His Dark Materials: The Abyss

    We’re on the homestretch now.

With this episode, many of screenwriter Jack Thorne’s choices in adapting Pullman’s work have become clearer, particularly in the cause/effect nature of his original story additions. I’m speaking specifically of what exactly happened to Alarbus, the intercision device, and Metatron reaching down from the sky with a beam of heavenly light to detonate the bomb.

As Mrs Coulter very helpfully spells out for us, Metatron was responsible for the bomb going off, and did so in retaliation for Asriel’s “war crimes.” It’s a continuation of the scene between Ogunwe and Ruta of a few episodes ago, in which they pondered whether the angels would continue to stand with Asriel if they found out what he’d done to Alarbus.

Their question isn’t exactly answered here (since the angels on Asriel’s side still aren’t aware of what went on behind closed doors) but that basic idea is still carried into this episode, with Mrs Coulter drawing that correlation between Asriel’s treatment of Alarbus and Metatron’s decision to make bomb go kablooey.

It all hangs together, provided you don’t examine it too closely. Which of course, is precisely what I’m about to do. Like – why exactly are Asriel’s actions described as “war crimes”? He didn’t murder a prisoner-of-war, because Alarbus is still very much alive. Which means that Mrs Coulter therefore had to be referring to the fact that Asriel tortured the angel.

But... why would this lead to Metatron setting off the bomb? Why would he care? I mean, it’s not like he’s demonstrated any sort of concern or rapport with any of his cohorts – heck, he’s only appeared on-screen for a matter of seconds. We know absolutely nothing about this character at all.

Maybe we’re meant to assume that this was just Mrs Coulter’s interpretation of events as they unfolded, as the scene involving Metatron and the detonation of the bomb came with his voiceover: “You think Dust can make you gods? Let’s see how you fare without it.” This suggests his actions were in response to Asriel’s deliberate baiting of him, rather than any It’s Personal anger over the deliberate torture of Alarbus.

In any case, the consequences of the bomb designed to kill Lyra are quickly made evident, as it not only opens up a bottomless Abyss in the land of the dead, but also several chasms in the world of the still-living. This was a little confusing to me, in the book as well as the show, since... well, the abyss has always been there, right? The only thing that’s changed is that now it’s physically accessible to the likes of Lyra and Will in the underworld, and Asriel and Ruta in the living world.

This, as it happens, is the source of the trilogy’s very title. To quote Milton’s Paradise Lost:

“Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross. ”

Okay, so we don’t have time to unpack all of that and how it relates to Pullman’s story. Just suffice to say that the concept of the Abyss is so important that Milton’s verse about it inspired the very title of the Pullman’s story in its entirety.

The idea that Dust is drifting out of the world and disappearing into the oblivion of the abyss is clearly stated in the book, though it’s a little unclear how it’s connected to what Mary sees through the amber spyglass in the world of the mulefa. As she explains to the mulefa, who have asked her to explain why the seedpod trees are failing: “The trees are filtering the sraf as it moves through them, and some of it is attracted to the flowers. I could see it happening: the flowers are turned upwards, and if the sraf were falling straight down it would enter their petals and fertilize them like pollen from the stars. But the sraf isn’t falling down, it’s moving out towards the sea. When a flower happens to be facing the land, the sraf can enter it. That’s why there are still some seedpods growing. But most of them face upwards, and the sraf just drifts past without entering... something has happened to the sraf, not to the trees.”

But you don’t need me to tell you that drifting out to sea and falling into an abyss are not the same thing (after all, if the mulefa world is spherical, does it even matter if the sraf is floating out to sea? Presumably it will eventually to travel back around the globe to where sentient life is found, right?) and the fact that the show has so thoroughly shortchanged the mulefa and their way of life means the existential threat that the loss of Dust/sraf entails is a little hard to grasp.

The book goes into a little more detail, with the mulefa giving Mary an important clue as to why the seedpods (and as she discovers, the subsequent loss of Dust) might be happening – that it all began about three hundred years ago. Though Mary doesn’t realize it at the time, the text informs the reader that this coincides with the creation of the subtle knife by the philosophers in the Torre degli Angeli. This will be important later when it comes to explaining why exactly Dust is disappearing.

But it's clearly not something we’re meant to interrogate too hard, as the narrative point Pullman is trying to make is simply that Dust (that is, consciousness) is disappearing from the world – whether it’s out to sea or into the void, it’s all part and parcel of the same problem.

Pullman needs to set up the concept of the abyss for two reasons. Having by this point established that Dust (or Shadows, or sraf) is the embodiment of humanity’s evolution of thought, it’s firstly to demonstrate the existential horror that’s currently jeopardizing all sentient life in every world that exists: the threat of oblivion, the cessation of all consciousness.

Secondly, it’s to prepare the reader/viewer for what awaits Asriel and Marisa. And holy shit, he does not hold back on the reality of this. “That abominable fall yawned all the time, and one little slip, one footstep on a loose rock, one careless handhold, would send you down for ever and ever, thought Lyra, so far down you’d die of starvation before you ever hit the bottom, and then your poor ghost would go on falling and falling into an infinite gulf, with no one to help, no hands to reach down and lift you out, for ever conscious and for ever falling...”

I can’t even bring myself to think about this for any length of time, as it’ll send me into a downward mental spiral.

I do wonder though, how much of this is being successfully translated into the visual medium of the show? Does the audience realize what’s at stake here? That every sentient being faces either oblivion or mindless fealty to a false god and his self-appointed regent?

Thorne has already left out some pretty crucial components of Pullman’s theological worldbuilding, from Mary’s observation that baby mulefa have less Dust floating around them (because they have not yet reached maturity, and so are not yet capable of clear, purposeful thought) or the mulefa version of Adam and Eve (in which a serpent suggests Eve put her claw in the oiled seedpod, thereby granting her access to sraf – which in this culture, is treated as a positive “make-like”, or metaphor) or even – as mentioned above – that Dust has been disappearing for three hundred years, an important clue in why exactly it’s disappearing.

It’s so frustrating because this is the entire point of the story we’ve been experiencing for the last three books/seasons, and it’s all so carefully crafted. Heck, the show had the opportunity to refine it even further (no spoilers, but the reasons behind why Dust is fading away is only briefly touched upon in the books, and Thorne had the chance to lay down the cause and effect in much less ambiguous terms).  

But I can’t judge Thorne too harshly, as by this point in the story, Pullman is also starting to rely on narrative cheats to keep the plot moving. I don’t mind if we never find out how John Parry got hold of Lee Scoresby’s mother’s ring to draw them together – the unsolved riddle is part of the enigmatic nature of the story, and Lee’s motivations in tracking him down were sound.

But in the book, John Parry turns up early on in the journey through the land of the dead, with foreknowledge of the bomb’s imminent arrival. SOMEHOW he knows what’s about to happen, and instructs Will to find the strands of Lyra’s hair that have been cut, to slice them off at the roots, and then open a window to another world and seal the strands inside – thereby redirecting the bomb. It still causes enough of an impact to open the abyss, but needless to say this entire sequence is omitted from the show.

(Which raises the question as to why the bomb was so ineffectual. Obviously neither Lyra nor Will are getting killed off at this late stage of the game, but... wow. An interdimensional bomb sent by the hand of an angel and it still can’t do its job).

Later, John tells the children that their daemons have returned to Lyra’s world, and that he knows of a way the dead can remain ghosts while out in the world of the living in order to help fight the Spectres in the battle against the Authority. Naturally the questions arises as to how the heck he knows all this, and his answer is: “I was a shaman when I was alive. I learned how to see things.”

Right. Well, that clears things right up. Look, it’s not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, and the show itself isn’t going to bother with Pullman’s take on the redirection of the bomb or the presence of Scoresby and John Parry’s ghosts on the battlefield (as ever, budgetary concerns and the lingering threat of Covid can be blamed for most of this) but you can tell Pullman is struggling at this point to pull all the threads of his narrative together and drive the characters to where they need to go.

In comparison to the other books, in which the narrative and characterization flows like water, it’s a little too unwieldy, and you can see the strings.

***

The show is putting together it’s own pieces, and there’s a quick montage of several different reactions to the opening of the abyss. Asriel is delighted for some reason, Mary is dismayed, and everyone else is pensive. At this stage I think Asriel just loves the idea he’s getting the attention of the Authority, much like a child who desperately wants daddy to notice him (well, it certainly fits the Lucifer analogy) while Mary can see that it’s having a terrible effect on the flow of Dust.

Interestingly, the whole episode opens with Metatron’s voiceover stating: “in the beginning, man was given the gift of Dust. It ignited his mind and freed his will. But that free will has corrupted mankind. Dust shall be drawn into eternal darkness once more. That which was given, shall be taken away.”

Okay, hold up. Man was given the gift of Dust? By who? And why? This is a very odd statement, and the fact it’s coming from Metatron is perhaps the reason we’re not meant to take it at face value. The show has made it reasonably (albeit implicitly) clear that Dust evolved alongside sentient life in a symbiotic relationship, and the gendered emphasis on “man” and “mankind” completely ignores the fact that it’s a fairly substantial motif throughout the story that EVE is the vessel through which consciousness emerged in humanity.

So I’m not going to dwell on that too much, as the idea that a higher power, whether it be the Authority or a mysterious unseen God whose existence Pullman neither confirms nor denies, bestowed Dust onto mankind is just bewildering. The fact that the last episode ended with Metatron intoning: “let’s see how well you do without [Dust]” is equally strange, as it suggests its existence is entirely up to him. I suppose it tracks if he set off the bomb to specifically open the abyss and hasten its demise... but has he forgotten that he’s entirely made up of Dust?

We’re just going to have to go with Metatron believing his own bullshit.

The episode establishes a few things about the abyss: that it has a strange, hypnotic quality about it, one that Lyra almost succumbs to before she’s saved by the harpy. The fact that Asriel can abseil down its side also suggests it hasn’t just opened up in the land of the dead, but the physical world as well, though I’ve no idea why Asriel acts so excited about it. Does he even have any idea what’s going on?

I suspect the reason they show the chasm opening so close to Asriel’s campsite is to shorten the travelling distance between where he and Mrs Coulter are now, and where they’re going to end up (no spoilers!) but that he describes the “rupture in the multiverse” as “a bloody gift” is very bizarre. And I really could have done without the world “multiverse” being thrown in – too many comic book connotations at this point.

And then we get the befuddling scene in which Ruta’s daemon flies over the abyss and is abruptly struck down by it, dissolving into Dust and clearly perishing, along with Ruta herself. As is the way of things, the witch feels her daemon’s pain from afar and succumbs to death, dying in Ogunwe’s arms.

We are WAY off-book at this point (I’m pretty sure Ruta’s fate is unaccounted for in the books) and it’s clearly setting up the eventual fates of Asriel and Marisa. The internal dialogue of Lyra’s mind, in which she grows dizzy at the horrific possibility of falling into the abyss, obviously cannot be fully conveyed in a visual medium, and so we needed a Sacrificial Lamb to fully grasp what the abyss will do to a person – that Ruta will fall forever in limbo, never to know peace.

Even then it’s clumsily done, as Serafina has to spell out what has just occurred, and it’s more than a little troubling that we’ve just watched a Black woman suffer a Fate Worse Than Death for the sole Doylistic purpose of setting up the deaths of two more important characters. It doesn’t even achieve anything of importance within the narrative itself.

But speaking of Serafina – she’s back! She’s been gone so long I’d almost forgotten about her. There’s not much to say about her at the moment, as all her current material is original to the show (she only appears at the very beginning and very end of The Amber Spyglass) but I’m glad they’re bumping up her role a bit. In hindsight, she was rather ill-served in the books.

***

Meanwhile, Mrs Coulter has dragged herself up off the laboratory floor and found Fra Pavel, demanding confirmation of Lyra’s death. Because she’s quite literally in the land of the dead, and because an adult cannot interpret the alethiometer with the instinctive grace of a child, Pavel comes to the wrong conclusion about what the device is telling him, and Mrs Coulter assumes the worst.

After returning to Asriel with the intention craft (which is interesting, since in the book she’s rescued from the Magisterium by him, and doesn’t return entirely of her own free will) and sharing news of their daughter’s demise, she makes it very clear that she blames him for it. I can’t say I blame her, because he seemed more cut up over the death of Roke than Lyra.

We get a reasonably good scene between Serafina and Mrs Coulter, in which the latter attempts to commit suicide-by-witch through goading Serafina about all the witches she’s murdered, but Serafina doesn’t take the bait. Instead, the conversation segues into Lyra and the prophecy of Eve, in which Mrs Coulter comments that she was raised to believe Eve did something shameful, and how love and experience can change a person.

This is a much better lead-in to Mrs Coulter’s sacrifice on an emotional level than the logistics of what happened to Ruta, so I give Thorne credit for this one, and it was a nice touch that Serafina was the one to witness it. She’s very much Lyra’s foster-mother and she can form a connection to Mrs Coulter through recalling the loss of her own son.

Elsewhere, Asriel has decided to get confirmation of Lyra’s death, and ends up finding Iorek. I mean, he just finds him, immediately, in the middle of the wilderness. What. I suppose we can assume he took the intention craft, but they don’t even bother showing it in the establishing shot. And isn’t Iorek back in his own world, a completely different world from where Asriel has set up basecamp?

In any case, it’s a fairly engaging scene, and one in which you can see Asriel start to realize the impact Lyra has had on others. Perhaps she’s more important than he gave her credit for. There’s a solid exchange of intel here, with Iorek telling Asriel that Lyra went to the land of the dead, and that there’s every chance she’s still alive down there.

I also really liked the brief glimpse of guilt/wonder on Asriel’s face when he learns that the lowly kitchen boy Roger is the cause behind this recent massive cataclysm. Also, his delight on articulating that: “my daughter is staging a prison break.” Nicely done, James McAvoy.

Also of note is that we’re reminded that Iorek has given Lyra a new name, the moniker of “Silvertongue”, which thematically resonates with Lyra likewise giving the name “Gracious Wings” to the harpy that saves her. It has no deep narrative purpose, but is a nice echo of how true names can be bestowed out of love and gratitude.

***

Down in the land of the dead, Lyra’s party have gotten themselves to their feet and are continuing on their way. Finally, we get some scope to the proceedings, as the long line of the dead with their lantern lights, stretching away into the distance and picking their way up the slope is very nicely rendered.

There is an odd little moment in which Lyra and the others make a run-and-jump leap across a small chasm, and I’m not entirely sure what the point of it is. Indicative of a leap of faith? Or just filler? There’s also some more tension between Roger, Lyra and Will (sorry Roger, but when one of you is dead, the shipping endgame has already been decided on) and the scene in which No Name the harpy saves Lyra from an eternity of plunging into an everlasting abyss.

Due to the restructuring of these chapters in the adaptation, it all plays out a little differently on-screen. At this point in the book, Lyra and the Gallivespians have already made their deal with the harpies: that in exchange for true stories, the harpies will escort the ghosts through the land of the dead to the window Will is about to cut into the world above. The harpy therefore has a perfectly good reason to save Lyra’s life, as by that point they’re allies.

But here, the deal has not yet been struck. It’s rather frustrating, because Thorne has completely ignored the careful three-part structure that Pullman gave to this particular narrative thread. Firstly, the harpy attacks Lyra at the entrance to the land of the dead after she spins more stories (or lies) to try and explain her presence there.

Secondly, the company notice that while Lyra is talking to the ghosts about the world of the living, they’ve attracted the harpies, who are oddly calm and listening to what she has to say. Thirdly, on realizing that the harpies aren’t attacking because Lyra is speaking the truth instead of lies, they’re able to leverage that information to form a treaty. There will be no more attacks on the dead – instead, the harpies will guide them to the window in exchange for stories of the world above. Neat, elegant, understandable.

But since Thorne has skipped the first two-thirds of this arc, Lyra coming up with the idea to exchange stories for safe passage feels out-of-nowhere and mildly pointless to boot. The ghosts are already getting where they need to go, with or without the harpies, so who really cares if stories are shared or not? More specifically, true stories. This is crucially important to Pullman’s outlook on life – that everyone should live in a way that leads to interesting stories, as opposed to shutting yourself away from the world.

I mean, how could you miss that? It’s pretty fundamental to the story being told! Ah well.

At this point we get some closure between Will and his father, which is so awkwardly structured that there’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that it was done with Covid restrictions in place. So, Scoresby hears Will talking about his father and realizes that John Parry and “Jopari” are one and the same. Then he SOMEHOW decides to go in search for him, because he SOMEHOW knows his location and SOMEHOW ends up IN FRONT of the kids in order to usher Will into a small cave where John is just... sitting by himself in the dark? Buh?

Obviously, all this makes a lot more sense when you take into account that the setup allows for the actors to remain in completely separate locations (no one but Amir Wilson ever interacts with Andrew Scott, and this scene was almost certainly filmed on a different day, in an entirely different place, than any of the stuff involving Lewin Lloyd, Lin-Manuel Miranda and even Dafne Keene).

It’s awkward as hell, but sometimes you just have to go with it. Everything comes to a stop so that Will can have a little chat with his father, but a reasonably good job is done of transposing their conversation from the book to the show. Will tells his father that he doesn’t want to be a fighter, but a healer (I’ve always head-canoned that he grows up to be a doctor) and John gives him very important intel that will be important later: that he has to go back to his own world after this adventure, as living in another one will kill him for too long.

This, children, is what’s known as a Diabolus ex Machina. It’s when something unexpected happens that turns a happy ending into a tragic one, and though I give Pullman some credit for describing John Parry as looking unwell when we first see him (which foreshadows his health problems) the idea that a person can only exist in their own world feels tacked-on and completely at odds with the trilogy’s underlying themes of cooperation and unity. Doesn’t Dust flow through all the worlds freely? Why on earth would living in a different one kill you?

It's just preparing us for the sad parting that will have to take place in the final episode... but we’ll get to that in good time.

Also, why does John tell Will not to “make the same mistake I did” in regards to staying in Asriel’s world. He arrived through a window and was unable to return! It wasn’t a mistake, it was an accident. He also tells Will that his and Lyra’s daemons have returned to Asriel’s Republic, which... okay, whatever. Let’s just get on with this.

Having received the necessary closure from his father, who for whatever reason is deciding not to join the rest of the ghosts in their procession to the world of the living, Will rejoins Lyra. They get high enough for him to cut a window through to the realm of the mulefa, and the goodbyes commence. Yes, I got a little teary when Roger and Scoresby bid farewell to Lyra, and I think Roger in particular is the one thing this show (dare I say it) did better than the books.

Roger was more of a device than a person in the books, something to motivate Lyra without really giving the reader a chance to know him personally. As such, I was never able to really grasp the depth of her relationship with him, and remember thinking on my first read of The Amber Spyglass that her decision to traverse the land of the dead for his sake was a bit random (perhaps supplemented by the fact I was far more interesting with how the war against the Authority would pan out).

But Lewin Lloyd has been so adorable and winsome that you really felt the platonic love between Roger and Lyra, with even a little trace of “what might have been” had he gotten the chance to grow up with her.

More than anything, I liked that the show zeroed in on the fact that it was down to a mere kitchen boy that the gates between life and death were opened, and Asriel’s shame contrasted with Lyra’s conviction over this fact were extremely well done. The lofty and indifferent Asriel never for a second believed that Roger was important, and yet he was so loved by Lyra that she went into the depths of hell to fetch him out again – something her father could never accomplish.

Pullman probably wouldn’t like to admit it, but the fact that all these universe-changing events are down to someone’s love for a kitchen boy feels very Christian in nature – the real Christianity, not the awful Evangelical Christianity of modern America.

As is said in Matthew: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Roger was that sparrow to Lyra.

***

Of course, word gets out that Lyra and Will have just pulled off something immense, and their freeing of the dead is described as “something remarkable” (yeah, no shit), as well as “far beyond Asriel’s rebellion” (mm, I’d say they’re about even). Asriel convinces Mrs Coulter of Lyra’s continued survival, and she returns to the prophecy of Eve. Lyra has successfully defeated death... but there’s still more she has to do.

Elsewhere, Mary hears the voices of the dead on the wind, saying “tell them stories” (which doesn’t have the impact it should, since it was something Lyra just came up with instead of a vitally crucial deal she had to barter) and Serafina sends out her own daemon to find Will and Lyra’s.

And just to wrap things up, Xaphania reappears to very helpfully recap the plot to everyone: “The first prophecy has been fulfilled. The girl and the boy have succeeded in their quest. Will and Lyra have released the dead from their prison. Metatron's purgatory is broken. His control is weakened. So he will come at you with everything he has. The final rebellion has begun.”

Thanks for that. Any idea what this angel – the ostensible leader of the rebellion against the Authority – has been doing all this time? Look, it doesn’t matter this close to the finish line. Lyra – as Eve – has successfully defeated death in accordance with the prophesy, and is now getting ready for her next role, as are all the other characters as we head into the final act. Let’s see how it plays out...

Miscellaneous Observations:

I found after the conclusion of this episode that there were no chapters in The Amber Spyglass (which I’m reading along with) to catch up on. Most of the material here has either been reordered or held off from earlier pages (the deal with the harpies) or are completely original scenes (anything involving Mrs Coulter, Serafina, Iorek or Ruta).

Asriel is considerably far away from Stelmaria when he abseils down into the abyss, making me wonder if these two are also capable of being away from each other for longer distances. Or maybe the show has just forgotten about that little caveat. Or maybe they were still meant to be “within range” of each other.

For the second time Lyra is asked about what will happen when the ghosts reach the surface, and for the second time she completely Forgot About Her Powers by not consulting the alethiometer. Girl, the answer is right there. I’ve no idea why they held off on this information, since it’s another pretty important component of Pullman’s worldview: that we’ll all dissolve into the ether and become one with the universe.

Every now and then a truly bizarre bit of dialogue slips through these scripts. In this case, it’s Scoresby looking over the living world and uttering: “I’ll be damned.” Dude. This is the exact opposite of that on every conceivable level.

Mrs Coulter has a heart-to-heart with her daemon, which brings us the unique sight of Ruth Wilson emoting like crazy to an evil little homunculus. I’m not sure how I felt about this scene, but the fact that it ends with the monkey returning to her is clearly symbolic of Mrs Coulter getting her soul back (or whatever’s left of it) which again sets up the choices she’s about to make. Everything in this episode that wasn’t Lyra/Will’s plot is very much about table-setting for the episodes to come.