At first glance Lyra and Will’s idea that there are three parts to human nature is one of the less important aspects of the trilogy. However, I believe the idea is central to the conceits of Dust and consciousness explored in the books. I see the trinity of daemon, flesh and ghost not so much as a key to what Dust is and means, but to how it works in the mythical worlds of His Dark Materials. In this commentary, though, I am going to look at how it is intrinsic to the structure of the trilogy. It seems to me that those three ideas of self form the basis for each volume in the series. So; Northern Lights is primarily about daemons, The Subtle Knife the flesh and The Amber Spyglass the ghost.

The first book chronologically shows this most obviously. The plot of Northern Lights revolves around daemons (souls in our world) – though their importance is not fully revealed until the very end – and almost every important event, statement or conversation involves daemons. Even the armoured bears are mainly notable for their lack of daemons. The events on Svalbard, which climax in the bears’ fight play on this, exploring daemons through showing what it is to be without them. Most central of all relationships to the book is Lyra and Pantalaimon’s. Even a note at the beginning of the book indicates the daemon’s central role: Northern Lights is full of words like panserbjorne, Stanislaus Grumman, Trollesund and Svalbard, but the only guide to pronunciation is: ‘The word daemon, which appears throughout the book, is to be pronounced like the English word ‘demon’’.

Less obvious is the role the flesh (body) plays in The Subtle Knife. Partly I think this is because the theme becomes more complicated by necessity. Now daemons have been introduced, Pullman cannot simply drop them as a running conceit. What is more, I do not believe this book to be as well written as the first, and it is my opinion that a lot of the failure in ideas, such as spectres, is due to a departure from the central theme of flesh. For instance, while Will’s physical pain seemed very fitting to the book to me, I felt the spectres were never interesting or relevant enough; it is because they felt too much like a diversion from the main threads of the book. I will return to this idea shortly.

To demonstrate the importance of flesh in The Subtle Knife, I will first look at drama. Most prominent is the final battle; Will’s fight with his own father. Not only is this image entirely physical – i.e., it does not involve the daemon or the ghost at all – but it is written, like much of the rest of the book, in a manner heavily evocative of physical discomfort and pain; and finally the relief their easing brings.

In the chapter before, Lee Scorseby’s part comes to a close with his death. It can be argued that the emotion here lies not in his physical death but in his parting from his daemon. Further, it would be hard to put this moment down to a misjudgement in theme (like the spectres), since I would find it hard to fault the moment in style or content. Rather, I would count this moment of one of those where the current theme of flesh, and the previous theme of daemons, are combined to a perfect balance. Actually, a lot of the scene focuses on Lee’s physical pain, and the bodily sensations of approaching death. Mentions of his imminent parting from Hester are made all the more poignant by their scarcity.

Will’s fight for the knife is, like the final climax, almost exclusively physical. Scant mention is made of his more ‘ghostly’ or ‘daemonly’ feelings – fear, anger, questioning etc. Such a scene in Northern Lights would most likely not include such bodily drama as Will’s terrible injury (in fact a direct comparison can be made with the drama at a similar stage in Northern Lights. In the latter Lyra is nearly separated from Pantalaimon and the pain is entirely emotion oriented; here Will is wounded and the pain is physical).

The same comparisons can be made in character. Lyra is, at least initially, most notable for the fact she has a daemon. The first sentence in Northern Lights is ‘Lyra and her daemon’. Will, in the same space of time, becomes most notable for his physical acts – the violence of the fist chapter demonstrates this. To compare: Lyra’s first meeting with another important character, Iorek, in Northern Lights is made dramatic by her daemon and his straining at the bond between them. It is daemon oriented. As Iorek is a very physical being (at one point he explains he is only flesh; he has no ghost and no daemon) the meeting could easily have been physically dramatic. The daemon-related drama is chosen because it is most relevant to the book. In The Subtle Knife her meeting with Will is dramatic in terms of flesh instead, because they fight viscously. Again, Pantalaimon’s presence could have made the drama daemon-oriented. The reason one sort of drama is chosen over the other is because, whether consciously or not, Pullman knew which fitted the theme.

To more fully address the loopholes in the theory of The Subtle Knife being flesh-oriented (and why I do not see them as loopholes at all): spectres are an important idea in His Dark Materials and especially within The Subtle Knife. At times I feel they are an effective creation (in the battle on the plains, particularly) and certainly they are interesting in conception. However, I have never rated the race as highly as, for instance, the panserbjorne or the Gobblers, because they seem oddly irrelevant and confused in purpose. I believe the explanation to this, is because they are an exception to the flesh theme of The Subtle Knife. It is hard to say whether they attack ghost or daemon and partly I think this is due to Pullman’s failure to see the theme that was running through The Subtle Knife, at least consciously. If he had identified flesh as the base of the book, spectres could have been turned into something altogether more effective; something that was concerned more with that part of human nature. Or he could have saved spectres for The Amber Spyglass and refined them into a race concerned with the ghost part of humans.

Finally to The Amber Spyglass. The last of the trilogy is based on the idea of the ghost (or spirit). Most obviously, the main body of Lyra and Will’s story revolves around their travelling to the world of the dead, where they encounter ghosts separated from the other two parts of human nature. Also notable is the changed style in which the book is written. If the ghost – as seems to be indicated – is the part of a human most concerned with abstract thought, this is the most openly philosophical, theological and questioning book of the trilogy. The extensive conclusion of the final six chapters is entirely emotional and philosophical.

No new main character is introduced in this book, but several secondary characters are notable. The angels, like the spectres, suffer from a lack of clarity in what they are and what they mean. However, they suffer far less simply because The Amber Spyglass is a different book. Unlike The Subtle Knife, which has the task of carrying the main theme of body and sustaining the theme of daemons, The Amber Spyglass must develop the theme of ghost, but also bring the other themes to a conclusion. In this context angels fare quite well, since they appear to be mostly about the ghost part of humans, with relevance to the other parts as well.

In the task of exploring ghost, The Amber Spyglass succeeds to an extent. The large amount of time spent in the world of the dead certainly gives the reader a lot of information about ghosts and raises a lot of questions too. However, it is a long way of the skill with which Northern Lights subtly developed its theme of daemons. On either side of the episode in the world of the dead there is very little mention of the ghost. What is more, though ghosts were portrayed extensively in this period, it was only from one angle. While daemons, in Northern Lights were shown in various positive and negative aspects, and while The Subtle Knife depicted a wide range of physical sensation, The Amber Spyglass focuses only on what the ghost is when removed from its component parts. With angels, Pullman had a chance to explore the positive side of this aspect at least, to contrast with the sorry state of ghosts, but their mode of being was both a little confused and non-contrasting.

In its other task, to tie up all threads the three parts of human nature, in my opinion The Amber Spyglass did no better. It is true that important moments occur for the themes of flesh and daemon in the book: it is revealed that angels envy humans for their flesh, for instance, and of course Pantalaimon and Lyra’s parting is one of the most fraught moments of the book. While I think the latter worked well as a scene, I do not think it had enough to back it: their parting was not as intense as it could have been because Pantalaimon had been largely abandoned as a character and a conceit since the end of book one. It also effectively excludes daemons as a theme for the rest of The Amber Spyglass since the principle daemon is not around. It does not have to be so. If Pullman had been more conscious of the need to sustain daemons he might have developed Lyra and Pantalaimon’s parting, and the discoveries we make about it, into a more important and dramatic role. As it is, Pullman seems to lose interest in Lyra’s separation after a few pages and only mentions it occasionally and only dutifully.

As for flesh, it is hardly built upon, but not so missed. I think this is partly because whatever the characters do has a physical aspect inevitably, and so we do not miss talk of physicality. One point, which I put down to structure more than a confused theme, is the conclusion. Certainly there is no physical drama, but I feel this would have been acceptable if the last six chapters were simply edited better.

To summarise; it can be argued that only Northern Lights truly focuses on daemon, flesh or ghost, and that the relation its sequels bear to one of the aspects is coincidental. I do not think so. Whilst Pullman may not even have been aware of the structure, he unconsciously divided his theme of human consciousness into three parts and focused a volume of the trilogy on each. Where he succeeded in bringing the theme to life – daemons in Northern Lights; Will’s physical pain and the heat of The Subtle Knife – he wrote some of the best material the trilogy contains. Where he failed to follow the relevant theme – spectres – his ideas and story lines seem far less coherent and he struggles to make them important and tie in. In The Amber Spyglass he left many thread open for debate, whether intentionally or not, and one of these was exactly how the three parts of human nature fit together. While they appear to be the way Dust itself is divided, it is hard to say exactly how daemons, angels, ghosts, bears, mulefa, spectres, witches and humans all fit into them. It will be interesting to see whether The Book of Dust gives us any more hints.

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