Talk:List of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust characters

God Being an Angel

Please reply in this section only if you are not a Christian.

In the novel The Amber Spyglass of the series His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, God, the Authority, is false, fake, and fraud, not really God or a god, but is actually an angel. Could it be possible that God is false, fake, and fraud, not really God or a god, but is actually an angel, in reality, in the real world, in real life?

When the story His Dark Materials said that God is not really God or a god but is actually an angel, it meant and was talking about the Christian god. But Christianity is just one of the many different religions that exist in the world today. There are so many different religions in the world today. There are some people who claim and believe that Allah, the god of Islam, is false, fake, and fraud, not really God or a god but is actually an angel. Did you know that? See section 29 in page 20 of the article (spam link removed).

Bowei Huang (talk) 06:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Very interesting, Bowei Huang, but unfortunately this is not a place for the discussion about the existence of God in the real world. Please read WP:TPG for more details. -- THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 11:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed the link above, although I was tempted to remove the whole (irrelevant) comment. – Adrian Lozano (talk) 19:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Philip Pullman has since made statements that the criticisms of the Church in His Dark Materials also refer to other religions -there is a reference on one of the wikipaedia pages somewhere — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.22.194.209 (talk) 22:49, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Where is it written?

Sorry for not having an account, but I'm Hungarian, I don't write articles here. I just want to ask something: "He (the Authority) had a son called Jesus Christ, born on Earth in 5 BC from the virgin Mary, wife of Joseph, and a dæmon in the form of a dove called the Holy Spirit. He, his son, and his dæmon together formed what was called the Trinity."

Where is it written in the books? I found it nowhere. I'm waiting for your answer. Daderth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.98.130.149 (talk) 17:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

You're right, it's not in the books. I think it's vandalism. I deleted it.--154.20.34.60 (talk) 23:52, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you :) (because this would be too anti-catholic I think) Daderth

There may be one reference to Jesus in the Amber Spyglass. When Lyra bargains with her Death to take her in to the land of the dead and return: L: "Has it ever been known, for people to do that?" D: "Not for many, many ages." This may refer to Jesus' return, or refer to the events of 40,000 years ago (first war against god). If Jesus was in Lyra's world, she could have used him as an example, but she shows no knowledge of Jesus. Though Arabs are mentioned Jews are not, which may have implications to whether there was a Jesus in Lyra's world. However nuns in the Consistorial Court are seen crossing themselves, which would make little sense without a Jesus — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.22.194.209 (talk) 22:45, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Primary sources

I don't think the Primary Sources tag is appropriate here, since this is a work of fiction. See Wikipedia:These_are_not_original_research#Works_of_fiction Egret (talk) 22:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it's a no-brainer. Tag removed. → Adrian Lozano (talk) 20:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Daemon names

Hi, Would it be an idea to make all the Daemon's names bold too, as after all they are that character. It is explained nicely in Subtle Knife about Will talking to Lyra through Pantalaimon. Keep up the good work. Rafmarham (talk) 20:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Serafini's name

I have heard a BBC 'World Book Club' talk (downloadable) in which Pullman says that Serafini's name came from a phone directory. HOWEVER in context it was obvious that he was joking, if there is no better source I suggest that this reference is removed or amended to make it clear that it was a joke.Pincrete (talk) 18:55, 23 January 2014 (UTC) Update I have amended the reference to 'phone directory', also linked to the Q & A source.Pincrete (talk) 12:21, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Characters in The Book of Dust - proposed renaming of article

The Book of Dust, beginning with La Belle Sauvage, features characters from this list. As such, I think they should feature on this list, rather than having their own. To this end, I propose that the article is renamed to something along the lines of "List of characters in the His Dark Materials multiverse". That's a mouthful, so I'm open to better suggestions, but I think it would be better if the title described the setting, rather than the series. Smith(talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:51, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have noticed this, so I'm pinging some people that seem to edit the His Dark Materials articles - @Pincrete:, @*Treker:, @Popcornduff:, @JesseRafe:. I'd like to get some consensus before initiating a move request. Smith(talk) 11:26, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

It's unnecessary, I think. It wouldn't be out of place to add the Book of Dust information to this article. I don't think it's unreasonable to treat the Book of Dust as part of the HDM series for our purposes. (I mean, if you don't think that's the case already, then the "His Dark Materials multiverse" suggestion doesn't work - you'd have to write "His Dark Materials and Book of Dust".)

In any case I don't think using "multiverse" is a good idea. It's a portentous word, and unnecessary when you think about it: the word "universe" is used here in a storytelling sense, not a cosmic one; the HDM universe contains multiverses. Popcornduff (talk) 12:09, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

I also think it unnec at present, especially without knowing WHO (apart from Mrs C, Lord A, infant Lyra and Coram ) overlap significantly. Pincrete (talk) 13:07, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree that using "multiverse" seems a little odd. I think it can stay at just His Dark Materials, at least for now.★Trekker (talk) 16:16, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree that "multiverse" is terrible, but similar articles (1, 2, 3, 4) tend to use the word "universe", and that didn't seem appropriate given the whole "multiple universes" thing. If the agreement is that the setting is called His Dark Materials in the same way that the setting of the Fantastic Beasts films is J. K. Rowling's Wizarding World, then this isn't a problem, but I don't remember ever seeing it referred to as that. Smith(talk) 16:23, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Well in the case of the Marvel Cinematic Universe it's actually the official name. The others seem kinda semi-official or at least widely recognized as common names. Using "universe" or "multiverse" in this case would seem a little like an invention or original research to me at least.★Trekker (talk) 16:31, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

"Universe" is a commonly used term to describe fictional worlds. But we don't need it. Writing "His Dark Materials characters" is sufficiently clear, comprehensive, and simple. Popcornduff (talk) 05:04, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I noticed for the first time yesterday, that multiverse is probably not strictly scientifically accurate (apart from being 'clunky'). I had assumed it meant many parallel universes, which is not strictly true. If we REALLY felt we needed to retitle, we could just add "and Book of Dust", but I don't think it's necessary at present. Pincrete (talk) 09:14, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Re-ordering

To be honest, I don't think this is an improvement. Previous ordering 'grouped' major character groups. This re-ordering sacrifices coherence, merely in order to include half-a-dozen 'dusters', the character descriptions are also leaping all over the place to accommodate the 'prequel'. Pincrete (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree that the previous grouping was coherent, to be honest; the distinction of what justified a character as being a 'main character' seemed entirely arbitrary to me, and in any case, several of the characters have their own dedicated articles, so there was a situation in which the protagonist of the whole lot, Lyra, had a shorter blurb than, for example, Iorek or Coram. If you assume that main character status is granted by point-of-view narration, then the new book adds several, and then that section becomes long enough to be unwieldy. On top of that, in about a year, we'll have a sequel to deal with, and so the list of characters that have point-of-view narration will grow further. I think there's a solid argument to be made for trimming less important characters from this list, as more comprehensive lists exist, for example, on wikia. Smith(talk) 22:48, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I haven't read the new book or much about it, only some of the 'cryptic' clues given by PP, but what worries me is that we may be making assumptions about where the new trilogy is going, and may end up with a less than coherent list. PP has billed the new trilogy as an 'equal' rather than a sequel or prequel. Clearly the newest book is going to give some 'back story' and does have overlapping characters, but where after that? It may be that in the long run the 'Dust' trilogy will deserve its own series of articles, including character lists, rather than simply being an extension of HDM, but we don't know. Minor and major was a bit arbitary, but anyone in the wrong section was easily moved. It's a bit pointless IMO to have a character list that does not include anyone who actually has a name, really major characters have their own articles and only need a summary here. Equally groups, tribes etc have their own lists.

It is very possible that readers will see the two trilogies as two separate things with some overlap, even possible that they will continue to read HDM before 'Dust'. For the time being, that is certainly likely. Pincrete (talk) 01:00, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure they might end up being considered different things, but as to what you're saying about the clues being 'cryptic', I'm not sure I agree - PP has pretty clearly stated that the second book also has Lyra as a protagonist. I think there's enough overlap that it's not going to be possible to disentangle them. Smith(talk) 07:40, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm happy anyway to wait and see what others think, I have my doubts, but you could be right. Pincrete (talk) 20:50, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

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