The Old and The Young

One of my classmate’s readings was from the first book in a trilogy called His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. I’ve never read this series but from the context (and the pages provided), I think I’d be interested in reading a bit more about it. The concept of having your soul existing outside of your body as an entirely different entity is fascinating, but in this setting, it’s devastating because people are dismembering the souls of children from their bodies. It reminds me a lot of The Golden Compass which if I’m recalling correctly their animal companions had a direct connection to their life force, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, in which every Avatar befriended an animal guide that shared a supernatural bond with them that could not be broken. I like to think that my childhood cat, Copper, would have been my animal guide.

The conversation in the pages often revolved around the protagonist, Lyra, whom it seems they are planning to manipulate in some sort of way. Some of the commentary that I thought was interesting was this line “‘That’s the duty of the old,’ said the Librarian, ‘to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.’” which made me think about society as a whole. I know that it is definitely true that “the old” (mentors, relatives, teachers) are anxious on the behalf of the young. In my own experience you see this especially within the church because there are simultaneously a lack of young people and an abundance that are simply not reached, and they worry about young people staying in the church.

As for the young scorning the anxiety of the old–the YA genre, specifically when it focuses on dystopian stories, was always my favorite as a teenager. There was something about being young that felt powerful, because we had enough freedom and loose ends to rebel. The wisdom of “the old” wasn’t always heeded because it felt restrictive of the future we thought we saw ahead of us. Their knowledge was also heavily influenced by stereotypes that people are still struggling to let go of, which is why our perception of one another can be very flawed.