His Dark Materials Top 10 book differences and changes from the HBOMAX show 

I think the idea of a woman feeding a man would be "problematic" for today's audience, regardless of the plot points or context.

You’re probably right, which is unfortunate.

I think they chose to reflect the idea of the fruit, giving in to draw of passions, through the actual expression of passion and love, through a kiss, which gets to the point a lot quicker but also eliminates the idea of being caught in a cycle, a repetition of a divine fallacy, which is the main message of the story; breaking free from some greater external deterministic dictation and driving fate through your own control.

@@lubaniskie I like this interpretation!

True. When I saw him in the land of the dead, i was like, "who the hell is this grown-ass man?"

I heard they had plans for more stories but hbo did not renew for a 4th season :(

The witch found them I thought

In the TV series, Jopari says that he guided them remotely from the land of the dead.

Since his identity was so deeply tied to his love for Baruch, from when Baruch dies, Balthamos starts to lose his strength. In the books he spent all of his strength to stop Gomez, like his essence is thinning to nothing while he's putting everything into standing on Gomez to drown him in a creek. At the end of their fight, his strength was all gone.

@@Kate-ms2mn that's so sad!! Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it

A very interesting point!

From what I gathered, the "fall" was actually a good thing from this perspective, and that humanity was "supposed" to leave blissful innocence for experience and learning, even if that learning would come with trials. That's why the actual "fall" was her apparently kissing Will since that was a more direct "fall" from innocence into adulthood/sensuality. I personally think your idea would have been better, especially since the idea of Lyra actually seeing Dust seemed like a plot point in Season 1

As I said I may have entirely misinterpreted it, and I always had been a little confused about how the one choice led to the second more major one of would they keep open a window between their worlds, or keep the Land of the Dead open. But I agree, certainly in the show the "fall" was made out to be a good thing, I just never made that connection reading the books.

@@TiMoThY211991 I mean, it's pretty explicitly a good thing in the book. The 'fall' is the transition from innocence to experience. Like, it's the whole crux of the story that growing up is good, and stunting people's development and trying to keep them as innocent children is both damaging and wrong. This is a pretty major theme carried across all three books. Mary's story of her temptation was in turn the thing that awoke Lyra and Will's feeling for one another. Pullman once summed this up when asked what he would say to the Biblical Eve in response to her defying God and eating from the tree of knowledge. His answer? "Good for you, Eve, I hope you'd do it again." He and the series are explicitly pro-Eve and pro-knowledge.

@@theoclutterbuck I'm sure you're right, but when reading I did find that confusing, and probably completely misinterpreted the message/events. I kept hearing the Magisterium talking about "if she is tempted she will most likely fall", which made me think that they, like most people, underestimate Lyra and that this Eve would be strong enough to resist the temptation. I also thought it had more to do with selfless versus selfishness as to whether she'd sacrifice the worlds for her own happiness to be with the one she loved, or consign herself to never seeing him again for the sake of others. On top of that I was thinking of the irony of the Magisterium trying to kill her off before she was tempted basically ensuring the result of the fall, or worse, as her choice would be about keeping open the Land of the Dead which hadn't happened yet. Similar to how the church thinks Dust is evil and tied to original sin, yet Angels themselves are entirely composed of it, and that they are unwittingly acting against their own interests in trying to destroy it.

The books did actually say that mrs.coulter could separate from her daemon and Pan pointed it out to Lyra while they were staying with her before they ran away.

@@smiles792 Did they ever explain how she got that ability? It was kind of an open plot point and the most we got was when she's apologizing and just says "I tried separating us because I was curious". Did she just force it until she could be separate freely? I spent the entire time thinking she spent time with the witches and that's why they didn't kill her when she was torturing the other witch

@@Malthizar Unfortunately I don’t think it was ever explained, I think it is another way that she tortured herself because it does cause pain to be so far from one’s daemon and she had alot of inner turmoil

@@smiles792 I honestly wished they explained Mrs. Coulter more in general. I get that she's supposed to be more mystery than reveal, but when you hear how: she has a monkey that doesn't talk and can separate from her, super powers to control specters, and a heart so "rotten" that she can obscure her intentions from the Regent, you'd expect at least a little more about her outside of "she's emotionally damaged". No shit lol

@@Malthizar I completely agree! They did add a little more depth to her character in the show, but not enough. The 1st and 2nd season followed the books so closely, I’m disappointed by how they wrapped it all up.

In the books she had the power in the second book and it was never mentioned / used again

It wasn't clear at all in the second book (iirc!) but they certainly didn't help things with this addition!

@@ademon4908 i was afraid of that. what a waste.

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