#only the ss of iorek in full armour is mine

[silveryinkystar]

On the subject of this week’s episode, which really set me straight on how much I will cry in season 2, I really adored the details on Iorek’s and Iofur’s armour.

I’ve already spoken about the Svalbard bears’ armour in this post but I wanted to point out a few more things:

Firstly: The Helmets.

[Note: screenshots not mine]

Iorek’s helmet was clearly made after he was kicked out from Svalbard. The book (I think) goes a bit more into the significance of the armour which also answers Lyra’s question in the latest episode, “How can bears make their souls?”

More importantly, it tells the audience that Iorek had to make entirely new armour for himself after he was kicked out, and the way his helmet is crafted is a fine way of showing it. It’s rusty, dented and scratched, clearly put together from pieces of sky-iron that he found. It also fits perfectly around his head and is incredibly durable, so points to Iorek for resourcefulness and expertise.

Iofur’s helmet, meanwhile, is incredibly elaborate. The picture doesn’t fully show it, but there’s a metal plate in the shape of a plume, in a very familiar Roman style. It also covers Iofur’s face more fully, with eye holes and protection over the jaw (in the shape of a snarling maw with fangs!). It’s very fancy (dare I say impractical) and so very human.

Which, in the end, is the point. Iofur wants to be human so bad, he starts incorporating it into the way his armour is made. The helmet itself speaks volumes.

Another detail I liked was how the sentry bears in Svalbard don’t have this much detail on their helmets. Their armour seems more practical than Iofur’s (image below).

Second: The rest of the armour

(Apologies for the quality, also the last image is not mine)

There are a few similarities in both Iorek’s and the sentry bear’s armours: the layered plating, what I’m going to call the breastplate. This makes a lot of sense given the way they move - they’d need the armour to move with them, not hinder them.

The shoulder pads and greaves, though, are missing on Iorek’s armour. One could assume that he didn’t have enough metal to make them all, but the engravings on the greave in the last picture make me wonder whether they were even originally part of the armour. Greaves and gauntlets are a very human thing in armour. Bears, who use their paws all the time, would probably not immediately think of them as necessary components of armour. Also, why would they even need shoulder pads? Those would only restrict movement (considering that they’re bears).

However, what interests me most about the differences is whether the panserbjorne already had armour that looked this smooth and well-made, or was it Iofur who brought in these changes? I can kind of guess on the helmet ‘plume’ and extravagant engravings on Iofur’s own, but the rest seems vague enough.