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She is the leader of an organization called the Oblation Board which is secretly responsible for kidnapping hundreds of children across England and sending them to research centers in the North. Shortly after Lyra’s father embarks on a research trip to the North Pole, where Dust is more easily observable, Lyra’s mother arrives at Oxford. This particle is given the name “Dust.” Both Lyra’s mother and father have been involved in high-level research regarding the nature of Dust, although this research is very sensitive because the Church only recently stopped denying the existence of Dust and included it in its doctrine. They left her to the care of the university, and Lyra does not learn of her true identity until later in life.Ī few hundred years before the story begins, a Russian scientist discovers an elementary particle, similar to protons or electrons. Lyra was born out of wedlock, and due to her parents’ position in high society, they were unable to raise her themselves.
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Her mother, who she has never met, is Mrs. Lyra’s father, who she believes is her uncle, is the mysterious and powerful Lord Asriel. The novel’s protagonist is Lyra Belacqua, a 12-year-old girl raised by scholars at Oxford University in England. In this world, an authoritarian theocracy commonly known as the Church dominates society, suppressing people and ideas that it considers dangerous or heretical. While children’s dæmons can freely change from one form to another, when a person becomes an adult his or her most prominent personality traits are manifested in a dæmon with a permanent form. There, characters’ inner selves exist as physical companions that take the form of animals called dæmons. The Golden Compass is set in a universe that is parallel to our own.
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