The Republic of Heaven

did anyone else cry when will's father died?????
i did.

Lyra&Pan wrote:Nah !! I was bussy crying about Lee and Hester...

I know it was so sad, especially since he didn't buy that quiet farm in texas

I'm to impassionate to cry, but they upset me of sorts, Will father having just been reunited with Will and Lee...cos Lee was Lee!! I must confess what nearly made me cry, not a common phenomana, was when Hester's broken and crumpled body crawled to Lee's side before he died.

It was certainly a shock, I was reading it waiting for a Semantics lecture to start at university. I think I read the rest of the chapter in less than a minute and ran to my locker to get TAS. I've said it before, but it bares repreating now (heh, jack white)... Bloodmoss is probably Pullman's greatest chapter.

Lyra&Pan wrote:Nah !! I was busy crying about Lee and Hester...

Same here. That was more powerful for me. It was built up, whereas Grumman/Parry's death was sort of a sudden shock. (Well I knew it happened, but it was still sudden!)

Moi aussi...
I didn't find the death of Will's father particularly upsetting although I do remember being annoyed at the witch who killed him

Lee and Hester's death is incredibly powerfully written, and yes, I cried. The only other part of the whole trilogy that also got me going was when Lyra had to leave Pan on the dock...
Pullman's an awesome writer!

I didn't cry and i didn't even cry because of Lee's death. I cried when i re-read it.

I sort of cried at Lee and Hester's death (if I were one to cry at books/movies, I'd have cried, but I don't really....I was close though).

John Parry's death wasn't that upsetting to me either. As someone up there said before, Lee and Hester's death was much more sensationally written, whereas JP's death was very sudden and quick. I felt more frustration at JP's death than sadness....whereas Hester and Lee's death was all sadness.

Ah, I didn't entirely cry. I was way too mad at that witch, but I expected it to happen from the moment she said she would kill him if she ever met him.
I felt sad at the fact that Will and his father didn't get the chance to have "the talk."

I found the death of Lee and Hester to be probably the most touching moment of the book. The final few lines of Alamo Gulch rise above prose and enter into poetry - Pullman truly excels himself. I certainly felt my eyes well up. I don't think there is a joke on the planet that would have made me laugh at that point.

Pullman does the same in a few other parts of the series, most particularly when Lyra and Will clumsily kiss for the last time before they are finally parted. When they first kiss, after Lyra places the fruit in Will's mouth, is also deeply emotional, though in a more joyful way. Probably the most poignant moment for me, though, is shortly after Lyra and Will realise their love for one another, they "Fall," and something shifts cosmically so that the Dust flows properly again. It really is the climax of the series, and made me incredibly proud of the characters.

John Parry's death was immediate and shocking, as it was supposed to be. I felt a very odd combination of intense hatred and deep sympathy towards Juta Kamainen, and pity for Will who'd lost his father in the precise moment of mutual recognition. I thought the whole subplot was very well written.

it was horrible for Will to want to meet his father and then his father died that instant...i was really sad for him but ya, i was also still crying for lee and hester

Lee and Hester's death was so much more upsetting than Parry's death. I mean, he's a frikkin Texan! And that Alamo Gulch chapter was awesome. Nice to know everyone gets to see how kick ass we are.

It wasn't just cuz he was a Texan that I cried. He was a loving father figure to Lyra and was, to me, the bravest and most honest character in the whole book. It was a great moment when he dissolved from his ghost form and went to join Hester. That made me cry.

If I was the type that cried for movies and books I definately would have cried when Lee died. But not for JP, we didn't even really know him.

I disagree, I found the death of Will's father extremely moving. I basically cried from Lee and Hester's death onwards in TSK. Strangely, though, I found I cried more when I related the circumstances of John Parry's death (ie, explained that he died just upon realising that Will was his son, after Will had been searching for his father all his life) than when I actually read it.

I think Pullman succeeded in creating a tear-jerking *idea* with John Parry's death, but in actually executing the idea he failed slightly (since all of you seem to have been unmoved by it).

I think there's definately a difference in the way the two "death sequnces" are written and the way they come across when read.

John Parry's death has a few (I think) really good lines:

And there came just the first flicker of something else to both of them

The only problem is it's over before it even really begins. Also Will has no deep relationship with his father (at least not in the emotional sense) and so a lot of the would-be sadness is lost... it's more like "Oh, he died. That sucks."

Lee and Hester's death is totally different. Instead of a few lines of 'sad' stuff, it's basically several pages of exquisite writing that really doesn't let up.
Especially the last line of the chapter:

Then she was pressing her proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.

It's very very simple, and yet extremely gut-wrenching stuff which conjurs (at least in my mind ) all sorts of emotions.

Also I think the fact that Lee and Hester really have a connection (obviously) and their death deals with that and their love for one another etc., as opposed to Will and JP's aforementioned non-existant relationship

I was deeply wounded when Lee died because I felt a connection with him (as with most of the characters) as if he were a real person. I don't really know if I can explain how I feel about his death however. I want to say he died happily because he knew he had done his part, he had died a hero's death. At the same time though, I wanted his dream of taking care of Lyra to come true.

When John Parry died, I felt terrible for Will. We never really knew much about John, but I could almost feel the grief radiating out of the book during that chapter.

This is definitely why TSK is my favourite of the series.

I know it was so sad, especially since he didn't buy that quiet farm in texas

But he did buy the farm, geddit ahem.

Yeah, that remains my saddest moment in the trilogy and it's one of the best written parts, I think. I also cried in TAS when Lee's ghost joins Hester.

However, I still cry watching Dumbo, Homeward Bound, A Little Princess and Gladiator, so I'm clearly a soppy girl's blouse in these matters.

Kyrillion wrote:

I know it was so sad, especially since he didn't buy that quiet farm in texas

But he did buy the farm, geddit ahem.

...

However, I still cry watching Dumbo, Homeward Bound, A Little Princess and Gladiator, so I'm clearly a soppy girl's blouse in these matters.

You're terrible... *mutters about buying the farm*

Also, aren't Dumbo and Gladiator sort of on different levels? I would expect one to have more emotional impact than the other.