The Subtle Knife Synopsis and Exerpts

The Subtle Knife begins in the present-day Oxford of our own world. Will Parry, a boy with a mentally ill mother, is on the run from a group of violent and mysterious men looking for a suitcase full of letters written by his father, an explorer who disappeared years ago. After stashing his mother with a kindly teacher, Will discovers a window into another world and stumbles through it. In this new world, he meets Lyra.

While Will wants to find out what happened to his father, Lyra is determined to learn all she can about Dust. Lyra decides to go into the Oxford of Will’s world, where she locates a physicist who can educate her about Dust. Dr. Mary Malone, a former Catholic nun, has been researching Dust and found that it is matter with consciousness. She has built a computer to communicate with this mysterious matter, and decides that Lyra is really speaking with Dust through her alethiometer. With her computer, Dr. Malone learns that Dust is actually a group of rebel angels who have interceded in human affairs in the past due to a motive of “vengeance.” Further, Dust instructs her to follow Will and Lyra and “play the serpent.”42

According to a prophecy foretold by witches, Lyra is particularly susceptible to being tempted by a serpent. They believe Lyra is a second Eve, destined to be the new mother of all through her disobedience. Additionally, the witches learn that Lord Asriel is planning a war against God, and they want to be on his side—not only does the Church perform inhumane experiments on children, it also tortures and burns witches.

Meanwhile, Will has fought for possession of a powerful knife that is capable of cutting through the air and making doorways into other worlds. After obtaining this “subtle knife,” Will meets his long-lost father, John Parry, who spent many years living as a shaman in Lyra’s world. However, the happy reunion is quickly spoiled when a spurned witch murders John. Will returns to the camp he and Lyra have set up, only to find that Lyra has disappeared, leaving her alethiometer behind. Two angels are waiting to meet Will.

Selected quotes:

_ Mrs. Coulter, speaking from her position of authority with the Church’s General Oblation Board, in an attempt to extract information: “Oh, there is more suffering to come.We have a thousand years of experience in this Church of ours. We can draw out your suffering endlessly. Tell us about the child.”43

_ Serafina Pekkala, a witch: “They say the Magisterium is assembling the greatest army ever known…and there are unpleasant rumors about some of the soldiers…I’ve heard about…cutting children’s dæmons away, the most evil work I’ve ever heard of.”44
_ Ruda Skadi, a witch: “In every world, the agents of the Authority are sacrificing children to their cruel god!”45

_ A servant, speaking about his master, Lord Asriel: “Well, Lord Asriel has never found hisself at ease with the doctrines of the Church, so to speak. I’ve seen a spasm of disgust cross his face when they talk of the sacraments, and atonement, and redemption, and suchlike. It’s death among our people, Serafina Pekkala, to challenge the Church, but Lord Asriel’s been nursing a rebellion in his heart for as long as I’ve served him, that’s one thing I do know.”
Serafina: “A rebellion against the Church?”
Servant: “Partly, aye. There was a time when he thought of making it an issue of force, but he turned away from that…it’s my belief that he turned away from a rebellion against the Church not because the Church was too strong, but because it was too weak to be worth fighting…I think he’s waging a higher war than that. I think he’s aiming a rebellion against the highest power of all. He’s gone a-searching for the dwelling place of the Authority Himself, and he’s a-going to destroy Him.”46

_ Will’s father, speaking to Will: “There is a war coming, boy. The greatest war there ever was. Something like it happened before, and this time the right side must win. We’ve had nothing but lies and propaganda and cruelty and deceit for all the thousands of years of human history. It’s time we started again, but properly this time.”47

*_ A witch, to her fellow witches: “Let me tell you what is happening and who it is that we must fight. For there is a war coming. I don’t know who will join with us, but I know whom we must fight. It is the Magisterium, the Church. For all its history…it’s tried to suppress and control every natural impulse. And when it can’t control them, it cuts them out…I have traveled in the south lands. There are churches there, believe me, that cut their children too…not in the same way, but just as horribly. They cut their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls; they cut them with knives so that they shan’t feel. That is what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling. So if a war comes, and the Church is on one side of it, we must be on the other.”48

42Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife, p. 221.
43Ibid., p. 34.
44Ibid., p. 37.
45Ibid., p. 243.
46Ibid., pp. 40-41.
47Ibid., pp. 282-283.
48Ibid., pp. 44-45.
from The Golden Compass Unmasked by The Catholic League