Dear... Mr. Stroud? I usually don't do this formal stuff. The only teacher I really talk to allows me to call him ZaZa, my nickname for him, so I'm confused about titles and such.

Anyway.

Barimaeus is 5,000 years old or something. My question is how was he born? I do not think djinn can mate like animals on earth, having no specific sex (more on this later). Are they made every time a magician tests a name? Are they just different arrangements of the matter in the Other Place? I really wish I could be Ptolemy, I bet he asked all this stuff.

Remember when I said "More on this later?" Well, this is later. (Covered http://bartiforums.com/topic/3220/1/ | http://bartiforums.com/topic/3342/1/#new | http://bartiforums.com/topic/3431/1/#new) --admin

What makes a djinni choose a gender? Do they really have a preference? Was Ascobol gay, or was his preferred form in fact a female cyclops? I'd really like to know all this. Thank you for your brain and for letting me waste your time.

Yours,
~S~

Hello, thanks for your question. Sorry to take an age to answer.
Of course, back in the Other Place djinn don't have a 'true' gender, either male or female, at all, but it seems that when they come to earth they do gradually develop a preference for one or the other. I think they gravitate to the gender that best echoes their own personality, rather as they often return to those specific guises that best suit them. As time goes on, they identify more and more with these roles until they become fixed. So Bart, even though he can take on the shape of a woman very easily, has a voice that is always 'male'.
Ascobol isn't gay - sexuality is a human condition - but for reasons best known to himself enjoys being a slightly effete cyclops. A lot of the spirits are probably playful in this way - it helps alleviate the boredom and inconvenience of their servitude on earth.

All the best,

Jonathan