Pantalaimon is Lyra’s shape-shifting daemon. Pan hasn’t settled on a shape yet, which daemons do when their human starts to grow up. The daemon’s shape tells us quite a bit about its person. Over the course of the book, Pan turns into a mouse, a moth, and many other creatures.
Lyra’s dæmon is her dearest companion, who she calls “Pan”. In common with dæmons of all children, he can take any animal form he pleases; he first appears in the story as a dark brown moth. His name in Greek means “all-compassionate”. He changes into many forms throughout the series, ranging from a dragon to an eagle, but his favourite forms are a snow-white ermine, a moth, a wildcat, and a mouse. At the end of the trilogy, as Lyra is entering adulthood, Pantalaimon finds his final form when Will Parry touches him, and is later described as a beautiful pine marten, red-gold in colour with a “patch of cream-white fur” on his throat.
Pantalaimon is portrayed as a cautious and level-headed counterpoint to Lyra’s impulsive, inquisitive, and sometimes reckless character.
Lyra must separate from Pantalaimon when she enters the Land of the Dead in The Amber Spyglass, causing extreme pain to both of them; Pantalaimon avoids Lyra for a while afterwards. However, surviving this separation allows the two to move great distances from one another, an ability only witches and shamans generally possess in her world.
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