Ooooooo he's not even DENYING he would kill the pups! I held out hope he was just humoring the sleaze-ball to avoid the potential danger of outright insulting their pack. Now he's showing his true colors, so stuck in the mud, they can't see a better way.

Wolves tolerate a wolf until it attacks or steals from pups....

I really, really hope it doesn't come to the pups dying....

Welcome to nature folks, she's a cruel mistress.

Except what we're seeing from Seral is very unwolflike behaviour, and more like the pop culture idea of wolves.

The other pack also smells like alpha-beta-omega pop-culture wolves, which was based on a study later debunked by it's own author as fundamentally flawed; wolves have families, the alpha-beta-etc nonsense of based on the wolf equivalent of a prison gang..

Hi, friend! Authors note, here.

I am very familiar with the 1940s wolf study and it's effects on the American cultural understanding of wolves. I am pretty well versed in canine behavior and actually just spent the last few weeks arguing with ranchers about wolf genetics. I specifically decided to not call the new wolves alphas/betas to avoid any kind of association with the recent uses of the terminology. What these new wolves have got going on is an amalgamation of canine traits and human ones and likely not what you're expecting.

This comic is about the cultural moment where animal instinct is intersecting with what we would associate with a more human understanding of empathy and morality. It's about how different societies can form in that state. There is gray area as the two ideals seek ways to find purchase, so you have overlapping tendencies as culture evolves.

In nature, opposing families of wolves will kill one another on sight in territorial disputes, same as how wolves will kill coyotes or lions will kill hyenas. The new pack is offering an arguably more diplomatic solution - we don't want your useless pups, but we want your healthy hunters. Seral and Swift are cousins-- it is not beyond comprehension that Seral sees a partial win where he, Swift, Ramble, Gristle and Scree live on at the cost of two nameless pups and an injured wolf he is not related to. From his perspective, he is saving his family.

As to killing kids because they're in the way/useless? It's easy to blame that on animal instinct (again, lions are a good example) but humans honestly suck a whole lot at caring for children, especially those of others. You don't even need to scour neolithic sources for that, as there are plenty of modern examples. You can look at the hundreds bodies of children found buried behind Catholic boarding schools from the last century, for instance.

Anyway, tl;dr: these are not wolves, these are anthro wolves on the edge of moral understanding and cultural identity, and the shittiest parts of their behavior isn't necessarily canine, it's the cost of a brain that let's you do high level cost-benefit analysis.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nature is still a cruel mistress, also I love what you're doing, I'm still working on my wolf races and how they all structure, it is not easy at all, but it is fun. I hope you stay your course, this is looking like it is gonna be even better than it already is.

Thanks for the explanation Tegan. I can see both sides of the argument and it is a pretty shitty situation. Rock and a hard place with survival on the table.

Excellent way to look at this. One doesn't even need to look back as far as the Indian schools to see examples of how the treatment of children is based in racism, classism, and patriarchy to this day.

Oh dear we're in this one

NO FUCK YOU MAN T^T

I’m hoping Swift rips his throat out.

He's mostly doing this for himself and his right to breed. Everyone else be damned apperently.

OK....He has to die.

Now, this is an interesting turn of events. Removing myself from Swift’s POV shows quite a bit of conflict in the execution of the pack’s plans.

On one side, we have Swift taking a leap of faith in the forest. Going in blind even though she didn’t know whether the bear still lives or not. And on the other, we have Seral also taking a leap of faith with the rival pack. And from what I’m seeing, he has some guilt written on his face about it. Especially when the Negotiator told him that his pack didn’t want more mouths to feed. Seral even tells the Negotiator that his pack has a track record of surviving pups. He’s a bit silent and contemplating in PG 224 as he listened. Not to mention the fact that he would chase Swift and her pups off to spare them too. And the fourth panel of PG 245 shows him contemplating even more. This page shows that he doesn’t want the pups to live out their last moments in fear. Again, with obvious signs of him being reluctant with the plan. Which Red points out lovingly in PG 214.

Now back to what I said about conflict in executing the plan. Both Swift and Seral are doing what they believe is right. The end goal is the survival of their pack. Both of them are doing this out of love. For Seral, the love for his family. And Swift wants to make sure her mate and pups survive as well. Because the love for your significant other and children can be or are stronger than the love for your family in some cases. Another little thing about Swift is that she’s more hopeful than some of the others. Wanting everyone to survive. Which Red points out lovingly in PG 214.

Hmmmmmmm.

Well Seral good point there only the exact wording of sleezy was a bit broader. He also meant that Swift needs to die. It is not just the pups and Red that he wants dead but her as well.

Half the point of a pack is to prop up the weak so they have a chance to grow, and then you benefit from their strengths.

She really needs to break his kneecaps and leave him there to teach him that.

god..he literaly said he would murder kids on their sleep..