Editing His Dark Materials (section)

== Plot ==
===''Northern Lights'' (or ''The Golden Compass'')===
{{Main|Northern Lights (Pullman novel)}}

In [[Jordan College, Oxford]], 11-year-old [[Lyra Belacqua]] and her [[Dæmon (His Dark Materials)|dæmon]] Pantalaimon witness the [[Master (college)|Master]] attempt to poison [[Lord Asriel]], Lyra's rebellious and adventuring uncle. She warns Asriel, then spies on his lecture about [[Dust (His Dark Materials)|Dust]], mysterious [[elementary particle]]s. Lyra's friend Roger is kidnapped by child abductors known as Gobblers. Lyra is adopted by a charming socialite, [[Marisa Coulter|Mrs Coulter]]. The Master secretly entrusts Lyra with an alethiometer, a truth-telling device. Lyra discovers that Mrs Coulter is the leader of the Gobblers, and that it is a project secretly funded by the Church. Lyra flees to the [[Gyptians]], [[canal]]-faring [[Nomadic|nomads]], whose children have also been abducted. They reveal to Lyra that Asriel and Mrs Coulter are actually her parents.

The Gyptians form an expedition to the Arctic with Lyra to rescue the children. Lyra recruits [[Characters of His Dark Materials#Iorek Byrnison|Iorek Byrnison]], an [[Panserbjørne|armoured bear]], and his human [[aeronaut]] friend, [[Characters of His Dark Materials#Lee Scoresby|Lee Scoresby]]. She also learns that Lord Asriel has been exiled, guarded by the bears on [[Svalbard]].

Near Bolvangar, the Gobbler research station, Lyra finds an abandoned child who has been cut from his dæmon; the Gobblers are experimenting on children by severing the bond between human and dæmon, a procedure called intercision.

Lyra is captured and taken to Bolvangar, where she is reunited with Roger. Mrs Coulter tells Lyra that the intercision prevents the onset of troubling adult emotions. Lyra and the children are rescued by Scoresby, Iorek, the Gyptians, and [[Characters of His Dark Materials#Serafina Pekkala|Serafina Pekkala]]'s flying witch clan. Lyra falls out of Scoresby's balloon and is taken by the panserbjørne to the castle of their usurping king, [[Characters of His Dark Materials#Iofur Raknison|Iofur Raknison]]. She tricks Iofur into fighting Iorek, who arrives with the others to rescue Lyra. Iorek kills Iofur and takes his place as the rightful king.

Lyra, Iorek, and Roger travel to Svalbard, where Asriel has continued his Dust research in exile. He tells Lyra that the Church believes Dust is the basis of [[Original sin|sin]], and plans to visit the other universes and destroy its source. He severs Roger from his dæmon, killing him and releasing enough energy to create an opening to a parallel universe. Lyra resolves to stop Asriel and discover the source of Dust for herself.

===''The Subtle Knife''===
{{Main|The Subtle Knife}}

Lyra journeys through Asriel's opening between worlds to [[Cittàgazze]], a city whose denizens discovered a way to travel between worlds. Cittàgazze's reckless use of the technology has released [[Spectre (His Dark Materials)|Spectre]]s which destroy adult souls but to which children are immune, rendering the world empty of adults. Here Lyra meets and befriends [[Will Parry (His Dark Materials)|Will Parry]], a twelve-year-old boy from our world's Oxford. Will, who recently killed a man to protect his ailing mother, has stumbled into Cittàgazze in an effort to locate his long-lost father. Venturing into Will's (our) world, Lyra meets Dr. Mary Malone, a physicist who is researching dark matter, which is analogous to Dust in Lyra's world. Lyra encourages Dr. Malone to attempt to communicate with the particles, and when she does they tell her to travel into the Cittàgazze world. Lyra's alethiometer is stolen by Lord Boreal alias Sir Charles Latrom, an ally of Mrs Coulter who has found a way to Will's Oxford and established a home there.

Will becomes the bearer of the Subtle Knife, a tool forged three hundred years before by Cittàgazze's scientists from the same alloy used to make the guillotine in [[Bolvangar]]. One edge of the knife can divide [[subatomic particles]] and form subtle divisions in space, creating portals between worlds; the other edge easily cuts through any form of matter. Using the knife's portal-creating powers, Will and Lyra are able to retrieve her alethiometer from Latrom's mansion in Will's world.

Meanwhile, in Lyra's world, Lee Scoresby seeks out the Arctic explorer Stanislaus Grumman, who years before entered Lyra's world through a portal in Alaska. Scoresby finds him living as a shaman under the name Jopari and he turns out to be Will's father, John Parry. Parry insists on being taken through the opening into the Cittàgazze world in Scoresby's balloon, since he has foreseen that he should meet the wielder of the Subtle Knife there. In that world, Scoresby dies defending Parry from the forces of the Church, while Parry succeeds in reuniting with his son moments before being murdered by Juta Kamainen, a witch whose love John had once rejected. After his father's death, Will discovers that Lyra has been kidnapped by Mrs Coulter, and he is approached by two angels requesting his aid.

===''The Amber Spyglass''===
{{Main|The Amber Spyglass}}

At the beginning of ''The Amber Spyglass,'' Lyra has been kidnapped by her mother, [[Marisa Coulter|Mrs Coulter]], an agent of the Magisterium who has learned of the prophecy identifying Lyra as the next [[Adam and Eve|Eve]]. A pair of angels, Balthamos and Baruch, tell Will that he must travel with them to give the Subtle Knife to Lyra's father, [[Lord Asriel]], as a weapon against [[Authority (His Dark Materials)|The Authority]]. Will ignores the angels; with the help of a local girl named Ama, the [[List of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust characters#Iorek Byrnison|Bear King Iorek Byrnison]], and [[Lord Asriel]]'s [[Gallivespian]] spies, the [[Chevalier Tialys]] and the [[Lady Salmakia]], he rescues Lyra from the cave where her mother has hidden her from the Magisterium, which has become determined to kill her before she yields to temptation and sin like the original Eve.

Will, Lyra, Tialys and Salmakia journey to the Land of the Dead, temporarily parting with their [[dæmon (His Dark Materials)|dæmons]] to release the ghosts from their captivity. [[Mary Malone]], a scientist from Will's world interested in "shadows" (or [[Dust (His Dark Materials)|Dust]] in Lyra's world), travels to a land populated by strange sentient creatures called [[Mulefa]]. There, she comes to understand the true nature of Dust, which is both created by and nourishes life that has become self-aware. [[Lord Asriel]] and the reformed [[Mrs Coulter]] work to destroy the Authority's [[Regent]] [[Metatron]]. They succeed, but themselves suffer annihilation in the process by pulling Metatron into the abyss.

The Authority himself dies of his own frailty when Will and Lyra free him from the crystal prison wherein Metatron had trapped him, able to do so because an attack by [[Races and creatures in His Dark Materials#Cliff-ghasts and night-ghasts|cliff-ghasts]] kills or drives away the prison's protectors. When Will and Lyra emerge from the land of the dead, they find their dæmons.

The book ends with Will and Lyra falling in love but realising they cannot live together in the same world, because all windows – except one from the underworld to the world of the Mulefa – must be closed to prevent the loss of Dust, because with every window opening, a Spectre would be created and that means Will must never use the knife again. They must also be apart because both of them can only live full lives in their native worlds. During the return, Mary Malone learns how to see her own dæmon, who takes the form of a black [[Alpine chough]]. Lyra loses her ability to intuitively read the alethiometer and determines to learn how to use her conscious mind to achieve the same effect.