Erin Ptah
Artist, humanist, fangirl. LGBTQ fantasy comics w/ language jokes, trauma/recovery, time travel, & cats. >> leifandthorn.com
- #RoseField chapter 19: Malcolm gets his wound treated by the witch-queen. (He thinks the bone was chipped, the bullet is still in there, and it might be infected? Buddy, if that's all true, how have you been *walking*?) The actual treatment sequence is very good. Solid drama and pathos. I like--
- --how Mal's general interest in How Things Work shows up in his POV, and I like Pan fetching things as surgical assistant. (The witches are well-established to have herbs and techniques that we don't, so no plausibility complaints here. Those work however Pullman says they work.)
- ...Wow, okay, offscreen death for Serafina Pekkala? More than a year before TSC even started, but Pan only finds out now? And she got murdered by a human missionary, who was mad she didn't want to hook up? Thanks, I hate everything about this. (At least Pullman didn't inflict the "gratuitous--
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View full thread--text her and *arrange* a time/place to meet, instead of hoping to get lucky. Lyra on the boat at night, feels a Mysterious Presence, and starts chatting to it. This may need a new thread.
- #RoseField chapter 18: Check-in with Olivier. Funny setup where he thinks of himself as like a prisoner, but the admin of the place would be thrilled if he biffed off. Does some traditional alethiometry, reference book and all. Narration says it gives him a good idea of Lyra's journey, but--
- --doesn't satisfy my curiosity about how much he actually knows. Again, I wish we had scenes of Lyra doing this too, so we could compare their skills and approaches. Cut to a group of Church higher-ups, talking about Delamare's changes. Rumors of future war plans. None of them are enthusiastic--
- --about the idea. One has their own copy of the text of the upcoming Big Speech, so we get another angle on what might be in it. No surprises for the readers, here. Lyra's party has made it onto a boat again, long enough to unwrap the package. The OS head sent her the other resonance stone.
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View full thread--that you have to build the Republic of Heaven right where you are. (Hey, there's a phrase we *really* haven't heard all book. I miss it.)
- Don't ask me for just one, have a grab-bag of recs instead: Alanis Morrissette - You Owe Me Nothing In Return Anderson Brueford Wakeman Howe - Order of the Universe I) Order Theme II) Rock Gives Courage III) It's So Hard to Grow) IV) The Universe Celtic Woman - The Sky And The Dawn And The Sun
- 2/2 Donny Montell - I've Been Waiting For This Night Fall Out Boy - My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up) Rosemary Clooney - In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening
- #RoseField chapter 17, the rest: Remember back in LBS when I worried that Pullman had gone from "critiquing religion" to "critiquing the Wrong Religion, you're still supposed to have all the same feelings, just about the Right Religion"? This chapter is hella leaning into that. Lyra might as--
- --well have thought, "I just had the feeling that the Good Lord was pouring into me, and telling me it was His will that I go. And look how it worked out, all because I trusted in the Lord's plan for my life! Praise Jesus." It's the same sentiment! The Christian words and phrases have been--
- --find-and-replaced with stuff from the Ripley Scroll and the Faerie Queene, that's all. It's a different coat of paint on the same house. It's also such a contrast to...in the original trilogy, especially in TAS, Pullman had this flourish of "repurposing Christian phrases for other things he--
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View full thread--but he hasn't exactly been able to get to a post office lately. No follow-up ideas. Either way: this would have been much more satisfying if it was the payoff of careful planning, and pre-coordination between Lyra and her allies. Instead of just "trusting the Lord's plan" but palette-swapped.
- #RoseField chapter 17: Checking out a new guy, Horace Green, from the address book. Residence is called the Villa Victor Hugo! No indication that AU!Hugo is famous for something different, so please imagine all your fav Hugo novels with daemons in. Lyra asks Ionedes to wait at a café next door.
- Ionedes: You need help, you come running right out -- I will finish my coffee briskly! He's so good. Horace clocks Lyra+Asta aren't parts of the same person just by looking at them. He's also daemonless, I can see it being a trait he would pay more attention to, but still. That's fast.
- Mutual recap time. Lyra reflects that she feels like she's using her childhood storytelling skills again, but this time it's just to give an artful, effective delivery of the truth. Horace's bird daemon just got attacked and dragged away by a hawk. It went for his wife's bird first, she died--
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View full threadOn a whim, Lyra hits up a local post office. There's a package for pickup, sent to her witch-queen alias. She thinks it must be connected in "some Secret Commonwealth way." ...Thread-eating tangent again. Stay tuned for the next one.
- #RoseField chapter 16: Back on the bus. Lyra finally remarks "I could do with a phrasebook"! About 30 chapters late, bit she finally noticed! Watching the spy. I swear we've seen him before, but I don't remember when, and didn't find him in a quick HDM wiki check. Lyra flinches when he looks--
- --directly at her. Berates herself for being so obviously startled. Asta: "I should've done what Pan would do, and warned you." Have we ever seen daemons doing that? They've been "voices of caution", they've been "second thoughts", but this wasn't Lyra being uncautious or thoughtless. It was a--
- --physical startle-reflex. Kicked in before any thoughts had a chance to form. Lyra+Asta bounce ideas off each other to help themselves think. That's an established daemon thing, I think. Bus station crowd is so dense, Asta has to ride on Lyra's (non-bare) shoulder to avoid getting stepped on.
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View full thread--living paycheck to paycheck, no savings, but she must have clothes! Not to mention personal items she cares about.) But the care and support of the Polsteads is heartwarming. Genuinely good parents! Possibly the only ones in the whole series.
