#hdm s01e04

[onewhoturns]

i have a few passing thoughts about today’s hdm episode! spoilers for episode 4 below the cut

OKAY first off, the standout of the episode; Lin. You beautiful bastard. I’ll admit, this isn’t exactly book!Lee to me, but I FUCKIN LOVE HIM ANYWAY. He’s less ‘laid back easygoing cowboy type’ and more ‘rough and tumble roguish scamp’ but he also got ALL the funny lines, and I adore him. This is one of those things (basically all of these things are, generally) that I shrug at, because, of course, this is an adaptation of the books. I will always view them separately, and have from the beginning. I can still enjoy both of them.

Now we get into some other bits and pieces, most notices differences that made me go =/ and then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Again, I want to reiterate; I still love this show. I’m still super psyched to see the rest of it. These are just those things that emphasize the difference of universes between book and show.

1. They gave Iorek’s speech to Lee. =[

2. They made Iorek... hm, not sure how to word this. Angrier? Or maybe just more emotional. In the books he’s maybe a little cold, perhaps resigned, but in a kind of hardened way? Here he was more visibly frustrated, which is very... human. I just remember in the books him being more inscrutable. It’s one of those things that has me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  for the show, cause I’m happy to accept it for this universe and see where it goes, but it definitely changed the character a bit. He’s less of the strong silent protector type I guess?

3. In that same vein; the moment where Lyra is like ‘it’s set! loophole!’ and Iorek is like ‘hm... clever’ wasn’t in this. Which feels like a bit of a loss because it really foreshadows the ‘silvertongue’ bit to me.

4. What’s the deal with Fra Pavel? What’s the implication here? Is this implying some kind of pedo stuff? If so... =/ I dunno. It’s not in the books (at least as far as I remember?) so it’s manufactured for the show, and it feels... I dunno. Why make that the choice, y’know? Is it just to draw comparisons to the Catholic church? Alternatively, if it’s something else, I’ll be curious to see what it is. 

5. Lyra got to bluff/be tricky with words more in this episode. I liked that. But also... Look, I like Dafne Keen, I do. And I’m not gonna say they should have cast someone else. I just feel like she’s not quite believable at times. Some things feel kinda stilted or overacted, and I could definitely be putting unrealistic expectations on a kid, that could totally be a thing. There were just a couple times where I was like =/

6. Why did they make the consul “greedy”? Why do that? The character was overwhelmingly neutral in the book to me, maybe even more of an ally. Why make him seem like a threat? Why make him vaguely creepy? Please don’t, I like the neutrality of the consul. Similarly: Why give Coram the lines about a prophecy, why give him the line translating Bolvangar, why give Lyra the line about ‘what should we be asking’ and her challenging Iorek? It felt like trying to make her extra-spicy-rebellious when I found her humility toward Iorek to be a pretty important thing in the books. Like, she’s smart enough to respect him.

7. Why make John Faa so mad? Why give some of his lines to Coram? I dunno man. =/ I feel like it undermined his levelheaded leadership. And I hate hate hate that it whispered of unintentional racism in the back of my head, even though I’m betting the scripts were written before casting him. It just felt like he’s been made less warm than the books. I mean, again, it’s a character change. It’s not something I’m going to continue to pick at, it’s something I’m going to accept as just ‘this is a different character’ and move on, because the show universe isn’t the book universe and that’s fine.

8. Lyra. Wtf. You should know better - and if not you, Coram should know better - than to whip out the alethiometer in public.

9. Wow, a lot more of a blatant presence of the Magisterium in this universe. Less covert control behind the scenes, more visible police forces. Again; a different universe.

10. Mrs. Coulter. Hm. I had some opinions here. There were several things that made me go =/ and then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Mostly her power in the Magisterium. It’s not as strong as it is in the books. I get that that gives her more of a struggle, makes her path interesting to follow, and at times you’re rooting for her to succeed even though you know she’s awful. But I don’t know, man. The way that the Asriel reveal was handled super undermined her power. She’s a powerful character, and it feels like there could have been other ways to show her struggle besides that?

11. Why the Cardinal with such a profound hunch. Why do that. It’s so incredibly noticeable and just comes across like an old timey ‘creepy cripple’ thing that just feels =/ to me. It’s not even like it’s just the actor. That was a choice that was made. It’s distracting, but not in the way I think it’s supposed to be. I feel uncomfortable, but I feel uncomfortable because it feels like it’s making evil out of-- I don’t even know what to call it. Is it called a hunchback? Is there a more appropriate term? It feels like taking someone with a-- is it a disability? I honestly don’t know-- and making them a villain who’s supposed to be offputting because of that.

12. Iofur. Interesting choice, not sure how I feel about it, but I’m along for the ride.

13. So that cave was her meeting with Iofur. Will we still get a reveal of the grand palace of Svalbard? Or is it all going to be moved into caves?

14. Okay, the number one thing that irritated me and cannot be accepted as just a difference between show and book canon: Previously, I’ve seen people mentioning the lack of daemons in the show. So in that last shot, I actively was looking for daemons among the Gyptians. And I was like ‘oh, cool, there’s some birds and stuff. oh, and a dog-’ BUT THE DOG WAS ON A ROPE. WHO WOULD HAVE THEIR DAEMON ON A LEASH? I could understand having a dog on a leash for filming. But they put a frickin’ BEAR in the shot, shouldn’t it be easy to take out a ROPE in post? I dunno man, that irritated the hell out of me. Then again, maybe it wasn’t a daemon, maybe it was a sledge dog. -- OKAY ON REWATCH, IT’S A SLEDGE DOG. So okay. Fine. BUT, the fact that I was confused enough to think that shows that they look like they are supposed to be daemons. So maybe give the people walking the sledge dogs visible daemons that aren’t the sledge dogs? I guess this mostly just brings to mind the Today show appearance of Lin where the interviewer was like animals talk! which felt like it was infantilizing both daemons and armored bears to just ‘all animals can talk, how cute!’ But that’s not the fault of the show, that’s just interviewers being uninformed, which is probably inevitable. It just made me salty xD

I think that’s all I wanted to say? Probably more than I wanted to say?

[mxrisacoulter]

2020 Creator Wrap: Favourite works

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works.

I was tagged by the wonderful @iressails. Thank you!💛

I don’t speak to many people on here, so I’m just going to tag some mutuals I simp for (i still love you if you’re not tagged sorry i have v bad memory and am generally scared of people) @coultxr @lmillers @atenexo @amirwilson @coulter @bitchinlyras

Also thank you to everyone for liking/reblogging/following me this year. I started making gifs again for the first time in so long and it warms my heart to see people enjoying them. Anyway, time for some controversial takes

1. This gifset of the dance scene in i’m thinking of ending things. Honestly one of the nicest colourings I’ve ever done. I really love that scene and I managed to up the vibrancy on the red hair without the skin tones going wack. Also the blues and the reds are just *chefs kiss* It also took me downloading two different versions of this and a different video player in order to capture the frames and photoshop crashed like twice ahhhh

2. This rainbow set of Mrs Coulter. Also a great labour of love (seriously finding that a gif to do red took so long). Not much more to say, I just think the colours are nice.

3. It’s a tie between what I shall call my ‘ruth being chaotic in interviews’ series. This one of her trying to say alethiometre, this one of general interview chaos™, and ofc brian fisher appreciation. The tags on all those sets were really wholesome and now I’ve seen more Ruth Wilson interviews than any one person reasonably should.

4. This one of Marisa and the spectres. Probably doesn’t seem that remarkable, but it was the first time I started playing around with sharpening and using a 2160p download. I really don’t know what I did, but it has a much more grainy look than my normal gifs, which was fun, and it can be hard to make big gifs look decent, so that was cool. Also that scenes really hot so

5. It’s got to be s01e04 of my hdm rewatch. This was my first series playing with colours a ton and I think this was my best one out of that set.

Some honorable mentions

Colouring I’m proud of: hdm rewatch s01e05 (I literally coloured every frame of the purple gif individually ahhh), mrs wilson (there was a lot of yellow to neutralise), hester and lyra + pan from the hdmsourcefanweek (really wish I could remember how to do this kind of colouring rip), mlm/wlw solidarity crack (again complete fluke, but it looks nice)

Basically I’m the funniest person on this platform: ‘acting choices’, wii music and boreal being dramatic

[mxrisacoulter]

3, 6, and 12? 💜

Thank you! 💜

3. favourite quote

I can't think of any deep and meaningful™ quotes atm, all I can think of is 'I would like to be of use, I would like to make you happy', but that's enough to make me insane so

6. favourite mrs coulter outfit

uhhhhh just one? the red suit combo in s01e04 is just classic mrs coulter and I love it, but something about that safari outfit hits different it's the trousers who am I kidding

12. favourite scene

the alethiometer heist. The drama? The action? Boreal's parkour and the assassination of his little statues by Mr William Parry? Peak cinema tbh

send me hdm asks 👉👈