Hatred for the Self - Denial of Dæmons
A 785 word essay on those who deny the existence of their dæmon or otherwise reject them despite being aware of them. Inspired by my recent read of Serpentine by Philip Pullman.
I think the scariest thing in His Dark Materials(+ The Book of Dust and its companion books) for me has always been any time people reject their dæmons. I’m rarely scared or unsettled by fiction but even thinking about it scares me so badly I can barely even describe the fear.
Even before I started really studying daemons and came to the conclusion they must be real, it terrified and saddened me. How could you be given the gift of knowing this part of yourself and cast it away? How could you reject the one person always by your side since birth? To hate yourself so fully that you’d rather live half a life sounds like a horrible thing.
The most terrifying characters and institutions to me have always been the ones advocating this denial of the self. The General Oblation Board may kidnap children and often kill them but it’s the intercision itself that scared me more than anything else. Simon Talbot with his book The Constant Deceiver scared me so badly I honestly don’t want to ever reread those parts of The Secret Commonwealth.
My dæmon is my closest companion and friend, the most cherished part of myself. I can’t imagine ever being apart from her and it’s one of my biggest fears. I fear death not because of what may happen afterwards but because she’d be gone while I’d remain. It’s a type of loneliness I can’t even fathom. We are rarely more than a few feet apart because being any farther from each other feels wrong. My life has improved for the better after learning about her and meeting her properly.
Now I do think there’s a difference between thinking “dæmons aren’t real” when you have no personal evidence for their existence versus thinking it when you do. To be aware of your dæmon yet deny their existence is what I truly find alarming, not when you act under the assumption that they’re imaginary. Most people in most worlds are kept in a state of unawareness for one reason or another, and that is perfectly fine.
But if someone came up to me and said “I know my dæmon but I want nothing to do with them”, I’d be truly horrified. I can understand not liking or understanding certain things about your dæmon, even though I love everything about mine, but that’s different than complete rejection. Your dæmon is a part of you that you cannot ever live without. It’s like trying to take your heart out of your chest and expecting to survive without it. And unlike the heart you can’t get a transplant or have a machine perform the same job.
In Lyra’s world I would most likely be an outlier for holding this opinion. It appears that a lot of people there are more like Mrs. Coulter and the General Oblation Board or Simon Talbot, even if less extreme. Otherwise, people of the sort wouldn’t be nearly so influential and couldn’t do so much harm. There’s even people like Gerard Bonneville who brutally abuse their dæmon for one reason or another; though it all boils down to self-loathing, shame, disgust, and fear.
I think a lot of people in this world who are unaware of their dæmon and say they “want a dæmon of their own”, not knowing they already have one, would fall into this trap without realizing it. Most people are full of negative perception aimed at the self, and a dæmon partially serves as a reflection of the self. It only makes sense that if you hate yourself you’d end up hating your dæmon to some capacity.
I myself have many qualities that I hate about myself, but I still accept them as part of who I am. My first proper conversation with my dæmon felt like speaking with a version of myself because that’s sort of what it is. She taught me more about who I am and helped me find acceptance even for traits that scared or disgusted me. I spent two years desperately trying to understand and speak with her and realized I couldn’t love her without loving myself. I’m prouder and happier because of my search for her.
Even if you don’t believe in the existence of dæmons, I think they’re a valuable lesson in self-love, self-discovery, and self-acceptance. You cannot be you without them, and you mustn’t try to live half a life. You should accept who you are regardless of how you see your individual qualities both good and bad. To those who do believe and dæmons, make sure they know how much you love and cherish them. Even if you can’t speak to them yet, tell them anyways.
