Iorek's Armor
Provided to YouTube by Entertainment One U.S., LP
Iorek's Armor · Lorne Balfe
His Dark Materials (Original Television Soundtrack)
DAEMONS
An investigation of the questions, characteristics, origins and the purpose of daemons from the perspective of His Dark Materials. What is the human soul? Are daemons the outward embodiment of the human soul? And why are they unchanging after maturity, but ever-changing in adolescence? Exploring the meaning and purpose behind human souls; if ensoulment is limited to humans in theology, and the consequences of a corporeal conscience.
What is a Daemon?
In His Dark Materials, humans do not have immaterial souls as described in traditional religious texts. Instead, they have corporeal souls that take the form of a conscious and autonomous animal called a daemon. The daemon has no less autonomy or freewill then it’s human as they are connected equally. Laura Miller eloquently describes the relationship that children have with their ever-shifting daemons as,
“Children, owing to the plasticity of their personalities, have daemons that can change shape—in the opening scene, Pantalaimon (Pan) transforms from a moth into an ermine—but as a person comes of age his daemon settles on a single form that reflects his essence.”
The coming of age, and the solidification of the daemons form, is described by Miller as the loss of innocence that leads to a gain of self-knowledge or self-awareness.
Pullman’s use of daemons also shows this dual nature of man. Lyra and Pan are perfect examples of this duality. Each balances the other, and harmony exists between them; one cannot live without the other. Usually, Lyra represents desire and Pan reason (Robinson).
The Human Soul
The idea of ensouled animals is deviant to many Christian beliefs as God created humans in His image. “Humans are the crowning achievement of God’s creative activity, and as his image-bearers, we possess something of the divine that nothing else in creation possesses” (Duke). Duke explains that by virtue of human creation in God’s image, we are uniquely special compared to all of creation. Since, according to Christianity, divinity is only present in humans, animals cannot be divine. I consider the characteristics of divinity to include the possession of a soul. Pullman challenges this long-held Christian belief in His Dark Materials by not only giving daemons a soul but being the animal vessel for the human soul.
Ensouled Animalism
Ensouled animalism, “the view that we are identical to animals that have immaterial souls as parts” (Thurow) has been argued as the basis for animals surviving death. That an afterlife is only possible for the ensouled and therefore, for an animal to survive death, they too must have a soul. This is not explicitly the world Pullman depicts in His Dark Materials, not all animals have souls, only the daemons, and they act as an external conscience. The difference between a soul and a conscience may only be theological; however, this idea falls in line with Shoemaker’s description of atheistic animalism, the idea that the person and the human-animal are on in the same. “…sameness of person and sameness of human-animal always go together” (Shoemaker). His Dark Materials tackles the religious soul theory by deliberately separating the soul from the person and providing each with individual consciousness and autonomy. The show further illustrates the “sameness of person” when the connection between human and daemon is violently ripped apart. This experiment releases an enormous amount of energy and leaves the human and their daemon as shells of their former selves.