A girl raised among the scholars of Jordan College, Oxford, in a world where every human soul takes the form of an external animal companion called a daemon. Reckless, gifted at deception, and possessed of an instinctive ability to read the alethiometer, she embarks on a journey north to rescue missing children that becomes something far larger - a journey that places her at the centre of a war for the nature of consciousness across all worlds.

A teenage kitchen girl at the inn near Oxford who is drawn into Malcolm's journey during the flood in La Belle Sauvage. Prickly and initially hostile, she proves courageous and resourceful under pressure.

A physicist and former colleague of Lord Asriel whose obsessive pursuit of the infant Lyra drives the threat narrative of La Belle Sauvage. Disturbed, brilliant, and dangerous.

An Oxford academic and alethiometrist who works as an agent of Oakley Street. She serves as a mentor to Malcolm and a crucial link between academic Oxford and the resistance against the Magisterium.

A nobleman, explorer, and experimental theologian whose obsessive research into Dust and the nature of parallel worlds places him in direct conflict with the Magisterium. Cold, imperious, and capable of extraordinary ruthlessness, he nonetheless drives the central philosophical argument of the trilogy - that experience, consciousness, and the freedom to know are worth any cost.

An eleven-year-old boy who works at his parents' inn near Oxford in La Belle Sauvage, whose care for the infant Lyra during a catastrophic flood shapes the rest of his life. Curious, observant, and morally serious, he grows into a scholar and agent of Oakley Street by the time of The Secret Commonwealth.

A brilliant, charismatic agent of the Magisterium whose beauty and social intelligence conceal ruthless ambition and a capacity for cruelty. Head of the General Oblation Board - the organisation responsible for abducting children for Dust experiments - and a figure whose particular interest in Lyra Northern Lights unfolds with deliberate, slow weight.

An elderly, kind-hearted nun at the Priory of Godstow who helps care for baby Lyra. She is gentle and talkative, and takes a liking to Malcolm.