Another huge change is that Lyra never fed Will the fruit in the Mulefa world after Mary Malone told Lyra the story of when she was younger and her first lover, Tim, fed her marzipan. The memory of this comes back to her when she was a nun and this is what made her change her occupation. I wish they still showed Lyra feeding Will fruit instead of the kissing scene because the whole series is built up to this moment where she mirrors Eve’s original fall and it doesn’t happen. It was supposed to be this sweet and sensual moment that opens up the idea of true love for them both and saves the world.
I think they chose to reflect the idea of the fruit, giving in to draw of passions, through the actual expression of passion and love, through a kiss, which gets to the point a lot quicker but also eliminates the idea of being caught in a cycle, a repetition of a divine fallacy, which is the main message of the story; breaking free from some greater external deterministic dictation and driving fate through your own control.
Another change they made was that in the books Lee Scoresby and Mrs. Coulter never meet, so the scene where she has him locked up, interrogates him, and then lets him go was pretty weird.
The lack of the amber spyglass was so unnecessary. They took a HUGE shortcut in the show having Mary just find the amber, but having done that they could pretty simply have made a scene or two to explain/show the spyglass! C'mon showrunners, Mary and the Mulefa are awesome! The path to the Land of the Dead I thought was so touching and powerful in the books, but it was changed to far more than simply a British queue imo. I thought it reflected totalitarian rule, very much like the video game Papers Please!, but also of course what we've been through the last few years with restrictions on travel etc, especially considering the filming of the show was interrupted.
The biggest change for me was the natural passage of time in the real world compared to the story. It was supposed to be over some months, at most a year, but the show took several years, so the main characters grew into adulthood. I wish the show could have gotten the LOTR treatment, where every series had been shot at once, at least the kids. Seeing little Roger Parslow's ghost grown into a strapping young lad kinda broke the suspension of disbelief.
Brilliant again, thank you! For me the main role of the Gallivespians in the books (apart from all the awesome stuff already mentioned) was that it totally bonded Will and Lyra. After everything before they escaped (having been separated) it really became a key point of the books where it was the two of them against the rest of the 'world' (even those there who were meant to 'help', in a roundabout way) and went their own way, together, utterly determined. A step even above (or rather building on) going to the Land of the Dead for me.
Do you think they'll ever touch into the The Secret Commonwealth story line in a future iteration? It felt like at the end of the last episode they talk about Lyra having future adventures giving vibes of a "To be continued".
I was very upset we didn’t get the Tulapi or what I call the demon swans… I was so looking forward to how they would portray that in an episode, how Mary would react, just show how the Mulefa react to that and it would have enhanced their world so much more! Tbf, the whole Mulefa world felt pushed aside, and I get that was probs a budget thing, but I was so so so excited because it felt like a pretty decent split in the book between Will/Lyras narratives and Mary and Atals narratives
Another change that annoyed me, you had mentioned changes to Iorek Byrnisson's story, but I don't think you mentioned this specifically, Iorek and Iofur, the Armored Bears, battled without armor! Of all the times that bears should be without armor, this made the least sense!
Please, speak on how Lyra's and Will's deamons ended up at the Lord Asriel's republic. I still cannot figure it out. Btw thanks for making this content. I truly enjoy watching it.
One change that seems minor, but I was utterly flabbergasted at the time with was Lyra using the spyglass/lens to see Dust. In the book, she specifically refused the spyglass, and though I likely misinterpreted it, I literally thought that This was the temptation of the Serpent to Eve. I believed that Mary offering her to view Dust was akin to the Serpent offering Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I thought that unlike the first Eve, she resisted the temptation and avoided the "fall" that would doom the worlds. As such I was literally screaming at my TV, "WTF, how could they get This wrong!" When it happened on the show.
From what I gathered, the "fall" was actually a good thing from this perspective, and that humanity was "supposed" to leave blissful innocence for experience and learning, even if that learning would come with trials. That's why the actual "fall" was her apparently kissing Will since that was a more direct "fall" from innocence into adulthood/sensuality. I personally think your idea would have been better, especially since the idea of Lyra actually seeing Dust seemed like a plot point in Season 1
As I said I may have entirely misinterpreted it, and I always had been a little confused about how the one choice led to the second more major one of would they keep open a window between their worlds, or keep the Land of the Dead open. But I agree, certainly in the show the "fall" was made out to be a good thing, I just never made that connection reading the books.
@@TiMoThY211991 I mean, it's pretty explicitly a good thing in the book. The 'fall' is the transition from innocence to experience. Like, it's the whole crux of the story that growing up is good, and stunting people's development and trying to keep them as innocent children is both damaging and wrong. This is a pretty major theme carried across all three books. Mary's story of her temptation was in turn the thing that awoke Lyra and Will's feeling for one another. Pullman once summed this up when asked what he would say to the Biblical Eve in response to her defying God and eating from the tree of knowledge. His answer? "Good for you, Eve, I hope you'd do it again." He and the series are explicitly pro-Eve and pro-knowledge.
@@theoclutterbuck I'm sure you're right, but when reading I did find that confusing, and probably completely misinterpreted the message/events. I kept hearing the Magisterium talking about "if she is tempted she will most likely fall", which made me think that they, like most people, underestimate Lyra and that this Eve would be strong enough to resist the temptation. I also thought it had more to do with selfless versus selfishness as to whether she'd sacrifice the worlds for her own happiness to be with the one she loved, or consign herself to never seeing him again for the sake of others. On top of that I was thinking of the irony of the Magisterium trying to kill her off before she was tempted basically ensuring the result of the fall, or worse, as her choice would be about keeping open the Land of the Dead which hadn't happened yet. Similar to how the church thinks Dust is evil and tied to original sin, yet Angels themselves are entirely composed of it, and that they are unwittingly acting against their own interests in trying to destroy it.
Loved the show, but I'm the bad kind, " just show no books!" So someone pls explain why was the angle balthamos dying? Was he injured in the war? And why killing the spider killed him or was he just dying and did that with his last breath?
Since his identity was so deeply tied to his love for Baruch, from when Baruch dies, Balthamos starts to lose his strength. In the books he spent all of his strength to stop Gomez, like his essence is thinning to nothing while he's putting everything into standing on Gomez to drown him in a creek. At the end of their fight, his strength was all gone.
Oh, one more change, albeit fairly minor and mentioned on past videos, was Lyra in the books never knowing of her parents' sacrifice for her, but also Mrs. Coulter in the book could never separate from her Dæmon
The books did actually say that mrs.coulter could separate from her daemon and Pan pointed it out to Lyra while they were staying with her before they ran away.
@@smiles792 Did they ever explain how she got that ability? It was kind of an open plot point and the most we got was when she's apologizing and just says "I tried separating us because I was curious". Did she just force it until she could be separate freely? I spent the entire time thinking she spent time with the witches and that's why they didn't kill her when she was torturing the other witch
@@Malthizar Unfortunately I don’t think it was ever explained, I think it is another way that she tortured herself because it does cause pain to be so far from one’s daemon and she had alot of inner turmoil
@@smiles792 I honestly wished they explained Mrs. Coulter more in general. I get that she's supposed to be more mystery than reveal, but when you hear how: she has a monkey that doesn't talk and can separate from her, super powers to control specters, and a heart so "rotten" that she can obscure her intentions from the Regent, you'd expect at least a little more about her outside of "she's emotionally damaged". No shit lol
@@Malthizar I completely agree! They did add a little more depth to her character in the show, but not enough. The 1st and 2nd season followed the books so closely, I’m disappointed by how they wrapped it all up.
I'm super confused as to why the 2nd season stresses Ms. Coulter's specter powers but this season just uses them to essentially just do clean up. It's like they wrote themselves into a corner and just made it so she didn't have them until the very end. Is this in the books too?
No where was the explanation between dark matter and galaxy rotation for non spiral galaxies. The books at least try to explain new galaxy formation and matter distribution.
As someone that's never read the books. I honestly enjoyed the shoe esp S1. The final season was boring for the most part. Some parts were extremely sad. And the ending was very bitter. Kinda makes little sense to have them be the Adam and eve and then ... Suffer the rest of their lives without each other? In the end it's like "will became a surgeon". Oh nice... So he died alone and miserable? Honestly the final episode I did something I never did before. I felt like all the stuff had already happened. I skipped lady revealed lesbian relationship I assumed wasn't lesbian in the book. I skipped. They kissed. I skipped they learned they couldn't be together. I skipped they were miserably living their "full lives" I also really wasn't a fan of the girl they cast as lyra. Is Lyra's dth supposed to be so young? She looks 29 ffs. She also looks NOTHING like Lyra.
Thank fuck this video exists… apologies for the rant but there are sooo many things they changed and the casting was all wrong… Lyra is supposed be to be this passionate feisty intelligent liar who LOVES Pan… don’t see any of that in Dafne… not in her emotions or mannerisms or the script Dæmons are nowhere to be seen The magic of the whole series is just dulled down… I cringed through watching it… especially through Lyra and Will ‘romance’ where it was sooo forced I could barely stand it… it could of had so much potential but nope they fucked it for me and I’m sure anyone else who loves the books as I do feels the same way I was really excited for the show and knew it would be portrayed exactly as we all pictured in our heads… I have been reading them annually (maybe even more often) since I was 12 years old, I have grown up with them and Lyra… they have made me who I am told I feel incredibly sorry for Philip Pullman…and hope he knows that he deserved better and we as fans will always keep his vision alive ✨
Another huge change is that Lyra never fed Will the fruit in the Mulefa world after Mary Malone told Lyra the story of when she was younger and her first lover, Tim, fed her marzipan. The memory of this comes back to her when she was a nun and this is what made her change her occupation. I wish they still showed Lyra feeding Will fruit instead of the kissing scene because the whole series is built up to this moment where she mirrors Eve’s original fall and it doesn’t happen. It was supposed to be this sweet and sensual moment that opens up the idea of true love for them both and saves the world.
I think the idea of a woman feeding a man would be "problematic" for today's audience, regardless of the plot points or context.
You’re probably right, which is unfortunate.
I think they chose to reflect the idea of the fruit, giving in to draw of passions, through the actual expression of passion and love, through a kiss, which gets to the point a lot quicker but also eliminates the idea of being caught in a cycle, a repetition of a divine fallacy, which is the main message of the story; breaking free from some greater external deterministic dictation and driving fate through your own control.
@@lubaniskie I like this interpretation!
The scene you describe for the bear fight is shown in the movie The Golden Compass.
Another change they made was that in the books Lee Scoresby and Mrs. Coulter never meet, so the scene where she has him locked up, interrogates him, and then lets him go was pretty weird.
The lack of the amber spyglass was so unnecessary. They took a HUGE shortcut in the show having Mary just find the amber, but having done that they could pretty simply have made a scene or two to explain/show the spyglass! C'mon showrunners, Mary and the Mulefa are awesome!
The path to the Land of the Dead I thought was so touching and powerful in the books, but it was changed to far more than simply a British queue imo. I thought it reflected totalitarian rule, very much like the video game Papers Please!, but also of course what we've been through the last few years with restrictions on travel etc, especially considering the filming of the show was interrupted.
The biggest change for me was the natural passage of time in the real world compared to the story. It was supposed to be over some months, at most a year, but the show took several years, so the main characters grew into adulthood. I wish the show could have gotten the LOTR treatment, where every series had been shot at once, at least the kids. Seeing little Roger Parslow's ghost grown into a strapping young lad kinda broke the suspension of disbelief.
True. When I saw him in the land of the dead, i was like, "who the hell is this grown-ass man?"
That was supposed to be the case but Covid got in the way.
Brilliant again, thank you! For me the main role of the Gallivespians in the books (apart from all the awesome stuff already mentioned) was that it totally bonded Will and Lyra. After everything before they escaped (having been separated) it really became a key point of the books where it was the two of them against the rest of the 'world' (even those there who were meant to 'help', in a roundabout way) and went their own way, together, utterly determined. A step even above (or rather building on) going to the Land of the Dead for me.
I never read the books so I really appreciate all these in depth videos on the book material as well! Thanks so much, keep it up ⭐️
Number 7 tell stories to the harpies, I don't get it that was in the tv show too.
Do you think they'll ever touch into the The Secret Commonwealth story line in a future iteration? It felt like at the end of the last episode they talk about Lyra having future adventures giving vibes of a "To be continued".
I heard they had plans for more stories but hbo did not renew for a 4th season :(
I was very upset we didn’t get the Tulapi or what I call the demon swans… I was so looking forward to how they would portray that in an episode, how Mary would react, just show how the Mulefa react to that and it would have enhanced their world so much more! Tbf, the whole Mulefa world felt pushed aside, and I get that was probs a budget thing, but I was so so so excited because it felt like a pretty decent split in the book between Will/Lyras narratives and Mary and Atals narratives
Another change that annoyed me, you had mentioned changes to Iorek Byrnisson's story, but I don't think you mentioned this specifically, Iorek and Iofur, the Armored Bears, battled without armor! Of all the times that bears should be without armor, this made the least sense!
Please, speak on how Lyra's and Will's deamons ended up at the Lord Asriel's republic. I still cannot figure it out. Btw thanks for making this content. I truly enjoy watching it.
The witch found them I thought
In the TV series, Jopari says that he guided them remotely from the land of the dead.
One change that seems minor, but I was utterly flabbergasted at the time with was Lyra using the spyglass/lens to see Dust. In the book, she specifically refused the spyglass, and though I likely misinterpreted it, I literally thought that This was the temptation of the Serpent to Eve. I believed that Mary offering her to view Dust was akin to the Serpent offering Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I thought that unlike the first Eve, she resisted the temptation and avoided the "fall" that would doom the worlds. As such I was literally screaming at my TV, "WTF, how could they get This wrong!" When it happened on the show.
A very interesting point!
From what I gathered, the "fall" was actually a good thing from this perspective, and that humanity was "supposed" to leave blissful innocence for experience and learning, even if that learning would come with trials. That's why the actual "fall" was her apparently kissing Will since that was a more direct "fall" from innocence into adulthood/sensuality.
I personally think your idea would have been better, especially since the idea of Lyra actually seeing Dust seemed like a plot point in Season 1
As I said I may have entirely misinterpreted it, and I always had been a little confused about how the one choice led to the second more major one of would they keep open a window between their worlds, or keep the Land of the Dead open. But I agree, certainly in the show the "fall" was made out to be a good thing, I just never made that connection reading the books.
@@TiMoThY211991 I mean, it's pretty explicitly a good thing in the book. The 'fall' is the transition from innocence to experience. Like, it's the whole crux of the story that growing up is good, and stunting people's development and trying to keep them as innocent children is both damaging and wrong. This is a pretty major theme carried across all three books. Mary's story of her temptation was in turn the thing that awoke Lyra and Will's feeling for one another.
Pullman once summed this up when asked what he would say to the Biblical Eve in response to her defying God and eating from the tree of knowledge. His answer? "Good for you, Eve, I hope you'd do it again." He and the series are explicitly pro-Eve and pro-knowledge.
@@theoclutterbuck I'm sure you're right, but when reading I did find that confusing, and probably completely misinterpreted the message/events. I kept hearing the Magisterium talking about "if she is tempted she will most likely fall", which made me think that they, like most people, underestimate Lyra and that this Eve would be strong enough to resist the temptation. I also thought it had more to do with selfless versus selfishness as to whether she'd sacrifice the worlds for her own happiness to be with the one she loved, or consign herself to never seeing him again for the sake of others. On top of that I was thinking of the irony of the Magisterium trying to kill her off before she was tempted basically ensuring the result of the fall, or worse, as her choice would be about keeping open the Land of the Dead which hadn't happened yet. Similar to how the church thinks Dust is evil and tied to original sin, yet Angels themselves are entirely composed of it, and that they are unwittingly acting against their own interests in trying to destroy it.
Loved the show, but I'm the bad kind, " just show no books!" So someone pls explain why was the angle balthamos dying? Was he injured in the war? And why killing the spider killed him or was he just dying and did that with his last breath?
Since his identity was so deeply tied to his love for Baruch, from when Baruch dies, Balthamos starts to lose his strength. In the books he spent all of his strength to stop Gomez, like his essence is thinning to nothing while he's putting everything into standing on Gomez to drown him in a creek. At the end of their fight, his strength was all gone.
@@Kate-ms2mn that's so sad!!
Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it
Mulefa anatomy. Obviously they couldn’t afford to do it properly. Doesn’t make that forgivable.
Oh, one more change, albeit fairly minor and mentioned on past videos, was Lyra in the books never knowing of her parents' sacrifice for her, but also Mrs. Coulter in the book could never separate from her Dæmon
The books did actually say that mrs.coulter could separate from her daemon and Pan pointed it out to Lyra while they were staying with her before they ran away.
@@smiles792 Did they ever explain how she got that ability? It was kind of an open plot point and the most we got was when she's apologizing and just says "I tried separating us because I was curious". Did she just force it until she could be separate freely? I spent the entire time thinking she spent time with the witches and that's why they didn't kill her when she was torturing the other witch
@@Malthizar Unfortunately I don’t think it was ever explained, I think it is another way that she tortured herself because it does cause pain to be so far from one’s daemon and she had alot of inner turmoil
@@smiles792 I honestly wished they explained Mrs. Coulter more in general. I get that she's supposed to be more mystery than reveal, but when you hear how: she has a monkey that doesn't talk and can separate from her, super powers to control specters, and a heart so "rotten" that she can obscure her intentions from the Regent, you'd expect at least a little more about her outside of "she's emotionally damaged". No shit lol
@@Malthizar I completely agree! They did add a little more depth to her character in the show, but not enough. The 1st and 2nd season followed the books so closely, I’m disappointed by how they wrapped it all up.
I'm super confused as to why the 2nd season stresses Ms. Coulter's specter powers but this season just uses them to essentially just do clean up. It's like they wrote themselves into a corner and just made it so she didn't have them until the very end. Is this in the books too?
In the books she had the power in the second book and it was never mentioned / used again
It wasn't clear at all in the second book (iirc!) but they certainly didn't help things with this addition!
@@ademon4908 i was afraid of that. what a waste.
I didn't read the books thanks for the videos they're awesome
If you like reading, read them! :)
They were telling everyone to tell stories in the land of the dead- telling story was a big deal!
No where was the explanation between dark matter and galaxy rotation for non spiral galaxies. The books at least try to explain new galaxy formation and matter distribution.
As someone that's never read the books. I honestly enjoyed the shoe esp S1. The final season was boring for the most part. Some parts were extremely sad. And the ending was very bitter. Kinda makes little sense to have them be the Adam and eve and then ... Suffer the rest of their lives without each other? In the end it's like "will became a surgeon". Oh nice... So he died alone and miserable? Honestly the final episode I did something I never did before. I felt like all the stuff had already happened. I skipped lady revealed lesbian relationship I assumed wasn't lesbian in the book. I skipped. They kissed. I skipped they learned they couldn't be together. I skipped they were miserably living their "full lives"
I also really wasn't a fan of the girl they cast as lyra.
Is Lyra's dth supposed to be so young? She looks 29 ffs. She also looks NOTHING like Lyra.
Thank fuck this video exists… apologies for the rant but there are sooo many things they changed and the casting was all wrong… Lyra is supposed be to be this passionate feisty intelligent liar who LOVES Pan… don’t see any of that in Dafne… not in her emotions or mannerisms or the script
Dæmons are nowhere to be seen
The magic of the whole series is just dulled down… I cringed through watching it… especially through Lyra and Will ‘romance’ where it was sooo forced
I could barely stand it… it could of had so much potential but nope they fucked it for me and I’m sure anyone else who loves the books as I do feels the same way
I was really excited for the show and knew it would be portrayed exactly as we all pictured in our heads…
I have been reading them annually (maybe even more often) since I was 12 years old, I have grown up with them and Lyra… they have made me who I am told
I feel incredibly sorry for Philip Pullman…and hope he knows that he deserved better and we as fans will always keep his vision alive ✨
Shame about their ages. She should have been pregnant.