More on Daemons & Some About Quizzes

I couldn’t find a way to comment, but I loved your post and the song that you shared with it; it was really cool and very applicable. I wonder if you think that this can apply to other facets of life, like for example, in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, a young black girl wishes to have blue eyes like Shirley Temple, yet cannot seem to obtain the one thing that she thinks will make her “beautiful” instead of accepting who she has grown into as a human being, with brown eyes and brown skin. Following that, do you think that the type of mentality that you discuss, where people desire to be different and try to do whatever they can to “get the right result” in their personalities or their physical features, has been embedded into our society? If so, how?

remashha's avatarReading Young Adult Literature

As a fan of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, I have taken at least a dozen different quizzes to identify my “true” Daemon. Sometimes even, I retake a quiz multiple times to get a more desired result. In Pullman’s work characters do not have this same opportunity to change their daemon once it has been derived, but this fact does not mean that daemons cannot change before they settle.

In the Golden Compass, Pan shifts according to Lyra’s behavior and circumstance, but Lyra never really responds to his changes. As a result, readers never really know whether Lyra likes the forms that Pan takes (ex: she might not actually like moths). In the end Pan represent who Lyra is; even if he becomes something that she does not like. Just as many quizzes claim that my results represent who I am and not what animal I want to…

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One response to “More on Daemons & Some About Quizzes”

  1. remashha Avatar
    remashha

    Thank you for the note (comments should be fixed now, my bad). I haven’t read The Bluest Eye, but you seem to have nailed the concept on the head.

    As for your question, I believe that you encapsulate the role of desired personality in society with the phrase “get the right result.” The idea that a ‘perfect personality’ (or in the case of His Dark Materials, a favorable representation of the soul) exists, leaves plenty of opportunity for disappointment. An optimal existence is different for everyone, yet it is often heavily influenced by society. For example, take the well-known Barbie doll. The brand’s catchphrase suggests that you can “be who you want to be” yet each product presents an ideal character: successful in their passions, equipped with the best accessories, and possessing blue eyes. Many such examples cannot be ignored, therefore it is easy to base who you want to be off of the “right results” that are presented and developed by social constructs in society.

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