Postby Australis » Thu Apr 10, 2008 2:06 pm
There are many little touching vignettes through the books, some I've only picked up on second reading.
In the cave: Will breathed in the scent of Lyra's sleepy body with a happy satisfaction: she was here, she was real.
Perhaps it's the cumulative effect of lines such as that, that gives these characters so much substance.
Or these ones; Asriel to Ogunwe (yes, I know it's a passage, not a line): My daughter!" cried Lord Asriel, exulting. "Isn't it something to bring a child like that into the world? You'd think it was enough to go alone to the king of the armoured bears and trick his kingdom out of his paws - but to go down into the world of the dead and calmly let them all out!...Did we know what we were taking on when we started this rebellion? No. But did they know - the Authority and his Regent....what they were taking on when my daughter got involved?"
Makes me smile every time I read it.