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[lordeasriel]

oakley street during his dark materials

let’s talk about oakley street. as if I needed a reason to do that, but it’s mostly curiosity plus some headcanons, you’re welcome to add your thoughts to it. BEWARE SPOILERS FOR THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY, LA BELLE SAUVAGE & THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH. there is no way I can write this without spoilers, so, sorry about that.

What we know of Oakley Street is fragmented at best, but there are some facts that we can use to pinpoint their moves during the events of His Dark Materials. For that I am using some basic concepts that we learn from both books of The Book of Dust.

They have members all around the globe, from different social classes and careers. Some of these members aren’t even British, despite the official sanction that Oakley Street is part of their secret service (which would be weird in different circumstances; can’t have a foreigner in your secret service). Examples of this are Bud Schlesinger and his wife, Anita; they’re both New Dane (essentially Americans, according to maps and their accent in the audiobook, but I’m bad with accents, so take this with a pinch of salt) and Bud states to Lyra he isn’t a full time Oakley Street agent. He is a diplomat, a position that is quite beneficial to their practice and he helps them under this banner; during La Belle Sauvage, it is known he visited the witches of the North to learn more about the prophecy surrounding Lyra. In Smyrna, he mostly works as a diplomat and reports his findings to Oakley Street. We do not know for sure that Anita is a member, but she is a journalist and she is aware of their work.

A great deal of their members consists of scholars, academics and free speech advocates. Hannah Relf and Malcolm Polstead are just two of the many members that belong in Academia. As a government agency, though, Oakley Street is often headed by a member of the Privy Council, as Nugent used to be and they have plenty of government employees, because once they’re dismantled in The Secret Commonwealth, most of its official members will be reassigned to other departments. We also know they do employ people without connecting them to the agency, like they did with Malcolm when he was young. They also have agents amongst the Gyptians, which is a natural thing, given that the gyptians suffer the most under the CCD. It’s unclear whether Asriel was a full-member or an ally like Bud Schlesinger, but he did have ties to them, enough that Nugent was in charge of protecting Lyra and had contact with Asriel. His address was also in Chelsea, the same place where the actual Oakley Street is. (This isn’t exactly an argument, but I thought it was cool fun fact).

Their efficiency depended on the current government. When they were first founded, they were meant to be a direct opposition to the Magisterium forces during the Swiss War, with full backing from the King; during The Secret Commonwealth, Oakley Street was struggling because the current king wasn’t happy with them and eventually they were officially dismantled. Their funding came from the Defense department, meaning they could be concealed from public knowledge as most Defense fundings go with no disclosure.

Their operations are mostly from the shadows or happening in the background. We know that they’re acting because we have their POVs, sometimes, but essentially their work is from the shadows or behind the scenes. Malcolm and Alice are never aware that they are being sought after by Oakley Street and if not for their intervention, Lyra would have been captured or killed. That means whenever something important is happening, Oakley Street is likely countering it or promoting it.

With that in mind, the first thing we need to remember is that His Dark Materials is the original story and Oakley Street’s first appearance is on the new trilogy. That means we have absolutely no hard facts when it comes to them, but it’s possible to guess and theorise and that’s what I am doing now.

Lyra in Oxford: We know that the gyptians, according to Ma Costa, watched Lyra as a favour for Lord Asriel - they even had a half-gyptian man, Bernie Johansen, reporting on Lyra from inside Jordan. I don’t think the reports on Lyra reached only Asriel, in fact, I think the reports went through Oakley Street to get to him. Given the gyptians quarrel with the CCD, it’s easy to assume they might have spies with Oakley Street (other than Coram, of course) - we know they had spies of their own - and those spies mostly reported what the gyptians knew about Lyra. Asriel is often abroad too, so learning about Lyra’s welfare through Oakley Street agents is much more suitable and reliable. They had agents everywhere, people that could give him telegrams and the photograms he required. We need also to remember he forbade Marisa from getting anywhere near Lyra, so I imagine any time she set foot in Oxford, Asriel was quickly warned.

Oakley Street’s interest in Lyra was beyond appeasing Asriel, though; she was a target of the Magisterium, so protecting her was in their best interest. During her youth, stuck at Jordan and protected by Scholastic Sanctuary, they didn’t have to bother themselves, but as soon as Mrs. Coulter takes her away, they now have to find Lyra and protect her.

Adèle Starminster: This is probably the easiest thing to guess. Adèle infiltrates Mrs. Coulter’s cocktail party and is in the company of an unnamed scholar, who has some sort of interest in her. She is approached by Lyra, who then speaks of the gobblers and catch her attention. Adèle even questions if Lyra is Marisa’s daughter, before being interrupted by Marisa herself and quickly leaves the party. There are some possible scenarios here:

Adèle is just a journalist trying to write a piece on Mrs. Coulter. Marisa has a social life, but in general, she is quite the mysterious figure. Ignoring inconsistencies, most people don’t even know she had an affair with Asriel; she’s also known to be the director of the Oblation Board, it’s public knowledge, at least in some circles. So, if Adèle wanted to write a piece on Marisa, infiltrating the party would make sense. A good way of knowing Mrs. Coulter, by talking to friends, associates and of course, her young child assistant. This scenario is, without the second trilogy, essentially the original scenario.

Adèle is a journalist who was paid by Oakley Street to investigate Marisa and act as an informant. Oakley Street had dozens of agents and they also used informants, like Malcolm, to reach places a formal agent couldn’t go for various reasons. In Mrs. Coulter’s case, her guests were unlikely to be related to Oakley Street; the members are often recognisable people from academia, people Marisa would be familiar with; so Adèle is a good pick because she is unknown. She might do this for various reasons: interest in writing a good piece about this unreadable figure, doing for noble reasons or simply because she needs the money.

Adèle is actually part of Oakley Street. She’s either a member or an ally, like Bud. As a journalist, she probably had to deal with the Magisterium’s censorship and everything, so people in her profession had cause to fight them, they fit the profile. She was probably assigned there, officially, so Oakley Street could find out more about Lyra (maybe even rescue her) and about Marisa. A quick reminder that, despite fighting the Magisterium, Oakley Street prioritised the CCD given that they were one of the most violent of the groups, but they certainly kept tabs on Marisa, especially because Lord Nugent knew who she was, at least, as Lyra’s mother and a threat to her. Adèle asks Lyra several questions about Marisa and before that, she asks if Lyra is related to Marisa. This could be Adèle trying to figure out what exactly Lyra knew about herself. Had Mrs. Coulter told her the truth or not? Then she asks about Marisa’s nature, to know how Lyra feels and if she’s being well cared for. This was information valuable to Oakley Street, given the nature of Marisa’s business and Lyra being the Magisterium’s enemy number 1. (There is some plot holes in this scenario because this book can’t have possibly guessed the existence of Oakley Street, but I like it, so I’m keeping it.)

Adèle is forced to leave the party early, but the impression I have is that Marisa eavesdropped on the conversation or was tipped off, because she knows Adèle is a journalist, yet she does not know her name. And Lyra’s first impression of her is that she might be a student, so there is nothing on Adèle that shows she is a journalist. The scholar with her is escorted out as well, as Lyra sees it happening. The implication is that the man brought Adèle with him; he doesn’t look like he has a secret agenda, so I suppose Adèle convinced him to take her to the party or she was picked for that infiltration based on an invitation she already had.

On the run: After Lyra escapes Mrs. Coulter and ends up with the gyptians, she’s back on the Oakley Street radar. Marisa and the CCD have pretty much every authority in England looking for Lyra, but the gyptians evade them by hiding Lyra. To pull that off, they had to have help from Oakley Street, and probably needed it, because the gyptians suffered a lot under the Magisterium rule and had almost no rights when it came to the CCD. Oakley Street could have helped them by interfering in multiple ways, such as misinformation or obstructing their messengers in land, while the gyptians did their best to avoid docks and ports on their way to the Fens, where a treaty protected them from the Church.

When Lyra is with the gyptians, Oakley Street can worry about other matters. The gyptians use their own men to spy on the Gobblers; it makes sense for Oakley Street not to care so much about the GOB because their sole focus was to disrupt the Magisterium and the GOB was privately funded, and it wasn’t tied to the Church publicly. My guess is that they had their eyes there, mostly because Marisa was responsible for it, and the rest of their efforts were elsewhere. Other agencies of the Church were rushing against time to learn about Lyra and capture her, so it makes sense that Oakley Street would stick to tailing the College of Bishops and the violent CCD.

It’s possible that Oakley Street was aware of what was happening during Bolvangar and Svalbard thanks to Farder Coram. So, 1) They knew Lyra had gotten capture and likely brought to Bolvangar and 2) They also knew Lyra escaped Mrs. Coulter again by going to Svalbard in an air balloon. That is where their information source pretty much dies. Lyra is left with Serafina and Lee Scoresby, and Iorek, and as far as I know, Serafina and Lee stick together after the events of NL, so no one goes back to warn Oakley Street; it’s possible neither of them knew about it to begin with.

However, we know Marisa had alerted the CCD or at best, she forgot to hid her tracks, so they knew where she was headed and assumed there was where Lyra was too. It’s safe to assume Oakley Street had eyes in Magisterium ruled places, so when the Muscovite Army was assembled and sent to the North, they probably knew Lyra was there with Asriel too. It’s also possible that they knew that before it happened, given that spywork is mostly about avoiding things rather than actively countering them.

They likely knew Asriel had been captured way before Lyra went to him, so the fact Asriel remained in prison is intriguing. Main scenarios for this:

Oakley Street knew about Asriel’s plan. They kept him there because even if he failed, the chaos he would cause was enough to disrupt the Magisterium for a while, the sort of moment Oakley Street could use to cause a lot of damage, even take down important agencies of the Church. If they knew exactly what he planned or not, it’s difficult to say, but Asriel at some point said to Lyra “I did not send for you.” That means he had means to communicate outside of Svalbard and that he had someone to contact when he needed a child. We know it’s not Marisa, she clearly wouldn’t give him a child because she was trying to stop him from doing his thing. So, his most solid allies have to be Oakley Street. At the time of Northern Lights, Thomas Nugent was director, and he is ruthless, so if Asriel came to him with a proposition that could shake the very core of the Magisterium, he wouldn’t hesitate to allow it or even help him.

Oakley Street couldn’t help Asriel. Going to Svalbard would be a challenge, let alone break him out of an armored bear prison, especially because Iofur was supporting Marisa, and by association, the Church. They also had better things to work on, and Asriel was not captured on a mission here, he maybe wasn’t even an actual member of Oakley Street to begin with. There is also the chance they contacted him and he was like “No, I’m good. I even have a fireplace here.”

As a spy agency, Oakley Street wouldn’t have exactly frowned upon Asriel’s handiwork. He was a man of greater good aspects and the agency was used to work from the shadows and resorting to not-so-noble means to achieve their ends. They were small in numbers, weak by the ageing of the members and very desperate, each day struggling against the massive force of the Church, so I wouldn’t put it past them to help Asriel. However, whether they knew about it or not, they definitely took advantage of whatever chaos came from Asriel’s deeds.

After the Bridge to the Stars, we know that Asriel eventually builds an Army and a fortress, but we know that no one in Lyra’s world is aware of what happened. They know he fucked up the sky and the weather and that he was on some sort of heretic rampage but that is all. His fate isn’t even known by Lyra and many others; people think he and Marisa disappeared, including Oakley Street, who at TSC has very little knowledge of Lyra’s importance or so it seemed based on Godwin’s request to hear more about it. That probably indicates that the agency took no part in Asriel’s war, but they likely kept fighting the Magisterium as they began to build an army themselves to follow Asriel.

There isn’t much happening in the Subtle Knife for any speculation, I think they’ll mostly stick to doing their average procedures, investigating the Magisterium’s army, checking what they’re doing and why they’re doing and sabotaging what they can. If anything, I think Grumman could have been associated with them, he was a Scholar and then as a shaman, he could provide valuable information about the state of where he was living. They also probably kept tabs on Marisa, but maybe lost track of her when she went to another world; Lyra was still a person of interest for the CCD, and Oakley Street was likely looking for her, but there is also the chance that they assumed she was with Asriel, so they chose to focus on the other matters.

The thing about Asriel’s war is that it was very focused in one point; the world still kept on existing after he went to fight the Kingdom, it continued to exist normally. The weather was crazy, but that was about how people perceived the change. So, saying Oakley Street still maintained their objectives is appropriate I think. Under the chaos, there was room for a lot of damage to be done.

In the Amber Spyglass, Asriel has his own spies, so Oakley Street’s work here is a bit more clouded. I haven’t read this book enough to actually break it down to this level, but maybe when I do, I will do it in another post.

This was fun! If you guys have any theories or corrections, feel free to add them!