Gay Angels?

[Anya J.]

Well, I couldn't vote cuz I'm too late, but here are my thoughts:

Baruch was definitely a male human before becoming an angel. We'll just take that as a starting point.
Angels-at least in my opinion-do have genders, probably two. I think they are different than human genders, but to a human they translate into male and female.
Judging by Balthamos' and Baruch's human forms, they are both of the gender that would go with the human gender "male."
Hence, they are both the same gender.
Balthamos and Baruch "loved each other with a passion." In my imagination, their love is a mix of romantic, brotherly, platonic, etc.
My conclusion is that they're gay. Do what you want with it.

[ManFromEarth]

Okay seriously! Philip Pullman readers of all people! Why are people always so resistant to any explanation that a character in literature could be gay? People will resist it harder than any other idea it seems like.

Brotherly romantic love. What is that exactly?? The fact that you call it romantic love and then distinguish brotherly love from sexual romantic love is just dumb. I'm not trying to be mean, but it's flat out dumb. It's called romantic love because it is romantic and sexual in nature. So what if they were angels. He clearly intended for the two characters to be male. They are not so much romantic love as much as the same person? Isn't that that the whole idea of romantic love in the first place. Two flesh becoming one in the sexual act?

All your arguments about how you see it as more this or that are just off. The two are male, they love each other. Maybe there is resistance because of classification of sexual orientation on an angel. That doesn't matter. IT doesn't matter if they ONLY love men. Maybe they could have a relationship with a woman as well. But their specific relationship is clearly romantic in nature and they are clearly both men, which by definition IS A GAY RELATIONSHIP!!!!! i don't understand why this is so hard.

[ArG]

I wouldn't say I resist it. I think they are gay, but I hold nothing against them for it. There is nothing wrong with it. I think we are all just exploring everything in the His Dark Materials package. There is gay angels, issues with the church, different worlds, etc. It's just something else to talk about and explore.

[Anouk2007]

So... We're not going to heaven then?

[SirOccam]

I think they were clearly gay, and as ManFromEarth says, it's a little weird that so many people are trying so hard to explain some way out of it.

[Anouk2007]

^they don't have anything better to do!

[ArG]

Haha!! everyone one on the computer has nothing better to do

[Multiverse]

As I understand it, they were thrown out of the old-testamentish heaven for being gay - although that might just be an explanation I like because it fills in some plot holes.

Another point of view is that they might just have been with each other for so long that they´ve become each other´s self-appointed 'dæmons'. When reading the books, I was slightly expecting to get an explanation as to why almost every character seemed to be spiritually connected to some person or artefact - people and their dæmons, Panserbjørnene and their armour, Gallivespians and their dragonflies, and - to an extent - Baruch and Balthamos. Still, this idea pretty much got disproven as the series ended without any mention of that. It seems the only idea behind it was that Pullman likes to place characters two-and-two.

-Multiverse