To clarify…
Don’t get me wrong, its an interesting concept but I don’t think its particularly well thought through. I probably sound like a pedant, but for me there are just too issues with the premise to make the idea enduring. For example the many physical impracticalities (you couldn’t have a career as a deep sea diver if your daemon was an elephant), too many ‘basic’ unanswered questions (when you are born, does your daemon materialise or is it birthed?) that Pullman admits he’s never contemplated, and this over-reliance on daemon “etiquette” to keep humans and daemons safe (which we know from human nature would be exploited by the strong to enslave most people through their daemons). The idea has so many holes that the more I am exposed to the idea of a physical manifestation of your soul that follows you about, the more ludicrous and badly thought out it seems.
by TheKirthGerson