Phillip Pullman gets it

Very good points, necessary. On occasion writers' books are a form of wish fulfilment, too, so to think a writers' characters reflect their actions in real life would be a mistake. (I know lots of writers).

I really like the books, but think we shouldn't give too much credence to Phillip Pullman as a social commentator.
What a writer intends to creates is not necessarily what a reader will take from it.

I'm trying to remember, but I'm not sure he fully gets the banality of evil.

From my fuzzy recollection all the antagonists in HDM weren't very three-dimensional. It was all faceless bureaucracies, authoritarian religions, nasty people pretending to be nice, and "end justifies the means". It was all bad people doing things everyone knew was bad, so they hid it, but they justified it. Not people thinking they were doing good, and doing so publicly and being cheered on for it.

I don't think he could have invented something like Mermaids, although they could have existed quite happily in Lyra's world, maybe a couple of decades after the first experiments in Northern Lights. Susie Green would fit in perfectly, extolling the virtues of the procedure her child underwent.

Regardless, whether a writer "gets it" or not, there's a huge difference between writing about being a hero or standing up to authority and actually doing it.

How can you reasonably expect a writer to be able to do such things any more than you'd expect them to do any other things their characters might do? (Same for actors.)

Knowing how to do something or even just knowing that something is done is not the same as being able to do it, or even wanting to do it. (Good or bad). Their skills are writing or acting - that doesn't directly translate to any other real life skill they might portray.

I don't think he gets it - if you look into what he says about his own books they are off the mark in a lot of ways as well.

Have you read the more recent books?
The secret commonwealth is most odd. The message I kind of took from it was that people can be persuaded not to believe something even if it is right before their eyes and something they have always known to be true...

OP, I thought that tonight too

When it all comes out at the scandal it is, he will peddle back and say he was confused.

I'm a bit done with Pullman. He very clearly does get it, but is too scared to piss people off.

His cowardice is shameful, & JKR (as an example) is worth ten of him.

Also, I devoured the HDM trilogy but he's been terribly boring since, to be honest. I've been meaning to re-read them but he keeps getting shunted down my priority list: nowt to do with whatever views he holds, just time constraints & him not producing anything new that's exciting.

VictoriaLucas102
I watch Dark Materials and often wonder how somebody could write something so clearly about male/female power play and then be the absolute idiot about it Twitter.

Paging Margaret Atwood. I don't buy for a moment any of these writers, philosophers, scientists, etc. are as gobsmackingly dumb as pretend to be on social media. They're just cowards.

I watch Dark Materials and often wonder how somebody could write something so clearly about male/female power play and then be the absolute idiot about it Twitter. I can only think he thinks his core audience are woke 17 year olds who liked his book (in my house my 17 yo who loved his books refuses to watch it).

...And puberty is a central thread in the books (and bbc adaptation) which, at a very basic level, is a coming of age story that follows Lyra's journey from pre-pubescance to young adulthood.

Pullman pretends to get it, then pretends not to. Then gives the faux "oh, what have I said wrong now, I'm just a simple man" schtick when he gets any criticism. It's all very tedious.

I think he does actually get it, but he's happy to play the "ohhh I'm such a confused old man, why can't the nasty women just be nice" game, because it's easier for him and he's clearly a massive coward who cares little for the female sex.

Sadly, no he fucking doesn’t, he is a total MRA.

Pullman should get it, but doesn't. Puberty in HDM is such a powerful event that stopping it, by severing a child from its daemon, creates a hole in the world.

He doesn't on Twitter unfortunately 😔 he's been a massive coward.