The Golden Compass

“Her main thought was anxiety, and it wasn’t for herself. She’d been in trouble often enough to be used to it.”

Several facts about Lyra’s character are revealed in this short quote: She is caring for others, and she has a penchant for trouble. While Pullman tells readers what Lyra is feeling, he shows the audience who she is as a person through her feelings without having to explicitly state her characteristics. Pullman often uses feelings and dialogue throughout the novel to indirectly characterize the core cast of the novel.

“Something in the way he said it made Lyra imagine dust with a capital letter, as if this wasn’t ordinary dust. The reaction of the Scholars confirmed her feeling, because Lord Asriel’s words caused a sudden collective silence, followed by gasps of incredulity.”

Lyra’s perceptions of new concepts enable Pullman to build worlds with relative ease for the reader. Rather than Lyra already knowing about the Dust and its properties, she’s overhearing it for the first time. This helps readers—who have a learning curve as they adjust to this fantasy world—highlights Lyra’s perceptiveness as a character and raises important questions about the nature of Dust and what it might mean for the rest of the story.

“Lyra has a part to play in all this, and a major one. The irony is that she must do it all without realizing what she’s doing. She can be helped, though, and if my plan with the Tokay had succeeded, she would have been safe for a little longer. I would have liked to spare her a journey to the North. I wish above all things that I were able to explain it to her…”

This conversation relays some expository information about Lyra’s supposed role in the story. This creates tension because Lyra doesn’t know what her role is, and even the audience doesn’t understand why it would be ironic. The suspense of having this knowledge of Lyra’s importance without her understanding it propels the story forward while providing critical