Marisa Coulter's metallic scent...

[jessia]

i'm annotating chapter five now... and the metallic scent coming off of mrs. coulter...

She bent a little and offered her cheek. Lyra had to stand on tiptoe to kiss it. She noticed how smooth it was, and the slight perplexing smell of Mrs. Coulter's flesh: scented, but somewhow metallic. She drew away and laid the shoulder bad on her dressing table before following Mrs. Coulter back to the drawing room.

and again here...

Mrs. Coiulter seemed to be charged with some kind of anbaric force. She even smelled different: a hot smell, like heated metal, came off ehr body. Lyra had felt something of it before, but now she was seeing it directed at someone else, and poor Adele Starminster had no force to resist...

continued here...

The hot metallic smell was vanishing. Perhaps Lyra had only imagined it. She could smell Mrs. Coulter's scent again, and the roses, and the cigarillo smoke, and the scent of other women...

So... what do you make of this metallic scent coming off of the angry Mrs. Coulter?

and why does she smell like other women...? but focus on the metallicness.

[lostinthought451]

I honestly don't know. Maybe she's secretly a robot??

[Sparrow]

I always did wonder about that... It may have just been metaphorical on Pullman's part.

***NOT GETTING OFF-TOPIC, JUST CORRECTING A MISCONCEPTION***

and why does she smell like other women...? but focus on the metallicness.

...I think it's meant as she smelt Mrs. Coulter and other women at the party.

[jessia]

focus on the metal hon.

LoL, i was thinking robot the first time i read it. then i thought it might be her perfume. but the smell only arises when mrs. coulter is angry, when blood vessels are heating up, moving closer to the skin, and letting off heat... then there's minerals in your blood... but people don't normally give off metallic scents... and then i confused myself.

[TonyOn]

Perhaps it´s her sweat mixed with the parfum. Or just something PP decided to add without explaining...

[jessia]

sweat... that's like salt and water... parfum... that's usually alcohol, which would've already dried up, and fruit extracts??

[lostinthought451]

***NOT GETTING OFF-TOPIC, JUST CORRECTING A MISCONCEPTION***

Thanks for clarifying that bit. I was worried that Pullman was advocating free love! While we're on the topic of smells, what do other women smell like? And did Mrs. Coulter smell like all their perfumes mixed together, or did she just have the general "other women" smell like the " i-know-you-petted-another-cat" smell?[/quote]

[donkey_booter]

did she just have the general "other women" smell like the " i-know-you-petted-another-cat" smell?

WhatwhatWHAAAAAAT ? You mean is Mrs Coulter a lesbian or something?!?What what? I think i've missed the point there. . .
Anyway i think PP put the metal thing in there to show how Mrs Coulter could change from being nice to really nasty. I think the metal might imply a dagger or something. . .

[Sparrow]

Anyway i think PP put the metal thing in there to show how Mrs Coulter could change from being nice to really nasty. I think the metal might imply a dagger or something. . .

Yeah, that's what I was saying, that he might have used it kind of as symbolism or a metaphor.

And NO! No one is saying Mrs. Coulter is a lesbian! Go read the rest of this thread!

[lostinthought451]

sorry, I was just a bit confuzzled........but that bit does seem odd, doesn't it?

[donkey_booter]

yea i thought it couldn't mean Mrs Coulter was a lesbian based on the fact that shes in love with Asriel n' all.

And i have read the thread ggggrrrrr

[lostinthought451]

well, she could be bisexual, but I don't think so. And I think the metallic bit was meant as, well, have you ever seen someone get so mad that they are a bit static-y? I think that's what PP meant. "Electrically charged"

[eloquent]

Yeah that makes sense. Static ions tend to smell metalic, and I've witnessed too many arguments between siblings to disregard the 'static charge' people often appear to have when angry.

[lostinthought451]

yah, my mom and I are like that when we're fighting.

[donkey_booter]

Thats only happened to me once, when i was 10. I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier because my dad wouldn't cook me a pizza so we got into a dispute over it and it got worse and worse until i couldn't hold in my anger any more and i kicked my dad in the groin .This made him pretty angry, after he could move again, so i locked myself in the bathroom for 10 minutes to let him "cool down." I didn't smell of metal though however i did feel like all my organs were going into overdrive and i did feel electrically charged. It's the same feeling when you get nervous. You feel really hyper and feel like you need to exert your energy.

[lostinthought451]

you kicked your dad in the where ????

Well, I think PP just added it in to make imagining the scene better.[/u]

[jessia]

focus on the metal guys. so static ions tend to smell metallic? or what else could the metallic scent imply... other than the dagger... weapon.... whatever.

[Will]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: robot monkey.

[jessia]

when did you say it before?

[Duskeyes]

Maybe PP meant metal as 'cold' and 'heartless' or the real skin beneath the smelling-of-roses exterior.