The Republic of Heaven

While re-reading TSK, I noticed something interesting. One of the Ci'gazze children Lyra meets has a theory about where the spectres came from that he was told by his Father. It does not correspond with the accepted fact that they were made by the knife, so is not true. However I do think it has a purpose. This is the quote:

"This is what happened, all right: this Guild man hundreds of years ago was taking some metal apart. Lead. He was going to make it into gold. And he cut it and cut it smaller and smaller till he came to the smallest piece he could get. There ain nothing smaller than that. So small you couldn't see it, even. But he cut that too, and inside the smallest little bit, there was all the Spectres packed in twisted over and folded over and folded up so tight they took up no space at all. But once he cut it, bam! They wooshed out, and they been here ever since."

I'm no expert in the field, so correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds to me very much like nuclear physics. As far as I understand, when a nuclear bomb is detonated, the plutonium atoms are made to become unstable, and the relitively huge force holding their constituent sub-atomic particles together collapses. At this point they all shoot outwards with a phenominal energy that triggers the apocaliptic effects of a nuclear explosion.

Could PP be saying that all nuclear weapons do is release evil into the world, that splitting the atom is like opening a Pandora's box? That is certainly the impression that I get. In addition, alchemy (attempts to make gold) has always symbolised greed. PP is a member of the cold war generation, who were all very anti bomb, so it would make sense if he metaphorically included this in his work.

It does not correspond with the accepted fact that they were made by the knife, so is not true.

Don't know about everyone else, but I always thought that the two existed side-by-side. ie, the first 'Spectre Nuclear Explosion' brought out some Spectres and more importantly the possibility for more of them to be created by the knife. Was the Subtle Knife being used before this cutting too deep? (ooh, similar to the dwarves mining too deep in LOTR)

i think they would have had to use the knife to cut apart atoms (if they actually did), so they might have been making specters two ways at once. or perhaps the knife works by "stretching" a string-theoretical string until it's large enough to pass through? that probably doesn't make any sense mathematically in the theory, though.

I always thought that the two existed side-by-side.

Thinking about it, that is probably true. The knife is still responsible for all of the spectres, but as Daniel said, it had different ways of making them.

Maybe the knife is just a nuclear weapon, only in the Cittigazze world? I mean, its called the "God Destroyer", whenever it is used, it just creates more evil things, and even Iorek thinks that it should have never been made, sort of like the debate over whether to use nuclear weapons...

Spooky...

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Hmmm, I would say nuclear weapons (or anything nuclear for that matter) are a bit more dangerous than the subtle knife...

I think not... Can nuclear weapons suck the conciousness out of the world? Kill Gods?

Maybe the knife is just a nuclear weapon

I like that, fits with the atom splitting and the causing of 'toxic' waste - Spectres and losing Dust.

The sum of the mass in the nucleus is slightly greater than the sum of its parts, for some odd reason...
So if you split it, some of this strange mass is converted to energy (via E=mc^2), which provides the energy for the nuclear explosion.

Loss of mass...hmm...

yeah, thats called mass defect... but i definetly dont agree that a nuclear weapon is more powerful than the knife... though it cant be used on such a large scale, it can still... oh, what was it?... cut through anything...

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I doubt the knife can still cut through something while its bearer is undergoing nuclear fission.

If they threw it it could. That's something they need to add to the movie, a scene where Will launches the knife through something to kill someone!

But wouldn't the hilt get stuck?

Yes, sadly... If only the blade was wider than the hilt, then it could go forever! But if you dropped it it would go.. Take the blade out, and launch it from a space-craft towards a planet. Booom!

I don't think it can cut while it's melting in the heat of the mantle, either.

and it would melt, because all it took was a (rather large) wood/resin fire to melt it enough to reforge it.

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I think that although nuclear weapons are probably physically stronger than the knife, the knife has some more spiritual (I donlt think that's quite the right word, but close enough) properties that nuclear weapons don't, like spectres. And the spectres can do a lot of damage, so I don't know that I'd necessarily say nuclear weapons are more powerful overall.

Isobel wrote:I donlt think that's quite the right word

Subtle

And that is not me just being ironic, as it is true that although nukes may have more physical and destructive power, the knife has subtle and subversive powers which can cause much more devastation if misused (i.e. dust leaking away, bringing an end to concious life)

if you want to kill everything with the knife, you only need one and you can just cut a bunch of windows in the same place instead of launching hundreds of nukes all over the place in each of an infinite number of worlds.