The Golden Compass:
(Not Present)

The Subtle Knife:
Will is first introduced to us in The Subtle Knife, as a loner who doesn't like other people. His father (John Parry) he believes to be dead or gone for good, and his mother suffers from a mysterious illness that forces Will to raise himself as well as take care of his mother. He hides the secret of his mother's illness from any and everyone he meets, for he fears losing her and being placed in the care of someone else. He is fierce and brave when need calls for it, and he proves this by facing two grown men who are looking for papers and letters from his long gone father.
Through an accident involving his beloved cat, Moxie, Will accidentally kills one of the men, and is forced to run away, leaving his mother in the care of his former piano teacher, Mrs. Cooper. He travels from his home in Winchester, to Oxford. There, he accidentally stumbles through a window into another world. He entered Cittagazze- the world where specters prey on the souls of adults while children go unharmed. There he meets another traveler of the worlds, Lyra Belacqua, who has entered Cittagazze through a giant rift in the aurora borealis in her home world. They team up, and find themselves on a quest for the legendary subtle knife, the weapon that created the windows between the worlds with its sharpest of blades. As a result of a fight for the knife, Will loses his ring and pinky fingers on his left hand- the ancient sign that he is the rightful bearer of the subtle knife. He is taught how to use the knife by it's former bearer, Giacoma Paradisi. Together with Lyra he then sets out to find his father, but trouble awaits them. Lyra is kidnapped the moment Will is away, and he finds himself in the company of two angels who demand that he follow them instead of searching after her.

The Amber Spyglass:
With the help of the two angels, Baruch and Balthamos, Will is able to find and rescue his kidnapped friend, Lyra. But in the process, the knife breaks when it meets the first thing that it cannot cut through. It is mended, though not perfectly, by Lyra's friend, the armored bear, Iorek Byrnison. Once this is done, Lyra and Will (along with two spies sent by Lyra's father, Lord Asriel), journey to the land of the dead to speak with a friend of Lyra who was killed. Will goes with her, despite the pain it brings him as they cross Pullman's version of the river Styx- for Will did not know that he had a daemon like Lyra. A daemon… a physical manifestation of a person's soul, which hides within the mind of people from our world, but leaves when the body enters the land of the dead.
Using the knife, Will is able to find a way out, and he is able to free the dead from the millenia old imprisonment.
After a brief battle, Lyra and Will retreat to the peaceful solitude of the Mulefa world, where they discover many things about life… and themselves. But like the Adam and Eve whom Pullman modeled them after, they cannot stay in Paradise.

Summary:
Will is a loner, one who would rather sit by himself in a cafeteria than be surrounded by other people. He fears what other people may do or say, so he is happier if they do and say nothing. But when the need calls for him to stand true to his beliefs, he does not back down. Though he hates and fears killing or injuring another person, he is forced to do so numerous times, and he does not hesitate.

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