Living in one world

[Jez]

The characters of HDM can only live in their home world, and TAS explains that this is because daemons can only live their full lives in the world they were born in. Otherwise they get sick very quickly.

I know the symbolic significance of this is about making the best of your life in this world while you can, because there isn't anywhere else. But I still wonder what it is about daemons that limits them to one world. Any ideas?

[Blossom]

Well...I'm sure there are scientific reasons. Like it must really mess up the universe when someone from another universe enters it because there's only ever meant to be a set amount of energy out there.

It could just be because it's unnatural to be in another universe.

[missmolly]

Hmm, I've never really tried to justify it aside from with the symbolic reasoning you mention.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that daemons are essentially made of Dust...Dust is something produced and kept alive by the creatures of each specific world, independantly of all the other worlds (or at least it was before the knife came along, and presumably it will stop mixing and go back to being this way after the angels have closed all the windows between the worlds.) Maybe being formed from the Dust of a particular world makes daemons born into that world distinctly different from daemons born in other worlds? Maybe that would make it difficult for them to live elsewhere because they would clash with the Dust-make-up?

I really don't know, and I doubt even PP does--I think there are a lot of things in the books he put out there for symbolic or storytelling value that he didn't really think through (kind of like the whole how-are-daemons-born thing that he admits to not knowing about.) Tis interesting, though!

[Rachaman]

I have to agree with missmolly on this one. This is a case where the metaphor IS the meaning.

But, just for the sake of argument, the best example I can think of is altitude sickness or 'the bends' from deep sea diving. Just as your cells can't handle the extreme change of atmospheric pressure at extreme height or depth, your Dust can't handle the pressure of extreme Universes.

I wonder if the effect would be more pronounced if you are on a world which is 'further' from your own? Could someone from our world last longer in Lyra's world than the Mulefa's world, for example?

[Enitharmon]

As dæmons are metaphors anyway!

It's called a plot device. People give me funny looks when I say dæmons are a plot device but that's exactly what they are. It's the same as saying they are there for symbolic or storytelling value only more succinct.

[Jez]

I really don't know, and I doubt even PP does--I think there are a lot of things in the books he put out there for symbolic or storytelling value that he didn't really think through

Yeah, I agree, and I think this is one of them.

The metaphor explanation doesn't quite satisfy me. As a plot device, it's kinda lazy. And I also find the idea that we're limited to just one world disappointing. I mean, all the worlds are material; they're of the same kind. I can't think of any reason offhand why people should not be able to survive in different physical worlds, providing the environmental conditions are suitable. It just seems as though the multiverse expands the realm of the physical in such a wonderful way, opening up all these possibilities for exploration and discovery... and then it gets closed off. These other worlds are completely out of bounds.

The idea of Dust being world-specific is interesting. I always thought that Dust was the same throughout the worlds. Angels are made of Dust and they don't seem to have any problem going between worlds.

[Riali]

I always think that plot devices often can have a chance to grow into stories of their own if we push them a bit. It's all part of the reader-writer interaction hat is what makes literature work.

In this case, I tend to think that the daemon's sickness is perhaps more psychological that physiological. Not the psychosomatic it's-all-in-your-head sort of psychological, but the real the-human-psyche-just-can't-handle-this sort. Remember how in The Hitch Hikers Guide they had that passage about how all living beings emit a cosmic ping to gauge how far they are from their birthplace? I think it's sort of like that, only the ping can't ping because it can't cross through the worlds, and so the psyche just doesn't know what to do. So, sick mind, sick soul, sick body. Home is more than just a place, at times it is a physical need. I can't even begin to explain the physics and biology of why, but I certainly feel it, even just in the one world.

[missmolly]

Remember how in The Hitch Hikers Guide they had that passage about how all living beings emit a cosmic ping to gauge how far they are from their birthplace? I think it's sort of like that, only the ping can't ping because it can't cross through the worlds, and so the psyche just doesn't know what to do. So, sick mind, sick soul, sick body. Home is more than just a place, at times it is a physical need. I can't even begin to explain the physics and biology of why, but I certainly feel it, even just in the one world.

I haven't read the Hitch Hiker's Guide (I know, shame on me) but I still really love this idea. The theme of home is certainly present in the books--Lyra not having had a traditional home, Will's home being "the place he kept safe for his mother" rather than the other way around. Looking at the two of them, its clear that their only real "home" is more like the world they were born in rather than a more specific place.

And I know what you mean about being able to feel where you are in relation to home, even in just the one world, like a physical pull

[Mogget]

Oh! *jumps up and down* I want to say cool stuff too!

Remember how Will could tell which world he was cutting into by its feel, almost like each world had a slightly different "flavor"? What if that reflected differences in the structure of the world. Following this line of thought, you wouldn't be able to survive in another world because you would be made of matter that was out of sync, in terms of "flavor," with its environment.

Also, remember that world-travel isn't exactly a wholesome process. It kills off Dust, and creates Spectres. It is inherently an unnatural act, and perhaps one's Dust is repelled by something that is so abhorrent to Dust in general.

I agree with Riali and Jez on this matter, too. It's a wonderful metaphor for having to build the Republic where you are, and nowhere else, and the Douglas Adams idea is intruiging.

[Jez]

Remember how Will could tell which world he was cutting into by its feel, almost like each world had a slightly different "flavor"? What if that reflected differences in the structure of the world. Following this line of thought, you wouldn't be able to survive in another world because you would be made of matter that was out of sync, in terms of "flavor," with its environment.

Ooh, I like that idea.

Anyway, about world-travel being unnatural - yeah, cutting between the worlds using the knife is unnatural and damaging, but like I said, the angels seem to have no problem going between worlds. So there must be a natural way of doing it.

[Peter]

Remember how Will could tell which world he was cutting into by its feel, almost like each world had a slightly different "flavor"? What if that reflected differences in the structure of the world. Following this line of thought, you wouldn't be able to survive in another world because you would be made of matter that was out of sync, in terms of "flavor," with its environment.

My suspicion is that a window is more than a simple doorway between the worlds and that it changes the physical part of the people who pass through it in such a way as to make them compatible with the world they are going to. Their daemons... well, that's another matter, and part of the fatal Dust-destroying aspect of the Knife's nature.

I'm sure I wrote about it once but I can't find it now. That's rather sad

[Mogget]

Anyway, about world-travel being unnatural - yeah, cutting between the worlds using the knife is unnatural and damaging, but like I said, the angels seem to have no problem going between worlds. So there must be a natural way of doing it.

Angels, I think, are exempt from some of the laws governing matter, seeing as they are not flesh and blood, but constructs coalesced from Dust. There's a section in TSK where it says that if Ruta Skadi could have seen the true nature of the angels, they would seem more like architecture than organism. It could be that since Dust is universal to all worlds, the angels have an easier time moving from one to another. Alternatively, angels might be able to extend their consciousness (since they are made of consciousness) into other worlds via tiny cracks, or maybe the connections further back along the "decsion tree" of the multiverse. Since PP never elucidates this particular plot device, I guess we'll never know

Or:
The ways that angels use for world-travel are specific to them. In so many words.

[Somewhat]

Remember how Will could tell which world he was cutting into by its feel, almost like each world had a slightly different "flavor"? What if that reflected differences in the structure of the world. Following this line of thought, you wouldn't be able to survive in another world because you would be made of matter that was out of sync, in terms of "flavor," with its environment.

My suspicion is that a window is more than a simple doorway between the worlds and that it changes the physical part of the people who pass through it in such a way as to make them compatible with the world they are going to. Their daemons... well, that's another matter, and part of the fatal Dust-destroying aspect of the Knife's nature.

I'm sure I wrote about it once but I can't find it now. That's rather sad

You did write it, I read it. I think it was in Threads?

[bharned1]

I can't think of a metaphor, but I did find a comparison that might explain why they get sick. In The War of the Worlds, the Martians kick humanities butt, until they get wiped out by a common cold. They hadn't developed any immune defense against it, and didn't stand a chance. Maybe daemons are the same way. If there were Dust-related or daemon diseases, they wouldn't be able to survive.

Another thought-The daemons are like the mulefa's world. Dust is draining from them if they aren't right, so they die like the wheel-pod trees.

[Assarhaddon]

I can't think of a metaphor, but I did find a comparison that might explain why they get sick. In The War of the Worlds, the Martians kick humanities butt, until they get wiped out by a common cold. They hadn't developed any immune defense against it, and didn't stand a chance. Maybe daemons are the same way. If there were Dust-related or dæmon diseases, they wouldn't be able to survive.

That's another point that made me think. With all these window standing open somewhere in the bush for hundreds of years...won't terrible diseases be spreading from one world to the next? Invasive species?

[Halo Nerd]

I guess it's like real life ecologies (Right word? I'm tired... sorry...)

If you take a polar bear and make him live in a desert his chances aren't good for survival. If you plant certain plants in the wrong places they either adapt and swarm or they die immediately.

A.K.A If you mess with the natural state of things then you SERIOUSLY started some trouble.