Was that the movie with the polar bear?

Edit: Frick it, I'll link the Black Book of Arda for any Tolkien nerds, it's pretty cool but terribly translated, two Ruzzian chicks with a lot of background in Philosophy and Linguistics wrote it. Tolkien would have had a stroke if he read it, though. He probably wouldn't be surprised that a Russian had this take.

https://archive.org/details/the-black-book-of-arda-english-v.-001/The%20Black%20Book%20Of%20Arda%20English%20v.001/mode/1up

Looks like definite fedorashit. Might be entertaining but probably not as much as a actual inspired book not developed by pure sneed.

Reminds me of a Russian book called the Black Book of Arda which was a rewriting of the Silmarillion from the perspective that Morgoth was trying to help the world. Kinda interesting although Tolkien would have likely despised it.

Asked about the crimes committed by atheistic totalitarian regimes, Pullman responds that 'they functioned psychologically in exactly the same way,' with their own sacred texts and exalted prophets: 'The fact that they proclaimed that there was no God didn't make any difference: it was a religion, and they acted in the way any totalitarian religious system would.'

So he's a /pol/theist

You've said you're not a huge admirer of C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien, both of whom have written fantasies that in some ways resemble The Golden Compass. Is it fair to say those books have a somewhat didactic relationship to readers?

Ackshully, these books that were written decades prior resemble the Golden Compasa

They're often bracketed together, Tolkien and Lewis, which I suppose is fair because they were great friends—both Oxford writers and scholars, both Christians. Tolkien's work has very little of interest in it to a reader of literature, in my opinion. When I think of literature—Peepeeens, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad—the great novelists found their subject matter in human nature, emotion, in the ways we relate to each other. If that's what Tolkien's up to, he's left out half of it. The books are wholly male-oriented. The entire question of sexual relationships is omitted.

Tolkien was Catholic, which meant that for him, there were no questions about religion. The church had all the answers. But Lewis was different. He was a Protestant, an Irish Protestant at that, from a tradition of arguing with God and wrestling with morality. His work is not frivolous in the way that Tolkien is frivolous, though it seems odd to call a novel of great intricacy and enormous popularity frivolous. I just don't like the conclusions Lewis comes to, after all that analysis, the way he shuts children out from heaven, or whatever it is, on the grounds that the one girl is interested in boys. She's a teenager! Ah, it's terrible: S*x—can't have that. And yet I respect Lewis more than I do Tolkien.

Yeah, well His Dark Materials is facile subversive slop (what if God was le villain because bad things happen to good people) with Bears in armor and the LOTR series are voted as the best novels of the 20th Century and the best selling novels of all time

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I read them as a kid, they're examples of why we still need a banned books list for !Catholics. I object both on the basis that they seek to undermine faith amongst the youth and on the basis that adults should not read YA lit.

Read two of the books, never watched the movies or shows.

They're... okay. If he wasn't so insistent on RELIGION IS BAD, CHRISTIANS ARE HORRIBLE, I HATE C.S. LEWIS they would be a lot better. He's so het-up on S*X IS THE ANSWER S*X IS GREAT S*X MAKES US ADULTS that he very nearly has a pair of twelve year olds fricking at the conclusion, and just about avoids that with a late realisation that this is supposed to be a kid's book and he's not Stephen King and "It" so he'll get into hella trouble if he does that.

Then he breaks up his pair of pubescent lovers eternally so they'll never meet again, and that's supposed to be the happy ending?

There's some good bits, take those (most people love the bears, for example) and forget the messaging.

Definitely fedorashit, but the daemons were a cool idea and the first book twist was pretty good for kidlit. The series is conceptually derivative of Narnia in a pretty annoying way (never write an entire fantasy trilogy just because you're seething about something) but the actual reading experience is very different. And it's better than most multiverse slop because it takes time in the actual worlds instead of using the concept as a gimmick.

When it comes to "But what if le devil was le right??" media we've all got better options. If you're an adult just skip the kids books and read Paradise Lost (he's not actually right but he is cool) and if you're an ADHD zoomer just watch Hazbin Hotel !hazbinhoteliers

I read the first two books of this when I was like 10 or 12. I thought it was alright.

Show was good until the BIPOCs appeared in the 3rd season I couldn't watch it anymore

I read the books in middle school, I liked the first two and hated the third book because it made the two main characters fall in love for no reason lol

I read these when I was like 15. I don't know if I could read them now.

I liked the spirit animal idea but the concept as a whole was meh. Only ever watched the movie though.

Protestant Narnia. When you're so Protestant it's not enough to think the Church is a sham that should be overthrown, you gotta think God is a sham who should be overthrown. It's definitely not atheist when there are souls and so on.

Nothing in adulthood will recapture the magic of being 10 years old and reading The Northern Lights for the first time

the first book is fun fantasy with a decent YA twist

the second book has a couple of interesting fantasy elements but is wooly, confusing and lacks most of the fun of the first one

the final book is literally just a dry and tedious essay about le atheism because the austist author was mad people were having fun instead of taking to heart his reddit bullshit

Thoughts? I have so much better shit to read than YA slop.

They were my favorite books as a kid but on a reread the fedora atheist stuff sticks out like a sore thumb. I stopped halfway through the first book to preserve my good memories of the rest of the story.

Also the sequel books sucked

But the first book is named The Golden Compass

I read them as a kid. I like them, but I think some of the themes went over my head.

The show was decent. They seemed to stay kinda mostly to the plot in the books but they reshuffled a ton of events. This isn't a spoiler but the books tended to have different story arcs as separate chapters (or even books) while the show reorders things to be closer to chronological order. For example there's a story arc not introduced until the second book but they introduce it in the first season of the show.

i watched like an hour of the polarbearshit movie and that was enough slop for me

I thought the movie was cool as a kid but now I'm grown and the author seems like a gigantic reddit fedora who can't even say anything interesting or new about religion.

Ungodly

Promotes evilution

Will not read

I liked the Northern Lights as a kid but I could not get into The Subtle Knife at all

My god I just checked your post history. There is no shaming you. This is literally your life. Just imagine how much you could accomplish if you weren't addicted to Reddit. You're making a difference, though!