The Golden Compass Characters

Lyra (pronounced LIE-RUH) Belacqua is the lead protagonist of the His Dark Materials trilogy and the main character of the series' first book, The Golden Compass. She is an 11-year-old girl who has...

Pantalaimon is Lyra's shape-shifting daemon. What's a "daemon," you ask? Well, the word "daemon" is an old one that has a lot of different meanings. In Christian writings, the word is sometimes use...

Dark, dashing, and thirsty for power, Lord Asriel is The Golden Compass's anti-hero in chief. Lord Asriel as... Satan?Lord Asriel has some admirable qualities, to be sure: he's a cunning, highly in...

Underneath Mrs. Marissa Coulter's glitzy, glamorous surface is a whole lot of nastiness. Her daemon is a golden monkey, and her powers come from her feminine wiles. In Part 1 of the novel she acts...

Farder Coram is a gyptian elder notable for his "bright flickering intelligence" (7.113). His daemon is a "beautiful autumn-colored cat (7.55). He is a figure of wisdom and guidance, and John Faa r...

Iofur Raknison is the bad bear king that banished Iorek from Svalbard. Iofur has a weird obsession: he's dying to be a human and have his very own daemon. If he weren't such a jerk, it would be kin...

Iorek Byrnison is one of the panserbjørne – a race of armored polar bears that live in the land of Svalbard. Once a prince, he has been banished from the kingdom for killing another bear in the...

John Faa is the leader of the gyptian people; he's officially known as the "lord of the western gyptians" (7.23). Faa is in his 70s, and his daemon is a crow. He's a symbol of leadership in the nov...

Lee Scoresby is an aeronaut from the country of Texas. He's a bit of a cowboy, with a "thin black moustache" and a daemon who is a "shabby hare as thin and tough-looking as he was" (11.99). Lee fli...

Ma Costa is a gyptian and the mother of Billy Costa. While Mrs. Coulter may be Lyra's biological mother, Ma Costa is more of a mother figure to her. When John Faa reveals to Lyra the truth about he...

Roger, Lyra's constant companion in Oxford, is a young kitchen boy who's kidnapped by the Gobblers in the opening chapters of the novel. The two are BFFs – the narrator tells us that Roger is mor...

Serafina Pekkala is the queen of the witch clan. She's hundreds of years old, but like a Twilight vampire she still looks young and fabulous. She was formerly in love with the gyptian elder Farder...