The Republic of Heaven

How can he build an army so fast in a world he knows nothing about?

option a

the rebel angels had already started building it, and he was guided into the right place.

option b

it's fiction, so pullman can say whatever he wants, and lord asriel can be ever so magical and powerful in his speed army-building skills.

i'm sure there are options c and d, etcetera if anyone cares to add.

I think Pullman had to do a bit of a song and dance here, since he had different ideas of Lord Asriel's intentions in NL. Possibly Asriel communicated with other worlds beforehand, who'd begun organisation. Possibly he really can speed up time, or his world has a different timescale to the others.

Pretty much, think of something, and assume Lord Asriel can do it. He is satan, remember.

satan should technically be an angel though... so i was thinking xaphania for that role.

Xaphiana, Mrs Coulter and Asriel all have bits of Satan in their makeup.

jess wrote:satan should technically be an angel though... so i was thinking xaphania for that role.

Archangel, in fact - I thought that role was assumed by Pullman's female 'Wisdom' or whatever.

I go with option a, and always have done. I can't remember exact quotes, but there's definitely a lot to hint that plans for the second rebellion were long laid before the arrival of Asriel.

Max wrote:

jess wrote:satan should technically be an angel though... so i was thinking xaphania for that role.

Archangel, in fact - I thought that role was assumed by Pullman's female 'Wisdom' or whatever.

sophia?

eloquent wrote:I go with option a, and always have done. I can't remember exact quotes, but there's definitely a lot to hint that plans for the second rebellion were long laid before the arrival of Asriel.

ooh, i think i know what you're talking about. a little bit of it may have been from when will was first talking to baruch and balthamos. and when ruta skadi returns from lord asriel's camp to tell her fellow witches about what's going on in the world.

Sophia? Wasn't that the name of a school or college? St. Sophia's, I believe.

Quite possibly, since it means wisdom I think, from the Greek or somesuch.

I don't really think we've got Satan so much as just we've got the tendency and nature to sin and all. But I guess if you consider Satan to be sin, then there ya go.
I think Asriel just came along and assumed the role of leader in something that had been developing for quite a while.

Yeah, "soph" means wisdom.
Philosophy= phil (love)+soph(widsom)+y(it's a noun) = love of wisdom woo hooo! That's an easy example but such things are really quite helpful for knowing what ridiculous words mean.

If being sinful means we have sin inside us, and if sin is Satan, does that mean that if you sin enough you become Satan

There is a problem with option A. To build an army that is larger and better equipped than any we can imagine on Earth at the moment is something of a task. Soldiers will be arriving in tens of thousand to thousands of diffferent military installations all connected together and forming an immense fortress ring, hundreds and hundreds of miles in diameter, with a central fortress of basalt in the middle. Now these soldiers will have to work together with any non-combatants who arrive in order that everybody actually gets fed. Then of course the INCREDIBLE amount of spare parts, fuel and various chemicals and materials required for an army the size of the population of India will be a bit of a job. This means that, yeah, it would take years.
Here is the big problem - after all those years they would begin to figure out the affliction befalling daemons in other worlds.

Option C for me is that he is a commander like in Command and Conquer and goes out to collect minerals to actually build units of one sort another. hahahaha

Ceph Cepheus wrote:Option C for me is that he is a commander like in Command and Conquer and goes out to collect minerals to actually build units of one sort another. hahahaha

Lol, you've stumbled upon my favourite game series, so I shant argue...

You collect minerals in Command and Conquer? Isn't it Ore and Tiberium? And anyway, all Lord Asriel seems to use in his factories is IRON. Massive "baulks" of iron. Did I get it right?

Minerals is the generic term for tiberium, gems and ore that you get in various of the games </tangent>

Actually I think Pullman explains the whole building of the army thing somewhere, that it had been going on for aeons. But I can't be bothered finding the reference.