Lyra and her companions fly north towards Svalbard as we enter part three of Northern Lights. Through a series of discussions around free will, free markets and free love the gang fly towards the kingdom of the bears. The voyage is far from smooth however when an attack leaves Lyra stranded in yet another dangerous situation where wits and stories are her only defense.

Join us this week, as we discover the evolutionary imperative for partially immortal societies to embrace lesbianism and muddle our way through philosophy, economics and accents.

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You can see full version of Amy’s artwork for our episodes and our quotes for the week here.

Find a link to an exploration of Pullman’s North from listener Lo here

For examples of mutual exchange see here, here and here

Introduction to free will here

Daniel Dennet on free will here

Tardigrades!

History of pandemics here

City in the skies of China here

Background to wraiths and the mythology here

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

We catch up with Lyra as she lies her way through a tense cup of chamomile with Mrs Coulter, simultaneously trying to persuade her that she is still on Mrs Coulter’s side whilst attempting to wheedle out some information from her about why the staff at Bolvangar are doing such horrible things to children in her name.

Join us as this week, as Iain fails to pick up on puns, Amy provides some dubious Lyra impressions and both of us battle it out for The Ultimate Sibirsk Regiment Theory.

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You can see full version of Amy’s artwork for our episodes and our quotes for the week here.

Check out Robert Darby’s fascinating (and SPOILER HEAVY) essay on His Dark Materials and genital mutilation here.

Want to see for yourself just how ugly or cute a polecat is? Here is an image of a particularly unhappy one…

Help us settle the discussion on whether the Sibirsk Regiment are a product of nature or nurture! We certainly can’t agree on our own…let us know what you think by voting on our Twitter poll on the topic!

You can also find out more about the extreme measures which the Spartans used to train young soldiers here, or find about more about the fascinating Mamluk soldiers here.

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

Content warning: We also discuss sexual assault and sexual violence at some length - please take care of yourselves if this is triggering for you.

Warning: this episode is spoiler-heavy (both His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust).

We’re re-posting here a very special cross-over episode which was organised, edited, produced and generally helmed by the wonderful Chloe from Girls Gone Canon.

We had an amazing time discussing the latest volume in the Book of Dust trilogy - the Secret Commonwealth - with Chloe from Girls Gone Canon and Faye from Her Dark Materials. If you’re not familiar with their podcasts, we highly recommend checking them out and subscribing at the links below!

You can hear more from Chloe at Girls Gone Canon, where she is found with her usual partner in crime Eliana, as they shed some light, humour and lots of laughs on the His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman and A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin.

Listen to Girls Gone Canon here, or subscribe on your favourite podcasting app.

Their patreon is at www.patreon.com/girlsgonecanon

You can hear more from Faye at Her Dark Materials, as she discusses Her Dark Materials with her pod-partner Rachael. They release fortnightly chapter-by-chapter readthrough episodes on His Dark Materials, and are shortly about to start a book club series - so keep a beady eye out for that!

Listen to Her Dark Materials here, or subscribe on your favourite podcasting app.

Their patreon is at www.patreon.com/hdmpod

------www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

@darkmaterialpod

www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Lyra spends a day avoiding the attentions of Mrs Coulter - newly arrived at Bolvangar - and gathering intel for her plan to start investigating deeper into the goings on at The Station. However, despite Lyra’s best laid plans, her liberation of the daemons from their cages during the fire drill has been discovered and the staff are all on edge.

Join us as this week, as we get into an accent duel, Iain makes some stonking analogies and Amy surprises no-one by randomly singing Aladdin songs.

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Learn more about the origin of ‘ordinateur’ here, or get in touch below if you can give us some French language insight!

If you want to learn more about the electric scalpel - it’s use today and the history of it’s development - this is a very interesting article on the topic.

On a similarly morbid point, there is some high level information about the ‘death sentence with reprieve’ as applied in China here.

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

We join Lyra after her first night in Bolvangar, starting out confident that it will all work out fine for her superb alter-ego: Lizzie Brooks. She reconnects with Roger and Billy, whilst gathering intel from the other kids about what they think is going on and why, all the while keeping silent about what she really knows…

Join us as this week, as we discuss the speed limits of Gyptians, get nostalgic for the days of dedicated biscuit breaks and get confused over Amy’s 17th century vocabulary.

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If you’d like to join Amy in squee-ing over cute, tiny animals, here is a good place to start!

Confused about if a word is a spell or just archaic? You can start where we did - with ‘obliviate’, here.

If - like us - you’re a complete novice on zeppelin knowledge, here might be a good place to start. If you’re not a novice on zeppelins, we’d love to hear from you!

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

This week we join Lyra and the Gyptians as they move towards Bolvangar, worrying about how Mrs Coulter might be on their tail. As fog descends around them, the troupe are attacked by a mysterious group in the gloom.

Join us as this week, as Amy gets her teeth around some tongue-twisters, we speculate on daemon-human neurology and Iain drops a Big Swear. Sorry mum!

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If you’d like to read about the tip of the iceberg of the Samoyedic people, you can start here.

Of course, we can’t go a single episode without roughly mentioning the Tsar Bomba and Nova Sembla - this is our very tenuous link, as we talk about the history of the Nenet people.

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

This week we join Lyra in the fish shed as the full weight of what the Gobblers are doing to the children hits her. She takes poor ‘half-child’ Tony Mackarios back to the Gyptian camp on Iorek’s back, towards help, hot food and sleep.

Join us as we both get very distracted by lots of rabbit holes, get over-excited about fencing with Iorek and find another link to Iain’s favourite talking point: Tsar bomba! Again!

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To find out more about the little-understood phenomenon of takotsubo cardiomyopathy (or ‘broken heart syndrome’), start here!

If you want to learn more about Svalbard in our world, start by travelling here and then we certainly recommend Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (available here or as a brilliantly performed audiobook) - it’s not for the faint-hearted!

We talk more about Novaya Zemlya and Tsar Bomba this episode - we don’t know why you expected anything less.

We highly recommend you check out the astounding town coat of arms for Zheleznogorsk, here…it has to be seen to be believed!

Do you also have an urge to use random objects as a size-reference? This site has a number of wierd and wonderful suggestions.

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

This week we learn just how well Bolvangar is defended from Lyra’s use of the alethiometer. But while divining this intel, Lyra is also troubled by indications of a ghost in a nearby village. Having convinced the Gyptians of its significance, Lyra sets off on the back of Iorek the armoured bear to investigate…

Join us as Iain gets tested on his Alethiometer knowledge, Amy speculates on panserbjorn-aging and we both get very very freaked out by a particular spooky village.

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To try out your own Alethiometer test, you can find a list of all the primary and secondary symbol meanings here: http://web.archive.org/web/20150320073134/http://www.randomhouse.com:80/features/pullman/materials/definitions.php

For Amy’s interpretation of the Gyptians fighting like the Fen Tigers, check out her drawing here: https://twitter.com/DarkMaterialPod/status/1188481294273003521

Giphic illustration of Lyra riding a bear here! (because, why not?): https://giphy.com/gifs/bbc-his-dark-materials-lyra-belacqua-philip-pullman-XDk5xRKs33HRLW2tRP

You can read ‘On the Marionette Theatre’ by Heinrich von Kleist (a major inspiration for Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials) in full here: https://southerncrossreview.org/9/kleist.htm

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast

In this bonus episode we reflect on Season 1 of the BBC / HBO TV adaptation. Crowning Cast & Creative award winners, discussing our best and worst of the whole series and suggesting some entirely new additions of our own!

------Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

@darkmaterialpod

www.patreon.com/darkmaterialpodcast

Lyra heads down to a nearby cafe where the Gyptians are mustering over coffee. She starts to gather a small crowd with her tales of Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear and meets Lee Scoresby - a New Dane/Texan aeronaut who John Faa has brought into their troupe. Lee subtlely and instantly sides with Lyra and Iorek, helping to distract the Gyptians so that Lyra can make a beeline for the bear and reunite him with his armour.

Join us as we discuss mindbogglingly massive explosions and Iain’s thoughts on ‘full encasement armour’, all whilst showcasing our dodgy American accents (sorry America).

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To review the Episode Notes for this podcast, please go to: https://www.darkmaterialpodcast.com/listen/episode-022

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Music by: Jaymen Persaud

www.thedarkmaterialpodcast.com

Twitter: @darkmaterialpod

Instagram: @thedarkmaterialpodcast 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedarkmaterialpodcast