The Battle For Free Will

The final winner of THE REMAINS OF THE DEAD Giveaway is: Celeste!

Sailor Boy and I spent some time yesterday doing life maintenance, which we’d been neglecting a bit since we got married (Hey! Honeymoon!) We spent a lot of time on the phone with various and sundry representatives of businesses. The words “wife” and “husband” were thrown around indiscriminately. We also wrote some thank you notes.

We also saw The Golden Compass. My opinion was a solid B+, though I’m torn. I don’t think that books should be precisely like movies, but I do think that the changes that are made should benefit the movie. I thought all the changes in Lord of the Rings, for example, were a great benefit to the movie — it was awesome in all the places that the books kind of sucked. I’m not sure how I feel about the changes in the film.

Still, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fast-paced, did a very good job of explaining what was an extremely complex set-up, looked perfect, and was acted extraordinarily. The girl playing Lyra did a pretty good job — there were only a few weak scenes, which is great for an actor her age, and Nicole Kidman brought the house down as Mrs. Coulter. The ‘gyptians and Lee Scoresby were great as well!

SPOILERS START HERE: (scroll over to see)

Certainly, the role of Billy Costa changed dramatically, and that one was a good change, I thought, because it added more drama to that whole section. Unfortunately, I think they whitewashed the infamous “Ratter, Ratter” scene, which remains, in my mind, as one of the scariest scenes I’ve ever read in any piece of literature ever ever ever (I can’t even think about it without crying). I understand that they were trying to make a children’s movie, though, and they couldn’t have presented it as they did in the film, or you know, the kids would be screaming in the aisles. But it does detract somewhat from the power of the Bolvanger scenes (especially when Lyra is captured). Also detracting from that plotline is the fact that they cut the scene early on where Pan tries to walk away from Lyra, though I suppose the scene where Mrs. Coulter smacks her daemon makes up for that. Plus, I odn’t htink they made it clear that the Bolvanger residents had been “inoculated” — or, as they call them later, “zombis.” And then — the ending. Wow, what was up with that ending? I suppose again, they couldn’t have ended it as the books did — we must think of the children! — but it made the ending feel very abrupt, and filled with, IMO, false hope. Unless they are going to change everything. Oh, and I was so sad that Hester didn’t have golden eyes.

SPOILERS END HERE

Scott Westerfeld, who edited The World of the Golden Compass Anthology I’m in, went to a panel at the Boston premiere. It was run by the Religious Studies dept. at Boston University, and he blogs about the experience here. Scott’s comments trails always include a bunch of his young readers, and every time I’ve seen him post about our anthology, I’ve been surprised by the number of commenters who have proclaimed that they are not allowed to read the books or watch the movie because their parents “heard” that in the His Dark Materials books, Lyra “kills God.”

In his latest post, Scott actually confronts that rumor directly:

We also discussed the bogus controversy around the series and movie, especially the persistent disinformation campaign that claims the protags of HDM “kill God” in the third book. (As those of you who’ve read it know, the Authority is an impostor posing as god, and Lyra and Will don’t actually kill him. Ah, if only the people who love to ban books would, like, learn to read books. Think of all the effort they’d save.)

I think that’s one interpretation. My interpretation of the character of the Authority is that he was one angel who held a coup of sorts, then styled himself a god when he won. And then there were further coups and blah blah blah and by the time of the book, the Authority is not so much the one in charge anymore anyway. And no, Lyra and Will don’t kill him, nor is that their purpose, ever, in the books. She has one purpose, and that’s to save Roger.

But I don’t see why, even if that were the purpose of the books, that it should be something for religious types to get up in arms about, no more than they should be getting up in arms about the latest edition of Edith Hamilton, which also presents gods who are acting in manners totally unlike those the religious types believe in. It’s fiction, people. And some of the characters in this fiction style themselves as gods. I’m a person of faith, and I wasn’t at all offended by the theology presented in the novel. NOVEL.

What the books are really about (and what I think the movie did a great job of explaining) is the fight for free will, which of course is a huge topic of debate among the various tenets of Christianity (and religion in general), but I think Catholics are on the pro side. Pullman is clearly pro free will as well. (One of my favorite scenes in the series is when the mulefa tells Mary Malone the version of the creation myth that exists in her universe. There, the acquisition of knowledge is not presented as “the fall of man” but rather as a true positive — for more on that, read my essay.)

I wonder if the people interested in banning the movie would have gotten farther by presenting it that way. Probably not. It’s much more sensational to say that the books are about “killing God” — not true — than that they are about the evils of religious totalitarianism and the battle for free will. In this country, people tend to be against religious totalitarianism, so not a lot of fans there. However, there are some sects that have a lot of folowers here that lean more towards the anti-free will side of the equation. Hmmmm….

In this interview on MSNBC, Pullman talks about how the religious aspects of the book are an exploration of the fact that both good and bad things have been done in the name of religion — the Magisterium is an example of religious totalitarianism. Religious totalitarianism = bad. I can’t speak for Pullman’s personal beliefs (and I don’t think they much matter), but I can speak for what is in the books. In fact, I had the books originally recommended to me by a woman who was a devout Christian.

But I think the real problem here is what Scott said — that the people who are joining in on the boycott don’t know anything more about the books or movies than what they’ve “heard” in the disinformation campaign. And they probably aren’t interested in informing themselves. Some of the comments in his post bear this out. It’s a shame that people would rather believe some bit of disinformation they heard from others who haven’t read the books than either listening to an expert (hey, he edited a whole book on the series!) or better yet, to read for themselves and make their own judgment.