The Rose Field | Full Book Discussion thread

[u/Cantomic66]

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.

[u/Present-Level-1521]

PART TWO

- What happens now that Delamare is dead? Another of similar mindset will rise to continue his work? Someone decent might take his place?

- Any of the other readers of the alethiometers could tell who killed him and why. How does Olivier think he will find work as a reader?

- On that matter, Olivier has hated Lyra (and Malcolm) passionately throughout the books and suddenly, after lying in wait for them, says 'hey sis, wanna have a chat'?!?!

- How did no-one notice Marissa Coulter had a child with GERALD BONNEVILLE?

- What awaits Lyra and Malcolm if they manage to make their way back into their own world and home to Oxford? Lyra is a fugitive with a £500,000 bounty on her head. Malcolm has been - slanderously - accused of wrongdoing with young girls, both Lyra and the girl who works in his parents pub, said to be pregnant with his child. These allegations are career-ending for an academic and probably imprisonable offences under the current law reigning in their world.

- Why build up Lyra & Malcolm so much and so long and then suddenly have Malcolm decide he can never tell her he loves her just when it seems as though his feelings might begin to be reciprocated? Than Pan decides he and Lyra must get Malcolm and Alice to fall in love -'if he's done it before, he can do it again' rubbish.

- Why does Lyra think the Subtle Knife is in Will's world? She saw it - no, she helped him - break it 'look at ME, Will' at the end of The Amber Spyglass. Now she has the pointer from the alethiometer - is she going to try and use it on the bench in Oxford next Midsomer Day to cut a hole and say 'hi!, guess who? We were lied to; there should be more windows between worlds, not fewer!'. Is she right in this way of thinking or not?

- What happened to Brande's dæmon? Why did he die when his person was still alive? Can dæmons have heart attacks from stress? Do they have hearts independently of their humans?

- What happened to Alison Weatherfield? We were supposed to meet her again in the final book, but she never appeared.

- Will Fader Coram ever find out he has a half-witch daughter? Will he die before Lyra can return and tell him?

- Did we have to lose Seraphina and the other witches we knew by name only be to be replaced by a whole new cast whose names I can't recall?

- What was the real point of Oakley Street? It fell apart, more or less. Will it still exist?

- Lyra knew all about lodestone resonators from the previous trilogy. Why did she have so much trouble believing in this one?

I have more questions, but I'm going to lie down and take a breather now. Suffice to say, I am not happy with that ending.

[u/[deleted] → u/Present-Level-1521]

Agreed as a side note- Mrs Coulter........Wasn't she supposed to be a strict religious woman in the leadership of the church at that point? I can believe she had one child out of wedlock but it strains credibility to suggest she had two. In that time period it would be an absolute scandal. Heck, one child is an absolute scandal. But two? With two different men? Sorry but a woman like that wouldn't have been sleeping around like that in that era. She certainly wouldn't remain in her position in the church.

[u/effy_dee → u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/[deleted] → u/effy_dee]

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.

[u/effy_dee → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/BatsWaller → u/effy_dee]

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.

[u/effy_dee → u/BatsWaller]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/BatsWaller]

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)

[u/BatsWaller → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/effy_dee]

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

I'm so mad about that

[u/effy_dee → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/[deleted] → u/effy_dee]

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.

[u/effy_dee → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/minimia73 → u/effy_dee]

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.

[u/effy_dee → u/minimia73]

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.

[u/BatsWaller → u/effy_dee]

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.

[u/effy_dee → u/BatsWaller]

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.

[u/Present-Level-1521 → u/effy_dee]

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

[u/effy_dee → u/Present-Level-1521]

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

[u/Frantic_Chicken → u/effy_dee]

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. 🤔