His Dark Materials II

[Werthead]

On 12/7/2020 at 2:53 PM, Mosi Mynn said:

Mrs Coulter seemed to disassociate herself from her daemon when Pan was attacking him.  She felt it at first, and then she seemed to slowly not.

That monkey is all wrong!  I think I read somewhere that Ruth Wilson believes Mrs Coulter's soul to be damaged, that's why he doesn't speak, and why her relationship with him is so cold.  Boreal was shocked that she could leave the monkey behind!

Yeah, I got the impression that Coulter was first disabled by the pain of her daemon, but she then managed to switch it off and was getting up to attack or try to subdue Lyra and that's when Will grabbed her and they escaped.

There was one bit that was odd, when Boreal expressed bemusement over Coulter leaving her daemon behind and she mentioned the witches, as if she'd learned the same ability. It's been about fifteen years since I read the books, so I couldn't remember if that came up there.

[Poobah]

39 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Yeah, I got the impression that Coulter was first disabled by the pain of her daemon, but she then managed to switch it off and was getting up to attack or try to subdue Lyra and that's when Will grabbed her and they escaped.

There was one bit that was odd, when Boreal expressed bemusement over Coulter leaving her daemon behind and she mentioned the witches, as if she'd learned the same ability. It's been about fifteen years since I read the books, so I couldn't remember if that came up there.

I don't believe so. This was the major departure from the books that I was alluding to - in the books physical separation from one's daemon grows increasingly painful and if I remember correctly the very first version of the method to separate the human from demon as in bolvanger was simply by pulling them apart, which I believe is how Roger dies in the end of Northern Lights (I feel like I remember he falls while Azriel's Daemon keeps his held in her mouth?).

[williamjm]

20 minutes ago, Poobah said:

I don't believe so. This was the major departure from the books that I was alluding to - in the books physical separation from one's daemon grows increasingly painful and if I remember correctly the very first version of the method to separate the human from demon as in bolvanger was simply by pulling them apart, which I believe is how Roger dies in the end of Northern Lights (I feel like I remember he falls while Azriel's Daemon keeps his held in her mouth?).

Spoilers for The Amber Spyglass:

When Lyra and Pan get separated in the third book it is as you say agonising for them but Lyra does manage to adapt somewhat to it and keep functioning so there is some precedent there. There's also more precedent in The Secret Commonwealth although I did sometimes feel like Pullman was changing how his world worked a bit in that compared to the original trilogy.

Separating from their daemon is not something that most people in Lyra's world would even contemplate trying to do but Mrs Coulter isn't most people.

[Mosi Mynn]

7 hours ago, williamjm said:

Spoilers for The Amber Spyglass:

 

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When Lyra and Pan get separated in the third book it is as you say agonising for them but Lyra does manage to adapt somewhat to it and keep functioning so there is some precedent there. There's also more precedent in The Secret Commonwealth although I did sometimes feel like Pullman was changing how his world worked a bit in that compared to the original trilogy.

Separating from their daemon is not something that most people in Lyra's world would even contemplate trying to do but Mrs Coulter isn't most people.

 

More spoilers for the Amber Spyglass:

Spoiler

Leaving their souls is painful for everyone: Will and the little people too.  It's just more obvious with Lyra and Pan because they are separate individuals.  Isn't that Lyra's real betrayal?  Everyone think it's Roger - but she had no way of knowing what would happen with Asriel - when it's really Pan - who she deliberately leaves behind.  That bit made me cry in the books - I'm going to be wrecked when it happens on screen.  I hope Pan finds Will's daemon really quickly.

Re Mrs Coulter separating from her daemon: it feels like their relationship is different to most other people's anyway.  The monkey doesn't ever speak; he doesn't have a name.  And she seems really dismissive of him.  Lee and Mrs Coulter's conversation about past abuse was interesting: I can see Hester trying to protect young Lee, or at least sharing his pain, but I wonder if the monkey didn't, or Mrs Coulter didn't want it to.  Something damaged their relationship.

[Isis]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Yeah, I got the impression that Coulter was first disabled by the pain of her daemon, but she then managed to switch it off and was getting up to attack or try to subdue Lyra and that's when Will grabbed her and they escaped.

There was one bit that was odd, when Boreal expressed bemusement over Coulter leaving her daemon behind and she mentioned the witches, as if she'd learned the same ability. It's been about fifteen years since I read the books, so I couldn't remember if that came up there.

It looked to me like she chose not to retaliate. Actively chose. 

She mentions the witches can do it to point out that it can be done by others, but she isn't necessarily saying that's who she learned it from.

11 hours ago, williamjm said:

Spoilers for The Amber Spyglass:

 

  Hide contents

When Lyra and Pan get separated in the third book it is as you say agonising for them but Lyra does manage to adapt somewhat to it and keep functioning so there is some precedent there. There's also more precedent in The Secret Commonwealth although I did sometimes feel like Pullman was changing how his world worked a bit in that compared to the original trilogy.

Separating from their daemon is not something that most people in Lyra's world would even contemplate trying to do but Mrs Coulter isn't most people.

 

Yes, that's another piece of the puzzle.

It creates a rift between Lyra and Pan; a betrayal. It's incredibly painful for the audience to behold

4 hours ago, Mosi Mynn said:

More spoilers for the Amber Spyglass:

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Leaving their souls is painful for everyone: Will and the little people too.  It's just more obvious with Lyra and Pan because they are separate individuals.  Isn't that Lyra's real betrayal?  Everyone think it's Roger - but she had no way of knowing what would happen with Asriel - when it's really Pan - who she deliberately leaves behind.  That bit made me cry in the books - I'm going to be wrecked when it happens on screen.  I hope Pan finds Will's daemon really quickly.

Re Mrs Coulter separating from her daemon: it feels like their relationship is different to most other people's anyway.  The monkey doesn't ever speak; he doesn't have a name.  And she seems really dismissive of him.  Lee and Mrs Coulter's conversation about past abuse was interesting: I can see Hester trying to protect young Lee, or at least sharing his pain, but I wonder if the monkey didn't, or Mrs Coulter didn't want it to.  Something damaged their relationship.

Indeed, there is something horribly dysfunctional about her relationship with the golden monkey. Really sinister. At first it seems perhaps the mark of an iron will/self control, but now you start to wonder did something external happen to damage her and by association, her daemon.

[Heartofice]

Haven't seen this episode yet but in La Belle Sauvage:
 

Spoiler

Hugo Bonneville also has a seemingly big rift with his hyena Daemon. I took this to be because he had a disfunctional, almost split personality, and was really not at ease with parts of himself. I'm  assuming there is probably something similar with Coulter and her monkey

 

[Mosi Mynn]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

 

  Hide contents

Hugo Bonneville

 

Is that really the character's name?  Brilliant!  

[Heartofice]

17 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Is that really the character's name?  Brilliant!  

Actually it's not.. It's Gerard! 

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, Isis said:

She mentions the witches can do it to point out that it can be done by others, but she isn't necessarily saying that's who she learned it from.

Indeed, there is something horribly dysfunctional about her relationship with the golden monkey. Really sinister. At first it seems perhaps the mark of an iron will/self control, but now you start to wonder did something external happen to damage her and by association, her daemon.

I think it may be a conscious choice for her to make enigmatic comments about being like a witch rather than wanting to reveal anything about her relationship with her daemon to Boreal.

6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Haven't seen this episode yet but in La Belle Sauvage:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Hugo Bonneville also has a seemingly big rift with his hyena Daemon. I took this to be because he had a disfunctional, almost split personality, and was really not at ease with parts of himself. I'm  assuming there is probably something similar with Coulter and her monkey

 

While they haven't really used any plot points from the Book of Dust books I think the writers may have been paying attention to the new information in them about the range of possible human/daemon interactions.

[Poobah]

Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter continues to be mesmerising, her performance is truly elevating the character and show.

[Heartofice]

Haven’t seem tonight’s episode yet, but I’ll admit the second season is a massive improvement on the first, in almost every way.

I weirdly cannot remember anything about the subtle knife book but i googled the plot and it seems to be pretty close to the show so far, which is odd as it all seems to new to me.

But pretty much every complaint I had about season one is now gone I think. It helps that the story and concepts are a lot more mature and less silly, a complaint I had with the first book too.

[williamjm]

On 12/13/2020 at 9:18 PM, Poobah said:

Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter continues to be mesmerising, her performance is truly elevating the character and show.

She did have some great scenes again in this episode. Boreal was really deluding himself thinking that she could regard him as her equal.

The rest of the episode was good as well although it was mostly setting things up for the finale.

[HexMachina]

I’ve caught up at last in time for the finale. Overall very happy with the season with a few gripes. I think my biggest problem is the way the witches are handled here, they seem to be used more as a plot device imo, whereas in the book I felt a much stronger connection to them as characters.

I loved the depiction on screen this week of an ‘off page’ event in the books - namely Mrs. Coulter taking charge of the Spectres. That was really a good scene.

i think the acting is really strong and love the interactions between Ruth Wilson and Dafne Keen. And LMM and Hot Priest Shaman.

I am not ready for tonight’s episode. Not the Alamo  i swear that scene gets me every time in the book

 

[dog-days]

Seen the finale. That was great. Not going to say much about it because it would be incoherent rambling with lots of exclamation marks. 

Kudos to Amir Wilson for the acting in a critical scene. I normally turn away from extremes of melodrama, but here I was moved. 

Approved of the decision to tweak what happened to John Parry - the ending from the books would have needed more set-up to work. 

 

[Heartofice]

Hmm, possibly I was expecting more from the finale this week? It felt like it was shorter than normal, or just a sense that less happened (obviously stuff happened)

I seem to have zero recollection of the book, so I guess that is in some way helpful and makes it all seem a lot fresher, but I think I was expecting it to go out on more of a bang, but I think the bang will be next season. 

Having said that, I really enjoyed it, there was a ton of great acting. Mrs Coulter is absolutely incredible in this series and in anyone elses hands maybe that role wouldn't work. Agree with the above too, Will's performance in that last episode was really affecting, and really choked me up a bit. It was surprising because so far I don't think there has been anything exceptional from him and Lyra in terms of performance, this was his one moment to shine and I think he did it. 

[Werthead]

Interesting that Season 3 still hasn't been greenlit yet. The ratings are slightly down on Season 1, but not significantly. The problem seems to be more coming from the States, where the viewership has dropped almost 50% from Season 1 (first-run ratings for Season 1 averaged at 423,000, for Season 2 so far they are averaging around 220,000).

It does look like plans for four seasons have been dropped and Season 3 will round off the story in just eight episodes.

HBO have to balance the possible boost from having a complete story for HBO Max from the financial investment, which is some what mitigated by sharing the costs with the BBC. The BBC has had big overseas sales success from the show (which doesn't help directly, because they can't recoup costs into production for a third season due to the BBC's public service mandate, but does make an argument in favour of a third season) but HBO has to be considering the co-producing deal means they can't make the money back in their normal fashion, as the BBC had sold the show to several overseas distributors before HBO got involved. That means that HBO can't take the funds out of their ultra-lucrative Sky Atlantic deal which would have made renewal a no-brainer.

All that taken into account, a third season might only be 50-50 likely to happen with HBO's involvement. The show's been a much bigger success for the BBC (scoring almost twice the ratings of the last season of Doctor Who in a comparable timeslot) so they'd likely renew it if the decision was solely down to them.

[HexMachina]

I enjoyed it. I wish the book ending for John Parry had been set up during the season because that was the only part I wasn’t keen on, everything else was great. The Alamo scene, ugh, the emotions, it always gets to me.

However, and this speaks very well of the show and of Ruth Wilson, the most impactful scenes to me were Mrs Coulter abusing her daemon. So painful to watch.

Also, as someone who has dealt with self harming issues it raised a lot of thoughts as what she is doing is self-harm but its such an interesting concept of inflicting harm on yourself without harming your own body.

I was glad to get the Asriel scene at the end too. I think it would have been nice to get the Ruta Skadi scene with him from the books but this was enough to show what was needed i suppose. One thing i’ve noticed is concepts of time in this series are pretty fluid so if Asriel needs an army and a high tech fortress in a few days, so shall it be.

I think they should have set up the Magisterium sending an assassin after the “Serpent” but i guess thats easy enough to do next season.

I need to see Galivespians and dragonflies and Mulefa, please and thank you

[williamjm]

On 12/20/2020 at 12:25 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

I am not ready for tonight’s episode. Not the Alamo  i swear that scene gets me every time in the book

I thought they did a particularly good job with that scene, I think LMM really made the role his own in the second series.

Overall, I thought it was a really good finale with the meeting between Will and his father and the interactions between Mrs Coulter and the golden monkey being particular highlights. Also some good characters moments with Pan's conversation with Will. Mary's story didn't seem to have any kind of conclusion in this episode, and it's a shame we didn't get the planned episode showing what Asriel had been up to so only got a cameo appearance.

Did everyone see the post-credits scene with Roger?

Hopefully they announce the third season soon, although I don't envy whoever had to try to adapt The Amber Spyglass.

[SpaceChampion]

6 hours ago, williamjm said:

and it's a shame we didn't get the planned episode showing what Asriel had been up to so only got a cameo appearance.

Was the season suppose to be longer and the pandemic shut down production early?

[Maltaran]

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Was the season suppose to be longer and the pandemic shut down production early?

There was supposed to be an episode focusing on Asriel and what he was up to during this season. Because it was focused on him and wouldn’t have involved any of the other characters, it was planned to be filmed separately, and then fell victim to the pandemic.