Marisa Coulter

Marisa Coulter (née van Zee) is a fictional character in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and one of the main antagonists of Northern Lights. She is the former lover of Lord Asriel and is usually called 'Mrs Coulter'. 2Description Mrs Coulter is described as being 35 years old in the third novel, The Amber Spyglass. She is described as appearing 'beautiful and young' with 'sleek black hair' that 'framed her cheeks' and slim, though later accounts of her describe her as having blonde or 'golden' hair. Such details of a character's physical appearances are uncommon in His Dark Materials. There is a reference in Lyra's Oxford to Mrs. Coulter having written an academic work called 'The Bronze Clocks of Benin'. In the books she is portrayed as an elegant and cool-minded sophisticate; with social savoir faire, but she is also an extremely determined, calculating, and ruthless power-seeker with wide political connections, who is highly placed and trusted in the Church's hierarchy who give her a large degree of autonomy, which she uses for her own as well as their benefit. She arranges for Iorek Byrnison, the heir to the throne of the Armoured bears to be exiled, and plots to dominate the new king, turning the bears into her subordinates. When Lyra is in danger in Bolvangar, her motherly instincts override her other loyalties and she rescues Lyra, although in the second book of the trilogy she still expresses no qualms about killing her to prevent the Fal