{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2671", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2671, "subject": "What Lyra and Will do; to alga", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2001-05-28T09:29:32+00:00", "last": "2001-05-28T09:29:32+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-05-28T09:29:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) What Lyra and Will do; to alga", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 5/27/01 2:12 PM, Alice Turner at pei047 at attglobal.net wrote:\n\nAdam:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I\nthink Moloney has put his finger on the basic flaws of the ending,\nthough\nhe's wrong to state as a definite fact that Will and Lyra do no more\nthan\nkiss." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think he's probably right about the kiss." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When I wrote the above, I meant only that he should not have presented this\nas unquestionably true. But having thought more about the question and\nreread the relevant passages, I now think it very likely that Lyra and Will\ndid indeed have sex. I have a number of arguments to support this claim;\nnone is conclusive by itself, but taken together they make a strong case,\nimo.\n\n1. In Chapter 35, we see them kissing, then we cut away, then after an\nundefined period of time we see them returning to Mary. This is a\nrecognized convention to imply that sex has taken place, when it can't be\nshown or explicitly stated (e.g. GONE WITH THE WIND).\n\n2. As I've argued before, Lyra is tempted and \"falls.\" In this context,\n\"falling\" is usually taken to mean sex, not smooching.\n\n3. At the end of Chapter 35, Lyra and Will are referred to as\n\"children-no-longer-children.\" Again, traditionally it is sexual\nintercourse which is generally considered to make one a man or a woman, not\nlesser acts.\n\n4. Lyra has certainly thought about sex: she tells Will \"'I want to kiss\nyou and lie down with you and wake up with you every day of my life till I\ndie'\" (TAS, 496); and their lovemaking is described in quite physical terms.\nAnd there's no indication that they are restraining themselves.\n\n5. After they learn that they must separate, this scene occurs: \"He stroked\nher warm hair, her tender shoulders, and then he kissed her face again and\nagain, and presently she gave a deep, shuddering sigh and fell still.\" (TAS,\n498) Now one could read this as meaning simply that she's stopped crying,\nand maybe it's just my dirty mind, but this does seem to me to hint fairly\nbroadly that they have Done the Deed. At any rate, I very much doubt that\nthe double entendre is accidental. There follows the daemon-stroking scene,\nwhich is itself described in extraordinarily sexualized language (read it\nagain if you don't believe me). This scene, and the chapter, end with the\nsentence \"So, wondering whether any lovers before them had made this\nblissful discovery, they lay together as the earth turned slowly and the\nmoon and stars blazed above them.\" (TAS, 499) Again, I can't believe that\nthe double entendre here is accidental.\n\nTo sum up, if Lyra and Will don't have sex, there is no reason for Pullman\nnot to make clear that they don't, or to put in all these hints that they do\nhave sex. On the other hand, if they do have sex, then there's a very good\nreason for Pullman not to say so explicitly: to keep his book accessible to\nyounger readers. And within these limits (and the bounds of tastefulness\nand of Lyra and Will's characters), I'd say Pullman goes about as far as he\ncan in implying that they have sex.\n\nThere's also a bit of external evidence, though of a primarily negative\nsort. In the readerville discussion, when the question of what Lyra and\nWill did comes up, Pullman doesn't deny that they have sex: he says \"It's\nnone of my damn business! My imagination withdrew at that point.\" (message\n#31) Had the thought of them having sex never entered his mind, or had the\nidea of two twelve-year-olds having sex been inconceivable to him, he surely\nwould have said so. Pullman goes on to say \"If you want to follow them\nunder the tree and watch what happens, you must bear the responsibility for\nwhat you see. Personally, I think privacy is a fine and gracious thing. I\ndescribe a kiss: and there are some turning-points in life for which a kiss\nis quite enough.\" I take this as meaning that if you want to think that\nLyra and Will only kissed, you can.\n\nAs for your other points:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Her daemon, after all, has\nnot yet settled." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Do you mean that since her daemon had not settled at the start of the scene,\nthis shows she was innocent and hence unlikely to think of having sex? But\nthat's precisely the point of the scene, that she is \"choosing\" not to be\ninnocent any longer. (Though I agree with you that the \"choice\" aspect is\nunclear.) Or do you mean that the fact that their daemons are still\nshifting after the scene shows that they did not have sex? But their\ndaemons do settle after the scene I discuss in point five above; and in any\ncase, I don't recall any indication that it is specifically loss of\nvirginity which causes one's daemon to settle. (If it is, then since Lyra\ntells Will that daemons settle \"about our age, or a bit older. Maybe more\nsometimes,\" (TAS, 457) you must be wrong about Lyra being too young for\nsex.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And if they did have sex, in her role as Eve she would\nhave to get pregnant, which is a bit much for a 13-year-old." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lyra is definitely Eve, whether or not she has sex. I don't see why you\nthink this doesn't require her to have sex, but does require her to get\npregnant if she does have sex. In any case, her being the new Eve doesn't\nmean that she has to correspond to the biblical Eve in all particulars (she\nwasn't created from Will's rib, for example).\n\nOn another topic:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mrs. Coulter, who serves the Church, seems to have been, and remains,\nrather a lively sort in that department." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There are a couple of Lord Asriel/Mrs. Coulter fanfics on the site.\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }