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So one thing I've been thinking a lot recently, regarding His Dark Materials, is the way Lyra and Will's last kiss, the one with the doorway between worlds, parallels Marisa and Asriel's one in Northern Lights, in the sense that they are the complete opposite of one another.
Aside from the fact that they both happen in front of a portal, and that it is heartbreaking because neither of them would pass together thought it, think of this :
The odds have always been against Marisa and Asriel's relationship. First because she was married, and then the whole scandal and the shame that came after, and the hate and all that. There was not one time when the odds were on their side. Meanwhile, Will and Lyra's romance was written in the stars. They were tied together by fate, and so there was never any chance that they wouldn't be together.
And then comes the point where they are both standing in front of those gates, together, and suddenly there is nothing that's keeping Marisa and Asriel from being together. They have managed to get there on their own - now, they have the chance to continue together. Will and Lyra, on the other hand, are standing there for the sole purpose of the fact that they can't, after all, be together, even thought it was written in the stars and it was their destiny.
Marisa refused to go with Asriel because she doesn't dare to, or because she wants to find Lyra, according to either the book or the TV show. Asriel doesn't protest to that because he has a war to wage. They let each other go and missed the only chance they had at a fresh start because they loved other things more, because they would not put each other first.
However, Will and Lyra didn't want to join one another because their lives would be shorter, and their death would pain the one who survived, were they to live in the same world. They accepted that they couldn't be together, and let each other go, because there was no one else they loved more.