How Do Witches with Extra Chromosomes Birth Supernatural Offspring?
Let’s explore the role daemons play in the All Soul’s Trilogy and historic witch lineages in Anne Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches, and both novel’s tv show adaptations.
The Role of Demons in the All Souls Trilogy and A Discovery of Witches
I’d be lying if I said that I found all three seasons of A Discovery of Witches riveting television. In all honesty, I had to end up searching the All Souls Trilogy Wiki (and Reddit) to find out what exactly the importance of demon blood was by the end of the series.
Because as far as all three seasons had shown – daemons were largely ignored by other supernatural creatures – chiefly the witches and vampires. Only for council member Agatha Wilson to have a minor plotline towards the end of season three when the “loneliness and isolation” demons face in the show is exemplified in Ashmole 782’s demonic page guardian.
I mean don’t get me wrong – it was an interesting plot point – but I think myself and countless other show-only watchers and fans would have appreciated the daemon’s plight being shown in early seasons. The most we got previously is Matthew’s throwaway line to Hamish that “daemons run (the City of) London”, or Sophie’s husband Nathaniel going on ad nauseum about “feeling misunderstood” despite only ever spending time with his wife and mother – who also happen to be demons.
So forgive me, but Agatha being named the new leader of The Congregation because Diana finds out by proxy through The Book of Life that daemon blood is needed for the other creature’s survival when she and Matthew simply need a way out of punishment for transgressing the natural laws (placed by his own father, Philippe) seems silly at best and insulting, at its worst.
It also doesn’t explain the now revealed to be pointless segregation of the supernatural races by The Congregation, or how Matthew decimating those other vampires who carried the blood rage gene (except for himself, Marcus, and Jack) factor into their future after everybody lived with centuries of enforced prejudice against other creatures.
According to A Discovery of Witches via the All Souls Trilogy, a Weaver is created from the union of a witch and a vampire with daemon blood. By this logic, Matthew, Marcus, and Jack are affected with the blood rage gene due to their human genetic makeup possessing an extraordinary amount of daemon blood pre-vampiric transformation.
Goody Alsop tells Diana back in the 1500s that Weavers were common in their age, and Diana’s parents spellbound her at a young age due to her predisposition to chaotic magic not honed due to her ancient witch bloodline and daemonic blood conjuring forth the weaver (and timewalking) abilities.
Likewise, Matthew and the other vampires learn that blood rage is inevitable and something they cannot edit out of their genealogy or prevent if they want to save the creature races from extinction.
The propensity of daemon blood in conjunction with a prior witch-vampire union in their bloodline, are story and lore-wise what allegedly make Diana Bishop and Satu Jarvinen such powerful Weavers. Likewise, it is to be assumed based on genetics and her illustrious witch bloodline, that this is also why Diana has extra chromosomes in addition to numerous genetic markers to inherit witch attributes and powers.
While I understand the physical and internal bodily changes that come with witches and vampires – as they can manipulate things and surrounding matter to their benefit – I don’t quite understand, logically – what benefit daemon blood gives other creatures based on the series own lore.
According to the wiki, “Daemons are a link between humans and creatures due to their extra chromosome: 23 pairs + 1 (where vampires and witches have 24). Based on the descriptors of daemons however, it logically and physically makes no sense why their specific biology gives them the extra chromosome.
Unlike the normal use of daemon being a synonym for a biblical fallen angel (and sometimes their Nephilim offspring) the All Souls Trilogy’s daemons are not that interesting. The ancient spelling of the word ‘daemon’ as opposed to the modern spelling of ‘demon’ is supposed to be a play on the Greek ‘genius’, apparently. In both show and book, daemons are also treated as ordinary humans with no particular super powers, but rather just individuals inclined to the arts, or criminality, before succumbing to an eventual madness laying dormant within their DNA.
I could see this instability in their DNA and the ‘madness’ it brings affecting humans who possess their blood and become vampires and inherit the blood rage genes as a result – but otherwise it seems an absolute non-factor as to why daemons would possess this unique chromosome to pass on if not for actual fallen angel DNA.
The Role of Demonic Blood in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches and AMC’s The Mayfair Witches
If I’m quite honest, both Anne Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches and it’s AMC adaption, The Mayfair Witches, offers a more concise explanation for the extra witch chromosome: inbreeding.
In The Mayfair Witches lore, the Mayfair witches are a matriarchal witch lineage with roots in Celtic Scotland (or old Ireland based on ancient geographic maps of the region). The books seem to go into more detail about the Picts role in the creation of Taltos, but the show attributes this to a pact with a demon and repeated incest for 13 generations that results in a female with extra chromosomes capable of carrying a Taltos to term, and birthing the supernatural race back into the world.
While the novels seem to treat the Taltos as simply Pictish ancestral and nature deities tasked to watch over a given land, the Mayfair Witches show explains Lasher as the union between a “Witch Queen” and a “Scottish Lord”. Given Rowan’s ancestry as being inbred from a century’s old union between Suzanne Mayfair and a Scottish lord, or member of nobility, it was originally the paternity of Suzanne’s baby that keeps her alive long enough for the child to be born after her witch accusations.
While not explicitly stated, we can guess that since Ciprien Grieve is the paternal father of the child Lasher hijacks in the womb to be born, he fulfills the needed role of the “Scottish Lord”. (Although I have heard in the books that Ciprien is another character entirely and as with Lasher, was the amalgamation of two separate characters for their show roles).
Lasher/St.Ashlar’s father claims he is a Taltos – an angel incarnated in human form. This would make sense in the show that Lasher “fell” from grace after his murder in life and became a vengeful spirit, or “daemon who had gone insane” committing sinful acts until he was reborn and remembered his true calling.
As for Ashlar’s blood, it had the power to heal the land and bestow great supernatural powers unto those that drank it.
I have to wonder if the All Soul’s Trilogy initially meant to have daemons have a similar origin story, and scrapped it in favor of going the “tortured genius who just happens to have an extra chromosome” route?
But, what do you think?
Should daemonic blood have a better explanation in the All Souls Trilogy lore?
Do witches have extra chromosomes due to their propensity toward inheriting demonic blood?
Let me know your thoughts and leave them in the comment section below! You can read more thoughts on The Mayfair Witches and A Discovery of Witches here! And until next time ~
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