His Dark Materials recently ended its second season, which continued Lyra Belacqua's (Dafne Keen) journey from season 1 and introduced an entirely new world. The show is based on Philip Pullman's trilogy of the same name, with the second season being based on Pullman's novel The Subtle Knife. As is necessary with any book to screen adaptation, His Dark Materials did deviate occasionally from its source material.
On the whole, season 2 of His Dark Materials is a very faithful adaptation of The Subtle Knife. It focuses on Lyra and Will Parry's (Amir Wilson) adventures in the city of Cittàgazze and beyond, while also following Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda) in his journey to locate the mysterious figure known as Stanislaus Grumman. Over it all hangs the shadow of Lord Asriel's (James McAvoy) great war against an unknown threat.
As it did in its first season, His Dark Materials retains these storylines while also adding its own material and changing some key details from the books. For the most part, these changes serve to strengthen the world of the series and give time to important characters who appear less in the book. From witches to Spectres, here are the show's biggest deviations from The Subtle Knife.
Will's introduction in season 1 of His Dark Materials is already the biggest change from the books, and its effects carry over into season 2 as well. Will's first appears in Pullman's books in The Subtle Knife - readers follow him through the first chapter before they even meet Lyra. However, in the show, viewers meet Will in the third episode. This allows them to get acquainted with him and understand his story before his path intersects with Lyra's.
This change from the books massively helps His Dark Materials, as introducing a completely new main character in the second season would have been a risky move. By the time he and Lyra meet up, the audience is familiar with and emotionally invested in both leads. This allows season 2 of His Dark Materials to hit the ground running, as it doesn't have to wait for Will's character development to catch up to Lyra's.
Another change to the books is the show's focus on the Magisterium. In Pullman's novels, the Magisterium is an oppressive presence throughout, but they don't feature many scenes within the Magisterium until the third book. Meanwhile, season 2 of His Dark Materials follows members of the Magisterium as they try to find a way to respond to Lord Asriel's creation of a doorway to another world. It also creates a completely new conflict between the Magisterium and the witches in having the Magisterium bomb the witches' lands.
Since The Subtle Knife mainly follows Lyra, Will, and Lee, adding more scenes with the Magisterium allows the audience to know exactly what kinds of threats the show's heroes are facing. The focus on the Magisterium specifically allows His Dark Materials to have a clear, overarching villain and ground the actions of other antagonists like Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson) and Lord Boreal (Ariyon Bakare). Their conflict with the witches also helps to foreshadow the grand scale of Lord Asriel's war in The Amber Spyglass, the third book and basis for season 3.
Mrs. Coulter barely features in The Subtle Knife; she interrogates a witch at the start and then doesn't reappear until Will and Lyra try to regain the alethiometer from Lord Boreal. In His Dark Materials, she interacts more with Lord Boreal, and also meets Lee Scoresby in prison and visits Dr. Mary Malone (Simone Kirby) in Oxford. These last two encounters never happen in the books. However, these scenes help flesh out Mrs. Coulter's character, as well as her complicated motivations.
In the scene with Lee Scoresby, viewers learn that both Mrs. Coulter and Lee had abusive fathers, something that is not touched on in the books. When Mrs. Coulter visits Dr. Malone, she sees how women are treated more as equals in other worlds. Both these encounters help give Mrs. Coulter more of a background than she had previously, and, by focusing on her, the show carries over her important role from the first season.
Mrs. Coulter becomes almost unstoppable when she starts controlling the Spectres that haunt the city of Cittàgazze, destroying the souls of all the adults they come in contact with. Pullman never describes the moment when she first controls the Spectres, only stating through dialogue that she negotiated with them and revealed that she could help them find more victims. In the show, she tells Lord Boreal that she asserted dominance by repressing part of her humanity, as that is what Spectres feed on. In the books, she also suggests that they fly, whereas in the show they are already capable of flight.
The moment when Mrs. Coulter controls the Spectres for the first time is one of the most cinematic moments of the second season, and its epic visuals may have been diluted had the scene been a negotiation, as is implied in The Subtle Knife. The whole scene also adds to the intrigue behind Mrs. Coulter and her sense of self, further deepening her relationship with her soul, represented by her golden monkey daemon.
Apart from the early introduction of Will, His Dark Materials' biggest deviation from The Subtle Knife by far is the difference in John Parry's (Andrew Scott) death scene. In The Subtle Knife, Will fights John at night, without realizing who he is. However, when John sees that Will has the knife, he tells Will of the role he has to play in Asriel's war and heals his wound. The two realize they are father and son, but before they can react to this news, a witch whose romantic advances John rejected kills him, leaving Will alone.
This occurs very differently in His Dark Materials. Will and John recognize each other right away and have a touching conversation about why John was gone for so long and how much he wished to return. John also tells Will about Asriel and the knife and emphasizes how proud he is of Will and the warrior he has become. A lone Magisterium soldier then kills John, and the reunion is cut short.
While both scenes are tragic, the show's version is much less abrupt and allows for Will to have some kind of closure over his father's disappearance. Cutting out the vengeful witch streamlines the plot, and having a Magisterium soldier kill John instead further solidifies the Magisterium's villainous role heading into His Dark Materials season 3. The choices made adapting this scene help it resonate more strongly with the audience, as the entire season has been building up to this reunion. It features several lovely emotional beats and, even if it ends in heartbreak, it is one of the most moving scenes in either season of His Dark Materials, proving that straying from the source material in an adaptation can pay off.
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