Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine" (1489-90), along with two portraits by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Hans Holbein the Younger, helped inspire Pullman's "dæmon" concept.

A dæmon (pronounced like "demon", but is unrelated) is a manifestation of a person's soul in the Philip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials. In those universes with physical dæmons, they exist external to the human in the form of animals representative of the person's personality, although children's dæmons may change form at whim. The bond between dæmon and human is intimate, and dæmons must remain within a small distance of their human (with the exception of witches); contact between a person and another person's dæmon is taboo, although dæmons may touch each other. Many characteristics of a dæmon match the concepts from other cultures or psychology. A daemon is part of its human's soul; it can talk and express their conscience. A child's daemon can shape-shift because of the child's potential, but an adult's daemon is fixed in one form representing their personality.

Form

In Lyra's world, the soul is physically manifested in the form of an animal, called a dæmon. It has a separate identity from its respective human, despite being an integral part of the person (i.e. they are one entity, in two bodies).

In our universe and others, the books suggest that dæmons are integrated with the person, without any external or physical form. They have a natural physical manifestation only in Lyra's universe and a select few others. Dæmons that are already physical, such as Pantalaimon, remain external manifestations when they visit universes with normally-internal dæmons, such as our own universe.

"The worst breach of etiquette imaginable" is for a human to touch another person's dæmon; even in battle, it is said, most soldiers would never touch an enemy's dæmon, though exceptions can be made (such as between lovers). The physical handling of a dæmon causes vulnerability and weakness in the person whose dæmon is being touched. However, dæmons can touch other dæmons freely; interactions between dæmons usually accentuate and illuminate the relationships between the characters.

A child's dæmon has no fixed form, and may change form according to whim and circumstance. As children resolve their mature personalities (approximately the age of puberty), their dæmons "settle" into a form which reflects the person's personality. For example, a human with a dog dæmon may tend to follow authority, whereas a person with a cat dæmon may be very independent. (There is no mention that some extraordinary change in personality might cause a dæmon's form to later change.) At the beginning of the trilogy, Lord Asriel claims that the act of settling triggers Dust to begin to be attracted to the person.

File:Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 071b.jpg

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's "Young Lady with a Parrot" (1758-60) helped inspire Pullman's "dæmon" concept.

A person's dæmon is usually of the opposite sex to its human; however, in some cases it may be the same sex as the person. Pullman has admitted that the reason for this is unknown even to himself, and that it might represent homosexuality, but might also indicate some other sort of gift or quality, such as second sight. The single reference to such individuals is in Northern Lights, where they are referred to as "rare" and "gentle".

Lifespan

It is uncertain when or how a dæmon is "born" or into what form they are "born". When a person dies, their dæmon appears to fade away, like "atoms of smoke." (The books do not suggest that this is Dust, although the movie adaptations depict them similarly.) Likewise, if a dæmon is killed, their human dies. The origin of a dæmon's name was not given in the books, but clarified by Philip Pullman as normally given by the parents' dæmons. As Will Parry came from our world, his dæmon had no name initially and was named Kirjava (a Finnish word, meaning mottled or many-coloured) by Serafina Pekkala.

Separation

Generally, a person and his or her dæmon must stay within a short distance of each other. Forcibly separating a person from his or her dæmon causes unimaginable physical and emotional pain for both entities, often causing death; however, some cultures have mastered techniques that allow the dæmon to gain wider mobility. For example, witches, as well as humans who commit to becoming shamans, must endure grueling, ritualistic ordeals that involve leaving their dæmon for a time as they embark on a spiritual quest. After rejoining their dæmon they have gained the ability to separate from them. Both witches and shamans retain their intimate bond with their dæmon; the only change is in the distance they can travel apart from each other.

Hans Holbein the Younger's "Lady with a Squirrel" (1526-8) helped inspire Pullman's "dæmon" concept.

In the trilogy, a special guillotine is used by the General Oblation Board to separate people from their dæmon without killing them (intercision). However, unlike the ordeals undergone by witches and human shamans, the guillotine violently and permanently severs the bond between person and dæmon, and effectively renders the person a zombie; a being incapable of independent thought and without any identity. The General Oblation Board continually perfects the process through experimentation, but Lyra encounters at least one boy who could not bear living without his dæmon and dies. The separation process also generates a huge burst of energy, which was used by Lord Asriel to create a bridge into the world containing Cittàgazze.

Other Companions

Ghosts and deaths

Aside from dæmons, all people possess a ghost which lives on after they die, and a death that leads their ghosts to the underworld. For those with external dæmons, the ghost appears to represent the part of the person which inhabited their own body (as opposed to their dæmon, which dissipates upon death). Ghosts have vague forms resembling what the person looked like in life. Deaths can only be seen by their counterparts in certain worlds, like dæmons. They appear as plain and unfeatured, but kindly, figures, who move closer and closer to their persons as the time of death approaches.

Lyra is confronted with her death when she and Will enter the underworld in an attempt to contact the ghost of Lyra's dead friend, Roger. Although the dæmon dissipates upon a person's death, the ghost is lead away by their death and would become, at the time, trapped indefinitely in the underworld. Will and Lyra rectify this problem by creating a process by which the ghosts can escape. Once the ghosts exit out into the real world, they can disintegrate and rejoin with their dæmons, as disconnected atoms reuniting with the rest of the universe.

Like a person's dæmon, their death is the opposite sex of the person.

In other languages

In the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish editions of His Dark Materials the word "dæmon" is changed to "daimon". In Serbian and Italian editions, dæmon is also changed to "daimon". In the Spanish edition, the term "dæmon" is changed to "daimonion". The Portuguese translation of the books render the word as "génio" in reference to the familiar spirits in Greco-Roman mythology, although Brazilian versions uses "dimon" . In the Hungarian edition, the term is rendered as daimón.

Dæmons in our dimension

Mary Malone is taught that, with practice, it is possible to see nonphysical manifestations of dæmons in our universe of people who do not even know they have one. The suggestion is that we all have dæmons, but we have not learned to recognize and display them.

Concepts similar to that of the dæmon can be found in several cultures' belief systems, such as Fylgja from Norse mythology, Naguals and Tonals from Aztec mythology, aku-aku from Easter Island, and familiar spirits from early modern English witchcraft. Elsewhere, a parallel can be seen in the Jungian concept of the anima and animus.

See also

• Similar concepts:
  • Fylgja
  • Nagual
  • Tonal (mythology)
  • aku-aku
  • familiar spirit
  • anima and animus
• Totem
• Agathodaemon
• Other uses of the word 'dæmon' or 'daemon', or 'demon'

External links

• Of Dæmons and Angels and Dæmonology, two Bridge to the Stars essays on dæmons
• The Daemon Page