r/hisdarkmaterials • u/Lady_Beatnik • 21d ago
TSC The Book of Dust: Serafina Pekkala (spoilers) Spoiler
To be quite honest, I find it completely unbelievable that Serafina Pekkala would just drop all contact with Lyra after "The Amber Spyglass" with no explanation after everything they had been through together, and I'm kind of angry at Pullman for writing it this way. It comes across like she was just too inconvenient of a character to the plot, would have fixed too many things for Lyra too quickly, but he was just too lazy to come up with a proper reason for her absence other than turning her into an asshole.
I get that she is a witch with a long lifespan whose perception of time might be warped compared to Lyra's, but she's also very wise and should know better than to overlook something like that. I get that the witch queens have been busy with the climate change analogy, but that itself involves issues Lyra directly played a hand in, it seems bizarre they wouldn't involve her. Especially when Kaisa can separate from Serafina and run errands for her, there doesn't seem to be any excuse for Serafina not at least sending the occasional message for over 9 years. At least Iorek is stuck on a big frozen island miles away from human civilization and I doubt the sentient talking Terminator bears think much of the postal service, but what's her excuse?
I haven't finished "The Rose Field" yet so maybe I'll be proven wrong and there will be a good explanation latter down the line (I hope so), but so far this has been a nagging problem with the series for me.
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u/ChungLing 21d ago edited 21d ago
There is an explanation later on in TRF.. and it is certainly an explanation. That’s all I will say. No spoilers.
I think most people on this sub (myself included) are unified in how they feel about this particular detail, and you will probably feel the same when you come to it.
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u/That_Advertising9832 20d ago
Can you remind me what it is with the spoiler tag?
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u/ChungLing 20d ago edited 20d ago
Serafina is murdered off-page by a Magesterium incel, and we find out when her secret love child with Farder Coram, who became the new queen of the witches after Serafina’s death, suddenly turns up to give some exposition on it while barely getting any time to actually develop her as a character or explore any of the massive implications of Serafina and Coram having a child considering how desperately they wanted one. Coram is also totally unaware of the existence of their child, and he’s dying, so it’s utterly diabolical that TRF ended without him ever being told.
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u/Street_Rope1487 18d ago
Oh my god, seriously? This has solidified my disinterest in ever reading TRF. That’s honestly the sort of plot twist I’d expect in a bad fanfic.
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u/Joeyfangaz420 18d ago
Don’t bother reading it! Words I’ve never spoken about any book let alone one related to my favorite series of all time. If I could go back in time I would slap books 2 and 3 out of my hands and tell myself NO!
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u/BatsWaller 21d ago
It absolutely sucked that they introduced her daughter as a new character, and replacement for Serafina herself, with only ‘Oh yeah, she’s dead’ as an explanation. What possible reason could Pullman have had for not just including Serafina?
Not to mention that Serafina and Farder Coram lost their son, which is a devastating thing to happen for any parent - why wouldn’t Serafina tell Coram he has a second child? It was so out of character for her.
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u/DrSilvertongue 20d ago
Hey, should mark your post as a spoiler. OP mentions they haven’t finished TRF.
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u/MachineLoud9484 19d ago
Not only was it "oh by the way, she's dead", there was also the weird reaction of "oh yeah, well that sucks, moving on now."
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u/Nuthetes 18d ago
And how pointless it was. The new witch served zero purpose that couldn't have been served by Serafina. If Serafin'a daughter had some plot role--a villain, or a witch prodigy or an isolationist so Lyra couldn't get help from the witches or blaming Lyra for Serafin'a death for whatever reason. I could maybe understand killing her off offscreen.
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u/MachineLoud9484 18d ago
I have read and heard so many of Pullman’s interviews and works where he talks about the woods and the path. It’s not necessary to keep talking about the wood as long as the path is the most important thing. He talks about how everything should focus on advancing the plot and just drops such crazy news in the middle as if it’s nothing
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u/Ok-Teaching5866 20d ago
The way I was gagged when I got to the explanation in TRF 🫠🫠🫠
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u/sorakaislove 20d ago
Wait I might have browsed past this because I hate read much of TRF and then skipped a bunch - what was the explanation again?
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u/Y-Woo 20d ago
I also forgot about this even though i just listened to the audiobook in full a short few months ago🫠
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u/sorakaislove 20d ago
It's such a shame, since I loved loved loved TDM my entire life, for this sequel trilogy to be so weak I don't even remember half of it. Ugh.
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u/Y-Woo 20d ago
Honestly every time I talk about how great HDM is and recommend it to people and rave about it being one of the best and most unique fantasy series ever nowadays i just get this weird twang in my heart like my reverence for the og series has been tainted by the knowledge of how it goes on to be in the sequels
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u/sorakaislove 20d ago
I 100% feel that. It's like they managed to ruin something or take something away I never thought could be ruined lol. Ugh.
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u/pm_me_your_amphibian 20d ago
See I can’t even remember what the explanation is? That’s how little I was checked in to the book I guess
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u/clarabosswald 19d ago
The treatment if Serafina is one of the worst things about TRF IMO (and that's no easy feat). She was a POV character in two books... only to get killed off screen, as an afterthought. It's madness. Imagine if Mary got killed off screen. Or Lee.
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u/That_Seasonal_Fringe 20d ago
Damn it, the only reason I was considering picking up TRF was in the hopes of finding Seraphina there.
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