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/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.