SPOILERS AHEAD
I was looking for a fantasy show to watch. "House of the Dragon" is a long ways from its second season and I was feeling bored with the typical action / shooting shows I like. So, on a whim I started HDM. At first, the whole spirit animal concept gripped me. That's an idea I can connect to on a base level. I've always wanted a spirit guide or a best friend who was a non-human chatting by my side.
After I watched episode 1, I got the sense this was going to be a huge story. I did research and found out that this show / books are quite controversial. Why? Well, it's anti-religion. Some have even called the show Satanic. I wouldn't go that far though. It is a total flip of the bible. It shows God as a tyrant. A being who wants to control us. That the idea of being born into sin is an evil idea (of which I agree with. I do think teaching kids they'll go to hell is mentally abusive.) I'm an agnostic who never studied Catholicism, so as the episodes went on I had to research what exactly the show was referencing. From original sin, to the devil, free will, what the holy book says about temptation and Adam and Eve. I took a bit of a crash course on theology. It really opened my eyes to the bigger story Philip Pullman was telling. Made my head spin too, I won't lie.
I'm still an agnostic. While this show directly is anti-religion and I agree with much of the philosophy of the story-I am not 'more of an atheist' because of it. I'm not turning into Richard Dawkins anytime soon. I'm someone who just...doesn't know. I feel they're concepts too big for me to grasp. I don't know what the hell is out there. I'm willing to keep an open mind. As you may notice, I don't really say anything about God or the bible or any faith really in my short stories / novellas. As I don't have a very interesting view point on the matter.
What's the actual plot? Well, it's about a lot of things. The core of it is about a girl named Lyra and her daemon (or spirit animal) going on an epic adventure to learn of the world around them and to stop corruption from taking over the world. They run into an evil theocracy who abducts children to basically collect their souls and kill there sprit animals. That's really where the religious stuff came in. The bad guys are those trying to keep God in power and to suppress us of our true natures. To force us to kneel and submit. So really, sin is a good thing in Pullman's universe and temptation (like Eve being tempted in the garden) is just humans being humans. Temptation and sin are only seen as bad because people in power tell us it is. Sin isn't evil. It's not even 'sin' it's just...humans. And all we need to do is keep an open mind and heart and we'll be able to move on as a species without God. That's my interpretation anyway.
There's a lot of drama around Lyra's mother, Marisa Coulter who is played brilliantly by Ruth Wilson. She was also in that cool show "Luther" with Idris Elba. She actually stole every scene she was in. She also had a monkey by her side which was pretty amusing.
I loved the rest of the cast as well. For me, no one seemed out of place. My favorite was not the great armored bear as one might expect. Though, he along with Wilson stole every scene they were in. I actually liked the renegade cowboy-type Lee and his daemon, a brown rabbit named Hester. Those two had some great lines and I personally would've watched a show just about them. I did read the short story "Once Upon A Time In The North" which gives a snippet of there story. Though, I wish that book was a full-length novel. I'd love to know all the trouble Lee has gotten into.
Do I feel that His Dark Materials warrants controversy and book banning? No. No book truly deserves that. Do I 'get' why some parents might keep their kids from reading it? No. Because I really think this story is pure imagination and has so many amazing characters and that the center of the story is one of love and helping others and fighting against evil. I guess I can get why Sunday schools might not want it near, though. But they're lots of stories I love that shouldn't be there. For middle school / high school? Yeah.
I think kids would love this series. It's much more interesting than Harry Potter, which is so vanilla, racist and not as cool as it thinks it is. I've never found the idea of flying on a broom or casting spells to be neat. I think it's SO silly.
Anyway, the whole religious aspect was an added bonus, because I would've watched the show just because of the spirit animals. But to me, the bible flipping added SO much dimension and made me invested. I won't lie.
I am going to read the first trilogy of books in HDM, I've read sections and can already tell I'll most likely enjoy them. Philip Pullman an amazingly creative person for sure. I am so glad he created this world where nature, heroism and anthropomorphic animals are such a huge part of the plot and not treated as 'silly' and 'childish'. It really was cool to see.
Look, I love Game of Thrones and I've written some dark and violent stuff-but it is really nice to see a story that has characters I actually enjoyed watching. I feel like SO much fiction now is bleak and dark and everyone is a complete asshole to one another and there's no goodness. I feel like SOME audiences in the USA are quite cynical and love to see nasty things happen to people all the time. I like a bit of that. But damn, give me SOME variety. In HDM, there's a good balance of cool people and really nasty people. Which is really how I think life is. I feel it's actually unrealistic to make ALL characters morally gray. I do think actual good people exist. They have flaws and we should show them, but I don't think we need to totally do away with 'good guys.' It was so refreshing to see a story of hope and unity.
I guess I should get back to writing my own stories. Maybe Philip Pullman inspired me?
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