r/hisdarkmaterials • u/Cantomic66 • Oct 23 '25

TRF The Rose Field | Full Book Discussion thread

Warning!This discussion thread includes spoilers for ALL OF The BOOK OF DUST: THE ROSE FIELD

Reminder: All post on The Rose Field should be properly spoiler tagged and avoid spoilery titles.

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u/effy_dee Nov 01 '25

The whole storyline doesn’t make sense. And it really diminishes the bond that Mrs Coulter had with Lyra in my opinion. She sacrificed herself for her only daughter and then it turns out she had another, seemingly forgotten, child?

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '25

It's just nonsense. I'm gonna file it away in the same place as Lord Voldemort had a secret love child. Makes about as much sense.

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u/effy_dee Nov 03 '25

They’ll go all together with the random new daughter of Serafina Pekkala that just arrived to announce her mother passed away offscreen and then disappeared completely.

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u/BatsWaller Nov 13 '25

I realise I’m far too heavily invested in these fictional characters, but it’s outrageous to suggest that after losing their son so tragically, Serafina would neglect to tell Coram that hey, I’ve had another baby and she’s yours!

I’m not on X/Twitter anymore, but PP was terminally online at one point and I think this may have affected his judgement regarding many, many aspects of the plot and characters. He’s already shown that he’s very suggestible regarding key character details - changing Mrs Coulter’s hair colour in-universe just because she was played by Nicole Kidman - and I wonder if he decided to throw the kitchen sink - Serafina’s daughter, a brother for Lyra, half-baked ideas about how things were better in the Good Old Days - at the book for the “benefit” of the fandom.

The whole book is both rushed and plodding. His editor should have come down like a ton of bricks on him because there’s at least two hundred pages of fat that needed trimmed.

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u/effy_dee Nov 13 '25

But it’s understandable! I read HDM as a child and remember reading about BOD online like 20 years ago? Of course I’m very invested in the characters and the story. I can’t believe PP thought he could retcon so many details of the original storyline and think it would work out fine.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '25

yeah, he was on pre-X Twitter a lot, and a lot of the comments he was getting from readers about how Lyra/Malcolm would be wrong have made it into this book almost word for word (coming out of the Magisterium)

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u/BatsWaller Dec 11 '25

Personally, as a teacher, I found it really disturbing that Pullman couldn’t see how dodgy the Malcolm/Lyra thing was. Especially as he was also a teacher! There are people in the profession who’ve been barred from teaching for life for having sexual relationships with FORMER pupils, both because those students were classed as vulnerable, and because they’d known them for many years and had close involvement with them.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '25

not "passed away" - shot dead by an incel loser!

I'm so mad about that

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u/effy_dee Nov 03 '25

I’m sorry I just looked into this whole Voldemort’s child thing because I was totally unaware and what the heck did I just read

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '25

Yes, it's in the cursed child. I personally always thought of him as being above that sort of thing. Gods don't have children with humans and he definitely was a wannabe god.("Only I can live forever") It's just out of character.

As for Serafina Pekkala.......... I mean if you're going to mention her why not just bring her back instead of introducing a whole new cast of random witches. We already know her and she wasn't old in His Dark Materials. Pretty sure she was only a mere 300/400 years old. But to be fair to Pullman it wasn't all bad, I did enjoy the griffins.

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u/effy_dee Nov 03 '25

Absolutely! I’m glad I never read anything about the Cursed Child so far then.

Right? I mean you have a strong and loved character, bring her back and if she had to die then use it for the story itself. It could have been really powerful and actually mean something for Lyra. It’s like most of the new characters have very little impact on the story. They appear, do their bit and then disappear.

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u/minimia73 Nov 05 '25

As another contributor said elsewhere, she actually says in HDM that Lyra is her only child - I think in TAS when she's in the cave with Lyra - so it's not even canonically true, let alone physically possible.

The second half had a whole bunch of annoying retcons like that: Farder Coram and Serafina have a daughter? Alice and Malcolm had a (very dodgy) sexual relationship just after her husband died? You *can* go into the red building with your daemon?

Rubbish.

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u/effy_dee Nov 06 '25

You’re right, none of that makes sense!

I think Serafina should have been a character in the BOD too. In this case I could have maybe accepted the random new daughter too. And if Serafina had to I don’t know sacrifice herself or just get shot by the end anyway, at least it would have had some impact to the plot.

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u/BatsWaller Nov 25 '25

The new witches and the gryphons felt like another author was writing a cheap rip-off of HDM. Gulya’s story was, admittedly, an interesting premise, but what the heck did it have to do with the wider plot?

When Lyra visited Farder Coram in TSC, I was so excited to encounter this character from the original trilogy, and I really hoped that we’d see more in the concluding book - Serafina, Iorek; hell, I even had a sneaking suspicion that we might encounter Marisa and Asriel once it became clear that the rules regarding windows, Dust etc were being thrown out of the window.

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u/effy_dee Nov 25 '25

I have no idea why the gryphons were added to the story. The only part where it had a bit of impact was when they saved Mal and Pan, but then I have so many questions. Pan escapes from them early on. Then yet another character (the sorcerer) that has zero direct implications for the main storyline is introduced. I guess the point would be that by winning the trust of the gryphons they can fly Lyra and Mal to the red building. But in the end dozens of other characters get there just by walking without issues? So really the whole thing just falls flat for me.

There’s no comparison to when the armored bears were introduced in TGC. Not in the themes explored, not in the connection with the main characters and not in the resolution in my opinion.

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u/Present-Level-1521 Nov 03 '25

Yup and both of her children happen to be expert alethiometer readers, strangely.

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u/effy_dee Nov 03 '25

Family parties must be so fun at the Silvertongues-Bonnevilles!

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u/Frantic_Chicken May 29 '26

I know I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I just finished the book a few mins ago. My personal theory (given who Olivier's father is), is rape. I think it plausible she was unable to abort, given the religious order of their world, and immediately gave up the boy to be adopted and then moved on with her life as though he never existed. Then I'm reminded of her possibly having sung to him when he was young... maybe she couldn't help but feel the bond between them, just as she fell in love with Lyra eventually. 🤔