#also thanks nicola for helping me with that frith translation

[lordeasriel]

mary, asriel & xaphania: the triple symbolism of john milton’s satan figure

We discussed recently in the discord server about how Mary, Xaphania and Asriel are all symbols/metaphors/examples of Satan in Paradise Lost and it really has been nagging me because it’s beautiful in many ways, so I’m gonna rant about that today. I will stretch this to the limit though, be warned, plus feel free to add your thoughts to this mess (i have too much free time on weekends). Under the cut because it is long and it’s also very incoherent, might I add.

Pullman himself can’t seem to settle on who is the actual Satan figure, he goes for Asriel or Xaphania, mostly: Asriel is the metaphorical one, Xaphania is quite the literal (being the figure of the Angel who Rebelled against God, which is Lucifer). Mary isn’t that obvious, but she represents the Serpent, which in the Bible is another one of Satan’s multiple forms.

Asriel, by being the most illusive of them all, is the representation of secrecy and ultimate indignation, a man wrong by the Church. Like the Fallen Angels in the original story, his demise is cause by his Lust, for like the Angels he has watched a daughter of men (Marisa) and fell in love. He was stripped of what made him who he was (his wealth and influence, as opposed to the Angels cast out, who were stripped of their holiness and their higher rank). He fights for freedom, of course, but he is motivated, essentially, by revenge.

Mary is knowledgeable and curious; her role in the story is to play the Serpent, like with Adam and Eve. In the Bible, we are taught that Eve is tempted by the Serpent to take on the forbidden fruit: that simple gesture is both about Greed and Gluttony (or so the Bible tries to teach); however, the Serpent is not offering the fruit as a means of property or food, she offers it as an object to receive Knowledge from. And this is Mary. She is the Scientist and the figure of Experience, she values knowledge and wisdom, and she passes those on to Lyra and Will, and also the Mulefa. The Angels from the original story had a vast array of knowledge that were spread through humankind once they fell (most of their knowledge is considered demonic or evil by the original story, as if they were meant to spread bad things to humans, but you know how it is)

Xaphania is the literal figure of the Rebel Angel. Satan, before being cast out for his disobedience, was an angel and a highly regarded one. Some stories speak that Lucifer refused to acknowledge humanity as equals to angels and fought God because of it, some say that the angels that watched over humanity fell in love with human women (how very straight of them!) and were cast out because of the sin of Lust. The point is that Lucifer was loved the most by God, and was considered to be the most beautiful of the angels. One way or the other, he was cast out for defiance; Xaphania, upon discovering the truth, confronted the Authority and was exiled from the Kingdom of Heaven. She represents the ultimate figure of a warrior, depending on how you read it, she could be the sin of Wrath or Envy.

Pullman opens the first book with a passage from Paradise Lost by John Milton (a poem that essentially inspired the whole book) and something that stood out to me recently is this:

(...) Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage... (Paradise Lost, John Milton)

This is easily my favourite part of the excerpt and Pullman doesn’t use the last lines:  “for no narrow frith/ He had to cross.”, but I want to talk about it all the same because it fits with rest of the analysis quite well. In TSK, chapter 12, Mary talks to the Angels and is guided to the window to complete her role as the Serpent and this what Pullman wrote:

“Mary Malone pushed back the chair and stood up, trembling. She pressed her fingers to her temples and discovered the electrodes still attached to her skin. She took them off absently. She might have doubted what she had done, and what she could still see on the screen, but she had passed in the last half-hour or so beyond doubt and belief altogether. Something had happened, and she was galvanized.” (The Subtle Knife, page 251, Knopf Edition).

“Up until this moment she had been moving on pent-up excitement, but as got out of her car in the dark of the small hours and found he night cool and silent and still all around her, she felt a definite lurch of aprehension. Suppose she was dreaming? Suppose it was all some elaborate joke?

Well, it was too late to worry about that. She was committed. She lifted out the rucksack she’d often taken on camping journeys in Scotland and the Alps, and reflected that at least she knew how to survive out of doors; if worst came to worst, she could always run away, take to the hills...”  (The Subtle Knife, page 252, Knopf Edition).

“Deceive the Guardian  — well, she’d done that; but she had no idea what she would find inside the tent. She was prepared for some sort of archaelogical dig; for a dead body; for a meteorite. But nothing in her life or her dreams had prepared her for that square yard or so in midair, or for the silent sleeping city by the sea that she found when stepped through it.” (The Subtle Knife, page 254, Knopf Edition).

This is the beginning of her journey: “Into this wild Abyss (a world of Angels and worlds and Dust, all introduced to her out of a sudden) the wary Fiend (Mary, although believing in it, is constantly cautious about everything that is happening, she is a scientist after all, it is her role to question everything) stood on the brink of Hell (the university, now crowded with security under Boreal’s orders, a place to which she spent years confined to by her work and then the guarded tent, a place she is stuck with until her role is fulfilled) and looked a while (she pushes the chair and stares at the conversation she just had with Angels; she also stares, astonished, at the window, before going through it) pondering his voyage, for no narrow frith he had to cross. (In the second excerpt, Mary finally questions what she’s doing, but in the end, she proceeds with her journey, regardless of what await her.)”

Asriel’s take on the verses is fast and focused on one single point (that we see in the book, given he has no POV, he could have pondered his voyage the moment he sees the city in the Aurora). It’s on chapter 21 of Northern Lights:

Lyra’s father stood there, his powerful dark-eyed face at first fierce, triumphant, and eager; and the the color faded from it; his eyes widened in horror, as he recognized his daughter.

“No! No!” He staggered back and clutched at the mantelpiece. Lyra couldn’t move. (...) He seemed appalled; he kept shaking his head, he held up his hands as if to ward her off; she couldn’t believe his distress. (...) Their daemons [Roger’s and Lyra’s] fluttered out into the warmth, and after a moment Lord Asriel passed a hand acorss his brow and recovered slightly. The color began to return to his cheeks as he looked down at the two.”  (The Golden Compasss, page 364-365, Knopf Edition).

Asriel is already into this wild Abyss (also he is literally there, but shall we not discuss this? lmao)  that is multiple worlds and Dust business, so he watches, triumphant, as the last of his requirements arrive, but it’s Lyra. So he watches her, and loses his mind over it; his pondering is not exactly quiet as he yells at her for being there. He is completely out of his mind that she is his sacrifice; he thinks he is willing to pay any price for his journey, but Lyra makes his crossing much harder to accept. But when he sees Roger, he stops, calms down. “The wary Fiend, stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while”, this was likley the most emotional Asriel has ever felt lol and as he realises Roger is there, he ponders his next move (talking to Lyra, then proceeding with his journey).

He does not actually hesitate at the Bridge, except for his conversation with Mrs. Coulter, but once she says she won’t go with him, he touches Stelmaria, turns around and leaves. He has already accepted his journey.

Xaphania, as we know, is the original Rebel Angel, so we do not have her actual journey, but it’s possible to represent her through the actual poem, after all, she is Lucifer, she has stood on the brink of Hell and pondered her voyage (that of her war and that of when she gave consciouness to humankind and others).

The fallen angels story comes from The Book of Enoch (who, guess what? is that bitch Metatron) and it tells the story of how the angels rebelled against God, following Lucifer and how they were cast out for their sin of disobedience. However, in the book, Archangel Michael (also known as the First Angel) is the one who casts out the angels for their defiance.  Xaphania, essentially, fights the first angel because she finds out he has been lying about being the creator and she, as well as the others, are cast out by him.

I did some light research (cause 1. I refuse to read that book 2. It gets weird fast when you research this theme) and the biggest consensus I found was that "Their consciousness therefore “fell” to lower levels of vibration and awareness as they were, by cosmic law, “cast out into the earth” by Archangel Michael and his legions of good angels.”  (I found this on a spiritual site, so take “good angels” with a pinch of salt and by pinch, I mean the whole salt bowl). This matches Pullman’s own plot for Xaphania and the rebel angels, as she is the one who brought consciouness into the world, although she did so out of her own will.

One thing that stood out the most to me while reading about this, is that the angels in the Book of Enoch were forced to descend and exist as humans, creating what we refer to as Nephilim. When they fall, they do so as consciouness, and while Xaphania is the literal Satan figure, by being the physical angel, Asriel and Mary are human; I do not think they are angels, of course, but from a metaphorical point of view, to think of them as pieces of the Rebel Angel consciouness, once Xaphania fell, is quite beautiful.

Fun fact: while researching, I found out that Lucifer is a latin name for Venus when it shows itself on its morning appearances; Venus is associated often to women and the female in general, which makes Xaphania’s female shape quite interesting and not that outside of the original idea.

That are others instances where Asriel and Mary ponder their journeys, but these are the most important ones because they are the first time they do it. Funny enough, Asriel do not ponder at the Abyss lmao This is one messy text, but I hope you had fun if you read it all bye