His Dark Materials is one of the most exciting shows coming to HBO in the near future. Based on Philip Pullman’s book trilogy, it tells the story of Lyra Belacqua, a precocious child who lies at a university in a world not unlike our own…except there’s a lot more steam power and everyone has an animal familiar called a dæmon. Without taking up too much time, she goes on a wild journey involving child abduction, a dimension-splitting knife, angels, and a lot of other stuff. I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing this show:

Playing Lyra is Dafne Keen, who you might remember stealing the show from Hugh Jackman as the mutant Laura in Logan. Speaking at the 2019 TCAs summer press tour, she sounded psyched to put her stamp on the part. “I feel [Lyra is] very needed right now because we don’t usually have young woman leads,” she said. “We have more and more, thank God, but they’re not something that we have in abundance, and especially having to portray a character who is so strong and is so determined and who is a hero is very fun to do, and I feel very privileged to be able to do that.”

If the show sticks to the books, and indications are that it will, Lyra will definitely make an impression on people.

Picking up where Keen left off, His Dark Materials executive producer Jack Thorne — the guy who wrote the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, FYI — took things a little further and praised author Philip Pullman for telling the story from the perspective of the 11-year-old Lyra rather than, say, her brilliant uncle Lord Asriel (James McAvoy in the show).

One of the things that I think is most beautiful about this book and the thing that I have sort of tried to keep in our heads as we’re going through this entire process was Philip could’ve told this story from the perspective from Lord Asriel. If this was a Marvel movie, it would be Asriel’s story.

Is that some light shade thrown at Marvel for prioritizing male-led superhero movies? It’s true that it took Marvel a good long while to make a female-led superhero film with Captain Marvel earlier this year, and a Black Widow solo movie coming down the pipeline. But I’m not sure I agree that Asriel would be their choice of protagonist. As Throne points out, Asriel is intent on doing “great” things, “amazing acts that will redefine the world,” while Lyra is focused on “doing the right thing. Doing the good thing.” But Asriel is sooooort of an antagonist in His Dark Materials, at least for a while, viewed from a certain perspective. He’s complex, but Lyra roots the story to the ground. It’s hard to picture of version of it without her at the center,

“I think that dichotomy between goodness and greatness is something that this book so beautifully plays into,” Thorne continued. “And we’ve tried to keep that in mind all the way through our telling of it.” His Dark Materials debuts on HBO this fall. Bring it.

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