FA+
Shop
On what makes a story "furry"--reader response
15 years ago
General
After I first mused on "what makes a story furry," writer Wirewolf, who ought to be trusted, had this to say:
This is more or less true. With exceptions so rare as to be negligible, any story must contain essentially human characters, because otherwise we have little means of relating to them. Anthropomorphisation is frequently considered as a way of distancing the "human element" from fiction—at times even of creating a trans- or post-human environment—but its actual role is nearly the inverse. It is, as D. McAreavy once said, the "worship of the human form".
So what is our role in employing the anthropomorphic meme? The suggestion, I believe, is that there is no good or right way to do this.
One way—as I said last time, one of the more interesting ways—is to employ the "animal traits" of your animal-like humans to some dramatic end. Phil Geusz considers Niven's 'Pearson's Puppeteers' to be perhaps the ne plus ultra of this archetype, and—given that the Puppeteers are completely invented, without reference to terrestrial species at all—they probably do represent one of the purest translations of this basic idea. Also accomplishing this, I suppose, are the animal assistants of people in Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog," and Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon".
This latter provides an interesting counterpoint, however. Smith's "Ballad of Lost C'Mell," one of his most famous works, concerns a cat-person, but her 'catness' is less important than her 'otherness.' It's one of the earliest examples of the "oppressed animal-people" trope, and I'd venture to say that "Ballad of Lost C'Mell" is a 'furry' story, but it doesn't spend every other paragraph talking about C'Mell's cat-like ways. The narrative progresses apace without it, and aside from the periodic references to dog-people and so on, everyone might just as well be human. Say, black (this may have been Smith's point; I admit I don't know).
Therefore we can suggest that it probably is sufficient to write about humans with ears and a tail, if this suits you, so long as it's reasonably clear to the reader that this is, in fact, what you're writing about. In a practical sense this is more or less where I write from; it is not integral to the story in Sympathy for the Devil or The High, Untrespassed Sanctity of Space that the characters be animals, or that they are the animals I have assigned to them—but neither would it be possible to convert the story to one about humans without substantial editing. One of my favourite reviews of my work goes like this:
Which is probably true, but I don't mind.
In the event, my initial point in my first essay was in addressing a view of anthropomorphism that I would describe as teleological to the point of ridiculousness—that the elements of the character must of necessity point back to the innate animalness of said character, and that an author who creates 'furry' stories wherein the character might as well be another animal, or human, has failed. This is misguided. I am pretty sure that C'Mell could well have been, say, a fox—so near as I can tell she was a cat only because Cordwainer Smith had a fascination with them.
Authors wishing to write within the fandom should probably be cognisant that their characters are animal-like in some fashion—and this should be clear enough to the reader. However, at the end of the day, all stories are essentially "human" stories, and the definition of 'furry' is completely at the author's discretion.
When I saw someone put forth the idea that 'for a story to be furry the characters have to have some reason to be furry, otherwise you could replace them with humans and it wouldn't change the story,' I basically agreed. And more to the point,I tried to write my own stories that way. But eventually I came to realize there is no such thing as a character who can't be replaced by a human, because all stories are human stories.This is more or less true. With exceptions so rare as to be negligible, any story must contain essentially human characters, because otherwise we have little means of relating to them. Anthropomorphisation is frequently considered as a way of distancing the "human element" from fiction—at times even of creating a trans- or post-human environment—but its actual role is nearly the inverse. It is, as D. McAreavy once said, the "worship of the human form".
So what is our role in employing the anthropomorphic meme? The suggestion, I believe, is that there is no good or right way to do this.
One way—as I said last time, one of the more interesting ways—is to employ the "animal traits" of your animal-like humans to some dramatic end. Phil Geusz considers Niven's 'Pearson's Puppeteers' to be perhaps the ne plus ultra of this archetype, and—given that the Puppeteers are completely invented, without reference to terrestrial species at all—they probably do represent one of the purest translations of this basic idea. Also accomplishing this, I suppose, are the animal assistants of people in Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog," and Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon".
This latter provides an interesting counterpoint, however. Smith's "Ballad of Lost C'Mell," one of his most famous works, concerns a cat-person, but her 'catness' is less important than her 'otherness.' It's one of the earliest examples of the "oppressed animal-people" trope, and I'd venture to say that "Ballad of Lost C'Mell" is a 'furry' story, but it doesn't spend every other paragraph talking about C'Mell's cat-like ways. The narrative progresses apace without it, and aside from the periodic references to dog-people and so on, everyone might just as well be human. Say, black (this may have been Smith's point; I admit I don't know).
Therefore we can suggest that it probably is sufficient to write about humans with ears and a tail, if this suits you, so long as it's reasonably clear to the reader that this is, in fact, what you're writing about. In a practical sense this is more or less where I write from; it is not integral to the story in Sympathy for the Devil or The High, Untrespassed Sanctity of Space that the characters be animals, or that they are the animals I have assigned to them—but neither would it be possible to convert the story to one about humans without substantial editing. One of my favourite reviews of my work goes like this:
Sympathy for the Devil I think is oftentimes held up as the choicest morsel amidst a tumultuous sea of amateur fap pap and schlick fic, but even it didn't really seem to me like anything other than genre work in a genre so handicapped by its defining elements as to make its chances of achieving recognition or relevance beyond the special interests of animal-obsessed autism-tinged manchildren... well, dwindling, to say the least.Which is probably true, but I don't mind.
In the event, my initial point in my first essay was in addressing a view of anthropomorphism that I would describe as teleological to the point of ridiculousness—that the elements of the character must of necessity point back to the innate animalness of said character, and that an author who creates 'furry' stories wherein the character might as well be another animal, or human, has failed. This is misguided. I am pretty sure that C'Mell could well have been, say, a fox—so near as I can tell she was a cat only because Cordwainer Smith had a fascination with them.
Authors wishing to write within the fandom should probably be cognisant that their characters are animal-like in some fashion—and this should be clear enough to the reader. However, at the end of the day, all stories are essentially "human" stories, and the definition of 'furry' is completely at the author's discretion.
