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[valourandagrimony]

The many worlds in His Dark Materials

[valourandagrimony]

Lyra and Will are inversions of Christ

Genesis 3:19: “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”

Lyra and Will, as a part of their travels, enter as their living selves into the land of the dead. This requires them to separate from their Daemons, indicating that the land of the dead exists without Dust, and in fact we see that it swallows it forever into a great black void. The Land of the Dead is itself a void; of interest, of thought, of anything except for the ghost-like figures of those who have passed on. They gather in small bored groups and are harassed by harpies for eternity. It is here where the two Christs will defeat death, but not in the way apocalyptics might think.

Lyra and Will travel through the land of the dead and open a window to another world where the ghosts may escape eternal nothingness as the particles of their being separate from one another and become one with the world again, just as Dust becomes one with conscious beings. In other words, they become Dust, and it is a beautiful event to behold.

Dust, or sin, is NOT portrayed as a bad thing, it is what makes consciousness, love, joy, etc.

Note that the ghosts have a CHOICE to return to Dust/radiant joy, implying that choosing “good sin” is inherently opposite to existing in the nothingness that embodies the land of the dead.

Additionally, in order to gain access to the window, the ghosts must trade the true stories of their lives, implying a certain value in the human experience that has its ties to sin and free will.

Ironically, it is only by living that Lyra and Will are able to defeat death (had the church managed to kill Lyra as planned, the Land of the Dead would remain closed). In biblical terms, it is as if Christ has defeated death by choosing to preserve sin. By Falling, Eve chooses to love, consciously.

The overall message:

Classical perspectives on sin:

- Sin is perceived as only something bad

- Sin is to break the law of God

Pullman’s perspectives on sin:

- There are bad sins and good sins

- Sin is consciousness and ability to have/show feelings

- Sin enables beings to turn away from God/the Authority

This is a good thing

Eve discovered consciousness and shared it with Adam so they could experience the world together in its complete fullness. Under this interpretation, it was an act of love to bring sin into the world, and it is through love that we maintain it. Lyra and Will do not end up together, in part due to the love they have not only for each other, but for all people. In order to set things right and truly preserve Dust, they must be apart despite their love, and so like Christ they sacrifice, but they do not destroy sin, they lean into it.

In other words, perhaps sin is a force in this world, but maybe that is not an inherently bad thing. Sin makes us who we are and gives us the knowledge to create our own understanding of morality without necessitating a higher power to tell us what is good or evil. Without it, we would be an empty shell of ourselves, or not human beings at all. Without it, we could not know what it is to love.