Mark Reads ‘The Amber Spyglass’: Chapter 12

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Mark Oshiro

In the twelfth chapter of The Amber Spyglass, adsf; SD:LF Fd D:FSkl SDFHJ DSOFI&$ :DFH SPO*&*(^ s;dlkfja dsf;akf OH MY GOD MY HEART IS GOING TO EXPLODE. Intrigued? Then keysmash along with Mark as he continues to read The Amber Spyglass.

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE BREAK

When Philip Pullman sets things up, he is not afraid to knock it all down.

My brain wandered to chapter sixteen of The Golden Compass, and I must say that Pullman found a way to replicate the emotional and physical response I had to that chapter without being repetitive. More so than any other author I’ve read, this man is so ridiculously talented at crafting scenes of horrific tension, the kind that actually create a pit in one’s stomach, or send your heart rate racing. I knew that the battle at the cave would have to be intense, but until I read it, I wouldn’t begin to appreciate just how stressful and chaotic it starts off as.

Pullman sets up all the pieces, and I like how matter-of-fact and omniscient the narration is. It’s not attached to any one particular character. He’s merely saying, “Just so you remember how totally in control I am of all of this, here are all the parties heading straight for the cave. Lol try and be calm i dare you.” I also noticed immediately that he left Father Gomez out of the list and I will do my best to be prepared for his arrival, but…well, there are other things to discuss first.

What’s so arresting about this all is the fact that there are any number of variables at play here, and the fact that Ama is terrified to silence, or that Balthamos is suffering from a particularly debilitating sense of grief is not making me feel good. Everything about the beginning of this chapter fills me with dread. Will, Ama, and Balthamos quietly make their way to the cave, a loose plan in their heads that, frankly, is full of holes, but is probably the best that they can do.

Traveling in another world, Will finally cuts through to Lyra’s world and is relieved to see that his calculation was accurate: he has Mrs. Coulter and her dæmon in view. Unfortunately, Lyra is not where she’s supposed to be, so the three of them have to creep about the cave to find her. Actually, Will initially wants to go by himself, but Ama (BLESS HER) puts her foot down and demands to come with him, especially since she’s the only one who knows how to use the drug to wake up Lyra.

So, what’s the worst thing that could happen?

And then his heart sank. There lay Lyra, stretched out in the depths of her sleep, right next to Mrs. Coulter. Their outlines had merged in the darkness; no wonder he hadn’t seen her.

WELL. That’s awesome. And it only gets worse, as just seconds later, Mrs. Coulter wakes and sits up. Ok, my heart is going to burst into a million pieces, I thought, because this is quickly becoming a disaster. But thankfully, it seems she woke up due to the blaring sounds of the zeppelins outside the cave, the voices of the men pouring inside. Will and Ama rush to Lyra’s side, and Will prepares to open a window to the other world and–

I don’t know how to describe this. I will just quote it.

He looked at Mrs. Coulter. She had turned around silently, and the glare from the sky reflected off the damp cave wall, hit her face, and for a moment it wasn’t her face at all; it was his own mother’s face, reproaching him, and his heart quailed from sorrow; and then as he thrust with the knife, his mind left the point, and with a wrench and a crack, the knife fell in pieces to the ground.

It was broken.

Now he couldn’t cut his way out at all.

I JUST HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS AND FEELINGS!!!!! Why did Will see his mother’s face? HOW CAN A KNIFE THAT CAN CUT THROUGH ANYTHING EVER BREAK?????? oh my god HOW IS THAT EVEN FUCKING POSSIBLE? How is Will going to be able to do anything without the knife???

Pullman doesn’t stop to give us time to contemplate any of this. There’s so much happening that I forced myself to read the words slowly enough so that I’d understand what was going on. We discover that MRS. COULTER HAS A GUN. Where the fuck did she even get that??? As more zeppelins and gyrocopters descend on the cave, Ama begins to spread the powder on Lyra’s upper lip, helping her wake up.

As men are CLEARLY DYING outside the cave, I was suddenly struck with terror when I realized that Mrs. Coulter was simply standing there doing nothing. She is making no attempt to stop Ama from waking up Lyra, and she’s doing nothing about the people outside, who are surely coming to kill her. Look, I’ll just come out and say it: I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND THIS. Why is she so unconcerned with it all? She has to have another motive or plan in mind, right? What if Will’s right about her lying, but it’s not what I guessed myself? I DON’T LIKE IT. It makes me uncomfortable as hell.

Will manages to pick up the seven pieces of the knife scattered on the floor and…seriously, what is he going to do with them? What could someone do with them? How do you repair the subtle knife? Oh god, why am I even asking questions? I’m not going to get any answers anytime soon.

As the battle rages outside the cave, men and ships literally falling out of the sky, lives already lost, Mrs. Coulter says something that makes EVEN LESS SENSE THAN EVERYTHING BEFORE IT.

Will said above the noise:

“What are you going to do?”

“Hold you captive.”

“What, as hostages? Why should they take any notice of that? They want to kill us all anyway.”

“One force does, certainly,” she said, “but I’m not sure about the other. We must hope the Africans win.”

She sounded happy, and in the glare from outside, Will saw her face full of joy and life and energy.

I don’t think I have ever been this confused in my whole life. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? Now I am willing to believe that Mrs. Coulter is actually telling the truth. There is no benefit that I can think of that she could gain from making a statement like this or acting happy about the thought of Lord Asriel’s force winning. Did she truly break away from the Church? Have I been mistaken about her motivations? Or does she have her own idea of what she wants to do with Lyra?

Speaking of Lyra, SHE WAKES UP!!! Oh my god, amidst all this chaos, there’s some victory: Lyra is no longer asleep. Seriously, I never thought I’d be so happy to read lines of her dialogue, but I am. However, any sort of joy that I am experiencing is rather short-lived. Pullman constantly reminds the reader that there is a war outside this cave, that men are dying by the minute, and that the crossbow men from the Consistorial Court are on their way. Balthamos, shockingly so, is cowering during all of this. You’re an angel, dude! Why are you so afraid?

Yet before Will can even deal with this, the arrival of Tialys and Salmakia gives this chapter one hell of an ending. Lady Salmakia is captured by Mrs. Coulter’s dæmon right at the moment that Mrs. Coulter drops her pistol and Will rushes to the woman’s side, and he sees why she dropped her gun.

It’s a stalemate. Tialys has his spur in Mrs. Coulter’s neck, and Lady Salmakia is in the golden monkey’s hand.

Breathing deeply and swallowing hard to govern the pain, Mrs. Coulter turned her tear-dashed eyes to Will and said calmly, “So, Master Will, what do you think we should do now?”

SD;KFJASD;FKASD;FKJ ASD;KLFJ ;AKSDFJ ;ASKDLFJ

I THINK THIS IS MY FAVORITE CHAPTER ENDING YET. Holy god, this book. My heart is going to erupt soon, and WE ARE NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH IT. oh my god.

About Mark Oshiro

Perpetually unprepared since '09.
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102 Responses to Mark Reads ‘The Amber Spyglass’: Chapter 12

  1. Ryan Lohner says:
    August 2, 2011 at 6:12 am

    Best Mexican standoff ever. For not having appeared until the final book, the Gallivespians are certainly used well.

    Seriously, half the fun of this book is seeing all the balls that were thrown into the air in books one and two come falling down, crashing into each other all the way.

  2. Noybusiness says:
    August 2, 2011 at 6:17 am

    Isn't Father Gomez following Mary? And therefore not heading for the cave? Or did you mean you're looking for him to show up in a different context?

  4. MRB says:
    August 2, 2011 at 6:07 am

    This chapter is one of the chapters I always look forward to rereading, not only because it's exciting and bewildering in so many ways, but also because to this day I need to read it soooo slowly just to be able to figure out WHAT IS GOING ON. Mrs. Coulter is so in her element for the majority of this chapter, it's like she thrives on the chaos of the world around her. That's why the ending is always so fantastic: suddenly all the power is back with Will, thanks to two tiny people we've only just met who apparently have even better weapons than the subtle knife and an armoured bear!

  5. monkeybutter says:
    August 2, 2011 at 7:16 am

    Even though this chapter is a lot more exciting than the last one, it's even harder to comment on because everything's in disarray!

    Okay, I guess there's one non-spoilery thing I can say: The ridiculously lethal crossbowmen made me realize how fortunate it is that the Church in Lyra's world apparently hasn't figured out nuclear weapons. Aside from that being far too boring from a storytelling perspective, they haven't exactly shown an appreciation for the value of human life if it gets in the way of their theological endeavors.

    • Partes says:
      August 2, 2011 at 8:56 am

      Well now, THANKS FOR THAT NIGHTMARE FUEL. Aaaargh, they really wouldn't care would they? The whole place would've just gone boom already.

      Well, I guess that's one advantage to having everything watched closely by the Church. It stifles scientific progress and so keeps the above scenario from happening. It's almost funny just how much they're weakening their own potential power without even realising it.

      • monkeybutter says:
        August 2, 2011 at 9:32 am

        Yeah, I'm sure their society would be a lot closer to ours in the technological realm if they didn't have a policy of playing one faction of the Magisterium off of the others. There would either be weaker from a lot more infighting, or stronger from more means of oppression if they didn't function that way. Thank god for small favors.

        • Partes says:
          August 2, 2011 at 9:48 am

          I think this is one of the interesting things about the Magisterium: they're splintered to the point that their overall power is nothing but a fraction of what it could be. If they learned to cooperate as they are doing with this mission, their reach would be extended even further than it has been. But because they seem to reject powerful public (I'm making an educated guess as there's been no mention of an overall church head so far) their leadership is fractured.

          I wonder if they avoid giving one man too much power because they worry about the consequences of a mortal with authority in the Church or if it's simply that their all so power-hungry that they couldn't bear to share their slice of the pie.

          Edit: I just typed bear instead of bare. What. Oh Iorek, look what you do to me.

          • monkeybutter says:
            August 2, 2011 at 10:02 am

            It's not so much that they splintered, it's that the Church has grown so large that it's unwieldy to govern centrally, so they let the smaller bits keep each other in line. I think the origin of the power-sharing is in the Magisterial Reformation in our world, where Lutherans and Calvinists, amongst others, thought that there should be cooperation between religious and secular authorities so that in return for enforcing the laws of the church, whoever held power locally would get influence in the church as well. So, it's not really that they worried about giving one man too much power, they just wanted to have a finger in as many pies as possible. More allies means more shared power, and less outside competition.

          • Nightfly says:
            August 2, 2011 at 3:24 pm

            Er, it's SUPPOSED to be bear.

    • notemily says:
      August 2, 2011 at 10:09 pm

      This reminds me of something from a future Mark Reads project.

      (Qrfgehpgvba sebz Fnaqzna, naq ubj ur qbrfa'g jnag gb frr nal zber fbpvrgvrf qrfgebl gurzfryirf ol svthevat bhg ahpyrne jrncbaf, fb ur dhvgf uvf wbo. Onfvpnyyl.)

      • monkeybutter says:
        August 3, 2011 at 8:01 am

        Qvqa'g ur ybfr ubcr be gur qrfver gb or erfcbafvoyr nebhaq gur gvzr bs gur Fpvragvsvp Eribyhgvba? Ylen'f jbeyq arire ernyyl unq na Rayvtugrazrag, fb qb lbh guvax ur jbhyq unir uhat nebhaq va ure jbeyq? Be vf gur Puhepu'f cbjre bzvabhf rabhtu?

        Tnu, V pna'g jnvg sbe Znex gb trg gb Fnaqzna.

  6. Tilja says:
    August 2, 2011 at 7:25 am

    "WE ARE NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH IT."

    Halfway? YOU HAVEN'T EVEN BEGUN THIS BOOK. If you think that Pullman has used most of his resources by now, YOU CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO PREPARE FOR IT.

  7. spectralbovine says:
    August 2, 2011 at 7:31 am

    Oh, Mrs. Coulter. WHOSE FUCKING SIDE ARE YOU ON?

  8. Becky_J_ says:
    August 2, 2011 at 7:32 am

    ….The knife broke.

    The knife broke!

    The knife broke!!!!

    As much as I love this chapter for everything else, I can't have any coherent thoughts because THE KNIFE BROKE. And now I realize how much we have been relying upon it. STUPID MRS. COULTER. I blame the monkey. He did it, somehow, I know it. Cause he ruins everything.

    • muselinotte says:
      August 2, 2011 at 11:48 am

      I remember my utter devastation and confusion when I read that part for the first time… I mean HOW? WHAT? WHY? Nooooo….
      What is Will going to do now?

  9. Hanah_banana says:
    August 2, 2011 at 7:40 am

    This chapter. Oh god, this chapter. THE KNIFE IS BROKEN AND EVERYONE IS COMING AND THERE'S NO WAY OUT AND BALTHAMOS IS USELESS AND THEY'VE HAD AN EPIC STALEMATE AND MRS COULTER IS CLEARLY INSANE AND JUST…worst cliffhanger ever. (And by worst I mean best but OH GOD IT'S THE WORST.)

    I do not understand how anyone was able to put down the book here to wait until tomorrow. You have more self-control than I can even begin to imagine and I salute you.

  10. Partes says:
    August 2, 2011 at 8:02 am

    THE CHOAS. THE NEVER ENDING CHAOS.

    <img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loxyk7Gnw51qinlpn.gif"&gt;
    And this is where shit gets real.

    The undeniably slow pace at the start of this book is good at raising tension, but I'm not sure how well it's worked in the chapter-by-chapter format that we've been going through, so let me just say fuck yes huge action scene.

    Incoherent thoughts in list form:

    Mrs Coulter, what the fuck are you doing. I've read this book before but I'd forgotten just how murky she seems as a character (and I mean that as a compliment!) Every time you think you've got her figured out she does something just off the edge of crazy to keep you from getting complacent.

    If the knife cuts to other worlds using Dust (that special metal), then his lack of focus and loss of rational thought due to his confused feelings about his mother are probably what caused the knife to shatter, I think. Which makes me wonder if this has happened before, and Will was simply never given the training to deal with it as he was never a member of the Guild of the Torre Degli Angeli?

    Ama is brave as hell.

    I can't remember what happens next and so am BRICKING it.

  11. Jaya says:
    August 2, 2011 at 9:09 am

    Today’s epigraph!

    [WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.

  12. Jenny_M says:
    August 2, 2011 at 9:27 am

    I think I cried when I read this the first time and the knife broke. It stresses me out so much when things like this happen in books/movies. I'm like…NO PLEASE JUST GO BACK THREE SECONDS AND MAKE THAT THING NOT HAPPEN OKAY? It's sort of like being in a fender bender and you just think…man, if only I could redo just that like…one second in time, I wouldn't have $1000 of damage on my car.

    • Partes says:
      August 2, 2011 at 9:50 am

      Plus, Will would probably still have his fingers. So there's that.

      Although, then Lyra probably wouldn't have gone to the Retiring Room if she could change her decisions. So maybe even the awful stuff works out some times.

      • RoseFyre says:
        August 2, 2011 at 12:32 pm

        Yeah, it's probably for the best that Lord Asriel is alive. If he weren't, who would be leading that fight?

  13. knut_knut says:
    August 2, 2011 at 9:41 am

    HOW DO WE RECOVER FROM THIS??? Really, HOW?! Grieving angel, broken knife that can kill god, people dying, evil monkey stand off, and Father Gomez is STILL OUT THERE SOMEWHERE!! I kept expecting him to pop up and slice Lyra's head off or something D:

  14. Starsea28 says:
    August 2, 2011 at 9:48 am

    Oh Will. I will always love and admire you but the moment the knife shattered, I felt deep sorrow.

    Gallivespians make all things better.

  15. arctic_hare says:
    August 2, 2011 at 10:09 am

    It was broken.

    Now he couldn’t cut his way out at all.

    <img src="http://i54.tinypic.com/2cerijb.gif&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">

    <img src="http://i52.tinypic.com/mkhpn4.gif&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">

    <img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/2iucb2u.gif&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">

  16. Rainicorn says:
    August 2, 2011 at 9:36 am

    Reading these recaps is so joyful and awful for me. I'm absolutely loving how much you're enjoying these books, and at the same time I'm green with envy that you get to experience them for the first time.

    I honestly can't explain how much these books mean to me – I read and reread Northern Lights all through my childhood, and TSK when it came out, and I can remember the excitement of TAS release – and I am not exaggerating when I say that, between the ages of about thirteen and nineteen, I reread the entire trilogy religiously every six months (weeping every time, of course; to this day I cannot even think about the final third of TAS without getting verklempt.

    Oddly enough, these days I am a religious person, but His Dark Materials has been such a powerful influence on me – both morally and aesthetically – that I still consider it the most important book series of my life to date. I can't describe how happy it makes me to see you grokking it too.

  17. ChronicReader91 says:
    August 2, 2011 at 11:10 am

    On one hand- Hooray! Lyra’s finally able to do something in the story other than dreaming.

    On the other hand-the knife. THE KNIFE. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THAT HOW COULD THE KNIFE BREAK I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

  18. BradSmith5 says:
    August 2, 2011 at 11:12 am

    You gotta be kidding me, man! My heart raced more during the food chapters of Hunger Games! All of this is so obvious in its construction it hurts! As the knife shattered I thought: "Okay, so Pullman needed the knife to break. This is why he caused Iorek and the others to break character and discount every logical plan in favor of a convoluted one." Likewise, Coulter stands around because Lyra needs to wake up. Balthamos cowers because he could end this. This book is just getting so silly.

    I didn't expect the little spies at the end––though I'm sure something will pop out of nowhere to solve this soon enough. Either the witches will zoom out and toss snowflakes on everything, or someone will pull the cave's fire alarm. As long as it doesn't involve Iorek or MAKING SENSE.

    • cait0716 says:
      August 2, 2011 at 11:45 am

      I definitely agree, Brad. This all feels so contrived at this point that it's getting hard for me to stay emotionally invested in some of the characters. I just want more Mary and more Serafina (and more Iorek, if he's not just sitting on the sidelines). I'm hoping things will get better now that Lyra's awake.

      • xpanasonicyouthx says:
        August 2, 2011 at 12:22 pm

        I honestly don't see this at all. I don't see anyone breaking character here once.

        • cait0716 says:
          August 2, 2011 at 12:33 pm

          It's more carry over from the last chapter. Will and Iorek could have prevented this situation by getting Lyra out of there hours before anyone else showed up and having Ama wake her up somewhere else. And then you add in the fact that the two armies manage to arrive at the same moment. The characters are starting to feel like puppets to me, doing whatever is necessary for Pullman to get his exciting action scene.

          It's really only Iorek who's not acting in character, because I can forgive Will being a foolish 12 year old and Mrs. Coulter being a turncoat. But Iorek is (a) seeking revenge for Lee Scorseby and (b) trying to help Lyra. He can literally kill two birds with one stone, could have hours ago, but he doesn't for the sake of the action sequence.

        • BradSmith5 says:
          August 2, 2011 at 12:41 pm

          Okay, how about this––the knife's edge cuts though anything, right? So why didn't every splintered piece slice through the cave's floor and fall right down to the center of the planet? How come they aren't cutting through the sheath after Will put them in there? A lock on the hilt was keeping them from touching the edges; there is nothing like that stopping them now.

          Yes, the SUBTLE KNIFE is even breaking character! BUM BUM BUM. 😉

          • Partes says:
            August 2, 2011 at 1:17 pm

            The knife stops working if it breaks. Because Gandalf said so. 😛

            I don't know, a lot of these just seem like unimportant details to me. I agree about Iorek, but I can't remember what happens next so I'm going to wait until the conclusion of this arc to pass judgement. I do remember that one of my favourite parts of the book is coming up though, weirdly enough.

            Also, on the two armies arriving at the same moment: This totally doesn't bother me. Like, at all. This kind of thing happens in fiction and feels no less contrived than in any other battle I can remember reading. It's just a way to ramp up the tension to me, I guess.

            I don't want to come off as an apologist; when I have problems with a novel I'll say so. It's just nothing except Iorek (who I mentioned yesterday is off fighting zombiemen in my headcanon) has particularly stuck out at me, and that small detail isn't enough to hamper my enjoyment.

            • BradSmith5 says:
              August 2, 2011 at 2:58 pm

              Ha,ha,ha,ha. Does he now? I'll deal with him when the times comes. 😉

              And yeah, there are some character motivations that could be explained later. Stephilopolis had a good theory a while back that I'm remembering, and it would explain a lot if it were true.

            • notemily says:
              August 2, 2011 at 9:57 pm

              The knife's special edges not working when it breaks are the only reason I can think of for Will to be able to PICK THEM UP and PUT THEM IN THE SHEATH without them cutting through the sheath and falling. But hey, I mean, it's not like the knife comes with a guidebook or anything. Will knows as little as we do about this.

          • blis says:
            August 2, 2011 at 2:05 pm

            maybe all the pieces fell flat and not on their super awesome cut anything edge?

            i just assumed that there had to be some intent to cut, some kind of force, for the knife to work, or that it required Will to work its magic. in the hands of anyone else it's just a knife. a ridiculously sharp one, but still just a knife.

            • BradSmith5 says:
              August 2, 2011 at 3:11 pm

              The knife was dropped in the previous book and sank into stone up to the hilt. The reason the knife is "subtle" is because it doesn't need force to cut things. Then again, it just broke––maybe it lost all its powers? Such important mysteries.

              • Mauve_Avenger says:
                August 2, 2011 at 5:23 pm

                Wouldn't a far simpler explanation be that the subtle knife normally makes cuts via an Impossibly Sharp Edge, and it just so happened that the shards of the blade landed blunt/broken-sides down so the sharp edges weren't directly impacting the ground? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't even require all the shards to land in the same way; the side of the blade that cuts through universes doesn't seem to work without the proper wielder of the knife being in a very specific mindset, so I'd think that even if those parts did land edge-first it wouldn't make any difference.

                I'm guessing that when it touches the ground, it's not the case that the ground simply thinks "oh shit, I gotta get outta here" and moves out of the way, but other than that I don't think we can quite determine how the blade works exactly w/r/t frictional force. I'm guessing that if it's the case that the blade is somehow made entirely of edges then it wouldn't be subject to friction and would sink into the earth as you describe, but if it's simply a single-edged blade then it would sink a lot farther than a normal blade but would still stop eventually.

                • BradSmith5 says:
                  August 2, 2011 at 5:49 pm

                  Cutting between worlds needs a mindset, but the knife cut through physical mass with no will behind it in chapter eight of book two:

                  "But he did have time to see the knife fly from the man's hand and sink at once into the lead some feet away, point first, with no more resistance than if it had fallen into butter. It plunged as far as the hilt and stopped suddenly."

                  As for whether or not the shattered pieces were all likely to fall blunt-side down––that's a job for the Mythbusters.

    • hazelwillow says:
      August 2, 2011 at 11:54 pm

      How could Balthqmos end this? He's an angel; in this book that means he's less powerful than a human. Hence why Will is here at all and not currently with Asriel. And his fear seems very in character to me.

      I agree somewhat about Iorek… His involvement is a little confusing.

  19. muselinotte says:
    August 2, 2011 at 11:52 am

    This chapter is like a double rainbow… SO INTENSE!!!!

    Also, I love the Gallivespians… they're so intriguing and fascinating to me

  20. pennylane27 says:
    August 2, 2011 at 2:48 pm

    YEAH, THERE'S NO OTHER WAY TO DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS CHAPTER OTHER THAN ONE BIG CAPSLOCK KEYSMASH.

    also, unrelated, WHO GOT INTO POTTERMORE YET? I found the first clue at about 5 in the morning and I AM IN IKASJFIKAWHJEFISDAFJKJFA

  21. Cupcakes says:
    August 3, 2011 at 1:59 am

    Oh god. I found that moment when the knife broke so horrifying. I still remember it from when I first read the books years ago. They go from being so strong with an unbeatable weapon that can help them escape form anything to so vulnerable and in the midst of crazy battle in a second.

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