I stopped reading the series more because of how boring, how little sympathetic character development there was for the supposed heroine and how obnoxiously unsubtle the plots were than being offended as a theist, so I never got to them killing GOD…
Is GOD a swipe at the late Pope John Paul II? He was old and getting vague, and if I understand Catholicism correctly he’s supposed to be holy because he’s “God’s reprehensive on Earth,” right? If it’s a possible interpretation (I fully admit to quitting the books ½ way through the series, so I don’t know if it is) I can understand why it would be seen as specifically anti-Catholic.
Well, the Magisterium is a Catholic term- it’s the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church, that is, the Pope and the bishops. I don’t think it’s a swipe at JPII. When the books came out, I think he was still in pretty good shape.
So, you didn’t get to the end of the books and yet you feel there was no character development. Well, sorry you didn’t like it, but Lyra comes a long long way in the books and makes some serious decisions that have a profound impact on the world(s).
The Iorek/Iofur fight scene is moved to a different point in the storyline. Probably to give the movie better pacing… and the expense of plot coherency. The movie ends while Lyra and Roger are on the way to meet Lord Asriel. No betrayal, no bridge, no rant on destroying the Authority.
I don’t think the books are anti-Catholic, so much as the excesses and atrocities of The Church are the obvious example of religious bureaucracy as an instrument of evil. If they didn’t have the history they do, they wouldn’t make a convenient example. People can do good. People can do bad. Organized religion makes it easier for them to do bad and claim it as good. Intercision reminds me of burning witches after they’d been tortured into repenting. Kill 'em quick before they can sin!
I also wouldn’t say they’re atheist novels, either, except in the strictest possible definitions of atheism. Sraf is the god of the Pullman multiverse. Just because his god is distributed and has no particular identity doesn’t change the fact that the book still revolves around a mystical otherness as the source of all things.
I’ll have to take your word for Lyra becoming more than a caricature later in the series. Some people might be content to wait for character development to arise more than half way into a trilogy, but others aren’t. IMHO, there are too many books waiting to be read to waste time hoping the author might eventually make you care about their main character in the last book.
I read the trilogy several years ago after #1 son read them (he was 12-13). He liked them, except for the third book. I agree with him. I liked GC, and really liked The Subtle Knife, but the third book is just Pullman’s shrill rant about religion. I had to struggle to finish it. It was dull–like watching old people (or any people) just bitch about whatever is dull.
I didn’t read the book as anti-Catholic so much as anti-established religion: the Magesterium could be the Church of England, depending on the time in history.
That world is not our world (not that organized religion doesn’t have a lot of evil to answer for), but the larger issue is power and knowledge. Who is to have access to it? Who controls it?
The thought crossed my mind while watching the movie that although the daemons are likened to the soul, they could easily be sexual awareness and/or maturity. Or all of the above.
Some people may just not like a character and so say that the author failed to interest them. I’m sorry you were unable to understand the character and see how she was changing from the beginning of the series through the death of a close friend and having to start making adult decisions as she left the comforts of Oxford. Most people do tend to look at the end of a series to really gauge the distance a character has come. I guess some people need to have it spelled out by the middle of the story.
I didn’t like Lyra either, and I don’t think she was a particularly well-realized or evolving character. I did read until the end.
It doesn’t take reading until the end to discover that no amount of character growth is going to rescue a character, novel, or series.
And it really is possible for people to dislike a book, character, author, or even a Doper without it being some sort of reflection on their intellect or integrity.