LeGrandElephant

I also realized that telling Billy to “go to Ratter” in death is ironic considering what we find out about death in The Amber Spyglass.

But, I think even without more CGI, this episode could have been better with stronger acting from Billy. Instead of having everyone else reacting to Billy just basically being almost comatose, they should have had Billy shaking and traumatized asking over and over again “where’s Ratter?”

If you can’t afford the CGI, don’t choose a story where having CGI animals in literally every scene is integral to the story.

I also always thought, from the extra vowel, that it should be pronounced daymon instead of exactly like demon, since they are not at all what we think of as “demons” in our language. But I guess Phillip Pullman must have said at some point that it is pronounced demon 😕

I think the problem is not the dried fish but the fact that Billy didn’t say anything, just lay there like he was unconscious. There was nothing from the actor indicating his trauma was more than hypothermia. In the book, doesn’t he shake and ask over and over again “where’s ratter?” Did they just not cast a little boy actor who could act convincingly traumatized, so they had to have everyone else tell us what was wrong instead of having him show us?

I think it is actually supposed to be a title like father. I don’t recall it ever being specifically stated in the books, but in both books and show they call him Farder Coram and they also call him Coram Van Texel. So it seems like Coram is his first name, Van Texel is his family name or last name, and Farder is some sort of title of respect. I also don’t think Farder was used in , so it’s probably a title somehow earned with age.

Now that I’ve read the stuff in this thread about the letter it sounds like a very different situation - though maybe she still would have wanted to marry him at the beginning before the two year wait? But my comments above are about the show more than the actual history, which I know less about.

I’m late to both the history and the episode, but for this whole episode I just kept yelling “run away to America and get married! That’s what it’s there for! A whole country founded on getting away from this royalty nonsense!” But it doesn’t seem like Margaret even considered leaving her gilded cage, how sad. I realize money would have been an issue, but surely a pretty princess could find someone to pay her to do something in the US, eg making cameos in Hollywood films. Just run off and get married and then threaten to make a living in Hollywood and parliament might suddenly have been begging them to come back and live quietly with an allowance. And I don’t think she owed them much after they lied to her and tricked her into wasting two years of her life for nothing.

I have read the books, many times over the years, but I haven’t read the first book recently.

When I read the book, I don’t remember doubting at all that Lord Asriel was Lyra’s uncle, maybe because there was more mention of Lyra having a different last name (Belaqua) and her father having been lord Belaqua. Or maybe just because I was a kid and less experienced in the ways of narrative fiction. Anyway, I didn’t guess he was her father until it was revealed. But my husband, who hasn’t read the books and has only seen episode one of the show, keeps accidentally referring to “Lyra’s father” meaning Lord Asriel. I don’t even think he realizes he guessed anything, it’s just the way the show set it up with him bringing her as a baby etc and he keeps thinking that’s her father. So I don’t think the reveal will be as much of a surprise in the show.

I feel like its a lot easier to explain the whole daemon thing in writing than it is on TV. I'm not sure what I would think of it if I hadn't read the book.

If they can’t put animals in crowd scenes then why are they doing this particular book? It really wouldn’t be that hard, especially in scenes with eg two servants walking across a room - they could have dogs with them. Are we supposed to assume most daemons are tiny animals, or hanging out off to the side together? Not very plausible.

I agree there aren’t enough random daemons in the scenes with random people. There should be more extra birds, dogs, cats, etc, there with the extra people. I suppose with the children we can always assume their daemon is in a small form in their pocket, and that could also be the case for some of the adults, but it can’t be the case for all of them. Other than that, very well done so far. Minor plot changes I’m noticing from the book so far all seem to be well in the spirit of the book. I think it’s actually better so far with the few changes they’ve made than if they’d done a strict scene for scene adaptation. It did bug me that Lyra didn’t even have a small bag or backpack with her when she was leaving on the airship, though.

I’m re-watching the whole series after disliking the new season. I gotta say, I loved Veronica in season 1, but now in season 3 she’s getting closer and closer to the unnecessarily bitchy and nasty Veronica from season 4, and I don’t like her or the show very much anymore. A particular note about this episode: Weevil asks how Veronica could be with Logan after how Logan treated Lilly. But from all the flashbacks we’ve seen, Logan treated Lilly much better than she treated him. Veronica should have said something like “I know you don’t like him but I was friends with him and Lilly for years and we spent a lot of time together, and I can tell you he worshipped her, just like I did”. Why doesn’t she defend him? She lets Weevil get the last word about Logan treating Lilly badly, leaving it to sound like she agrees with him. (Also, weren’t Logan and Weevil most recently working together last season to find out who killed Felix? I know they aren’t exactly friends but I thought they had a grading respect for each other at this point.)

I don’t like seeing her spend years getting a fancy education and then go back to using her high school skill set and not being able to pay the bills. I agreed with Weevil when he pointed out how she has options and she’s wasting them. When I saw her in high school I imagined a better future for her, and this future is just sad and depressing.