#Pantelaimon

[vwikaartt]

Somehow I stumbled upon Golden Compass then on His Dark Materials, so here are Lyra and Asriel on airship heading North

[enter-the-bogman]

One of the problems with the His Dark Materials show being their insistence on slamming symbolism in with a sledgehammer, when a huge strength of the books are their nuance and elegance. The reader is not told what to think, but is prompted and moved to think creatively for themself and come to their own conclusions. Which is, importantly, a MAJOR part of the thesis! Pursuit of knowledge and development of understanding is what makes PEOPLE exist. 

Specifically, children being whole entire people who must mature by developing understanding of the world beyond that which they have been taught-- the show absolutely misses that in a variety of ways. For one thing, this is seen through the lack of attention payed to Pantelaimon. Lyra’s relationship with Pan is at least as important (if not more important!) as Lyra’s relationship with Will. I can tell you nothing about show!Lyra’s relationship with Pantelaimon (and with that of herself embodied within Pan), because no attention has been put there. Lyra’s betrayal and its repercussions are not going to have any impact if the centrality and importance of Lyra and Pan has not been established. And as the show has been setting up the Book of Dust, that relationship may become even more central in the future. (I have some more thoughts on how this has reduced impact of certain scenes already, which I may share in a different post.)

 A lot of the time which isn’t spent diving into who Lyra and Pan are is spent with Marissa and the Monkey. While everything they’re doing with those characters was definitely interesting at the beginning, it’s start to become a bit repetitive, not to mention over-the-top. Yes, Marissa apparently has self-hatred issues. Yes, she clearly is at war with that of herself embodied in the Monkey. But paying such close and repeated attention there is missing the point. A huge point of the story is that it’s NOT about Lyra’s parents, in the end. It’s about Lyra and Pan, and has always been about them. In fact, a major part of Marissa’s redemption(?) is she first understands and then convinces Asriel that their role must be in support of their daughter’s much more important role. 

[totopopopo]

Had a great idea for a painting and then was shot down by the responsible person in my brain that said hey you still have 75 pages of the 200 page book you’re presenting to your class tomorrow as well as the entire Silmarillion to read. So. ://