'His Dark Materials' Season 1 Finale Recap: "Betrayal"

I often group Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire when discussing its impact on the fantasy landscape. That's because both play on the same stereotype of the genre — the heroic white male whose plot armor and heart are both so thick, they can never do wrong or die. In Martin's opening novel, A Game of Thrones, he kills Ned Stark three-quarters of the way through. It's a shock when that happens (much like it is on screen in Game of Thrones' first season). Audiences are prepared to accept his survival at all costs, even when reality says otherwise. Martin's twist was merely recognizing it.

His Dark Materials takes much of the same tack in the first book, The Northern Lights (or in the U.S., The Golden Compass). Lord Asriel is, in Lyra's eyes, the hero, and despite all evidence to the contrary, the audience is willing to accept it. Mrs. Coulter is the terrible mother figure, the evil witch from fairy tales. Viewers are supposed to understand both Asriel and Coulter are ambitious people who were too alike to ever last as a couple. But the assumption is still that Lyra's version is semi-correct. We are primed to blame the woman for sin and see the man as the hero.

The opening to this final episode, "Betrayal," plays into those assumptions. Lyra has begun to see through some of her father's crap  (Her "It's been quite a journey to get here," response to his questions about Iorek is hilarious, as is her jibe about his taste in women and bears.) But there's still a great deal of hero worship. That she's come all this way to give him the alethiometer - which is *hers* - simply because he, as an adult male, should have it, speaks volumes about the gender dynamics at play here.