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In the way Tolkein's Lord of the Rings is a 'profoundly Catholic work' not despite but because it itself contains no churches, temples, priests or religious rituals, so His Dark Materials is not an anti-religious text although it often, especially in its last volume, indulges in anti-clerical rants and atheist militancy. What makes the trilogy sing, what brings it alive, is its openness to the wondrous. It is, like many classic fantasy novels, fascinated with the relationship between transportive pre-modern religious subjectivities and 'buffered' modern bourgeois sensibilities; its case against the church - as sexually prudish, using concepts of sin to oppress and harm people, as prideful and overmighty - is not an attack on the transcendent wonder and magic of the pre-modern world in which the church was dominant, but on the contrary on the uses of domineering political power characteristic of buffered modernity. Suffusing throughout is 'Dust', the particulation of transcendence itself... That the universe is not the handiwork of a creator God does not mean that the universe is not wondrous. On the contrary, Pullman's cosmos is immanent with magic and wonder.

Adam Roberts, Fantasy: A Short History, Bloomsbury, 2025.

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I am so happy I was born with the I love marisa coulter so much gene

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I never realised how big of a skill lying is until i read the golden compass and the subtle knife

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You know what I think its grossly under-rated in fandom? Second loves.

What it's like to love and lose and then love again. To suffer through either the death of a loved one or the death of a love you used to share. To know that loss, to know that hurt, and to still make yourself vulnerable to someone again. To love scared, to love wounded, to love anyway.

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watching BBC His Dark Materials with my mother and her reaction to Will getting his fingers lopped off by the Subtle Knife was 'ye'd better not peel yer tatties wi that'

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Somehow I stumbled upon Golden Compass then on His Dark Materials, so here are Lyra and Asriel on airship heading North

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Art for The Book of Dust Volume 2: The Secret Commonwealth

By Ivan Sergeev

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dni unless you are a pervert who engages with irredeemable media

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The Terror x His Dark Materials AU 🧭

This AU has been on my mind ever since I first watched The Terror and I finally turned it into drawings. The two worlds just fit so well together, both being set in the far North and the concept of souls playing such an important part (with the dæmons being the physical manifestation of a human soul and Tuunbaq devouring them). I also really love the decade-ambiguous setting and style of His Dark Materials and it was so much fun reimagining the Terror characters in this universe. And of course matching everyone with a dæmon was the best part.

Crozier's is a pallas cat because it looks gruff and is a solitary animal and used to harsh living conditions.

Fitzjames needed something long and sleek and elegant so I chose a serval cat.

I thought that Silna could be similar to the witches in HDM who have bird dæmons that can physically separate from their humans. I also think that the calm grace of an arctic owl really fits her vibe.

Tozer's is an animal of prey that can hunt and bite, so I chose a prairie wolf (I feel like the Marines would all have similar dæmons that are pack animals).

Edward's had to be something non-threatening and anxious, so I went with a flying squirrel that can hide in his pocket.

Giving Hickey a rat would've been too on the nose (lol) so I went with a sly weasel instead.

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i really hate when people dismiss the ending of his dark materials because it leans into the trope "love saves the world". truly, that is what the story is about, but reducing it to a cliché is doing a disservice to the point the story is making. when it says that love says the world, it's rewriting the meaning of sin by saying that giving into desire is not shameful. it's telling us to be brave enough to experience. it's saying that dying for love can have powerful impact, but living for it is much more romantic. it's saying that storytelling saves the world, because telling stories is a language of love. it's saying that the bonds we create with other people will outlast death as long as we share our memories. it's showing how a simple childhood friendship is extraordinary enough to change the course of a war between heaven and earth. is there a better way to end a trilogy that intertwines so many paths of love than with a kiss that shifts the fabric of multiple universes?

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When a bear is a better parent than the child's actual parents.

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This picture quality is dreadful, but can we talk about how Marissa Coulter's dæmon is an orangutan on the Czech edition of The Northern Lights? And why is she dressed like Mary Poppins? Everything about it is deeply deeply cursed