Authority's End

[Assarhaddon]

Everything Will did with the knife unraveled a bit of that fantasy. He freed the dead from Purgatory, which denied the Authority and his would-be successor their only real power over consciousness, and in so doing made God irrelevant.

First of all, it was not Purgatory, since from Purgatory you eventually go to Paradise. It was more an Hades or an Hel, a dumping ground for all ghosts no matter whether good or bad. Moreover, nearly everybody was mistaken about its nature (people thought they would go to Paradise if they were faithful to the Church), so it didn't give the Authority actually any real power. His power came from the fact that nobody really knew what the afterlife was like, and there is no reason this should have changed by simply opening a window. If people had learned about the true nature of the world of the dead, with or without the new window, the Authority wouldn't have had any power at all.

[Bellerophon]

Agree to disagree. I consider the imprisonment of the dead a source of real power and the mystery of the afterlife a source of illusory power. The former could be overcome only by the bearer of the Subtle Knife; the latter is vulnerable to reason. I may be wrong, but it's my understanding that the ongoing release of the dead into the living universe recycles a great deal of dust that would otherwise languish in, well, see below.

I meant to use Purgatory as a stand in for the awkward phrase 'World of the Dead' rather than as a firm allusion to Catholic doctrine. Hades might have been a better choice, or perhaps Limbo, but what I like about Purgatory is that it suggests a state of contrition or remorse. Hades and Limbo suggest torpid resignation, which doesn't allow for the harassment of the dead by harpies. That said, yours was a fair point Assarhaddon. Reminds me of a story by Borges, "Pierre Menard," in which the narrator attests that our literary heritage is a living legacy. Would the exact text of HDM have the same meaning if the Pope had written it?

http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-quixote.html [ENGLISH]
http://www.literatura.us/borges/pierre.html [SPANISH]

[bharned1]

I like the way Authority dies. He wasn't the authority, the one that was in control. Metetron was more the authority then Authority was. I agree with previous posts that it was a mercy-killing, even if it was inadvertent.

[Halo Nerd]

This scene has got me thinking recently. The way God dies... well, it's an anti-climax really. There's all this talk about a war in Heaven and fighting against the Authority... then along come Lyra and Will and they kill the Authority by accident! They don't even realise who he is.

Why do you think Pullman chose to write the scene that way?

Is it part of Lyra and Will's destiny to destroy the Authority? I wondered if perhaps it has some connection with the fact that Lyra is supposed to fulfil the prophecy in ignorance of what she is doing. Will's father also believed that it was his son's task to fight the Authority. But in the end they don't even need the knife to destroy God.

Why did Pullman make the Authority so weak? Does it in some way represent the corruption of the Church?

You'd be weak too if you'd been alive for untold number of years...

I think the knife was supposed to kill Metatron actually and in a way it did if you think about it, he used the knife to get rid of the bomb which opened the abyss. If he didn't have the knife then the bomb would've killed them and doomed them anyways.

[Philharmonic]

I think it's because Authority is old, weak and all that-it was mentioned he walked in Eden, Moses only heard his voice and by Daniel's time, he was 'the Ancient of Days'. So I think he saved the big death scene for his Regent.

[LadySylvia]

What exactly is the death of God/Authority and the saga's religious authority supposed to achieve?

[onehumaneye]

This scene has got me thinking recently. The way God dies... well, it's an anti-climax really. There's all this talk about a war in Heaven and fighting against the Authority... then along come Lyra and Will and they kill the Authority by accident! They don't even realise who he is.

That's what was so great about it! I read that and thought ... whaaaaa? Did I read that right? It was like when Dorothy destroyed the evil witch in Oz by throwing a bucket of water on her. She says, "Here I goooooo......" So why were all these people throughout history so worked up about this guy? He was nothing!

I've noticed a lot of comments in this thread about Will being a murderer. To me the obvious thing about this is that we can see for ourselves that Will didn't kill anybody! He just pushed someone and the cat happened to be there and the guy died accidentally. The book starts out with Will thinking to himself that he is a murderer and to me it is like Lyra thinking that she caused Roger's death. Neither are guilty—they are just upset about what happened and it gets expressed that way. Hmmm ... but the alethiometer is a truth teller and it says Will is a murderer and I know differently. So how do I resolve that? I can only imagine that the alethiometer was responding to what Will felt about himself. And then Lyra's reaction! She is relieved to see that he's a murderer. What a crazy kid! I think what she's really thinking is that she feels safe knowing that he can't turn tail and run to the authorities.

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

I've noticed a lot of comments in this thread about Will being a murderer. To me the obvious thing about this is that we can see for ourselves that Will didn't kill anybody! He just pushed someone and the cat happened to be there and the guy died accidentally.

Perhaps the alethiometer doesn't do ambiguity so well. Will killed someone (whether by accident or in self-defense, it doesn't matter, although I am aware that for a legal definition of murder it does matter), so according to the alethiometer he's a murderer.

[onehumaneye]

I'll bet the alethiometer said razz fazz poof poof piffle and Lyra made an interpretation of that. When the person who was obviously a bad guy threatening our friends fell down the stairs and was killed, I felt relieved that Will had regained some safety for the moment. It never occurred to me that anyone would blame him. Even if Will had intended to kill him, which I can't imagine, it would have been in self defense. So I was surprised when will started thinking himself a killer. Maybe it was that sense of self blame, because he was disturbed about what had happened, that colored Lyra's perception of him. I was also surprised that this murderer business came as good news to Lyra. I actually don't get it and have to play around with interpretations. Here she was, days from having been a kid playing games, and suddenly she thinks it's a good idea that Will is a murderer. What I got out of it—I may have said this before above somewhere—was that she thought it was good that he too was in trouble for something. But admiring a murderer, out of the blue, says something about her that I don't understand.

Now it's true that Will did threaten to kill Lyra if she messed things up for him, but I think that's because he didn't know what he was talking about. Once he acquired the Knife, that kind of talk was buried and gone.

[tyche]

Sorry, I know this is an old topic but the question about Will being a murderer kind of bothers me. I really don’t see why Will is a murderer, he might have hit the guy who then fell down the stairs and died but to me murder implies intent. At the worst Will is a manslaughterer.
Anyway the Alethiometer isn’t completely unbiased. It has its own agenda and at that moment it knew if it could twist the truth into calling Will a murderer so Lyra would trust him, since she needed him for her later adventures.

[MojaveByrd]

Yes, I agree that murder would imply intent but don't forget that Will is just a kid and even though it was an accident, that's how he interpreted it. Someone died and somehow it was his fault.

[Morris1994]

This scene has got me thinking recently. The way God dies... well, it's an anti-climax really. There's all this talk about a war in Heaven and fighting against the Authority... then along come Lyra and Will and they kill the Authority by accident! They don't even realise who he is.

Why do you think Pullman chose to write the scene that way?

Is it part of Lyra and Will's destiny to destroy the Authority? I wondered if perhaps it has some connection with the fact that Lyra is supposed to fulfil the prophecy in ignorance of what she is doing. Will's father also believed that it was his son's task to fight the Authority. But in the end they don't even need the knife to destroy God.

Why did Pullman make the Authority so weak? Does it in some way represent the corruption of the Church?

The death of God has two reasons. You were right for one, Lyra was supposed to complete the task in ignorance and will was supposed to destroy destiny by destroying God.

[Imagine]

Why did Pullman make the Authority so weak? Does it in some way represent the corruption of the Church?

Pullman does not believe that the Church was ever "good." If anyone still believes, after reading the series, that he believes in battles between righteousness vs. evil...well, I think they miss the point, really.

His portrayal of the Authority (pg.31: "God, the Creator, The Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, The King, the Father, the Almighty--those were all names he gave himself") fits in nicely with Pullman's favorite theme of appearance vs. reality (The White Mercedes) The Metatron represents the power of the institution, but behind the power is emptiness--that's what religion is all about.

[Imagine]

Perhaps Metatron represents the corrupt version of God, the one that men twist to fit their own ideals.

I disagree. Page 61 says that God and Metatron, working together, have decided the churches in all the world had become corrupt--but corrupt in the sense that they had become "weak" and "ineffective." God and Metatron wanted to start anew, to institute "permanent inquisition."