The Republic of Heaven

Well, for one thing, I don't think there would be suburbs...no cars. But then, there wouldn't be anything in place of it, because it would be pretty much unreachable, so the zeppalin hanger would still have to be in the center.

I thought I remembered the occasional mention of cars? They certainly weren't the norm, but I thought some of the aristocracy had cars... maybe I'm just imagining it though.

No, you're right. Lyra mentions them after she got run over in Will's Oxford. She says that they have them, but not nearly so many.

Ah...then, perhaps so.

That does fit in with the late Victorian style of Lyra's world. Although it's not really a case of 'when' the worlds split really, the fundamental difference of dæmons would make their world totally different to ours - Oxford might not even have been settled on the same site (though we know it was).

There's an interesting elaboration in one of the interviews that Blighty brought up again:

I can foresee Lyra in future books a few years older than in the original trilogy having to come to terms more fully with the powers she now possesses, whilst trying to keep them hidden from the ordinary world.

The "powers" are probably the witch-like ones she got when she and Pan were seperated, I think...especially how Pan and Lyra can go large distances apart now.

Yes, I've seen quite a few PP references to 'powers'. At first I read into this as the powers she's gained on her journey - human things, such as courage, knowledge abour Dust and all that. If it is witch powers, then she only really has one - the Pan seperation thingy.

yeah I thought of that as human-things, just like...courage and determination and manipulation. Powers. yeah.

Hmm...perhaps you're right...

Well she can hardly shoot lasers from her eyes or anything...She can't even fly a cloud-pine. Or read the alethiometer.

I thought she would be able to learn the witches' ways...though she might have been able to learn them anyway, since Serafina sayd that the "old ways are changing" (or something like that).

Hmm...The bit that gets me is where it says that she tries "...to keep them hidden from the ordinary world." I don't think she would have to keep courage or determination hidden, but being able to seperate from her daemon...

Yeah, that would freak people out. Like in HDM, where Lyra feels nervous/strange/almost disgusted talking to someone without their dæmon present (a witch, of course).

and remember how shocked she was when she saw tony, and by then the actions of the gobblers would have leaked out so...

In the subtle knife, remember the part where Lyra sees the Gaffiti on a wall in Will's world in the exact same place as her world? Maybe it's crazy but what if everyone from will's world exists in every other world just in another form with a different life, but essentially being the same person.

Maybe it means that when the two protagonists leave for their own world at the end of the trilogy, one day they might bump into the version of will or Lyra that lives in their own World.

Just an idea...

Just an idea...

Its not an idea, its a theory as I think the same as you

is 10 months close to the record?

Noo, we've had one which was over a year before.

Not to mention over 21 months.