scrape_r_rational/data/cache/3nupmc.md

[BST] How would a rationalist His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman) progress?

Post:

I don't know how big a following this series has in the States, but I know in the UK it was pretty big at about the same time Harry Potter was starting to get big, but before it completely blew up.

First protagonist Lyra owns a device that can answer any question truthfully, but rarely asks it anything unless someone else asks her to or unless a particular question strikes her. Second protagonist Will owns a knife that can cut windows between worlds allowing people to pass between them. Basic plot points include the discovery of other worlds, the Church of Lyra's world desiring to destroy knowledge, and Will and Lyra journeying to the afterlife to free the souls of the dead, who currently inhabit a kind of limbo, rather than the Heaven or Hell they were promised by authorities. There's also a force called Dust, which is basically conscious dark matter and thought to be central to the development of human intelligence, which is discovered to be depleting in some worlds for unknown reasons.

Here's a plot summary page from its series wiki. I'm hoping some people on the sub will know the series already because it's a bit tricky to summarise.

While there was a film adaptation in 2007 it was a loose adaptation and cut out a lot of the series' key themes of science, magic, religion and political manouvering, in favour of creating a fantasy action flick like Eragon or The Chronicles of Narnia. I've always wondered what an adaptation of it that's what HPMOR is to Harry Potter would be like.

Comments:

• u/boomfarmer:

  Some notes on The Subtle Knife:
  
  - Two edges, one which is merely the sharpest knife in the worlds, and the other which cuts between worlds.
  - The Subtle Knife invariably wounds its current master. Will loses some fingers.
  - By the end of the series, the knife is broken, repaired, and broken.
  - Cutting between worlds requires intense focus. Distractions can break the knife.
  - The windows which the knife cut *are not flat*. They have a slight depth, which is a void that Dust leaks out of the universes through.
  
  Some notes on Dust:
  
  - Dust loss is Bad.
  - Dust is produced through ~~love~~ [consciousness](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3nupmc/bst_how_would_a_rationalist_his_dark_materials/cvsj2k1?context=2).
  - All the worlds can produce enough Dust to leave one (1) window open and keep Dust levels in equilibrium.
  
  Some notes on windows:
  
  - Can be produced through a number of things, a list which is known to include the Subtle Knife, Lyra's father's apparatus, the Bomb's machinery, and natural occurrences.
  - Anyone can be taught to feel the edge of a window.
  - Windows have an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for resizing.
  - Natural phenomena can pass through windows, like rain.
  - I don't recall if wind passes through windows, or if air pressure differences were noticeable.
  
  Some notes on denizens of the Universe:
  
  - Angels exist, and can fly. They are not Dust.
  - Humans from Lyra's world have daemons, who are physical manifestations of part of their soul. Humans from other worlds do not, but can be trained to see daemons. Witches from Lyra's world can see non-Lyra's-world humans' daemons. Daemons are generally not able to live away from their human, but there are solutions: training to stretch the bond, or cutting the bond with a special knife. Those so cut are ... different. Not in a good way.
  - There are Lilliputians, who have trans-universe resonator fiddles that allow vibration-based communications.
  - God exists, and is merely the first angel.
  - If a being from one universe lives too long in another, without returning home, they will die.
  - Will and Lyra are from different universes.
  
  Some notes in general:
  
  - This is not a happy series.
  

  • u/IllusoryIntelligence:

    One slight inaccuracy in the above, dust is a product of consciousness, not love.
    

  • u/TK17Studios:

    You have succeeded in your "trying to be helpful" goal.  I really appreciated this.
    

  • u/protagnostic:

    > All the worlds can produce enough Dust to leave one (1) window open and keep Dust levels in equilibrium.
    
    It's been a while, but I remember thinking that it was just Will and Lyra's worlds that were relevant here - and that it was explicitly with the instruction that they needed to go encourage the population to... something. Think for themselves, maybe?
    

• u/ArgentStonecutter:

  A rational Lyra would munchkin the heck out of the alethiometer.
  
  I found the series starting out pretty rational, without anyone spending too much time holding the idiot ball, but each new plot token made things more depressingly mystical. I honestly don't recall if I finished it.
  

  • u/sir_pirriplin:

    A rational Lyra would most likely be incapable of reading it.
    
    It's not very clear, but didn't the alethiometer work only for children and people with childlike personalities?
    
    A scientist from Earth managed to make a computer program that worked as an alethiometer and didn't have that limitation, but then again, maybe the program only works for her.
    

• u/None:

  I read the books when I was eleven, and IMO it's definitely one of the best YA series there are.
  Anyway: was Dust drawn to sentient/sapient/conscious *individuals* or *species*? If it's the first case, it could be used to determine whether brain-damaged patients are vegetative or locked-in/minimally conscious (but it could've been of no use in the universe of HDM - I don't remember if Dust was a cause for consciousness or a product of it - if it was the cause, I guess brain damage could be irrelevant).
  
  The alethiometer was really vague since it replied with allegorical images - Mary Malone's computer was better for the purpose of communicating with Dust since it allowed conversation via text. 
  
  Also, if someone wrote a HPMOR-esque fanfic of HDM, I'd love them forever.
  

  • u/None:

    Dust was drawn to shaped things as well, I remember - a statue attracts more than a chunk of wood, for example.
    

• u/gabbalis:

  The spectres can be manipulated and upgraded with the right prompting... 
  Actually they're a bit like HPMOR dementors in that way aren't they? Make of that what you will. It's certainly a dangerous game to play.
  

• u/Chronophilia:

  There's a series I need to re-read. Wasn't Lord Asriel literally trying to kill God? Fun times.
  

  • u/PeridexisErrant:

    He was more focussed on setting up a 'republic of Heaven', and resigned to the fact that this meant war against the Authority.  Deicide was basically just an implementation detail of utopianism.
    

• u/None:

  Also, God exists. He was deposed in a coup and now Metatron runs Heaven as a colonial authoritarian empire spanning the multiverse.
  

• u/VorpalAuroch:

  [Plug for Effulgence](http://dark-light.dreamwidth.org/379.html): The same personality as Luminosity (and also by Alicorn). Messes with some other things, and while this particular thread is HDM!Witch Bella in not-quite-HDM-world, it merges into a big-ass crossover fic.
  
  But yes, getting a natural reader like Lyra and abusing the alethiometer heavily is prominent.
  

  • u/boomfarmer:

    ... How am I supposed to read this? Important parts seem to be missing if I just click the "next" and "previous" buttons.
    

    • u/VorpalAuroch:

      Gaps would be the places where it has crossed over and went into someone else's thread. [here is the official reading guide](https://belltower.dreamwidth.org/8579.html) and [the chapter index](http://edgeofyourseat.dreamwidth.org/2121.html).
      

  • u/MaxDougwell:

    While some of Effulgence is fun, I gave up on it for two reasons:  
    The formulaic approach of giving Bell a way to take over the world, then having most of the obstacles melt away, sometimes in ways that don't even make sense.  
    The second author's devotion to their character Whistles.
    

---