LO: Questions raised by the book..

[EngineerScholar]

If you haven't read Lyra's Oxford, you should skip this post! (I've covered it up with a 'spoiler' window, in case you opened it by mistake.)

Spoiler:

I read through the story in Lyra's Oxford a couple of times, and found it very interesting. It raised a couple of questions in my mind. One of them is, how much of what the witch's demon said is true? Are witches really getting sick and dying, leaving their daemons behind? I believe that this might be true, and that the daemon's witch may have been sick. She died when one of the swans attacked her; I have trouble believing that a healthy person could be killed this way. A person would certainly be injured by a collision with a swan, but killed?

Also, what was the Makepeace the alchemist up to? Was he working on a way to help the witches (assuming some of them really are sick, of course)? Or could it be another project entirely? I wonder if he is trying to make another 'subtle knife'! (I hope he isn't, but it's just a hunch..)

I would be interested to hear what others think of these and other questions raised by the book.

EngineerScholar

[Leif]

If I remember correctly, it was made pretty clear that the Witch's daemon was pretty much lying about everything inorder to kill Lyra and make it seem that Mr. Makepeace was the murderer. But perhaps I'm wrong...

[zemarl]

it's a possibility that the witch got the idea from something like that, in which case tbod will probably go into detail, but i'm thinking it was just an elaborate lie so far-fetched it couldn't be checked up on.

[EngineerScholar]

If I remember correctly, it was made pretty clear that the Witch's daemon was pretty much lying about everything inorder to kill Lyra and make it seem that Mr. Makepeace was the murderer. But perhaps I'm wrong...

Spoiler:

I have no doubt that much or most of what the witch's daemon said was a lie. It just seemed to me that the witch died relatively easily. After all, a swan killed her! It made me wonder if the witch really was ill to begin with, and maybe that fragment of the daemon's story might have been true.

And I wonder if we will need to wait until the Book of Dust to find out what Sebastian Makepeace is working on..

EngineerScholar

[jessia]

the witches, with their relative immortality, seem to me to be the type of beings that might really die of a broken heart.

Spoiler:

she was a member of a clan that supported the oblation board (whether or not they were aware of their activities in bolvangar), and as if fighting in a war of such magnitude isn't stressful enough, discovering that her own son is fighting on the opposing side, and then finding her own arrow in his corpse...

yea.

[EngineerScholar]

the witches, with their relative immortality, seem to me to be the type of beings that might really die of a broken heart.

I'm not as sure about this. It seems to me that for the witches, with their long life spans, broken hearts must be a way of life. They all fall in love, see their men (and male children, for that matter) get old and die, or possibly slain. This must be a constant source of sadness in their lives.

Spoiler:

Your do have a good theory about the witch in Lyra's Oxford, however. Certainly accidentally killing your own child must be a very special, painful heartbreak that could bring anyone down, witch or otherwise. This type of heartbreak is not something a witch would normally experience. It very well might explain why this witch was weakened, and could be killed more easily.

EngineerScholar

[Blackdragon]

Forgive me because it has been a while since I read any of the books. I remember that it said the witches lived long lives but did it say around how long exactly?

[EngineerScholar]

Forgive me because it has been a while since I read any of the books. I remember that it said the witches lived long lives but did it say around how long exactly?

I don't remember either, but the encyclopaedia on this site says that the life span of the witches is 'perhaps 900 years old', which sounds about right. I do remember reading that a 100 year old witch was considered 'young' by other witches.


EngineerScholar

[Dante]

The oldest witch alive was said to be pushing a thousand, I think.