twins & daemons

[ewein2412]

so, I am in the middle of The Thirteenth Tale - which, although I am enjoying immensely, has started to feel very derivative of A.S. Byatt in general and of Angels and Insects in particular. But the description of singlets as amputees, constantly in search of a soulmate, has suddenly catapulted me onto a tangent.

Are there any twins in the world of His Dark Materials? Does anyone remember? WHAT ARE THEIR DAEMONS LIKE? Do identical twins have identical demons? Do boy/girl twins have the same kind of daemon, but with the sex switched? Could a pair of identical twins share a single daemon, the way they might invent their own language??? If they then grew apart, or if one of them died, what would happen to the shared daemon?

I want to read this story, being too lazy to write it.

Comments

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I suspect twins have individual daemons, which are identical/similar to each other as infants, children, and as the kids grow up, they will form for their individual person. They might always be similar, and linked.

I don't think we actually see any twins in the Pullman. But it's been a while since I read those books.

[3rdragon]

I don't remember any twins, either. But then, I didn't particularly like those books, and only read them once (except for The Amber Spyglass, which I needed two tries to get through). That's not entirely true. I liked The Golden Compass. It was the other two that started getting to me.

[ewein2412]

I loved the first book, liked the second, and then made the mistake of re-reading both of them in rapid succession prior to reading the third. By the time I'd finished The Amber Spyglass I was thoroughly sick of the whole project. I thought that the alien planet was so derivatitve of Oz, and the Wheelers, that it made me laugh. I couldn't believe Pullman was allowed to let his main character SLEEP THROUGH THE ENTIRE FIRST THIRD OF THE BOOK. Give me a break. And I thought that Mrs. Coulter's about-face from Evil Ruler of the Universe to Doting Mother was just plain WET.

when I rehabilitate an Evil Ruler of the Universe type mother, she stays scary, thank you very much. (*preens*)

[3rdragon]

I never thought of the Wheelers and Oz, but you're right!

See, the second book started getting kind of gross for me*, and also killing off characters I liked. And then was it the third one where Lyra was asleep the whole time and everyone else I cared about was dead?

And the whole anti-Christian thing was just terribly, terribly unsubtle. I'll read books by people who aren't Christian. I'll read books by people who are vehemently anti-Christian and it shows up in their books, because religion in general and Christianity in particular have a lot to answer for. But I felt like Pullman was pounding me on the head, trying to force me to change my beliefs, and I kept wanting to shake him and go, "Would you just STOP?" I have friends who react to Narnia that way. But I think Lewis is (mostly) not nearly that bad (Also, in my opinion Narnia is an affirmation of Lewis's beliefs, whereas The Amber Spyglass just felt like an attack on everyone else's). Maybe that's just my perspective, though.

Yes, she does.


*It must be something about the way it's handled, b/c I can deal with mauling by lions no problem, but cutting off fingers was too much in this instance.

[3rdragon]

*Also, kerosene. I'm FINE with kerosene. (I mean, it's horrifying and awful and I would never want it to happen to anybody, much less a character I like, but I don't need to put the book down or anything -- don't even consider putting the book down.)

[ewein2412]

well, but there is a certain amount of black comedy connected with the kerosene. nobody *really* takes it seriously except you-know-who. And the ensuing hysteria every time it gets mentioned must cause a certain amount of entertainment.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I must be the only person who read them and totally failed to notice the anti-Christian stuff. There were angels running about! There was the Megatron! Sure, it was anti-Church, but so was Hobbes.

(As Atheist Narnia, it failed.)

Of course, I also read it within months of graduating with a begrudging degree in Philosophy, and had learned how to sort of half tune out all religious stuff.

I liked the first two. I thought the third one wasn't great, but I'd been warned about it, by several people, so I was prepared. (Kind of like the end of Battlestar Galactica; if enough people tell you it's terrible, when you watch it, you are like "well, not great, but not the worst thing I've ever seen on TV.")

[ewein2412]

isn't megatron a great word?

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

It is a great word. It is the right word, right? It's not megaron, or something?

[ewein2412]

i can't remember. i think so.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

After I posted, I looked it up. I'm not sure if megatron is actually the Voice of God, but it is the name of a Transformer.

Megaron is some hall in Mycenae.

Megaparsec is...I don't know, something to do with the speed of light, I suppose, and a nickname for Meg Murray.

[3rdragon]

Well, a parsec is a distance (why it's completely nonsensical for Han Solo to brag that the Millenium Falcon completed the whatever whatever in twelve parsecs -- unless one wants to argue that the whatever whatever is twelve parsecs long, and he's just having Luke on. I have trouble believing it from what I remember of context, though). So I'd guess that a megaparsec is a thousand of them . . .

It's a good thing that I got up at 6:30 this morning, or my neighbor's loud music at 7:15 on a Saturday might be really annoying.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I started from a joke, towards the beginning of A Wrinkle in Time Calvin is quizzing Meg on random things, because everyone at school knows she's dumb, and her mom says "no, actually she's brilliant at math and science and unengaged on everything else" and it's one of the questions.

I have turned to Wikipedia. A megaparsec is a million parsecs, about 3,260,000 parsec. Astronomers use it for the space between galaxies.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

That is supposed to be 3 million light years, not parsecs. That doesn't actually make sense.

[3rdragon]

I thought that's probably what you meant.

I remembered Meg Murray-Megaparsec, but I haven't read A Wrinkle In Time in FAR too long.

Hm. The MCC library only has Dragons in the Waters. I think that's a definite oversight. I wonder if the innovative school library has any L'Engle. A Wrinkle in Time is a kid's book, and it's been in print for a long time. Or maybe the BICs have a library. I should ask them the next time I'm in town. (Next question: does the conservative Christian family that disapproves of Harry Potter b/c "There is no good magic" also disapprove of L'Engle? There isn't *exactly* magic . . . I don't remember seeing any on their bookshelf, but it's not a terribly large fiction section. Probably just better to not go there.)

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

A Wrinkle in Time shows up on banned book lists all the time. So does Narnia. The conservative Christians who object to magic also object to dimension jumping angels.

Also, apparently once some middle school class was passing about A Wrinkle in Time because of the "graphic sex scene" which turned out to be a description of the tesseract. No. I don't get it either.

Dragons in the Waters was just no good. And I like Poly O'Keefe.

[(Anonymous)]

. . .

Now I really need to reread A Wrinkle in Time, and find out what one could possibly misconstrue that badly. Of course, middle schoolers might believe anything.

Madeleine L'Engle, though? Madeleine L'Engle's YA stuff? Just because A House Like A Lotus contained the most graphic sex scene I'd ever encountered at [whenever I read it] doesn't actually make it a graphic sex scene.

I don't know; Dragons in the Waters has its points. I'll admit that it's not her best.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

For reasons I don't actually understand, I can't seem to reply through LJ.

They were middle schoolers. I think it was the bit where they tesser onto the two dimensional planet, but I could be wrong about that. I met Madeleine L'Engle and she told us that story. (I don't actually remember much about the whole thing, except that it was intimidating beyond belief to meet her. Things occasionally bubble up in my memory about it, like this, apparently. Also, at some point some movie company was trying to buy the rights to The Arm of the Starfish, but they only wanted to make they could make it so Josh wasn't killed.)

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I am told it is Metatron.

[3rdragon]

I'm curious about "begrudging degree in philosophy."

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I loved St. John's. Dearly. The way we do our education, all the reading from primary sources, is fantastic. Technically, my BA is in Liberal Arts, and while I usually can't remember all seven, we did study them all. But a BA in Liberal Arts is the kind of thing that is hard to explain to grad schools and potential employers, and so we also have this spiel of "the equivalent of a double major in Philosophy and the History of Math and Science and double minor in Classics and Comp Lit."

I went to SJC for everything but the Philosophy. I thought I could work around it, and I was mostly right, but most people care about it more than me.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Mauling by lions is harder than torture. Mauled by a lion is easier than the greased shut eyes and the fingernails.

[ewein2412]

yeah, it was easier to write, too. Actually the HARDEST things to write are the squicky things, like Medraut touching Goewin's breasts in TWP, or the Afar warrior licking the grit out of Telemakos's eye.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Man, I think I switched that sentance around so may times it's ridiculous. What I'd meant to say was "mauling by lions is easier than torture."

Stupid English. Why don't we have case endings? Everything is easier with case endings.

[ewein2412]

you know what? I read and understood it as "easier." isn't that weird.

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Medraut feeling up Goewin was so weird and off putting I had blocked it.

[ewein2412]

you just didn't get it when you were ten...

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

I was 13.

The biggest difference between me at 10 and me and 13 and noticing that is that me at 10 would have not got it, and by 13 I had read all the Greek mythology I could get my hands on, up to and including Homer and Aeschylus, and if you're that immersed in Ancient Greek weirdness, someone feeling up his sister just doesn't register on scale of squick.

[ewein2412]

hee.

in re-reading The Horse Without a Head I can actually recognize the things I stumbled over when I was 7 and reading it for the first time - like "Polish pastry" I took for "polish pastry" (as in nail polish, not pastry from Poland) and "a thing that happened once in a blue moon" I took literally and thought it meant it was a thing that had happened once, a long time ago, when the moon was blue-looking

[3rdragon]

I think I must've, too, because I have no memory of it.

[ewein2412]

it was on the subtle side of subtle, in The Winter Prince.

[3rdragon]

I figured that it must be in The Winter Prince, since that's the only place it makes any kind of logical sense. I'll just have to re-read it when I get back home.

[3rdragon]

Ew, yeah, I can see that.

[ewein2412]

i mean, those things are physically difficult to WRITE DOWN. And I have to go "ew ew ew" and run away from the paper afterward.

[ewein2412]

I totally agree about the christian/anti-christian take, and the difference between lewis and pullman. I have my issues with lewis, too.

In a curious way they are terribly similar. Pullman would not like that.

[3rdragon]

No, he would not at all.

[3rdragon]

. . . I have to say that I'm amused by the way me being behind on my lj reading and replying to Tori's comment two days later has made this a thread in which the three of us babble at each other.

[ewein2412]

well, I enjoyed it very much!

[3rdragon]

Me, too. And do you notice that the three of us have accumulated over thirty comments of babble?

[ewein2412]

how could I fail to notice that!

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Without Gmail's handy conversation threading. This has been remarkably hard to follow.

[3rdragon]

I think that what I find hardest to follow about it is that only Elizabeth is notified every time someone replies. (And if I forget to log in before posting, I don't even know when one of you has replied to me.) Although now that it's getting this complicated, it is beginning to feel rather like trying to keep track of all the ends of a fractal.