The probability for parallel worlds is introduced in the ending of The Golden Compass, as Lyra and Pan walk into Cittagazze through the bridge that Lord Asriel opened. Throughout the rest of the trilogy other worlds, and the connections between them, play an important role.

Recently some scientists in our own world have begun to accept the possibility of parallel worlds. However, for right now I’d like to concentrate on a glitch that I’ve stumbled upon in Pullman’s thinking.

First of all, let’s begin by analyzing what the Other Worlds theory is. In short, whenever a conscious being makes a conscious choice, a new world springs into being for each option that could have been chosen at that moment. Consider for a moment the following example:

Ordinary man, named Bob, is walking down a city street at 9:00 PM. He comes in an intersection. In one world he went straight. In another world, he went left. In a third world, he went right. In a fourth, he turned around because he had forgotten his wallet at the restaurant where he had been eating a few minutes before. There’s four worlds off the bat. Now, of course, there could have been an infinite number of other choices made in that single instant, but for the sake of brevity, lets just go with his choice of a path. In the first spin-off world, Bob made it home quicker than he would have on the other routes. In fact, in that first world, Bob made it home in time to watch a television show that got him thinking about an idea for an invention that would simplify the lives of every human on the planet. In the second spin-off world, Bob turns left. In that world, a thug is waiting in the shadows and shoves a knife into Bob’s chest, promptly ending the possibility that Bob will ever effect anyone anymore. In the third world, Bob turns right, to run into an old friend. They talk, and that talk is enough to keep the old friend from committing suicide, like he had planned. Instead, he will go on to write the great American novel, win the Nobel prize for literature, and inspire future generations of writers to continue in his spirit. In the fourth world, Bob retrieves his wallet, and in doing so meets the waitress of the restaurant that found the wallet on the table. They fall in love, get married, and have a kid that will one day become president of the United States.

Ordinary man, named Bob. One seemingly ordinary choice that will affect the rest of the human life, depending on what street this dude decides to walk down one night. Each of those choices cause more choices, more unique situations to spin off, each world in an infinite number of worlds creating an infinite number of worlds, with just one difference at some point, one choice made slightly differently, ranging in scope from whether a kid decided to look at the lion first in the zoo before the polar bear (creating no major differences at first, except that the kid’s memory is different, which may cause his choices in the future to differ) all the way up to someone shooting Hitler’s grandfather, preventing World War II and the Holocaust.

Every choice that every single person makes causes an infinite number of parallel worlds where the choice was made differently. Now I come to my point.

In one world, Will and Lyra weren’t told the marzipan story by Mary. They didn’t fall in love. The flow of Dust was not stopped, causing all consciousness to pass out of all the worlds. Isn’t that possible? Doesn’t every choice spawn its own worlds? Didn’t Mary CHOOSE to tell them that story? What if she hadn’t? Because in one world, if this theory is correct, in one world she didn’t.

When those two characters fell in love, they affected the destiny of every other world in existence, by stopping the flow of Dust before it was gone. But this loop-hole, this Lyra and Will that didn’t do that, don’t they cancel out the other pair, who did save the worlds from losing conscious beings? Such a monumental choice, that affects not only the worlds that spin off from it, but also the worlds that are already in existence.

In one world, Father Gomez killed Lyra. In one world, Will walked past that window into Cittagazze, because he didn’t notice the cat among the hornbeam trees. In one world, Roger didn’t die, and Lord Asriel never opened the bridge through the aurora. How then, could Lyra and Will’s falling in love have saved all the worlds, if in some worlds it never took place?

Maybe their falling in love in one world was like the pebble and the river described by Mary: “Something tiny but crucial… If you wanted to divert a mighty river into a different course, and all you had was a single pebble, you could do it, as long as you put the pebble in the right place to send the first trickle of water that way instead of this.” Although they didn’t fall in love in countless worlds, their love in a few was enough to still stop the flow of dust. Perhaps this theory not only takes into account other worlds, but whole other dimensions as well, in which some the flow of Dust was stopped, and others in which it did not.

Now I realize that I'm nit-picking here, but I think its a legitimate question. When (sometime in the near future, hopefully) I send a letter to Pullman, I'll ask him about it. If you'd like to elaborate on the question a bit (or provide an answer that I missed??) send me an e-mail at hisdarkmaterials@hotmail.com.

Read Part Two, "Beyond the Looking Glass"

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