Where's My Giant Robot Car?

asteroidtroglodyte:

asteroidtroglodyte:

idkaguyorsomething:

a support group for people with “unconventional” daemons. jeff with his flounder he has to carry everywhere in a huge tank. lois with her poison dart frog everyone is afraid to touch. sam with their elephant that’s the reason they can never go higher than two stories in most buildings.

I gotta know more about these people, though. Daemons are reflections of their Humans, and Pullman’s world building is such that most “typical folks,” the kind who are Not Protagonists, end up with some kind of cat or dog or perhaps a common bird.

When Lord Asriel walks into a room accompanied by a fucking Snow Leopard, that says things about him.

What the EVERLOVING FUCK does it mean to have an Elephant for a Daemon?

I gotta meet this character.

Lee Scoresby: …I was just talking about this fella I knew once, back in Texas. One “Mr. Ganges.” Yessir, like the holy river of India. He seemed to get a big kick out of referring to himself as such. He was from there originally, you see; came to Texas to make his fortune. He’d introduce himself with a big smile, all teeth, and a yell. “Mister Ganges!”

Now. Mr Ganges ran a network of Sundry Shops that specialized in Spices: made quite a fortune for himself selling coriander and pepper and such to frontiersmen and ranchers. He would laugh as he talked about arriving in Texas and promptly realizing that the key to his fortune lay in the place he had just left. He turned right back around and went all the way home to India! He visited old farmers he’d known growing up and loaded himself up with every spice he could carry in his wagon and made the long journey back to Texas for a second time.

By this time, he would say, he was beginning to realize his true talent: long range travel. We bonded a bit over that, arguing over techniques and tricks. He’d crossed the world 3 times just starting his business and it had been, frankly, easy. He seldom needed a map; easily passed through borders; and always managed to find friends.

Now, as I’ve been spinning this here yarn, I have been skipping over a detail that is rather large and important; an elephant in the room, if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase.

You see, Mr Ganges had a full-grown Elephant for a daemon. I’ve never seen anything like it, not before and not since. She had a pretty-sounding name, apparently after some Vedic goddess, but my tongue’d mangle it if I tried to repeat it, so I won’t. She didn’t talk much, but I watched Mr Ganges stop mid-sentence to listen to her one time so I reckon they were not unlike ole Hester and me. He often credited her with his success. “Elephants have perfect memory!” He would wink and tap his forehead knowingly. “I never forget a face!” As far as I saw, he never did.