{"id":433,"date":"2011-07-13T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=433"},"modified":"2011-07-09T18:25:51","modified_gmt":"2011-07-10T01:25:51","slug":"mark-reads-the-subtle-knife-chapter-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/07\/mark-reads-the-subtle-knife-chapter-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Subtle Knife’: Chapter 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the thirteenth chapter of The Subtle Knife<\/em>, Lyra, Will, and the witches head for the mountains after attempting to heal Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand. There, Ruta finds the group and informs them of what Lord Asriel is doing in his fortress, and we learn what it is Lyra is destined to do. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Subtle Knife<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Well, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a lot to get through today.<\/p>\n

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: \u00c3\u2020SAH\u00c3\u2020TTR<\/strong><\/p>\n

In hindsight, I noticed that Pullman followed up a chapter heavy on experimental science with one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heavy on the theology of the Abrahamic God. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s becoming more blatant to me just why people dislike this trilogy and why, again, it seems to be written specifically with me in mind.<\/p>\n

Before we get to the religion-heavy info dumping, chapter thirteen is largely responsible for character growth between Will and Lyra, especially as Will opens up about the difficult life that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had. (I mean, seriously, could his story be any more paralleled to my own? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all my little Lyras and I get to open up to all of you.) The witches do their best to cast a spell to heal Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the effects of this that later cause Will to talk to Lyra. The ceremony itself is majestic, unlike anything we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen in the series, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad we get another peak into the world of the witches. Serafina creates some sort of potion that can mend wounds of any sort, which she demonstrates by slicing open a hare in front of everyone<\/em> and then using the mixture to heal it. I mean it works, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comforting to know, but holy god<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Pullman prevents the ensuing bout of traveling from feeling stale by injecting it with a whole lot of character development. The alethiometer tells Lyra that they should head towards some distant mountains, and the witches agree that their primary goal should be to help Will get to his father. (OH GOD CANNOT WAIT UNTIL THAT REUNION.) It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a long trip, taking more than a day to reach, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of conversation that happens that is vital to the growing world that Pullman has stuck us in. I was fascinated by the topic of Lyra and Pan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk regarding the events that brought them to this place, and what form Pantalaimon might end up as. I imagine that most people in Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world had this talk at one time or another, and I also imagine that d\u00c3\u00a6mons are generally resistant to changing to a single form, enjoying the flexibility of their shapes over something so static. This book does seem to be happening in a fairly brief timeline, so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see Pantalaimon settle into his final form. If he does, will Lyra be happy with it?<\/p>\n

The two come upon Will resting on a rock and he joins them in their conversation, though the subject changes to the brutality of the kids they encountered in Citt\u00c3\u00a1gazze. Lyra stresses that she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even conceive of the idea of kids doing such a heinous thing, always considering adults to be the untrustworthy ones. Will, on the other hand, finally decides to open up about why the children in Citt\u00c3\u00a1gazze did not surprise: In his world, children were just as cruel as those who tried to kill them in this parallel world.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a difficult section to read, both because you can tell that Will misses his mother so much, and because the memory is still fresh in his mind. The boys in Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story had the capacity to harm and torment a woman simply because she was different and for Will, that<\/em> is an inconceivable idea. How could you hate someone just because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re different? What sort of dynamic in a person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life causes them to act with such violence and disrespect? For Will, though, it gave him enough reason to not trust anyone<\/em>. It sheds light on why he was so stand-offish towards Lyra up until the past few days. In his world, you have to earn his trust, and he automatically distrusted people as a defense mechanism. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting that, in that sense, Will and I both derive our moral compass partially from our past. Will knows first hand from his past that people have a terrifying ability to harm and torture others, physically, mentally, and emotionally. He resolves, then, to avoid doing those very things himself. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perfect, but that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aware on a more empathetic level how such actions can ruin, frighten, and traumatize a person. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absolutely one of the main reasons why I turned out the way I am. I know from experience how bullying and abuse wrecks a person, and I make it my mission to do my best not to perpetuate those things on to other people.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a weird section here that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure how I feel about, though I think I can blame that mostly on the fact that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have all of the pieces yet. Will elaborates on why he previously stated that he thinks Specters came from his world, and gives an example of his mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s erratic desire to occupy herself with mundane tasks, such as counting all the leaves on a bush. He then points out that Tullio appeared to do the exact same thing before the Specters attacked. His theory is that this is a defense mechanism of sorts, a way of making one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s self feel important, of distracting the Specters away. It just makes me think, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What?<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What is Pullman trying to say here? (Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t answer that OH GOD RHETORICAL QUESTION)<\/p>\n

I think at the end of this, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to assemble a list of all the things the His Dark Materials<\/em> trilogy possesses that makes me believe that Philip Pullman wrote this back in the mid nineties and somehow predicted what my life would become so that I would feel ~super special~ when I read it. I say that now because Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entire bit about friendship just hurts everything ever<\/em>. I mean that as a compliment; it was kind of shocking to have a fictional character spell out my experience with friendship and how the concept was utterly foreign to me when I was a kid and a teenager. I mean, I was literally<\/em> not allowed to ask friends over and even if I could have, Will hints at the same fear I had: They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d come to know my parents, and then they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be friends anymore. Hell, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like a good seven year chunk of my life, described in a single paragraph. How do you do this, Philip Pullman?<\/em><\/p>\n

The witches and Will and Lyra move through the world of Citt\u00c3\u00a1gazze, which at times reminds them of their own worlds, but is largely a new experience for everyone. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit of trading in a small village that seems to have no Specters in it (considering there are adults around, unscathed) and Will and Lyra manage to get some food and new clothing. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine it was a pleasant sight to see the young boy come into their village with blood all over his shirt. Even with this refreshing stop, though, Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own temperament is calmed. When they finally make camp in a valley that evening, he discovers that his wound is still<\/em> bleeding. Christ. This is bad, right? What sort of properties does the subtle knife have that would cause this?<\/p>\n

I was touched that Will later speaks openly to Pantalaimon only, so worried about his own health and safety that he seeks the comfort of Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s d\u00c3\u00a6mon. I imagine he was rather lonely, maybe even a bit jealous that he did not have a d\u00c3\u00a6mon of his own. He expresses his fears to Pan, who promptly admits that Lyra thinks he is the bravest fighter she has even seen. A bit shocked, Will is quiet for a moment before he tells Pan that Lyra is the best friend that he has ever had.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She thinks that about you as well,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d whispered the d\u00c3\u00a6mon.<\/p>\n
Presently Will closed his eyes.<\/p>\n
Lyra lay unmoving, but her eyes were wide open in the dark, and her heart was beating hard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
UGH BE STILL MY HEART. How amazing is this? Especially after Will just told Lyra that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never really had friends before. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come so from from when they first met. Have they been together for only a week or two? It seems so much longer than that. Time is irrelevant, though, because these two have been through some pretty awful shit, you know? And it makes me happy to see that Will finally knows that he can trust someone<\/em> in his life.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at this point that chapter thirteen goes right back into that oh-so-familiar mode of Pullman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, known to me as YOU WERE FOREVER UNPREPARED. Because I was. It seems that all of our characters, all of the disparate story lines, are finally ready to come together. Some witches were able to spot a balloon with two men in it off in the distance, which is CLEARLY the balloon with Lee Scoresby and John Parry in it. Then they hear the cry of a bird that is most definitely a d\u00c3\u00a6mon and Serafina is sure that it belongs to Ruta, who appears to also have located them. But first, a beast falls out of a sky.<\/p>\n
Well, ok, the witches fly up at the sound of a possible fight and then<\/em> a creature resembling a cliff-ghast falls to the ground, still alive, and Will slices its head off with the subtle knife<\/em>. Dude doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even hesitate for a second. DAMN. After a couple more fall to the ground, all dead, the gorgeous and fierce Ruta Skadi arrives. Oh, this is gonna be good<\/em>, I thought. And I was not disappointed in the slightest.<\/p>\n
But before we get any information at all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to say my favorite part of this whole chapter is when Ruta sizes up Will, sees the end result of what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done, and smiles at him in approval. When a witch gives you that sort of approval, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a certified badass<\/em>. RIGHT???<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s move on to Ruta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incredible story about what she learned from traveling with the angels to Lord Asriel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fortress. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a seeming impossibility to Ruta that he was able to build a place so large and impressive in such a short span of time, but we learn that Lord Asriel has assembled an army out of beings from an innumerable amount of universes<\/em>. How the HELL was he able to do that? How did they know to come?<\/p>\n
Also, how many of you laughed at this line?<\/p>\n
Every witch there knew what had happened next, and neither Will nor Lyra dreamed of it. So Ruta Skadi had no need to tell, and she went on\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I MEAN THEY CLEARLY HAD SEX, RIGHT. Apparently, who could resist. <\/em>I bet even I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n
Anyway, this is not that important. What is important is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spelled out quite clearly that Asriel is gathering an army to rebel against the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Authority,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which represents God, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure, and that Ruta was convinced to join because of the destructive nature of the Authority and His agents. Of course, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like a bit more specificity to this, as I stated during the last book, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m willing to go this far. So, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re setting up a rebellion against God for what his people have enacted throughout the many worlds. (So there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some form of the Church\/religion in every<\/em> world?)<\/p>\n
Ruta also overheard the creatures that followed her to the camp site discussing Lord Asriel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s war with what appeared to be the leader of these cliff-ghast creatures. The leader is certain Lord Asriel would win based on passion and drive alone, but remarks that he cannot without the \u00c3\u2020sah\u00c3\u00a6ttr.<\/p>\n
OH, OKAY. HI THERE, WORD THAT LOOKS LIKE NOTHING I HAVE EVER SEEN. WHAT DO YOU MEAN. What is the \u00c3\u2020sah\u00c3\u00a6ttr? I wondered. Is that another name for the knife that Will possesses? We know from Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father that the knife is completely important for the war against the Authority, but still haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been told what it will be needed for.<\/p>\n
For a second, I thought we weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to find out anything more: Serafina declines the opportunity to meet up with Lord Asriel and join his cause, stating that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s her duty to guide Will to his father. Ruta is understandably disappointed, but understands Serafina. As she walks off, though, Serafina follows after her in order to speak privately. Ruta is greatly impressed by what Lord Asriel has done and is eager to join the rebellion. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weird that none of these characters are like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Holy shit, you want to kill God? No, thank you<\/em>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I also didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect the series to posit that God was real<\/em> either, though, so mostly I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just wallowing through this all as unprepared as possible. For instance, I had no expectation that Serafina would reveal the definition of the word \u00c3\u2020sah\u00c3\u00a6ttr:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a him<\/em>, sister. We know as little as the young cliff-ghast. Maybe the old grandfather was laughing at his ignorance. The word sounds as if it means \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgod destroyer.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Did you know that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
NO. NO, I DID NOT KNOW THAT<\/strong>. And if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possibly not a dude, then…Lyra will have to destroy God???? <\/em>Serafina again repeats that Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prophecy said she was be the one who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153would put an end to destiny.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Does that mean God is destiny? What sort of destiny does a God give us? The only thing I can think of is that in a world with an Abrahamic God, we are all destined to live in a system of original sin. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a choice about: Because Adam and Eve sinned, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all stained with this choice, even though it happened long ago and we had nothing to do it. That concept always <\/em>irked me, especially when I was a Catholic, and it was the one thing I asked the most questions about. It always seemed so bizarre to me: Why was I born into a system without that first choice, where the cards are always perpetually stacked against me? Of course, I recognize that I am coming at this from the angle of someone who was born as a gay man, one who was bullied and abused extensively, and a lot of what I was brought up to believe about God never helped those things make sense to me.<\/p>\n
I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll wait to elaborate more on the idea, but I sort of despise the idea of original sin, and if it is indeed a very real thing, then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d probably side myself with Lord Asriel in the war against the heavens. But I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll also wait because I COULD BE VERY WRONG ABOUT ALL OF THIS.<\/p>\n
So HOW FUCKING RAD IS THE ANGEL SCENE? I was reminded of the tale of the Three Kings from the Bible, specifically because Pullman, through Serafina, calls their collective action a pilgrimmage<\/em>. They need to be close to something important and the angels know that Will and Lyra are important to the war against the Authority, and they just came to see them, to be in their presence. Again, this is another scene in this book that gives me chills. Even Serafina knows she has just witnessed something pure and special, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sign of the journey to come. The angels leave the camp, and soon Ruta does too, off to assemble the witches of the north from her world to join Lord Asriel. Serafina returns to camp, but not before appreciating both the compassion of the angels, who are both matter and spirit at the same time.<\/p>\n
Oh god, only two more chapters left. UGH CAN THIS NEVER END.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the thirteenth chapter of The Subtle Knife, Lyra, Will, and the witches head for the mountains after attempting to heal Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand. There, Ruta finds the group and informs them of what Lord Asriel is doing in his fortress, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,76],"tags":[23,78,62,61],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-his-dark-materials","category-the-subtle-knife","tag-mark-reads","tag-mark-reads-the-subtle-knife","tag-philip-pullman","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}