Humanity, Identity, and the Soul Theme Analysis

The Golden Compass is extremely concerned with what it means to be alive and what it means to have a soul. Within the world of the novel, a dæmon is a physical manifestation of a person's soul, while other creatures like animals don't have dæmons and other races, such as the bears, state that their souls are contained in their armor. Given the vast range of options that Lyra sees when it comes to manifestations of a being's soul, she ultimately comes to the conclusion that being alive and having a soul are states that are unique to every being. Losing one's soul, no matter how or why, is universally devastating.

The novel first goes to great lengths to show how important dæmons (and the souls they represent) are to humans, as well as how intrinsic dæmons are to a person's identity. It's possible, for instance, to tell a lot about what kind of a person someone is by the form their dæmon settles in in adulthood. Most servants' dæmons take the form of dogs, suggesting an obedient and yielding nature, while all witches' dæmons are birds, which reflects the free and mobile lifestyle that the witches lead. Lord Asriel's dæmon is a snow leopard, which reflects his power as well as the danger he poses. Children's dæmons, which can change shape, similarly reflect their person's mood or needs at any given time. Pan spends much of his time as an ermine or a wild cat, but turns into a bird or bat in order to fly and help Lyra navigate dark city streets, a mean polecat to defend her, or a moth when they want to blend in and hide their emotions. Dæmons are also tasked with comforting and protecting their humans, as well as acting as an external conscience and a constant companion. Lyra knows that as long as she has Pan, she'll never be truly alone, and he'll always be there to guide her in the direction of doing the right thing. Dæmons, then, function as an external display of emotions and personality, and are essential to identifying an individual as human. A person without a dæmon is, to Lyra and those in her world, horrifying, repulsive, and fundamentally different.

This is why, when Lyra first comes face to face with the bear Iorek Byrnison, she's simultaneously curious and repulsed: bears don't have dæmons, and Lyra believes that Iorek must be lonely and deeply different from humans because of his lack of a dæmon. Lyra soon learns, however, that while she's correct that Iorek is fundamentally different from humans, being a bear, it's overly simplistic to tie this difference to his lack of a dæmon. Instead, what makes Iorek unsettling to Lyra when they first meet is that Iorek doesn't possess his armor (which houses bears' souls in the same way that dæmons house humans' souls), which makes him seem soulless and like less of a bear. Returning Iorek's armor to him immediately makes him more tractable and kinder, and in Lyra's eyes, more whole. This suggests that what makes a human a human, or a bear a bear, isn't that they have a dæmon: it's that they have a soul and a conscience that helps them be who they're supposed to be, whatever form that may take. This is why Lyra is ultimately able to trick Iofur Raknison, the illegitimate king of the bears, and help install Iorek on the throne: Iorek makes it clear that it's not in a bear's nature to be able to be tricked, but because Iofur is fixated on becoming a human by acquiring a dæmon, he's susceptible to the follies of humanity and forfeits the elements of being a bear that would otherwise help him see through such a trick.

Seeing Iorek, Iofur, and the horrific experiments taking place at Bolvanger make it clear to Lyra that no matter what, a being must have a soul in order to properly live. Being without a soul not only keeps a person from being subject to original sin, the goal of the scientists at Bolvanger; it also makes them less than human. It's disturbing for Lyra and the gyptians when Lyra returns from a nearby village with Tony Makarios, a child whose dæmon was cut from him in a process known as intercision. They regard him "like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of nightgasts, not the waking world of sense." Later, at Bolvanger, Lyra finds the nurses who underwent intercision as adults to be nearly as horrifying: they're mindless shells and their dæmons are disinterested and obedient, rather than dynamic and observant. All of this culminates in Lyra's final understanding that no matter who or what a being is, their soul and all that comes with it—from original sin and curiosity, to a sense of purpose—is what makes a being a bear, a human, or a witch. A being’s soul, the novel suggests, is what makes them who they are and should be protected at all costs.