The same kind of fierce scrutiny could also be applied to a political leader or party seeking to rule by fear, or legislate for personal gain.
Pullman has been savaged in some places for his brutal takedown of religion, but his real target is institutionalised belief and the leaders who use scripture to justify their wants or hates. Just as Donald Trump’s doubters across the pond are branded “unpatriotic” for daring to question their new president, so too critics of the Magisterium are quickly shut down.
The Magisterium, as Pullman renames it, is an organisation in the ultimate position of power to criticise it is to blaspheme. Yes, the Potter books give us a dangerous fascist on the rise, but His Dark Materials gives us an enemy that is not only already the accepted authority, but happens to be the bloomin’ Catholic church. If you think Harry Potter is a great political allegory for today’s world, then you’ve obviously not read His Dark Materials. Pullman has ridden back on his agnostic/atheist steed to teach us lessons about rejecting corrupt authority, favouring facts over unfounded beliefs and being true and tolerant to yourself and others. Despite the first book having been published 22 years ago, the trilogy is a glowing antidote to the murky and unpleasant reality we’re currently living in. If we needed a reason to reread His Dark Materials, there are now two. Patreon: Twitter: not only might we finally get the screen adaptation that the books deserve (let’s continue pretending that the sanitised monstrosity that was The Golden Compass never actually happened, agreed?), we also get to dive in to the world anew, meeting new characters and – more importantly – getting reacquainted with Lyra Silvertongue. On a similarly morbid point, there is some high level information about the ‘death sentence with reprieve’ as applied in China here. If you want to learn more about the electric scalpel - it’s use today and the history of it’s development - this is a very interesting article on the topic. Learn more about the origin of ‘ordinateur’ here, or get in touch below if you can give us some French language insight! Join us as this week, as we get into an accent duel, Iain makes some stonking analogies and Amy surprises no-one by randomly singing Aladdin songs. However, despite Lyra’s best laid plans, her liberation of the daemons from their cages during the fire drill has been discovered and the staff are all on edge. Lyra spends a day avoiding the attentions of Mrs Coulter - newly arrived at Bolvangar - and gathering intel for her plan to start investigating deeper into the goings on at The Station.
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