Every Child's Beginning

The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman's first book in his series, The Dark Materials, begins with an adventure of a curious little girl named Lyra Belacqua.

Lyra has always been the fun-loving and adventurous girl that everyone at Jordan College loved. She is a curious and innocent little girl who just likes to have battles for territory with her fellow children at Oxford... That is, until she decides to snoop around the mysterious, forbidden room with her daemon, Pantalaimon.

And so begins Lyra's dangerous and long journey that will involve twists of unexpected events and imaginative world of fantasy...

The Start of a New Adventure - Pitch #1

Lyra Belacqua, the fun-loving girl that is loved by everyone at her home, Jordan College, begins her long journey with an adventure that she has dreamed of for a very long long time.

Lyra sneaks into a forbidden room to snoop around with her daemon, Pantalaimon. Daemons, in Lyra's world, are people's life-time companions. There is a link between a daemon and a human that allows them to read each other's thoughts, and feel each other's pain, whether it is emotional or physical. It is said that a daemon cannot be separated from its human.

Hidden inside a closet, Lyra spies on the Master trying to poison her uncle and she finds out about the existence of a mysterious substance called 'Dust'. According to the Master, Lyra is to take part in her expedition to find the 'Dust' and the other worlds.

All the while children keep disappearing...

Strange Occurences - Pitch #2

Children all around England are mysteriously disappearing. Some say the 'Gobblers' kidnap them and gobble them up; some say Gobblers take the children and hide them underground. No one knows who takes the children and for what reason. All they know is that no child has been seen ever again after getting kidnapped.

When Lyra and her friend, Roger the kitchen boy find out children are disappearing from their own little town of Oxford, they are determined more than ever to catch the kidnappers. However, Lyra finds herself alone in this mission because Roger was taken by the kidnappers himself! While Lyra tries to catch the kidnappers with her cronies, three female scholars turn up at her home, Jordan College.

Lyra finds herself getting immediately attached to Mrs. Coulter, one of the three female scholars. Mrs. Coulter is a young, beautiful, and intelligent woman. Lyra desires nothing more than to become a woman like Mrs. Coulter. The Master of Jordan College decides to let Lyra be taken with Mrs. Coulter to live like an elegant, rich, young girl with lots of female attention from Mrs. Coulter. Before Lyra sets off for her new home, the Master gives her a strange instrument called the 'alethiometer'. An alethiometer is a device that tells its holder the truth, and there are only four made in Lyra's world. It is Lyra's duty to find out, on her own, how to work the alethiometer and what truth it can uncover...

The Escape - Pitch #3

Lyra spends her time pleasantly with Mrs. Coulter in London. During her time in London, Lyra assists Mrs. Coulter in various things, including calculations and navigation. Lyra also learns geography, science, and math from Mrs. Coulter.

During her lesson on space, Lyra expertly blurts out all she knows about the 'Dust'. After this incident, Mrs. Coulter's behaviour towards Lyra starts to change. Mrs. Coulter's daemon, the golden monkey, attacks Lyra's own daemon when Lyra doesn't follow Mrs. Coulter's orders, almost killing both Lyra and Pantalaimon.

At a cocktail party held by Mrs. Coulter, Lyra finds out even more about the curious subject of 'Dust'. She also discovers that it was Mrs. Coulter who had been stealing children away from their homes. In addition, Lyra also learns that the Gobblers have her Uncle Asriel locked up in a castle, guarded by ferocious armoured bears.

Lyra runs away with her daemon, Pantalaimon and the alethiometer, and finds herself in the hands of the Costas, a gyptian family she knows from Oxford. Meanwhile, the evil Mrs. Coulter sends a search party, along with the police to find Lyra.

The gypsies take Lyra to the king of gypsies. Why she is taken there, she doesn't know yet, but she will find out soon...

The Truth - Pitch #4

At the gypsies’ meeting called the ‘Roping’, Lyra meets John Faa, the king of the gypsies and his friend, Farder Coram. There, they tell Lyra the true story of her parents. As it turns out, her Uncle Asriel, and the horrendous Mrs. Coulter are her parents.

As the gypsies and Lyra set off to rescue the kidnapped children, Lyra slowly learns how to correctly read the truth from the alethiometer. With the alethiometer, Lyra predicts the death of a gyptian spy and the furious state in which Mrs. Coulter is in.

Although Lyra can figure out Mrs. Coulter’s plans easily, she doubts her ability to see the truth, and falls into a sticky situation. Two spirits sent by Mrs. Coulter spies on Lyra and, although one gets captured by Farder Coram, the other gets away and flies off to report to Mrs. Coulter.

And so begins Lyra’s journey to the North, with danger and trouble lying ahead.

New Friends Made - Pitch #5

Lyra and her group of gypsies set off for a town called Trollesund. There, they meet the counsul of witches. The counsul tells them all he knows about the Gobblers, where to find an outcast armoured bear, and how Lyra is already famous among the witches.

That night, Farder Coram and Lyra go to find Iorek Byrnison the bear at the Einarsson's Bar, where he currently works. Iorek tells Lyra and Farder Coram about how the people of Trollesund tricked him into excessively drinking and taking his armour away from him. The price the gyptians and Lyra have to pay in order to hire Iorek, is getting his armour back to him.

That same night, Lyra sits in her tiny room and asks the alethiometer about the whereabouts of the armour. Within minutes, she figures out exactly where it is hidden. Later that night, Lyra, John Faa, and Farder Coram are visited by Kaisa, the daemon of Serafina Pekkala, who is a witch friend of Farder Coram. Kaisa tells them about Bolvangar, the island where the children are getting shipped off to, about why Lord Asriel is imprisoned, and about other worlds seen inside the Aurora.

With all this knowledge stacked inside their brains, Lyra, John Faa, and Farder Coram go off to hire Iorek and his friend, Lee Scoresby the aeronaut. Now, with all the employments necessary well taken care of, the gyptians and Lyra set off for Bolvangar.

Off to Bolvangar - Pitch #6

As Lyra and the Gyptians set off for Bolvangar, Lyra asks the alethiometer about the security system there. It tells Lyra many useful things, like the daemons of the Tartar soldiers who are guarding the doors. It also tells her something unexpected. It tells her to go to a town nearby and rescue a child. Because Lyra has learned to trust the alethiometer, she decides to do as the alethiometer told her to.

With the help of Iorek the armoured bear, Lyra rescues little Tony Makarios. During the rescue, Lyra discovers the truth behind the Gobblers' doings. Tony is one of the children that the Gobblers had already experimented on and sent out into the wilderness to die. The experiments performed by the Gobblers left Tony separated from his daemon, Ratter. Tony was left to die in the cold, without his lifelong companion! This separation weakens both humans and daemons, and there is a high possibility that both will die either during or after the operation.

When Lyra and Iorek return with little Tony, they tell the Gyptians about the Gobblers cutting children's daemons away. This little bit of information makes the Gyptians more determined and devoted to rescue the poor children. However, before they could reach Bolvangar, the Gyptians are attacked by a group of hunters who work for the Gobblers. The hunters steal Lyra away from her group and bring her to the 'Experimental Station' in Bolvangar.

What is Lyra, known as Lizzie Brooks in the 'station', going to do? How is she going to escape with the other children?

Life at Bolvangar - Pitch #7

Lyra makes new friends at Bolvangar, who play and gossip with her. She reunites with Roger and Billy Costa, her kidnapped friends from Oxford.

During a fire drill, Lyra, Roger, and Billy sneak into a forbidden room with the help of Kaisa, a witch's daemon. There, they find the caged daemons of the children who were already experimented on. Lyra sets all the daemons free to go back to their owners.

At night, Lyra travels through a secret passageway in the ceiling that was discovered by Billy, and listens in on the Gobblers in the Conference Room. Mrs. Coulter orders the other Gobblers to find out who let the daemons out. The Gobblers in the Conference Room talk about the new 'separator' that looks like a guillotine. Just the sound of this separator gives Lyra chills down her spine.

As soon as Mrs. Coulter leaves the room, the other Gobblers start gossiping about her. When a little gasp from Lyra escapes, her hideout gets discovered, and Lyra is pulled down into the room. The Gobblers grab her and place her and her daemon, Pantalaimon, inside the separator. At that moment, Mrs. Coulter barges in the room. After a moment of shock from finding her own daughter seconds away from being separated from her daemon forever, Mrs. Coulter gets Lyra out of the room to talk about what happened. Lyra is only safe as long as she pretends...

Away from Bolvangar - Pitch #8

After being rescued by Mrs. Coulter, Lyra has a 'nice little chat' with her, pretending to be innocent and sweet. When Mrs. Coulter tries to take the alethiometer, which was actually a spy-fly disguised for this purpose, the spy-fly attacks her.

Seeing the golden chance, Lyra sprints out of the room, and pulls all the fire alarms on her way to the kitchen. In the kitchen, Lyra creates a humongous fire that will destroy Bolvangar for good. She leads all the other children outside, where the Tartar guards are waiting for them. Lyra and the other children indulge in a big snowball fight in which they aim to put snow in the eye slits of the armours of the guards, blocking their view. With the Tartar guards staggering behind, the children reach to safety where the gyptians are all waiting.

Before Lyra can go with the other children, however, Mrs. Coulter grabs Lyra, and Roger tries to peel Lyra off from Mrs. Coulter, but Mrs. Coulter is too strong for a little boy like him. At that very moment, Lee Scoresby arrives in his air balloon, and takes Lyra, Roger, and Iorek away. Safe inside the air balloon, Lyra meets Serafina Pekkala, the witch friend of Farder Coram. They talk about many things, including the Dust, the Church, the Gobblers, and the history of Iorek. In her talk with the witch, Lyra discovers that had Iorek not murdered another bear, he would have become the king of the bears.

Just then, the air balloon gets attacked by an army of cliff-ghasts. Lyra is thrown off the balloon and gets lost. She is unable to find her friends. What will she do?

A Sneak Peek at the Life Inside the Palace of Bears - Pitch #9

Lyra gets discovered by some armoured bears. She is taken to the palace of bears, and imprisoned there. When a guard bear brings her food, she tells him that there is something very important that she must discuss with Iofur Raknison, the king of bears.

She is taken to Iofur, and there, she pretends to be Iorek's daemon. Lyra tricks Iofur into believing she would just love to be Iofur's daemon instead. Lyra tells Iofur that in order to have her as his daemon, he needs to defeat Iorek in a single combat. When Iorek reaches the palace to rescue Lyra, Iorek and Iofur fight for their lives.

At the end of the combat, Iofur is defeated and killed, and Iorek becomes the new king of the armoured bears. The only thing left for Lyra to do is to find her father, Lord Asriel, who is a prisoner of the bears.

The End of This World and the Beginning of the Next - Pitch #10

With Iorek and Roger, Lyra sets off for her father's prison. When Lord Asriel first sees Lyra, he is shocked and angry. He shouts for her to get out, which makes Lyra puzzled because she believed her father would be happy to see her come to rescue him. However, as soon as he sees Roger behind Lyra, he immediately calms down.

He tells Thorold, his manservant, to bring the children some food and warm clothes. Although Lyra came to her father to give him the alethiometer, he refuses to take it, and tells her to keep it. Lyra fills Lord Asriel up on details of her long journey to the north. In return, Lord Asriel teaches Lyra about 'Dust' and the other worlds.

The next morning, when Lyra wakes up, she finds that Roger and Lord Asriel and gone. By talking to Thorold, Lyra finds out that her father has taken her best friend to use as a sacrifice in order to complete his experiment! On Iorek's back, Lyra tries hard to catch up to her father and Roger. However, she is too late. When she reaches her destination, her father is only a minute away from killing Roger.

Lyra struggles hard to save Roger, but fails. Just then, Mrs. Coulter shows up. Lord Asriel beckons her to come with him to the other world on the bridge he had built, but she refuses his offer. Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter go on separate ways while Lyra sobs sadly at the fact that she had actually betrayed her best friend, although she strongly believed she was rescuing him. Lyra steps onto the bridge and continues on into the new world...