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I am rereading the His Dark Materials trilogy (and not reviewing them separately—because I dun wanna, that's why.) It's an extraordinarily intense experience.
Intense in part because a character walks into the book and something in my chest clenches hard because I know them, I know their entire story. When the film of The Golden Compass came out I found it watchable but redundant because in all but a few details (the ending, Mrs. Coulter's appearance) it was almost too like the book: so exactly the characters, so precisely imagined, adding nothing. But even that says something, because normally characters are hard for me. Because I don't visualize, I don't give faces to names; I find it difficult to distinguish individuals, and tend only to bond to characters in visual media.
Here, I knew them the second they walked on screen and they seemed right, not random (my problem with every other book to film adaptation, ever). Here, I know everyone. I hear about a rogue armored bear, and I know his rescued armor and fencing Lyra and fighting Iofur, and the name Silvertongue. An aeronaut, and suddenly I'm in Alamo Gulch and Hester has her face pressed to his. Each character is powerfully individual, a combination of caricaturization and the intense spirit that lights each of them from within. The power of their motivation exaggerates without simplifying their character; sometimes it defines their character, as in the intensity of Coulter and Asriel. It means I remember them all, and in each event I see their entire character arc—and in this series that's a vast and painful and beautiful thing.
And intense in part because my heart aches for a dæmon. Where Valdemar-style Companions never captured my imagination as a child, dæmons did. Perhaps it's because they are integral to the self: the bond with them is not acquired but rather both innate and universal, and even Tony has his Ratter. Perhaps it's that they can take any form, and that their form is also representative of self.
I am so introverted that I make most introverts look like uncommitted poseurs, and the only relationship I've ever had I don't find severely taxing is the one I have with Devon. As a result I idealize relationships of similar intimacy, ones so innate and complete that they can be socially fulfilling without drawing from my shallow pool of social resources (see: my interest in romantic friendships). That's what draws me to the companion animal trope, and most of all to dæmons. They are perfect companionship. They're more intimate than any relationship with an outsider, because they are ultimately a relationship with yourself; they are an end to loneliness; they are so meaningful that they are literally a conversation with your soul.
Like Will watching Lyra, I feel an intense sense of loneliness—as though without my dæmon, I am bereft of the companion I was always meant to have.
I know what she looks like, is the thing. I know that she's a she. I know that she's a feline beast, about fifteen pounds, markings that could be tabby in what may be brown or may be gray, fur long and wild and wispy so that she looks both larger and smaller than she is; she's scruffy and unremarkable and beautiful. You wouldn't call her a hous cat, but she's not any wild species either. I know how it feels to press her against my belly. I wish I knew her name. There are people that believe in the existence of dæmons, and that makes perfect sense to me—like any meditative technique or religious belief, it's just another way of conceptualizing self and defining interactions with one's environment. But I'm not that type of person, despite desires to the contrary—I've never been able to visualize, I've never had faith; she is so close and I almost know her so well, and yet she is so far away.
But in one of the first moments when Lyra could truly conceptualize what it would mean to lose Pantalaimon, "She swept him up and hugged him as if she meant to press him right into her heart"—and I know that feeling. It's the feeling I have every time that I hold August to me—the desire to press her right into the heart of me, so that nothing in the universe can ever come between us. August is not my dæmon—she's a stupid willful independent pooping cat. I don't expect her to talk to me, or solve my problems, or even remotely privilege my wellbeing over the existence of treats. But in a way, the love I have for her fulfills some of the need I have to see my soul made flesh, personified in the form of a beast which purrs.
And August is much prettier than my dæmon would ever be, anyhow.
Intense in part because a character walks into the book and something in my chest clenches hard because I know them, I know their entire story. When the film of The Golden Compass came out I found it watchable but redundant because in all but a few details (the ending, Mrs. Coulter's appearance) it was almost too like the book: so exactly the characters, so precisely imagined, adding nothing. But even that says something, because normally characters are hard for me. Because I don't visualize, I don't give faces to names; I find it difficult to distinguish individuals, and tend only to bond to characters in visual media.
Here, I knew them the second they walked on screen and they seemed right, not random (my problem with every other book to film adaptation, ever). Here, I know everyone. I hear about a rogue armored bear, and I know his rescued armor and fencing Lyra and fighting Iofur, and the name Silvertongue. An aeronaut, and suddenly I'm in Alamo Gulch and Hester has her face pressed to his. Each character is powerfully individual, a combination of caricaturization and the intense spirit that lights each of them from within. The power of their motivation exaggerates without simplifying their character; sometimes it defines their character, as in the intensity of Coulter and Asriel. It means I remember them all, and in each event I see their entire character arc—and in this series that's a vast and painful and beautiful thing.
And intense in part because my heart aches for a dæmon. Where Valdemar-style Companions never captured my imagination as a child, dæmons did. Perhaps it's because they are integral to the self: the bond with them is not acquired but rather both innate and universal, and even Tony has his Ratter. Perhaps it's that they can take any form, and that their form is also representative of self.
I am so introverted that I make most introverts look like uncommitted poseurs, and the only relationship I've ever had I don't find severely taxing is the one I have with Devon. As a result I idealize relationships of similar intimacy, ones so innate and complete that they can be socially fulfilling without drawing from my shallow pool of social resources (see: my interest in romantic friendships). That's what draws me to the companion animal trope, and most of all to dæmons. They are perfect companionship. They're more intimate than any relationship with an outsider, because they are ultimately a relationship with yourself; they are an end to loneliness; they are so meaningful that they are literally a conversation with your soul.
Like Will watching Lyra, I feel an intense sense of loneliness—as though without my dæmon, I am bereft of the companion I was always meant to have.
I know what she looks like, is the thing. I know that she's a she. I know that she's a feline beast, about fifteen pounds, markings that could be tabby in what may be brown or may be gray, fur long and wild and wispy so that she looks both larger and smaller than she is; she's scruffy and unremarkable and beautiful. You wouldn't call her a hous cat, but she's not any wild species either. I know how it feels to press her against my belly. I wish I knew her name. There are people that believe in the existence of dæmons, and that makes perfect sense to me—like any meditative technique or religious belief, it's just another way of conceptualizing self and defining interactions with one's environment. But I'm not that type of person, despite desires to the contrary—I've never been able to visualize, I've never had faith; she is so close and I almost know her so well, and yet she is so far away.
But in one of the first moments when Lyra could truly conceptualize what it would mean to lose Pantalaimon, "She swept him up and hugged him as if she meant to press him right into her heart"—and I know that feeling. It's the feeling I have every time that I hold August to me—the desire to press her right into the heart of me, so that nothing in the universe can ever come between us. August is not my dæmon—she's a stupid willful independent pooping cat. I don't expect her to talk to me, or solve my problems, or even remotely privilege my wellbeing over the existence of treats. But in a way, the love I have for her fulfills some of the need I have to see my soul made flesh, personified in the form of a beast which purrs.
And August is much prettier than my dæmon would ever be, anyhow.
