HBO's His Dark Materials || Dust, Daemons, Alethiometer || Explained by REDTV

HBO's His Dark Materials

Multiple worlds, armored bears, Dust, daemons, not those kinds of demons. HBO's His Dark Materials can be pretty confusing. We're here to open up the Alethiometer and answer a few of your biggest questions about what the crap is going on in this show.

Magisterium

[Old Man] “This kind of heresy is of the highest priority to the Magisterium.”

The main bad guys of the series, they're the governing force that keeps order in Lyra's world. You may have noticed their garments, which are quite clerical - that's because author Philip Pullman modeled the Magisterium after the Catholic Church. They work in service of the Authority, which is their term for God. We don't really see them performing many charitable acts or community service. Instead they're focused on keeping order and censoring things they consider to be blasphemous.

In that way, it's not a criticism of faith but rather of control, and this is part of what made the 2007 movie "The Golden Compass" not work as well, as the threat of a boycott from Christians lead the studio to remove religious themes altogether. The Magisterium is obsessed with three things: order, control, and Dust.

Dust

In the world of His Dark Materials, Dust, with a capital D, is a mysterious substance that connects all intelligent life in the universe and possibly beyond. It's not like midichlorians, okay, maybe it's technically a little bit like midichlorians. Dust is attracted to people, specifically adults, not children. It tends to bounce off of kids. This is why the Magisterium believes that Dust is actually Original Sin, that thing from the Bible. In their minds, it's evidence that something changes when innocence becomes experience.

Daemon

A daemon is a physical embodiment of a person's soul, manifested as an animal. It represents your dual nature, your instincts, and your conscience. 

Daemons change shape at will for children, because their personalities are always growing and changing, but upon puberty they settle into one form, representing a core aspect of your personality. The bond between a human and their daemon is sacred. Hurting one will affect the other, and seeing someone without a daemon is like seeing a person without a head - it just does not happen.

Armored Bears

There are talking bears in this show. They have a kingdom in the north where they tend to keep to themselves, occasionally trading with outsiders. Now, bears don't have daemons, but they do have something else, their armor, which is crafted out of sky iron - a very rare metal. Bears consider their armor to be like their souls, or daemons. A bear without their armor is missing that soul, their prized possession.

Alethiometer

[Old Man] “It's an Alethiometer, it tells you the truth.”

Then finally there's Lyra's greatest treasure, the Alethiometer. In the simplest of terms, the Alethiometer is a compass- like device based on the real world astrolabe that can read the truth in any situation. Normally it requires years of study, but Lyra is mysteriously able to master it pretty quickly. You ask it a question and something, or someone, provides an honest and truthful answer. Only six were ever made, and the Magisterium yearns to have them all. So long as Lyra has one, total control is out of their reach. There will be a lot more to unpack as His Dark Materials continues, like what's the deal with multiple worlds? What is Lyra's destiny? But hopefully we've shined a little bit of light into this dusty strange darkness, for now anyway.