the Golden Compass

The Golden Compass and its sequels were one of my favorite series when I was young (I think I read them when I was 12-14), and I think they had a profound impact on me. I had loved the Narnia books before then, as well, but the His Dark Materials trilogy (which were Pullman's direct retort to Narnia) affected me much more strongly.

First of all, Lyra is an incredibly strong character. She’s self-driven and self-motivated, clever, curious, brave, and loyal. She’s never forced to fit stereotypes of what girls should be. She lies to get herself out of trouble and is as fierce as any child could possibly be. As with many parents in YA fiction, her parents are not exactly ideal, and as a result of growing up practically as an orphan, she has learned to be self-sufficient. She later gains a positive paternal figure in the armored bear Iorek Byrnison, and perhaps maternal figures in the witch Serafina Pekkala and Mary Malone. They protect and support her, but never keep her from being independent.

Lyra usually has to rely on her cleverness to proceed through the story, and she often does this through trickery, such as when she tricks the bear king into a fight with Iorek for the throne. Ironically, she uses the alethiometer, a “truth measurer,” to aid her. She reads this naturally, by grace, but loses the ability when she becomes an adult.

The daemons were one of my favorite parts of the novels when I first read them. To have your soul manifest in a physical animal companion seemed so cool! It’s interesting, too, that the form the daemons took upon reaching adulthood reflected the nature of the person, and that children’s daemon’s could take any shape because children are malleable, and not yet set in their nature.

The His Dark Materials trilogy speaks pretty strongly against organized, dictatorial religion. It is not anti-spiritual, however, but anti-abuse of authority. And the war against heaven that takes place in the latter novels is not the children’s war, but the war of their parents and other adults. However, as in our world, they still have to deal with the effects of this war.

The Hobbit

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are undoubtedly defining works in the genre of high fantasy. Many of the creatures (such as Orcs and “halflings”) and objects found in his books have entered popular culture and can be found in novels, music, and games. The Hobbit, as a children’s novel, is the more easily read of his books. It’s much more concise and less concerned with the history and stories of every character, place, and object.

It definitely follows the path of the Hero’s Journey. Bilbo, although fully adult, is innocent and childlike compared to the other characters, and he is entirely unwilling to go on a journey. He has to be pushed into it. At the start of his journey, he is not of much use, and relies mostly on the aid of others. However, he grows as a character and finds his own strengths eventually. He proves his quick wittedness against Gollum when they compete with riddles, and it is Bilbo who finds out the secret to the dragon Smaug’s weakness. He also attempts to reconcile the Dwarves, Elves, and Men, although he nearly makes the situation worse. At the end, as with the Hero’s Journey, he returns home, but entirely transformed. He is no longer the same timid hobbit he began as; he is fully matured as a character.

J-Horror

Asian horror is a much more familiar subject for me. I read the excerpts from Kwaidan. Whereas American horror tends to focus on monsters and serial killers, J-horror (and Asian horror in general) is largely composed of ghost stories. Much of it also lacks the highly sexualized themes that are present in American horror. For example, while rape is a fairly common cause for the presence of a vengeful ghost, the rape itself is (thankfully!) not generally intended to be titillating to the audience.

In fact, quite a lot of modern Asian horror films deal with women protagonists and nearly all the ghosts are female. And while the ghosts are dangerous and frightening, the true villains are the ones who caused the ghost’s grievances in the first place, and they are always punished in the end. These stories usually unfold at a much slower pace than American horror, and are almost mystery stories, where the goal is to find out the cause of the ghost’s wrath in order to appease or escape it.

Ghost stories such as the ones found in Kwaidan follow a different theme, however. These stories relate to old Japan, and reflect the culture that Japan was forced to give up. The memories of this time are manifested as ghosts, and conflict with the current times.

Kairo follows yet another theme; the futility of life. The afterlife has filled up with the dead and they have spilled into the realm of the living. What is the reason to continue living? What is the difference between the living and the dead? What is the point? It is not an uplifting movie. It’s not scary in a thriller sense; it’s scary in its hopelessness. There is no one to fight and defeat. There is no escape. There is only increasing loneliness, apathy, and total separation from all other humans. It’s very much a comment on today’s society and the way we interact (or don’t interact) with each other, and the drudgery and meaninglessness of our lives. What is the point of surviving to survive?