You guys have no idea how insanely excited I am about this film version of The Golden Compass, a novel about a world where people wear their souls on the outside for everyone to see. The casting of Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter is genius. I wrote to the author Phillip Pullman after I read the trilogy and told him about how Trog was my daemon. He wrote back a truly lovely postcard. He’s truly one of the most brilliant fantasists of the last century. This film will surely generate a great deal of controversy, as well, since Pullman’s universe can be read as a criticism of organized religion, particularly the Catholic Church.

Happiness is a tiger daemon. But don’t tell Trog!