Golden Compass
A while ago, maybe 6th grade, I read the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, the first book of which is the Golden Compass. I was struck by a vague notion that it was probably pretty controversial, but I was too young to understand its implications.This weekend I saw the movie, and this time the implications were pretty clear to me – the movie more or less portrays the church, although it’s never mentioned by name, as a huge, supremely powerful oligarchy that seeks to obliterate free will.
Yeah, it’s probably pissing a lot of people off.
But politics and offense aside, the whole alternate reality is really cool and obviously quite well-thought-out. For those who haven’t read it: the first one takes place in a not-quite-like-ours steampunk world where people’s souls/consciences take the form of animals that walk/run/fly beside them. The daemons reflect their owners’ personality traits, hidden thoughts, misgivings, etc; and conversations between the daemon and owner are representations of conversations people have inside their heads. It’s a brilliant literary device. Almost as if he had the movie in mind as soon as he started brainstorming…
In the second book of the trilogy, The Subtle Knife, you find out that the world of the first book is one of infinite parallel worlds in the universe, one of which is just like ours.
There’s also the alethiometer, (aka Golden Compass), a truth-o-meter.
Anyway, to get back to the point –
Tying all these brilliant little ideas together is Dust, an elementary particle/form of dark matter that is consciousness. The consciousness particle. It showed up a long time ago, the characters discover through finding traces of it on ancient skulls, and the date of its emergence corresponds with Creation. This is where the evil church comes in – they think Dust is original sin – it’s what created creativity and free will, pulling man up above all the other animals to change nature, question his place in the world, and disobey God.
They want to eradicate it, thus destroying everything that distinguishes man from beast and kicking the human race back into a state of peaceful ignorance.
No art, no invention, no discovery.
No extortion, no inequality, no oppression.
Whose side are you on?
01:51 PM | 0 Comments