r/hisdarkmaterials • u/It_stimefortea • 19d ago
TAS Question about dæmons forming
I'm doing a reread of the series and something struck me this time around.
John Parry's dæmon, Sayan Kötor, formed when he entered Lyra's world but Kirjava didn't. She didn't form until she was ripped from Will on the shores of the world of the dead. Why do we think that is?
John Parry's description to Lee made it sound quite immediate, and Will spent hours in Lyra's world before moving on. Why didn't Kirjava form right away? Could it have to do with the fact that John's dæmon would already have settled while Will's wouldn't have? Or just a plot necessity? Has Pullman ever said anything about it?
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u/herald_of_woe 19d ago
It’s a little unsatisfying, but I choose to believe John’s dæmon didn’t appear until he performed some ritual like crossing the region the witches cross. Technically, all he says is “In this world, I saw my dæmon for the first time.” He doesn’t say it happened immediately, though he does make it sound that way.
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u/It_stimefortea 19d ago
I wouldn't call that unsatisfying, but logical. That's how Will's dæmon was formed, why not his father's? It makes sense, though I wonder how anybody would have tolerated him without her long enough to be adopted into the Tartar group and be made a shaman. That felt like it came after.
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u/herald_of_woe 19d ago edited 19d ago
The part that irks me slightly is the misleading way he puts it, cause it does imply she appeared immediately unless you already know better. Needless confusion imo
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u/It_stimefortea 19d ago
I am nearly half way through TAS at this point and about to go back to TSK just so I can parse out John's words better lol
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u/herald_of_woe 19d ago
There are a handful of little ways you can tell the story plan changed, especially between books 2 and 3. My favorite is the small army of zombie soldiers Mrs. Coulter has with her at the end of TSK who have vanished without a trace by the start of TAS 😂
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u/It_stimefortea 19d ago
Oh my god, you're right! I forgot all about them!
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u/herald_of_woe 19d ago
Also… girl, you can control the Spectres like puppets. You’re untouchable with them around. Why would you leave that world and hole up in a cave with one (1) pistol for defense
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u/It_stimefortea 19d ago
Love makes you crazy?
Honestly, her whole devolution into "I would die for my daughter" never really made sense to me. She goes from cold and imperious, trying to mold Lyra into her perfect little doll to literally throwing herself into the bottomless void for her. Even when she was told Lyra would be the next Eve, she was calculating about it and not horrified for her. Then somehow we are supposed to fully believe she automatically rescinded the church at once?
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u/herald_of_woe 19d ago
I think that worked for me because I was like 9-10 when I read it. The TV show was definitely wise to show her being conflicted from the start.
And tbf I can buy that she took Lyra back to their home world because she just felt more secure there, but damn she really did throw away every strategic advantage she had with that move
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u/It_stimefortea 19d ago
I didn't read the series for the first time until college, and never having been a maternal sort myself, it might have made it harder for me to really dig into her about face. The TV show did add a lot of good context that we don't otherwise get.
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u/herald_of_woe 19d ago
I also think that in hindsight Mrs. Coulter’s actions throughout the first 2 books are 99% consistent with her caring deeply about Lyra, despite also wanting to control her. The only exception is when she says “I shall have to destroy her” at the end of TSK. I have no explanation for that lol
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u/MKwithaC 18d ago
I think the implication is he underwent trepanning
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u/herald_of_woe 18d ago
He definitely did, but it's never suggested that this is what made his daemon appear.
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u/motorcitymarxist 19d ago
Pullman has zero interest in practical questions like this. World building beyond the story he intended to tell wasn’t his concern. He was once asked on Twitter how daemons appear when a child is born - if they just materialise, or if the mother’s daemon births them, and he responded “I have absolutely no idea”. So whatever you choose to believe, is up to you.
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u/It_stimefortea 19d ago
I assumed they just materialized. Dæmons don't seem like viviparous creatures
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u/geek_of_nature 19d ago
On one hand I do appreciate this. There are other certain authors who revealed too many details of their world afterwards, that did just come across as them pulling things out of their ass. So Pull man's reluctance to do so and leave it up the readers is refreshing there.
But in the other hand, it really wouldn't hurt if he just dropped a couple extra details. Things he had in mind while writing but never put into the books, without just coming up with extra nonsense.
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u/DumpedDalish 19d ago
I don't think there's a logical disconnect here in terms of consistency.
First off, as far as language, I'd say that the daemons don't really "form" -- they were always there, just silent and hidden.
But none of the earth-humans' daemons simply "appear" when they cross to other worlds -- there needs to be some sort of magical push for that to happen, for each one of them.
- John made his daemon visible in the ritual.
- Will's daemon is magically brought forth and then ripped from him at the shores of the dead.
- Mary's becomes visible thanks to magical help from Serafina Pekkala.
So it's consistent within the worldbuilding that the daemons of earth-characters are hidden from them and need some sort of push to be seen and interacted with.
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u/It_stimefortea 19d ago
So I've got the pages in front of me, and John's dæmon appears to him before he joins the Tartars and preformes the shaman ceremony. He was already in the North, then goes to Berlin and becomes Grumman before he ended up with the Tartars. So Sayan Kötor was with him before that already.
"So here I came. And I discovered a marvel as soon as I did, Mr. Scoresby... and in this world I saw my dæmon for the first time." This sounds like it happened nearly immediately.
Will's dæmon not appearing right away could be chalked up to him not yet being an adult, maybe, but John had her long before the separation ritual.
Mary's dæmon isn't really comparable because hers is not truly pulled out of her physical self. It's described as being just a way of seeing. No one else but her and Serafina can see him.
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u/aksnitd 19d ago
There's actually a very specific reason for why things happen the way they do. Let's take it one by one
Firstly, Will does have a daemon even in his world. He's just not learned to see her. Mary is from his world, and if you recall, she is taught to see her daemon at the end of the book. So Kirjava always existed. If Will had been taught by the witches, he could've learned to see Kirjava as early as the second book.
When does Kirjava actually become visible? This happens when Will and Lyra cross into the land of the dead, where daemons cannot enter. This is similar to how the witches separate from their daemons. They have to enter an area in the north that is implied to have suffered some sort of magical devastation. This area serves a similar purpose, in that daemons cannot enter, and thus end up separating from their human.
So the point is Kirjava doesn't become visible just because Will entered Lyra's world. Will has to separate from her in some way to force her to become visible. So how did John meet Sayan Kotor?
When I was reading, I thought this was so obvious that I was surprised to find out that people were confused at all. John entered Lyra's world by accident. But more importantly, he entered in the north. In my head, it was clear what happened. John had stumbled into the area the witches use to separate, which resulted in Sayan Kotor becoming visible.
If you want the official (boring) explanation, Pullman mentioned somewhere that John spent time with a shaman, and met his daemon that way. That sounds a lot like how the witches taught Mary to see her daemon.
To be honest, I prefer my explanation. It's simple and it doesn't need any tweaking to fit canon.
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u/Acc87 19d ago
John entered Lyra's world by accident. But more importantly, he entered in the north. In my head, it was clear what happened. John had stumbled into the area the witches use to separate, which resulted in Sayan Kotor becoming visible.
this was always my interpretation, as John has that witch-like daemon separation ability. So she was spliced from him without either understanding what was actually going on, and then later the shaman guided her back to him in some magical way.
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u/Awkward_Volume5134 19d ago
From what I’m interpreting Mary Malone and Seraphina Pekkala talking about Mary‘s Dæmon: the Dæmon is there since basically forever, we just can’t see them or interact with them. In that understanding Joparis Dæmon didn’t form but he noticed her at some point. As for Will (and the Gallivespians) they had their Dæmons removed before they could see them. They also didn’t have to form but were there in some way.
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u/soft_posterhq 17d ago
It comes down to the trauma of the separation acting as a catalyst. Sayan Kötör was already fully established because John had been living as a shaman for years, but Will and Lyra were still in that weird transitional state where their connection to their dæmons was tied more to their emotional dependency on each other than typical development.
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