Lyra's dæmon, Pantalaimon, can change shape as all children's can. Most unique and important to the story is that in Lyra's world, every human person has an animal familiar called a dæmon which is an external manifestation of their soul. Early on it becomes clear that Lyra's Oxford is not the Oxford of our world, but a world in which history has taken a number of alternate routes leading to subtle changes, for example use of the word ' anbaric' instead of 'electric', but also unfamiliar peculiarities, for example a unique species of polar bear having developed opposable thumbs, sentience and a rich cultural tradition on the remote archipelago of Svalbard. The story is divided into three parts, the first, ' Oxford', opening with eleven-year-old orphan Lyra Belacqua hiding in the Retiring Room in Jordan College. It provides the source of the series title His Dark Materials. This quote precedes the table of contents as well as the title page of the book. Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while, His dark materials to create more worlds, Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,īut all these in their pregnant causes mixedĬonfusedly, and which thus must ever fight, The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
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