The Golden Compass

The “Golden Compass” is the first novel of the Dark Materials Trilogy. The Main character Lyra Belacqua is an orphaned twelve year old girl living at Jordan College, Oxford with her daemon Pantalaimon, or Pan. A daemon is essentially a person's soul that takes on animal forms. During childhood the daemon can shape shift at will until the person has reached maturity. At the beginning of the book, Lyra and Pan sneak into the forbidden “retiring room” and over hear her uncle, Lord Asriel, talk to his fellow scholars about the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights, and a mysterious elementary particle called Dust and how he plans to exploit its abilities to reach other dimensions or other “worlds.” After Lord Asriel's departure, Lyra overhears, from her friends, a rumor about Gobblers who have been kidnapping children. Later on Roger, Lyra's closest friend, is discovered to be kidnapped by these fiends. Determined to rescue him, Lyra plans are interrupted by a visitor, Ms. Coulter, who recruits Lyra as an apprentice. Before leaving, lyra is given, with the condition that she tell no one about it, a compass, or the alethiometer, that has many dials that can tell a person anything they need to know, by the master of the college who says that it originally belonged to Lord Asriel.

Leaving with Ms. Coulter, Lyra is at first, very fond of the woman, but later becomes more uneasy. Ms. Coulter's daemon, which is a golden monkey, was caught looking through Lyra's things, which Pan told Lyra, most likely looking for the compass. The two quickly escape, after the incident and finding out that Ms. Coulter is the head of the “Gobblers.” After being chased they are picked up by Gypsies, who Lyra is friends with some of their children. The Gypsies, who have had their own children taken from them by the Gobblers are planning a search and rescue mission to save all the children. Lyra discovers, from one of the Gypsies, that Lord Asriel and Ms. Coulter are her biological parents as well. During her time with the Gypsies, Lyra learns how to properly read the alethiometer and gains the companionship of an exiled polar bear named Iorek Byrnson. During the search, Lyra is kidnapped by the Gobblers and discovers that they are separating children from their daemons and essentially killing them. After a series of daring moves and almost getting separated, or cut away from, Pan, Lyra frees the children and escapes on a hydrogen balloon, piloted by Lee Scoresby. Lee then takes Lyra, Roger, and Iorek to Lord Asriel, who is being held captive in Iorek's homeland, Svalbard. The church, not agreeing with Asriel's explorations, has imprisoned him in order to shut him up. Upon reaching Svalbard, Lyra meets with the current king, Iofur, who tricked and exiled Iorek, into fighting with Iorek so that he may gain his rightful throne back. Iorek successfully wins the fight, and kills Iofur. After the victory, Lyra and Roger continue their way to Asirel and discover that he had been working on his research even while being imprisoned due to his influential nature. Lyra soon finds out that Lord Asriel never needed the alethiometer, like she originally thought, but instead he needed Roger. Asriel takes Roger outside and murders him by killing Roger's daemon. By severing the connection between child and daemon, he released a high amount of energy. With the energy and his specialized equipment, Lord Asriel was able to open a portal to another world and soon disappears. Pan tells Lyra to follow him, and Lyra, devastated by her mistake, follows Asriel into the portal.