His Dark Materials Trilogy: In-Depth Theme Analysis

 Welcome to my new series for the month of March. I'm digging deep into my favourite story of all time, the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. This consists of The Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in the USA), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. I have not yet read the Book of Dust trilogy, but it will be on my TBR. 

Today I'm covering Lyra's story arc. She's the main protagonist of the series and a fascinating character. The journey she takes in the story is all about her coming of age. Her transition from childhood towards adulthood and the lessons she learns along the way. 

Childhood - Jordan College

Lyra's character is well established early on and we know she is curious and clever, independent and confident but stubborn and rebellious as well. She is a natural leader, and resents being told what to do. 

She will break the rules when she disagrees with them or if her curiosity gets the better of her. She's an explorer as well, and knows the college and the city of Oxford very well. 

Attempted Poisoning of Lord Asriel

Witnessing the Master poisoning the Tokay shows Lyra that adults are capable of doing seriously bad things. Even adults she trusts and respects, and this throws her off. She does the right thing by letting Asriel know about it, saving his life. She also learns of Dust for the first time and has a strong desire to understand it better. 

Mrs Coulter and the Alethiometer

The Master gives Lyra the alethiometer and urges her to keep it a secret from Mrs Coulter but doesn't explain why. She is unsure of who to trust but is star-struck by Mrs Coulter. Lyra had been largely raised by scholars and had never met anyone quite like Marissa Coulter. 

Mrs Coulter shows Lyra a drastically different kind of life with high fashion, socialising and even manipulation of others. It all seems very grand and exciting at first, but Lyra soon grows bored of it.

Pantalaimon has his doubts about the promises to take Lyra North. In this series, daemons are manifestations of the soul, so his doubts indicates Lyra's sub-conscious sensing that things are not quite what they seem. They argue about a shoulder-bag prior to a party at the apartment and this proves to Lyra that Mrs Coulter cannot be trusted. This is confirmed again when they learn of her involvement with the Gobblers. 

The North

When Lyra travels north, she makes a lot of interesting choices. She defies the Gyptians who have taken over responsibility for her in order to advocate for Iorek Byrnison. She talked him down and sought justice for him, while defying the adults. This turns out to be the right thing to do though. 

After this, she learns of an odd occurrence in a nearby village and this time Lord Faa trusts her knowledge from the alethiometer and allows her to go with Iorek. There she discovers what is happening to the children taken. She finds Tony Makarios without his daemon, and despite her deep horror and fear of him, she shows him kindness and compassion. She demonstrates her bravery here as well. 

Bolvangar

She demonstrates her mother's ability to lie and deceive people very well to ensure the people don't realise who she is. She finds Roger and Tony Costa and learns more about what's been happening. During a fire drill she meets Kaisa, the daemon of a witch, Serafina Pekkala and they free the cut daemons to find their humans. Lyra notices the staff of the centre are unused to managing groups of children and spots an opportunity she can use. 

She concocts a plan to escape from Bolvangar to reach the approaching Gyptians, but Mrs Coulter arrives and rescues Lyra from the process of intercision. Mrs Coulter lies to Lyra, telling her the procedure is important for growing up and is a good thing. Yet Lyra questions why Mrs Coulter would save her from it if it was such a good thing. She knows Mrs Coulter can never be trusted, and manages to enact her escape plan. 

Svalbard

Reaching Svalbard and the kingdom of the bears, Lyra demonstrates her own mastery of manipulation on Iofur Raknison and allows Iorek to succeed in killing him and becoming King of the bears. She goes to Lord Asriel and inadvertently betrays Roger, resulting in his death. 

Lyra has learned of her parentage and sees them together but rejects them both. She is angry about their lies and betrayals and the horrible things they have done to innocent children. She makes a choice, setting out into the new world to find the truth. 

At this point she discusses Dust with Pantalaimon and they agree that if all of these dangerous adults think it is a bad thing, it must be a good thing. Dust represents consciousness: our awareness, knowledge, creativity and free will. So in the metaphor, Lyra is right that it is a good thing. 

The Subtle Knife

We begin the second book learning about the secondary protagonist of the trilogy: Will Parry. He is evading men who are looking for his father and caring for his mother. He discovers a window into Cittagaze and ends up meeting Lyra there. 

Lyra asks the alethiometer if he is a friend or an enemy and it tells her she is a murderer. Lyra believes that this makes him a safe person to travel with. She travels to Will's Oxford and meets Mary Malone, discussing Dust with her and urging her to learn how to communicate with it using her equipment and the I Ching. 

They discover the Spectres of Cittagaze and learn what they do. They feed on the daemon, or soul, and destroy dust and the ability to create dust. Only adults can see them. This represents the loss of innocence of adulthood and the loss of awareness and consciousness, which the Spectres take away from a person. They don't kill you, they just take away your soul and ability to think and act freely. 

Land of the Dead

After Will rescues Lyra from her mother who kept her in induced sleep, they travel to the Land of the Dead. They learn that after death, there is nothing but bleak emptiness and fear. She faces her own Death, her own mortality and betrays her daemon in order to make up for the mistakes she made.

She makes this sacrifice in order to atone for Roger's death. She wants to apologies for what she did. They discover that the harpies enjoy hearing true stories of a life lived well, and find a way to let the dead leave the bleak land and return to the world. They dissolve but then become part of everything once again. 

They agree with the harpies that those who die will be led to the window in exchange for a true, good story. This fulfils the prophecy that Lyra will put an end to death. Death is no longer a dark, empty place to fear, but a good ending once one's life is over, returning to the world and becoming part of all life. 

Love and Loss

While searching for their daemons, and after talking to Mary, Lyra and Will realise they are in love. We'll discuss Mary's involvement more later. Finally they share their first kiss and touch each other's daemons, a line crossed when two people love and commit to each other. At this point, the daemons settle into their final forms. 

The daemons changing form represent the moldability of children. In essence, they have not yet been shaped by experience into the person they are going to be. When the daemon settles, the form reflects the person and represents their personality and nature. This is growing up, and learning who you are. We are all shaped by our experiences and that is part of growth.

Unfortunately, they learn that the windows all must be closed as Dust is being lost through them. They have also learned that they cannot live a full life in any world but their own. They make the hard decision to live apart and sacrifice their personal happiness for the good of all of the worlds. They agree to make enough Dust to compensate for keeping the window from the Land of the Dead open. 

This represents maturity and unselfishness as Lyra has learned from her experiences and knows she cannot be selfish and self-serving when it means other people will suffer. She and Will both bravely accept the heartbreak of being apart so that all they have achieved will not be in vain. 

Adulthood

Adulthood means taking responsibility, learning from our experiences and gaining wisdom and insight. It represents a loss of innocence and gullibility - we learn that we cannot blindly trust everyone we know or meet. 

However, it does not mean we need to lose our curiosity, creativity and compassion. Gaining wisdom, expressing ourselves and embracing life is all part of being an adult and living our lives to the fullest. 

Thanks for reading! I will post a new essay on a different aspect of the trilogy every Wednesday this month so I hope you will come back for the next one!

Emi the Cat Lady 💜