The behaviour of monsters
Jan. 18th, 2011 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunn I do wish that television monsters - the ones that are supposed to want to eat people - would behave more like real animals that are behaving in a predatory manner. I'm sure they'd be more scary that way.
In TV and films, monsters almost always spend a lot of time posing and going RAOWRRR!! in an impressive manner. Only after they have shown off their impressive teeth and claws and spent a fair bit of time poncing up and down, will they finally get their act together and try to eat someone.
I can't think of any real predator (including humans) that does this. It would be a spectacularly unsuccessful hunting technique. Their prey would be half a mile away by the time they'd finished posing.
This may explain why there are so disappointingly few monsters in daily life (they have all died of starvation, as they are so terrible at creeping up on their food).
Animals that go 'RAOWRRR!' are generally not wanting to eat the person/animal that they are going 'RAOWRRR!' at. Usually, that tactic is used to make another person or animal go away. So, perhaps there is a tragic subtext, in which the poor beastie is just trying to get on with life, probably living on a diet of cockroaches and used tissues, or something similarly useful, and heroes keep leaping out of the undergrowth and having to be scared off.
In TV and films, monsters almost always spend a lot of time posing and going RAOWRRR!! in an impressive manner. Only after they have shown off their impressive teeth and claws and spent a fair bit of time poncing up and down, will they finally get their act together and try to eat someone.
I can't think of any real predator (including humans) that does this. It would be a spectacularly unsuccessful hunting technique. Their prey would be half a mile away by the time they'd finished posing.
This may explain why there are so disappointingly few monsters in daily life (they have all died of starvation, as they are so terrible at creeping up on their food).
Animals that go 'RAOWRRR!' are generally not wanting to eat the person/animal that they are going 'RAOWRRR!' at. Usually, that tactic is used to make another person or animal go away. So, perhaps there is a tragic subtext, in which the poor beastie is just trying to get on with life, probably living on a diet of cockroaches and used tissues, or something similarly useful, and heroes keep leaping out of the undergrowth and having to be scared off.
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Re: Once the monster has killed one person, it carries on and tries to kill as many people as possib
Date: 2011-01-19 05:26 pm (UTC)However, I still think that the "kill it/fatally wound it, then leave it for later" approach can work only in either of the following circumstances:
- You're the only predator around, so there's no competition. Either that, or all the other predators hate your preferred treat of chocolate accountant, and wouldn't touch it even if it was presented to them on a china plate, with lashings of cream
- TV Monsters have a strong sense of honour when it relates to kill stealing. Once you've killed your accountant, you tag it with a "property of Grraaahl" label, and no other TV monsters would dream of touching it.
Re: Once the monster has killed one person, it carries on and tries to kill as many people as possib
Date: 2011-01-19 09:02 pm (UTC)