Summary
Soon after leaving Trollesund John Faa asks Lyra for information about Bolvangar’s defenses. Lyra consults her alethiometer and confirms what Kaisa has already told them: the Oblation’s Board base of operations is guarded by an electric fence and sixty fierce Tartar warriors with wolf dæmons. This information makes the older gyptian warriors nervous since they know the Tartars will put up a very tough fight.
Lyra, however, worries about another piece of information that the alethiometer seems to insist is very important. There is a nearby village where there is a lost child, or a ghost. John Faa is hesitant to allow her to go investigate, but when Lyra suggests that Iorek can accompany her, John Faa agrees to let her go. Lyra rides on Iorek’s back, and feels a powerful sense of pride to be riding an armored bear.
On their way to the village Lyra and Iorek spot a cloud of black dots flying through the aurora. Lyra thinks that they are birds but Iorek tells her that they are witches. He says he has never seen so many flying together before, and he makes a note to inform John Faa of what they have seen. He says that if they are flying north to fight for the Oblation Board, John Faa’s men have every reason to be afraid.
When the pair arrive in the village, dogs begin to howl and awaken the residents. A man with a rifle opens a door. Speaking a language that Lyra does not understand, he tells Iorek that a strange boy recently arrived in the village. Although they have tried to get him to leave, he keeps coming back and takes shelter in the village’s fish shed. Lyra approaches the shed. After busting open its frozen door, she finds a scared child named Tony.
He has no dæmon and is clutching a dried fish to his chest, as if in the hopes this would replace his dæmon. She quickly realizes that the boy is a victim of the Oblation Board’s experiments, which consist of separating children from their dæmons in a process called incision. Lyra fights against the revulsion she feels at seeing a dæmonless human. She speaks kindly to the boy and together they ride on Iorek’s back to catch up with the gyptian team.
When the gyptian men see Tony they feel disgusted and scared, but Iorek scolds them for lacking bravery. Lyra is exhausted from her adventure and soon falls asleep. When she awakens, Farder Coram informs her that Tony has died during the night. Farder tells her that Tony looks more peaceful now than he did when he was alive and missing his dæmon. Lyra carves the name of Tony’s dæmon on a gold coin. This will be left in his mouth when he is cremated so that his dæmon can accompany him in death, even if they were separated in life.
Before leaving the camp to continue northward, Lyra asks Farder Coram where he put the tin can containing the spy-fly that attacked Pantalaimon. He tells her, and when he is not looking she sneaks into his pack and brings the can to Iorek. Lyra asks the bear, who has great metal-working skills, to make two new cans. One is to be exactly the same size as the original, while the other must be slightly bigger. Lyra places the identical can in Farder Coram’s pack, while she puts the original can inside the slightly bigger one. She insulates this with grass and moss to muffle the buzzing sound of the spy-fly. She then places this in her pouch alongside her alethiometer and the twig from Serafina Pekkala’s cloud-pine.
As the team approaches Bolvangar, John Faa decides that Lee Scoresby must start using his balloon to spy on the station from above. Lyra wants to join him but John Faa forbids her from doing so. Lyra rides with Lee in his sled until it is time for him to take off. She asks him many questions, especially related to Svalbard, where her father is imprisoned. Though Lyra hides her intentions, it seems she is plotting a way to get to Svalbard to free her father.
Analysis
In this section Lyra continues to gain John Faa’s trust. While John initially writes off the information that Lyra provides as unimportant, Lyra persists. Once she takes matters into her own hands and enlists the help of Iorek, Lyra convinces John not only of the importance of her mission but also of her ability to carry it out. As a result, the team learns something very important about the Oblation Board, and Lyra further proves her worth to John Faa.
While Lyra rides through the tundra on her mission, she takes note of the lights of the aurora. Once again, imagery of the aurora heralds an arrival. This time, as Lyra observes the lights she sees “hundreds upon hundreds of tiny black shapes.” These are witches, who may be on their way to join the same fight as the gyptians. Yet the image of the aurora fades to a “pallid trembling glimmer.” Pullman’s description creates an unstable, ominous mood which foreshadows that the sighting of the witches may be bad news for Lyra and her companions.
Once Lyra and Iorek arrive at the village, Lyra meets a severed child for the first time. Before Lyra opens the door to the shed and sees Tony, Pantalaimon has a nervous fit and refuses to help her. He begs Lyra to leave the place at once. This indicates that Pantalaimon is more sensitive than Lyra when it comes to dæmons’ relationships to their humans. Of course, as Pantalaimon is also a personification of Lyra’s inner self, his fear reflects that deep down, Lyra is also afraid. Yet she pushes forward and masters her fear, just as Iorek has said that he would do if he ever feels afraid.
Pullman introduces the theme of compassion through Lyra’s encounter with Tony. While her encounters with the witches and with Iorek were opportunities for Lyra to strengthen her sense of compassion for those who are different, finding a child with no dæmon puts that compassion to the test. Pullman leaves no room for doubt that “in Lyra's heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won.” This is the only explicit mention of compassion in The Golden Compass.
Lyra’s compassion is so strong that in order to defend Tony’s honor Pantalaimon takes the form of a snow leopard. In this way, he mimicks Lord Asriel’s dæmon. Lyra has met her father only a handful of times. But she finds great pride, inspiration and confidence in the knowledge that she is his daughter. When Pantalaimon mimics the form of Lord Asriel’s dæmon, Pullman makes it clear that Lyra is no longer just a little girl. She is much stronger than when she admired her father’s dæmon at the outset of the novel.
