The Republic of Heaven

Does a daemon change on its own, or does it change depending on how it's person is feeling?

I think it can do both, but it has to have some sort of control over the change, because it changes when it feels like it...

both. you have to remember that a human and their dæmon share emotions. if someone gets angry, their dæmon gets angry too (most of the time), and they'll become something that expresses that anger (again, most of the time).

Yeah, since they're more like the same person in two bodies, so what ones feels the other does also.

Does the daemon (along with their person) consciously choose when to change and what form to become, or does it just happen based on their emotions?

it's definitely a conscious thing. how could it be unconscious when there are so many different ways to express one emotion and so many possible states of mind to be in simultaneously?

Yeah, I think you're right. Okay, one more question: do daemons change while people are sleeping? I think I remember one part where Pan changes when Lyra's sleeping, but maybe not.

I doubt that if a dæmon were awake while its human was sleeping it would be awake enough to change. It's more likely that it'd change when they were in some kind of almost-asleep state, like when you wake up for a second and fall asleep and almost never remember it.

Would they change when people were dreaming, to reflect how the person felt and what was going on in the dream? I really don't know much about the science of dreams, so I have no idea. I'm just thinking of a lot of questions about daemons now.

and i'm just trying to figure out the answers fast enough so it seems like i already thought of all these good questions.

i think it would be something like sleepwalking for one's dæmon to change in response to something in a dream. it could happen, though probably not often.

Are you positive it's conscious? a daemon could just change to something out of habit, when it is tired, or bored or something...

I dunno. I've gotten myself really confused about this now. Maybe it could just change out of habit. Or amybe it has certain forms that it takes a lot that it changes to out of habit without making a conscious decision based on how it feels, but when it goes to forms it takes less, it has to think about it? Or maybe not...

I think the analogy I would use to describe it is breathing. Breathing is a semi-automatic process, so when you are not thinking about it and have no particular need to think about it, your hypothalamus does it for you. In the same way, if somebody got angry or afraid their daemon may instinctively change without much thought. But if you consciously decided to override this, by telling your daemon to become one animal, it would become a conscious change in the same way as that can consciously decide to hold your breath (up to a point).

A dæmon could change when their human is sleeping as a sort of twitch. I was wondering about how long the shape-shift takes. Could a dæmon stop halfway?

I'd always thought of it as instantaneous...

i think it's instantaneous too. otherwise there would be poblems with organs not matching up and the like (if they do have organs).

I always think of it like in harry potter when the chick turns from a cat into a teacher... not instantaneous, but pretty fast...

mebe, but i think its fast, otherwise you get into the whole animorphs deal where theyre half changed and ugly...i think its instantaneos cause when pans fighting he changed flick flick flick from form to form...no time for intermediate stages

yes, but he was also TRYING to change as fast as he could...

i think thats refering to the many changes hes making, rather than the time it take to change from one form to another. im pretty sure it says somewhere its instantaneous