're looking for. And the witches are trying to explain Chittagatse, which is that the people of Chittagatse were very wicked and they made holes. They did something that caused the specters to happen.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Because Chitikatse is what is known as, like, a crossroads world. It is like many worlds back onto Chittagatse. And so people who are moving between them are making all these kind of holes and Slits where they're passing through. And that is allowing the Specters to sort of accumulate more.

[Ella Risbridger]

I guess we don't know that yet. We know none of that.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Okay.

[Ella Risbridger]

Because remember, basically, this book is kind of the reason I keep thinking about it, like an intricate puzzle is so the witches are like, we have to help Lord Asriel. We need to find a Hatr. Do you remember that? Is that in this book?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it is in this book.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah, yeah. We need to find Eisa Hatr. Also separately, there's a city called chittagaze. And about five, 300 years ago, all these Specters started appearing. And it's just got worse and worse and worse. That's not really to do with us. The witches are like, not to do with us. And he's gorgeous. Be like, maybe it is. And they're like, no, we're trying to find Isahatr if we're trying to find this great, this weapon. And Lee Scoresby's like, fine, I'm trying to find Lyra. And so you have this, like, weird in between thing that's just a lot of being told information, which is that you need to understand what the weapon is and what the witches are doing and the kind of political history of the witches and what Lee Scoresby's about to go off and do. And all these things are happening. And everyone's invoking Yorick Werner sentence to be like, we're all friends with Yorick. It's okay. The bear says, it's nice. And then immediately you've kind of been like, great. Lots of inflation, lots of information. Bam. Back in Lyra and Will's world. Lyra and Will. Ah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

So we haven't talked about the quest that Lyra and Will go on. Midway through the book, which is that the alethiometer is stolen.

[Ella Risbridger]

So that's what happens is they're getting chased by.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. So the alethiometer is stolen by Lord Boreal. They go to his house and they're like, give us back our alethiometer. And he says, I will give you back the alethiometer if you go into Chitigatse, where I can't go because I'm a grown up and I'll be feasted on by specters. Go into a tower. In that tower is a knife. There's a man who has the knife. You must come back and bring me the knife. And if you don't, I'll have you killed, essentially.

[Ella Risbridger]

Also, I'll keep the alethiometer.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And I'll keep the alethiometer. They go into this world. And they've always. They've already had this instinct from the kids they've spoken to in Chiticatse that they're Angelica and her little brother and Paolo, they have this older brother and what's his name again instead of the T. Tulo.

[Ella Risbridger]

Something like that.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Something like that. Tulio. That they have a brother, but he's in hiding somewhere in the city. And what Tulio has been doing is that he's in this kind of great temple where the subtle knife lives with the bearer of Sutton life, who's this random old man called Joachim something or other. And that Tullio is like tied up and tortured Joachim something so that he can be the bearer of the knife so that the spectres will leave him alone. Because the specters for some reason are.

[Ella Risbridger]

Scared of the knife. The specters are scared of the knife. And Tullio is quite a selfish man. He's just like, well then they'll leave me alone.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, he doesn't know how the knife works. He's just like, has it?

[Ella Risbridger]

Yes.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

So then the two of them go into the tower. Will enters in this bloody battle with Tulio where he ends up losing two fingers.

[Ella Risbridger]

He loses two fingers and the cut Will does not stop bleeding.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Because for days he has just lost two fingers. Yeah. And no, you know, having two fingers, calf@ the stump is horrible. However, in the process of this battle, he loses two fingers. But he manages to stab Tulo until he dies.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Making this the second person that Will has killed outright. But the first time he's tried to stab someone to death. Yeah, he's a murderer. That's just his vibe. Anyway, they're there. The old man who's tied up is like, you're here. And Neil's like, I'm not here. I'm really just passing through. This is a kind of side quest, actually. I'm trying to find my dad. And the old man's like, no, now you are the knife's bearer. And he's like, about that. No, because I will be trading it for my friend's like magic watch. And the old man's like, but you have the mark. The mark of the bearer.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

What is the mark of the bearer again, Caroline?

[Ella Risbridger]

It's losing the two fingers on your knife bearing hand.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, shit.

[Ella Risbridger]

And the old man holds out his hand and he's lost the same two fingers I felt about this.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes, of course.

[Ella Risbridger]

And Will's like, well, that just happened. And he's like. And that's how you know. And he's like, what are you talking about? And the old man says, you can cut windows into the world. And it turns out this is the knife that cuts the windows. This is how you get from one world to another. Now you can escape whenever you want.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And also it can cut any material at all, which is how it cuts that staircase in half.

[Ella Risbridger]

There is nothing it can't cut. Yeah, nothing at all. There is no substance, no atom, nothing that it can't slice through effortlessly because the edge of the blade extends far beyond. You can see it. And it's so thin.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Wow. So good.

[Ella Risbridger]

So Will's now the bearer of this knife. Will's now got a destiny. And he's like, unfortunately, no. My destiny is find my dad. And this old man's like, seems like your destiny is bearing this knife for which you've lost two fingers. And he's like, what? He's like, you fought for it and took it and so now you're burying it. And Will's obviously like, oh God, this is. How am I gonna tell Lyra? Can't trade it back.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And also all the while his fingers are on the floor looking like a pair of bloody quotation marks. Book.

[Ella Risbridger]

11 year old. Book for 11 year old.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Because they curl up after they get chopped off. That rocks me off, man. That freaks me out.

[Ella Risbridger]

Freaks my nut out to this day.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It freaks my nut out to this day.

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[Ella Risbridger]

Yep.

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[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

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[Ella Risbridger]

So there's Will. Fingerless.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Fingerless. And then the wielder of the knife. Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Lyra. Hi. We have. And she's like, well, we've got to get the alethiometer back. And he's like, right. But now we have a secret weapon, quite literally, we can steal the alethiometer back. It's interesting to me that one of the main things of this book is to get the alethiometer off Lyra because it's such a powerful tool.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. It's so true.

[Ella Risbridger]

And you need to get rid of it. You've given her this essentially superpower in the first book, and then it's like, right, but what now?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Like, how do we possibly. We can't have her always know the truth of everybody.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And there's a couple of different instances where she's about to ask about Will's father, and she just. She doesn't. Because she's interrupted or because she's made some moral choice not to or whatever. You're right. Like, so much of this plot could just be sort of solved if she just kind of asked the alethiometer everything.

[Ella Risbridger]

And, like.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it's one of those things where if you stand back from it, you can sort of see the joins of the plot. But, like, I'm so conscious as we talk about this that we're like, okay, hang on, let's go back to this part. This part. Whatever. But as you say, it has this kind of puzzle box logic to it where it just. It feels like you're following the many strands of a movie, and you just kind of have to accept.

[Ella Risbridger]

You just wash it. Just. You just kind of washed along with it.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And I think also one of the things that Pullman does, which is why I think not very many people have tried to write books like this, is that you have to be in the hands of a master storyteller. You have to trust that, for example, they work out this elaborate plan to steal the alethiometer back. They cut through one half of the Room. You know, they nip into different worlds. They're basically using. They're basically using Chittagatse as a kind of tunnel. To get from one side of Sir Charles Latham's house to another.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

One dreadful thing that happens. Oh, my God. Mrs. Coulter's there. Lyra realizes that Lord Boreal. That Charles Latham is Lord Boreal. That she's seen him at the cocktail party. That he's in league with the Gobblers. He mustn't have the alethiometer. She also hears them talking about her. Saying he'd gone. That the master of Jordan College had gone insane. Giving it to a child full of betrayal. Mrs. Coulter's there. Flyra sees her mother for the.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

You know.

[Ella Risbridger]

First time in quite a while. Bad, bad, bad. Since she, you know, saw her parents making out at the end of the world.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God.

[Ella Risbridger]

And then she's like, oh, right, you're still here. Okay, cool. What a recalibration for me. Anyway, they steal back the alethiometer. Great, great success. The cat from the beginning. Remember the cat. The cat springs through and causes a distraction. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Because it's kind of a cat.

[Ella Risbridger]

Well, yeah. Chekhov's cat.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Which, for a book about Schrodinger's cat. He's being observed. And not observed is so sweet. Anyway, cat leaps through. Wow. Cat does a distraction. Lovely. It's almost like Will's got a demon, everyone. Lyra's like, wow, it's so nice when he's got a demon. I wonder what it'll look like when he gets a demon.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

You're like, wow, Will's gonna get a demon.

[Ella Risbridger]

So you've got that ticking away in your mind. Anyway, they go back to Chitagatse. Will's got his bleeding hand. They've got the knife. They've got the alethiometer. They're back in this city. And then I'm gonna read the juxtaposition. She'd done what a good demon would have done anyway. We rescued her. And she rescued us. Come on, Will. Don't lie on the grass. It's wet. You gotta come down and lie in a proper bed, else you catch cold. I'll get a new bandage. I'll put some coffee on to cook. I'll make an omelette. We'll be safe now. We've got the alethiometer back. We'll do nothing now except help you find your father. I promise. She helped him up. And they walked slowly through the garden. Towards the gleaming white. Great white, gleaming house under the moon. Chapter 10, the Shaman Lee Scoresby disembarked at the port in the mouth of the Yenisea river and found the place in chaos, with fishermen trying to sell their meager catches of unknown kinds of fish to the canning factories, with ship owners angry about the harbour charges the authorities had raised to cope with the floods, and with hunters and fur trappers drifting into town, unable to work because of the rapidly thawing forest and the disordered behaviour of the animals.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Just like bureaucracy to go from this.

[Ella Risbridger]

Action, action, action, which is like cats leaping through windows. There's my mother. She's betrayed me. Let's steal it. Let's cut through the knife. Slice, slice, slice. To be like, there's quite a lot of problems with the canning factories at the mouth of the Yamisi River. It's like, I'm sorry. And this is Pullman's genius, is that you don't. You're never like, oh, God. You're just like, okay, unknown kinds of fish.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And what's the number one sort of piece of critique you always get when a novel has multiple storylines? It's always like, the readers being like, yeah, I liked. So I liked this person, but I didn't give a fuck about these three people, you know? And, like, he's not. Apart from you not giving a fuck.

[Ella Risbridger]

About Stan Styles grooming.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

To be fair, I just. I don't care for Stanislaus Grooming at all.

[Ella Risbridger]

I'm just. I do care. I'm always. I'm always so happy to be. I'm so happy to be with my balloonist drifting around. He's a mystery. And it's also, like, I love to see magic happen. And that part where. So Stannis. So Lee Scoresby has arrived at the Yamisi river because he is trying to find Stannis House Grooming because the witches have said to him, that's the best way to help Lyra. And he's like, okay, guess I'll. Guess I'll do that. And he finds the shaman, who everyone's like, the shaman will help you find Stannis House Grooming. And the shaman is Stannis House Grooming. Tyler Screaming is not dead. He is also Joe Parry. He manages to pull Lee Scoresby's mother's ring out of nowhere.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, spooky.

[Ella Risbridger]

Spooky. And, like, he's also dying of heart disease, I believe. It's not good to live in a world that's not your own.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. He finds it. He. What the first bit of Stanislaus Groomer does for us is tell us that if you Go into a world, you get a. The world where demons are. You will find your demon. And that's pretty amazing. That's.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

That's pretty incredible.

[Ella Risbridger]

That's pretty incredible. Grumman says. Grumman says to the balloonist Lee Scoresby, that he has summoned Scoresby to him. And Scores be like, no, I came here of my own free will. And he's like, yeah, how do you think summoning works? I called you and you knew you had to come to me. And he is essentially like, I need the subtle knife. And Scoresby's like, I need to protect Lyra. And the grooming is like, okay, well, I'll get the knife and I'll look after Lyra.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

They agree.

[Ella Risbridger]

They go off together in the balloon to try and find this terrible knife. One piece of information we learn from Grumman is that there's a witch who hates him.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Ella Risbridger]

He refused the love of which sexy and powerful witch? And he's gone her. And she said to him, like, live with me. I will be the most beautiful witch there's ever been. Fantastic. And he's like, unfortunately, no.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

She's like, I will your dick off. And he's like, I have to decline.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's so clearly that there's so much.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Sex in these books.

[Ella Risbridger]

I will fuck your dick off. She offers to fuck his dick off. And he's like, despite the fact you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life, and despite the.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Fact that there's very little chance of me ever seeing my wife and child.

[Ella Risbridger]

Again, I will have to decline, with great respect, very. That EB White. I must decline for secret reasons. So Lee Scoresby says to him, swear by whatever made you decline the love of the witch, that you'll look after Lyra. He's like, yeah, fantastic. No questions asked. You and me, we're balloonists now. And I always want to stay with them much, much longer.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

The thing about the balloonist stuff is that I love Lee Scoresby. He's a great friend of mine. I love the ballooners life. I love hearing about Hester, who is one of my favorite of the demons. I think she's just great. I love his sort of like Texan approach to things. But almost anytime we hop in that balloon, we know something terrible is gonna happen in that balloon, you know what I mean? I've developed like a Pavlovian response to whenever that balloon's in the air. Because almost always, like now the balloon's being attacked, now somebody's holding on to the rope and like, all this kind of stuff. It's like, oh, something terrible is gonna happen if we get in that balloon.

[Ella Risbridger]

And it's just. The problem is we're like, almost at the end of the book. There's about 100 pages left. And from here on out, it's all so bad.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it's a real bloodbath.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's. For example, it's. Lyra and Will are like, oh, thank God, we've got the knife, we've got the alethiometer. Time to set off and find Will's dad. And then it becomes clear that they have killed Tulo and that all of the children of Chitagatse are now going to murder them with their bare hands. They are going to tear them limb from limb. And they really mean it. And they really fucking mean it. And Will can't really find it.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

They really mean it.

[Ella Risbridger]

They really mean it. And Will's hand is bleeding profusely because again, he's lost two fingers to the most dangerous weapon ever invented. So Will is very weak because simply, like, I do think it's important, if horrible, and here's a trigger warning, but to really imagine what it would be like to have blood continuously pouring out of two missing fingers and how ill you would feel.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And you're 12.

[Ella Risbridger]

You're 12 and you haven't eaten properly. You've been eating weird omelettes and beans for days. Yeah, it's bad. Lyra also can fight a bit, but mainly she's, like, used to fighting with, like, mud and punches. And these children are just like, no, I think will tear you apart.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's very. Have you ever seen that old movie, Suddenly Last Summer?

[Ella Risbridger]

I have not.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's a very xenophobic, scary movie. It's very, like. It's very Southern gothic, essentially. It's about, like, oh, this. There was this beloved son of the household. Something terrible happened to him, but nobody knows what it is. And, like, we're going to lobotomize L. The Taylor because she's the only person who remembers and she won't stop talking about it. And then it's finally revealed in the last phase that he's torn apart limb from limb and possibly eaten by Cuban children.

[Ella Risbridger]

That's so not what I was expecting, but it's so clearly. What was it?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It's like every time I read Otirikatse in that.

[Ella Risbridger]

Was this in Pullman's mind?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I think so. It does feel a lot like Suddenly Last Summer.

[Ella Risbridger]

And these kids are like, they're rabid.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Also like, they're properly feral kids. Like, their whole desire is to kill Lyra and Will.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

They want revenge, which Lyra and Will are both like. Yeah, fair. Okay. Anyway, Lyra and Will end up perched on the top of a tower, and the children are coming for them and they're going to die. And then the witches come.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Seraphina Pekala.

[Ella Risbridger]

The witches come and they're like, we can't get down all the way. You're gonna have to, like, leap up. And they leap up and they get swept away. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. So thank God finally some adults are looking after Lyra and Will.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

It feels like such a breath out when Lyra is finally like, Seraphina Bagler.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Thank you. I was being killed to death. My mother is evil. My mother is trying to kill God.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

To go back to Will. Bleeding profusely for a second. I think one of the funniest parts of the book, and it's not a funny book, is the part where the old. The aging kind of the old bearer of the knife is like, I have ointment that will heal your wounds. And then he takes this random, like, bottle of Dettol. He's like.

[Ella Risbridger]

And he's like, very powerful. Nothing like it in this world. It's been brought back by travelers. And you're like, oh, I guess so.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I guess it has been brought back by travelers.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's kind of terrifying. I've recently been watching For Secret reasons. Not for secret reasons, just because it was on the telly. A show from 2004 called Tribe, which is where an anthropologist called Bruce Parry, which I do think is not a coincidence, but maybe it was because it came out after travels the world living with indigenous tribes. He's a person who's dedicated his life to being like, we must protect indigenous peoples and their ways of life at all costs. Is it problematic? Maybe. I don't know. It's certainly compelling. And there is this episode in which he goes to a remote island and a guy is. He has the worst wound I've ever seen in my life. And they're like, yeah, a tree fell on his foot. And Bruce Perry, who's not a doctor, is just like, I guess I'll be here with my antiseptic cream in my bag. And they're all like, wow, this is unbelievable. This is a magical substance. And you're like, oh, right. Yeah. Because we take it for granted all the time.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

That if you have a minor cut, you put antiseptic in it and it doesn't give you Sepsis and kill you instantly. Antibiotic resistance. It's going to be a real shock to all of us when we all start dying of small wounds again. Sorry, sorry. But the world's a mess. The world's a mess. And this book makes that very clear.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And, yeah, it also makes. Cherikatse is like a world where it really shows how it doesn't take a lot for an entire society to crumble and be filled with bands of, like, roving, murderous children.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah, because they've got Coca Cola.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

They've got Coke.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And the kind of implication with Chikatse is that, like, they once were a great place and then it was like, basically greed is, like, people constantly going in and out of other worlds that has allowed this kind of leaking of essence to come in. Right. Like this sort of all these spirits from other worlds who are just, like, devouring them in this parasitic way. What do you think? What do you think about that?

[Ella Risbridger]

I think it's hard to get into without, like, getting into the whole problem of consciousness, which is like. I think Chittagatse, I think it was a prosperous city that did very well. I think there's, like. It's somewhere between. Because I would think of it as being a bit American, but I don't know why. I guess because they speak English and, like, Venice or somewhere like that. Somewhere. It's like. And they had the master craftsman. They had the greatest craftspeople in the world, and they weren't satisfied. It's to do with greed, but I also think it's to do with hubris and being like, I can be greater than. You know, it's kind of. It's a big tower of baby for me, this sense of being like. And I can make something better than.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, God.

[Ella Risbridger]

What's kind of fascinating is that I'm trying to formulate a thought here. There's. So it's. It's. In some ways it's kind of like that thing in Islam of not drawing people or animals because you can't make it better than God. And don't try and imitate God. And there's something in, like, all those stories of, like, it's almost like Icarus and Daedalus making those wax wings themselves, being like, humans can fly. Why not?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And it's just kind of all through human history, I guess, there have been these stories about. And this civilization thought they were as good as God, and they started making, like, creations and doing things that no human should have the power to do. And it's interesting to me that in loads of these stories, people get punished. And certainly the people of Chitigatse see it as a. The spectres as a punishment from God for their hubris, essentially, and being like, we can do anything. We can all. We can make anything. We can make as much money. We. I don't know. I think it's a complex little story.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

The story of Chittagatse. And what's interesting also is that it feels like. It feels like a morality tale.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

It feels like a fairy tale into which Lyra and Will have wandered. And it's like, oh, right. This is what happens after.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it's. They have, like, walked into the epilogue of another story a little bit.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yes. Because the fall of Chitagatse is something that happened, like, 50 years ago, 300 years ago.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Right.

[Ella Risbridger]

I think it started happening 300 years ago, but clearly it was long enough for them to be able to get Coca Cola and, like.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Baked beans.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And for them to have had a thriving city until recently.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. It's got a lot worse recently.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And we will, I think, find out why.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. You know, in this whole thing, we haven't talked about Lord Azrael at all.

[Ella Risbridger]

He's not in it.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. But, like, he's building an army.

[Ella Risbridger]

And everyone knows Heaven Asriel's building an army. The witches are going to help him any way they can by bringing him this weapon or not. A weapon, ESA Hatter. So the witches are very much like. It's all tied up together. Will's like, where is my dad? Will's just obsessed with trying to find his dad. He thinks he's been swept up in all this by accident.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

What I find very interesting is this idea that, like, this is a book all about free will and whether you have free will and whether there are, like, patterns in things.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And kind of the answer is no. The answer is, like, you're just an atom moving.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. On a predestined course.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Spooky. So the witches pick up Will and Lyra, and they fly them off somewhere safe. And Serafina Pekala is like, lyra, who's this guy about Will? And you're like, oh, right. Yeah. Last time we saw Seraphina, Will was not in this story.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Spooky. And then, of course, because it's a life. Bam.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Mary Malone again.

[Ella Risbridger]

We're into Mary Malone having an argument with her colleague Oliver about research funding and whether Oliver is going to take a new job.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And this is where I love her. The most where he's like, you know that guy? Because, like, Lord. Lord Boreal has shown up at their office being like, right. I am very powerful, very rich. I sit in multiple government boards. And I think there's something in your research. It could be used in sort of defense. Sort of defense funding or whatever. And also, by the way, if you've seen either of those two kids, tell me absolutely everything you know about them, or you will be murdered in your sleep, essentially.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. I mean, what it is, is that he starts off like an old man. He's like, oh, I'm just an old man. I know things through my own ways. I'm sorry to hear that your research is being. I'd be happy to have a word.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I used to be a civil servant.

[Ella Risbridger]

Used to be a civil servant. Let's say no more. And then he's like. And then Mary Malone's like, yeah, great. Have a word with the right people. Fantastic. And he's like, oh, by the way, I'll be telling you what results to find.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Which is a huge.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

The Soviet Union is invoked several times in this book. And, like, there is something very Cold War thriller about it, isn't there? About, like. It's a lot of, like, you know, cloak and dagger. It's a lot of, like, people trying to sort of fool authorities and sort of pull, you know. Do you get the kind of Cold War spy vibe?

[Ella Risbridger]

The Cold War spy vibe, I think, particularly like, there's a little description of Charles Nathan, Lord Boreal, that I think is very interesting. Dr. Malone looked at him very clearly for the first time. She saw a man in his late 60s, prosperous, confident, beautifully dressed, used to the very best of everything. Used to moving among powerful people and whispering in important ears. Oliver was right. He did want something. And they wouldn't get the support unless they satisfied him. She folded her arms. I mean, I love her so much. And, like, there's such a theme of this book of being like, rich old men don't know anything. Don't know everything. It's like sometimes people who look confident and prosperous and well dressed.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Are the most evil of all.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

There's a real theme throughout all three books, to be honest. It was like, authority is very scary and authoritarianism is very scary, and people who, you know, kind of swim in that sea will do anything to get. To get anything.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And there's a. It's very interesting as well. When someone has too much of anything, they are immediately cast in a kind of a villainous light whenever anyone is surrounded by luxury or beautiful things or are beautifully dressed. That is Pullman's sort of sign that, like, don't trust them. Like, for example, the first conversation that she has with Mary Malone, like, Mary Malone has like, fuck all going on in her office. And she's like, oh, I don't have any milk for the coffee, but I've got these ginger biscuits here. And she's like a rumpled packet of biscuits in her desk drawer. And that's like the way that we know we can trust Mary Malone. The way that we know we can trust the witches is that they have no possessions and they have, like, dressed in, like, scraps of black material. And any. Any character who's, like, beautifully turned out is evil.

[Ella Risbridger]

God, it's so true. But you are allowed to have your one perfect possession. You're allowed to have your knife. You're allowed to have your golden compass. But what is like. I mean, he's so creepy. Boreal. I think there's a bit where he's like. I meant, don't expect me to reveal my sources. I mentioned the Official Secrets Act, a tedious piece of legislation. But we mustn't be naughty. It's like. That's exactly the right tone of that kind of Englishman. Yeah, Naughty.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Like his. He is just up to his elbows in blood. Do you know what I mean?

[Ella Risbridger]

To his elbows. Anyway, he basically is like, I'll fund you, but you have to do what I say. And if you see this girl or this boy and you don't turn them in, you'll die.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And Mary Malone's colleague's like, I'm gonna do it.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Dr. Oliver Payne is like, yeah, I mean, it'll be nicely funded. And she's like, no.

[Ella Risbridger]

And she's like, it's evil. And he's like.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

He's like, defense funding. She's like, that means killing people. And sometimes it really helps to just like have a character, a grown up, smart character who we trust just lay something out incredibly simply, even though they themselves are very nuanced person. Defense funding means killing people.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah. And it's. It's kind of fascinating. It's not just at the moment politically. I guess it always feels like things are relevant politically. I'm sure any year. I'm sure any year for the last 20 years, this book has been relevant in new ways.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Girl, just to pause you on that, I was re listening to an episode you and I recorded five or six years ago. Maybe it was like our Mitford Christmas special. And, like, we're talking in veiled terms at the beginning of the podcast about how like, you know, especially right now, it feels particularly important and I for the life of me have no fucking clue what we're talking about. I think it might be about Boris Johnson or something about the election. But like it's so strange that so many podcasts I've listened to over the last sort of eight or nine years is like, oh, right now when things are particular particularly bad. It's like, oh, wow, things have felt particularly bad for some time now.

[Ella Risbridger]

Yeah, I mean this is a bit of a diversion but like I've been on a real non fiction history kick and it's like, oh, like I've read a lot of books about the Soviet Union. I've read a lot of books about Chernobyl. It's like, that was a bad time. Read a lot of books about JFK for some reason. Why, please, someone stop me. I'm turning into someone's dad. Nuclear reactors and jfk, whether jfk, who shot JFK anyway? And it's like, oh, right, all of these were uniquely bad times to be alive. That's. It's always bad anyway. But I think, am I okay to read one bit? Yeah, please. I think this is very like pertinent. He ran his hands through his hair and said, well, no, nothing's signed. It would be different. I'd be so I think we're onto something. What are you saying? I'm not saying. You're hinting. What are you getting at? Well, he walked around the laboratory, spreading his hands, shrugging, shaking his head. If you don't get in touch with him, I will. He said. Finally she was silent. Then she said, oh, I see. And this is the bit that I think is particularly like timeless Mary. I've got to think of. Of course you have. It's not that. No, no, no, you don't understand. Yes, I do. It's very simple. I'm off. It stinks. You go ahead. And it's like the Mary I've got to think of is so everybody who's about to do a bad thing to be like, oh, I've actually got to think about. It's like, yeah, of course you have, yeah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I've got to think of my family.

[Ella Risbridger]

I've got to think of other things. But I think of like my research like this will fund. I've got to be sensible. It's like, right. But he's like, I've got to, you know, I want my laboratory to run, I want to stay here and I don't want that. And she's like, right, but he's just come in here, threatened us both with death, said he wants to kill. He's gonna. He wants information on two children and that he wants to find new ways of killing people with our research. And he's like, yeah, but the thing.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

He says, which is the thing that everybody is faced with at some point or another and is often forced to contend with, is like, yeah, but I would change it from the inside.

[Ella Risbridger]

You don't understand. It's like. She's like, I do. It's very simple.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

It stinks.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It stinks. It's so, like, beautiful.

[Ella Risbridger]

I'm off. It stinks. Anyway, she hangs up her lab coat, leaves. He calls Sir Charles. But then it's midnight. Mary Malone breaks back into her own office.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Now there's security on the door. What? Why is there a security? Security's got a gun.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Security with a gun.

[Ella Risbridger]

There's armed security at the edge of her lab. Which she left three hours ago.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. That is so scary.

[Ella Risbridger]

And.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And she breaks back in using Oliver's id.

[Ella Risbridger]

No. No. She breaks back in with her own id.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And.

[Ella Risbridger]

And he's like, I don't know. I don't know. And she's like, you don't know who I am. You don't know anything. You've just been told not to let anyone in. And she's like, but it's my lab. And she's like, right, okay. This means that whatever I do here, this is my one chance. I'll never be allowed in again. Once he calls the person and what she does is she remembers what Lyra said earlier, which is, why are you doing it with weird lights? You could just get them to talk to you. And she hooks herself up to the electrodes, and she starts typing, and they talk back. The shadows, dust, subatomic particles, angels. They talk back. And she's like, this is crazy. I'm talking. I'm typing into nothing. And they essentially say to her, ask a question. She's like, are you shadows? Yes. Are you dust? Yes. Are you dark matter? Yes. What are you? Angels. And they give her a quest. And the quest is the first, like, really biblical thing we've had in this whole book. And obviously, the first book's quite heavy on the Bible. This book, less so. And what the dust says to Mary Malone, who, let us not forget, used to be a nun. Find the girl and the boy. Waste no more time. You must play the serpent.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

[Ella Risbridger]

There's nothing else to say but wow.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Wow. So exciting. So it's like just like this middle aged scientist, former nun on this quest that she doesn't understand at all and has just realized that she can talk to like dark matter and atoms. And it's so exciting.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's so exciting and terrifying as well, because also we like Mary Malone. What do you mean, play the serpent?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And so she goes back home, she says she does steal Oliver Payne's id. She doctors it at home and makes it Olive Payne, which I think is very good. And she, she, the, the computer like gives her an address, which is the address of where the window is into Chittagatse. She goes there. It's been completely tented and full of security. She goes up to the security and she's like, yeah, I'm Dr. Olive Payne. And they're like, oh, you don't know Dr. Mary Malone, do you? Because we have instructions to apprehend her and to.

[Ella Risbridger]

She's like, no, I actually hate her. He's. She's really evil. I'm a different woman.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I'm a different Irish woman. Yeah. And then she just goes through this tent which she thinks is going to be like, I don't know, has like a comet landed or something? And then it's just the window.

[Ella Risbridger]

Just the window steps on through and she steps on through. And that I think would have been a fantastic place to end this book. But instead something much worse and much more painful happens.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it's a really harsh one.

[Ella Risbridger]

It's probably like the saddest bit of the saddest ending to a second book series I can think of, which is that we've got the witches, we've got Lyra, we've got Will. They. It's essentially a huge terrible battle breaks out. The witches can't cure Will's hand. Will's hand. And we've got Stanislaus Grumman, John Parry, Will's dad. That's all one man, by the way.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Stanislau Grumman, Joe Parry and John Perry and Will's dad are all the same person.

[Ella Risbridger]

They walk into a bar, they order one drink. So Lee Scoresby and Will's dad are coming towards Lyra and Will.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

They're finally going to be reunion.

[Ella Risbridger]

Scoresby's looking for Lyra. Will's dad is looking for the knife. Coincidentally, he's also about to see Will. Wow, wow, wow.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

So he hasn't seen him.

[Ella Risbridger]

The witch is there. And then the forces of evil descend on them. Essentially, the Will manages to briefly sneak away and see his dad. Wow, wow, wow. They Sit together on a rock. They don't like each. They're very suspicious of each other. Obviously, Will's dad wants the knife. Will's like, I'm gonna give you the knife. I don't know who you are. You're a stranger to me. You're a weird shaman. They look into each other's eyes. They realize they have the same eyes. And the witch who is protecting Will turns out to be the witch that Will's dad scorned. And he shoots him. She shoots him through the heart. And he's dead. He's just dead.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

He's just dead.

[Ella Risbridger]

They've never. They literally. Will just says, we never even knew it until that second. He's just dead, and there is no hope for him. And then the witch kills herself. Okay, okay, Right, that's the ending, is it? No. Unfortunately, the forces of more evil are descending on them. And they are burning the forests with napalm. They are napalming the entire country to smoke out Lee Scoresby.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, God. Why are they smoking out Lees Corsby again?

[Ella Risbridger]

Because they want the knife.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, right. Okay. I think Lee Scrosby has the knife.

[Ella Risbridger]

They. They want to stop him getting to Lord Asriel.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I see.

[Ella Risbridger]

And they want Lyra, and they want Will. And Will's just coming back down the mountain. He's furious. He's like, someone's just killed my dad. He gets back. Lyra has been kidnapped.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Bad day for Will Parry.

[Ella Risbridger]

Bad day. Forest on fire. Lee Scoresby is in his balloon, thinking, I must do anything to protect Will, the witches and Lyra. He is in a prolonged and terrible battle. Anyway, he takes them all down with him, but they eventually shoot him to death. And his. No, his beautiful hair demon Hester, she presses her poor proud broke herself against him.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And then they died. I'm crying.

[Ella Risbridger]

I didn't even have to look that up. That's too close to me.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I'll say it again.

[Ella Risbridger]

She pressed her poor, proud, broken self to him, and they died. It's so bad. And he's done this. And he. And the last thing Hester says to him is, we were doing it for Lyra, Lee. We were doing it for Lyra. Oh, my goodness. And it's all too late, because Lyra's already been kidnapped and the planet is burning. Will's dad is dead.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Will is bleeding.

[Ella Risbridger]

Will is not bleeding. Oh, yeah. Because Will's dad has helped him with his hand. That's the one thing he does, is he's like, I have a special thing. Anyway, Will's dad's dead. Lee Scoresby's dead. Lyra's been kidnapped. The planet's on fire. Oh, and the Cliff Ghasts have. Who are the horrible, terrible, monstrous things who have, by the way, ripped up the balloon. The balloon is also dead. The Cliff Ghasts have through, like, fragments of things they have been talking about Isehater, this weapon that Lord Asriel seeks and how it will destroy God. And how it is the subtle knife. And a fox hears it and takes it back to their enemies. So everyone knows everything.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Everything.

[Ella Risbridger]

Everything's lost. And it's pretty bad. And the witches are all gone. Many of them are dead, including the one who killed herself out of shame. And Will is there by himself. And two angels appear.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Oh, yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And the angels are like, come with us. And he's like, that's Lyra's rucksack. And they're like, yeah, yeah, not important. And he's like, no, that's Lyra's rucksack with her alethiometer. She'd never leave that behind. Never, never, never. And the angels are basically like, humans are weird. Come with us. And Will is just standing, looking at his best beloved friend's things that she would never leave behind. She has few possessions and she fucking treasures them. And Will's just standing there staring. And that's the end of the book. Good night. Sleep well. Children. Wait two years for the resolution of this story. Jesus Christ. And what I would say is, when you think about the book in these terms, it in no way conforms not just to the structure of a children's book, but to a novel in general. It doesn't resolve. It ends up in a much worse place.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

There's very little hope.

[Ella Risbridger]

How did you feel at 11 being like. And I guess this is a complete book, Is it? The subtle knife.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

The subtle knife. Ugliest word in the world.

[Ella Risbridger]

Ugly word. In which all these characters, 1 million characters emerge and most of them die. Is it most of them? It's not most of them, but loads of people you love and trust die. That double whammy of the Alamo Gulch is awful. Like, I have been listening to this on audiobook and I simply had to sit down very. So I was in the middle of, like, doing a huge heap of laundry for some reason. I'm always doing laundry. I don't know why. I was, like, sitting on the end of my bed, like, surrounded by, like, 1,000 things that needed putting away. Just like, I'm afraid I can't move. I'm afraid I'LL be here silently staring and weeping because Will, dad is so brave. Then Lee Scoresby is there at the end, and he's just, like, remembering what it was like to play, like, essentially cowboys and Indians, I think, is what he's, like, remembering playing. He's remembering being a kid with, like, a little pop gun. He's just like, oh, yeah, we used to run and hide behind a rock. This is like that, except now everyone's got a real gun. And at the end, the last thing he manages to do is, like, he's got a little flower that Seraphina Pekala gave him. And he's like, come, come to me, Seraphina Pekala. And she gets there and they're already dead. Oh, I remember just, like, thinking, why did you even. Why did you give him a flower? Why did you give him. It could have helped him if the witches had come. And it's like, because that's life, man. What she does do is she puts a spell on his body so that it will not decay until it is disturbed. And you're like, oh, I guess that's some comfort.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Is that anything?

[Ella Risbridger]

It becomes vital in the next bit. Because it becomes vital in the next.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Book, which we will be covering in due course, I would say.

[Ella Risbridger]

Is it even weirder?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

The third one is fucking weird.

[Ella Risbridger]

The third one's fucking weird.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

So.

[Ella Risbridger]

Because they're all fucking weird.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I didn't read this trilogy until my twenties, and then I had them just back to back or whatever. I kind of forgot. Forgot that Sutton life had this fucking crazy, tragic ending. It really caught me by surprise. It caught me again by surprise.

[Ella Risbridger]

Everyone's dead.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Everyone's dead.

[Ella Risbridger]

I can't stress to you enough that the brief respite of being like, the witches are here. It's gonna be okay. We're all together. Oh, and you're. Because you're a child.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

Oh, also, you're a child and you're a reader. So you're like, yeah, great. Finally, Will. Will meet his dad. I don't know what will happen there, but, like, Will and his dad will, like, presumably have a conversation. Nope. They just look each other in the eyes and then he gets shot through the heart. And it's, like, not even random. It's been seeded so long ago.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

That a witch hates him and wants him to die.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

But it also has nothing to do with the main plot of EG Killing Guard. Do you know what I mean?

[Ella Risbridger]

Except that. Except that, like, the reason he angered Rutus Gardi was because he was like, I'm in love. I love my wife and child, and even I can't betray them. I must be true to. I must love. I must be true to the thing I love, even if it hurts me physically. And I think that's a huge theme of. Of this book is like, you must be true to the things you like. You need your own moral compass. And Stanislaus Grumman or John Perry or whoever he is, by the end, this is, like, one of the things he's got in his moral compass. And I guess so much of these books is like, find out what. What you live for and what you die for, you know? Yeah.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Because the actual. It's interesting is one of. One of the witches who's been with Lord Asriel comes back and reports the witches being like, wow, wow, wow, gals. You're not gonna believe it. Like, Lord Asriel is going to kill the Authority. And he. He really made me understand the ways in which religion is a curse on humanity and we have to fight for him, and he's assembling an army and whatever. Everyone's like, I don't know.

[Ella Risbridger]

It kind of sounds like a hymn problem.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

It kind of sounds like a hymn problem. And, like, the thing is that, like, the things Lord Asriel is fighting for, even though we don't trust or really like Lord Asriel because of him murdering Roger, etc. Like, we're like, oh, yeah, that, I guess, is a noble cause. But actually, it's not really a book that's interested in noble causes as much as interested in the kind of, like, the interpersonal loyalties that people have to one another, and that being the kind of greatest cause of all.

[Ella Risbridger]

I think that's right. And I also think that it's a book very concerned with, like, okay, but where do you. Like, a principle is good. A principle is fine. A fine thing to have, but it will have consequences. And it's like, it's just such a big idea for a kid to be like, john Perry dies because he loved his wife and kid and he wanted to be true to them.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

And Lee Scoresby dies because he wanted. He was like, lyra, that's someone I must protect at all costs. And.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

And also importantly, Lee Scoresby has lived his whole life having no moral compass and has lived very well. Do you know what I mean? Like, he has a conversation with Seraphina Peckla in the first book where he's like, I don't really involve myself with this stuff. I just take money and I do.

[Ella Risbridger]

Jobs and also, I think the temptation is always to think of him as like, he's a balloonist. He loves the balloon. It's like, no. He's very much like, no, I'm ballooning so I can get my farm in the Midwest.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

He's a person who has loved nothing and then he loves something and he dies for it. And that's what makes him noble. Yeah. Oh, no, she's gone again. Actually, I find Lee Scoresby and Hester to be just so.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Ella Risbridger]

To be like, oh, right, yeah, you can find a cause, like, so it's never too late. You can spend your whole life kind of drifting and then you're like, oh, no, this is the thing that matters to me. I do think a big part of this book, and maybe this is like a good note to end on, is.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Like, yes, you've got Pilates.

[Ella Risbridger]

Don't you find the thing that matters to you. Yeah, like a huge part of this book is find the thing that matters to you and then do everything to take care of it. And that's the subtle life, I guess. A book for children. A book for children such as me in my grandma's house being like, I don't understand this.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I'll be carrying it around with me.

[Ella Risbridger]

Probably for the next 10 years.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

That's how you got away with it, man.

[Ella Risbridger]

You and Kerry being like, what the fuck is this?

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I mean, I never finished it in Kerry.

[Ella Risbridger]

How dare you.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

I literally threw it across the room and then yelled at my mom.

[Ella Risbridger]

And that's why children are ungrateful little shits. Goodbye.

[Carolyn O'Donoghue]

Bye, everyone. We'll be back with the amber spyglass in due course, I guess.

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[Ella Risbridger]

Yep.

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