The Amber Spyglass - Plot

Plot

At the end of The Subtle Knife, Marisa Coulter captured Lyra. She has now relocated her to a remote cave to hide her from the Magisterium, who are determined to kill Lyra before she yields to original sin. In order to keep her hidden, Marisa forces Lyra to drink drugged tea that puts her to sleep. While deeply asleep, Lyra dreams that she is in a wasteland (later realized as the land of the dead) talking to her deceased friend Roger Parslow, whom she promises to help.

In Cittàgazze, two angels, Balthamos and Baruch, tell Will, the bearer of the Subtle Knife, that they are taking him to Lord Asriel. Will refuses to go until Lyra is rescued, to which the two assent. However, they are attacked by a soldier of the archangel Metatron, and Will uses the knife to cut a window into another world to escape. Baruch flies to Lord Asriel to tell him what has happened and to get help.

Meanwhile, an assassin is dispatched from the Magisterium, as they have determined that Dr. Mary Malone is the "Tempter" (see Fall of Man). Mary, who has stepped through a window from her own world (assumed to be the readers' world/Will's world) into Cittàgazze, eventually enters another window into a stranger world. There she meets sapient, elephantine creatures who call themselves mulefa and use large seedpods attached to their feet as wheels. These creatures have a complex culture, intricate language, and an infectious laugh. Although from completely different worlds, Mary and the Mulefa establish a rapport which results in Mary's acceptance into Mulefa community, where she learns that the trees from which the seedpods are gathered have gradually been going extinct for about 300 years. Mary uses the tree sap lacquer and accidentally constructs a telescope (the 'amber spyglass' of the title) that allows her to see the elementary particles known as Dust. Dust adheres to all life-forms that have attained a level of intelligence associated with building civilizations. She sees that Dust is flying away in large streams rather than falling on and nourishing the trees on which the mulefa mutually depend.

In his quest to rescue Lyra, Will meets Iorek Byrnison, the bear king of the armoured Panserbjørne, who are migrating south to avoid the Arctic melt caused by the effects of Lord Asriel's bridge (created at the end of Northern Lights). After challenging the bear to single combat to stop a raid on a nearby village, Will demonstrates the Knife on Iorek's armor; Iorek, seeing his helmet reduced to slivers in moments, accepts defeat. Iorek agrees to help rescue his beloved Lyra. Here, global warming is associated with similar disasters taking place throughout many worlds as a result of the upheavals regarding Dust.

Three forces — Will, Iorek, and Balthamos; Lord Asriel's army; and the army of the Magisterium — converge on Mrs. Coulter's cave, where Will is able to wake Lyra from her deep sleep. He is cutting a window into another world when Mrs. Coulter turns and looks directly at him. For a moment, Will is reminded of his own mother; as a result, his concentration falters, and the knife shatters, having been unable to sever his affection. Because the window he has cut is open, Will, Lyra, and two Gallivespian spies of Lord Asriel's army (the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia) manage to escape to another world.

Although reluctant due to his discomfort about the power possessed by the knife, Iorek Byrnison repairs the Subtle Knife. Because Lyra promised Roger that she would help him, Will, Lyra, Tialys, and Salmakia travel and enter the world of the dead. They are forced to leave their dæmons behind, which is painful and akin to death. Will, Salmakia, and Tialys do not have visible, corporeal dæmons like Lyra, but they all do possess them. All of them feel the same pain when they are torn from their daemons upon entering the world of the dead.

The entry into the world of the dead reflects Greek mythology when an aged boatman (not named in the novel, but presumably representing Charon) ferries souls across a river to a dark, joyless realm where the many worlds' dead are tormented by harpies. Lyra finds Roger's ghost among the other ghosts. Will, Lyra, and the Gallivespians decide to free all the ghosts, and strike a deal with the harpies; in exchange for guiding them to a suitable place to open the window, and leading all subsequent spirits to the window afterwards, the harpies will demand to hear the life stories of all the spirits who pass through their realm, and have a right to bar access to any who have nothing to tell- with the obvious exception of infants who are too young to have experienced anything-, thus encouraging all to live rich, full lives and experience the wonders of the present world. With the help of the harpies, they travel to the highest land point where Will cuts a door into another world. The ghosts step through and dissolve, freeing them from the realm of the dead and reuniting their atoms with nature, their daemons' atoms, and the world.

Lord Asriel's forces capture Mrs. Coulter, but she escapes and flies off to warn the Consistorial Court. The Consistorial Court of Discipline arrests Mrs. Coulter; therefore, she allies herself with Asriel. She is also realizing the strength and depth of a mother's love for her child. Lord Asriel and Marisa talk, revealing that Asriel believes "sin" is simply enjoying life, which would be quelled by the Magisterium's desire for purity. Asriel has formed an army from all the worlds to conquer the Authority, who is the first angel created and thinks himself as god of the multiverse, and represents, in Asriel's mind, all the oppression that the Magisterium has caused.

The final battle begins. Will and Lyra must return to this realm (Asriel's) to retrieve their daemons. Will's daemon, which was separated from him, is now a visible entity like Lyra's daemon. John Parry/Stanislaus Grumman/Will's father and Lee Scoresby go with them; instead of dissolving with the other ghosts, they and other ghosts decide to remain temporarily intact in order to join Lord Asriel's army to fight the Spectres, wraith-like creatures that devour adult souls in various worlds, reasoning that the Spectres attack daemons which they no longer possess.

Mrs. Coulter enters the Clouded Mountain, citadel of the Authority, where she meets Regent Metatron. She offers to betray Asriel, letting Metatron think he will be able to kill him and get Lyra, but her ultimate hope is that he will destroy himself in the process. When she leads Metatron to Asriel, Mrs. Coulter is able to confess her scheme to him, and they unite to save Lyra and attack Metatron. All three fall into an Abyss between the worlds and cease to exist. Ironically, the Authority dies of his own frailty when Will and Lyra unknowingly free him from the crystal prison where Metatron trapped him; as he leaves the cage, he is so feeble that mere exposure to the atmosphere dissolves him into thin air.

Lyra and Will, with the help of Gallivespians, Iorek's bear army, and the ghosts, find their daemons and escape the battle, entering into the mulefa world, where Tialys and Salmakia pass away (for Gallivespians live for only a short time). Here they encounter Mary, whom Lyra had met earlier in Will's world. They all exchange stories of what has happened, and Mary's story of why she decided not to be a nun anymore plants a seed in Lyra's mind. One day, while Will and Lyra are picnicking in the wood near their camp, Lyra puts a fruit to Will's lips. A few seconds later, the two of them realize they love each other and share their first kiss. The flow of Dust escaping is considerably slowed, and the new couple is enveloped in it. However, both the witch, Serafina Pekkala, and the female angel, Xaphania, pay them visits, each revealing news they do not want to hear. To their dismay, Xaphania reveals that all the openings between worlds - with the sole exception of the one leading out of the world of the dead to that of the mulefas - must be closed because each opening allows Dust to escape into oblivion, and each creation of a new opening generates a new Specter. Lyra and Will must return to their own home worlds, as they are unable to survive more than ten years in any world but their own. The two protagonists make an emotional farewell, but before they part, Lyra leads Will into the Oxford of his world, to the Botanic Gardens. There they promise to return to the Garden, to a corresponding bench which stands in both of their worlds, every year at Midsummer's day, to think of each other and to be together in this way.

Lyra returns to Jordan College. Having suddenly lost the subconscious grace that enabled her to read the alethiometer by instinct, she decides to study alethiometry at a special school. Hereinafter, she and dæmon Pantalaimon (who has taken the permanent form of a pine marten) begin following John Parry's (and Will's) suggestion to build the idealised Republic of Heaven at home. Will, too, returns to his world, accompanied by Mary Malone, who remains his friend and ally. When he returns, he decides to break the Subtle knife by trying to open a window into another world while thinking about Lyra. During the return, Mary learns how to see her own daemon, who appears as a black Alpine chough. Will's daemon, named Kirjava by Serafina Pekkala, has taken the permanent form of a large, shadow-colored cat.