Season one of His Dark Materials introduces Lyra Silvertongue, a young girl raised as
a ward of Jordan College whose only friends are a servant boy named Roger, and her daemon,
Pan.
Daemons are physical manifestations of their human counterparts' soul, who take the form
of an animal.
Lyra admires her uncle, Lord Asriel, an explorer researching parallel worlds and the Dust,
which were particles of consciousness that the religious Magisterium believed was proof
of the original sin, and should therefore be destroyed.
Asriel believed that the Dust represented sentience and free-will, and thus must be
studied and protected.
When Roger, a Gyptian boy named Billy Costa, and a series of other children are kidnapped
by a mysterious group known as Gobblers, Lyra becomes determined to find and save her friend.
A woman named Marissa Coulter arrives at Jordan College and offers to mentor Lyra and help
her save Roger.
Before leaving on her expedition, Jordan College’s Master uses an alethiometer, also referred
to as a golden compass, to discover Lyra’s mysterious importance for the future.
The Master gives Lyra the alethiometer, a rare and hard to interpret device that can
truthfully answer any question asked of it, but warns her not to tell Mrs. Coulter about
it.
While traveling with Mrs. Coulter, Lyra discovers that the woman actually worked for the Magisterium
and was head of the General Oblation Board of London, or GOB, which is where the Gobbler
name is derived.
When the Magisterium attempts to replace Coulter with Father MacPhail, she secures her position
by offering to turn over Lord Asriel, who was currently imprisoned in Svalbard by Iofur
Raknison, king of the armored bears.
Upon discovering that Mrs. Coulter was behind the mysterious child kidnappings, Lyra and
Pan flee, only to be captured by Gobblers.
Lyra and Pan are rescued by the Gyptians, whose group includes Coram van Texel, Lord
John Faa, and Ma Costa, the mother of the kidnapped Billy.
Lyra joins them on their journey North to rescue the missing children, and along the
way, Ma Costa reveals to Lyra that her birth parents were actually Lord Asriel and Mrs.
Coulter.
Asriel had an affair with Coulter, and then was forced to kill Coulter’s husband when
he came looking for revenge.
On their journey, Lyra and the Gyptians also team up with Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby,
Coram’s former witch lover Serafina, and disgraced and enslaved armored bear Iorek
Byrnison.
Lyra and Iorek find and save Billy Costa, who has been surgically removed from his daemon,
but he dies shortly after being reunited with his family.
Lyra is then captured by the Gobblers once again and taken to the other kidnapped children,
where she is reunited with Roger.
Mrs. Coulter arrives and saves Lyra from having to undergo the experimental procedure which
separates a human from their daemon, and tries to convince Lyra to join her cause.
The Gyptians, Iorek, Scoresby, and Serafina arrive to save the children, killing the Gobbler
scientists and mercenaries and destroying the daemon severing machines.
While the Gyptians take the rescued children home to the South, Lyra and Roger join Iorek
and Scoresby on a hot air balloon to rescue the captured Asriel in Svalbard.
Although Scoresby crash lands, Lyra makes it to Svalbard, where Iorek and Iofur fight.
Ultimately, Iorek defeats and kills Iofur, making him the new king of the armored bears.
The group then reunites with Asriel.
As Mrs. Coulter and the Magisterium military arrive to confront Asriel, he takes Roger
to the top of a mountain near the Aurora Borealis and severs him from his daemon, killing him,
but opening a portal to a parallel world.
Asriel asks Mrs. Coulter to abandon the Church and accompany him in his quest to take down
the Authority, but she refuses.
A distraught Lyra, devastated over her father killing her best friend, follows him through
the portal.
Meanwhile, throughout the season we also follow a teenager from our world named Will Parry,
who is caring for his sick mother following the disappearance of his father, Colonel John
Parry, thirteen years prior.
It turns out, John had accidentally discovered and passed through a portal into Lyra’s
world, and had been world hopping ever since.
And now, Mrs. Coulter’s villainous lover and lackey Lord Boreal has come to Will’s
world in search of information on how to find the mysterious John.
When Will accidentally kills one of Boreal’s men in self-defense, he goes on the run and
finds himself accidentally passing through a portal.
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Now let's get back to the recap!
In season two of His Dark Materials, Will enters a new world, finding himself in the
city of Cittagazze.
When Lyra follows Asriel through his portal, she also finds herself in Cittagazze, where
she meets Will.
Will is shocked by the concept of daemons, and all of the other strange happenings that
aren’t present in his world.
Lyra and Will then learn from two children, Angelica and Paola, that Cittagazze had no
adults, as evil spirits known as Spectres devoured human souls upon reaching adulthood.
Together, the duo travel through the portal back to Will’s world, where Lyra believes
she can learn more about Dust and Asriel’s quest.
In Will’s world, the alethiometer leads Lyra to physicist Mary Malone, who was conducting
her own research on Dust, which she refers to as dark matter.
Lyra explains parallel worlds and Dust to Mary, and Mary shows Lyra a machine she had
built to communicate with Dust.
Lyra learns from the machine that Mary would somehow be important in the future.
Lyra then learns from the alethiometer that Will’s father, John, was still alive, so
the two head off to find him.
Unfortunately, Lyra is confronted by Boreal, who steals her alethiometer.
Boreal offers to return the compass if they deliver to him an object known as the Subtle
Knife, which was locked inside a tower in Cittagazze.
The Subtle Knife had the ability to cut open a portal into any universe.
Inside the tower, Lyra and Will meet Giacomo Paradisi, the Bearer of the Knife.
Will becomes the knife’s new bearer, and is taught how to use it by Giacomo, who then
ends his own life before his soul can be devoured by specters.
Lyra and Will then use the knife to steal the alethiometer back from Boreal.
Meanwhile, in Lyra’s world, Mrs. Coulter captures and interrogates a witch to learn
more about a mysterious prophecy.
The witches believed that Lyra was a new Eve who would determine the fate of the Dust in
the upcoming great war between Lord Asriel’s
side, who wanted to protect the Dust and free-will,
and the Magisterium, who wanted to destroy Dust to keep control over people.
Before the captured witch can reveal to Coulter that Lyra is the prophesied Eve, witch queen
Ruta Skadi arrives and kills her friend to silence her, then kills the Church’s cardinal
Sturrock before fleeing.
With Sturrock dead, a new cardinal needed to be elected, and Coulter supports her ally,
MacPhail, who orders the bombings of witch territories to gain support.
MacPhail is named the new cardinal, giving Mrs. Coulter more power in the Magisterium.
Meanwhile, Lee Scoresby finds John Parry, who asks for help in finding the Subtle Knife
and its bearer, which would be vital weapons for Lord Asriel’s cause in his war against
the Authority and the Magisterium.
Scoresby is convinced to join John’s mission, and the two travel through a portal to Cittagazze.
But they’re not the only ones searching for Lyra and Will.
Mary learns from her machine that Dust was actually angels who have intervened in human
evolution across time in a quest for vengeance.
The angels tell her that Lyra was a new Eve, and that Mary was the serpent who needed to
help Lyra gain knowledge.
And so, Mary travels to Cittagazze to find Lyra, and is protected from the Specters by
the angels.
Mrs. Coulter kills Boreal for failing to capture Lyra, and heads to Cittagazze to capture her
herself.
The Specters don’t devour her soul, as Coulter had suppressed her own humanity.
And when MacPhail learns about the Eve prophecy, he sends his own Magisterium army to Cittagazze
to hunt Lyra.
As the Magisterium forces arrive in the city, Ruta, Serafina, and the witches arrive, as
do Scoresby and John, and attempt to fight the Magisterium off, with John using his new
shaman powers to take out countless enemies.
Ultimately, Lee Scoresby sacrifices himself while fighting against the Magisterium soldiers
to allow John to escape.
As John finally reunites with Will and begins telling him of the important role he will
play in the upcoming war, a Magisterium soldier shoots and kills him.
John’s dying words to his son are that the angels would guide him.
Amidst all of the chaos, Mrs. Coulter manages to find and capture Lyra.
As the season comes to a close, Lord Asriel arrives in a new world where he finds angels.
He explains his desire to form a new Republic
of Heaven, free from the control of the Magisterium’s
authority.
The angels agree to support him in the upcoming war.
And in another, mysterious world, the deceased Roger miraculously calls out to his friend,
Lyra.