Small Fandom Overview: His Dark Materials (focusing on daemons)
Hi, I'm kowaiyoukai! For this month, I've decided to focus on reccing the same AU in different fandoms. I have loved His Dark Materials crossovers and fusions for years, and being able to rec my favorites is a joy. His Dark Materials is a trilogy book series by Philip Pullman that consists of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. A movie version of The Golden Compass was released in 2007 starring Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, and Daniel Craig.
So this won't be a traditional overview post mainly because I want to cover the concept of daemons as opposed to the entire HDM world.
For the purposes of this round of recs, you don't actually need to know anything about the characters or plot of HDM. Perhaps the most famous idea to come out of HDM is the concept of daemons. Daemons are, in short, animals that embody a person's soul. I'll be focusing on reccing fics that are daemon AUs. For people familiar with this genre, I probably won't have anything new to rec simply because daemon AUs are few and far between. However, if you are unfamiliar with daemons or have never read a daemon AU, you might find something here that's just to your tastes.
A daemon is a person's soul. That soul exists outside of their body in an animal form. There are a few rules to daemons in the HDM universe that you should know before diving into any fic. But first I have to warn everyone that all of these rules can and have been broken in fic, and that daemons are more of an idea than anything else. Keep these in mind as general guidelines, but know many fic authors decide to play with the rules as they see fit.
Rules for How Daemons Work:
1. Daemons are a physical embodiment of a person's soul. That means a daemon completes, conflicts with, and reflects on a person. They can be your conscience, they can give you advice, but everything they do and say is a reflection of who you are. Example: A person who steals might have their daemon tell them to stop if the thief knows they are doing something wrong. If the thief does not know or care they are doing something wrong, the daemon might not comment on it.
2. Daemons take animal shapes. Daemons are able to change shape until the person hits puberty, usually around age 13 although this can happen earlier or later. Then the daemon "settles" into the shape they will have for the rest of your lives. Daemons are supposed to settle into a shape that reflects your personality and soul. You cannot choose what shape your daemon settles in. Some types of daemons are signficant in various ways: dogs are viewed as more service animals and as such you get service work (police, retail, etc); any daemon that lives in the water forces you to live on or near the water; daemons who settle into any type of bird belong solely to witches (which, in HDM, means a literal witch: nearly immortal, flies on a brookstick, uses magic). Also smaller daemons are easily hidden and must be protected, whereas larger daemons can defend themselves but can be perceived as threatening.
3. Almost without exception males have female daemons and females have male daemons. There are exceptions to this rule, but Pullman has stated the exceptions aren't viewed as a sign of homosexuality or gender nonconformity but rather as a sign of a gift or quality ("such as second sight"). This is a topic that has gotten a lot of interesting fan commentary in terms of sexual and gender identity and orientation. Expect fic authors to play with this rule A LOT.
4. Daemons are not telepathic. You cannot know what your daemon is thinking in terms of words, and vice versa. However, daemons and their people have the ability to understand each other's emotions, especially strong emotions such as joy, love, pain, anger, or sadness. "Feeling" your daemon is considered a great comfort, as well as knowledge that you'll never be alone.
5. People and daemons must communicate through language. However, daemons only talk to the person they belong to. Talking to another person's daemon is considered extremely bad form. There are exceptions to this, such as when a person is hurt or dying and the daemon calls for help, or if a person sees a daemon in trouble and cannot locate the owner immediately.
6. People only touch other people. Daemons only touch other daemons. You can feel it when somebody touches your daemon. It is considered the most abhorrent taboo to touch another person's daemon. Literally it is described as the worst possible thing imaginable. So of course fic authors have made it into an incredibly erotic experience.
7. Daemons can only move a short distance away from their humans. If they try, they can "stretch" the bond, but it hurts unimaginably, like you would imagine having your soul ripped from you hurts. There is a procedure in HDM called "intercision" that is a horrific torture--a special knife is used to cut the bond between you and your daemon. It's highly likely both the person and daemon could die from this. If both sides survive, they're left in a permanent state of unfeeling (if they're lucky) or near-catatonic shock (if they're not).
8. Daemons and their people spend their lives together. If a daemon dies or is killed, the human dies as well. If the human dies or is killed, the daemon disappears in smoky magic vapor-stuff called "Dust", leaving no body.
9. Everyone has a daemon. People will flip their shit if they think you don't have a daemon. Pullman described it as seeing somebody walking around without a head. Characters react accordingly.
Misc. info you might be curious about that usually has no relevance in fic: Pullman was pretty obsessed with his anti-Catholic rhetoric in HDM. Daemons are made up of "Dust", which is the physical representation of sin. Daemons settle during puberty because before puberty they're considered innocent, and only afterwards (when you awaken to sexual desire) is the Daemon stuck in the form of sin. The major bad guys in HDM are the Consortium, and they're a fairly obvious representation of the Church. Daemons are actually pronounced exactly like "demons". Most fics completely ignore all of this, and thank God for it, because although HDM is a fantastic read, Pullman can really bash you over the head with the religious metaphors.
Those are the general daemon rules. I would honestly feel remiss if I did not go further into two points.
Point 1: Touching another person's daemon, a.k.a. how sex works in daemon fic. Because, let's be honest, porn is a big reason to read fic, and it works very differently than you might expect in daemon AUs.
Daemon AUs focus on the soul of the characters. Perhaps because of the level of emotional connection involved in two people learning each other's souls, sex is pretty uncommon. In most fic, sex is seen as the end goal. The physicality of sex in daemon AUs is often transferred into the physicality of touching another person's daemon, which replaces sex as the end goal. In HDM, touching another's daemon is forbidden--verboten in a way nothing in our world is. It is considered the utmost violation to a person's mind, body, and soul. However, voluntarily allowing someone to touch your daemon is considered an act of incredible intimacy, although in public it's considered much like public sex: far too personal to allow uninvolved people to see. Fic authors, of course, have taken this taboo and ran with it, often showing the pairing touching each other's daemons as a sign of how incredibly close they are. Sex is usually considered somewhat irrelevant, maybe even a let-down, after that experience. If sex is included in the fic, the daemons are always involved in some way, even if it's just being in the same room. So it's best to know in advance that sex in daemon AUs comes in two varieties: involving animals or non-existent. If you see a mature rating, assume the former. This doesn't mean it'll be bestiality, but it is something to keep in mind.
Point 2: Daemons are your soul. No, really. Your actual soul.
If it seems like I'm over-emphasizing that daemons are souls, that's because I am. Without that information, it would be easy to interpret a daemon as an animal sidekick. While animal sidekicks are awesome (as Disney has proved time and again), the point of a daemon is to show off a person's soul. While a person might be able to lie or hide or manipulate, daemons are intrinsically honest. People judge others by their daemons because daemons are a reflection of yourself. They complete you because they ARE you. Talking to your daemon is like talking to yourself. Yes, daemons have their own personalities/thoughts/feelings, and yes, those can be very different to your own, but everything complements each other. An overly logical character might have an incredibly creative daemon, or a daemon that just wants to let loose have fun, or a daemon who studies all the time to gain more information. It all depends on what the author is trying to say about the character. If an author gives Buffy a hamster, maybe the author believes Buffy is a scared little girl at heart. If Buffy is instead given a jaguar, perhaps she was always meant to be a fierce warrior. The daemons the authors choose to give the characters are often meticulously chosen (sometimes the A/N describing the daemon-choosing process are arduous), but no matter what is chosen, you have to go into a fic knowing that the author is making a point about how they view the characters. You might disagree, but in most daemon AUs they story is not in the plot, but rather in why the characters have the daemons the do.
This focus on studying the souls of the characters means that I would only recommend you read fics where you know and like the characters/fandom. If a 10K study on the similarities and differences between Kirk and Spock's souls doesn't interest you, skip that one. :)
Okay, I'm done. I feel I've adequately covered how daemons work. Several fans have wrote daemon primers before me, and all of them are shorter and more to the point than mine. If you're interested, feel free to check out the links below!
- trinityofone wrote an outline before a Sheppard/McKay fic; Nov. 31, 2005.
- foxxcub wrote a short bulleted point list before a Daemons! at the Disco fic; Nov. 02, 2007.
- gnimaerd wrote a list of notes before an Arthur/Morgana fic; Nov. 13, 2008.
Happy reading! ♥
So this won't be a traditional overview post mainly because I want to cover the concept of daemons as opposed to the entire HDM world.
For the purposes of this round of recs, you don't actually need to know anything about the characters or plot of HDM. Perhaps the most famous idea to come out of HDM is the concept of daemons. Daemons are, in short, animals that embody a person's soul. I'll be focusing on reccing fics that are daemon AUs. For people familiar with this genre, I probably won't have anything new to rec simply because daemon AUs are few and far between. However, if you are unfamiliar with daemons or have never read a daemon AU, you might find something here that's just to your tastes.
A daemon is a person's soul. That soul exists outside of their body in an animal form. There are a few rules to daemons in the HDM universe that you should know before diving into any fic. But first I have to warn everyone that all of these rules can and have been broken in fic, and that daemons are more of an idea than anything else. Keep these in mind as general guidelines, but know many fic authors decide to play with the rules as they see fit.
Rules for How Daemons Work:
1. Daemons are a physical embodiment of a person's soul. That means a daemon completes, conflicts with, and reflects on a person. They can be your conscience, they can give you advice, but everything they do and say is a reflection of who you are. Example: A person who steals might have their daemon tell them to stop if the thief knows they are doing something wrong. If the thief does not know or care they are doing something wrong, the daemon might not comment on it.
2. Daemons take animal shapes. Daemons are able to change shape until the person hits puberty, usually around age 13 although this can happen earlier or later. Then the daemon "settles" into the shape they will have for the rest of your lives. Daemons are supposed to settle into a shape that reflects your personality and soul. You cannot choose what shape your daemon settles in. Some types of daemons are signficant in various ways: dogs are viewed as more service animals and as such you get service work (police, retail, etc); any daemon that lives in the water forces you to live on or near the water; daemons who settle into any type of bird belong solely to witches (which, in HDM, means a literal witch: nearly immortal, flies on a brookstick, uses magic). Also smaller daemons are easily hidden and must be protected, whereas larger daemons can defend themselves but can be perceived as threatening.
3. Almost without exception males have female daemons and females have male daemons. There are exceptions to this rule, but Pullman has stated the exceptions aren't viewed as a sign of homosexuality or gender nonconformity but rather as a sign of a gift or quality ("such as second sight"). This is a topic that has gotten a lot of interesting fan commentary in terms of sexual and gender identity and orientation. Expect fic authors to play with this rule A LOT.
4. Daemons are not telepathic. You cannot know what your daemon is thinking in terms of words, and vice versa. However, daemons and their people have the ability to understand each other's emotions, especially strong emotions such as joy, love, pain, anger, or sadness. "Feeling" your daemon is considered a great comfort, as well as knowledge that you'll never be alone.
5. People and daemons must communicate through language. However, daemons only talk to the person they belong to. Talking to another person's daemon is considered extremely bad form. There are exceptions to this, such as when a person is hurt or dying and the daemon calls for help, or if a person sees a daemon in trouble and cannot locate the owner immediately.
6. People only touch other people. Daemons only touch other daemons. You can feel it when somebody touches your daemon. It is considered the most abhorrent taboo to touch another person's daemon. Literally it is described as the worst possible thing imaginable. So of course fic authors have made it into an incredibly erotic experience.
7. Daemons can only move a short distance away from their humans. If they try, they can "stretch" the bond, but it hurts unimaginably, like you would imagine having your soul ripped from you hurts. There is a procedure in HDM called "intercision" that is a horrific torture--a special knife is used to cut the bond between you and your daemon. It's highly likely both the person and daemon could die from this. If both sides survive, they're left in a permanent state of unfeeling (if they're lucky) or near-catatonic shock (if they're not).
8. Daemons and their people spend their lives together. If a daemon dies or is killed, the human dies as well. If the human dies or is killed, the daemon disappears in smoky magic vapor-stuff called "Dust", leaving no body.
9. Everyone has a daemon. People will flip their shit if they think you don't have a daemon. Pullman described it as seeing somebody walking around without a head. Characters react accordingly.
Misc. info you might be curious about that usually has no relevance in fic: Pullman was pretty obsessed with his anti-Catholic rhetoric in HDM. Daemons are made up of "Dust", which is the physical representation of sin. Daemons settle during puberty because before puberty they're considered innocent, and only afterwards (when you awaken to sexual desire) is the Daemon stuck in the form of sin. The major bad guys in HDM are the Consortium, and they're a fairly obvious representation of the Church. Daemons are actually pronounced exactly like "demons". Most fics completely ignore all of this, and thank God for it, because although HDM is a fantastic read, Pullman can really bash you over the head with the religious metaphors.
Those are the general daemon rules. I would honestly feel remiss if I did not go further into two points.
Point 1: Touching another person's daemon, a.k.a. how sex works in daemon fic. Because, let's be honest, porn is a big reason to read fic, and it works very differently than you might expect in daemon AUs.
Daemon AUs focus on the soul of the characters. Perhaps because of the level of emotional connection involved in two people learning each other's souls, sex is pretty uncommon. In most fic, sex is seen as the end goal. The physicality of sex in daemon AUs is often transferred into the physicality of touching another person's daemon, which replaces sex as the end goal. In HDM, touching another's daemon is forbidden--verboten in a way nothing in our world is. It is considered the utmost violation to a person's mind, body, and soul. However, voluntarily allowing someone to touch your daemon is considered an act of incredible intimacy, although in public it's considered much like public sex: far too personal to allow uninvolved people to see. Fic authors, of course, have taken this taboo and ran with it, often showing the pairing touching each other's daemons as a sign of how incredibly close they are. Sex is usually considered somewhat irrelevant, maybe even a let-down, after that experience. If sex is included in the fic, the daemons are always involved in some way, even if it's just being in the same room. So it's best to know in advance that sex in daemon AUs comes in two varieties: involving animals or non-existent. If you see a mature rating, assume the former. This doesn't mean it'll be bestiality, but it is something to keep in mind.
Point 2: Daemons are your soul. No, really. Your actual soul.
If it seems like I'm over-emphasizing that daemons are souls, that's because I am. Without that information, it would be easy to interpret a daemon as an animal sidekick. While animal sidekicks are awesome (as Disney has proved time and again), the point of a daemon is to show off a person's soul. While a person might be able to lie or hide or manipulate, daemons are intrinsically honest. People judge others by their daemons because daemons are a reflection of yourself. They complete you because they ARE you. Talking to your daemon is like talking to yourself. Yes, daemons have their own personalities/thoughts/feelings, and yes, those can be very different to your own, but everything complements each other. An overly logical character might have an incredibly creative daemon, or a daemon that just wants to let loose have fun, or a daemon who studies all the time to gain more information. It all depends on what the author is trying to say about the character. If an author gives Buffy a hamster, maybe the author believes Buffy is a scared little girl at heart. If Buffy is instead given a jaguar, perhaps she was always meant to be a fierce warrior. The daemons the authors choose to give the characters are often meticulously chosen (sometimes the A/N describing the daemon-choosing process are arduous), but no matter what is chosen, you have to go into a fic knowing that the author is making a point about how they view the characters. You might disagree, but in most daemon AUs they story is not in the plot, but rather in why the characters have the daemons the do.
This focus on studying the souls of the characters means that I would only recommend you read fics where you know and like the characters/fandom. If a 10K study on the similarities and differences between Kirk and Spock's souls doesn't interest you, skip that one. :)
Okay, I'm done. I feel I've adequately covered how daemons work. Several fans have wrote daemon primers before me, and all of them are shorter and more to the point than mine. If you're interested, feel free to check out the links below!
- trinityofone wrote an outline before a Sheppard/McKay fic; Nov. 31, 2005.
- foxxcub wrote a short bulleted point list before a Daemons! at the Disco fic; Nov. 02, 2007.
- gnimaerd wrote a list of notes before an Arthur/Morgana fic; Nov. 13, 2008.
Happy reading! ♥