Nonexistence is Preferable to the Afterlife
“What will happen? When we leave the world of the dead, will we live again? Or will we vanish as our daemons did? Brothers, sisters, we shouldn’t follow this child anywhere till we know what’s going to happen to us!”
Others took up the question: “Yes, tell us where we’re going! Tell us what to expect! We won’t go unless we know what’ll happen to us!”
Lyra turned to Will in despair, but he said, “Tell them the truth. Ask the alethiometer, and tell them what it says.”
...
notesIn Pullman's vision of the afterlife, things are dreary and static, the dead long to dissipate and have their atoms return to the world and become other things. An atheist alternative to the boredom of heaven.
A Drop of Water to a Miniature Person
“Are there big people on your world, or are they all small like you?” Lyra said.
“We know how to deal with big people,” Tialys replied, not very helpfully, and went to talk quietly to the Lady. They spoke too softly for Lyra to hear, but she enjoyed watching them sip dewdrops from the marram grass to refresh themselves. Water must be different for them, she thought to Pantalaimon: imagine drops the size of your fist! They’d be hard to get into; they’d have a sort of elastic rind,... notesWould have an elastic rind from the surface tension that would need to be broken before drinking.
Looking at the Shadows in the Cave
“Yes,” Dr. Malone went on, “they know we’re here. They answer back. And here goes the crazy part: you can’t see them unless you expect to. Unless you put your mind in a certain state. You have to be confident and relaxed at the same time. You have to be capable- Where’s that quotation …”
She reached into the muddle of papers on her desk and found a scrap on which someone had written with a green pen. She read:
” ‘… Capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, ... notesA computer named "the cave" where users look into the shadows displayed on it and it reflects their thinking. Named for Plato's Cave, it also sounds like Tarot readings; however, in the context of the story, there is something supernatural at work too.
How the Church Cuts
“But they were cutting-” Lyra couldn’t bring herself to say it; the words choked in her mouth. “You know what they were doing! Why did the Church let them do anything like that?”
“There was a precedent. Something like it had happened before. Do you know what the word castration means? It means removing the sexual organs of a boy so that he never develops the characteristics of a man. A castrate keeps his high treble voice all his life, which is why the Church allowed it: so usefu... notesIn the fictional universe, the Church cuts children from their souls, but in our own history they have castrated boys to preserve their ability to sing in the choir.
Adam and Eve are a Religious Variable
“But…” Lyra struggled to find the words she wanted: “but it en’t true, is it? Not true like chemistry or engineering, not that kind of true? There wasn’t really an Adam and Eve? The Cassington Scholar told me it was just a kind of fairy tale.”
“The Cassington Scholarship is traditionally given to a freethinker; it’s his function to challenge the faith of the Scholars. Naturally he’d say that. But think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minu... notesIncluded in theistic equations the same way the square root of minus one is used in mathematics.
We Settle into a Comfortable Identity as Adults
She still felt seasick occasionally, especially when the wind got up and the ship plunged heavily over the crests of the graygreen waves, and then it was Pantalaimon’s job to distract her from it by skimming the waves as a stormy petrel; because she could feel his boundless glee in the dash of wind and water, and forget her nausea. From time to time he even tried being a fish, and once joined a school of dolphins, to their surprise and pleasure. Lyra stood shivering in the fo’c’sle and ... notesThe idea of the daemon, which changes shape, trying on different forms as a child, is a great metaphor for the masks and roles we wear growing up until we settle into who we are.
The General Oblation Board
“Oh, yes,” said Lyra. “I’m safe from everyone here. Where I used to live, in Oxford, there was all kinds of dangerous things. There was gyptiansthey take kids and sell ‘em to the Turks for slaves. And on Port Meadow at the full moon there’s a werewolf that comes out from the old nunnery at Godstow. I heard him howling once. And there’s the Gobblers….”
“That’s what I mean,” the man said. “That’s what they call the Oblation Board, don’t they?”
Lyra felt Pantala... notesAnd how it relates to the people giving their children to the church to become "oblates."
