Lyra is portrayed as having wavy dirty-blonde hair and pale-blue eyes , and is thin and short for her age. Lyra is unruly and tomboyish and her complete disregard for her appearance and personal hygiene exasperates her adult carers. She receives a scant and haphazard education at the hands of Jordan scholars, being neither interested in study nor officially a student of the college. However, she is highly intelligent, and is particularly talented at deceiving others; she is capable of making up complex yet plausible lies on the spur of the moment. Initially she uses this talent to avoid punishment by her guardians, and to entertain and deceive other children, but later in the series employs it to save her own life and the lives of others. She deceives Iofur Raknison, king of the panserbjørne ("armored bears" in Danish) of Svalbard, by suggesting that she can become his dæmon if Iofur defeats Iorek in combat. Tricking a panserbjørn was a feat that her friend Iorek Byrnison had believed to be impossible for a human, and her success prompts Iorek to informally christen her "Silvertongue", which is the surname by which she is known in The Secret Commonwealth.