# His Dark Materials question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, hbomax-wb-dc
**Created:** [December 9, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651 "2020-12-09T15:37:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/1 "2020-12-09T15:37:02Z")
I’ve not read the books, but I’m enjoying the HBO series. There’s something I’m wondering about daemons.
Lyra, Roger (sniff), Azriel, and Lee Scorseby regularly converse with their daemons. Mrs. Coulter never talks to hers, nor he (?) to her, although she does communicate with him nonverbally.
No one else’s daemon seems to talk. We’ve seen Boreal’s snake a bunch, but it’s never spoken, nor has he spoken to it. Cardinal What’s-his-name’s daemon was a wasp; it’s hard to imagine it speaking at all.
Is this made clearer in the books? Or is it just something we have to accept (which I’m perfectly willing to do)?
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/2 "2020-12-09T16:01:59Z")
Is what made clearer? IIRC they can all speak, read, touch things and otherwise manipulate physical objects, etc., even though they are not true animals.
What is taboo is to touch someone else’s daemon.
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### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/3 "2020-12-09T18:53:11Z")
“Bad-guy” daemons all talk and converse with their humans, but there are way fewer of those conversations in the books. I think some of it is because the books are rarely from the perspective of these characters, so we aren’t privvy to the conversations. And some of it is for story-telling purposes: the lack of conversation helps “dehumanize” them and make them less sympathetic characters.
There was never discussion of the mechanics of something like a wasp talking. It’s just an in-universe fact that they all do.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/4 "2020-12-09T19:12:26Z")
I was wondering about another daemon question after noticing that Lee Scoresby’s Hazel is female. After looking it up, it appears that daemons are typically of opposite sex to their humans. It’s not so obvious with Pan and Lyra since Pan’s voice is somewhat childlike and not obviously male.
Asriel’s snow leopard seems like it could be awkward in some circumstances. I imagine having an elephant, hippo, or even worse dolphin as a daemon would be even more inconvenient.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/5 "2020-12-09T19:21:19Z")
A daemon’s form isn’t set at birth, tho; they have the ability to choose their final form after years of trying out the form of whatever they see.
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### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/6 "2020-12-09T19:40:35Z")
I think it is explicitly stated that a daemon has the opposite gender as its human. Even if it wasn’t explicit, it’s more than just typical - there were no instances in the books of a daemon with the same gender.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/7 "2020-12-09T20:10:43Z")
I haven’t read the books, but the Wiki article on daemons says there is a mention of same-sex daemons in _Northern Lights_, where it is said that they exist but are rare.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/8 "2020-12-09T20:31:00Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Asriel’s snow leopard seems like it could be awkward in some circumstances. I imagine having an elephant, hippo, or even worse dolphin as a daemon would be even more inconvenient.
Especially since one absolutely cannot tolerate separating oneself any significant distance away from one’s daemon (unless you can). However, as noted by @Snowboarder_Bo, the daemon’s form is not initially fixed; it eventually settles down, and it is actually an intelligent aspect of oneself so it makes some sense that it would not resolve into the form of a dinosaur or jellyfish or something that would make life literally impossible. I think some guy did actually end up with a dolphin, though— naturally he was a sailor (and couldn’t really change profession at that point).
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> I haven’t read the books, but the Wiki article on daemons says there is a mention of same-sex daemons in _Northern Lights_ , where it is said that they exist but are rare.
I can’t be bothered to re-read through the whole thing, but, while it is deliberately clear that most daemons are of the opposite sex to the person, not sure it says that is a rule or that there were not examples of same-sex daemons. I’m not even sure it explicitly says a that a daemon invariably resembles an animal and never a human, e.g. when Lyra pretends to be one, but it _does_ say that people can always identify daemons as daemons even though they have the physical form of animals (and can be injured, etc.) There were also some important bits about how and when daemons interact with other daemons that I cannot recall. For instance they could talk to them, sense them, fight them.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/9 "2020-12-09T20:45:05Z")
The most recent episode, in which Pan becomes a moth, also made me think of how inconvenient it would be to have a completely wimpy daemon. At any moment you could be killed by a hungry bat.
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### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2020, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/10 "2020-12-09T21:16:33Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> I haven’t read the books, but the Wiki article on daemons says there is a mention of same-sex daemons in _Northern Lights_ , where it is said that they exist but are rare.
You are correct, my memory failed me.
> Bernie was a kindly, solitary man, one of those rare people whose daemon was the same sex himself.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2020, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/11 "2020-12-10T04:22:18Z")
btw the new story (it is far too brief to be called a book despite its binding), _Serpentine_, is quite good; it is all about Lyra and Pan and how they dealt with/are dealing with their time in/near the world of the dead. Very short and doesn’t really have any resolution, but the writing is very good and it does make the story richer.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2020, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/12 "2020-12-11T01:01:05Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> The most recent episode, in which Pan becomes a moth, also made me think of how inconvenient it would be to have a completely wimpy daemon. At any moment you could be killed by a hungry bat.
It’s years since I’ve read the books–are there “real” animals (bats, for example) in Lyra’s world? Other than the polar bears, which aren’t exactly animals as we would define them, since they are sentient/sapient beings?
I can’t recall discussions of Lyra or others eating meat, for example. Perhaps it wasn’t mentioned…?
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2020, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/13 "2020-12-11T01:14:42Z")
At one point when Iorek is with Lyra he kills a deer for food. Also, in a recent episode the bears mention they are starving because the arctic is warming due to the portal and seals are scarce. I seem to recall flocks of birds at other points. But now that you mention it “real” animals seem pretty scarce.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/14 "2020-12-11T01:19:28Z")
Thanks–I’ve periodically wondered about the ‘do real animals exist?’ question. I do need to re-read the books, because I’ve been holding off getting “The Book of Dust” trilogy until I update my familiarity with the originals.
As for the show–I’ve missed some episodes. As I wrote in another thread, I’m annoyed by the show’s relatively low budget, which has meant that in Lyra’s world few people are shown to have daemons. (Now that Lyra has met up with Will and a lot of the story will be in other worlds, that may be less noticeable, of course.)
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/15 "2020-12-15T04:33:07Z")
If I remember correctly, the daemon’s final form is supposed to represent a person’s personality. With people who are loyal servants getting dogs, for instance.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2020, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/16 "2020-12-15T13:01:00Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> As for the show–I’ve missed some episodes. As I wrote in another thread, I’m annoyed by the show’s relatively low budget, which has meant that in Lyra’s world few people are shown to have daemons. (Now that Lyra has met up with Will and a lot of the story will be in other worlds, that may be less noticeable, of course.)
Having a daemon small enough to hide among one’s clothing is OK, but not having a daemon at all is considered freaky and highly disturbing. In that situation you would do what it takes to disguise your condition. People are already weirded out by witches whose discipline includes physically separating from the daemon, but they at least are still connected to it. Will and others did have daemones, they just couldn’t see them at first.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2020, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/17 "2020-12-16T04:21:43Z")
DPRK, is that from the first trilogy, or from the sequel?
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2020, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/18 "2020-12-16T05:48:20Z")
Which bit? I could try to track down the actual quotes. But Lyra meeting witches, meeting Will, Will seeing his daemon for the first time (I think in _Serpentine_ it affirms he always had her), and Lyra and Pan learning to be apart is all from the original trilogy. People being permanently severed from their daemons, and various ways to do it, is also in the first trilogy. In the sequel there is more detail about that kind of thing, including people who grow to hate or ignore their daemons and/or the daemon running away, and the buying and selling of daemons.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2020, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/19 "2020-12-16T23:04:46Z")
Of course _Serpentine_ came `two decades` after the last of the original trilogy, so–if some piece of information is in _Serpentine_, that is not the same thing as saying the information is in the original trilogy.
I’m still not seeing “Will and others did have daemons, they just couldn’t see them at first” in the first three books (published 1995-2000). I made no claims about witches, nor did I claim that the original trilogy had no material about separating Lyra’s-world people from their daemons (as plainly it did).
Meh. I don’t believe the disputed information–that people from Will’s world have daemons–is in the original trilogy; you think it _is_. As we’ve arrived at the ‘_yes it is_’ ‘_no it isn’t_’ stage of the argument, I think we’ve come to the end of discussion on that topic.
[in re:
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> … Will and others did have daemones, they just couldn’t see them at first.
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### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2020, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/his-dark-materials-question/927651/20 "2020-12-16T23:43:43Z")
People from Will’s world did have daemons. This was mentioned in the second book of the trilogy, _The Subtle Knife_, and was a major point of the third, _The Amber Spyglass_. I’ll spoiler the details for those who haven’t read it.
Daemons in Will’s world are people’s souls. There is a discussion that souls are the same as daemons without the physical manifestation. Everyone has them, but they are internal and people are generally unaware of them. When Will goes to the Land of the Dead, his daemon (Kirjava) is physically separated from him. His father’s daemon was been physically manifested as an eagle after he came to Lyra’s world. Toward the end of The Amber Spyglass, the witch Sarafine Pekkala taught Mary Malone (also from Will’s world) how to see her own daemon, an Alpine Chough (crow).
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