I’ve just completed The Book of Dust trilogy. Whilst it’s nice to be back in the world of Lyra and others, the disappointment now I’ve finished has hit me like a train!

I love Philip Pullman, so I’m hoping some stuff has gone over my head but there’s just so much, that is so bad! Maybe someone can please prove me wrong regarding the below:

Plot holes or things that were unexplained, underdeveloped or downright pointless:

• Starting with the most obvious - the windows into other worlds. We finish TAS knowing that: 

- There can be only 1 opening and that has be in the land of the dead. The angels went to work ensuring they were all closed
- The opening of worlds creates Spectres
- Living in a world that isn’t your own is not possible long term

Now, we discover, that actually:
- There’s loads of windows in to other worlds and Delamare got to work finding them all remarkably quickly
- Closing the window to another world can be achieved by bombing it twice…?
- We actually need these openings to allow Dust to pass from one world to the next
- And, most annoyingly, when Lyra discovers this she basically doesn’t give a shit. I get she’s lost her imagination, and Pan (not Will) is the most important person she needs to find right. But to barely react to this bombshell at all is wild - my book almost went out the window at this point.

• Lyra has lost her imagination? I know this is basically the premise of the whole book, and yes I guess it’s something we all go through to a certain extent as we enter adulthood. But this is the stubborn, wild Lyra that has lost her imagination? A few years back you were literally running around with armoured bears, flying with witches and literally hopping between worlds every other day! Now after reading a few existential books she’s lost her imagination? Prior to her journey through the middle east, she didn’t even have a job, or bills to pay, so how could the effects of Alkahest taken hold of her?
• Malcolm’s spangled ring - no further explanation about this at all is totally absurd given its lengthy inclusion in the whole trilogy (he does manage to develop near super human intelligence and power though…)
• The Blue Hotel - we finally get there after TSC. Some whispers (which also go unexplained) and reuniting a girl with her daemon before they trot away happily into the endless, dangerous arid desert. No sign of Pan, or anything of any use whatsoever really. 
• Tashbulak and TP. Did I miss something here - what was the point? An old factory, a big corporation with too much money? A couple more pretty useless characters that add nothing to the story?
• Let’s have Alice mess around and remember some secret code word for word…for no apparent reason
• Let’s also create a rare and powerful alliance between the Witches and Gryphons…for no apparent reason
• The group of priests that consider rebelling against the new Magisterium? Let’s hold secret meetings about our discontent…and never mention it ever again.
• There are so many things wrong with the last chapter, but the idea that this world, where daemons are dead or dying, alkahest takes affect, nobody seems to have any deep meaningful relationship with anyone or anything other than money (apart from Mr and Mrs Butler), but we’re now going to throw a full moon party with live music and dancing - woohoo!
• The Rose Oil is so valuable, but now we’re digging up all the roses to plant other stuff.

Please can someone prove me wrong.

What I just didn’t like:

• Malcolm’s love interest with Lyra. I can maybe, albeit uncomfortably, live with that age gap under normal circumstances. But we went from big Brotherly love and changing nappies in LBS, then bam! Suddenly she rocks up to his class, smells great and he;s totally in love with her?!
• Seems to be a lot of unnecessary sexual violence. From the attack of Alice in LBS, the constant lingering of eyes on Lyra throughout TSC and TRF (we get it Philip, she’s 21 and hot now), to the assault on Lyra on the train - it made me uncomfortable (maybe that's the point?) but I feel like Lyra dealing with misogyny now that she’s grown up could have been handled better. It's also barely mentioned at all afterwards, like PP just threw it in there without actually thinking out this would affect Lyra's character. He feels much more comfortable mentioning that Lyra needs a tampon every few weeks. I’d be interested to hear what female readers thought of this though?
• Alkahest ≈ capitalism. Okay, fine, if that’s what PP wants to go with, I can live with that. But this is one of the moments the whole book has been leading up to and I think we got about half a page on it.
• The ultimate reuniting of Lyra and Pan. A hug and a few kisses, then straight on to “Shit, that’s a big tractor over there”
• Oh, and by the way, you remember Serafina Pekkala, right?! Yeah she’s totally dead btw. :|  

Apologies for the ramblings many have heard before, but typing this provided some of the satisfaction which was sorely missed after finishing the book :).

I *know* this isn't HDM related, but does anyone know where I can watch the Ruby in the Smoke adaptation?

The BBC don't have it on iPlayer at the moment, and I can't find it on Prime.

You guys probably see this question a lot, but I got LBS as a gift from my parents, not knowing its part of a whole series. Ive learned that the best way to read this series is in chronological order and then the prologues, but would it really be that bad if I start with La Belle Sauvage? I’d like to start reading it now in the fall since I feel like it would fit the mood, and Im not invested enough (yet) to buy/borrow the other books before this one.

Im just asking your guys opinion on this. Would it mess up the timeline of the story if I start with La Belle Sauvage?

Thanks!!

I remember some book somewhere mention that Marisa spend time abroad during her college education at two different places, but i can't find it anywhere. Anyone remember which places it were and where it is mentioned?

(pic unrelated, just vibes)

Like a board/card game or digital equivalent with lots of replay value

Found this comic in the local library.

I’d like to frame it. I know it’s from the movie and not, potentially, 100 percent book accurate.

ok here me out please I promise I’m not crazy I just have a very creative imagination. ever since I first read the books as a teen I’ve liked pretending I have a deamon who I can talk to in my head or even sometimes just pretend hes there. he’s called blue, and eventually I pretended he’d settled as a kingfisher but as a kid had fun imagining him changing form. I just wanted to get this off my chest to strangers because I end up feeling weird about it because isn’t that technically an imaginary friend? though at the same time idk because I love pretending OTHER people have them too and act like it’s a version of the universe where we all have deamons like Lyras but at the same time it’s very much like wills. so yeahhh :)

I'm watching this amazing series for the first time.

I got to the episode Tower of angels.

I was born with a deformity on my left hand.

I finally found my hand twin.

I am the bearer of the subtle knife.

In TAS, the boatman clearly says that all present have to leave the same part of themselves that Lyra was leaving in Pan, before they can go to the land of the dead. Tialys and Salmakia are also shown to be in the same pain as Will when leaving the shore, while his own daemon was being ripped out. This clearly means they do have daemons, but we never see them. What do you imagine they would be?

That’s just attempted rape of my comfort character,
Like I get that this is a series that is meant more for adults but for those of us who grew up reading the books of dust (my favorite series of all time btw) this is just really jarring for not really a good reason. We can already see that Lyra is struggling enough as it is while not with pan 😔 why add insult to injury?

Hello all, new chapter has been posted. Enjoy :)

So I've been reading the book over a period of months now with long gaps (still not done), and am halfway through it. Early in the book Olivier meets Leila and father Gerhardt, reports to them and they go to try grab lyra. When I skimmed this scene to catch up on the half of the book I've already read I realized I can't place any prior acquaintance between Gerhardt/nuncio and Olivier. I've checked in secret commonwealth and the rose field with the search function but this seems to be their first meeting and yet bonneville just leads with "I found the girl" or something.

Is there any other context between them and their prior acquaintance or common understanding for this interaction?

I first read the books in 5th or 6th grade and loved them, then again in graduate school and loved them even more. Now, years later, I just finished watching the series. I thought it was spectacularly done.

First, I hope some of the folks who worked on the CGI happen upon this post some time. You did a fantastic job building the worlds!! The daemons and the bears moved so like the wild animals we know, something I very much appreciated as a wildlife biologist. I was hoping to see a visual representation of the Mulefa, whom I’ve always had a hard time picturing, but totally understand why they abandoned the rhomboid lack-of-spine structure. Thought the Mulefa were great regardless. The airships, the balloon, the angels with their crazy wings, THE CREEPY-ASS SPECTRES - well done, everyone who made it come alive. Oh, shout out to the foley artists for the spectre sounds in particular.

The acting was also incredible. The show’s version of Lyra was quite different from the books, and equally as wonderful. I can’t believe such a young actress did such an incredible job. And my god, Ruth Wilson!! I literally can’t even express how perfect she was in this role. Cold, seductive, brilliant, oppressed, repressed - absolutely captivating. You could feel her power. Her presence was truly hypnotic. She’s beautiful in a way that’s just unconventional enough to completely draw you in. Every emotion was apparent even when she was utterly denying herself her own emotions. Just…wow.

Also, the introductory sequence for each season was soooo cool. I absolutely love the way the worlds zoom out and stack upon each other as bands, mirroring the string theory that the multiverse is based in. And then the void between all the worlds…so creative, artistic, and well done. I have a great imagination, but that visual was something I could never have conjured, and it’s now a mental representation of the multiverse for me.

The musical theme. I mean…perfect. Dark, dramatic, beautiful. Need I say more?

Lastly, the final episode was the only one I watched all the way through the credits, and I was so happy to see the “carbon neutral production” thing at the end! It was exactly right after watching the worlds heal and seeing Iorek experience snowfall again. It gave me hope that our world can heal.

Thank you, everyone who adapted this book in a new medium. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it enriched my understanding and interpretation of a story I already loved.

So my friends and I were doing a table quiz and one question was to name a movie with a talking dog. Does anyone know if Pantalaimon, or any other daemon, speaks while in the form of a dog in the 2007 movie?

I’m curious because I just got the original trilogy on sale and I must confess I wasn’t aware of all these other ones until someone online mentioned them (I don’t read fantasy too often) and then I discovered this subreddit. I watched the movie from the 2000s back in the day but I have a fuzzy memory and I wanted to read the real thing, so here I am. What do you think about the extended universe?

SPOILER ALERT!

I have to admit that I read the books in bits and pieces because of various commitments, but when we get to the final battle, am I the only one who was genuinely confused about who was on whose side?

I feel like, at some point, so many characters and “beings” were introduced that the logic the books themselves had established for each of them starts to fall apart a little. Or am I wrong?

At some point, I couldn’t really tell who the enemy was and who wasn’t. I understand that the intention was to emphasize that there’s no such thing as a “good guy” or a “bad guy” in the conventional sense, but I feel like this leaves the reader without any real point of reference. (Or maybe that’s the whole point? I don’t know.)

I posted a couple days ago my working alethiometer, and a few of you were interested in the filed. I’ve uploaded them here:

https://github.com/worshiper1364/alethiometer_v1

Feel free to ask me questions on this post, or in this sub: r/AlethiometerBuild

I ran out of watercolor paper, so I did some quick paintings on the inside covers of my books. Each image is either from my imagination or my camera roll. The northern lights, Venice, and a deer skull in some woods in Tennessee respectively.

I previously shared my progress building an alethiometer, and I’m happy to say I’m done with version 1! It’s a modified version of the one from this YouTube video (big thanks to Jamie for sharing her plans), which itself is based on Lyra’s alethiometer in the BBC show.

I don’t have access to a metalworking space or a CNC, so 3D printed parts replace metal ones. The three hand dials on the side turn the set pointers through a gear train. Touching the sensor swings the divination needle around to point at a symbol, with the occasional quiver before it moves on. The Arduino Nano is the “dust channeler” that drives the stepper motor for the needle.

My next goal is to make the electronic components more compact, so I can fit it in a smaller case the size of the original. And after that, adding the top lid and learning metal work.

If anyone’s interested, I’m happy to put up the models and instructions somewhere after I do some cleanup. Jamie’s plans are free to download at https://mythmade.gumroad.com/l/trhgos, but please consider chipping in what you can afford like I did.