Clymonistra

If you're like me, your life was changed by an ambitious trilogy of fantasy books written by Philip Pullman and entitled The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass (together known as His Dark Materials). I fetched the first one from a shelf at my local small-town bookstore way back in 1996, then purchased it solely based on Terry Brooks's foreword promise that "You are going to love the Golden Compass."

It was a bold claim. And the chap was right, too.



A while ago, New Line Cinema optioned the rights to make His Dark Materials as their second big-screen fantasy adaptation (to follow Lord of the Rings, of course); and I say without irony, His Dark Materials is (while not a work without flaw - whose is, really?) the only modern fantasy epic worthy of succeeding Tolkien in a fictional milieu still cluttered with elves, orcs and evil Dark Lords.



Now. Less folk know about His Dark Materials, though the books sold very well and won multiple awards. Pullman's is also...weirder...and riskier...material than what Tolkien produced. Ergo, New Line's marketing department are going to have an uphill battle filling seats for opening weekend of The Golden Compass. And I wager there won't be a second or third film made if the first one doesn't turn a profit. These fantastical shenanigans always cost a pretty penny to visualize, as you well know.



For this reason, I want to show you one of the early advertising ploys they've cooked up to generate awareness of the property and also reveal a bit of Pullman's interesting cosmology. In his story, a given character's soul is externalized (and personified) through an animal totem who represents that individual's unique traits. For children, these "daemons" change shape and species to reflect the unanchored identity-wandering and soul-searching of youth. When we become adults, our daemons solidify into one animal form and remain as such until our deaths. It's a neat idea.



What New Line's done on the Golden Compass website is set up a personality quiz that results in a daemon being assigned you based on your answers. I think it's a brilliant gimmick to communicate one of the books' more memorable concepts and stoke excitement for the film. So, I invite you to take a look and meet your daemon (find the functionality under the DAEMONS menu).

Mine's a wolf, and her name's Clymonistra.

(Thanks to Bill for the link.)