Poll: Time Lord daemons?

[tardis_stowaway]

I have a Doctor Who thought question for you! Over in Sherlock fandom I've read a number of excellent fics fusing the world of Sherlock with the His Dark Materials book trilogy, giving all the characters daemons*. I started wondering how such a fusion would work in the Doctor Who universe. Specifically, would Time Lord daemons be like human daemons? Please note that this is purely a speculative exercise; I have no plans for writing DW/HDM crossover fic (though I'd happily read any that's already out there...)[Poll #1752951]Feel free to use the comments to speculate further on this topic and/or suggest daemons for Doctor Who or Torchwood characters.

*A very quick primer for those who haven't read Phillip Pullman's excellent His Dark Materials Trilogy:  in this alternate universe fantasy, each person has a daemon, which is essentially an external manifestation of his/her soul.  Daemons take the shapes of animals.  During childhood they may shapeshift freely, then at adolescence they settle on a form that remains for the rest of the person's life.  Daemons have real physical form and may touch their own humans, inanimate objects, or other daemons, but touching another person's daemon is a deep cross-cultural taboo.

Comments

[kaffy_r]

Because I'm not certain every Time-Lord actually had his or her own TARDIS, I'm going to go with "changes w/regeneration." And, since I always read "daemon" as "soul," in my head, and I firmly believe Time-Lords have 'em, the human/non-human thing doesn't bother me.

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure many Time Lords were homebodies and didn't have their own TARDISes. Certainly we see Romana travel with the Doctor inside his TARDIS. That option would require some further tweaking of canon beyond the obvious having of daemons.

And, since I always read "daemon" as "soul," in my head, and I firmly believe Time-Lords have 'em, the human/non-human thing doesn't bother me.

My thoughts exactly. Daemons aren't a biological adaptation that have been evolved by humans in Lyra's world but not on our Earth or Time Lords on Gallifrey. They're caused by different metaphysics in Lyra's universe that cause the soul to take daemon-form, and I think Doctor Who falls apart if you try to say the Doctor doesn't have a soul.

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure many Time Lords were homebodies and didn't have their own TARDISes. Certainly we see Romana travel with the Doctor inside his TARDIS. That option would require some further tweaking of canon beyond the obvious having of daemons.

And, since I always read "daemon" as "soul," in my head, and I firmly believe Time-Lords have 'em, the human/non-human thing doesn't bother me.

My thoughts exactly. Daemons aren't a biological adaptation that have been evolved by humans in Lyra's world but not on our Earth or Time Lords on Gallifrey. They're caused by different metaphysics in Lyra's universe that cause the soul to take daemon-form, and I think Doctor Who falls apart if you try to say the Doctor doesn't have a soul.