Literature / His Dark Materials

aka: Northern Lights

“Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all.”

His Dark Materials is a Fantasy trilogy by Philip Pullman

Pre-teen Lyra Silvertongue (originally Belacqua, but she soon disowns this name due to the events of the first book) lives in an alternative Gaslamp Fantasy world (Zeppelins!) in which people's souls live outside their bodies in the form of Dæmons, which take on animal forms according to the person's personality. She leaves her life as a wild child roaming Jordan College (not actually a real Oxford University college, but this distinction is intentional), Oxford, to go on a quest to save her best friend who has been kidnapped.

Lyra encounters a boy from our world named Will Parry, and the two of them find themselves involved in a war involving all worlds that will change the very fate of The Multiverse and all who live in it...

Including a badass Armoured Polar Bear Warrior King. Can't forget him.

Original trilogy:

• Northern Lights^note The Golden Compass in the US (1995)
• The Subtle Knife (1997)
• The Amber Spyglass (2000)

Spin-off works:

• Lyra's Oxford (2003): Sequel novella
• Once Upon a Time in the North (2008): Prequel novella
• "The Collector" (2014): Prequel short story released on Audible.com
• Serpentine (2020): Sequel novella
• The Imagination Chamber (2022): Collection of snippets

The publication of a follow-up trilogy, The Book of Dust, commenced in 2017 with La Belle Sauvage; the second volume, The Secret Commonwealth, was released in 2019, with the conclusion as yet unscheduled. It serves as both prequel and sequel (described by Pullman as an "equel").

The first volume had a 2007 film adaptation, entitled The Golden Compass, which was not successful enough to warrant any sequels. The latter two books were not adapted as a result. Apart from this, there have been a two-part stage adaptation of the trilogy, a radio drama adaptation from BBC Radio 4 presented in three two-and-a-half-hour episodes, and unabridged audiobooks of the books (with Pullman himself narrating and a full cast playing the various characters).

The books were adapted into an BBC/HBO television series, His Dark Materials. It started airing on BBC One in the UK on November 3rd 2019, and HBO (everywhere else) the following day.

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Provides examples of:

A-H

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The subtle knife. It can cut through the universe. Lyra speculates that the same materials from the subtle knife were likely used to make the guillotine of the intercision machine that can cut through the psychic connection between human and dæmon.
• Action Girl: Interestingly, Lyra swings through Chickification once Will enters the story in the second book but recovers about halfway through the third book (she spends the first half of the third book in a coma).
• Adam and Eve Plot: Used in a symbolic way.
• Adaptation Expansion: Although otherwise a rather Compressed Adaptation, the stage play included a new character, a priest who worked for the Magisterium but manifested more the church's good side.
• Aerith and Bob: If Lord Asriel versus Mrs. Coulter isn't enough, you can also get the effect as a kind of Bilingual Bonus, due to the use of Scandinavian and Finnish names. For example, if you're Finnish, the surname of the witch Serafina Pekkala sounds extremely mundane, especially compared to her first name (Pullman found the name in a Helsinki phonebook). The fact that there are many different cultures involved explains most of the variation, but not examples like the above.
• Aliens Speaking English: Somewhat justified in the Gallivespians as they live on a parallel Earth where there obviously are people who speak English.
  • Despite being in a climate described as Mediterranean, the citizens of Cittàgazze (another parallel Earth) speak English.
    • This is also justified since Ci'gazze is the centre of a culture that for the last 300 years has stolen culture and ideas from every other world. Naturally, that could include language.
    • Similarly, everyone encountered in the North of Lyra's world speaks English to a degree whether a Witch, a Tartar, a Muscovite, or even a Panserbjørn.
  • Averted on the Mulefa's parallel Earth. Mary spends some time trying to learn their language. Being elephant-like creatures, part of their language involves movements of the trunk along with words, so she has to use her arms to speak as well. They also learn a little English from her.
  • Justified with the Angels. They know all human languages.
• All There in the Manual: Unusually for a work of literature. Some significant backstory and detail about the series' Multiverse can be found on the official websites, interviews with the author, and two spin-off novellas: Lyra's Oxford is a sequel and Once Upon a Time in the North is a prequel, and both books contain maps, brochures, and other fun world-building ephemera. Additionally, we've been teased something called The Book of Dust, which promises to address some of the things we've brought up in both Headscratchers and Wild Mass Guessing, for ages now.
• A Master Makes Their Own Tools: The Panserbjørne forge their own armour from "sky-iron". This is important, as they consider their personal suit of armour to house their soul.
• Amazon Brigade: The witches form exclusively female clans, they're deadly shots with bow and arrow, are good with knives, are quick to swear vengeance; and they attach themselves as a bodyguard to the protagonists.
• Ambiguous Time Period: Pullman has confirmed the books are set when they were published, in the late 1990s; but while Will's/our world reflects this, Lyra's world seem to be several decades behind in some areas. There's anbaric/electric lights and mention of ordinators/computers, but technology like photograms/photography is more basic and moving pictures/films and presumably television were never invented, there are far fewer cars, heavier-than-air travel (save for gyrocopters/helicopters) never seems to have gotten off the ground, servants appear to still be the norm (at least in Jordan College), and it's very unusual for women to wear trousers.

• Animal Stereotypes: Justified with the Dæmons. They eventually "settle" on an animal form that best reflects their counterpart's personality. The fact that some of the animal symbolism used is ridiculously obscure is just an example of how hard the author thought about this.
• Animal-Vehicle Hybrid: In The Amber Spyglass, there's a diamond-based species called the Mulefa, who move by way of seed pods from the giant seed-pod trees that inhabit the planet, which they fit on to bony axles on two of their legs, using the other two to propel themselves.
• Anti-Advice: At the end of Northern Lights, Lyra and Patalaimon reason that if villains like Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel want to suppress or destroy the Dust, it must actually be good.
• Anticlimax: For some. For others, the scene in question is a terrific subversion of typical fantastic fiction. Asriel's rebellion, the war that will change the very structure of the Multiverse, is ultimately treated as an irritating distraction as Will and Lyra frantically search for their missing Dæmons. Further, the stated Big Bad, God, is revealed to have aged to such a state of extreme senility and fragility that he is eventually killed by a stiff breeze, because of two kids, and not even on purpose. Seriously. Fortunately for the story, his Dragon, the Metatron, takes on the mantle of prime villain.
• The Anti-Nihilist: The books eventually come down in favor of this, with a touch of Fantastic Aesop courtesy of Dust. God doesn't give the world meaning, Dust does. Dust is essentially fundamental particles/bosons of conscience, endeavor, knowledge, curiosity, etc., and are created by acts of teaching and learning, ergo... which plants the series distinctly on the side of Existentialism. YMMV as to to what extent those two philosophies genuinely differ.
• Anyone Can Die: Roger Parslow, Lee Scoresby, John Parry, Lord Asriel, Marisa Coulter, and GOD.
• Artificial Afterlife: Inverted. The natural afterlife is a bleak wasteland. The Subtle Knife is eventually used to create a portal that people in the afterlife can step through to Disappear Into Light and "return to the universe".
• Artistic Licence – Biology: One of the images on the Alethiometer was a chameleon. One of its underlying meanings is air because, as Farder Coram mentioned, chameleons don't eat anything but air. This may have been fine for when the Alethiometer was first created a couple hundred years earlier but Farder Coram was a learned man and should have known better. Not that the myth would have to be true in our world to be true in Lyra's, though. . .
• Artistic Licence – History: Much of the books' criticism of Christianity centres around the role that it - and the Catholic Church in particular — supposedly played in holding back scientific and technological progress. The truth is that the real-life Church has been funding science since before it was actually called science, and still does. The long story is here under science, but the short version is that they own at least two scientific institutes — the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the extremely venerable Vatican Observatory and fund many more. Many important scientists, such as Gregor Mendel and Georges Lemaitre, were Catholic clergy, and the church funded research that led to important discoveries such as Nicolaus Capernicus's astronomical discoveries. These are the guys who accepted evolution as soon as they had deemed there was sufficient evidence to support it (in about 1942). The idea that they have ever opposed, or even disliked, science is a myth that originated from accusations made by Reformation and Enlightenment thinkers, sprinkled in with a few cherry-picked examples of the few times it did block scientific thought (e.g. Galileo).
• Artistic Licence – Religion: The climax of the trilogy hinges on the second Fall of humanity, in which it's prophesied that Lyra "will disobey" and thus become a "second Eve" (from The Bible). What she actually does is fall in love and make out with Will. She may have had sex, but even Word of God on the subject is "maybe, maybe not," sometimes slanted more toward the not. The issue is that if you leave out the sex between unmarried teenagers, there's nothing in her actions that the Bible considers sin or "disobeying" at all. Even that may not be a sin since it's supposed to happen prior to another Fall— Adam and Eve are implied to have had sex before the theft ("be fruitful and multiply" and all that).
• Audio Adaptation: Two: a radio dramatization and a full-cast unabridged recording narrated by Pullman.
• Author Tract: Especially the third book.
• Badass Bookworm: Mrs. Coulter: Arctic explorer, a rare female Scholar (graduate from an Oxford college), author of at least one respected travelogue, and inventor of a device that severs the soul from the body.
• Badass Normal: While Dust is responsible for human and mulefa civilization (and both species show up as ghosts in the land of the dead), there are no references to the Panserbjørne getting any such assistance. Plus, they forge their own souls.
• Bait-and-Switch: A possible unintentional example: Some printings of The Amber Spyglass split the table of contents across two pages, making it appear the final chapter is called "Lyra and Her Death" until the page is turned and shows it's only the half-way point.
• Bamboo Technology: Lord Asriel requires a special emulsion, prepared in a laboratory, to see Dust in a photograph. Mary Malone makes a spyglass to see Dust out of bamboo, hardened lacquer, and seedpod oil. Later, this is justified. The seedpods in question come from some very strange trees.
• Bears Are Bad News: The armoured bears are bad news to their enemies and some are aligned against the heroes, at least in the first book.
• Because Destiny Says So: Subverted in a way; in order for Lyra to fulfil the prophecy, she can never be told what she's supposed to do.
• Big Bad: Metatron, although aside from his first impressive entrance, where the entire world is screaming, he gets taken out pretty easily by two humans and their souls.
• Big Good: The series has an interesting subversion: Because he is the leader of the forces opposing the Big Bad, Lord Asriel could be said to fill this role, despite being pretty firmly an Anti-Villain. Because the other leaders are not so morally questionable (as far as we know), all of them could more easily be said to be the collective Big Good.
• Bittersweet Ending: Oh yeah. Lyra and Will changed the very foundations of the Multiverse, but only those who were directly involved notice. Furthermore, they must return to their own respective Worlds forever (never to see each other again), moments after they've realized their passionate love for each other. Some have argued that this last twist crosses into Diabolus ex Machina. The "good" angels could have solved this by teaching them how to cross worlds, but instead decide not to share. It's implied that it might be possible for them to reconnect, but it's discouraged by just about everyone.
• Bizarre Alien Locomotion: The Mulefa, which grip giant seed-pods in specialized appendages and roll around on their cylindrical pods.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Will Parry is given the Subtle Knife, which can slice through the barriers between worlds. It also mutilated his left hand. Not to mention that every time he uses it he creates a hole into which Dust drains out of the world and another Spectre is unleashed.
  • Also how Lyra first felt about being able to read the Alethiometer after the Gyptian spies died was her first successful reading. It scared her both being so accurate and that she could read it.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The polar bears, most notably when Iorek eats the dead body of his human friend because he respected him enough to accept a meal as a last gift.
• Broken Aesop:
  • Pullman is mostly trying to criticize the Catholic Church... but by the end of the series it has been twisted so much he's turned his "Catholic Church" into what is essentially Gnosticism. Fans argue that Pullman's target is not any one institution but instead general zealousness and dogmatism, with the Church just being his whipping boy because, well, they're a handy example.
  • The universe as a WHOLE is somewhat gnostic, though the Monad is a bit absent, but the Church itself supports the demiurge.
• Capital Letters Are Magic:
  "It's coming down," said Lord Asriel, "but it isn't light. It's Dust."
  Something in the way he said it made Lyra imagine dust with a capital letter, as if this wasn't ordinary dust.
• Cavalry of the Dead: When Will and Lyra emerge from the Land of the Dead, the spirits of various dead characters and other onetime warriors join the battle between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Republic of Heaven on the side of the Republic, countering the Spectres who had until then been consuming souls unchecked.
• Cessation of Existence: Befalls Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel, although they manage to take the Metatron with them.

• Challenging the Chief: Lyra's skills of persuasion are so good she arranges a Challenging the Chief fight between current Panserbjørne king Iofur Raknisson and outcast / part-time usurped rightful king Iorek Byrnison. To top it off, it's supposed to be literally impossible to lie to, or even bluff, a Panserbjørn. It gets cooler still: it’s made clear any outcast wandering into the city for any reason, let alone to challenge the king gets shot with Fire-hurlers. Lyra talked them into a Klingon Promotion fight when they would normally kill Iorek on sight! That’s how good she is! Iorek claims that tricking a bear is impossible, and invites Lyra to try. She fails miserably. But Lyra notes that Iofur wants to be human; he rejects his birthright as a bear. So when Lyra says Iofur can gain a daemon for himself, he wants to believe her, and his blind focus on this goal leads him to fall for Iorek's Wounded Gazelle Gambit during the duel, too.
• Character Filibuster: When Dr. Mary Malone, physicist, explains why she quit being a nun and decided there was no God.

• Chekhov's Gun: The spy-fly Lyra and the Gyptians capture early in their trek north was placed into a special tin by Iorek on Lyra's suggestion and finally used as a distraction by Lyra to get away from Mrs. Coulter.
• Childhood Home Rediscovery: After running away from Ms. Coulter, Lyra takes refuge among the Gyptians, who reveal to her that she was raised among them before Lord Asriel bught her to Jordan College.
• Children Are Innocent: The very soul and fiber of this work is about averting this trope. Although whether this is an aversion or playing it straight probably depends on your definition of innocence.
  • It seems to go back and forth. The children of Oxford are very mischievous are repeatedly given pejorative descriptions; though the tone reinforces this trope. Later, though, children are downright malicious when they find out about Elaine Perry's mental illness. Even later, the children of Cittàgazze actually attempt to murder Will and Lyra.
  • It is also played straight with the fact that children's dæmons change while adults’ dæmons keep one shape. There is also the idea that specters don't bother children, who can't see them anyway. The whole series is about solving the question of the difference between childhood and adolescence.
• Children Do the Housework: Will Parry learned how to cook, clean, and do shopping in order to take care of his mentally ill mother ever since his father went missing when he was very young.
• The Chosen One: Lyra is deemed to be a chosen one, but she can't know anything about it. In the second book, Will finds out he was chosen to own the Subtle Knife due to his injuries. They also become the chosen couple after all is said and done, though only for a few weeks.
• Christianity is Catholic: In Lyra's world John Calvin, instead of being excommunicated, somehow was elected Pope, and then abolished the Papacy upon his death. Thus, the Protestant Reformation never happened, leaving a Church that has unquestioned power over all of Europe. The trope applies, however, not because only Catholicism exists in Lyra's world but because what is meant to parallel Christianity only parallels Catholicism with no attempt to differentiate.
• Clueless Boss: God himself is revealed to be this in the third book. He's essentially senile, on life support and Metatron runs everything.
• Combat by Champion: Metatron identifies Coulter as a woman whose entire life is based on betrayal, yet he willingly goes alone with her to ambush Lord Asriel instead of sending a legion of mooks. Asriel, meanwhile, plans this elaborate setup to catch and kill Metatron but decides to spring the trap on the ruler of the multiverse with only himself instead of with a platoon of heavies.
• Coming of Age Story: Taken to the point of metaphysics. There are fundamental magical differences between children and adults, and the process of growing up drives many aspects of the plot.
• Compact Infiltrator: The Gallivespians are an entire race of Little People small enough to sneak through pipes and ducts, allowing them to serve as a Sneaky Spy Species for Lord Asriel's rebellion.
• Compressed Adaptation: The stage play. Three books into two nights, and they combined the characters of Mary Malone and Serafina Pekkala, as well as never revealing Will's dæmon.

• Corrupt Church: The entire series is a war on a church that doesn't follow its own teachings and uses its power and authority to ruthlessly persecute those who challenge it.
• Crack in the Sky: In The Golden Compass, Lord Asriel devises a plan to intentionally split open the sky in an attempt to create a portal into a parallel universe.
• Darker and Edgier: The third book, specifically. While the first book was more of a standard coming of age fantasy, the third part spirals into some heavier stuff.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The dæmons, mostly because they represent free will and the church is against it. Also some angels like Baruch and Balthamos can only be seen when there's little to no light, while the harpies and the other things from the Land of the Dead are morally neutral or amoral.
• Dead-End Room: The Abyss. Not even angels can escape it.
• Dead Person Conversation: Lyra and Will go into the Land of the Dead where they converse with ghosts.
• Death by Falling Over: The intruder in Will's house falls down the stairs. Will blames himself, though.
• Death of the Author: Invoked. Interviews with Philip Pullman show that this is his view of how his books should be regarded ("I don't think it's the task of the author of a book to tell the reader what it means").
• Departure Means Death: Staying outside your own universe too long will cause you to get sick and die eventually.
• Demiurge Archetype: The Authority is only one of the first angels created from the matter, who managed to convince other angels he was the creator. Near the end, the angel Metatron got more and more power and planned to enslave all sentient creatures from the entire Multiverse.
• Deus ex Machina: The Intention Craft; then again that's what it was built for.

• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In the third book, the North of Lyra's world gets much warmer due to Lord Asriel opening a window into Cittagazze.

• The Dreaded: Mrs. Coulter, and especially her vicious golden monkey.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Iorek drank so much after his exile that he passed out and had his armour stolen from him.
• Dub Name Change: Lyra Silvertongue becomes Lyra Sirin in Russian translation.
  • Also, Lyra Listenreich in German. "-reich" in this context means "to be rich of" or simply "-full" so it translates into "full of cunning".
  • In French, it is translated to Lyra Parledor. (they switched silver for gold, basically). Possibly because argent, the French word for silver, is also the word for money. Lyra Moneytongue sounds a bit weird.
  • According to the HDM Wiki: Lyra Linguargentina in Italian and Lyra da Língua Mágica in Brazilian Portuguese, and in Russian, she is known as Лира Белаква (Lira Belakva) or Лира Сирин (Lira Sirin).
• Due to the Dead: In the first book, Lyra puts a gold coin bearing his lost daemon's name into the mouth of Tony Makarios, treating him with the same respect that is traditionally given to Scholars at Jordan College. The body is then cremated by the gyptians.
• Early Instalment Weirdness - In early editions of Northern Lights, one of the deceased Scholars had a daemon taking the form of a young woman - later retconned out when Pullman decided that daemons could not take human shape.
  • Another example from Northern Lights remains, though. During a fight, Pantalaimon is mentioned to turn into a dragon. Later on in the series, all daemons take the form of real-world animals.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Averted with Lyra and Will, they free everyone in the land of the dead (suffering a lot to do so), allow all the doors between the worlds to be closed and vow to work their whole lives to keep good in the world so they can leave one door open...But are still separated and can never see each other again.
• Empathy Pet: Although it would be in the worst taste to refer to someone's Dæmon as a "pet", they do serve a similar purpose - and more.
• Empty Chair Memorial: In the last book, when Lyra has to say goodbye to Will, she proposes that they sit in a bench that exists in both of their Oxfords each year for in hour, to reminisce on their past relationship. Technically counts, since Lyra and Will have to reminisce of each other without being there for each other.
• Empty Shell: A continuum, all having to do with the removal of or damage to one's soul.
  • In Bolvangar, many of the staff have had their dæmons severed, but kept with them, and they seem to be of sound enough mind, if lacking in creativity or spirit (and unsettling other humans, on some unconscious level).
  • People whose dæmons are severed, and who are kept isolated from their dæmons, exist in a state of profound shock and numbness, if they survive the process at all.
  • But to people whose souls and minds have been eaten by Spectres, they are completely empty, and react to nothing in the world around them. They'll stand in one place until they starve to death.
• Enemy Mine: A childhood version is discussed in the first book. The children of the servants of each College have a rivalry with each other. However, they all have rivalries with the townie children and will team up to fight with them. The College and townie children, however, will call a temporary truce when the Gyptians come to town.
• Enfant Terrible: The children of Cittàgazze. Justified in that, between the specters and having no adults around, they must be living in fear.
• Expospeak: Noted for its lack of any Exposition. In fact, first time readers of Northern Lights might find themselves confused as hell about the various terminology (demons/dæmons as man's best friend? For real?) and why the North pole is said to be populated by head shrinkers and talking polar bears. Until it hits you that the world of His Dark Materials is a very different one from ours.
• Everyone Has Standards: Iorek can hardly be expected to care what happens between groups of humans, but even he doesn't like 'the child-cutters' and so answers Farder Coram politely about why he's bound in indentured servitude.
• Everyone Is Bi: Angels fall in love with each other, but they don't seem to differentiate much between genders. Being as they barely have bodies to begin with, this is hardly surprising.
• Extradimensional Shortcut: The titular knife in The Subtle Knife is sharp enough to cut through reality, creating dimensional doorways. While this is mostly used for simple travel between worlds, there is also one case where the characters need to steal a small and well protected artefact. To do this, they travel through a different world until they think they are in the right position then cut a small doorway right next to the object, reach thorough and grab it. Another time, their exit in one world needs to be much higher than the ground level in the current one, requiring that they find a hill and two storey building to be able to position the doorway correctly.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: In the first book, one armoured bear defeats another in single combat by ripping his jaw off, then tearing his throat open, slicing his ribcage in half, pulling out his still-steaming heart and devouring it before shouting "BEARS! WHO IS YOUR KING?". It's pretty intense. (The film adaptation toned this down quite a bit, but it was still surprisingly gruesome for a kids' movie.) The same armoured bear, later on, discovers the corpse of his (human) friend, and eats it as a sign of respect.

• Fantastic Science: Oxford University has a college of experimental theology.
• Fate Worse than Death: Falling into the Abyss.
• Femme Fatale: Mrs. Coulter. She even seduces God! Well, okay, he wasn't quite God, but he was the acting equivalent.
• Figure It Out Yourself: Lyra cannot be told anything about her destiny but has to complete it naturally on her own... Because Destiny Says So, literally...
• Fingore: The Subtle Knife demands two of your fingers to use it. Will gets them ground off by a rope.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Lyra and Will were strangers who had no reason to trust each other and eventually became inseparable.
  • Will and Lyra become this with the lady Salamakia and Chevalier Tialys. The former two could never truly trust the latter as Salamakia and Tialys were spies for Lord Asriel and had their own mission apart from and in direct opposition to Will and Lyra. The spies saw the kids as annoying and, with Lyra, bratty and a liar. In the end, both pairs had gained the utmost respect for each other.
• First Kiss: built up for the final two books. It is so important that it heals the multiverse. It also represents them growing up, a key point to the series.
• First-Name Basis: In the main trilogy, Farder Coram. ("Farder" is a title, a Fens-Dutch term loosely equivalent to "father" with overtones of respect.) In La Belle Sauvage, his name is revealed to be Coram van Texel.
• Fix Fic: These ones are also known in the fandom, to bring Lyra and Will back together.
• Following in Relative's Footsteps: Will Parry thinks himself to be a soldier doing adventures across the world, like his father, imagining himself rescuing said father and bringing him back home.
• Forgot to Gag Him: Lyra Silvertongue got her nickname by pulling this off - after being captured by the armoured bears, she ingratiates herself with them, luring their leader into a false sense of confidence, ultimately leading to his downfall in a duel.
• Free-Range Children: Justified with the children in Cittàgazze. Adults can't go into Specter-ridden areas, so the children are sometimes hired out to scavenge from the cities.
• Frustrating Lie: After Lyra tells her hosts in the City of the Dead her fanciful tales about her adventures with her friends, Chevalier Thyalis tells Lyra that he's fed up with her numerous lies and that she should follow him to Lord Asriel's fortress at once. Afterward, her Death appears, allowing her to go to the World of the Dead.
• Funetik Aksent: For certain words pronoinced by the Gyptians and Lyra. The most frequently used one is "en't" for ain't.
• Furry Confusion: Aside from some odd moments involving the Dæmons and their interactions with real animals, there is a scene early on where Mrs. Coulter tells Lyra that it isn't safe to eat polar bear liver, but the rest of the animal is edible. Unless there are non-Panserbjørne polar bears (we never see any although it is implied that they exist), this raises some very awkward questions...
• Gentleman Adventurer: Lord Asriel, Lee Scoresby, Stanislaus Grumman and others.
• God: Well, sort of. In actuality, "The Authority" is merely the oldest and (once) most powerful of the Angels, and falsely claims to have created the universe. It is heavily implied that God is a far more abstract presence that manifests, in the various worlds, as "Dust".
• Gilded Cage: Ultimately subverted. Lord Asriel was held in custody by the Panserbjørne by request of the Magesterium, but he manipulated them to let him live in a nice house with his butler with access to all his scientific instruments. In the end, he succeeded in doing the very thing for which he was imprisoned to prevent from doing.
• God Guise: This is how the angels created the Abrahamic religions. The first of them all convinced the ones that were born after that he was the supreme creator and being, and so he came to rule them. Later, when the rebel angels gave sentience to mankind and other races, all he had to do was to send his agents and see the awestruck people convert to his cause.
  • The witches in Lyra's world worship deities based on our Finnish mythology, but there is no indication as to the nature of these deities. One of said witches does, however, kill the false gods that a human tribe worshiped — tigers.
• God Is Evil: Well, "The Authority" isn't evil, just senile. He's supplanted by Metatron, though, who does have totalitarian plans for the multiverse. In his prime it seems the Authority was something of a Jerkass too, but when you're the first sentient thing in the universe perhaps you really are Above Good and Evil, or at least can't be blamed for thinking you are. [[spioler: This is considered a Subverted Trope, and falls closer to Gnosticism]].
  • "The Authority" isn't currently evil. It's stated though that he wasn't the creator, just the oldest angel, yet presents himself to everyone as the creator. Metatron was his second in command and took over as "The Authority" became senile.
• God of the Dead: The witches believe in the death goddess Yambe-Akka, who comes to the dying to welcome them with good cheer and open arms. She isn't among the supernatural entities who make an appearance, but Serafina steps into the role of Yambe-Akka to grant a witch's wish for a Mercy Kill.
• Grand Theft Prototype: Mrs. Coulter steals a prototype flying machine, the Intention Craft, in The Amber Spyglass. It turns out she stole only the first prototype, which Lord Asriel only showed her expecting her to steal it.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Lyra's life (and all the multiverse along with it) is saved first by her mother and father sacrificing themselves to take Metatron out of the picture, and then by Balthamos killing Father Gomez when the priest tried to shoot her, after which the angel dies from grief and the wounds he sustained during the struggle. Lyra never learns about the former, and no one was there to witness the latter.
• G-Rated Sex: There is some between Ruta Skadi and Lord Asriel in The Subtle Knife. Also, in The Amber Spyglass, when Lyra and Will finally realize that they're in love with each other, they break into a storm of ridiculously passionate kissing, and the scene cuts right at that moment, so it leaves the reader wondering if they had sex. The whole scene is basically written to show that they have finally began the transition to adulthood.
• Growing Up Sucks:
  • Subverted; In the first book, the antagonists believe that Growing Up Sucks, and do truly horrifying things because of it. Including "severing" children's souls from their bodies..
  • Later played very straight in Cittagazze due to the Spectres.
  • In the beginning, Lyra and Roger are content to just play and make trouble in the streets near Jordan College, not wanting their lives to change.
  • But one of the big themes of the entire series is the idea that Dust, which constitutes the transition into adulthood, is a good thing, and not a bad thing as the Church believes. The Church believes that humans must retain the innocence of childhood, and so must never come in contact with Dust. But the series implies that Dust, although indeed bringing sin, also brings knowledge and understanding and discovering and curiosity and many other wonderful things, and that it's in a human's nature to be sinful and the Church shouldn't fight it.
    • Which brings a whole new level of irony to the Church's motives, given the horrific, innocence-stealing measures they take to retain a child's innocence.

• Handmade Is Better: In Northern Lights, Lyra's polar clothes are held to be superior to whatever was given to Bolvangar's inmates because hers were handmade from local materials while theirs were made in factories far from the Polar area.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Lyra is able to read her alethiometer right after picking it up; other characters note that alethiometer-reading is supposed to be extremely difficult and suited to Scholars. It's implied to be fundamentally a side effect of being Eve, or possibly just being a child period; it's entirely possible that nobody thought "hey, let's hand the priceless one-of-six artifacts over to a kid and see if they can read it" before. At any rate, once she "becomes an adult", she loses her intuition. However, she is told that if she wants to, she can take the route of hard work to learn the skill back, and will have a better understanding of the alethiometer's answers for it.
  • This is probably intended to be symbolic of the changes in how a person perceives the world as a child and an adult. Children can be good at reading people's moods instinctively without fully appreciating all the undertones in any given social situation. Adults may be more uncertain because they are aware of more.
• The Heartless: Rather nastily subverted by the Spectres, phantoms who feed on the souls of adults. One of the few adults in the curious world of Cittagazze is fairly certain that they were sent to their world as a punishment specifically for using the Subtle Knife to rob from other worlds. And then we learn that the Spectres are more like a completely amoral monster, and that they are simply entering whenever a dimensional window is opened by the knife. This, of course, means that Will, who has been using the Knife for good, has been letting them invade as well.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Mrs. Coulter.
• Hell Invades Heaven: A subverted example of this trope, where The Legions of Hell are actually the good guys.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter both sacrifice themselves to protect their daughter Lyra by dragging Metatron down into a bottomless pit — the bittersweet end to Mrs. Coulter's Heel–Face Turn.
  • Lee Scoresby and Hester while holding off the tartars. Which definitely doubles as a Tear Jerker. Not to mention that he's then magically preserved by Serafina Pekkala, so that his body can eventually be eaten by his friend Iorek Byrnison and sustain him on his own journey to help Lyra. Which is described in such a way that it's clear that Lee would've been immensely proud to have it happen. Tearjerker indeed.
  • Lyra and Will pull a non-fatal version when they leave the door to the land of the dead open instead of one between their two worlds — separating them forever.
• Hero Secret Service: Nearly every group of supporting characters that the heroes have befriended at some point. In particular, the Witches and the Angels.
• Hide Your Gays: "One of the rare people whose dæmon was the same sex as himself." No further mention is made of this but it's fairly obvious what it means once you learn that when a couple fall in love, their dæmons romantically bond too.
  • According to Pullman, he actually didn't intend that particular implication when he wrote it, but a fan suggested homosexuality as the reason for the same-sex dæmon and Pullman said why not.
• Honour Before Reason: Lyra deliberately abandoned her own soul in the World of the Dead, so that she could make amends to a friend that she unwittingly led to his death.
  • In that instance, it was partially subverted. Lyra went into the Land of the Dead partially as a result of overhearing a conversation two others were having that stated she would make a difference in another world. After her dreams, the conversation made sense to her.
• Humans Are Special: Even though angels can live forever, travel between worlds, and know the secrets of the universe, they envy human beings, who have real bodies and thus can enjoy the physical world in ways that angels can't. Also, most humans can physically overpower a low-to-mid-ranking angel (Will tackles one and is astonished at how weak it is.)
• Humans Are Ugly: The mulefa can't help but think of Mary as hideous, even when they've adopted her and learned from her.

I-P

• I Am Not Left-Handed: Iorek, in his fight with Iofur in the first book — not that his right paw is his dominant paw (because all bears are left handed), but that his left paw is injured and he can't use it. (Or so he wants Iofur to think.)
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The rename to Golden Compass gives all three books titles referring to an artifact introduced in that book.
• I'm Having Soul Pains: "Soul-clenching" perfectly describes Lyra's feeling upon having her daemon seized. It gets worse in the third book, when the two of them are separated by Lyra's choice. Even people without visible daemons can feel that.
• Immortal Breaker: The Subtle Knife is prized for its rumoured nature as the God-Killer. (In fact, the name Æsahættr translates roughly from Norse as "Godslayer".) It was designed as 'just' an Absurdly Sharp Blade and Dimensional Cutter, but since it can cut (and kill) angels and souls, it probably deserves the title. We'll never know, since the Authority essentially died of old age.
• Industrial World: In The Amber Spyglass, while experimenting with the subtle knife, Will finds, among others, a world seemingly entirely devoted to industry.
• In Spite of a Nail: Lyra's world has visible souls and at least five species (humans, witches, bears, cliff-ghasts and foxes) with some level of sentience, but every religious figure from Moses to John Calvin still existed in modified roles.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: Will's knife as well as Asriel's Powered by a Forsaken Child gate.
• Interspecies Romance: The love between two humans is reflected by their daemons, which tend not to be the same species.
• Irony: Invoked in Lyra and the Birds: Sebastian Makepeace is said to be quite a violent man. Then inverted, when he rescues Lyra from the trap she nearly walked into.
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: People's kids are being kidnapped, no one knows where they're being taken or what happens to them, and the government is doing little or nothing to stop it. Think about it. Worse still, the first book actually shows us an abduction as it happens — in which Mrs. Coulter reels in Tony Makarios — letting us see just how easy it is for someone to steal a child without trace.
• Invisible to Adults: Inverted with The Spectres, who only adults can see.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): One of the best uses yet and another example of just how much thought the author put into Lyra's world. (Lee Scoresby is described as a New Dane from the country of Texas for starters.)
• Jawbreaker: Iorek tears his rival's jaw off. Symbolic, because the other was a liar.
• Jerkass: Lord Asriel
• Jurisdiction Friction: The many offices of the Magisterium were always trying to become the most influential.
• Knight of Cerebus: With a few notable exceptions, Mrs. Coulter making an appearance usually indicates a darker turn in the story. This is usually preceded by a character catching sight of her golden monkey.
• Lady of Adventure: Mrs. Coulter.
• Last-Name Basis: Ma Costa is only known as that. No first name is ever given for her. The only other identifying description is Billy's mother.
• Leave Him to Me!: Subverted. The Panserbjørne approach to banished bears returning to challenge the King to single combat is to kill them with fire hurlers from a great distance. As a result, it takes Lyra a great deal of manipulation to get the Challenging the Chief duel to ever happen.
• "Leave Your Quest" Test: The Amber Spyglass features a particularly unsettling and disturbing example in the chapter "Vodka". Will, a 12 or 13 year old boy, is traveling alone. He stops at the house of an old priest to ask for directions. The priest pushes him into accepting a drink of vodka, chats in an overly friendly manner, is very touchy-feely, tries to convince Will to stay a while and is just generally creepy. After few pages of this, Will insists on leaving and the man gives him a hug and lets him go. There is no mention of the incident or the old man ever again. Most likely this was a jab at the Catholic Church, referencing their rampant sexual abuse of children.
• Light Is Not Good: Mrs. Coulter is physically attractive, glamorous and charming but is capable of terrible things, so it's difficult to sympathize with her until the last book. Angels are made of light (well, some kind of energy anyway), but their moral nature is just as uneven as that of humans.
• Lilliputian Warriors: The Gallivespians.
• Literal Metaphor: Played with when Will takes on his father's mantle.
• Literal Surveillance Bug: The clockwork spyfly is shaped like a bug.
  • A version happens with Lyra's and Roger's daemons when she finds her way to Experiment Station but doesn't want anyone to know they know each other. Their daemons change into flies and fly onto a nearby wall to discuss the goings-on, including that the Gyptians were on their way to free him.
• Literary Allusion Title: Both "His Dark Materials" and "The Golden Compass" are quotes from Paradise Lost.
  • Technically, "the golden compasses" (referring to a "pair of compasses" as in the geometric instrument, rather than the navigation tool).

• Living MacGuffin: The first book had two for Lyra—Roger and her father. The second book for Will had his father while, unbeknownst to either of them, his father was seeking Will. The third book had both Lyra and Will acting as Living MacGuffins for both the bad guys and the "good" guys. A large, deadly battle occurred to try to take them. For Lyra, it was again Roger, though at this point, he wasn't really a living MacGuffin anymore.
• Lobotomy: The General Oblation Board develops a procedure called intercision, which severs a person from their dæmon/soul and has a similar effect on the person as being lobotomized.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Unfortunately happens to Lyra, as the witches' prophecy states that for her to carry out her part in it, she cannot be aware of what she's doing.
• Lost Technology: The Alethiometer. Only a few were built to start with and most were promptly destroyed. Lyra's is one of the last few (another two are operated by opposing parties).
• Luke, I Am Your Father Lord Asriel is Lyra's father, while Mrs. Coulter is Lyra's mother.
  • And Stanislaus Grumman is Will's long lost father John Parry.
• MacGuffin Super-Person: Lyra Belaqua is the "involved in a prophecy version." To be precise, she is the new "Eve" and thus her destiny is to end destiny, without knowing what she's doing. Needless to say, the bad guys do not want to this to happen, while her allies do their best to protect her until her moment comes.
• Lust Makes You Dumb: In Spyglass, Marisa Coulter meets Metatron, the angel in charge of Heaven. Once, Metatron was a mortal man, fond of the pleasures of the flesh. As soon as he sees Marisa, Metatron knows she's a lying, backstabbing piece of work, but he lets her talk anyway. Marisa has to use every trick in the book to beguile Metatron, but in the end, his lust overrules his better judgment.
• Mage Species: Witches can breed with human men, and have witch daughters and human sons. They don't feel the cold (and mostly live in the Arctic), they can use magic, and they live to hundreds of years.
• Magic Compass: The alethiometer resembles a compass in design, but instead of being used for orientation, its function is to truthfully answer any question asked of it through the symbols engraved in its face.
• Magic Is Feminine: In Lyra's world, witches are the only magic-using humanoids. They are an exclusively female Mage Species who bear children from human men; said children are also witches if female or regular humans if male. Male witches are mentioned to exist elsewhere in the multiverse, but only female ones are seen in the story.
• Mama Bear: Don't mess with Ma Costa. When a man accuses the missing Billy of leaving, he doesn't get a chance to finish his sentence before he had to run from her physical and verbal attacks.
  • Mrs Coulter loves watching children become separated from their souls (most died quickly), but leave her own daughter Lyra alone! Upon hearing what the Church wants to do to children in their efforts to rid the world of Dust, Mrs Coulter finds her own child and brings her back home with her to keep her safe. In the end, Mrs Coulter ultimately sacrifices herself and her afterlife to take down the ultimate angel who wanted her daughter's death.
• Market-Based Title: The Northern Lights was renamed The Golden Compass for North America. This is apparently due to The Golden Compasses (pulled from a line in Paradise Lost, just like the final title, His Dark Materials), being a Working Title for the trilogy as a whole. The American publisher had apparently mistaken the title for a reference to the alethiometer (the "golden compasses" are actually circle-drawing devices God uses during creation) and had been referring to the first novel as The Golden Compass during prerelease, and decided to stick with the title. It does create some nice Idiosyncratic Episode Naming, with all three books being named after some Iconic Item.
• Meaningful Rename:
  • Her name was Lyra Belacqua until she tricked Iofur Raknison to a fight to the death for the kingdom with Iorek Byrnison. This was what Iorek wanted and gave her the name Lyra Silvertongue, which she kept for the rest of the series.
  • In-universe, the city of Cittàgazze (Italian for "city of magpies"), which renamed itself that after its scholars invented the Subtle Knife, which allowed them to steal things from other universes.
• Mind Rape: What a human feels when his/her dæmon is touched by a stranger, it feels very wrong and like a violation.
• Minovsky Physics: Rusakov Particles appear to be as such for the first two novels. For a Biblical pun, it's also called Dust. Dust, an "elementary particle" (similar to an electron or quark) can only be seen either when vast quantities are for some reason all brought together, or through special emulsions. However, Dust's most interesting quality is that it attracts itself to sentient beings: anything made by humans with thought and observation will attract Dust, such as a ruler, and Dust also attracts itself to people — adults especially, and the wiser the better. It does not settle on children until they transition into adulthood. When the big reveal comes, "Dust" turns out not to be a substance at all. It's essentially subatomic Angels.
  • That big reveal perhaps justifies the previously odd-if-not-silly convention of referring to particle physics as Experimental Theology.
• Mood Whiplash: Happens every other chapter in the third book, switching back and forth between the bleak underworld and the world of the lovably alien mulefa.
• Mortality Grey Area: The Breathless Ones were half-killed warriors who were unable to die due to their lungs having been harmed by their captors to the point their daemons have to pump them.
  • In the third book, there are people in the World of the Dead who haven't died yet, but reached the "outer shore" if you will by accident. They hang around waiting for their deaths to find them.
• The Multiverse: The series features many an Alternate Universe, with a few powerful items allowing one to travel between them. There may be no limit to the number of separate worlds and universes.
• Never Land: Cittagazze. The Spectres suck the soul out of anyone who has hit puberty.
• Never Was This Universe: Lyra's world. While many differences between our world and hers are clearly just ordinary Alternate History, there are also some altered laws of physics and nature in general — e.g. a fully living sentient dæmon of each human being.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the end we learn that every time Will used the knife he created a specter and helped undermine the structural fabric of sentient life. To be fair, this is really not his fault, it was the hundreds of years of casual abuse and neglect of the power that caused the problem.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Armoured Royal Polar Bear Warriors! Even the author gleefully admits that this is the coolest thing ever.
• No Woman's Land: As Lyra's world is quite a few decades behind our world in both technology and society, women's roles are more limited. While there is at least one women's college in Lyra's Oxford, female scholars are regarded as an oddity and Lyra's quite surprised to find that, in our world, the scholar she needs to talk to about Dust is Mary Malone (though admittedly Lyra was raised by very traditional male scholars, who obviously look down on their female counterparts). Mrs. Coulter is very high ranking as the head of the Oblation Board, but she's the only female member of the Magisterium that we see other than some nuns who take minutes for meetings and have taken vows of silence.
• Noble Shoplifter: Will insists on doing this in Cittagaze; Lyra is skeptical.
  • He does abandon this when his missing fingers will not stop bleeding and he needs new clothes.
• The Nothing After Death: The land of the dead isn't exactly nothing, but it is insanely close: just a bleak wasteland with almost no light in which nothing happens. And then there's the Abyss, which really is nothingness. And of course now people just dissolve after dying and are returned to the universe so that they can be a part of everything again (Nature's spirit recycling service).
  • Panserbjørne do not have any afterlife.
• Non-Action Big Bad: The Authority, being so incredibly old that he could literally be killed by a stiff breeze.
• Not So Great Escape: Played for drama in the beginning when Lyra is in the Master's retiring room, a place for men only and only by invitation. She hides behind a chair in the middle of the room and sees him poisoning a bottle of Tokay meant for her uncle. The hesitation she has after he leaves forces her to find a better hiding place when her uncle enters.
• Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: Coupled with an ending that is bittersweet bordering on a downer.
• Oh, Crap!: Lord Asriel is absolutely aghast when Lyra arrives at his prison in the North — "Get out! I did not send for you!" — since he thinks whatever weird forces he's commanding have sent her to him as a sacrifice to open the passage between the worlds and, while he's a pretty amoral guy, he is completely against harming his own daughter. He calms down a lot when Roger arrives right behind her...
  • Lyra gets one in the same book when, after being kidnapped and taken to Experiment Station, learns from the other girls that not only does Mrs Coulter come there, but that she will be arriving in two days.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Subverted. Lee attempts this by shooting a church flunky in the leg, but nicks the artery and ends up killing him anyway.
  • The most powerful being in the Universe (Metatron) cracks Lord Asriel on the back of the head as hard as it can with a rock, but Asriel still drags him into the Abyss.
• Only Fatal to Adults: The spectres.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the first book, many children have gone missing with not a care from the authorities. When Lyra runs away, the authorities start raiding houses to search for her, leading the citizenry to seriously wonder what is so special about this one girl. Speculation and rumors were rampant.
• Opposite-Sex Clone: Most of the time, a woman's dæmon is male and vice versa. People with dæmons of the same sex as themselves are noted to be rare in Northern Lights. Two examples are found in the series (both in Northern Lights): a male servant with a male dog dæmon, and a maid with a hen dæmon. Readers speculate that having a dæmon of the same sex signifies homosexuality or being transgender. Pullman has stated he isn't sure what it means himelf: "[it] might indicate homosexuality, or it might indicate some other sort of gift or quality, such as second sight. I do not know. But I don't have to know everything about what I write."[1]
• Our Angels Are Different: Energy Beings made of the sentient particle known as Dust, who look like winged humans (though the second book suggests that this is just how people see them, their real appearance being somewhat akin to architecture, though nowhere near the weird appearance of the Biblical angels).
• Our Dark Matter Is Mysterious: Dark matter (introduced as Dust in Lyra's world) is a central part of the trilogy, and is the substance that angels are made up of. In addition, some creatures (like the mulefa) can see it and use it to identify intelligent beings, as it gathers around them in large quantities.
• Our Souls Are Different: Indeed, the series could be considered a very long meditation on the nature of the soul (see that trope page for details).
• Our Witches Are Different: In Lyra's world, witches are a One-Gender Race, possessing magical tendencies and long life. Their male offspring (fathered by human males) are normal humans. Male witches did exist elsewhere in the multiverse, though they are only mentioned once.
• Parental Abandonment: Lyra has parental issues in spades (to say more would spoil quite a lot of the dramatic tension). Will's parents both follow this trope (his father has been missing for years) and subvert it (his mother is implicitly mentally ill and his involvement in the larger story begins when he must save her.)
• Parental Savings Splurge: The Master had to fund Lyra's studies because her parents squandered their wealth in their schemes.
• Perfect Poison: In universe in the first book where Lyra regales the Gyptian children with a story where a man tried to poison her father's wine with a poison that fit in his ring. The potential killer had to drink the poisoned wine, which led to his torturous death that lasted about five minutes.
  • The Gallevespians have spurs on their feet that delivers poison that can kill a full grown man quickly with a full dose. Small doses will cause serious pain for hours. They can't use the spurs too much as the poison needs to regenerate.

• Pintsized Powerhouse: The Gallivespians, bordering on Killer Rabbit.
• The Power of Legacy: In The Amber Spyglass, Will lets Lyra think that her mother Mrs. Coulter was watching over her while some disease kept her asleep, when in reality, Mrs. Coulter was drugging her to keep her asleep in an effort to hide her from the Church, who want to kill Lyra. He already cares quite deeply for her and is aware that Lyra has very few good memories of Mrs Coulter, the only mother Lyra will ever have.
• The Power of Love: Basically the entire point of The Amber Spyglass. Some controversy emerged over what may or may not have been a depiction of teenage sex, to the point that some US printings of the book were censored. No matter what your interpretation is, though, it appears that snogging saved the multiverse.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Lord Asriel opens up the path to Citagazze at the end of the first book by killing the urchin named Roger. Lyra blames herself for taking Roger to what she thought would be a safe place for both of them.
• Prefers Going Barefoot: Lyra and Will share this trait, with the former enjoying the feel of mud under her feet and the latter deliberately roaming Cittagazze barefoot.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Panserbjørne (repeat: Armoured Polar Bear Warriors!) are a proud warrior race.
• Psycho for Hire: Pierre McConville from the prequel novella, Once Upon a Time in the North. A hired gun who Loves the Sound of Screaming, has committed at least twenty murders, and whose idea of fun is killing his victims slowly by ripping their dæmons away from them over a long period of time.
• Punny Name: Lyra = Liar, (free) Will, Will Parry-Will can cause others to not care about him, or parry their attention.

Q-Z

• Really 700 Years Old:
  • The witches. Serafina Pekkala looks to be a young woman in her prime, but she's three hundred years old, or maybe older.
  • To the Gallivespians, who only live about nine years, humans embody this trope.

• Retro Universe: Lyra's Oxford has a "feel" of Victorian England about it, with airships overhead and gaslamps in the foggy streets. Some of it is thanks to a few shifts of vocabulary—- "anbaric" lamps are actually electric, and "coalsilk" is plastic. Some of it is specific—- Jordan and other Oxford colleges pride themselves on maintaining their traditions (even as their Scholars are iconoclasts).

• Rouge Angles of Satin: Some people reckon that an individual of the horse-elephant (for want of a better term) race is a "mulefa" whilst the race as a whole is the "mulefas". If they had been paying attention, they would realise that an individual is a "zalif" and the race is the "mulefa".
• Royal Favorite: Iofur Raknisson is so enamoured with Mrs Coulter he even planned to rename his capital by her name. She helped him get the throne and he accepted imprisoning Lord Asriel for her.
• Rule of Symbolism: The Dust, the mulefa's wheels, and the dæmons are all used as criticism of real-world politics, religion and morality. The dæmons are used to represent a human's conscience/soul, and, in turn, their sexual nature. The scene in which Will and Lyra free God from his glass cage is meant to represent the separation of the human idea of God from the political idea of God. And so on. Basically, this series has symbolism in spades.
• The Runaway: Both Will and Lyra. Will does so to both protect his mother and because he killed a man. Lyra runs away from Mrs. Coulter when she learns of Mrs. Coulter's connection with the Gobblers.
• Sacrificial Lamb:
  • Tony Makarios. The narrator warns us, "This is the child who is going to disappear." Tony and his daemon give us a glimpse into how the Gobblers capture their prey... and then much later, Lyra bears witness to what the Oblation Board has done to them.

• Sacrificial Lion: When Lee Scoresby is killed, you know nobody else is safe.
• Science Is Bad: Played with. The rise of science and technology across multiple worlds set in motion the course of events that imperils sentient life in the books. However, in the end it seems that, like most things in Pullman's world, science is only as good or bad as whoever is using it.
• Scry vs. Scry: All the factions have people who can read alethiometers, though Lyra has the ability to read it with greater speed and accuracy than the others, and she's working on neither side.
• Secret Test of Character: In the first book, Dr Lanselius had Lyra use the alethiometer twice. This was to determine if she was The Chosen One by reading it accurately. Without telling him, Lyra knew the first reading was a test as the alethiometer told her so.

• Series Continuity Error: On Ma Costa's first appearance in Northern Lights, her dæmon is a hawk; when she shows up later in the book, he's suddenly a dog. Both the film and the TV series went with the hawk.
• Shout-Out:
  • The series title is a line taken from Paradise Lost, which is also the origin of the term "golden compass." Frequent references to William Blake also crop up.
  • Though the series is pretty opposite to the values of Gnosticism, an ancient Christian doctrine that disdained the material world and its pleasures, it contains a couple references to it, probably because Gnosticism also popularized the idea that God is actually an evil imposter. Asriel's personal Alethiometer operator is named Basilides, like one of the earliest Gnostic teachers, and there is a heroic angel named Baruch whose task is to find the chosen ones, just like in the cosmology of the Gnostic Justin.
  • To other Oxford-based writers:
    • Lyra embarks upon her adventures by hiding in a wardrobe. This is very intentional, given Pullman's opinion on said author.
    • Will embarks on his adventure by following an animal through a hole.
    • The housekeeper at Jordan College is Mrs Lonsdale. Lonsdale College is a fictional college in the universe of Inspector Morse.
• Significant Anagram: Lord Asriel (and Marisa Coulter) ultimately sacrifice themselves by wrestling the Metatron and dragging him into the Abyss to protect their daughter from him. "Asriel" is an anagram of "Israel" — a Hebrew name commonly interpreted as "struggled with God".
  • It may also be a play on the name Azrael — The Angel of Death.
• Skinny Dipping: Three of the main characters did this at different times. Lyra is said to have done so with her friends when she was younger. She also swims naked in the Mulefa world just to freshen up. Will first skinny-dips when he first gets to Cittàgazze. He also freshens up in the Mulefa's world. The mulefa are shocked when Mary strips off to go swimming, but only because they never go into the water. She swims to save some seed pods that are vital to the herd.
• Slow Life Fantasy:
  • After John Parry ends trapped in Lyra's world with no way to go back home, he took the name of Stanislaus Grumann and became a scholar specialised in the Arctic world.
  • Likewise, after Mary Malone ended up in the Mulefa world, she started to settle down and studied the ethnology of the Mulefa and the biology of her new world, until she again met Lyra and Will, and came back.
• Sneaky Spy Species: The Gallivespians are commonly used as spies and assassins by Lord Asriel's forces, mainly due to their small size and the poison barbs on their feet.
• The Soulsaver: Lyra. She not only frees the severed dæmons of Bolvangar and spares the other children there the same fate — her eventual destiny is to open the World of the Dead to the multiverse, with all its limitless number of souls.
• Spies Are Despicable: Will treats Chevalier Tialys and Lady Salmakia as unreliable and dishonorable after they're caught spying.
• Spirit Advisor: Everyone in Lyra's world gets their own spirit advisor in the person of their Dæmons. Dæmons come in handy for spying, arguing with and there are several parts where a person was able to utilize the improved senses and/or vantage point provided by their Dæmon(birds can get higher, some animals can smell better, some animals have better sight).
• Spiritual Antithesis: The series is this to The Chronicles of Narnia. Pullman isn't trying to hide his hate for Lewis' series, so it was probably intentional.
• Stay with the Aliens: Averted. No one can stay in any universe that is not their home without rapidly declining in health.
• Steampunk: Sort of. Lyra's world has zeppelins, but its "anbaric power" is simply electricity under another name (the substance amber and electricity get switched — in Lyra's world, they call amber "electrum"). Nuclear power is atomcraft works in this world, and there are frequent mentions of "gyropters" and similar devices.
  • The electricity/amber switching becomes Fridge Brilliance (again!) when you know that the first experience humans had of electricity was in Ancient Greek times, when static electricity could be created by rubbing fur against amber.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Lyra and Will.
• The Starscream: Metatron.
• Subspace Ansible: There is a universe where entire lodestones can be quantum entangled.
• Supernatural Angst:
  • It is mentioned early in the first book that one human never touches another's dæmon, ever. Later on, Lyra's dæmon is seized by another human, and the incident is described in terms very similar to sexual assault. It renders Lyra, the indomitable, high-spirited Lyra, practically catatonic for a decent chunk of time.
  • In the second book, we meet Spectres, which are only visible to adults and can only hurt adults. Once a Spectre attacks, its prey is left absolutely without energy or any sort of interest in the world. Will even draws parallels between Spectres and depression or mental illness.
• Symbolic Weapon Discarding: After learning about Mrs. Coulter's Heroic Sacrifice, Serafina Pekkala breaks the arrow she had previously pledged to use to kill Coulter for her role in torturing a witch to death.
• Synchronization: We see repeatedly and graphically how inconvenient it can be to have a mystical bond with someone. If a Dæmon is too far separated from their human counterpart, they both risk incredible pain, and if they are forcibly and permanently separated, both suffer permanent psychological damage and eventually waste away. The third book explains that there are ways around this. On the other hand, we also see many, many reasons why this sort of bond could be extremely useful.
• Take That!: Phillip Pullman has said that the series was a "response" of sorts to the Christian allegory-resembling books, such as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Differs from those books in that Lewis at least claims he didn't originally set out to create allegory and that it worked its way into his books, while Pullman openly stated that he wrote his series to "kill Christianity in the minds of children." Oddly enough, although God is talked about ad nauseum, Pullman never talks about Christ. Word of God is that Jesus, while he doesn't show up in the books, does exist in the universes and was a servant of the rebel angels as he tried to spread their message, but his words of wisdom were taken and twisted by the Authority. Apparently, even Philip Pullman thinks Jesus Was Way Cool.
• A Tale Told by an Idiot: The cliff ghasts have issues with understanding a snow fox retelling the conversation between Iorek and Serafina about the Aesaheetr because these foxes only understand the present tense.
• Talking Animal: Played absolutely straight with the Panserbjørne, intelligent polar bears with thumbs and a talent for metalworking. Lyra's world also features talking foxes and nasty creatures called cliff-ghasts (who have a language of their own).
  • The dæmons are a more obvious, yet ambiguous, example of this trope; although they are not thought of as animals by the humans of Lyra's world, they take the form of animals and would be called that in other worlds.
• Technically-Living Zombie: Originally referenced as a background detail, but becomes relevant late in the first book and then throughout the series. According to Lord Asriel, there's an African tribe which can permanently separate a human from their dæmon without killing them — just rendering them a mindless, corpse-seeming slave called a zombi. Later, the General Oblation Board modified this process to create intercision. Most of the staff of Bolvangar has undergone this process, which shows that intercision leaves people soulless, but still functional.
• Teenage Wasteland: Cittagazze (and the rest of that world), where most of the adults have been killed off by Spectres.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Between Lyra and Will and the Gallivespian spies. Lyra and Will had no intention to go to Lord Asriel with them but couldn't lose them. The Gallivespians had orders to take the kids to Lord Asriel but couldn't force them. Neither duo could trust the other in the beginning.
• Thin Dimensional Barrier: It describes the Aurora Borealis as a place where the borders separating the universes is the weakest, enabling the heroine to see a city in another world and for her father to build a bridge to it.
• Throw It In!: In an interview, Pullman was asked whether the few people who had Dæmons of the same gender as themselves were LGBT. He hadn't thought of it, but agreed with the fandom.
  • He's also said that a same-sex Dæmon could instead be indicative of some other "gift or quality," like second sight.
• Thunderbolt Iron: "Sky-Iron" (presumably from meteorites) forms Iorek's (and presumably all the Panserbjørne's) armour.
• To Hell and Back: In the third book, Will and Lyra, along with the Lady Salmakia and Chevalier Tialys, go to the underworld in order for her to find Roger and apologize to him. Complete with a boat trip there. They find a way out with help as well as changing the very nature of how the underworld works, essentially changing the nature of hell itself.
• Touch the Intangible: Will manages, with his subtle knife, to harm angels, specters and even God Himself, albeit indirectly and involuntarily.

• Uncanny Valley: How people in Lyra's world perceive people who don't have daemons. Lyra was about to vomit upon seeing Tony (a victim of the Gobblers) without his daemon, likening it to seeing someone without a face or with their chest open. She was struck by seeing Will and uneasy visiting his world, but soon concluded that these people kept their daemons on the inside.
• Undead Tax Exemption:
  • Lord Boreal was a rich man in Lyra's world and, as Sir Charles Latrom in Will's world, he also became rich.
  • John Parry, Will's father, proved himself through scientific debate to make a name for himself as Stanislaus Grumman. It was noted that people knew he came out of nowhere and couldn't find any past for him.
• Underworld River: In The Amber Spyglass, an unnamed river in the underworld is crossed by Lyra and Will, forcing Lyra to leave behind Pantalaimon, as daemons cannot exist in the underworld.
• Undressing the Unconscious: In The Amber Spyglass, after Lyra and Will start to sleep, Mary Malone removes their dirty and tattered clothing and clothes them into linen.
• Unusual User Interface: The Intention Craft in Spyglass requires a pilot with a daemon; the daemon takes one controller and the human steers the craft. We don't know how the Craft would work with a human whose daemon is intangible.
• The Vamp: Mrs. Coulter raises this almost to a superpower.
• Villain-Beating Artifact: A subversion of this. The subtle knife is claimed more than once to be the only weapon capable of killing God (the supposed Big Bad of the series), and its owner is urged to take it to the guy opposing God so he can win the war. Then God turns out to be too old and senile to be the Big Bad, and simply dies of old age.
  • The subtle knife was the only thing capable of killing Specters.
• Villainous Rescue: At Bolvangar, Marisa shows up just in time to save her daughter and Pan from being severed by the silver guillotine.
• Void Between the Worlds: The Abyss is this. It's a void of nothingness that constantly draws Dust into it, and it was opened by the Magisterium in attempt to kill Lyra. It's also what Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter fall into taking Metatron with them, as a last-ditch effort to get rid of the latter.
• The War on Straw: Any religious characters are either academics or evil.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lord Asriel talks a good game about ending tyranny, but he does some terrible things in the process. Oddly, few people object to his bloody deeds except for Lyra.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Panserbjørne are not treated too well by humans. In one of the novellas, a mayoral candidate actually proposes forcibly banishing them from human cities. The main reason for this is because they have no Dæmons, which humans take as proof that they have no soul. Iorek makes it very clear to Lyra that his armour is his soul.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The series has a spectacular habit of writing in epic battles involving legions of badass combatants like talking polar bears with rocket launchers. And then forgetting about these battles completely. The battle between the bears/Gyptians and the Church is quietly forgotten after the first book. But the absolute worst offender is the third book: the war against the army of God himself is quietly swept under the rug after the author decides that Will & Lyra's romance deserves the spotlight. Sure, the Big Bad dies, but what about the legions of soldiers from an infinite amount of worlds?
  • This is done by design. The story is about Will and Lyra not the epic battles, and their romance is significantly more important to the multiverse than any of the other battles. It is outright stated that Asriel will fail because the people he has gathered together from various worlds will fade and die unless they return to their own.
  • Also used to emphasize that it is ideology, not force, that will change people's minds. The ultimate conflict is not Lord Asriel's army against the Authority, but rather individualist humanism versus blind force and blind belief. Lyra and Will's actions are important because they realize that their lives are their own for living, not simply as pieces in a larger struggle. Similarly, Mary's discoveries about Dust and the Amber Spyglass are important because she proves that everyone has worth as an individual, not just as part of a greater cause.
  • A more straightforward example is Ruta Skadi, a witch-queen and lover of Lord Asriel who is set up as a foil to Serafina and a potential complication in the already tumultuous relationship between Asriel and Mrs Coulter. She goes off to fight for Asriel partway through The Subtle Knife and isn't mentioned again.
• Wise Serpent: It is a snake who first helped the mulefas to understand how useful seed pods were as wheels.
• Witch Doctor: Not related to the witches in the series. Grumman acts as this in his adopted Yensei tribe and is called a shaman. There is also a man who lives in a cave whom Ama seeks to discover a potion to awaken someone in a coma. He knows Ama is not telling the whole truth, but gives her the herbal blend anyway.
• Wizards Live Longer: The witches age far slower than humans with Serafina about 300 years old but looks about 30 while the oldest can get over 1,000 years old. This actually can be a problem as they must mate with normal men (only women can be witches) and if they fall for the man, they have to live with watching him grow old while the witch barely ages. The same with having a son, who will have only a normal lifespan.
• Woman Scorned: The witch Juta Kamainen is furious that the shaman Stanislaus Grumman rejected her romantic advances, and swears that she will kill him. Which she does. In fact, Grumman is Will Parry's father and was being faithful to his wife in another world. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero, and she kills herself immediately afterwards, after telling Will that he wouldn't understand her motives.
• World of Badass: Lord Asriel, Lord Boreal, Mrs. Coulter, Lee Scoresby, Iorek Byrnison, Stanislaus Grumman, Lyra, Will, several Ensemble Dark Horse characters... and everyone gets A Day in the Limelight.
• World of Ham: It's hard to take some lines in the audio book seriously during the dramatic bits. The actors clearly had fun.

• Would Hurt a Child: The Gobblers kidnapped children in order to experiment on them by severing their daemons (souls) from them. This usually resulted in death either immediately or within a few weeks.
  • Mrs. Coulter was said to get unusual pleasure watching the process take place, unless the victim was her own child — Lyra.
  • Lord Asriel used Roger's death (caused by separating him and his daemon) to power the machine that opened up the bridge to parallel universes.
  • The Magisterium, in particular the Consistorial Court of Discipline, tried a number of times to kill Lyra, starting in the second book.
• You Are Worth Hell: Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter's mutual fling into the abyss, for Lyra's sake.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Lee Scoresby sacrifices himself to hold off the soldiers at a ravine, so that John Parry could escape safely.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: The Spectres eat your soul, or Dæmon if you have one... if you're past puberty, anyway.
• Your Universe or Mine?: Turns out, aliens to any given universe tend to die pretty quickly, so Lyra and Will stick to their own worlds.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Zeppelins are the primary form of air travel in Lyra's world; it's used as one of the many signs that she lives in a parallel universe to our own.

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