Summary
As Lyra, Roger, and Iorek sleep in Lee Scoresby’s northbound balloon, Lee discusses the notion of fate with Serafina. Lee is concerned that by flying into the territory of the Panserbjørne, he is entering a war, but he is not charging the gyptians enough money to compensate him for taking on such risks. Serafina replies that he simply has no choice: all of those alive are involved in the war whether they like it or not. Lee is uncomfortable with the idea that people do not have free will. Serafina tells Lee about the witches’ prophecy that says that Lyra must save the world, but she must believe that she is acting on her own free will. Lee ponders this, and then settles into sleep.
Lyra is next to converse with Serafina, since she wakes up while the rest of the balloon’s passengers are still sleeping. Serafina tells Lyra that her father has a mysterious mission in another world, but first he must build a bridge to that world. In order to build the bridge, he requires the alethiometer. Lyra feels excited to help her father. But she is also nervous about what may happen in Svalbard, the island homeland of the panserbjørne. She worries for Iorek’s fate, since he is in exile from Svalbard. She tells Serafina that she loves him and hopes no harm comes to him.
Serafina tells Lyra that Iorek was a prince in Svalbard. Had he not been exiled, he would have become king. However, he murdered another bear in a conflict over a she-bear. With Iorek banished from Svalbard, another bear-prince named Iofur Raknison became king. Some people say that Iofur tricked Iorek into murdering the bear in order to become king. As king, Iofur has tried to emulate humans as closely as possible. For example, he built a palace to live in rather than the bear kings’ traditional ice-forts. Serafina suggests that perhaps bears can only be tricked when they try to act like humans. Next, the two briefly discuss Dust, but Serafina knows very little about Dust other than that it is of central interest to the Church.
Lyra goes to sleep, asking Serafina to wake her when they arrive at Svalbard. Suddenly she is awoken by loud noises and a violent shaking of the balloon. Dangerous flying creatures called cliff-ghasts have attacked the balloon on the outskirts of Svalbard. The balloon starts to go down. Lyra falls out of the balloon and lands violently in the snow, but she is uninjured. When she comes to her wits, she realizes that the balloon must have made it away without her. Meanwhile, a squad of panserbjørn guards finds her and takes her prisoner.
The bears take Lyra to Iofur Raknison’s palace and throw her into a dirty cell. She consults her alethiometer and learns that strong winds led the balloon to make a crash-landing a day’s distance away. Iorek is on his way to save her. However, his chances of defeating Iofur’s entire army of bears are low. Suddenly, a man speaks to Lyra and she realizes that she is not alone in the cell. Her cellmate, who is chained to a wall, is an old professor from the University of Gloucester named Jotham Santelia. Jotham has spent his career studying everything that has to do with the North, from Dust to panserbjørn society.
Lyra, using her knowledge of the Scholars’ inflated egos, convinces Jotham to share information about the bears with her. She learns that Iofur is in love with Mrs. Coulter and afraid of Lord Asriel. Jotham tells her that Iofur is keeping Lord Asriel completely isolated but is supplying him with resources and instruments to continue his research in captivity. He also tells her that if Iorek ever came to Svalbard he wouldn’t stand a chance against Iofur’s forces. Most bears would be given the chance to directly challenge the king in hand combat. But because Iorek is a disgraced bear, he is not entitled to such honorable treatment. Iofur would simply have his guards gun him down at the gates.
As Lyra ponders this information, Jotham’s scholarly manner reminds her of something a professor at Jordan College once said about Iofur Raknison: everything he does is to emulate humans, and his greatest desire is to have a dæmon. This memory prompts her to develop a plan to manipulate the bears into bringing her to her father. Eventually, a panserbjørn guard opens the cell to deliver food to the prisoners.
Lyra tells the guard that she has a message from Iorek Byrnison for the king. The guard says that he can pass the message on for her. But Lyra convinces him that this would be impolite, and the guard brings her to the king’s throne room. She tells the king that Mrs. Coulter was able to create artificial dæmons for bears, and that Lyra herself is actually Iorek’s dæmon. She pretends to hate Iorek, though, and says that she has come to Iofur because she wants to become his dæmon. The only way to achieve this, she tells him, is for Iofur to defeat Iorek in one-on-one combat. For this reason, Iofur must tell his guards to allow Iorek to enter the palace unharmed.
Iofur demands proof that she is actually Iorek’s dæmon. Lyra tells him that dæmons have a special ability to know the answer to any question. Thus, if she is able to answer a question that only Iofur knows the answer to, he’ll have proof that she’s a dæmon. She tells him that she can only find the answer in private, but once she becomes his dæmon he can see how she does it. Iofur asks Lyra two questions: who was the first creature he killed in his life, and what did Mrs. Coulter once promise him that she would do? Lyra goes into another room and consults her alethiometer.
The first creature that Iofur killed was his own father, although at the time he did not know the bear was his father. The promise that Mrs. Coulter made was to convince the Church to baptize Iofur as a Christian even though he doesn’t have a dæmon. Lyra tells Iofur these answers. She adds that Mrs. Coulter must have been lying, because the Church would never baptize someone who does not have a dæmon. However, she tells him, once she becomes his dæmon no one could deny him the right to be baptized.
Iofur is now completely convinced, and agrees to her plan. He instructs his guards to allow Iorek to enter his palace and to prepare fighting grounds for them. Upon Lyra’s suggestion, he also tells his subjects that it was his own idea to invite Iorek to a fight. The winner will be king of the bears forever. Lyra feels extremely powerful with her ability to manipulate the magnificent and enormous bear king, and Pantalaimon cautions her not to get lost in her pride. She also feels somewhat fearful because she is not sure that Iorek will be able to defeat Iofur. However, she tries her best to follow the alethiometer’s instructions: she must have trust in Iorek.
Analysis
In this section, Pullman lays out the central paradox of the work. According to the witches’ prophecy, Lyra has a great responsibility. It is her destiny to save the whole world. If she fails, the world will fall into a hopeless despair. However, in order to fulfill this unavoidable destiny, she must remain completely ignorant of what she is doing. This is a paradox because even though Lyra has no choice in her destiny, she must believe that she is acting on her own free will in order to fulfill it.
As Serafina converses with Lee and Lyra, Pullman characterizes her as a wise and kind woman with many lessons to teach her human companions. Lee respectfully insists on looking out for his own interests. But Serafina explains that he has no choice but to participate in the present war. By contrasting Lee’s and Serafina’s distinct viewpoints, Pullman further develops the theme of free will. While Lee believes he can choose his own position, Serafina argues that he is bound by a collective duty that transcends his personal interests.
As The Golden Compass is a coming-of-age story, Lyra continues to learn more about herself over the course of the novel. This means that she develops a greater understanding of her own skills. When Lyra meets Jotham Santelia, she begins lying to him “out of pure habit.” Here the narrator seems to make no moral judgment on Lyra’s habit of lying. Rather, he describes it as a useful skill. In fact, Lyra’s lies do not harm anyone. In the case of Jotham Santelia, for example, her lies simply serve to inflate his ego so that he shares information with her.
In this section, Pullman finally introduces the reader to the home of the bears. As Lyra approaches the palace, one of the guards proudly instructs her to look up at the carvings on the wall. However, since they are covered with bird droppings and other filth, Lyra cannot see what they depict. So the guard must describe to Lyra the scenes of human civilization submitting itself to panserbjørn greatness. That these images are so dirty as to be unrecognizable underscores the irony of a bear kingdom that wishes it were a human kingdom. The bear king built the palace in the hopes of being more like humans. But the bears, unaccustomed to human buildings and art, do not take care to keep the walls clean enough for their King’s aspirations of dominance to be recognizable.
During her conversations with Lyra, Serafina speculates that bears can be tricked when they behave like humans. By the end of this section, the reader learns that Serafina’s hunch is correct. Everything about Iofur Raknison’s rule over Svalbard has to do with his desire to be more like a human. This results in a world of appearances that lacks authenticity. For example, in the context of the palace, the guards are not even able to trust their own cultural instincts as panserbjørn. This makes it easy for Lyra, a human, to convince the guard that the proper etiquette is for her to approach the king directly, even though he initially believes the opposite to be true. Similarly, Lyra takes advantage of the bear king’s strongest and most human desire, to have a dæmon, in order to trick him into risking his life in a fight against Iorek Byrnison.
