His Dark Materials v2

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

The books are explicitly anti-Christian (especially anti-Catholic).

I am not a big bible thumper, and feel the books have some literary merit. But sometime the whole "anti-religion" thing gets a bit preachy.

It is filled with swipes at organized religion. One of the children's allies, a Ms. Frizzle type character, is an ex-nun, who left the consecrated life so she could have a boyfriend and become a scientist.

The whole premise of the series is that the "Church" of Lyra's world has lied about pretty much everything, from the afterlife existing, to the God (Authority) being all powerful and loving.

One of the basic messages of the series ( along with "thinking for oneself, not trusting authority at face value") is the idea that organized religion is inherently malignant and seeks to pull the wool over the eyes of its believers.

As disappointed as I was in how the Golden Compass movie turned out, I don't believe that they could have conceivably adapted all of Pullman's Dark Materials novels into movies.

For starters, they are barely kids books, and I don't think they could appeal to children to have them see the Subtle Knife or Amber Spyglass. They aren't really "fun" books the way Harry Potter and Narnia are, they are somewhat complicated and just plain darker.

Also, the explicitly anti-religion message would be harder to mask as the series go on. Plenty of American families have no problem with organized religion being attacked, or attacking corrupt religious figures. But most wouldn't want to take their kids to a series where God ends up being killed by some heroic children.

[HexMachina]

Minor nitpick, but unless I am misremembering, nobody "kills" the Authority. He "dies" (so to speak) because he is so old and feeble, as I understood it.

[SilentRoamer]

I thought he died because the children opened the stasis box in which he was "preserved". I always took it as a sort of mercy killing of the foremost of angels - they knew he was going to die opening the box bit it was the "right" thing to do.

Anyway I quite enjoyed the books - the first one being the best of the bunch I found. Never cared either way for the religious allegories but then again I felt the same with Narnia - which I also enjoyed (albeit a lot more probably due to reading age).

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

I wonder honestly how the movie would have done if they kept the original ending (where Lord Asriel kills Roger, opening a window into another world).

The movie may have been more interesting, but would have been way darker, and would have probably forced Newline to drop the whole "family friendly fantasy movie" pretense.

Interestingly enough, the original ending was filmed but only bits and pieces of it remain. Though I'd have watned to see it at the time, idk how a ten year old version of myself woudl react to Lord Asriel dragging Roger to the device, severing his demon and killing him. Id likely have nightmares.

Personally I think Newline didn't really look into the series before they bought the rights. They just saw "popular fantasy kids series" and didn't read the fine print of the controversey.

Does anyone really think that they coudl have gotten away with making the Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass?

[Pilusmagnus]

I really don't feel like the book is taking a stand against religion or organised religion as a whole. Pullman definitely does, but that doesn't mean his books do it as well. I read them at twelve, and I am today a practicing christian. And I really feel like HDM has strengthened my faith, by debunking and questioning some strong tropes of christianity. I still despise fanatics, and this book has a part in that, but as far as religion itself is concerned, it really gave me an alternative view and really allowed me to build my opinion on what religion is about.

And Pullman has explicitly stated that Malone's statement that religions are manipulative and wicked must not be assimiliated to his own vision.

[DanteGabriel]

Does anyone really think that they coudl have gotten away with making the Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass?

I was frankly surprised that the first movie got made, because I assumed they would be planning a trilogy in which, well, a whole lot of stuff would have been portrayed that would really have freaked out large segments of American society. The first movie was able to skirt around most of Pullman's anti-religion message, but yeah, I bet a second and especially third movie would have had to be... significantly altered from the source material.

[Happy Ent]

The books are explicitly anti-Christian (especially anti-Catholic).

They are? Honest question – 'tis been many years since I read them. I didn't know Christianity was even mentioned.

[HexMachina]

Why weren't the last two films made btw? I know the first was, um, not great, but I wasn't sure whether it was a financial flop or some other reason why there weren't anymore.

[HexMachina]

They are? Honest question – 'tis been many years since I read them. I didn't know Christianity was even mentioned.

Mary Malone was a former nun. And the Magistirium or whatever it's called appears to be the Christian church of Lyra's world, unless I am mistaken

[Pilusmagnus]

Why weren't the last two films made btw? I know the first was, um, not great, but I wasn't sure whether it was a financial flop or some other reason why there weren't anymore.

Lack of success.

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

Why weren't the last two films made btw? I know the first was, um, not great, but I wasn't sure whether it was a financial flop or some other reason why there weren't anymore.

It did well internationally, but sort of flopped domestically. Its the first really failed franchise of planned adaptation of novels. Since Newline didn't have the international rights, they didn't make enough money. Since they failed to make the amount of money they wanted to, they probably won't invest in it again :(

[polishgenius]

Since Newline didn't have the international rights, they didn't make enough money. Since they failed to make the amount of money they wanted to, they probably won't invest in it again :(

Well, apart from anything else, the decision to sell the foreign rights cost New Line so much money that they were folded into Warner Bros. as a company no longer trusted to run itself. Which was quite some achievement for the studio that made LotR (mind you, they claim that LotR also made losses, somehow, in one of the more infamous cases of Hollywood accounting, so...).

So it's no longer New Line's decision in any case.

[Happy Ent]

Mary Malone was a former nun. And the Magistirium or whatever it's called appears to be the Christian church of Lyra's world, unless I am mistaken

Oh, “appears to be” is what I remember. But LordArryn wrote “explicitly anti-Christian” (my emphasis).

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

They are? Honest question – 'tis been many years since I read them. I didn't know Christianity was even mentioned.

The first book merely refers to what appears to be the equivalent to the Catholic Church as "the Magisterium", but by the end of the third book, Mary openly says something like "the Catholic religion is just one big mistake" or something.

[Eponine]

The first book merely refers to what appears to be the equivalent to the Catholic Church as "the Magisterium", but by the end of the third book, Mary openly says something like "the Catholic religion is just one big mistake" or something.

It's also explicitly stated that one of the names for the god/first angel is Jehovah. Things like this really pulled me out of the book and ruined my suspension of disbelief.

[Happy Ent]

The first book merely refers to what appears to be the equivalent to the Catholic Church as "the Magisterium", but by the end of the third book, Mary openly says something like "the Catholic religion is just one big mistake" or something.

Ah. Thank you very much. I did not remember that.

It's also explicitly stated that one of the names for the god/first angel is Jehovah. Things like this really pulled me out of the book and ruined my suspension of disbelief.

Well, “Jehova” doesn’t make it Christian, so that wouldn’t qualify. Still, thank you for your reply.

I took the opportunity to check with Wikipedia (instead of re-reading the books), which has this to say:

The dominant religion has parallels with Christianity,^[7] and is at certain points in the series (especially in the later books)explicitly named so; while Adam and Eve are referenced in the text (particularly in The Subtle Knife, in which Dust tells Mary Malone that Lyra Belacqua is a new Eve to whom she is to be the serpent), Jesus Christ is not.^[8] The Church (called the "Magisterium", the same name as the Catholic body) exerts a strong control over society and has some of the appearance and organisation of the Catholic Church, […]

I conclude that Christ, in any form (Jesus, the Redeemer, etc.) is never mentioned; and that in particular the religious institution in the books (“the Church”) is not explicitly Christian. Moreover, there is not even an analogy in the books of the main ideas of Christianity (incarnation, passion, redemption), which play a large role (analogously) in Narnia.

[Kyoshi]

I'm glad this was revived.

I read them for the first time last year by accident; the hard cover made me believe the book to be an alchemical manual of some sort. Anyway, I really loved Northern Lights, was not so happy with The Subtle Knife, and enjoyed The Amber Spyglass. I enjoyed how the worlds were built and that the laws governing each world were clearly defined. Even when they were not, I found the mysteries fascinating, like why almost everyone had a daemon of the opposite sex. I especially loved the "purgatory" world where the people just hang out with their deaths and it comforted them.

One of the main issues I had with the books is that Lyra sort of becomes dilute as a character as the series continues, but maybe that was just me.

The subtle knife seemed too convenient a weapon, when the convenience was convenient for the plot, and not so convenient otherwise, and they obtained it far too easily IMO.

The war sort of went nowhere.

Lyra and Will fell in love, but I guess that was sort of essential to the plot. But I have been reading a lot of YA and I find it un-okay that as they awesomely go about their quest, the main characters have to fall in love. [if anyone knows of a series where this does not happen then please recommend]. At least in HDM there was no love triangle.

But in the end these were issues I could deal with and I really enjoyed the series.

On the question of atheism: How much does creationism factor into the opinion of whether or not the books were fundamentally atheist. I could have misunderstood but doesn't Dust create everything in HDM, thus making the Authority just another creation and not the creator? I have always thought that to be one of the most fundamental foundations of Christianity. At least in my case, one of the reasons I identify as atheist is because I don't believe god to have designed and created the universe and once I questioned that, everything else just sort of fell apart. :dunno:

[Kyoshi]

I wonder if it would not be worth it to have a Chronicles of Narnia thread started.

[Altherion]

Altherion… very interesting. I didn’t know one could disagree about this.

I’m fine with decapitalising Him. (My own statement “God exists” was preceded by a full stop, so the nomenclature was purposefully ambiguous.)

Let me turn this around: the default atheist position today is agnostic atheism, i.e., unbelief in gods (including God) based on of absence of evidence. Theism is just considered superstitious nonsense.

This is not the epistemological position of His Dark Materials. In HDM, gods (including the Authority) are rejected even though they clearly exist.

The original question in #6 of this thread was “How honestly do you think atheism is portrayed in these books.” To this question I responded that atheism is not portrayed with high fidelity.

So, maybe to be somewhat clearer: the books are not agnostic atheist (which I claim is the mainstream atheist position). They are anti-theist: a rejection of an existing god based on anti-authoritarianism (which I claim is a fringe atheist position, at best.)

Maybe the position of Hitchens might be easiest to reconcile with HDM: God should not be worshipped, no matter if he existed or not. Belief in gods is a moral defect. (In contrast to Dawkins’s position: belief in gods is an intellectual failure.) I think most atheists are Dawkins-type atheists.

Alright, I see what you mean now. Indeed, the more common atheist position is that there simply isn't any evidence for God (or anything supernatural, really) whereas HDM has a real afterlife and a critter widely believed to be God (even though it's a swindle).

They are? Honest question – 'tis been many years since I read them. I didn't know Christianity was even mentioned.

I wouldn't say explicitly, but even a child would be able to recognize that the Magisterium is a very thinly veiled Catholic Church stand-in (I think they even have the Swiss Guard).

Personally I think Newline didn't really look into the series before they bought the rights. They just saw "popular fantasy kids series" and didn't read the fine print of the controversey.

Does anyone really think that they coudl have gotten away with making the Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass?

While I suppose there is just enough incompetence in the world for somebody to make such a mistake, given that they spent $180M on the movie, I very much doubt it. I suspect that their plan for making the other two movies would be to cut out most of the stuff about the church and various other things that would give offense.

[Happy Ent]

I wouldn't say explicitly, but even a child would be able to recognize that the Magisterium is a very thinly veiled Catholic Church stand-in (I think they even have the Swiss Guard).

Of course. I was explicitly asking about explicit. The poster probably used that word in the “literal” sense.