Talk:The Subtle Knife

Bringing the article back from the dead.

The plot summary was atrocious, so I changed it somewhat. Apparently a couple of people have been tinkering with it, but I removed quite a bit. Please let me know if I went too far, or feel free to add stuff back in. Jabberwockgee (talk) 23:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article merging

Hi,

I don't know the Wikipedia procedure for merging articles, but it's clear to me that this article about the audiobook should be merged with this article. Any thoughts? Can anyone do it and/or explain it to me? Bobnorwal (talk) 00:06, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Plot summary additions

I reverted quite a large addition to the summary by User:Wolfdog, apologies for that as there were a few improvements in there. However, the current summary is near the recommended length for plot summaries in any case, and there were too many additions that I wouldn't consider to be better than what we already had, a few examples (there are others):

  • The events of the previous books are described, and then a reference is made to the book where the events are described. This isn't needed in this summary.
  • The city is described as "seemingly deserted" and then the next sentence states it's not. True, but not needed.
  • The description of the Spectres is better handled in the orignal version (i.e. introduced by Giacomo)
  • The mysterious/ believed dead /possibly alive stuff is unnecessary.
  • There are too many references to the feral children.
  • It's not possible to show someone your missing fingers... I know what was meant though.
  • The sentence where they eavesdrop, steal and escape became too long.
  • Reuniting, long lost and at last is too much.

I've made some additional edits of some of the things I liked though. Scribolt (talk) 15:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but as is typical of reverters, you've also reinstated some blatantly inferior wordings, like the inconsistency of using "Twelve-year-old" and then "12-year-old" in the very next sentence. How is that an improvement? I wish reverters would be more careful. Anyway, I'll comment on each of your bullets soon. Wolfdog (talk) 17:14, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you're going to re-write the majority of a fairly stable plot in piecemeal edits, I would suggest using edit summaries so it's easier for others to see what you're doing and why. You're right, I agree that the existing text could have been improved there. BTW, labelling me as a 'reverter' seems a little harsh considering I went to the effort of explaining why I did what I did and incorporating some of your suggestions. Scribolt (talk) 17:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I meant "reverter" as a purely descriptive term: the person doing the reverting. On the other hand, I appreciate some of your changes: missing fingers are indeed unshowable, saying both long lost and at last are probably overkill, etc. So let me openly say that I know and appreciate that you reverted in good faith; I know that tone is difficult to discern in writing. I'm genuinely pleased that you at least brought this to the talk page instead of simply reverting with no explanation. Others of your reverts of course are subjective, like about the length of sentences and whether descriptions were better handled or not previously. We can continue to discuss here. Some of my points:

  • The first three sentences now have a choppy, terse, telegraphic sound to them instead of a smooth, natural flow. Can we transition one into another?
No objection to trying to make it flow better, but I'd avoid referencing the cat or introducing additional detail.
  • You remove setting-tags like "Meanwhile, back in Lyra's home world...." Why?
The "meanwhile" is either talking to the article reader, or serves to indicate that something is happening at the same time which is going to get complicated if we do that throughout. Might be worth indicating the world events happen in, but again, this is going to make things again more complicated to do consistently. I'd probably be OK with just removing the meanwhile
  • Grumman was explicitly presumed dead in the previous book. That's why I added the "believed dead" part. Is that insignificant?
I'm fine with believed dead, just not as well as being mysterious & possibly alive
  • Why is the sentence "Police arrive, question Lyra and her knowledge of Will, and she accidentally gives him away" relevant? Her giving him away never has any consequence. It's not as if the police later arrest Will or anything. It's unnecessary.
Agree, it was more relevant in the book I think (more stuff about him looked for) but it's not needed in the plot summary at present
  • "having gone to Will's world long ago" seems like one of those same types of unnecessary clauses that you would criticize me for. Can't we delete it?
Agree it's not elegantly phrased, but we should have some kind of reference that he is not originally of Will's world.
  • Shouldn't there be some explanation that Grumman can use magic? He's not just a shaman in the secular use of the word; he literally has supernatural powers.
Do his magic powers impact the plot? Genuine question, been a while since I read it, does he use it to help heal Will? If not, it's not all that important.
@Scribolt: A good litmus test. I think he uses bloodmoss rather than magic to heal Will. He does, however, directly use magic to conjure storms that down the enemy soldiers' zeppelins. Only one zeppelin is left for Lee to have to stave off. So his magic impacts the plot, but maybe not our summary? Wolfdog (talk) 14:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't there be some explanation about Asriel's rebellion or, as I had added, at least some context as to how we know it? It's not as if the previous book discusses Asriel amassing armies to kill God.
Yes, we probably should.
  • We should explain to the reader that Authority = God, or just otherwise explain this character who is introduced for the very time in this book.
I'd be careful about that, this is probably better handled elsewhere than the plot summary. It's not until the third book that the demarcation between divine creator / head of church / 1st angel becomes a bit clearer.
I understand your hesitation, but the second book does in fact equate "the Authority" in Lyra's world with "God" in Will's world. I've put "ancient being" for now, though something still seems vague about that.
  • "Spectres" is sometimes uppercase and sometimes lowercase in this article, a problem I had previously fixed.
Re-fix!
  • "Magisterium soldiers" is confusing for anyone not familiar with the universe. If we just say "enemy soldiers", as I did, we don't need to go into a whole extra sentence of explaining what the Magisterium is.
If you were someone unfamiliar, who would you consider to be the enemy at this point? Maybe there's a piping solution.
  • The angels Balthamos and Baruch are not named in this book; therefore, they shouldn't be named in the summary here. (A piped link to them is OK though.)
Agree if they aren't named.
  • Witches aren't really "killed" by Spectres. I struggled with how to word this myself.
Drained?
  • Why can't "prey on older childern and adults" be simplified to "prey on adults"?
I'd prefer it as this also links to the various themes relating to the loss of innocence and adolescence (which isn't quite the same as being adult), but don't feel very strongly

As you can see, I thought through all my edits and I'm even letting many of my reverted additions go. But what do you think of these above points? Wolfdog (talk) 19:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification on your comment, sorry if I was a bit prickly, also on your well thought through comments above. You make some good points, I'll give some feedback tomorrow when I have more time Scribolt (talk) 20:51, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
OK, some thoughts above. Scribolt (talk) 16:12, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Popcornduff: That's fine, but there's no denying that the article at that stage needed proofreading at the very least. Thanks, Scribolt, for being open to discussion. I'll make some minor edits, hopefully to your liking. Wolfdog (talk) 13:56, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Scribolt: It seems it has been a while for you indeed. Look at the text: "The mind that is answering these questions isn't human, is it? / NO. BUT HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN US. / Us? There's more than one of you? / UNCOUNTABLE BILLIONS. / But what are you? / ANGELS." That's page 248-249 in my version. This is a major reveal in the book. They describes themeselves as complexifications and creatures of Dust and even admit that they intervened in human evolution. Seems pretty important to me. Why do you fight against that use of the word angels but not where it appears in the paragraph with two angels waiting to guide Will to Asriel? I say we should put it back in. Wolfdog (talk) 17:19, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And immediately after that, as I said in my edit summary, it goes on to get a little more ambigious, referring to the fact that they are structures and complexifications, and that angel is their office, not their form. Unlike the 'angels' who appear at the end and in the third book, who are unambiguously angels and which may confuse readers of this plot summary. Maybe each of the billions of particles of dust is an an angel, maybe they are only angels when they coalesce, maybe she is speaking to some coalesced angels and not the entirety of dust, all of this nuance is lost and isn't ultimately important to understanding the plot of The Subtle Knife. That said, if others think this a major reveal, I won't object to it's inclusion. @Pincrete:, @Popcornduff:, you've both edited the plot recently, what are your thoughts? Scribolt (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add that if no one weighs in one way or the other in the next day or so and you feel really strongly about it, I won't revert again. You're not wrong, I just think my way's better ;-). Scribolt (talk) 20:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're overthinking this. Pullman chooses to use the word "angels" as the answer to Mallone's question, with all its connotations and complexities. There's no good reason to actively avoid that term or feel the need to define all its nuances when it's the word the author uses AND angels end up becoming an important point of the plot for the series. Bringing up two angels right at the end of the summary gives the reader the impression that this is the first time we know about angels in the series. I guess it's up to the majority, like you said. Wolfdog (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I am, but I'm not sure I agree with the assertion because the author uses a word which is in the context of a 3 book trilogy, that means that it's also useful in the context of a summarising the narrative here. Also, to me, the fact that angels are made of dust isn't a particularly important to the plot of the series. The link between dust & consciousness seems to be a bigger theme than the fact that dust can also become what are known as angels, but lets see if anyone has an opinion. Scribolt (talk) 06:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on my previous point and to explain why I don't mind B&B being described as angels later on, the a reader of this article who may or may not have read the entire series does not know that the author later goes on to define the term "angels" in this fictional universe as being that coalesce out of elementary particles of consciousness. When they read the term angel, missing this information, most will think of the traditional biblical entity with wings etc. B&B have these properties, so the term angel is an accurate and useful to describe them. When Mary speaks to the dark matter particles, we need to consider is it helpful to use the same term to describe what is happening? Scribolt (talk) 07:14, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to think that the reference to Angels is cryptic and not necessary to understanding the plot, nor does it move that plot forward, the conversation with the consciousness-behind-the-machine does, but not the 'who' of that consciousness .... to be honest I had forgotten the mention of angels in the quote that Wolfdog gives above and had to check it out ... I hadn't forgotten the cryptic, but outside-the-normal-scientific-nature of the conversation that Mary has with her machine. I'm inclined to think therefore that, as it can be omitted, it should be. These books are full of delightful complexities and details, we are inevitably going to have to 'skip' some IMO. Pincrete (talk) 09:14, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Subtle_Knife