Talk:The Subtle Knife

Mistakes

So many goddamn mistakes! I can't fix them, but someone please fix it. It's is slightly disgraceful. Especially with the biased opinions. There is a reason it is called a ENCYCLOPEDIA, and not a OPINION-EDIA, or something. -Theclassicalman:too lazy to log in. 70.79.215.78 (talk) 19:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the most biased writings ive ever seen on wikipedia

This article was so biased it made me laugh. This sentence, "The plot of The Subtle Knife is dense with details and both builds and unfolds at a fairly fast pace, and no summary can do justice to the myriad of themes present in this work, or the complexity of Pullman's story." HA! ya right, if the guy can write the story, you can make a plot summary of it. That was so retarded, I honestly would believe that the author himself wrote that. Remember, this is an ENCYCLOPEDIA! IT IS NOT FOR YOUR PERSONAL BIASED OPINIONS! I'd remove it, but I haven't read the story myself so I can't rewrite the section, and if that sentence is removed, people won't understand why the plot summary was so poorly written. They'll think it was written by a second grader instead of just someone lazy.71.207.138.63 (talk) 02:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read the book, so it may be a plot reference, but if the phrase "the war against heaven continues" is refering to the anti-chruch (or whatever) themes of the books, this hardly sounds NPOV. 24.34.215.160 (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Well I have read the book but my mom has borrowed it, I will try to write an objective plot summary when I get it back. I agree the summary sounds silly as it is now, it doesn't matter if a wikipedia summary does not do a book justice, it's not supposed to.

However, there isn't exactly anything NPOV about the phrase "the war against heaven continues", because there is indeed a war against heaven in the book - however, those sensitive to the religious controversy should note that it is stressed in the book that the Kingdom of Heaven is not "heaven", the eternal afterlife as Christians understand it, but rather the parallel universe where the Authority, a powerful mortal being claiming to be God, resides.

So in short, yes technically there is a war against Heaven in the book, but it isn't as demeaning to Christianity as a lot of Christians who haven't read the book are making it out to be. So proceed with caution while making any NPOV considerations.VatoFirme (talk) 08:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

"Enjoyment" warning removed

I have removed the "severely reduce your enjoyment" warning in accordance with Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Please see the Talk page for the first book to see the related discussion. Juansmith 00:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Homework questions

problem and solution

I have a question about the novel. What is the main problem and solution of the Subtle knife?

Well, the way i see it, the problem started in the 1st book, and the solution came in the last. Mathematicus 02:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

important quotes

hey yea im analysign the book for my english class, and after reading it and thinking it was a very plain and simple text i found many hiden messages. this altered my decidion of what 3 quotes or part of teh novel i should choose to analyse them deeple

Just read the damn book

Do your own homework, kids. And sign your posts. Juansmith 00:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I am just saying that that i wanted to read it and i thought it was fantastic i read it when i was 12( (now i am 12 and a half)but i kinda only read it coz i am a total book worm! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.182.162 (talk) 19:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Class

I don't think this is a "start" class article but more of a B-class one. It isn't simply expanded on a stub but has a full plot summary that is fairly decent. SirGrant 16:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok - done. however there is more other material to add beyond the plot. eg. ==Characters in "The Subtle Knife"== section and ==Literary significance & criticism== :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 10:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Umm about the sections ==Characters in "The Subtle Knife"== section and ==Literary significance & criticism== those are kinda in the main trilogy page His Dark Materials I don't know if we have to repeat them for each individual book. SirGrant 02:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a excelent book read it if you haven't and read the Amber Spyglass if you have.

Plot Summary Problem

Aside from being overly detailed, the plot summary makes an assumption that is not evident at this point - at the end the summary says Lyra has been kidnapped; however, all the reader knows is that she is gone. She may be dead, may have run away or escaped, etc.Voideater 21:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

What disgusts me is that it originally said that her mother was intending to kill her. Maybe I'm getting too far ahead, but I know that wasn't the truth. I want Wikipedia to contain the facts. Mathematicus 02:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

In the Amber Spyglass that she is kidnapped by her mother and taken to the Himalayas in her own universe.Maddogfilms (talk) 06:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Er maybe I've missed something

Aside from the introduction of the Subtle Knife surely the most significant thing in the entire plot is the introduction of the character of Will, a point which seems to be entirely missed in the (far from perfect anyway) plot summary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.58.253 (talk) 22:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Re-write of Plot Summary

The Plot summary is horribly written and full of biased opinions as mentioned earlier. As someone who hasn't read the book at all I should be able to read it and recieve all the details and and intricatcies of the plot.

I personally don't have an opinion on the length of the summary and think it should be as long as needed to give good details about the plot. I personally believe as it stands the summary is too short and should be expanded to include detailed plot points. Again, I personally have not read the book so I cannot do this.

a) take out biased opinions and totally re-work the wording of the summary

b) expand on and give more details to the major plot points

I do appreciate the effort give to write the summary though, it's not an easy task to do something like this. But, as it stands it sounds like a 11 year olds book report. Changes especially need to be made due to the increase in page hits this article is enevitibly going to recieve because of the recent movie release 67.136.10.67 (talk) 12:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)12/13

Like I said, as soon as I get my copy of the book back from my mother, I will have time to write an objective summary. Feel free to beat me to it though.VatoFirme (talk) 08:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I copied over the plot summary from the main His Dark Materials page as it was a whole hell of a lot better than the mess that was on this page. Tnomad (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay since I've just finished reading the book thought I'd take it one step further and have written out a reasonable length and impartial plot summary. Tnomad (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I've replaced the plot summary which seems to have been removed entirely. IMHO its a bit too detailed, and could use some abridging. Egret (talk) 07:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Reverted back to Feb 9, 2008 17:57 since that seemed the best / most concise summary to me. Egret (talk) 08:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Controversies section

I've removed the section labelled "Controversies" because it doesn't describe any controversies pertaining to the novel, but only contains a quote from the author stating his opinion on the lack of controversy the book had attracted. --Tony Sidaway 14:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

IMDB

I removed the sentence "The Internet Movie Database has created a page for the film, and states that it will be released in 2009, although IMDB is not a reliable source", because wikipedia doesn't quote unreliable sources. There might be a way to reword this, somehow make it clear the IMDB page is their own prediction or find out why they made it. The page there says "announced", maybe find out what that means and whether the movie was really announced. But if they are just guessing and it's 100% rumor I don't think it should be here.VatoFirme (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

If IMDb has it listed up, then it is most sertenly not 100% rumor. IMDb is very careful when posting an in-development project. Here's a source for you [1]. --Steinninn 03:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Opinion on summary

The summary is still a total mess. To begin with, you can't say "the two worlds" or "the other world" when there are three worlds involved! Mrs. Coulter's name is introduced with no explanation of who she is. It confuses the "young man" ( who DOES have a name) and the older man who gives the kids advice. There's no explanation of why the Spectres are dangerous. We are told that Sir Charles is on a mission for the Magisterium though that is never established in this book; we just know he has a ruthless agenda. If the book is admired as much as Pullman claims you'd think Wikipedia could find somebody to write a decent summary. CharlesTheBold (talk) 04:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The great thing about Wikipedia, is that YOU can write a decent summary. Murderbike (talk) 04:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I did rewrite the summary, trying to summarise the key points in clean English. Which you can see on this version: [2] But since then people have expanded it to fill out every plot detail I was summarising and with a lot of bad English. It now reads quite poorly again, so I've not got the motivation to have another go. --78.86.225.202 (talk) 14:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

In the book, Lyra Silvertongue's adventure continues as she travels from her own world similar to our own into other worlds; one which is our own, and another which is very different.

i don't think i need to explain myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.206.15.97 (talk) 00:57, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Summary

I have attempted to rewrite the summary after just re-reading the book. Thoughts/comments/queries? I'd like to make this the most readable summary possible. Loony636 (talk) 14:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Minor deletions

Couple of deletions I made, since they were not in the copy of the book I just read. They may be in some other version of it, perhaps? The US version, or hardback version or something?

"...of a flower she gave him. However, she arrives too late to save him, and can only preserve his body in order to show it to Iorek Byrnison.

Serafina Pekkala seeks out Iorek Byrnison, before she returns to Lyra and Will, to tell him that his friend Lee Scoresby has died. He asks Serafina to tell him how to make his own way across the Aurora and into Cittàgazze to find Lyra. She instructs him and he immediately sets off into the new world.

In my copy of the book, the last you heard from Pekkala was her saying "I'm off, Scoresby needs me, brb". This seemed like just a plot device to have her out the way when the other witches were killed off.

Mrs Coulter decides that she will have to destroy Lyra to "prevent another fall".

Nah. As I read it, she considered that briefly, then in the same paragraph decided that no, she'd allow her to become the Eve, but prevent the Fall at that point. If she'd wanted to destroy Lyra, Lyra'd be dead, not merely drugged, at the beginning of the third book. DewiMorgan (talk) 16:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Sad to see so little comment made about the tales and legends that he has referenced in the books: a large part of the joy of them is seeing where he's pulled all the different bits from. I guess that would be tricky without OR though. :( DewiMorgan (talk) 16:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Bringing the article back from the dead.

The plot summary was atrocious, so I changed it somewhat. Apparently a couple of people have been tinkering with it, but I removed quite a bit. Please let me know if I went too far, or feel free to add stuff back in. Jabberwockgee (talk) 23:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Article merging

Hi,

I don't know the Wikipedia procedure for merging articles, but it's clear to me that this article about the audiobook should be merged with this article. Any thoughts? Can anyone do it and/or explain it to me? Bobnorwal (talk) 00:06, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Plot summary additions

I reverted quite a large addition to the summary by User:Wolfdog, apologies for that as there were a few improvements in there. However, the current summary is near the recommended length for plot summaries in any case, and there were too many additions that I wouldn't consider to be better than what we already had, a few examples (there are others):

• The events of the previous books are described, and then a reference is made to the book where the events are described. This isn't needed in this summary.
• The city is described as "seemingly deserted" and then the next sentence states it's not. True, but not needed.
• The description of the Spectres is better handled in the orignal version (i.e. introduced by Giacomo)
• The mysterious/ believed dead /possibly alive stuff is unnecessary.
• There are too many references to the feral children.
• It's not possible to show someone your missing fingers... I know what was meant though.
• The sentence where they eavesdrop, steal and escape became too long.
• Reuniting, long lost and at last is too much.

I've made some additional edits of some of the things I liked though. Scribolt (talk) 15:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

OK, but as is typical of reverters, you've also reinstated some blatantly inferior wordings, like the inconsistency of using "Twelve-year-old" and then "12-year-old" in the very next sentence. How is that an improvement? I wish reverters would be more careful. Anyway, I'll comment on each of your bullets soon. Wolfdog (talk) 17:14, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

If you're going to re-write the majority of a fairly stable plot in piecemeal edits, I would suggest using edit summaries so it's easier for others to see what you're doing and why. You're right, I agree that the existing text could have been improved there. BTW, labelling me as a 'reverter' seems a little harsh considering I went to the effort of explaining why I did what I did and incorporating some of your suggestions. Scribolt (talk) 17:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

I meant "reverter" as a purely descriptive term: the person doing the reverting. On the other hand, I appreciate some of your changes: missing fingers are indeed unshowable, saying both long lost and at last are probably overkill, etc. So let me openly say that I know and appreciate that you reverted in good faith; I know that tone is difficult to discern in writing. I'm genuinely pleased that you at least brought this to the talk page instead of simply reverting with no explanation. Others of your reverts of course are subjective, like about the length of sentences and whether descriptions were better handled or not previously. We can continue to discuss here. Some of my points:

• The first three sentences now have a choppy, terse, telegraphic sound to them instead of a smooth, natural flow. Can we transition one into another?

No objection to trying to make it flow better, but I'd avoid referencing the cat or introducing additional detail.

• You remove setting-tags like "Meanwhile, back in Lyra's home world...." Why?

The "meanwhile" is either talking to the article reader, or serves to indicate that something is happening at the same time which is going to get complicated if we do that throughout. Might be worth indicating the world events happen in, but again, this is going to make things again more complicated to do consistently. I'd probably be OK with just removing the meanwhile

• Grumman was explicitly presumed dead in the previous book. That's why I added the "believed dead" part. Is that insignificant?

I'm fine with believed dead, just not as well as being mysterious & possibly alive

• Why is the sentence "Police arrive, question Lyra and her knowledge of Will, and she accidentally gives him away" relevant? Her giving him away never has any consequence. It's not as if the police later arrest Will or anything. It's unnecessary.

Agree, it was more relevant in the book I think (more stuff about him looked for) but it's not needed in the plot summary at present

• "having gone to Will's world long ago" seems like one of those same types of unnecessary clauses that you would criticize me for. Can't we delete it?

Agree it's not elegantly phrased, but we should have some kind of reference that he is not originally of Will's world.

• Shouldn't there be some explanation that Grumman can use magic? He's not just a shaman in the secular use of the word; he literally has supernatural powers.

Do his magic powers impact the plot? Genuine question, been a while since I read it, does he use it to help heal Will? If not, it's not all that important.

@Scribolt: A good litmus test. I think he uses bloodmoss rather than magic to heal Will. He does, however, directly use magic to conjure storms that down the enemy soldiers' zeppelins. Only one zeppelin is left for Lee to have to stave off. So his magic impacts the plot, but maybe not our summary? Wolfdog (talk) 14:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• Shouldn't there be some explanation about Asriel's rebellion or, as I had added, at least some context as to how we know it? It's not as if the previous book discusses Asriel amassing armies to kill God.

Yes, we probably should.

• We should explain to the reader that Authority = God, or just otherwise explain this character who is introduced for the very time in this book.

I'd be careful about that, this is probably better handled elsewhere than the plot summary. It's not until the third book that the demarcation between divine creator / head of church / 1st angel becomes a bit clearer.

I understand your hesitation, but the second book does in fact equate "the Authority" in Lyra's world with "God" in Will's world. I've put "ancient being" for now, though something still seems vague about that.

• "Spectres" is sometimes uppercase and sometimes lowercase in this article, a problem I had previously fixed.

Re-fix!

• "Magisterium soldiers" is confusing for anyone not familiar with the universe. If we just say "enemy soldiers", as I did, we don't need to go into a whole extra sentence of explaining what the Magisterium is.

If you were someone unfamiliar, who would you consider to be the enemy at this point? Maybe there's a piping solution.

• The angels Balthamos and Baruch are not named in this book; therefore, they shouldn't be named in the summary here. (A piped link to them is OK though.)

Agree if they aren't named.

• Witches aren't really "killed" by Spectres. I struggled with how to word this myself.

Drained?

• Why can't "prey on older childern and adults" be simplified to "prey on adults"?

I'd prefer it as this also links to the various themes relating to the loss of innocence and adolescence (which isn't quite the same as being adult), but don't feel very strongly

As you can see, I thought through all my edits and I'm even letting many of my reverted additions go. But what do you think of these above points? Wolfdog (talk) 19:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification on your comment, sorry if I was a bit prickly, also on your well thought through comments above. You make some good points, I'll give some feedback tomorrow when I have more time Scribolt (talk) 20:51, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

OK, some thoughts above. Scribolt (talk) 16:12, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with Scribolt that the previous version was overall better - being concise is important for our summaries. Popcornduff (talk) 18:24, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Popcornduff: That's fine, but there's no denying that the article at that stage needed proofreading at the very least. Thanks, Scribolt, for being open to discussion. I'll make some minor edits, hopefully to your liking. Wolfdog (talk) 13:56, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Scribolt: It seems it has been a while for you indeed. Look at the text: "The mind that is answering these questions isn't human, is it? / NO. BUT HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN US. / Us? There's more than one of you? / UNCOUNTABLE BILLIONS. / But what are you? / ANGELS." That's page 248-249 in my version. This is a major reveal in the book. They describes themeselves as complexifications and creatures of Dust and even admit that they intervened in human evolution. Seems pretty important to me. Why do you fight against that use of the word angels but not where it appears in the paragraph with two angels waiting to guide Will to Asriel? I say we should put it back in. Wolfdog (talk) 17:19, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

And immediately after that, as I said in my edit summary, it goes on to get a little more ambigious, referring to the fact that they are structures and complexifications, and that angel is their office, not their form. Unlike the 'angels' who appear at the end and in the third book, who are unambiguously angels and which may confuse readers of this plot summary. Maybe each of the billions of particles of dust is an an angel, maybe they are only angels when they coalesce, maybe she is speaking to some coalesced angels and not the entirety of dust, all of this nuance is lost and isn't ultimately important to understanding the plot of The Subtle Knife. That said, if others think this a major reveal, I won't object to it's inclusion. @Pincrete:, @Popcornduff:, you've both edited the plot recently, what are your thoughts? Scribolt (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Just to add that if no one weighs in one way or the other in the next day or so and you feel really strongly about it, I won't revert again. You're not wrong, I just think my way's better ;-). Scribolt (talk) 20:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I think you're overthinking this. Pullman chooses to use the word "angels" as the answer to Mallone's question, with all its connotations and complexities. There's no good reason to actively avoid that term or feel the need to define all its nuances when it's the word the author uses AND angels end up becoming an important point of the plot for the series. Bringing up two angels right at the end of the summary gives the reader the impression that this is the first time we know about angels in the series. I guess it's up to the majority, like you said. Wolfdog (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I am, but I'm not sure I agree with the assertion because the author uses a word which is in the context of a 3 book trilogy, that means that it's also useful in the context of a summarising the narrative here. Also, to me, the fact that angels are made of dust isn't a particularly important to the plot of the series. The link between dust & consciousness seems to be a bigger theme than the fact that dust can also become what are known as angels, but lets see if anyone has an opinion. Scribolt (talk) 06:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

To expand on my previous point and to explain why I don't mind B&B being described as angels later on, the a reader of this article who may or may not have read the entire series does not know that the author later goes on to define the term "angels" in this fictional universe as being that coalesce out of elementary particles of consciousness. When they read the term angel, missing this information, most will think of the traditional biblical entity with wings etc. B&B have these properties, so the term angel is an accurate and useful to describe them. When Mary speaks to the dark matter particles, we need to consider is it helpful to use the same term to describe what is happening? Scribolt (talk) 07:14, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think that the reference to Angels is cryptic and not necessary to understanding the plot, nor does it move that plot forward, the conversation with the consciousness-behind-the-machine does, but not the 'who' of that consciousness .... to be honest I had forgotten the mention of angels in the quote that Wolfdog gives above and had to check it out ... I hadn't forgotten the cryptic, but outside-the-normal-scientific-nature of the conversation that Mary has with her machine. I'm inclined to think therefore that, as it can be omitted, it should be. These books are full of delightful complexities and details, we are inevitably going to have to 'skip' some IMO. Pincrete (talk) 09:14, 3 December 2019 (UTC)