Generally, in a COA, you find out about the character's personality throughout the book, or at least after like a few pages. Well, first I'll tell you about the COA novel (actually technically it's a series) I'm reading, His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman (1,243 pages, have to be read in 15 days. Ugh! Oh well, I picked the series and was prepared for it, I guess). It's about a girl named Lyra (and later, in the second and third books, a boy named Will), who lives in a different world from us where people have these things called dæmons, which are your soul in the form of an animal. I'll explain more about them later, probably. Anyway, Lyra finds out that there are millions of Universes, but they are more or less within each other, or next to each other, not technically far from each other, but near impossible to get to each other. In the series, there is one universe like ours, where our souls are inside of us. Anyway, Lyra also learns about this stuff called Dust, which is a type of elementary particle (in our world, it would be a part of physics, and in our world, is called Dark Matter). It's a kind of confusing thing, but more and more is learned about it throughout the series. Anyway, back to personality. In the series, you find out just about everything having to do with the main character's personality in the first two pages (literally. Page 1 and 2 tell you enough about the character's personality to know it for the entire series). You learn it from a few simple quotes and actions, but the one that I feel shows it most is one on page 2: "Don't be silly! I want to look around".
This quote really may not seem of great importance, but pretty much each word in it says something about the character's personality. "Don't be silly". That could mean contradiction, convincing for things to go her way. "I want". What Lyra wants, and not quite what others want. "Look around". This is the biggest one: it means she's the kind of person who probably likes to get into other peoples' business (which is like me, really), or at least that she's curious about certain things and places. It also can be inferred that from what the rest of the quote says, Lyra is probably not entirely honest and doesn't do exactly what she's told or is supposed to do, and you see more of this throughout the series.
All of this can easily be interpreted in the way that Lyra is a curious person, and quite possibly a dishonest person, as well. Throughout the series, I was seeing my prediction about what kind of a person Lyra was come true. She was curious, and certainly dishonest, in fact quite often so. In fact, the majority of the time and to the majority of the people she speaks to, Lyra lies. She, as a character, was built specifically as a brilliant liar, and so she was one.
Anyway, more on dæmons. Dæmons are your soul, and are in the form of an animal. As a child, your dæmon can change into just about any animal it wants. But at a certain age, your dæmon settles, which means it takes a form and stays that form forever. Also, what your dæmon settles as says what kind of a person you are. If your dæmon settles as a lion, you're fierce, and assertive, and quite possibly aggressive, and you more or less can find a good way to get what you want. If your dæmon settles as a fox, it could mean you're sly, good at tricking people, persuading them to do things you want. Your dæmon doesn't settle when you're a kid because you're not quite sure what kind of a person you are yet. And also, probably because as a kid it's fun to have a dæmon that can be just about any animal it wants to be. Certainly, Lyra doesn't want her dæmon to settle, even towards the beginning of the series, and even closer to the end. People are saying she'll want to grow up and have her dæmon, Pantalaimon, settle as one animal, but she really doesn't seem to want that. From all this, you can see something in this series, something that was also part of a quote: Your dæmon settling is a part of growing up, and you'll want to grow up sooner or later. That's one big reason this is a coming of age series.
All of this is pretty much just in the first book, maybe a little into the second book. So that says there's still more coming of age stuff yet to come. Finally, you may be wondering why the series is called "His Dark Materials". It's called this because each book involves a specific object, and not a normal object. His Dark Materials are the title of each book: The Golden Compass (otherwise known as the alethiometer), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. these objects don't have a ton to do with coming of age, they're just a part of the fantasy in the series. Anyway, soon, we'll see what is coming of age material in the series, what is not, and what each part of each book means.
nice job going deeper, Henry.
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