N: Hi, I’m Nicole.

R: And I’m Robin, and welcome to Books That Burn. Today’s book is “The Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman, book one of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy. And let’s start off with our factions. Nicole, did you want to say any of the factions?

N: Oh. Yeah. So, sorry, uh, so our fir[st] - our factions are the Jordan College Scholars, Lord Azriel, the street kids; college kids, mostly service children, townies, gyptians, bricklayers kids, all those. Uh, Mrs. Coulter, the Gyptians as a group: boat dwelling travelers who help Lyra on her journey, one of them nursed her as a baby; Ma Costa. The Gobblers, aka the General Oblation Board, the witches, and the armored bears.

R: And onto our minor character spotlight. Oh, poor, poor Tony Makarios. Tony Makarios gets so - so much misery in so few pages.

N: Yeah. Every time we’ve talked about this kid we have talked about how short his story arc is.

R: He gets a couple pages at the start of the book, and six, seven - seven pages in the latter part.

N: Like less than ten total I think.

R: It’s - it’s the right amount to - to get the point across given how he is a minor character, Lyra is the main character, but there is so - there is so much in these few pages.

N: Tony is one of - one of those kids that Lyra - uh runs and plays with, and let’s just start with the fact that his mom doesn’t know how old he is, doesn't know who his father is which is not framed in the narrative as something negative against her as in like “Well, she just had so many partners,” like no, it’s framed as her brain is so rotted from alcohol that she kind of maybe sort of might remember a little bit, the events around getting pregnant with tony, and she doesn't really remember a lot. [sigh] His mom is affectionate back when he initiates, but it’s not in a caring kind of way. It’s more of a “Oh my kid hugged me, I better hug them also,” kind of a way.

R: Yeah, so we’ve got, bouncing from neglect to straight up abduction...

N: ...Oh yeah...

R: ...because his mom is around but not active, and then he gets abducted, he is...

N: ...quick side note, when we say not active, we mean not active as a human being. We don’t just mean not active in his life, he takes care of her and makes sure that she eats, drinks, sleeps.

R: Yeah, it’s not like she’s too busy to remember to do things, she just is doing none of that stuff.

N: She - she literally just is an alcoholic, and that’s - and doesn’t even function as a person.

R: That’s her entire character...

N: Yeah.

R: ...that we get. Um, so...

N: ...So that’s not a - that’s not a hyperbole...

R: ...then

N: ...when she say - we say she does nothing.

R: Yeah. Uh, then Tony gets abducted. Well when we say that we don’t know how old he is, it’s like he’s younger - he feels like he’s younger than ten, it’s like somewhere...

N: ...Oh just as like a character?

R: It’s like he’s - it’s not like “Oh I’m not in my twenties, and I’m not sure if I’m twenty-two or twenty-three.” No, he’s a

N: ...No…

R: little kid...

N: ...Yeah.

R: Um, his daemon still...

N: ...He’s a preteen.

R: Yeah. His daemon still changes shapes, um, and then we don’t see him for - he gets kidnapped and then we don’t see him at all for a hundred and fifty-ish (150-ish) pages. Uh a hundred - exactly a hundred and fifty (150) pages, he’s gone...

N: ...Oh boy.

R: And when we come back to him, he is the first example that Lyra meets of a severed child; one where the daemon has been cut away, and here is where we’re going to kind of frame like the central horrific thing in this book that adults are doing to children, our big, like, magical analogue for all of the terrible stuff that real world adults can do to people including children. In this case, um, it is a magical lobotomy…

(6:12)

N: ...Yeah...

R: ...that gets framed as being magical castration, and I think that’s kind of important to talk about how that switcheroo is happening, because the adults are pretending that this is totally fine because we make castrati, like that’s actually like - they don’t use the term castrati, but basically they have...

N: ...No, but they do describe it...

R: ...they do describe it. Yeah.

N: Yeah.

R:So, they’re saying “It’s ok that we’re severing,” and they use the language of severing, “It’s ok that we’re severing this part that we think of as part of someone’s soul from the other part of their soul, basically.” Um - kind of like a mind, body, spirit, you’ve got your mind, and then your body, and then your spirit is your daemon.

N: Mmhmm.

R: [sighs] And, I wanna dwell a little bit on trying to downplay this as being still a terrifying thing, like.

N: Um...

R: I don’t know if this is the angle you wanted on it for this, um...

N: ...I don’t know, full disclosure...

R: ...because part of this...

N: ...we, we’re actually re-recording this book, because we actually got deep into arguing about nuances last time, and this was one of those where we started talking about it and then it was twenty minutes later.

R: Yeah.

N: So I don’t actually know if we want to go into this. So, we can - we can be really, like, brief and succinct with it.

R: I do think it’s - so here’s why I want to talk about...

N: ...It’s important...

R: ...this thing in particular for Tony. I want to talk about it in particular, because to a certain extent this is the reason why this character is in the book, and I feel like it does a disservice to not use Tony as the opportunity to not talk about this, since narratively that’s why...

N: That’s true, that - side note, I will probably edit my own comment, but I just want you to know if we talk about this and then ten minutes happens, that’s it, we - that’s all we’re talking about.

R: I - I - that’s why I’m bringing it up. I think this is worth having...

N: ...This is our thing...

R: ...be...

N: ...Ok, alright.

R: We have so much abandonment of children across all of the books we talk about, this is the unique thing for Tony. So, with Tony Makarios, he gets kidnapped and the magically lobotomized, and the - for the rest of this trilogy, the adults, like - even just specifically in this book alone, and also continuing throughout the next two books, the adults spend a bunch of time talking about how this is for their own good, and that it’s totally like - it makes everything better, and it just like a little cut, and there’s a bit where they talk about how “We can do this to kids because, I mean, we uh, castrate prepubescent boys so that we can have pretty little voices in our choir.” [laughs] And, given that this book is written by someone who was extremely negative of uh - I think religion in general, but the Catholic Church in particular...

(9:16)

N: ...as an author?

R: Yeah, no...

N: ...Ok...

R: ...this is, yeah. Um, and you - from this trilogy alone you can tell that. Um.

N: Hmmm.

R: Had you not had this discussed before, in that light?

N: I don’t...

R: ...I’ve had discussions with people about this...

N: ...I don’t talk to people about how authors do or don’t portray different religions in books. [laughs].

R: Side note that we should cut - that’s why the whole, like “Oh, like, look how God aged and is the ancient of days, and then he was in that litter and he frays apart in the wind,” like.

N: Wait, what?

R: That kind of - do you remember that?

N: Say it again?

R: In the - in the third book, the almighty steps out of the carriage and then disintegrates.

N: Oh, yeah, I remember that.

R: Yeah, like, the author killed God in these books. [laughs]

N: That’s true [laughs], I just don’t think about that.

R: I - I have talked with people about this, anyway, so. With uh - so with this lobotomy where they try to justify it by saying, “It’s ok, it’s just magical cast[ration] - magical castration,” um.

N: Yeah, and.

R: So there’s several layers to that. One...

N: ...There’s a lot of layers to that...

R: ...is that there’s this magical castration. That’s still...

N: ...That’s...

R: ...that’s still bad.

N: That's still castration without consent on a child who is underage without a parent...

R: ...a kidnapped child...

N: ...like being...

R: ...who is underaged...

N: ...kidnapped from their home, and being castrated by strangers with no consenting party, of any kind.

R: Yeah.

N: It’s an - it’s an unnecessary, forced medical procedure, that is being done to this kid. Like, even if - even if their analogy was accurate, it’s still awful.

R: Right.

N: But, it’s not that, is kind of layer two.

R: Right. Here’s where we have a magical analogue for real world thing, and this one has an explicit link.

N: Yeah, this is not us trying to find a link, this is stated...

R: ...this is…

[meow]

N: ...in the text.

R: Right, we can do this magical thing because we do this non-magical thing.

N: Sorry if you hear my cat, she is meowing at me. I don’t know why.

R: Yeah, so, that is Tony Makarios.

(11:25)

N: And it’s - it’s really sad because, I guess the only other thing with him I want to kind of, I guess mention? We don’t have to dig into it, but like, it’s not just - and we’ll talk about this more with our - our um - our other topics with our main character, but it’s not just that he was neglected and abused and abandoned, and kidnapped, and hurt, and like, it’s not just all of that. There was a moment that we - we talked about extensively with each other, where at the end - so his - his daemon was cut from him. That's the - that's the medical castration - the medical lobotomy that we’re talking about. The piece of magical lobotomy - the piece of who he was, was cut off and separated from him forcibly by strangers. He was clutching - when Lyra finds him again at the end of the book, he is clutching, was it a fish?

R: Yeah, it’s a dried piece of fish.

N: It’s a dried piece of fish, it’s just a piece of food and we get this implicit piece of the text that basically points to it being - it’s the thing that he has latched on to emotionally because he’s lost this piece of himself.

R: ‘Cause normally he would - normally…

N: ...normally he would hold…

R: ...the piece of himself...

N: ...his daemon...

R: ...was cut away, is external, like the daemons are.

N: Yeah, they’re physical things. They’re…

R: ...Yeah…

N: …they interact with environments, they are - they are separate but connected creatures and...

R: ...technically…

N: …are human…

R: ...can interact with someone else’ daemon but you do *not*.

N: Yeah. There’s unsettling implications if you do. But now, he’s - he’s clutching this piece of dead fish, and he dies, and the adults who are there in the boat are just like “Hmm, trash.”

R:They threw the fish - one of them threw the fish to the dogs.

N: Yeah, and there’s this - and Lyra gets so incredibly angry, because - in - in this moment you kind of get this feeling of like - like she knew why he was holding onto this thing, but even if he wasn’t, that was the only thing that he cared about in the world when he died and the adults didn’t even care enough to notice, and they threw it away as trash.

R: Yeah.

N: And it’s just this - this awful heartbreak moment, where you kind of go, “Man, even at the end, this kid was not treated with respect,”

R: Yeah.

N: At all. I just didn’t want that to get lost.

R: Alright, so on to Lyra, um. For Lyra we have two topics, and the first one is, uh, general neglect. Uh, we’re gonna talk about a couple different kinds of it. Uh, Lyra in general has a mix between adults taking too little and too much interest [in] her - sorry, has a mix of adults taking too little and too much interest in her and neglect is the “too little” side of things. She grew up as an orphan, had no consistent caretakers, I mean there was consistency in the sense that once someone was a scholar at Jordan, they might have been a scholar there for a while, but they were not her parents, uh.

N: And the Jordan Scholars weren’t like, divvying up child care duties.

R: No...

N: ...or anything...

R: ...they kind of...

N: ...that structured or caring.

R: And there’s a bit where you know she knows all sorts of random subjects because whatever someone was researching at the time, if she was also interested she’d hang around and learn a little bit...

N: ...Yeah...

R: ...and then she’d wander off and do something else like play in the street wars with other kids.

N: Mmhmm.

R: Uh, she grows up calling the person who’s actually her father, her uncle, she doesn't know that he's her father until basically just after the book starts, and she grows up thinking both her parents are dead. So the ways in which Lyra had kind of too little, uh, of the adults in her life, she’s an - orphan, the scholars are not consistently taking care of her, she’s in street wars with other kids, and she thinks that her parents are dead and that her dad is her uncle.

N: And like it’s weird - so you were talking about this before, it’s weird when she has this - she has like that knowledge of the different subjects, but it’s not complete, and it’s - it’s

R: ...Mhmm…

N: ...depended on her own whims.

R: Yeah, so she’s interested in this a little bit, and it happens to be something that somebody else is studying, and so for a little bit that intersects, and she learns - I don’t remember which examples there were, but like a...

N: …There’s like a little bit of astronomy...

R: ...bit of astronomy...

N: ...I think...

R: ...Yeah...

N: ...was a big one.

R: ...astronomy was one of them.

N: Like she knows all the stars and then nothing else, because she was like “Meh, I’m done now.”

R: ‘Cause she’s like eleven or twelve when these books start.

N: And, for those of you at home, you might hear my cat purring at little bit because she desperately wants the food that I’m eating after we’re done recording, and she is in my face, drooling because she wants it - she’s purring at me, and she just stuck her - she just stuck her nose super close to my mic, well, Discord filters out like background sounds, but Audacity will not.

R: Oh, ok.

N: Um, but yeah, and she - so far really like...

R: ...Lyra, not your cat.

N: Yeah. Lyra, not my cat. Lyra, like, the relationship she has with her parents is this - I guess we should really focus on her dad first, because we’ll talk about her mom in the next...

R: ...Mmhmm...

N: ...section, but like her dad, like, she doesn’t even know that he’s her dad before the book starts, and then.

R: Yeah, by like, claiming to be her uncle he gets to be like around, but not responsible. Like...

N: Yeah! Which is this...

R: ...Yeah...

N: ...awful dynamic like.

R: Right, so he’s not - he’s not being like, cool dad who comes in every couple of years and gives her a bunch of presents, he is still very distant “uncle”...

N: ...Right...

R: ...who is like “You should be learning this thing, here’s a present...

N: [laughs] Right...

R: ...I’m going back to the wilderness,” like.

N: Like, yeah no, that’s - that’s its, that’s all that happens and it’s this - it’s - it’s - it’s weird like you’re saying like, he’s not even - he’s not even trying to be the cool fun uncle, he just wants and - he’s not trying to deny that they’re related.

R: Mmhmm.

N: And - which really honestly just gives him an excuse to control her life when he’s there and like, control her education a little bit.

R: Right, ‘cause if he’s - he’s her uncle then he has a say in how she’s raised.

N: Exactly, but it’s not - it’s literally shucking all responsibility, um, because if he doesn't follow through then who cares. And it’s - it’s the really, honestly, it’s the worst because it’s - it’s controlling without nurturing and it’s - it’s being part of her life without mattering to her life, and it’s - it’s just this really gross - like honestly? Harsh take.

(18:11)

R: Yeah? I’m here for it.

N: If I had somebody like this in my life, I would rather that they abandon me.

R: Mmhmm.

N: I would not want this. I would not want somebody who is only involved enough to have a say but not enough to be important or to care about me or - like that would be...

R: ...Yeah...

N: ...worse to me, personally. I would rather just be done with that person then walk away and - and to be fair, um...

R: ...Hmmm, you know...

N: ...Lyra doesn't really like

R: ...when you say it like that, that just sounds like a boss. Uh.

N: Yeah, it - it is. It’s a conscripted boss, and no thank you.

R: Yeah.

N: Um.

R: Because it’s not like she can get it a new job. He’s like, still…

N: ...Right…

R: ...her uncle.

N: He’s still related, yeah. And...

R: ...except he’s actually her dad.

N: It’s just a really - it’s a really bad dynamic. And - and then, it’s not like - and she really - and I think honestly probably the most heartbreaking thing about that situation with them together is that she looks forward to seeing [him] - he is important to her. He is her only living relative, as far as she knows at the time, and he does take about as much of an interest in her life as the people she sees everyday, which is also tragic.

R: Oh that’s harsh, I...

N: It’s true.

R: Oh no, you’re right. I mean...

N: He is there, he is just as involved as - as anyone else at that place.

R: Oh no, I don’t - I don’t like that I don’t have rebuttal for that. Uh.

N: [laughs]. I mean.

R: It’s like, uh, that’s.

N: We’re talking about Lyra being neglected, and it's accurate.

R: Yeah, that’s - oh ‘cause I don’t know - I don’t know who that’s more of an indictment of. Like.

N: Oh, of the people she sees everyday, absolutely.

R: Ok, ok. That’s what I was - that’s how it felt. I was like “Ah, if they’re as involved as Lord Asriel is, whenever he shows up, that - that feels bad.” I mean.

N: Oh it’s awful - it’s awful that he is barely that involved when he’s there, and it’s also awful that it’s not actually any better than the people that - or worse than the people that she sees everyday.

R: Yeah.

N: Like, we kind of - we kind of talked about it in our last - in our first recording attempt. Like, she does not have a family bond or community feeling with anyone other than her daemon.

R: I was about to have a counter for that actually.

N: Really? What’s your counter?

R: She feels very bonded to Jordan College. [snorts]

N: Ok, I don’t...

R: ...That’s...

N: ...think that counts. That’s not a person.

R: Well? I - as a counter, she doesn't have a person who is consistent enough in her life, so she feels like the place is the constant presence that takes care of her, kind of.

N: I mean that’s - that’s not a family communal bond, that’s attachment.

R: Yeah.

N: And I would argue that those are different.

R: Oh, well - no. No that’s - that’s my point, that...

N: ...Oh...

R: ...my point is that...

N: ...Oh ok...

R: ...she’s not getting what she should be getting from people, so she’s...

N: ...Oh yeah, yeah, yeah...

R: ...grabbing it from the buildings, because...

N: ...oof...

R: ...once she - ‘cause once she leaves, like once they’re not there for her to like, say the names of individual scholars because she’s no longer in the building with them, she refers jointly to “The Scholars,”...

N: ...at the college, yeah...

R: ...and she frequently refers to Jordan College by name, without naming a scholar individually, except for Lord Asriel, and maybe the head guy? But I don’t think she does that much either, for the rest of the book she talks about how amazing it was at Jordan College with “The Scholars.”

N: Plural, as a group, conglomerate.

R: Yeah, like every year in like, middle school, high school, college, whatever, I always had like, a favorite teacher that I would talk about. She doesn't even - she lives there and she doesn't have anything like that. She doesn’t have a person by name that stands out.

R: Alright, moving on to our second - second topic for Lyra, the active abuse that she receives. So we already talked about neglect, and then now it’s the other half where she gets too much attention in a very harmful way, generally. Yeah. So, the most benign form of this I see as, uh, when the adults around her see children as tools instead of people, so they’re trying to get her to do things but they’re not actively trying to hurt her, but that doesn't stop her from getting hurt.

N: Yeah.

R: Um.

N: It’s weird because - I just want to point this out, we didn’t put this in our notes, because I just had this thought.

R: Mmhmm.

N: It’s - it’s - it’s weird how it almost comes full circle, ‘cause we’re talking about neglect and then overt - almost aggressive abuse.

R: Right.

N: And I - it’s - it is kind of interesting, some of the neglect becomes active abuse in a way.

R: Yes, like in our - the biggest example of the active abuse - well one of the big ones, uh, so on - on like the smaller scale we have adults seeing her as a tool and just trying to manipulate her, and then we have her parent kidnapping her...

N: ...Right...

R: ...which is kind of a - it’s like first she was completely abandoned by her mother and then she’s kidnapped by her mother.

N: Yeah.

R: Uh.

N: Man, the dichotomy...

R: ...And then...

N: ...of just, oof...

R: ...yeah. Either no attention or a ton of really bad attention, and then the only heroic thing that her mother does in this book is to step in at the last minute to stop her mother’s minions from uh, performing intercision on her, and that’s that magical castration, lobotomy thing.

N: Yeah.

R: So, the only positive thing she does is to stop one of her minions from doing a negative thing to Lyra.

N: But even then...

R: ...That’s it...

N: ...like that’s not because she cares.

R: No, but, but...

N: ...It’s super possessive and it’s very much a “Oh but not MY child,” kind of like...

R: Right, it’s how when someone designs a perfect society, that just happens to have a bunch of people on the bottom in a really negative way, they never ever envision themselves at the bottom of that.

N: Yes! Yes, very much, um.

R: So it’s very much like, “Well, oh not my child...

N: ...Right...

R: ...of course not. Of course we wouldn't do this to my child. It’s just a little cut. It won’t do anything, but...

N: ...It won’t do anything but don’t...

R: ...not mine...

N: ...touch my stuff.” It’s.

R: Yeah.

N: It’s just...

R: ...Uh...

N: ...it’s just really gross, sorry.

R: Yep. Well no, not sorry. Like it is - it’s really gross, and uh, just so, circling back so that we don’t drop it totally, with her being seen as a tool, it goes from super benign stuff like, “Oh you know she’s gotta find the Cloudpine and prove that she’s the kid from the prophecy,” to like, “Ok she’s in the prophecy, she’s going to betray someone very close to her and we’d better not warn her because then the prophecy won’t happen.”

(25:07)

N: Yeah, like, oh my god, um.

R: So, 200 pages before it happens, we know she’s gonna betray someone really close to her, and at the end of the book she is responsible for bringing Roger to her father and then her father kills Roger. Now, I'm like, textualists may quibble that he didn’t kill Roger, Roger fell off of the cliff, but, if he hadn’t fallen off the cliff he would have been killed by her father, and so I think morally it is - the intent is identical.

N: Yeah.

R: And then his death was used for the machine anyway, so what Lord Asriel wanted anyway happened.

N: Yeah, I - alright, so with - I want - I actually wanna talk about Roger, for a sec.

R: Ok, yeah.

N: We - we kind of touched on this on the neglect part. We’ve kind of talked about him - ‘cause - well we talked about him under his own segment, and then...

R: ...No, that was Tony Makarios. Roger hasn’t had his own segment.

N: Oh, sorry, nevermind. Am I thinking of the right person?

R: Roger is the friend who...

N: ....Oh, nevermind, I don’t wanna...

R: ...also was...

N: ...I don’t want to talk about Roger, just kidding.

R: Well we could - no...

N: ...I don’t have anything...

R: ...this is the only place...

N: ...to say, um.

R: Well, I mean, Roger…

N: ...So…

R: ...was kidnapped just like Tony, so...

N: ...That’s - yeah, but that’s...

R: ...Tony’s kidnapped and we see what happens to him. Roger is kidnapped, and we don’t see what happens to him, we can assume that part of it is like Tony except that he gets rescued when Lyra breaks the kids out of the facility, and then - so Lyra has this emotional ricochet from rescuing him and stopping the thing happening that happened to Tony that we have discussed at length previously. Stops that fate from happening to Roger after seeing it happening to Tony - or seeing the aftermath of what happened to Tony, and then brings him to her father where she thinks it's going to be safe, and then it happens anyway.

N: So, here’s - here’s something that I - I don’t know, in my head I keep circling back to.

R: Mmhmm.

N: Just the seesaw between um, over - overaggressive control...

R: ...Mmhmm...

N: ...of Lyra, versus that - that just seemingly indifferent neglect, specifically with her parents.

R: Ok.

N: Because both of them really do go from “every detail in this thing, you must follow exactly what I want”, flipping between that and just nothing.

R: So, with her parents ricocheting between neglect and active harmful abuse.

N: And the - and the active harmful abuse is something that like - neglect I feel like is portrayed in the book in a way that makes it very much seem as though they just can’t be bothered with having a child.

R: Mmhmm.

N: Like they just don’t want to bother having a kid.

R: Right, like “I’ll be an uncle, but I’m not gonna be your parent”.

N: Right. And - and I - and then her mother will only be her - be a mother because she found out that her father was calling himself her father, and - and like there’s this like, “Well, if - no. I - you can’t have her but I…” but there’s - but she doesn’t actually about being Lyra’s mom.

R: Right.

N: But the thing - but it kind of goes between that and just - I mean, really honestly the active abuse that happens to her, other than magical means, like any um, like - the emotional active abuse and the controlling active abuse, um…

R: ...Mmhmm...

N: ...really honestly are just about using her to - to give themselves something.

(28:37)

R: Yeah, like helping her kidnap more children.

N: And it’s...

R: ...or selling this idea - this thing that they’re gonna do.

N: Exactly, and it’s interesting to me because, a lot of times the depiction of something like that is - I guess a lot more overt in fiction?

R: Mmhmm.

N: Where as - as awful as - as this treatment of her is, the way it’s presented in this book is super subtle. And, honestly, as a kid, I did not pick up on it...

R: ...Yeah...

N: ...at all. I didn’t pick up on it from either parent.

R: The neglect, or the active?

N: Active.

R: Ok.

N: And, especially with her mom, I mean when I was reading this when I was younger, I was just like “Oh this person is a villain because she’s making her uncomfortable, all the time, and that’s how villains are,” and the controlling aspect, like I didn't even catch it.

R: Yeah.

N: And so it was interesting rereading this as an adult because, I just - like it - it really stood out to me because, it’s - it’s just so subtly done, but it’s not subtly done in a way that you’re not supposed to catch it? It’s just not shoved in your face, and it’s - it’s not laid out like clues to a puzzle. It just is the way that they act.

R: Right.

N: And it’s just super consistent, and it’s just kind of “the characters”, and, I don’t know... It was just very, very interesting for me to read again and kind of go, “Oh, ok…

R: ...Yeah...

N: ...this is there the whole time, and I didn’t even know. Especially because that’s the kind of thing that I - I tend to be very sensitive to in books? It tends to - like - not like it bothers me, but like I notice.

R: Yeah.

N: And reading this and realizing that as a kid I did not notice it in this book was - uh not really a shock, but it - it was definitely [a] surprise, so.

R: Yeah.

N: So I don’t know. That was interesting, but I just think it’s - but then once you notice it it’s almost - it’s almost emotional whiplash.

R: Right, because you’re just - you’re bouncing back and forth.

N: Yeah, just every other chapter she’s got somebody who’s ignoring her when they should be paying attention, or manipulating every single moment she makes...

R: But if you’re not worried about...

N: ...and there is not in between...

R: ...whether they should be paying attention to her, then she’s just….

N: ...she’s just a kid on an adventure.

R: She’s just with a different adult pretty much every chapter, you’re not really thinking about how she *really* should have been with *that* adult during this chapter, but they’re doing nothing.

N: Yeah, yes.

R: Yeah. It’s definitely omnipresent, but subtly done.

N: Yes.

R: Um.