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Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
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9:28p - Do furries have pets?
So Kyell Gold asked yesterday whether real furries would have pets or if that seems too weird. To me the answer seems obvious enough.
Some do, and some don't, and there it is. Much the same as the situation with humans. I have never envisioned a world with furries in it where there weren't still other possible related non-anthropomorphic species. Of course there would be accommodations and mores about it, and of course there would be some furries who made bad pet owners just as there might be some who were crusaders for non-speaking animal rights. Perhaps I'm too strongly influenced by C. S. Lewis' version in Narnia, where there were talking Animals who were set aside from ordinary animals specifically by the gift of speech given to them at the world's creation by Aslan himself. And at the end of all things, those Animals who had abused their privilege or failed to live up to it lost that gift and became again the dumb beasts from which they were raised. This makes eminently perfect sense to me, and always has.
In Taking Flight, the novel I wrote for Nanowrimo 2006, my protagonist Jake did have a dog. Daisy is a special dog, though. She's a "quad", one of a small number of four legged beasts who do have limited speech capabilities and a good extra helping of rational intelligence. In fact, of all the characters in that story, though I dearly love Jake himself and his friend Chrysios (who is a very special quad indeed,) it is Daisy who is probably my favorite. I had to force myself to use her sparingly and with great care to keep her in character. And oh! How I'd love to have a cmpanion like her.
On the other hand, in The Argosiad, which is still not finished, there are no pets at all. The character interplay and plot are so complex, that it seemed like an unnecessary complication to introduce such an element. There are not even beasts of burden. The furry characters walk, and haul their cargo about on carts using their own muscle power (or the strength of hired help.)
Kyell's own world of Argaea, the home of Volle and Streak, has no pets, though he occasionally hints at the existence of wild, four legged beasts. My one disappointment in Argaea is the lack of anthropomorphic horses, which he has occasionally gone to great lengths to explain to me and others. I have a partially written story drafted out, set in the peripheral country of Delford, that explains this in my own way and provides me with an "out" for the situation that I find satisfying. It remains to be seen whether he will find it acceptable enough to let me publish the fan-fic, for that's what it would really amount to.
current mood:  amused (comment on this)
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