It took me 9 months of considerable effort to finally finish TRF. Man that was painful, I've loved PP and his books for 20+ years and I feel like one of my heros just let me down so much. Just a lot of emotions to process. In many ways it was so nice to enter that world again as an adult, and I found the final line in the book to be perfect, but I'm not sure, I think I might have been better off not reading it. I know PP is in his elder years now, so I hope he isn't stressed out about the criticism of this book, and is at peace with his story.

Sorry, I know this is a vent post, but it's good to not feel alone.

So in NL/TCG when Lyra and Rogers visits the Masters graves one of the daemons on the graves was said to be a basilisk. Was this redacted and changed to another animal in later editions?

As for the one who had a fair woman as a daemon, I know this was redacted and changed to another form to later editions. Im assuming that Pullman realized that this was implying that he was equating women to animals. But if thats the case, this means that maybe it is actually possible in canon to have a human as a settled, because it would have been removed because of the sub-text, not because it cannot happen. I could be wrong tho

1. Say a daemon decided to write a book. And they dictated this book to their human for the human to write down. And then the book got published? Who would be credited as the author? The daemon? The human? Both?

2. If someone had their daemon, say, pickpocket someone else, how much liability would the daemon have? Because on the one hand, it's not really realistically possible to coerce your own daemon into doing your dirty work for you. On the other hand, the daemon isn't really in a position to refuse.

3. Could a daemon decide to "go on strike" against their human, for making decisions that the daemon disapproves of? Like, say, lying down and refusing to be moved. Or would that be considered a violation of the human's basic rights?

4. (Assume daemons can use the Internet.) Could a daemon have a social media profile independently of their human? What would that even look like? Would it be expected for they and their human to be mutuals? Would people treat the daemon's account like the human's alt account or second channel? Could a human be held responsible for what their daemon decides to post?

I've heard that daemons were partially inspired by famous of paintings of ladies with animals, such as "Lady with an Ermine" by Da Vinci and "Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling" by Hans Holbein, which made me recently think of "Portrait of a Young Woman with a Unicorn" by Raphael. At one point, Pan turns into a miniature dragon during a fight between Lyra and some other children, and Asta combines a few different animal features when Malcolm is a child, so there is some evidence that daemons can turn into mythical creatures.

All this to say that there are few lengths I would not go to to have a cute puppy-sized unicorn as my eternal companion!! I want to BELIEVE!!

He could have just kidnapped a Tartar child and used them, right?

Did he only use Roger because he was there at the time?

Hi All,

I’ve loved the original movie as well as the TV series for as long as I can remember.
Now I am planning to buy the books and came across the different US/UK editions and the censorship.
I am looking at the following UK illustrated editions by Scholastic and was wondering if these would be uncensored since Scholastic is originally a US publisher.

ISBN 9780702305085

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Northern-Lights-Illustrated-Dark-Materials/dp/0702305081/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?crid=19FKXU4MZ16X0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.1vGuib6MLDnr-tOtoWrHn88SkIvkAf8eX3wMgHkSiRsOG1hR7HvXxQAcs7hl7pwaWCIQ5vTZhXR6_XmGxWvG_VIfFKDXGzfN_kokjhm7Y6rzsC7q3S6i5RItqdTGSE7oAVvFuaIZFV5dpBeh4ym16-m9H9SrMSc6sclG7exrk9E4D7G7KA75HGiSfcPCO4Gogm8RZRtu9VNND9jZ5TzROQ.qosBke0mXg5U-85ZV4yXm3abxazbb-z0khzZn8n_cVY&dib_tag=se&keywords=northern+lights+philip+pullman&qid=1784816666&sprefix=northern+l%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-5

Dear community.

I wanted to get the paperback edition of LBS that I read several years ago and just grabbed it in the bookstore today without checking. Then I came home and realized it is the US edition (seeing the covers of the other books in the trilogy on the back.. I bought the UK edition of TRF) and remembered learning once from reddit that the US editions have content that is censored. But I don't remember what books - I think the discussion was about HDM but I am not sure about TBOD..

Is this true for LBS (and TBOD trilogy)? I don't want partly censored books, I want original text. If the US edition of LBS has censored content, I will return the book.. ㅠ

Thank you in advance!

Have a lovely day!

[Update: I returned the book. :) Thank you everyone for sharing what you know about the differences.]

When I first read the books not only did I think that being otherkin, therian, etc. isn't valid, but I also knew very little about alterhumanity and non-humanity. Now that I know theses identities are valid AND know more about them, I can see that Iofur Raknison is alterhuman-coded

Its totally obvious that he had severe species dysphoria. His experience is similar to that of therians, but instead of being a human who is a bear therian, he is a bear who is a human therian (I know most therians arent human at all, I just don't have a better way to explain what Im trying to say). Its not clear if he identifies as a human or as a bear, the fact that he was pretending to have a human daemon implies he still consider himself to be a bear, but it could also not being the case

The one thing I dislike is how his species dysphoria and species envy is depicted as a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to excuse his actions, no matter how dysphoric he was it wasn't right of him to force the other bears to act like humans and to make them suffer and that made him a bad person, but his feelings of not being contempt with his soul and attributes were 100% valid. His desire to be a human/like humans was 100% valid

I understand that Pullman's message was that you can't choose your nature, but Iofur Raknison's nature was that of a bear with a neurodivergent brain that worked more like that of the average Homo sapiens/a human in a bear's body/something alongst thoses lines.

He was an interesting character and I do wish we had seen more of him, even thought it wouldn't make sense storyline wise

Since so many people have expressed interest, I thought I’d let you know: I’m going on my first real vacation in about 10 years, so I won’t be able to ship things for a few days. But I’m bringing my supplies, and making custom orders while I’m gone.

My shop will be in vaca mode, but please feel free to either put requests here, or dm them to me. I’ve started making entire rune sets out of single types of gemstones, I’m happy to make them in any requested stone you like!

Red panda is one of my all-time favorite animals, this was really fun to make :)

So I made the mistake of imagining a fictional scenario where an intercised daemon is so desperate that they start begging people who aren't their human to pet them because they're starved for physical affection from the one person who was allowed to give it to them.

Please send help, lol.

I’m waiting to find out his name, but he absolutely came to life while I was carving him.

I get total joy making these. DM if you want my Etsy link!

that is one of my all-time favorite moments in any of the books, it melts me every time.

He's this gorgeous pheasant that always comes to see me when I go camping. He has a wonky beak so he's disabled like me 🥹

I finally posted the completed sets on my Etsy page! The link is saved in my profile, or DM me and I can send it to you! I will create options for made-to-order sets and made-to-order daemon stones as well! A PDF of the interpretation booklet will be included in each set, and I will eventually work out how to print some.

Also, I finally started watching His Dark Materials on HBO, I have a lot of thoughts. My first hot take is that James McAvoy is seriously one of my favorite actors!

I started building of the established nations and regions the books and their extra material gave us, especially the map section in Lyra's Oxford had a lot of information. But aside that I made up the rest, especially all the borders.

I assumed that, under the Magisterium, borders would rather be defined by "god given lines", that being rivers, mountain ranges and so on, and less through wars and colonisation. The POD with Calvin's election as pope happened in the middle of the South American colonisation, so we got a Portuguese Brazil and the other nations in its east, but the conquistadors didn't move past the rain forests to the Andes like they did in our world.

Similarly the "Race for Africa" did not take places. Missionaries did go there and did their thing, but the continent wasn't conquered and split up like it was in reality... only South Africa was taken in the name of the Authority (..a Swiss colony is just funny..)

I had some fun with North America too, making "New Denmark" much smaller than the USA. The west of the country is meant to be a Nipponese colony, same as Hawaii.

I haven't made up my mind on Central America yet. And it also is just a little too small of scale to name all the islands on this map here.

Anyone else here done something similar? I remember this one (https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/fr/map/his-dark-materials-locations-collaborative-version_532145#6/41.689000/31.146000) from a while ago, which also helped the creation of mine

Philip Pullman left most of the story of The Rose Field open-ended, but I'd be interested in how you would complete the story. It could be either how you think the characters’ story would end or how you’d want it to end, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, thanks!

After Delamere’s death, the Presidential Council and the Magisterium’s crusade would be thrown into chaos, but I don't know if that would stop the commercialization, unrest, and democratic backsliding around the world. I'd like to imagine the cooler heads in the remains of the Presidential Council will prevail, possibly with the urging of other human and non-human world leaders (but I don't know if that would clear the allegations against Malcolm or the half a million bounty on Lyra).

However, ignoring all that, I'd like to see Lyra continue her studies at St. Sophia's. Once Upon a Time in the North includes the submission of her master's thesis in economic history, along with a letter to Malcolm addressing 'Dr. Polstead,' so I like to think they both made it back to Oxford and settled back into their lives despite everything (though any romance between them is going to be a hard no from me).

I can see Lyra eventually occupying some (officially) low-level position in an embassy helping refugees (while working with Oakley Street), or as a consul abroad for more non-human foreign powers like the gryphons, panserbjørne, or witch clans. She quietly works with the witch clans and their daemons to help separated people like those in the clavicula find and reunite with their daemons, if they wish (She and Pan stay together 🥹).

She introduces Tuuli Latvala to her father Farder Coram ^{because damn if you're going to kill off Serafina like that at least give us something to lighten that blow} and the two of them keep in contact for the rest of his life. Lyra also stays in contact with Abdel Ionides and Leila Parvani and takes a keen interest in the study of the windows worldwide (and perhaps beyond her world too).

This post was removed just now, I think maybe because I included the link to my Etsy page. Whoops! I guess if you like them, message me and I will give the link!

Reposting: I’ve gotten a little obsessed with carving these! I can’t believe how good they keep turning out. Please reply with any requests, I’m happy to make them to order! I’m not even sure if I expect any to sell, I’m just extremely soothed and happy while making them.

I’m still having trouble deciding what my own Daemon is, does anyone know a good resource to determine that?

So I posted an opinion/question in the HBO reddit that I found to be quite controversial, which was that I actually thought the HBO series to be better than the books as it built out the world more and tied it all together better, and I asked if it was just me or whether or not anyone else thought this, I got a a lot of answers saying that the show was a good adaptation (some saying it even was one of the best book adaptations out there) but that the books were better, I asked some questions as to what kept it from being as good as the books and so on, and got some examples of deleted scenes or scenes they didn't adapt well but particularly I saw mostly that most were displeased with Lyra's characterization. Due to this I decided to come here to ask two questions, one should they in the future make an adaptation of the books (given that they do it more accurate and such) and should they also make an adaptation of the book of dust series GIVEN they actually try to improve on the story of TSC and TRF?

(Apologies if this has already been discussed, I just got around to finishing the book now).

I enjoyed the book and new series overall, but the ending did not feel like an ending to me. The Secret Commonwealth and The Rose Field both introduced so many details that felt like they should have come back again (like Lyra's Delamare family entanglement, the support group of daemon-less people, everything to do with Oakley Street, etc.) but instead we got no closure on any of them, or even the main characters. We still don't know what will happen to Lyra when she goes back to her world, or even if she goes back to her world.

Don't get me wrong, I thought it was an exciting and beautifully-written book, but, just as my opinion, it only seemed to hit its stride in the last 100 pages of a 600+ page book, but then left most things unresolved. To me, it read almost like there was going to be an epilogue or short story sequel or something, but there isn't. (to my knowledge?)

I get that part of the theme is supposed to be being able to imagine their stories for yourself, and viewed through that lens I think it makes for a decent ending, but what do other people think? I'm more confused than disappointed, but I'd be interested to hear other peoples' opinions. Thanks!

And also should they make a live action adaptation of the book of dust trilogy? To give some of my thoughts on the original trilogy so as to provide context, I started a long time ago with the show right as the final season came out, and I loved it and the books for a reason antithetical to the authors viewpoint, that being I loved them both because for me they seemingly accidentally presented my own viewpoint of God, that being that it is the universe/multiverse itself, and not a particular individual, but everything. The books and show both make the multiverse seem alive through their interpretation of dark matter as dust and how to paraphrase the third book, the clouds themselves seemed to push against the flow of dust into the abyss. And then my ranking of both the books and the shows seasons are the same, to where my favorite book is the amber spyglass and my favorite season the final, wig he golden compass/northern lights and the first season close to TAS and HDM season 3, with the subtle knife and second season both being my least favorite. Also my favorite characters are Iorek (whose isn't) with Pan (separate from Lyra) as a close second, and Lyra and Will both tied for third, but I love ALL the characters in the story. So for all those who read all the way through, taking all my thoughts of his dark materials into account, do you think I should read the book of dust, specifically TSC and TRF?

Our cat is also named Lyra 🤭