"Loyalty" commentary & notes

References:

- The plot is based around "Second Chance Hero". Shocking, I know.

General:

- I wanted to write something about Norman and his son. A little while ago I decided to try looking for some Norman-centric fanfics on Fanfiction.net. There were none. And one fic I came across depicted him as an incestuous pedophile. If there had been a bunch of positive stories about him out there Loyalty would've been written regardless, but the fact that it's the exact opposite situation just gave me extra incentive to write it.

I'm a fan of the daemon concept that's presented in the books that I'm crossing over with Ultimate Spider-Man here, the His Dark Materials series, not so much the rest of the books (which I suspect is the case for a bunch of people, because when I typically see HDM crossovers, they usually just use the daemon concept and that's all). I liked the first and even the second book as a kid, but the third one really confused me at times and turned out to be my least favorite entry. As an adult, I don't like any of them. 

'ETA: Okay, let me go more into why I don't like this series. I don't recall much of the third book, The Amber Spyglass, something I can't say for the first two books. 

Stuff I distinctly do remember about it? Well, it had big (excuse my French, but this is the most fitting description I can give) "Fuck you mom/dad/grandma, stop showing the pastor my Twitter account!" energy. Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are both despicable characters; they did not deserve redemption. Oh, and Will and Lyra having sex, and that saves the multiverse. 

Will and Lyra are twelve years old. Mmm-hmm.

Looking at reviews for The Amber Spyglass over on Goodreads, I saw critics make some excellent observations. One I'll share here is that Philip Pullman doesn't seem to be anti-religious. He just rejected organized religion and replaced it with a religion he made up for HDM, topped off with some New Age woo. Angels, Dust, witches, daemons clearly represent souls... those are all concepts either from or inspired by religion. If you're allowing room for the supernatural to exist, then you're opening up the door for just about anything, and that includes God.

All that said, the idea of having your personality be represented by a talking animal (I headcanon that they also represent one's subconscious) is a really cool idea. So I figured why not toss two things I like together? It's really fun to think about what kinds of daemons our favorite characters might have.

Fun facts:

- Daemon talk time. I'm pretty sure some people choose animals simply because they like them and think they're cool, not because they actually fit a certain character. For example, I saw a fic once where Harry Potter had a husky daemon. Now, I'm not even an HP fan and don't feel like a husky is really appropriate for him. I don't know what kind of animal he'd have, but husky seems like it was picked simply because the writer liked them.

I also think HDM is too on the nose about daemons."OMG that person has a rat/polecat/snake daemon so they must be the evulz!" "All servants have dog daemons, so that means they're born to serve others!" Wow. So if you wanted to be an archaeologist and your daemon settles as a dog, boom, that's it, you have to go work as a maid or something instead? What? What's up with these British children's books authors treating classism as something perfectly natural and even acceptable? HDM, Redwall, Harry Potter... I'm sure people can toss me some more titles. Even "evil animals" have their good qualities, and the reverse likewise goes for the "good animals". For example, rats are adaptable and pretty smart. Wouldn't things be more interesting and nuanced if a totally normal person had a rat daemon, and they had to go through life being side-eyed simply because his/her daemon happens to be a rat? So I really don't even like how Philip Pullman handles his own concept.

- Onto why the USM characters got the animals that they did in here. Right off the bat I knew Norman's daemon was going to be something predatory. On a whim I looked up the symbolism of the cougar as a totem animal at What's Your Sign.com, It's traits are said to be action, strength, nobility, patience, silence, decision, leadership, guardianship, and self-assurance.

Puma meaning (as well as symbolism of mountain lions or cougars) speaks to us of inspection, observation and scrutiny. In the wild, this creature will stare at an object, unmoving [sic], for what seems like an eternity. Further, she does this with stillness, patience. To those of us who heed the puma as a guide, we would take great care to observer our own lives with the kind of intese [sic] focus the puma does.



People who have identified the puma, mountain lion, and/or cougar as their animal totem are people who typically come into this world with a spiritual knowing. Those who attract this animal totem have a deeper understanding of spiritual things. They are very psychic, intuitive, and are likely to be artistically inclined.

Furthermore, the puma is a very protective energy. If you have this creature as your animal totem, you are blessed to have such a fierce and aggressive guardian with you. When called upon you will be amazed at the resourcefulness and assistance the puma meaning can offer.

In closing, it is important to recognize the puma and it's relatives are cats of sudden, vigorous action. This being the case, those who share the puma as their totem should be mindful of their tendancy [sic] to lash out too quickly, or act out in haste. Call upon the patience and observation of the puma before taking action in order to avoid quick and unsavory consequences. 

Sounds quite a bit like Norman to me.

Harry's daemon was hard to pick. He's sort of generic I guess, and they didn't develop him as much as I thought they could've. I do like him more here then I have in other continuities. I've never disliked him, but he was never someone I got excited about or anything. I think the "rich kid who tries to buy friendship and isn't that great at school" approach has more potential then "he's a geek like Peter too!" I did consider all his qualities before deciding that his loyalty, especially to Norman and his hopes for their relationship to improve, was noteworthy. So Harry was going to have a dog, which, in the world of HDM, would be a startling choice for someone from such a privileged background. I thought I'd play around with the silly "only servants have dog daemons" deal. That choice also helped the story come together.

But what breed of dog? Right off the bat I said no to the German shepherd, the Siberian husky, or anything husky-like due to their overexposure, the husky/spitz types especially, and just being overrated in general (JUST MY OPINION PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME DEATH THREATS). Sighthounds can be very lazy dogs, but when it's time to go, they can go. Sounds like Harry to me. I picked the whippet over it's more well-known cousin the greyhound.

Since Norman's father Amberson was a horrible person in the comics, again, I went with an intimidating animal, the European eagle owl.

Spider-Man gets a spider monkey! It might be uninspired, but I wanted an animal that could keep up with him all over the city and be easy to get around with. Plus, I think a monkey matches his personality. I don't know exactly how old Peter and Harry are off the top of my head, but I do think they're old enough to have settled daemons.

- Several of the daemon's names in HDM canon have a special significance behind them. It's no coincidence that both Osborns' daemons have names starting with the letter A. Astrakhan comes from a book I'm reading about pre-Communist era Russian rulers, and is a city in that particular country. Astra is Latin for "star", and Khan refers to a ruler in Turkic and Mongolian culture. It sounded like a good strong name for Norman's daemon.

I can't recall how or why I chose Aloisa, but it means "famous warrior".

That's pretty much it. My next HDM fusion will more then likely either be about the USM version of the Rhino or Big Hero Six.

ETA: I would like to revisit the "What if some fictional characters had daemons?" concept again!