Daemons and doppelgangers: How do you talk about it?

[newredshoes]

One thing we know in a rock-solid way about daemons is their singularity. Every daemon is unique to its joined person, every one settled in a form uniquely suited to that person's metaphysical makeup. In the HDM universe and in other canons with singly-occurring characters, this makes for crossover potential virtually without a hitch

Comments

[lienne]

...oooh. *rubs hands together gleefully* You've got me goin' now, buddy. :D

And since the first half of my comment, dealing with The Island (which is all I've got written at the moment) exceeds the character limit by a good few thousand or so, I'm going to separate this into a number of subcomments and organize them all neatly into a thread. (There will be an entire comment at the end for footnotes. And then I'll start talking about Dark Angel. Fear me.)

DISCUSSION THE FIRST: The Island clone daemons

[lienne]

In this case, you're cloning somebody who's already got a settled daemon. I think it would be interesting to explore three potential tracks here: one where your "insurance policy" has a daemon settled into the form of the clonee's daemon; one where they have unsettled daemons; and one, interestingly, where they're cloned with daemons already settled into a form not that of the original. I think a lot of this would depend on how exactly they're "raised", i.e. the developmental stages between removal of genetic material from customer and what we see onscreen. So tons of room for awesome speculation.

Settled into the form of the original

[lienne]

I think this one ties in nicely with the fact that the clones are meant to have the memories of the original. I also think it would be necessary for the plot of The Island to proceed as it did. Think about it-- how would Six Echo hav impersonated Tom if Tom had, say, a snake or a cat daemon* and Tom's was, mmm, a border collie? It ain't workin'.

That said, I also think** that it's an interesting concept in and of itself. Not every person with a particular species of daemon is the same person, after all. I'd imagine that the daemons would have different names***. And while the movie clearly showed us that a clone can grow up to be morally distinct from his or her original (*cough*Tom*cough*), the fact that they retain some of the original's memories suggests that they might have a few of the same basic characteristics

Unsettled daemons

[lienne]

This would mesh nicely with the whole "no sex" bit, and also to some extent allow for the impersonation (the daemon would be able to mimic the original's). I think it's pretty clear that daemons settle at or near sexual maturity, and since it's also pretty clear that The Island clones are kept artificially sexually immature, it's not much of a leap to go with unsettled. This is fun because now you get to decide whether the daemon will eventually settle into the same form as the original, a different one, or whether it depends on other factors. Say, if you clone someone and immediately let them go out into the world and mature, the settled daemon will probably be the same as the original's; if you clone someone and keep them unsettled for ten years, but let them develop and have their own experiences normally other than forced sexual immaturity, perhaps they have a greater chance of settling into something other than the original's daemon species. Or you could even call it the opposite way around, and say that the daemon will settle

Daemons immediately settled into a form not that of the original

[lienne]

There's two subpoints here^^. One: the daemon insta-settles into a form that reflects the, well, unformed nature of the clone. I'd only go here if I were going to use my fic to argue that a daemon's settled form doesn't necessarily constrain a person's personality at all. After all, plenty of people (well, not plenty, but some) go through huge life-altering changes of personality long after puberty. In that case, would the daemon actually shift to reflect that? Or would you end up with a person whose daemon no longer matched who they were? Is Pullman arguing that people's identities settle when they hit puberty and that's that?^^^ Or maybe (and this one is really really interesting) the daemon would settle at puberty into a form that reflected both the person's identity/personality at the moment and any potential identities/personalities that they could change into. I have no idea how that possibility would work but I love it to death. :D

Footnotes! (Hate me.)

[lienne]

*I'm not totally up on the mythology of which animals correspond to which traits, so I'm just going off how he resonates to me.

**Count how many times I say this phrase and you get a Super Special Prize.

***I got the impression from the books that daemons name themselves, yes?

****My made-up words, let me show you them.

^Though, as in the first possibility, not necessarily the same personality in every detail.

^^I'm betting you've guessed by now that I'm a fan of subpoints.

^^^If this is the case, I'm all for playing with the mythology until it no longer supports that claim.

^^^^I do so love a little philosophy with my fan speculation. In case, you know, you couldn't tell.

Re: Footnotes! (Hate me.)

[newredshoes]

***HOLY COW, lady. Amazing! I'm at work and can't read or respond, but I do want to say that I think he says somewhere that the parents' daemons name the child's.

Re: Footnotes! (Hate me.)

[lienne]

*beams*

AND I HAVEN'T EVEN TOUCHED DARK ANGEL YET.

If it's true about the parents' daemons, though, how on Earth does that work with clones? More awesomeness to explore! :D I'm thinking the daemon would just end up naming him/herself, or-- ooh creepy-- possibly getting named by the daemons of the people doing the cloning.

And a final note...

[lienne]

I swear I was going to say something about intercision, but it got lost somewhere in the above WALL OF EFFIN' TEXT. *cough* After I've taken a break, come back, and tackled Dark Angel, it may come back to me.

DISCUSSION THE SECOND: Dark Angel (much shorter, as I refer back to #1 a lot)

[lienne]

RIGHT. Dark Angel, here I come. I'm going to quote every question in the OP I think I have a shot at answering, and then go to it. Some of them I don't have enough information for-- I'm only on episode 6 at the moment. Those I'll skip. XD

Animals don't have daemons: do the X5s? [...] What's the tipping point, in terms of genetic makeup? What characteristics does one need in order to "qualify" as human?

I think of it like this: you draw the daemon line at the same place you draw the line for souls. Since I don't believe in souls, I substitute self-awareness and sapience there. Anyone and anything that thinks on a reasonably human level can have a daemon. Yes, this means artificial intelligences get daemons in my book. It's a quirky book, all right? As for specific characteristics... this rule of thumb is subject to revision if I find out that any part of it is actually really stupid, but: if you can engage in basic philosophy, you're human enough for me. Wonder about questions like the meaning of life, the nature of truth and