Northern Lights (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The novel is set in a parallel world to ours, in a world controlled largely by a theocratic international organisation, the Magisterium, which actively suppresses heresy. On this world, human souls exist externally in the form of sentient "dæmons": animal spiritual beings that constantly accompany, aid, and comfort their humans.

Lyra Belacqua—a 12-year-old girl who has been allowed to run somewhat wild with her beloved dæmon, Pantalaimon—awaits the arrival of her uncle and guardian, Lord Asriel, at Jordan College, a (fictional) Oxford University college. She spies on him moments before he is scheduled to begin a lecture, and in doing so, saves his life when she stops him from drinking wine poisoned by the college's Master. Moments before the college's Scholars enter the room, Lyra hides in the coat closet and secretly watches Asriel's lecture, thus learning of "Dust", the name given to elementary particles that are apparently attracted to adults more than children. The lecture also sparks Lyra's fascination for Arctic exploration when Asriel shows images of a city skyline in some parallel universe that can be viewed through the northern lights. The purpose of the lecture is to convince the Scholars that other worlds exist so that they will fund Asriel's ongoing research, which the Magisterium considers heretical.

After Asriel leaves Jordan, successful in his effort for financial backing, Lyra begins hearing rumours of the Gobblers, a mysterious group that has been kidnapping children throughout England, allegedly for the purposes of torture or experimentation. Shortly after her own friend Roger Parslow goes missing, Lyra meets Mrs Coulter, a beautiful and adventurous woman, and agrees when invited by the Master to go and live with her. Before Lyra leaves the college, the Master secretly entrusts Lyra with an alethiometer, a "truth teller" which resembles a four-handed pocket watch that will honestly answer any possible question asked by a skilled user. Although unable to read or understand its complex symbols at first, Lyra takes it with her, and gradually begins to use the device fluently over the course of the narrative—something which, it is later revealed, no adult can do as well as she. Lyra believes that the Master, who tried to poison Asriel, gives Lyra the alethiometer so that she will deliver it to Asriel as a reparation, or token of apology, for the earlier attempt on his life. It later seems clear that the Master tried to poison Asriel under pressure from the Magisterium.

After living a charmed several weeks with Mrs Coulter, Lyra discovers that Mrs Coulter is the leader of the Gobblers, officially known as the General Oblation Board: the secret, Magisterium-approved, child-stealing organisation. Horrified, Lyra flees and is rescued in London by the Gyptians, a nomadic people who reveal that Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter are in fact Lyra's father and mother. The Gyptians tell Lyra the true story of her parents and she begins life with the Gyptians at sea. The Gyptians have been hit hardest by the Gobblers' kidnapping activities and they ultimately plan an expedition to the Arctic to rescue all of the missing children, including Roger.

On a stop in Trollesund, Lyra meets Iorek Byrnison, an outcast prince of the sapient panserbjørne, or "armoured bears". His armour, stolen from him by the villagers, is akin to his soul, and without it Iorek is bound in servitude to the village. Lyra uses her alethiometer to locate it for him and in return he—and an old friend of his, an aeronaut named Lee Scoresby—agrees to help her on her quest. She also learns that Lord Asriel is being held in exile by the panserbjørne at Svalbard.

The Trollesund consul of the witches tells the Gyptians that there is a prophecy about Lyra's destiny, which she must not know about, and that it seems the witch clans are choosing sides in preparation for some imminent war. The party consisting of Gyptians, Iorek Byrnison, Lee Scoresby, and Lyra continue north toward where they are told the Gobblers hold the children, at a place called Bolvangar. Guided by the alethiometer, Lyra detours at a village and finds, to her horror, a boy who has been severed from his dæmon. Lyra understands now that the Gobblers are deliberately cutting the bond between human and dæmon (a process called "intercision"): an uncanny notion analogous to a human body being split from its soul. Though Lyra brings the boy back to her party, his psychological devastation overcomes him and he eventually dies. In the Arctic wilderness, the party is soon attacked by bounty hunters and Lyra, captured, is taken directly to Bolvangar: a research station for the General Oblation Board. Superficially, Bolvangar is run like a benign children's centre, complete with scheduled activities for its captured children, who are suspicious but overall compliant. At Bolvangar, Lyra locates Roger and devises a plan for all of the children to escape, knowing through the alethiometer that the Gyptian-led rescue party is still on its way. Mrs Coulter arrives, evidently as a supervisor to the facility, just as Lyra is caught spying by staff-members. The staff decide to silence Lyra through intercision, involving their newly developed dæmon-cutting guillotine; however, she is rescued at the last moment by Mrs Coulter who is shocked to see her. Mrs Coulter then tries to coax the alethiometer away from her but Lyra has switched the alethiometer case for a decoy, distracting Mrs Coulter long enough to activate the station's emergency alarm. In the commotion, Lyra sets the station on fire and leads the other children outside where they are met by Lee Scoresby, Iorek Byrnison, the Gyptians, and their new allies, the witch-clan of Serafina Pekkala. Using Lee Scoresby's hot air balloon, Lyra, Roger, and Iorek leave the scene as a battle erupts involving the Gyptians and witches against Bolvangar's mercenary guards and staff. Lyra befriends Serafina Pekkala and later learns that all of the children have been successfully rescued from Bolvangar.

Determined to deliver the alethiometer to Lord Asriel, Lyra now directs the witches to tow the balloon toward Svalbard; however, Lyra falls out of the basket near Svalbard and is quickly taken prisoner by the panserbjørne in their castle. Although captive, Lyra is able to trick their usurping bear-king, Iofur Raknison, into agreeing to fight Iorek, by claiming that she is Iorek's dæmon, and that if Iofur killed Iorek, then she would become Iofur's dæmon—something no bear has and Iofur wants more than anything. Arriving at the castle to rescue Lyra, Iorek successfully kills Iofur in the fight and thus is made king himself. Lyra—now nicknamed "Lyra Silvertongue" by Iorek as a token of her ability—travels onward to Lord Asriel’s house of exile, accompanied by Iorek and Roger.

Despite being exiled, Lord Asriel has become so influential that he has accumulated the necessary equipment to continue his research on Dust. He explains to Lyra all he knows of Dust: the Church's view that it is deeply sinful, his belief that Dust is somehow related to the source of all death and misery, the existence of parallel universes from which Dust originates, and his final goal—he intends to visit the other universes, find the source of Dust (and, therefore, the source of all death and misery), and ultimately destroy it, triumuphantly claiming that "Death is going to die". As Lyra sleeps, Asriel leaves to fulfill his great experiment, bringing along his scientific equipment and taking Roger by force. Lyra awakes and pursues them, discovering that she has indeed brought her father what he wanted, though not in the way she thought; it was not the alethiometer he needed, but rather, it was Roger. The severing of a child's dæmon releases an enormous amount of energy, which Lord Asriel needs to complete his task. Lyra is unable to save Roger in time though, and his death provides sufficient energy to tear a hole through the northern lights into a parallel universe, ripping the sky apart. Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter (who catches up with him by zeppelin) face the newly revealed world and romantically embrace, but Mrs Coulter feels unable to go with Asriel and painfully declines his invitation. Without further comment, Lord Asriel walks into the new universe alone and Mrs Coulter departs back the way she came. Devastated at her part in rescuing Roger only to bring him to his death, Lyra decides that Dust, contrary to what all adults have told her, may be a force of good rather than evil. She and her dæmon Pantalaimon vow to discover if this is true and to stop Asriel; they then follow him through the opening in the sky.

This concludes the first novel, with the trilogy continuing in the next book, The Subtle Knife.