Is realism always necessary in literature? Do we read fantasy for realism? Did he really have to destroy just about every potentially nurturing relationship those poor kids got into, except for the essentially sterile ones they're left with at the end? I don't think that's positive at all. Reading this as a kid might have driven me away from fantasy altogether. Doing Good in the World is no substitute for not having love.

I don't think it's any more realistic for Lyra to plan to do a Prisoner of Zenda thing where she sits in the College gardens with her Beautiful Memories once a year while she's married to someone else than it would have been for her to actually have had some kind of a future with Will. It's just another form of romanticism.