Spectres in Will's World

Sparrow · Postby **Sparrow** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 3:21 am

At some point during either TSK or TAS (I can't really remember which), Will remembers how his mother used to have to count leaves on a bush or slats on benches and things like that when she was "troubled," and he speculated that there may have been Spectres in his world. It had sounded to me like his mom had just gone off into the deep end after his father disappeared, but I figured I'd gather some other opinions on this.

AySz88 · Postby **AySz88** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 4:39 am

It could have been a sort of pointer towards the symbolism of the Specters - the specter of her husband's disappearance made her insane.

eloquent · Postby **eloquent** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 11:20 am

This is what I wrote about it ages ago:

a 2 month younger eloquent wrote:I always thought that the spectres getting Elaine was metaphorical, and maybe her mental illness represented that. You could even say (at a stretch) that people who were 'sucked' (or whatever the verb for being specterised is) and Elaine were both suffering from the consequences of the subtle knife (it created the windows which made John go AWOL and made the men come after her and it made the spectres), which would mean that 'spectre' could be extended to cover all the reasonable causality-linked detrimental effects of the knife.

(Maybe I'm just reading too much into this ).

[/quote]

Starshade · Postby **Starshade** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 1:30 pm

True that within TSK Will mentions thathis mother does the same.
But and this is my point, why can some people see the Spectres and some can't or is it that they can't be bothered to try and notice?

AySz88 · Postby **AySz88** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 3:13 pm

It's like the same sort of thing as your daemon settling - kids can't see them when they're young, but adults can see them...and are vulnerable to them.

Starshade · Postby **Starshade** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 3:37 pm

I understand that bit... its wired that grown ups can only see them when they seem to want to, thats wired...

Postby **jessia** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 10:59 pm

a second definition of specter (after ghostly apparition...) is "unpleasant prospect: a threat or prospect of something unpleasant"

well the difference between grown-ups and kids... innocence and experience. innocence, being not-experience, could also be percieved as ignorance... perhaps childrens are capable of ignoring the spectres (as the adults try to, e.g. counting bricks) on a subconcious level so that they don't have to deal with them on the concious level (that would kill them... kill as in the soul-sucking bit).

Bantanix · Postby **Bantanix** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 11:25 pm

another thing. if specters suck out your daemons then why did mrs coulter sic a specter on that witches daemon then on her?wouldnt it have no effect?

AySz88 · Postby **AySz88** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 12:16 am

Ms. Coulter never sent a Specter to attack the human, she first told one to grab the daemon, then later told it to consume it....

Bantanix · Postby **Bantanix** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 12:18 am

OOOOOOOO ok that makes more sense

Sparrow · Postby **Sparrow** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:30 am

jessia wrote:a second definition of specter (after ghostly apparition...) is "unpleasant prospect: a threat or prospect of something unpleasant"

well the difference between grown-ups and kids... innocence and experience. innocence, being not-experience, could also be percieved as ignorance... perhaps childrens are capable of ignoring the spectres (as the adults try to, e.g. counting bricks) on a subconcious level so that they don't have to deal with them on the concious level (that would kill them... kill as in the soul-sucking bit).

Well that certainly would fit in with the rest of the symbolism... Good call.

Postby **jessia** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 3:07 am

wow, i made sense... kinda.

tVader14 · Postby **tVader14** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 3:16 am

I could never understand that part of when Willl thought his mom was attacked by specters. Why would she be the only one attacked? It always confused me. Maybe it's because she knew about the ways into the other worlds? Who knows? I don't...

Postby **jessia** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 3:22 am

spectres in the sense that they haunt people... not spectres like the soul-sucking ghosts...

Starshade · Postby **Starshade** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:01 pm

I spectres were in Cittagazze then they would have found the window to our universe and would have attacked the adults. Why did they not find it?

eloquent · Postby **eloquent** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 2:15 pm

Maybe not enough got through to make an impact.

Starshade · Postby **Starshade** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 3:51 pm

How would that be... do they move around in groups or are they loners like wolves... its all too deep for me!

Postby **jessia** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 4:36 pm

maybe they couldn't move through windows at all...

did coulter take spectres back to her world when she took lyra?

Loriel · Postby **Loriel** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 5:11 pm

But if Spectres were some Cittagazze-only deal, why would there be a new Spectre created whenever a window was opened? And if not, why would there be so many Spectres in Cittagazze, unlike other worlds? Oi, I feel confused.

Sparrow · Postby **Sparrow** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 5:28 pm

Loriel wrote:But if Spectres were some Cittagazze-only deal, why would there be a new Spectre created whenever a window was opened? And if not, why would there be so many Spectres in Cittagazze, unlike other worlds? Oi, I feel confused.

I think they talked about that in TAS... The Philosopher's Guild had made so many windows that there were bound to be more Spectres there than in any other world. Also, maybe a place in Cittagazze-world is the place where Spectres officially come into being when a window is opened? Obviously, it couldn't just sprout out of the window the second it's cut, or whoever opened the window would have seen it.

Spectres in Will's World

Spectres in Will's World

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