Talk:Races and creatures in His Dark Materials

message: I've just tidied Gyptians,losing any substantive point, does anyone know what the source or justification is for comparing them to / equating them with "watergeuzen"?Pincrete (talk) 23:37, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gyptians 2014

message: ~~ The word panserbjorne is NOT danish-- panser is german (meaning tiger) and bjorne means bear.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.190.163 (talk) 01:24, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonsense, panser is Dutch and means armored (the germans use "panzer", with a 'z'), and bjorne (or bjorn) is -not- a german word, I its a scandinavian boys name meaning "bear". The "tiger" you mention, is a german tank, or "Panzerkampfwagen". Mahjongg (talk) 13:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Everything below is Pre-2009 

message: These are the species from His Dark Materials that I think should be added for completeness. My criteria for inclusion are that they are fictional (e.g. spy-flies), differ from our "version" of the species (e.g. arctic fox), or otherwise play a notable role in the novels (e.g. dragonflies)
* Arctic Foxes - the speech-parroting version
* Ghosts - actually more like a state of existence, but still...
* Dragonflies - gestation-controlled gallivespian-mount
* Grazers - mulefa-like cattle
* Harpies - foul-smelling half-bird-half-woman ghost-watchers
* Humans - differs from our world's humans by having a physical manifestation of the soul.
* Nälkäinens - referenced to by Tony Costa; forest-dwelling sleeper-grabbing ghosts.
* Riders - centaur-like creatures in the Battle of the Plains
* Spy-flies - mechanical beetle-sized creature, powered by an angry spirit
* Waylurkers - from TGC p62 "... and waylurkers tempted careless travelers to their doom in the swamps and bogs ..."
* Windsuckers - referenced to by Tony Costa; drifting invisible shimmering strength-draining creatures.
* Witches - humans in that they have dæmons, but possesing special powers, indifference to cold, flight capapability and extended life-span.
* Breathless Ones - referenced to by Tony Costa; half-killed warriors with lung-pumping dæmons
– Adrian Lozano (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure all of these need to be included. Most of these have no real significance in the novel's plot. Waylurkers, for example, are only apparently mentioned on one page of one book- hardly of any real importance. Only the ones which are talked about quite a bit and have a significant impact should be included. (I personally reckon that only the sentient ones should really count as "races"- the rest are fictional species).
Of the species mentioned here, witches and harpies are the only ones I reckon should be included. The rest are either too insignificant, or should be mentioned in other sections (I think the dragonflies, for example, warrant mentioning in the Gallivespian section, but they don't need a section of their own because they aren't mentioned anywhere outside the gallivespians). As for the humans and ghosts- I reckon the ghosts are similar enough to any normal view of ghosts. Any non-reader would probably still be able to work out what they are without a sectio here to explain it. The humans, meanwhile, are just too similar to standard humans to warrant a description of their own, especially as daemons already have an article of their own.211.30.172.67 (talk) 07:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of missing species