His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass And Its Creator

Finally, we come to the character of Dr. Mary Malone. A physicist from Will's (and our) world, she was contacted by Lyra in The Subtle Knife at the suggestion of the alethiometer. Like Lord Asriel, she is also studying Dust, but she knows it as dark matter. Lyra turns to her in an attempt to learn more about the mysterious particles, but their meeting draws the attention of Magisterium spies. By the end of the second book, Mary has fled through the window into Cittagazze to avoid the scrutiny of Lord Boreal, the man who stole the alethiometer from Lyra. With the exception of her first and final scenes in The Amber Spyglass, she spends the entire book in a universe populated by creatures called mulefa.

His Dark Materials straddles the genres of fantasy and science fiction. The first novel, in my opinion, is presented much more as fantasy with scientific elements, but scientific explanations are abundant in the second and third books (however, fantasy elements never disappear from the series). The mulefa are a prime example of science replacing fantasy elements; in the first book, the audience is supposed to suspend their disbelief about the talking polar bears and witches. But when Mary first sees the mulefa, which have diamond-shaped spines (along with most other vertebrates in this universe), she reasons that evolution in this world favored that shape of spine as opposed to the straight spine with which we are familiar.

While living among the mulefa, she learns more about Dust from them, who can see Dust with their naked eyes. The mulefa explain that Dust is being drained from their world, which will eventually lead to the death of a species of trees the mulefa depend upon for survival, since Dust helps fertilize the seeds. They don't know why the Dust level is dropping, and ask Mary to help discover the cause. This leads to the creation of the amber spyglass. The lenses are coated in an oil from the trees that allow Mary to view Dust as the mulefa do.

As a scientist and researcher in a book series promoting the virtues of science and reason, it is appropriate that Mary would create the only title object that is not controversial. The alethiometer is feared by the Magisterium because it can illuminate truths that are not its own (sorry, I paraphrased from the film right there), and the subtle knife creates spectres and is responsible for the draining Dust. Mary uses the amber spyglass to see Dust flowing out through knife windows.

And while the amber spyglass was responsible for discovering, but not curing the problem of the departing Dust, Mary was responsible for putting Lyra and Will on their paths of destiny, but it was the children who had to walk the paths. Mary is an ex-nun, who left the church when she realized that there are too many things that the church frowns upon, with romance being the catalyst. Instructed by a special computer she built in our world to communicate with Dust (similar to the alethiometer, which works because of Dust) to play the serpent or temptress to Lyra and Will, Mary allowed for the children to become the second Adam and Eve. However, this time around, humanity did not fall, but was saved by the deeds of Adam and Eve.

There is so much more to the story of His Dark Materials than what is here. I have barely spoken about Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, two very important characters in the story, and I'm sure that a few of the things I have written about seem vague or strange if you haven't read the books. Remember that I walk a fine line between trying not to spoil everything for people who have yet to experience the stories as well as giving my interpretation of events for the people who have. I hope that if you haven't read this series yet, you will.

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