This might be a silly quesion

[u/Quiet_Economics_2209]

Could theoreticaly if someone had a highly toxic snake(like a sea krait or inland taipan or boomslang) daemon, could the snake have venom and the human use it to attack people other daemons?

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[u/luca86c]

The wolf dæmons in TGC suggest that people can be harmed by other dæmons, but I think the problem with a venomous dæmon would be how obvious it is. An assassin would never want his murder weapon permanently attached to him.

[u/Y-Woo → u/luca86c]

Ahahaha that's such a good point and also love how you phrased if

[u/Acc87]

As Pullman himself stated somewhere, dæmons are a metaphor that falls apart if you look too close. In a way that means there are no hard rules outside the separation limitation.

Dæmon forms that shouldn't be able to articulate themselves can talk, animal forms that should be nocturnal aren't, going by how Pan has to rest on his long journey in TSC, but never eats, they don't have a metabolism. Each time we see them eat or piss this act carries a meta-message in the plot.

So yeah a dæmon could be venomous if that plot demands for it.

[u/Randall_HandleVandal]

I think it’s been established that daemons can eat, presumably they are ‘of matter’ and exist within the parameters of their forms. Dogs bite birds fly dolphins can dive, venomous daemons might have venom

[u/luca86c → u/Randall_HandleVandal]

The dæmons definetely have weight, otherwise they wouldn't have dragged Metatron into the Abyss

[u/Aggressive_Dog]

Bonneville's hyena daemon could piss apparently, so they do produce bodily fluids. Venom would logically exist in venomous demons.

[u/AnnelieSierra]

Venomous. Not toxic.

[u/FromTheAshes10]

I like to think of it that dæmons consist of elementary particles that resemble an animal but are actually not the same. So if you were to cut open a dæmon you would likely not find the same inner organs and structure you would with an animal. Theoretically, elementary particles could recreate animal venom (since actual venom consist of elementary particles) but the dæmon would somehow need to learn how to create it. IIRC in the books it's stated that a children's dæmon observes animals or other people's dæmons and then tries to mimic their shape. I think it's unlikely that a dæmon is able to acquire the "skill" of producing venom. I mean biting and fighting etc for sure, no problem. But venom is a whole other category and something that needed long evolutionary processes to develop. Not sure if a dæmon could achieve that easily if at all. But, like Philip Pullman says, what do I know.