A Little Birdie Told Me…

NOTE: The following passage (the one in quotes) is not mine. I borrowed it from a fellow fictionpress author, Lccorp2. It falls under the list entitled “Thing I hate.”

“Most Telepathic Companions. They are almost always Mccaffrey or Lackey ripoffs. They never seem to remember that they're not humans, or at least in physical terms. I could replace half of them with a human companion and it wouldn't make any difference. AND they have canned personalities, if they have any, and always stay invisible until they're needed to save the hero/ine. Of course, they're always canines, felines, horses, or dragons, because they're cuuute. No one has a Telcom whale, dolphin, parrot or gorrila, because they aren't cute.”

Point and check. That’s game. I couldn’t have said it better myself. And while I admit, I use a good number of telepathic-type companion-ish characters, I try to avoid the human-ness in them.

I read this book once—can’t remember the name just now—and there was this girl who could speak with her cat. I remember it very vividly not, as you might expect, because the book was great (it was actually rather dull), but because there was this scene where the cat saw something and had to lead the girl to it, but the cat could not understand the concept of “right” and “left.” So the girl held the cat in one hand and the cat would give her directions by telling her “toward me” or “away from me.”

Almost immediately afterward, I read a book in which a boy was soul-tied to a rat. There was this scene where the boy nearly got poisoned, but the rat saved him and patiently explained exactly what type of poison it was, how it was made, what was in it, and what it would do to the boy should he ingest it. Bleh. Firstly, assuming the rat was a wild animal, a fairly safe assumption, I think, I can’t imagine why the rats and the humans would come up with the same names for plants, or discover the same methods of combining them. Furthermore, how would a rat know how a specific poison would interact with a human’s physiology?

In my world, Crestil, the demi-god-ish halflings gifted the human wizards with bestial “Companions” to check their power with love and simple, earthy morality. I wrote one book in which a pirate captain’s mouse always referred to her as “little one.” I mean—this mouse made a habit of crawling down this lady’s shirt, and then had the nerve to call her little. But why not? When it really came down to it, the mouse was by far the bigger of the two, and the woman was not afraid to admit it.

When you write with an animalistic character, make sure you know about that animal. Just because they have super-special powers and can communicate with their human counterparts doesn’t mean they’re not animals. Cats who talk to humans still lick their own butts, you know? Lethargic squirrels and hyperactive snakes drive me crazy. So do entirely tame wolves and horses that don’t mind fire.

Also—it is a fact that humans are more “intelligent” than animals. Animals have plenty of good qualities—loyalty, ferociousness, undying love, blind devotion, and perfect logic being just a few of the better ones—but the fact is, they are hardly capable of making sound, socially acceptable decisions. Animals are extremely egotistical—it’s always me, me, me. Give me food, give me rest, pet me, scratch me, kick me, whatever. Animals cannot see things from another’s point of view. Animals don’t consider the feelings of others—they are nature incarnate, and all that matters is their own continued survival. Yes, they can care for someone—a dog might defend its master to the death—but, when all is said and done, the person they care for is usually essential to their own survival. Animals can be trained, and communication might make for some pretty well trained critters, but animals will very rarely go against instinct. All animals come equipped with natural defenses—porcupines have needles, dogs have teeth, birds have beaks and claws, snakes have venom—and there is very little that can be done to prevent them from using these when they feel their lives are threatened. That old adage about cornered beasts being vicious? True.

Animals are animals are animals. Not humans.

Animals don’t think like humans do.

Animals don’t talk like humans do.

Animals don’t act like humans do.

Animals definitely don’t react like humans do.