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What is the place of Non-anthro animals in an Anthro world?
15 years ago
General
Someone wrote a review of my book, and in it there was an interesting quote.
"Palladinthug" wrote:Furthermore on a side note Vi has a pet cat. Yet in a world of anthropomorphic animals this always gives me a jolt of reality. I understand to a degree that not all of a species would evolve forward similar to apes, but seeing this in animated works and written fiction is always an uncomfortable area for me. Perhaps I just don't understand.
I found this curious.
In almost all furry fiction I can think of, there's no mention of non-morphic, non-sentient animals. If there is, it's usually birds/reptiles. Unless it's Sci Fi and furries came from uplifted animals.
But if people are anthros, then what's the wildlife? Are the fields and woods barren of mammals? What do the carnivorous anthros eat? (There's one furry book that has characters eating steak. What exactly is that steak made of?)
I understand the roadblock. If an anthro dog exists, then why would a dog exist? Several reasons are possible, but it ultimately leads back to the question of: what caused them to be anthropomorphic in the first place? Were the anthros uplifted/created by human science? Were they created by a god or magic? Are they aliens? Did they evolve?
The first three I think would easily explain why animals and anthros exist simultaneously, but the fourth one does present a hairy issue. Bringing Evolution into the discussion of furries is somewhat a sticky situation. Because on the one hand, humans and monkeys/apes exist at the same time, yet we evolved from them. On the toher hand, the likelihood that so many species evolved into bipedial sentient lifeforms at the same time, without killing each other off, is hard to believe from a realism point of view, especially when you start to compound it by the number of species in a typical furry world. The more you pull at it, the deeper down the hole you have to go.
In a work where the issue of origin is not addressed, it's very easy to just handwave it and say "No, we don't have non-anthro animals."
But I think that also denies some possibilities or at least, some things to say or show about our characters. What kind of pet a person has, how the animal behaves, how the owner treats and interacts with the pet, and what the pet means to the character. These things tell and show us valuable information about characters. And only relying on birds or fish or reptiles might not get at this, because those types of animals are in a more detached way (they're in cages/tanks, not interacted with as strongly).
There's also other issues like, if you're a fantasy genre, what about mounts? What about plowing fields? What wild animals are out there to pose a threat? When traveling, what are you going to see - animals milling around in the woods, or landscapes barren of animal activity? Animals serve a function in the wild - herbivores keep plant growth in check, insectivores keep bugs in check, omnivores eat everything, carrion eaters move dead things quickly off, and carnivores keep everything else in check. But each is facilitating a need in the ecosystem. In typical stories we assume they exist - but in a furry world, if we see the existence of a non-sentient animal as jarring and out of place, then I think it's worth asking the question "If that doesn't belong here, then what is the rest of the world like?"
"Palladinthug" wrote:Furthermore on a side note Vi has a pet cat. Yet in a world of anthropomorphic animals this always gives me a jolt of reality. I understand to a degree that not all of a species would evolve forward similar to apes, but seeing this in animated works and written fiction is always an uncomfortable area for me. Perhaps I just don't understand.
I found this curious.
In almost all furry fiction I can think of, there's no mention of non-morphic, non-sentient animals. If there is, it's usually birds/reptiles. Unless it's Sci Fi and furries came from uplifted animals.
But if people are anthros, then what's the wildlife? Are the fields and woods barren of mammals? What do the carnivorous anthros eat? (There's one furry book that has characters eating steak. What exactly is that steak made of?)
I understand the roadblock. If an anthro dog exists, then why would a dog exist? Several reasons are possible, but it ultimately leads back to the question of: what caused them to be anthropomorphic in the first place? Were the anthros uplifted/created by human science? Were they created by a god or magic? Are they aliens? Did they evolve?
The first three I think would easily explain why animals and anthros exist simultaneously, but the fourth one does present a hairy issue. Bringing Evolution into the discussion of furries is somewhat a sticky situation. Because on the one hand, humans and monkeys/apes exist at the same time, yet we evolved from them. On the toher hand, the likelihood that so many species evolved into bipedial sentient lifeforms at the same time, without killing each other off, is hard to believe from a realism point of view, especially when you start to compound it by the number of species in a typical furry world. The more you pull at it, the deeper down the hole you have to go.
In a work where the issue of origin is not addressed, it's very easy to just handwave it and say "No, we don't have non-anthro animals."
But I think that also denies some possibilities or at least, some things to say or show about our characters. What kind of pet a person has, how the animal behaves, how the owner treats and interacts with the pet, and what the pet means to the character. These things tell and show us valuable information about characters. And only relying on birds or fish or reptiles might not get at this, because those types of animals are in a more detached way (they're in cages/tanks, not interacted with as strongly).
There's also other issues like, if you're a fantasy genre, what about mounts? What about plowing fields? What wild animals are out there to pose a threat? When traveling, what are you going to see - animals milling around in the woods, or landscapes barren of animal activity? Animals serve a function in the wild - herbivores keep plant growth in check, insectivores keep bugs in check, omnivores eat everything, carrion eaters move dead things quickly off, and carnivores keep everything else in check. But each is facilitating a need in the ecosystem. In typical stories we assume they exist - but in a furry world, if we see the existence of a non-sentient animal as jarring and out of place, then I think it's worth asking the question "If that doesn't belong here, then what is the rest of the world like?"
If you take too real an approach (like I've done with the posts about Species and Population/Conflict), it really damages the suspension of disbelief and the enjoyment.
Not everything evolved toward sentience in the natural history of the story; most notably, feral pigs have evolved into something more like a rhinoceros, with massive bodies and armored hides.
I also briefly mention there still being non-anthro foxes in the world; the red fox is a superbly adapted animal and even if one population met all the right, rare biological conditions to become upright, sentient beings with full dexterity, I have no doubt that other populations would survive just as they were for another few million years.
By far and large, though, mammalian life has actually become less diverse in the world of the story; reptiles and amphibians, meanwhile, have actually flourished and multiplied. The preferred beast of burden is a large reptile called a flatback (since its back has a flat profile suitable for riding rather than the arched profile of most lizards). Messages are often sent over long distances tied to the legs of a flitterel, a sort of small winged lizard with a keen sense of direction. The forests are also home to a dreaded creature called a sharpspine, basically a large salamander with poisonous spines on its back and tail.
Humans exist too, though in very small numbers.
As for why there are so many species that have achieved sentience in this world, I had my own back story (which is never mentioned in the books but kept for reference).
Most of them are descended from captive animals that, after human societies collapsed, escaped and multiplied. This is crucial because in the case of many large land carnivores, zoo animals might be the last survivors (especially in the case of wolves and tigers).
This small group of species, possibly all from the same zoo, became geographically isolated. What followed was an extraordinary evolutionary arms race that selected for upright stance and sentience as a means of survival. When they were finally able to overcome their geographic isolation, they spread across the world and colonized it.
I was listening to Kyell Gold and KM on unsheathed a few months ago, and they brought up this very same subject. From what I can remember, Kyell liked to keep non-anthros to the background, and when they were riding non-anthro horses he always referred to them as “mounts”,and he tried to keep anthro horses out of the picture.
I’ve personally never given it a lot of thought; none of my stories have ever had the situation come up. I would probably have both though. Everything I write I try and base as much in reality as I can and we as a people wouldn’t have come as far as we did without our four legged companions. Dog’s have always been there right beside us, protecting us while we fight wars on foreign soils, being there when no one else will listen, and helping us when we can’t carry a load on our own. And rural animals have provided us with everything from shelter to food. We would not be anywhere near where we are today without domesticated animals.
Anyway I’m getting off point, but having non-anthros adds a level of familiarity to a story; that really helps someone connect with a character. In the end though, it’s what adds to the story that matters, not so much the “how does that work?”.
Its fiction for a reason.