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Someone Was Changing from the Inside Out - Chapter 9 Notes
And then my monthly goal was not just broken but shattered. Hoo boy.
The past few weeks have been a really tricky time for me. I’ve not only been really busy with work and personal life stuff, but I also had some pretty bad depression weeks in there. There were times when I wanted to write, but I just couldn’t get things going. Every time I thought I was back on top of things, something else would come up to completely throw things off. Fortunately things are going a bit better right now, so all I can do is try to make the best of that. Thank you to everyone for being patient with me!
Now on to chapter notes. There aren’t too many this time around.
First of all, the museum that Will and Hannibal visit is very loosely inspired by an existing museum - the Mütter Museum. I’ve never been personally, but it’s a place I’d love to visit one day. Of course the daemon museum and the Mütter museum aren’t all that similar, really, since the Mütter museum focuses on the history of medicine and there’s a bit of psychology going on with the daemon museum, but it was an inspiration nonetheless.
Some of the darker history we see in this chapter concerning daemon prejudices and “treatments” for having an irregular daemon are based on some of the stories I’ve heard about mental health treatments during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lobotomies being a major example. (I’m also fairly sure that the description of intercised people in His Dark Materials is meant to harken to the practice of lobotomization as well. Hell, it might be literal text.) Getting into the history of medicine in that time period is fascinating, but it’s also brutally upsetting in many different ways. I recommend the podcast “Sawbones” if you’d like a not-so-viscerally-depressing introductory look at some of those histories and topics. It’s not JUST dedicated to that time period (there’s also a lot of stuff about the wild world of ancient medicine), but because we have a lot more material preserved starting from that time period, it comes up a lot.
On Specific Daemons
Abel Gideon/Medea - Gideon’s daemon is a mockingbird. I chose this form for a few reasons. First and foremost, mockingbirds are famous for imitating the vocalizations of other animals, just as Gideon has been made a crude imitation of the Ripper by Chilton’s psychic driving. Another minor reason is just a pun - the “mock” part of the word referring to Gideon’s sharp tongue and ability to snark at everyone around him. The name Medea comes from the Ancient Greek figure who in the play of the same name by Euripides, murders her ex-husband Jason’s new wife, his new father-in-law, and the children that she had with him in revenge. In the chapter, when Gideon refers to his daemon’s name as “wrathful”, that is why.
The past few weeks have been a really tricky time for me. I’ve not only been really busy with work and personal life stuff, but I also had some pretty bad depression weeks in there. There were times when I wanted to write, but I just couldn’t get things going. Every time I thought I was back on top of things, something else would come up to completely throw things off. Fortunately things are going a bit better right now, so all I can do is try to make the best of that. Thank you to everyone for being patient with me!
Now on to chapter notes. There aren’t too many this time around.
First of all, the museum that Will and Hannibal visit is very loosely inspired by an existing museum - the Mütter Museum. I’ve never been personally, but it’s a place I’d love to visit one day. Of course the daemon museum and the Mütter museum aren’t all that similar, really, since the Mütter museum focuses on the history of medicine and there’s a bit of psychology going on with the daemon museum, but it was an inspiration nonetheless.
Some of the darker history we see in this chapter concerning daemon prejudices and “treatments” for having an irregular daemon are based on some of the stories I’ve heard about mental health treatments during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lobotomies being a major example. (I’m also fairly sure that the description of intercised people in His Dark Materials is meant to harken to the practice of lobotomization as well. Hell, it might be literal text.) Getting into the history of medicine in that time period is fascinating, but it’s also brutally upsetting in many different ways. I recommend the podcast “Sawbones” if you’d like a not-so-viscerally-depressing introductory look at some of those histories and topics. It’s not JUST dedicated to that time period (there’s also a lot of stuff about the wild world of ancient medicine), but because we have a lot more material preserved starting from that time period, it comes up a lot.
Abel Gideon/Medea - Gideon’s daemon is a mockingbird. I chose this form for a few reasons. First and foremost, mockingbirds are famous for imitating the vocalizations of other animals, just as Gideon has been made a crude imitation of the Ripper by Chilton’s psychic driving. Another minor reason is just a pun - the “mock” part of the word referring to Gideon’s sharp tongue and ability to snark at everyone around him. The name Medea comes from the Ancient Greek figure who in the play of the same name by Euripides, murders her ex-husband Jason’s new wife, his new father-in-law, and the children that she had with him in revenge. In the chapter, when Gideon refers to his daemon’s name as “wrathful”, that is why.