{"id":496,"date":"2011-08-19T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T13:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=496"},"modified":"2011-08-14T22:29:11","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T05:29:11","slug":"mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass-chapter-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/08\/mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass-chapter-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Amber Spyglass&#8217;: Chapter 25"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the twenty-fifth chapter of <em>The Amber Spyglass<\/em>, Mrs. Coulter and Lord Roke race to disarm the weapon to be used against Lyra. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <em>The Amber Spyglass<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><!--more-->CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: SAINT-JEAN-LES-EAUX<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no question in my mind what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153side\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mrs. Coulter is on anymore.<\/p>\n<p>I initially believed that this chapter would be from Lord Roke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective. It seemed that the President implied that he had something in mind for Mrs. Coulter in the dungeons, so I just assumed she was stuck there, and that it would be up to Lord Roke to remove Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hair from the bomb or disarm it in some other way. I was actually excited to spend a chapter in his narrative point of view anyway, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to like it when Pullman does these brief forays with secondary and tertiary characters.<\/p>\n<p>Yet just a couple pages in, Lord Roke goes to hide in Mrs. Coulter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s jacket. WAIT WHY IS SHE THERE. <em>WHY DID THEY TAKE HER WITH THEM. <\/em>Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she known for being deceptively crafty? Why would you take the risk and bring her along? Maybe the President just wants to tease her with the death of Lyra, I thought.<\/p>\n<p>As I said in the last chapter, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s totally bewildering and entertaining to have a new context for Mrs. Coulter using those exact deceptions I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d grown to despise when they were being used against Lyra. In this case, she tries to work her magic on a guard in order to get him to take off her handcuffs. She feigns clumsiness, does her best to seem as innocent as possible, and when all that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work, she gets the guard to say (out loud) <em>where<\/em> the key to her handcuffs is located, assuring that Lord Roke knows exactly where he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need to go to get the key to free Mrs. Coulter. THESE CHARACTERS ARE SO CLEVER. Ugh, why do I love cleverness so much? I blame that solely on the Doctor.<\/p>\n<p>Like many chapters in this book, Pullman shows us just how good he is at crafting suspense, and he utilizes multiple methods to build the tension. Lord Roke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s size is the first of those things. As the Gallivespians scampers quickly to the sergeant with the keys, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that Lord Roke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sting alone can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly protect them, especially since he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the luxury of a dragonfly to dart around on. Even though he <em>does<\/em> take down the sergeant with a single sting, he still has to avoid being fallen on, and then he has to find a way to get the key to Mrs. Coulter. Oh, and the key is as big as his ARM. Oh, and then another soldier notices that this sergeant has fallen, and Lord Roke has to take <em>him <\/em>out as well.<\/p>\n<p>Yet even when he manages to succeed in getting the key and freeing Mrs. Coulter, I knew that this was only going to get worse. WHEN DOES IT EVER GET BETTER IN THESE BOOKS? Mrs. Coulter uses the chaos of the two fallen soldiers to slip out of view and hide. But she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t <em>just<\/em> hide, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I discover why the President took her along in the first place.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The energy of the bomb came from cutting the link between human and d\u00c3\u00a6mon, and that meant the hideous process of intercision: the cages of mesh, the silver guillotine. He was going to sever the lifelong connection between her and the golden monkey and use the power released by that to destroy her daughter. She and Lyra would perish by the means she herself had invented. It was neat, at least, she thought.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>HOLY FUCKING TRAGIC IRONY<\/strong>. I just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<em>WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!<\/em> It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mrs. Coulter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s horrific past coming back to destroy her, and despite that it <em>would<\/em> be the most poetic way to hold this woman accountable for what she did through her position at the Magisterium, it still terrifies me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>too<\/em> much, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made even worse by the fact that Lyra will die in the process. But I suppose that this sort of murder is, like all the others, necessary in the grand scheme of life under the Magisterium and under the Authority.<\/p>\n<p>But\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<em>jesus christ this is fucked up<\/em>. So how is she going to get out of this? How is Lord Roke (or her) going to get past all of these soldiers in order to get Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hair OUT OF A BOMB? (That is such an absurd idea. I LOVE IT.)<\/p>\n<p>To make matters worse, Mrs. Coulter observes that the President has a witch under his command, and she arrives to help out the soldiers. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a paragraph that comes up later that plainly states that everything seemed to happen at once, but it <em>already<\/em> feels that way. The witch warns that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153something\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is coming; Mrs. Coulter spots Lord Roke injured and still on a patch of moss; then she realizes that the President is planning on going ahead with the destruction of the bomb by <em>SACRIFICING HIMSELF INSTEAD OF HER<\/em>. I just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T. I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T. THIS IS SO AWFUL.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just utter chaos. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not confusing, though, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy that Pullman is able to convey all of the motion and the terror of this situation without me having to read passages multiple times. (I did read them <em>slowly<\/em>, to be fair, because I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to miss a single word. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good writing, by the way.) As a witch attacks Mrs. Coulter, the President throws his own lizard d\u00c3\u00a6mon into one of the mesh cages. And suddenly there is tear gas? WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But then a sound from high above made Mrs. Coulter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ears ring: a scream so high and horrified that even the golden monkey clutched her in fear. And a second later, pitching down in a swirl of white limbs, black silk, and green twigs, the witch fell right at the feet of Father MacPhail, her bones crunching audibly on the rock.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Coulter darted forward to see if Lord Roke had survived the fall. But the Gallivespian was dead. His right spur was deep in the witch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s neck.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>JESUS CHRIST, EVERYONE HOLD ME ON THE ASTRAL PLANE<\/strong>. oh my god LORD ROKE IS DEAD AND THIS WITCH IS GOING TO DIE AND FATHER MACPHAIL IS TRYING TO SEVER HIS OWN D\u00c3\u2020MON <em>WON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T THEY THINK OF MY POOR HEART?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even have anything to say that is at all insightful about this. I read this next part with my hand over my mouth, and at one point, <em>I forgot I was supposed to be breathing<\/em>. Which is not fun? But as Mrs. Coulter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s d\u00c3\u00a6mon struggles to grab Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hair from the chamber where it is being held, and the President is seconds away from bringing the wires together, something happens that sends the monkey <em>flying.<\/em> Electrocution? Some sort of shock? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But something had happened to her sight. A terrible clarity had come over her eyes, the power to see the most tiny details, and they were focused on the one detail in the universe that mattered: stuck to one of the pads of the clasp in the resonating chamber, there was a single dark gold hair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>WHAT???? <em>WHAT?????? <\/em><\/strong>DARK GOLD??? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hair super light gold? Or am I just reading this wrong? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>She tore at the mesh, helpless, and then hurled her whole weight against the machine as he brought two wires together with a spark. In utter silence the brilliant silver blade shot down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I AM GOING TO PASS OUT. Whose hair was that in the machine? Is Lyra dead? IS THE PRESIDENT DEAD? OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING?<\/p>\n<p>Lord Asriel shows up (KIND OF CONVENIENT TO SHOW UP AFTER THIS HAPPENED oh god I am so judgy right now), and I am utterly confused. That wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t one of her d\u00c3\u00a6mon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hairs, was it? The blade came down, so did it actually go off? Lord Asriel doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t answer the question at all, and instead sets the zeppelin on fire, sending it crashing down into the station, burning everything, crumbling the mountain side apart, sending it all into the cataract.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m haunted by the closing image in chapter twenty-five, of Mrs. Coulter simply staring tear-eyed at the wreckage, and watching it until it all disappears. I have no idea what just happened, and I have no clue what is going to happen next.<\/p>\n<p>What the fuck, Philip Pullman?<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>If you are just\u00c2\u00a0<em>aching<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0to discuss the many spoilery things that this chapter and others I&#8217;ll read this week,\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/forum.bridgetothestars.net\/viewtopic.php?f=47&amp;t=215552\" target=\"_blank\">BridgeToTheStars is hosting a conversation about\u00c2\u00a0<strong>THE WORLD OF THE DEAD<\/strong><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and you should probably go hang out there with other\u00c2\u00a0<em>His Dark Materials<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0fans. You still have a chance to\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgetothestars.net\/news\/mark-reads-tas-week-3-august-Contest\/\" target=\"_blank\">enter the contest<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0BTTS is hosting in conjunction with me to give away a signed copy of\u00c2\u00a0<em>The Amber Spyglass<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the twenty-fifth chapter of The Amber Spyglass, Mrs. Coulter and Lord Roke race to disarm the weapon to be used against Lyra. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Amber Spyglass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,79],"tags":[23,81,62,80],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-his-dark-materials","category-the-amber-spyglass","tag-mark-reads","tag-mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass","tag-philip-pullman","tag-the-amber-spyglass-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","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=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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