So we're going to talk about the characters in Northern Lights and a lot
of the characters from the whole trilogy get introduced in the first book and going
back to it I was astonished at just how thick and fast the characters come
and important characters as well. Obviously Lyra's a favorite character,
do you have other favorite characters; who is your favorite character aside from Lyra?
Probably either, I'm going to cheat and say, either Iorek
obviously or Serafina Pekkala. She's awesome!
I remember the first, reading it the first time and just thinking that she was a real hero character
because she's so strong and quite frightening actually but in a
in a genuinely awesome way in that she inspires actual awe.
Exactly! And I'd never read witches like the witches in Northern Lights and it was
a real moment to see a very powerful woman who is also extremely
terrifying and I think she's a nice counterpoint to Mrs. Coulter
because actually in a lot of ways the witches are quite amoral and they
have this big quest around Lyra yeah and I love the way that all
that's set up all the mystery that Lyra can't know and things like that
And I think you're right I think about them being a counterpoint to
Mrs. Coulter because then you move from Mrs. Coulter's kind of quite
staid and a very structured society existence into the wildness of the witches
I think you really get that contrast and even just the
way that they live, that they have these long lives and that they're
dictated partly by their sense of duty but also by this wildness and this strangeness.
I thought that that sounds like quite a good way to live!
Very much governors of their own fate.
And I think they're important characters
as well in terms of Lyra and giving her- you realize that all of these people who
she meets through the book give her different ways to live and how much
they're all individually changing her perception of the world
because when she first starts out and they I mean there's wonderful characters in
in Jordan College but you realize that a lot and she goes through the book her
perspective on the conversations that she's had with the scholars at the
beginning is changed by the people that she meets later and she gradually
understands so she goes from thinking that the Master is potentially a kind of
poisoner and somebody who she partially trusts
but also is started to see as potentially a kind of malevolent figure
Yes the way it reveals itself and the pacing of that
reveal as a reader it's so enticing and you're always wanting to-
and then and then and then - and you know that by the end of the book, let alone three,
everything will have shifted on its axis again and you never
know where you are until the very last page and even then...
And I think the daemons are great I think in terms of a revealing the character's personality
before you even get to know them so you start to get a sense of who they might
be from who their demons are and I love that.
Yes and I loved when they first mentioned the witches and Kaisa the goose who is Serafina's daemon
has been sent and is able to travel so far and how terrifying that is for Lyra
that you know she can't see a person around them and that they can really roam
and I remember that being real a moment where I was:
'I cannot wait to meet the witches now'
they're just probably wild and strange and different
even in this very different strange world
we talked about before about Iorek
and I think it would be good to talk about him as a character because I think
he is a fantastic character. All that kind of animal wildness
of him and the fact that he is very much not a human character
- and doesn't have a daemon, and at the beginning how Lyra is
constantly wanting to put human characteristics on him but she can't
because he's so- he's a bear! But she's constantly wanting to -
Lyra's constantly wanting to anthropomorphize him but he can't be. He is what he is
and so unapologetically is that.
And I think it's good that Pullman resists the urge to make those to make a character who's
actually an animal character into anything other than - he is an animal.
And that's always part of his nature and the fact that
Lyra starts to learn to respect him for being who he is and what he is
not try and turn him into something else is part of their relationship but
it's such an important lesson I think to learn to recognize people for who they
are not who you want them to be!
Exactly! And he's a great foil for the
new bear King who obviously wants to have a daemon and wants to be
accepted by respectable society and that it's Iorek embracing who he is
that gives him his strength. And sort of shows Lyra's that that's how you
should exist, that you should embrace who you are.
We have to talk about Lyra's parents because we touched on them in our last
conversation and they, I think they're brilliant characters but they're
not wholly what you might.
How did you find them when you first came to the books?
Well, I very much fancied Lord Asriel... (embarrassed laughter)
He's awful, but you know, that kind of that brooding mysterious force
and Lyra has such strong feeling for him and doesn't know why
I think early on she says she has this 'pleasure and apprehension' whenever she sees him
and then when she goes to Mrs. Coulter
and she feels like she's finally found this mother figure
that she didn't really know that she desperately needed but you know she
thinks maybe I could be a girl and in this way that I put on a dress and
sort of goes to these - she kind of gets seduced by Mrs. Coulter's glamour
but it's so that kind of dark glittering edge to it that slowly starts
become apparent, and that scene when they are in Bolvangar and she's just evil!
But you understand and there's still that tenderness for Lyra, and that love
That extraordinary moment of recognition when she comes in
and sees that it's Lyra who's on the table about to be operated on
rather than one of the other children and the horror that she
expresses at that point and you realize that there is all of this emotion there
but that she has just almost drawn a line between how she's able to remove
everything that she's doing to these other children and the way that she's
behaving towards them and Lyra and put Lyra in a different box
Ultimately both her parents want her to be safe but that
manifests itself in very dangerous ways
And they have all of these admirable qualities,
they're both very strong characters but I like the way that he
resists archetypes but I mean he does it all the way through the book I think but
particularly with them, it would be so easy to make either one of
them a villain, or just wholly a villain, and then they're not
but they're not wholly admirable in any way either
But I think that's one his great strengths as
a writer especially in this series the way he constantly undercuts your
expectation like you just can't put any of the characters in a box
and they grow so beautifully across the whole trilogy and they're just
they're so they're so real and so themselves and such original characters for that
I feel like we can't not talk about Lee Scoresby as well
- I was gonna say Lee and his hare! - We're getting onto later books already I can tell!
I think he's such a great - it just shows the range of talent in this book because he's a
completely different character and there's a lot of quite serious
brooding characters in this book. I think both Mrs. Coulter and
Lord Asriel are not very humorous characters!
And Lee's a brilliant counterpoint to that
You need it at that point in the book as well, because it's all feeling very bleak
And the child characters as well, I mean obviously her relationship with
Roger and also you mentioned when we were talking before about Tony as well
and how she behaves with them. Do you think that's important in terms of revealing
Lyra's character, how she behaves with other children as well?
Oh definitely! That's where I think you see her truly because
when she's around adults she's always sort of looking for cues as to how
she should be so when she's in Oxford yes she's climbing on rooftops with
Roger and sort of being a child but then when she's around the Masters she sort
of she's trying to fit into their sort of expectations of her and then again
with Mrs Coulter culture and constantly feels like she's disappointing the
expectations I feel and then when she's with the children she's sort of the leader
she's the one that they all look up to and I would have loved to be
friends with Lyra. I'm nothing like her but I feel like we would have been a good team.
I think she is an amazing character and I agree I'm nothing like her
and again she's not a wholly admirable character
she lies more fluently I think than any character I've ever come across in fiction before.
The lies just comes thick and fast and one after the other
But children do lie
And Pullman, there's never a morality tale that's on the surface
in any way but you know, I loved the way he revels in
Lyra's lies and the messes and the messes she gets herself out of as
well as into using the lies. And her wonderful skill of interpretation
which is obviously embodied by the alethiometer and her skill with it
and just the ways that she can inhabit
different states of mind and states of being as shown from her moving from this
very staid world as you said through the glamour of Mrs Coulter into the wildness
and I think it's that skill for adaptation that means that she can be so
brilliant with the alethiometer.
she is a survivor I mean she is an absolute survivor
and right from the beginning I think- this is something that
came across when I was when I was reading your book, The Girl of Ink and Stars,
that having a character who is just - the next thing the next thing and brave
and wanting to just be - Just move forward and not really even know what
they're pushing towards but knowing that there's there's something else and they
want to get to it as quickly as possible
And when you get to the end of the book that's there absolutely because
she's stepping out into - and you don't know - she absolutely doesn't know what
it's the ultimate expression I think of that bravery and that quest for her own future
for just seeking the next thing
and having her eyes open to the world.
And it's such a lovely visual, that moment, when she steps into the sky and you can just
imagine, with her chin pointed up, not looking back, just onwards.
Its a great place to leave it and thank you so much,
and we'll talk about the themes in the book next time.
Wonderful.