Wish on Lightning

Why isn’t the His Dark Materials fandom bigger?

I keep wondering this. It seems like it should be one of the major fandoms, and yet it isn’t. Also as far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s a somewhat narrow-scope fandom. Most of the fics I’ve seen, for instance, are Lyra/Will or Asriel/Marisa (don’t get me wrong, I love both of these and honestly if you like HDM and you don’t ship Lyra/Will there’s something wrong).

All the elements of a good fandom are there. There’s socio-political development and discussion for those who like that kind of thing, there are several different groups/cultures/societies (Humans, Gallivespians, Witches, Bears, Angels, Mulefa, etc), there is an absolutely massive cast of characters, and lots of very complex relationships and enigmatic characters and unresolved tangents and a relatively open ending.

So what’s missing? Because as much as I love Asriel/Marisa and Lyra/Will, I would love to see some Baruch/Balthamos fic (because oh my god Baruch/Balthamos might actually be my favourite thing Pullman put into those books), or some Mary Malone backstory, or 5 Times Giacomo Paradisi Forgot to Close a Window (and one time he didn’t), or the stories the ghosts tell to the harpies…so many options! Please write them!

Or if you think you know what about these books makes the fandom so strangely small, please tell me because I honestly want to know.