[Mrs. Don-o]

The thing that boggled my mind about GC was that when we first meet Lord Azriel, he is clearly a bad guy: he tells Lyra "I'll break your arm" and "I'll hurt you so badly you'll wish you were dead," and says if she's caught in the waredrobe "You're on your own: I won't life a finger to save you."

Then later you find out he's Lyra's father, who in fact abandoned her at Jordan College and had no hand in providing for her, educating her, or raising her.

Yet despite all this, Lyra wants to accompany him to the North and even to give him the Aleithiometer (a most powerful tool) --- why? Why would she want to be with someone who treats her cruelly and abandons her? And even after he coldly murders her best friend Roger (her main reason of wanting to go to the North, after all, was to rescue Roger), she seems more attracted by his power than revulsed by his evil.

I mean, if Pullman were interested in liberating human beings from oppression, it's truly strange that he makes his youthful heroine a little girl who abjectly loves an evil, abusive man.

It's so twisted. Even the twists are twisted.

[Greg F]

“Bent” . . .

C.S. Lewis’ term from the “Out of the Silent Planet,” “Perelandra,” and “That Hideous Strength” space trilogy. I finished “Perelandra” last night at midnight (couldn’t put it down . . . way past my typical bedtime).

Bent men are more useful for evil than broken ones you see . .