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Summary: The Golden Compass/Northern Lights
In The Golden Compass (U.K. title Northern Lights) readers are introduced to 11-year-old Lyra Belacqua, a half-wild orphan growing up within the precincts of Jordan College in Oxford, England. It quickly becomes apparent that Lyra's Oxford is not precisely like our own - nor is her world. In Lyra's world, everyone has a personal dæmon, a lifelong animal familiar able to shape shift until the onset of adolescence. In this world, science, theology, and politics closely intertwine creating an oppressive system of control known as the Magisterium, or the Church.These world politics are of little concern to Lyra, who at the outset of the story spends most of her time with her friend Roger, a servant of Jordan College. Together they share a carefree existence scampering across the rooftops of Jordan, racing along the streets of Oxford, or waging wars with the Oxford townies. However, her life changes forever when Lyra and her dæmon, Pantalaimon, prevent an assassination attempt on her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel. Encouraged by neither approval nor disapproval from her uncle, Lyra and Pantalaimon become further involved in the unknown as they take up a hiding place in the male-only scholar's room and overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust.
Around this time a rumor is stirring: the "Gobblers" are in Oxford. Children begin disappearing as the group arrives. Who the Gobblers are and what motivates them is unknown, but soon even Lyra is drawn into the rumors and speculation as her good friend Roger disappears.
Before she can begin her search for Roger, Lyra is swept away by the scholars of Jordan College into a dinner party where she meets Mrs. Coulter, a beautiful and bewitching woman with a golden monkey dæmon. Mrs. Coulter isn't a dumpy woman scholar, but an explorer traveling to the North to take readings of the stars and gather other research - seemingly everything Lyra is fascinated by. With the reasoning of needing an assistant, Mrs. Coulter takes Lyra under her wing to bring with her to London. On the morning she is to leave Jordan College, the Master of Jordan rushes Lyra into his office and presents her with an alethiometer, a rare and powerful instrument with the power to reveal the truth in all things. He instructs Lyra to keep the instrument safe and hidden, but is interrupted before he can reveal why he's given the alethiometer to her.
In London, Mrs. Coulter pampers Lyra and her dæmon, treating them to shopping experiences, museum tours, and dinner parties the likes of which the rambunctious Lyra would formerly never be forced into by all the scolding Jordan's housekeeper could offer her. However, The enticing offer of going North keeps Lyra sated for a time until guests of a dinner party Lyra reveal Mrs. Coulter's true role in the Church's General Oblation Board, a.k.a. the Gobblers: the group responsible for the disappearing children.
Horrified at what she has learned, Lyra and Pantalaimon flee Mrs. Coulter's flat in the middle of the night. After a brief run-in with kidnappers they are rescued by the kindness of two Gyptian men. The Gyptians are a group of gypsy-like people living on narrowboats in England's canals. Their sense of self is identified by strong loyalty to the group and their families. The Gyptians in particular have suffered many children lost at the hands of the Gobblers and they call a meeting of all families to create a search party for the missing children. Through the meeting, Lyra is introduced to the Gyptian elders, Lord John Faa and Farder Coram, who reveal her true parents did not die in a zeppelin accident as she was told, but are in fact Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter.
While the initial shock of having parents settles on Lyra, her curiosity turns toward the alethiometer and its purpose. She begins focusing questions at the instrument to learn about the Gyptian party that will travel to rescue the captured children. As she starts to gain understanding of the alethiometer, it becomes apparent to the Gyptian elders that despite their earlier denials to her, they must bring Lyra on the expedition North to find the children.
The rescue party starts out from East Anglia and travels by boat northward to Trollesund where they enlist the help of a Texan aeronaut, Lee Scoresby. Past ties with a witch queen, Serafina Pekkala, gains the Gyptian party further assistance from the witch clan itself as well as the witch's consul, Dr. Martin Lanselius. Dr. Lanselius reveals that Lyra is to play an important role in the prophecy of the witches and instructs Farder Coram to request the help of a local mercenary - Iorek Byrnison, one of the panserbjørne, a sentient armoured polar bear exiled from his people. He works as a metal smith in Trollesund after the townspeople tricked him into drinking and stole away his armour, a thing he compares to Lyra's dæmon in importance to him.
Putting the task to the alethiometer, Lyra is able to find the location of Iorek Byrnison's armour. After a recovery effort by the polar bear ends with pieces of the town in shambles, the armoured bear joins the rescue party North on their way to Bolvangar. During the long journey farther north, prompted by the alethiometer, Lyra and her dæmon are escorted by Iorek Byrnison to a lakeside village where they discover the true actions of the Gobblers. In a small fishing shack in the villiage a young boy named Tony Makarios sits alone, hugging a piece of fish to his breast in place of his dæmon which had been severed and separated from him.
Lyra arrives back to the rescue party with the boy riding with her on Iorek's back. The shock of being separated from his dæmon forces the boy to succumb to the frozen north, and motivated by the true gravity of the Gobbler's child experiments, the Gyptians set out anew with ambition, and encounter a Tartar raiding party. During the fracas, Lyra and Pantalaimon are knocked from their sledge and kidnapped by the Tartars. Soon, they are escorted into a fenced-in building resembling a hospital where Lyra is traded to the nurses for gold coins. The adept liar, Lyra provides an alias for herself and quickly discovers that she has been sold to the Gobblers. Her alias and new proximity to the offending kidnappers provides her opportunity to spy and bide her time as she is shuffled around as if in a boarding school. During a lunch period Lyra is also able to fulfill her initial ambition as is reunited with her Jordan friend Roger, and teams up with one of the Gyptian children, Billy Costa into forcing an escape plan onto the other children being kept at the facility.
After a botched spying attempt, Lyra and Pantalaimon are forced into two separate cages - about to be severed as Tony Makarios was. The last instant finds them rescued at the hands they had formerly run from - none other than Mrs. Coulter, a high-ranking member of the General Oblation Board who had come to check on the situation at the Bolvangar facility. However, the new knowledge of Mrs. Coulter's identity as her mother and her rescue from being severed from her dæmon are not enough to keep Lyra tamed any longer, and she runs from Mrs. Coulter, setting off the fire alarm in the process - the signal for all the children to escape. In a rush, the children bundle into their outdoor clothes and proceed outside to make the escape while Lyra and Pantalaimon add to the chaos by setting a true fire in the kitchen of the station. Banding together and led by Lyra and her comrades Roger and Billy, the children make their way toward the rescue party and safety of the Gyptians.
The rescue attempt a success, Lyra and Roger still find themselves far from the end of their journey as Mrs. Coulter returns on a motorized sledge to try again to steal away her daughter. Trapped by Mrs. Coulter, Lyra is surprised to be lifted off the ground by the airborne witch clan accompanying the Gyptian rescue party. She and Roger are deposited into the hot air balloon of Lee Scoresby, who then makes room for Iorek Bynison and his armour to come aboard.
Recalling an earlier determination, Lee Scoresby sets a course to Svalbard where Lyra's father Lord Asriel is being kept prisoner by the panserbjørne. As the balloon begins a course over Svalbard, an attack by the cliff-ghasts knocks Lyra and Pantalaimon from the balloon and they too are quickly taken prisoner by the panserbjørne while rough winds force Lee Scoresby and the remaining party farther north.
From her prison, Lyra gathers information on the bear-king by speaking with other prisoners. Her earlier memories of hiding in the retiring room at Jordan College brings a plan and she demands to speak with the king of the panserbjørne, Iofur Raknison. Encouraged by her familiarity with Iorek Byrnison, Lyra tricks the bear-king into fighting Iorek in single combat when he comes to rescue her.
As she runs out to explain to Iorek that she's forced him into a fight to the death with the fiercely powerful bear-king, Iorek responds that he wants nothing more. In fact, Iorek was the rightful king of the panserbjørne but was forced into exile after accidentally killing another panserbjørn in combat over a she-bear. Before the fight commences, Iorek renames Lyra "Silvertongue," based on her ability to tell stories and lies. Although Iorek had previously asserted that humans cannot trick the bears, Lyra's "silver tongued" deal allowed Iorek to also trick Iofur into believing the stronger Iofur had won, enabling Iorek defeat his overly-confident opponent and take his rightful place as king of the armoured bears.
As her friend Roger arrives to the bear palace being torn down, Lyra asserts that now with the panserbjørne now under different rule, she will rescue Lord Asriel from his Svalbard prison. Iorek agrees and with a small group of bears, together they take Lyra and Roger to Asriel's prison. In his prison, Lord Asriel has experimented with Dust in a manner different from the General Oblation Board and has discovered its role in crossing the barriers into other worlds. Taking Lyra into his home, and the truth of his fatherhood revealed known by Lyra, he explains that he will cross a bridge into another world using a tremendous burst of energy, the source of which is initially unknown to Lyra.
Rising from her sleep in the night, Lyra suddenly recalls Asriel's words and realizes the energy created when separating a person from their dæmon is precisely what Asriel needs to create his bridge through the aurora into another world, and unbeknownst to her, she has delivered Roger to him. Unable to sacrifice his own child, Lord Asriel makes Roger his prey and overcomes the best efforts of Lyra to create his bridge, escaping into the world behind the aurora. As the story ends, the universe has been broken wide and Lyra's best friend lies dead at her feet, having been sacrificed to Asriel's creation of the bridge. At the brink of the new world, encouraged by her dæmon and leaving all allies behind, Lyra steps through the aurora to discover revenge and the truth about Dust.