His Dark Materials: Tower of the Angels

Argh, I’m running behind on these episodes…

If last week was about looking for things, this week was about finding them: Will and Lyra find the subtle knife (according to the book, it doesn’t have capitals), Lee Scoresby finds Stanislaus Grumman, a.k.a. Jopari, a.k.a. John Parry, Will’s father, and Mary Malone finds a way to communicate directly with the shadow particles...

The big chuck of the episode is naturally Lyra and Will climbing the Tower of the Angels and the latter becoming the new bearer of the subtle knife. This was all pretty faithful to the book, with only a few tweaks here and there (for some reason Lyra and Will go through a secret passage into the Tower instead of through the front door, Tulio’s death played out a lot differently, without his siblings as witnesses, and I missed the detail of Giacomo extolling the virtues of a cream he puts on Will’s severed fingers, only for Will to realize it’s just a standard tube of antiseptic).

But we get the basics: the two enter the Tower and encounter Tulio with the knife, they climb to the pinnacle and untie Giacomo Paradisi, and Will fights the half-mad Tulio and looses two fingers, thereby identifying him as the next rightful bearer of the knife. Giacomo (Terence Stamp!) teaches Will how to use the knife and the rules of responsibly wielding it – then, as Will and Lyra make their escape, he drinks poison so as to avoid the fate of the Spectres.

It’s good, but as usual, not great.

Here’s how Will is described in the book as he struggles to concentrate on using the knife through the pain of his severed fingers: “He was blood-stained, trembling, wild-eyed. He was living on the edge of his nerves: clenching his jaw, tapping his foot, breathing fast.” The Will as depicted in this episode looks a little confused and tired, but the tone of the whole scene is very sedate.

I just don’t understand how they keep missing these emotional beats; the things that make everything seem more urgent and life-shatteringly important. We should have had sweat, pallor, groaning, swooning, emotional outbursts. They couldn’t have asked the actor to jog around the block a couple of times, just to work up a sweat? Something to get across the fact that this is difficult and that he’s in pain??

But I’m glad they kept the detail of the subtle knife’s blade being the same as the guillotine at Bolvangar (it doesn’t amount to much, but it’s a nice detail), and the moment in which Pan tries to comfort Will, with the latter unknowingly breaking the taboo and stroking him with a single finger. That last bit is original to the series, but it was surprisingly affecting. The effects they used for the cutting between worlds was good too.

***

When discussing these episodes, I always come back to the point that much of Philip Pullman’s work is not easily translated onto the screen, as he’s a huge believer in only telling the audience what they need to know in order to advance the story.

As such, we never get a clear idea of what the Spectres are, where they come from, or why they only attack adults – only that they’re a result of using the knife to cut between worlds. A few little hints are scattered here and there, but anyone watching and expecting an eventual answer will be very much disappointed (unless Jack Thorpe comes up with something).

(In the book Pullman makes a connection between Spectres and mental illness, describing a similarity between Tulio counting the bricks of a wall to distract himself from the approaching Spectres, and some of Elaine Parry’s paranoid and OCD behaviour – this appears to have been jettisoned here, which is probably for the best).

Likewise, we never get any indication of the backstory between Tulio and Giacomo – or how Lord Boreal came to know of this world and its dangers, or the whole deal as to how or why the subtle knife choses its bearer by severing two of his fingers. It’s all so compelling and mysterious, and I distinctly remembering gasping when I read this for the first time, all those years ago, when Giacomo presents his similarly deformed hand to Will.

But the apex of this “only tell them what they need to know” attitude is undoubtedly the crazy detail about how John Parry calls Lee to his location through (what we assume are) spells cast over Lee’s mother’s ring – an object he hasn’t seen in years, and of which nothing if offered regarding how on earth John came into possession of it in the first place. I mean honestly, what?

To quote the book:

He opened his hand. In the palm lay something that Lee could see, but not understand. He saw a ring of silver and turquoise, a Navajo design, he saw it clearly and he recognized it as his own mother’s, he knew it’s weight and the smoothness of the stone and the way the silversmith had folded the metal over more closely at the corner where the stone was chipped, and he knew how the chipped corner had worn smooth, because he had run his fingers over it many, many times, years and years ago in his boyhood in the sagelands of his native country.

He found himself standing. Hester was trembling, standing upright, ears pricked. The osprey had moved without Lee’s noticing between him and Grumman, defending her man, but Lee wasn’t going to attack; he felt undone; he felt like a child again, and his voice was tight and shaky as he said:

“Where did you get that?”

“Take it,” said Grumman, or Parry. “Its work is done. It summoned you. Now I don’t need it.”

“But how –” said Lee, lifting the beloved thing from Grumman’s palm. “I don’t understand how you can have – did you – how did you get this? I ain’t seen this thing for forty years.”

“I am a shaman. I can do many things you don’t understand. Sit down, Mr Scoresby. Be calm. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

And that’s all we’re told about it. The ring is never mentioned again, and we certainly don’t get any answers regarding how John got hold of it.

Sorry to harp on about it, but it really is one of the most fascinating passages in the entire trilogy in regards to how it exemplifies its final sentence: “I’ll tell you [only] what you need to know,” while also defying it – since we didn’t actually need to know that John was calling to Lee via his mother’s ring. It has no bearing on the wider story. Readers (or the audience) knew that Lee was searching for John for a specific reason, so it seems totally irrelevant to tweak that motivation into something that John instigated.

It’s so strange in and of itself that I’m rather stunned that the writers kept it in at all.

In any case, Lee finally reaches John and the two men discuss matters: John refers to the subtle knife by a name that I didn’t quite catch (Giacomo Paradisi uses the same term), Lee manages to get in an unknowing dig regarding parents that abandon their children, and they both agree to join in Lord Asriel’s great campaign. On that last point, Lee puts up a mild protest that he hates Asriel, and John responds that: “don’t confuse men with the mission.” That would be an interesting thematic knot to unravel – especially since we recently witnessed Asriel cold-bloodedly murder a child – but I already know that nothing really comes of it in the books.

A better line of dialogue was when John speaks of the next bearer of the subtle knife having to “take up the mantle”, completely unaware that he’s obliquely speaking about his own son, and that that phrase was Elaine Parry’s mantra to Will in how he would follow in his father’s footsteps. Nicely done.

***

Finally, in the shortest subplot, Mary is approached by Boreal and immediately puts her guard up on hearing that his offer to fund her research is based entirely on his interest in weaponizing it. Because of course it is. In this scene it’s he and not Mary who comes across the real serpent, albeit one of cunning instead of wisdom.

And though I bristled a little at the fact Mary manages to get the shadow particles (or Dust, or dark matter) to audibly speak to her instead of just typing out responses, I did get the requisite shiver when they identify themselves as angels and disclose their motivation for interfering in the evolution of the human race: “vengeance.”

That the scene immediately cuts to the witches taking their vengeance on the Magisterium airships was a nice touch, though they still remain the weakest part of the show.

And then we see Boreal and Mrs Coulter plotting together. First of all, no way would Boreal tell Coulter of all people about the subtle knife; that’s a card he would have kept close to his chest – though it was made pretty clear in their body language (and that of their daemons) that they’ve been lovers, so maybe we’re meant to infer that he’s trying to rekindle that intimacy.

Though it’s followed by a scene in which the two of them enter Cittàgazze through his secret window… leaving me bewildered as to why Boreal enlisted the children to fetch the knife instead of going in himself. It’s made quite clear in the book that 1. Paradisi made the window into Oxford to lure Boreal into the city, and 2. He didn’t fall for it, knowing that the Spectres would be fatal to him.

And now he’s just wandering around the streets with Mrs Coulter? That undermines a lot of the story we’ve just been watching.

Miscellaneous Exposition:

This episode took a page out of the film’s book (heh) and used an opening voiceover to convey raw exposition about the knife and its history. Pullman had this information passed onto the witches by a man of Cittàgazze after they watch his convoy get attacked by Spectres, but considering it’s been two episodes now since this event was “due” to happen, we might not see it at all. (Though the episode closes on the witches finally entering Lord Asriel’s bridge between worlds).

But the voiceover was familiar, and behold – it was Sophie Okonedo! I initially assumed it was one of the witches, but if you’re curious about the role she’s truly playing, then check out her IMDB page.

Speaking of voices, I trust you all recognized Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the voice of John Parry’s daemon? Which is doubly funny, as I just watched the first episode of Fleabag’s second season last night.

I LOVED the design of the Tower’s interior, especially the statuettes of the hands with the two missing fingers. Great touch. Also, that extended shot of Will and Lyra ascending the staircase, only to be silently followed some moments later by Tulio, was easily the best visual this show has done. It was chilling.

As mentioned, Lyra and Will enter the Tower via a small door, some distance from the building, with an angel on it. Okay, but why not just go through the front door, like in the book? There was nothing particularly secret or closed-off about the Tower beyond the fact that it was mildly ominous.

I loved that they worked in Will’s boxing abilities in his fight against Tulio. I had forgotten all about it, but it’s another seemingly extraneous detail from season one that has paid off better than expected.

Lyra’s budding maturity comes to the fore when she turns her back while Will is bathing. I recall something similar happening in season one between herself and Roger, and it’s a nice reminder of the first consequence Adam and Eve faced after eating the apple…

I was interested to discover that the “missing Asriel episode” (which was designed to fill in the gaps of his book-long absence) would have involved young Tulio in some capacity. It’s hard to imagine what his role might have been, and sadly it appears that it’s not ever going to be filmed. Hopefully they’ll release the script at some point so we can see what might have been.

This crossed my Tumblr dash and made me laugh. I always assumed we never found out because it was more ominous that way: