Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials

[lupinesque]

<Barb and Luke on Pullman's Will>

It is only Will's own thoughts that would make an audience think he 
was a murderer for that first death, I think.  At least, that's what I 
was thinking as I read it--"come on, Will, you didn't mean to kill 
him"--and so what emerged was a sense not that Will was dangerous but 
that he was extremely, even overly, conscientious.  How will that be 
brought across in a screenplay, I wonder?

The alethiometer, on the other hand, says he's a murderer.  So it's as 
hyperconscientious as Will.  

They could omit Will's whole evolution, how much he's sickened by 
violence (even accidentally inflicted), which would be a shame because 
I like it--but there are several complex characters in those books and 
they'll have to be greatly simplified.  I have never understood why 
Lyra relaxes when she learns he's a murderer, though I'm intrigued by 
it, and I'd love to hear people's interpretations.

Amy (whose daemon is a meerkat)
shuddering at the thought of a computer-generated Pantalaimon