The Republic of Heaven

Somewhere near the beginning of Northern Lights we hear of someone in Jordan college who was 'one of very few people whose daemon was the same sex as him' or something along those lines. Forgive me for not having the exact quote.
So I was thinking. Given that contact between daemons has an emotional, if not sexual, charge (I'm thinking Mrs Coulter's monkey and Sir Charles's snake in the tent, or Will touching Pan toward the end of The Amber Spyglass), would it be that gay people have same-sex daemons? They would, after all, have more of an emotional connection to someone of their own gender, so perhaps two daemons of the same sex would best communicate this connection.
Anyway, that's what I like to think, and I was just wondering if people think I'm spouting absolute gibberish.

Hello, by the way, and apologies if this has been covered, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

We have discussed this before, but it was one of the threads "lost" in the "crash". The thread was reinstated, but I suspect it was after the early June back-up we reverted to after the real crash.

Bernie the pastry chef was "was on those rare individuals" with a same-sex daemon, but I don't think he was gay. He was described as kindly and solitary, and presumably good at cooking. This is just the sort who'd be branded a gay-boy in Will's world. Here, I think, PP was making a jibe in the same way he did with the utterly camp Baruch and Balthamos.

Latrom was, I think, bisexual. A lot of his mannerisms and apparel was suggestive of underground homosexuals, such as the scented hankie. However, his second sighting of Lyra (in the library at Will's Oxford) had disturbing hints of his being a 'straight' nonce. Furthermore, he didn't seem displeased when Mrs. Coulter began pleasuring him.

I definitely saw the 'nonce' undertones with Latrom looking at Lyra. I never thought of him as anything but straight, with a possible tendency to young girls. His whole interaction with Mrs Coulter dismisses him being bisexual to me. As for the scented hanky and things, he just has too much money and bad taste.
I quite liked the fact that Baruch and Balthamos were so in love, even if they were a bit dramatic about it.
Do people have any other theories for the same-sex daemons then? Why do they occur, what do they indicate about the personality of their 'owner'? It probably is just me, clutching at gay straws.

Misterminiver wrote:

I definitely saw the 'nonce' undertones with Latrom looking at Lyra.

A nonce is a sex offender.

I never thought of him as anything but straight, with a possible tendency to young girls. His whole interaction with Mrs Coulter dismisses him being bisexual to me.

How so? Bis will give either side tries.

As for the scented hanky and things, he just has too much money and bad taste.

Oh come one! He might as well as worn an earing in... which ear, is it?

I quite liked the fact that Baruch and Balthamos were so in love, even if they were a bit dramatic about it.

They were screaming queens. They might as well have been called Julian and Sandy.

Why do they occur, what do they indicate about the personality of their 'owner'?

The choice of beastie certainly indicates their human's character. Consider the bookish aletheiometrist priest; his was a frog. Father MacPhail had a reptile. The parish priest, hoarding Byrnison's armour, had a pelican... a symbol of arrogance and pride.

Let's hope this doesn't become another debate on the obstetrics of daemonology.

Naomi Silvertongue wrote:I always took it to mean that he was a little extra "happy", meaning homosexual.

Happiness doesn't equate homosexuality.

quoting the man...

unicon 2000 wrote:TB: There was one point about demons which – you say, I think, right at the beginning of Northern Lights, that somebody’s got a demon of the same sex as themselves, and this is very rare. Now, does that indicate homosexuality? Or what?

PP: I don’t know. There are plenty of things about my worlds I don’t know, and that’s one of them. It might do! But it might not! Occasionally, no doubt, people do have a demon of the same sex; that might indicate homosexuality, or it might indicate some other sort of gift or quality, such as second sight. I do not know. But I don’t have to know everything about what I write.

At first i thought Boreal was a pedophile but i always figured he was just following Lyra because of the altheiometre. Well he was a nasty piece of work anyway...

I didn't think of Latrom as bi because his whole sexual interest seemed focused around women. Just his dress sense wasn't enough for me to think that he liked men too.
Jess - thanks. If PP doesn't know, then I won't worry about it too much either.

misterminiver wrote:I didn't think of Latrom as bi because his whole sexual interest seemed focused around women. Just his dress sense wasn't enough for me to think that he liked men too.

The scented hankie often *was* a symbol of homosexuality, when it was a criminal offence. Serpents, such as his daemon, are also ambiguous creatures.

I've just remember what I said about this the last time it came up. daemons seem to hold the personality the human owner doesn't - for example, Pan is cautious whilst Lyra is reckless, the two making a whole. Therefore nearly all people have a daemon of the opposite sex, so their complete personality is made up of male and female (ahoy generalisation) traits. Hence a male with a male daemon is compromised solely of male attributes, a real man's man.

Totally blown apart from the fact that ol' Bernie's a pastry chef, of course.

I never got the vibe that Latrom was Bisexual--he did strike me strongly during my re-reading phase as a paedophile.

To Will--that makes sense, but some staight men are very good chefs

Now if only you could find them eh.

Well there certainly aren't any at this school.

My friend's ex was an excellent cook, but he was also an arrogant ass.

Besides, I'm perfectly happy cooking for myself.

I wonder if the most masculine men, think of Arnold Swazerneger, have the least affinity with women, without actually being gay. Bernie's shyness could come from this, or simply from being unusual. Male/female dynamics are a key ingredient of social glue.

Danny Barefoot wrote:I wonder if the most masculine men, think of Arnold Swazerneger, have the least affinity with women

Yeah, someone who uses "You're all a bunch of girly men!" as an insult must be really secure with their masculinity.

On the subject of Boreal I reckon he's anyones friend