Talk:The Subtle Knife

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Contents

[edit] Mistakes

So many goddamn mistakes! I can't fix them, but someone please fix it. It's is slightly disgraceful. Especially with the biased opinions. There is a reason it is called a ENCYCLOPEDIA, and not a OPINION-EDIA, or something. -Theclassicalman:too lazy to log in. 70.79.215.78 (talk) 19:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] This is the most biased writings ive ever seen on wikipedia

This article was so biased it made me laugh. This sentence, "The plot of The Subtle Knife is dense with details and both builds and unfolds at a fairly fast pace, and no summary can do justice to the myriad of themes present in this work, or the complexity of Pullman's story." HA! ya right, if the guy can write the story, you can make a plot summary of it. That was so retarded, I honestly would believe that the author himself wrote that. Remember, this is an ENCYCLOPEDIA! IT IS NOT FOR YOUR PERSONAL BIASED OPINIONS! I'd remove it, but I haven't read the story myself so I can't rewrite the section, and if that sentence is removed, people won't understand why the plot summary was so poorly written. They'll think it was written by a second grader instead of just someone lazy.71.207.138.63 (talk) 02:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


I haven't read the book, so it may be a plot reference, but if the phrase "the war against heaven continues" is refering to the anti-chruch (or whatever) themes of the books, this hardly sounds NPOV. 24.34.215.160 (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Well I have read the book but my mom has borrowed it, I will try to write an objective plot summary when I get it back. I agree the summary sounds silly as it is now, it doesn't matter if a wikipedia summary does not do a book justice, it's not supposed to.
However, there isn't exactly anything NPOV about the phrase "the war against heaven continues", because there is indeed a war against heaven in the book - however, those sensitive to the religious controversy should note that it is stressed in the book that the Kingdom of Heaven is not "heaven", the eternal afterlife as Christians understand it, but rather the parallel universe where the Authority, a powerful mortal being claiming to be God, resides.

So in short, yes technically there is a war against Heaven in the book, but it isn't as demeaning to Christianity as a lot of Christians who haven't read the book are making it out to be. So proceed with caution while making any NPOV considerations.VatoFirme (talk) 08:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Enjoyment" warning removed

I have removed the "severely reduce your enjoyment" warning in accordance with Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Please see the Talk page for the first book to see the related discussion. Juansmith 00:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homework questions

[edit] problem and solution

I have a question about the novel. What is the main problem and solution of the Subtle knife?

Well, the way i see it, the problem started in the 1st book, and the solution came in the last. Mathematicus 02:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] important quotes

hey yea im analysign the book for my english class, and after reading it and thinking it was a very plain and simple text i found many hiden messages. this altered my decidion of what 3 quotes or part of teh novel i should choose to analyse them deeple

[edit] Just read the damn book

Do your own homework, kids. And sign your posts. Juansmith 00:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I am just saying that that i wanted to read it and i thought it was fantastic i read it when i was 12( (now i am 12 and a half)but i kinda only read it coz i am a total book worm! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.182.162 (talk) 19:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Class

I don't think this is a "start" class article but more of a B-class one. It isn't simply expanded on a stub but has a full plot summary that is fairly decent. SirGrant 16:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok - done. however there is more other material to add beyond the plot. eg. ==Characters in "The Subtle Knife"== section and ==Literary significance & criticism== :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Umm about the sections ==Characters in "The Subtle Knife"== section and ==Literary significance & criticism== those are kinda in the main trilogy page His Dark Materials I don't know if we have to repeat them for each individual book. SirGrant 02:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a excelent book read it if you haven't and read the Amber Spyglass if you have.

[edit] Plot Summary Problem

Aside from being overly detailed, the plot summary makes an assumption that is not evident at this point - at the end the summary says Lyra has been kidnapped; however, all the reader knows is that she is gone. She may be dead, may have run away or escaped, etc.Voideater 21:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

What disgusts me is that it originally said that her mother was intending to kill her. Maybe I'm getting too far ahead, but I know that wasn't the truth. I want Wikipedia to contain the facts. Mathematicus 02:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Er maybe I've missed something

Aside from the introduction of the Subtle Knife surely the most significant thing in the entire plot is the introduction of the character of Will, a point which seems to be entirely missed in the (far from perfect anyway) plot summary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.58.253 (talk) 22:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-write of Plot Summary

The Plot summary is horribly written and full of biased opinions as mentioned earlier. As someone who hasn't read the book at all I should be able to read it and recieve all the details and and intricatcies of the plot.

I personally don't have an opinion on the length of the summary and think it should be as long as needed to give good details about the plot. I personally believe as it stands the summary is too short and should be expanded to include detailed plot points. Again, I personally have not read the book so I cannot do this.

a) take out biased opinions and totally re-work the wording of the summary

b) expand on and give more details to the major plot points

I do appreciate the effort give to write the summary though, it's not an easy task to do something like this. But, as it stands it sounds like a 11 year olds book report. Changes especially need to be made due to the increase in page hits this article is enevitibly going to recieve because of the recent movie release 67.136.10.67 (talk) 12:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)12/13

Like I said, as soon as I get my copy of the book back from my mother, I will have time to write an objective summary. Feel free to beat me to it though.VatoFirme (talk) 08:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I copied over the plot summary from the main His Dark Materials page as it was a whole hell of a lot better than the mess that was on this page. Tnomad (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay since I've just finished reading the book thought I'd take it one step further and have written out a reasonable length and impartial plot summary. Tnomad (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I've replaced the plot summary which seems to have been removed entirely. IMHO its a bit too detailed, and could use some abridging. Egret (talk) 07:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Reverted back to Feb 9, 2008 17:57 since that seemed the best / most concise summary to me. Egret (talk) 08:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Controversies section

I've removed the section labelled "Controversies" because it doesn't describe any controversies pertaining to the novel, but only contains a quote from the author stating his opinion on the lack of controversy the book had attracted. --Tony Sidaway 14:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IMDB

I removed the sentence "The Internet Movie Database has created a page for the film, and states that it will be released in 2009, although IMDB is not a reliable source", because wikipedia doesn't quote unreliable sources. There might be a way to reword this, somehow make it clear the IMDB page is their own prediction or find out why they made it. The page there says "announced", maybe find out what that means and whether the movie was really announced. But if they are just guessing and it's 100% rumor I don't think it should be here.VatoFirme (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

If IMDb has it listed up, then it is most sertenly not 100% rumor. IMDb is very careful when posting an in-development project. Here's a source for you [1]. --Steinninn 03:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion on summary

The summary is still a total mess. To begin with, you can't say "the two worlds" or "the other world" when there are three worlds involved! Mrs. Coulter's name is introduced with no explanation of who she is. It confuses the "young man" ( who DOES have a name) and the older man who gives the kids advice. There's no explanation of why the Spectres are dangerous. We are told that Sir Charles is on a mission for the Magisterium though that is never established in this book; we just know he has a ruthless agenda. If the book is admired as much as Pullman claims you'd think Wikipedia could find somebody to write a decent summary. CharlesTheBold (talk) 04:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The great thing about Wikipedia, is that YOU can write a decent summary. Murderbike (talk) 04:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Well I did rewrite the summary, trying to summarise the key points in clean English. Which you can see on this version: [2] But since then people have expanded it to fill out every plot detail I was summarising and with a lot of bad English. It now reads quite poorly again, so I've not got the motivation to have another go. --78.86.225.202 (talk) 14:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Summary

I have attempted to rewrite the summary after just re-reading the book. Thoughts/comments/queries? I'd like to make this the most readable summary possible. Loony636 (talk) 14:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minor deletions

Couple of deletions I made, since they were not in the copy of the book I just read. They may be in some other version of it, perhaps? The US version, or hardback version or something?

"...of a flower she gave him. However, she arrives too late to save him, and can only preserve his body in order to show it to Iorek Byrnison. Serafina Pekkala seeks out Iorek Byrnison, before she returns to Lyra and Will, to tell him that his friend Lee Scoresby has died. He asks Serafina to tell him how to make his own way across the Aurora and into Cittàgazze to find Lyra. She instructs him and he immediately sets off into the new world.

In my copy of the book, the last you heard from Pekkala was her saying "I'm off, Scoresby needs me, brb". This seemed like just a plot device to have her out the way when the other witches were killed off.

Mrs Coulter decides that she will have to destroy Lyra to "prevent another fall".

Nah. As I read it, she considered that briefly, then in the same paragraph decided that no, she'd allow her to become the Eve, but prevent the Fall at that point. If she'd wanted to destroy Lyra, Lyra'd be dead, not merely drugged, at the beginning of the third book. DewiMorgan (talk) 16:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Sad to see so little comment made about the tales and legends that he has referenced in the books: a large part of the joy of them is seeing where he's pulled all the different bits from. I guess that would be tricky without OR though. :( DewiMorgan (talk) 16:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)