Multiple worlds, armoured bears, dust,
daemons. BBC and HBO’s
His Dark Materials can be pretty confusing. We’re here to open up the alethiometer and answer a few of your biggest questions about
what the crap is going on.
This week is the halfway point of
His Dark Materials’ first
season, with Lyra (Dafne Keen) finally meeting aeronaut Lee Scoresby
(Lin-Manuel Miranda) and Iorek Byrnison, one of the armoured bears of
the north. And there will be a lot more to unpack as the season
continues.
Who is Will? Why are the
children being kidnapped? What’s the deal with multiple worlds? What is Lyra’s destiny?
But hopefully, we can shine a little bit of light into this dusty,
strange darkness. Let me know in the comments if you have any additional
questions and I’ll do my best to answer them...provided they don’t
spoil too much for everybody else. Let’s crack open the alethiometer and
begin!
1. The Magisterium
The main antagonist of the series, the Magisterium is the governing
force that “keeps order” in Lyra’s world. You may have noticed their
garments, which are quite clerical. That’s because author Philip Pullman
modelled the Magisterium after the Catholic Church—something that was
notably missing from the 2007 movie
The Golden Compass, as the
threat of a boycott from Christians led the studio to remove religious themes altogether.
The Magisterium works in service of the Authority, which is their
term for God. We don’t really see them performing many charitable acts
or community service. They rarely even hold church service. Instead,
they’re focused on keeping order and censoring things they consider to
be blasphemous. In that way it’s not a criticism of faith, but rather of
control.
2. Dust
The Magisterium is obsessed with three things: order, control, and
Dust. The first two make sense, but the last one might seem strange. In
the world of
His Dark Materials, Dust—with a capital D—is a
mysterious substance that connects all intelligent life in the universe
and beyond. Folks like Lord Asriel (James McAvoy) and Mrs. Coulter (Ruth
Wilson) are obsessed with finding out Dust’s true purpose, albeit for
very different reasons.
Dust is attracted to people—specifically adults, not children. It
tends to bounce off kids. This is why the Magisterium believes that Dust
is actually a manifestation of Original Sin, otherwise known as the
moment in the Bible where Adam and Eve ate fruit from the Tree of
Knowledge and were cast out of the Garden of Eden. In the Magisterium’s
mind, it’s evidence that something changes when innocence becomes
experience. What it
actually is—well, we wouldn’t want to give that away just yet.
3. Daemons
Dust has something to do with daemons (dæmons in the books), which
are an integral part of Lyra’s world. A daemon is a physical embodiment
of a person’s soul, manifested as an animal. It represents your dual
nature, your instincts, and your conscience. In our world, we sometimes
have inner monologues or gut feelings. People in Lyra’s world have
talking animal sidekicks.
Daemons change shape at will for children, because their
personalities are always growing and changing. But upon puberty, they
settle into one form, representing a core aspect of your personality.
The bond between a human and their daemon is sacred. Hurting one will
affect the other, and when a person dies their daemon disappears into
Dust (hint hint). Seeing someone without a daemon would be like seeing a
person walking around without a head. It just doesn’t happen.
4. Armoured Bears
Then, there are the bears. Yes, there are talking bears in this show. The bears of Svalbard (which is
actually a real place)
have a kingdom in the north, where they tend to keep to
themselves—occasionally trading with outsiders. They don’t have daemons,
but they do have their armour, which is crafted out of sky-iron, a rare
metal. Bears consider their armour to be like their souls…or daemons. A
bear without their armour is missing their soul, their prized
possession. At the time we meet him in the series, Iorek Byrnison has
been cast out of the kingdom for betraying his fellow bears, leaving the
kingdom in the control of another.
5. The Alethiometer
As of now in the show, there’s a lot we don’t know about the
alethiometer yet...and we don’t want to give any of the big reveals
away. But in the simplest of terms, it’s a compass-like device, based on
the real-world astrolabe, that can read the truth in any situation.
Normally it requires years of study, but Lyra is strangely able to
master it pretty quickly. You ask the alethiometer a question and
something (or someone) provides an honest, truthful answer. Only six
were ever made, and the Magisterium yearns to have them all. So long as
Lyra has one of the alethiometers, total control is out of their reach.
His Dark Materials streams on Foxtel.
