Don’t Fat People Get Daemons?

If you’ve been watching HBO’s His Dark Materials, you know that unlike in our world, in their world each person’s soul take the form of an animal, called a daemon. While you’re a child, the daemon’s form is unsettled, but when you reach puberty, your daemon settles and the mysterious “dust” begins to “infect” you.

James Cosmo as Farder Coram (His DarkMaterials, HBO)

My question is, where are the fat people in this world? We have seen a little body diversity in the Gyptian camp, including one person who appears to have a congenital disability. But there are precious few fat people to be seen and only one who has a major role to play. That’s Farder Coram (James Cosmo), and he’s an old man.

When it comes to fat bodies in media, we are often ether sexless sidekicks or excused for our fatness when we’re old because thinness is the purview of the young. Coram, at least, isn’t totally sexless. We are told that he loved a witch and they had a child together. But when we see him in the course of the story, he is alone.

It is wonderful to see so many actors of color in this series and to see not only white, able-bodied actors in all the roles. But we have got to do better when it comes to showing people of size living every-day lives. We hardly even see them in the background, regardless of whatever world the narrative places us in. In a fantasy series where souls look like animals that can talk, surely it isn’t too far-fetched to show a few fat people with their daemons, too?