[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: His Dusty, Daemonic Mother

[Queer as John]

[Aside note -- this is my new address, john at queerasjohn.com. The old .vu
address is still working but I wanted to keep it for personal use. --John]

>> Tabouli scribeth:

>> I liked the concept of Dust, though. And daemons.  Very clever.

> Whence Jenny replieth,
 
> I can't for the life of me figure out exactly what Dust is.
> Experience?  Adulthood?  Sexuality?   I would love to have a daemon of
> my own, though, and have spent much time thinking about what mine
> would look like.

Jenny, the cat you want to steal is currently attempting to sit on my
keyboard. Something tells me that this sounds *exactly* what my daemon would
do. See, I'd have to have a cat daemon so that I could cuddle it and look
evil. Yes.

Quick question -- does anyone in the books have a daemon of the same gender
as themselves? If not, perhaps there's an interesting gender-daemonic musing
to be made there. Is the daemon the suppressed inner opposite gender in us
all?

On the Dusty Question,

I've always thought (it's been a year since I've read the books, although
I'm attempting to convince one of the kids I teach to read them) that Dust
is Knowledge. And I have a feeling that it's The Knowledge of Everything --
"Science", if you will. (I use "science" in quotes so as not to refer to
Physics-Chemistry-Biology science, but rather its morphological meaning --
Knowledge.)

>From what I remember of Paradise Lost (the one by Milton, not Thomas!), the
Apple in the Garden represents Knowledge. Unfortunately I don't have my
annotated copy to hand, or I'd quote bits at it.

Something that just popped into mind about daemons -- there's a passage in
Paradise Lost where a bridge is being built to Pandaemonium (the city in
Hell). My mind just drew a parallel between the "link" between the daemon
and the human as shown in the daemon-snipping in HDM and the destruction of
the bridge to Pandaemonium in PL.

Oh...Ohhhh...Ooooohhhhhhhhh... (can you hear the sound of an epiphany here?)

I've figured out why Lyra's daemon is named Pan. It's not the Greek
God...but rather the city in Hell, Pan*daemon*ium. Oooh, crafty Philip
Pullman. Naughty crafty Philip Pullman.

Oh, am *so* going to mull over this. Tee hee hee!

--John

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LJ @ www.queerasjohn.com
YM @ queerasjohn

"There's nowt as queer as folk."
             --English proverb
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