Psychic wolves: why I don't like.
Mar. 15th, 2012 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnI just cannot bring myself to enjoy this theme, and wish to rant about it. Apologies to those who do enjoy it. Psychic wolves that soulbond with human beings are not wolves.
A wolf is, by definition - arguably more so than with any other species - a wild animal that does not choose to form bonds with humans. (It may do so if forced, but that's a bit of a Stockholm Syndrome situation...)
This article explains how wolves came to be wolves, and dogs came to be dogs. Much as I love Eagle of the Ninth's Cub, it wasn't by an Esca-style domestication process where people stole wolfcubs and brought them up as their own, then deliberately made a plan to breed them into chihuahuas. Cub really only makes sense if he's not really a wolf.
It was an evolutionary process that could almost be described as a choice. The animals that are now wolves, Canis lupus, are the animals that have chosen, over at least fifteen thousand years and probably a lot longer, to have nothing to do with humanity. They really, really don't want to soulbond with us. They think we are scary.
We do, of course have animals that are very closely related to Canis lupus which form close emotional bonds with human beings, and can seem almost psychic in their ability to read the scent and body language of our species. They are Canis lupus familiaris : dogs.
Of course there are other differences between dogs and wolves apart from that - dogs are much more variable, and even the most wolflike dogs tend to have smaller teeth and skulls, less powerful jaws, less stamina. Neither species tends to spend much time on jockeying for status and concepts like 'alpha'. We now think that those ideas are more a primate thing : ie, us.
But most dogs are still strong and lethal enough that they could rip your throat out. The amazing thing about dogs is that, as a species, they almost never eat us. If you had an animal with all the physical attributes of a wolf, that could safely mix with people, children, animals - that's not a wolf. That's a dog.
But of course, a man who forms a soulbond with a member of canis lupus familiaris is not news. I suppose the familiar lacks excitement. Plus of course when people really form emotional bonds with not-quite-wolves, it has little effect on their sex lives... I can more or less cope with the Stark children's direwolves - they are not really wolves, more like living heraldic symbols - and the Starks don't communicate with them in humanlike ways, which helps, as does the fact that they are clearly very dangerous and undoglike...
I suppose people like soulbonded sexy wolves for the same reasons they want sexy vampires: the wolves are the dangerous other, the darkness lurking in the woods and that's attractive. But looked at from the wolf's point of view, it seems to me that we are the terror that lives in the light, the red nightmare with fire and spears and guns. Why would they want to soulbond with us? If they wanted to, they would be dogs.
A wolf is, by definition - arguably more so than with any other species - a wild animal that does not choose to form bonds with humans. (It may do so if forced, but that's a bit of a Stockholm Syndrome situation...)
This article explains how wolves came to be wolves, and dogs came to be dogs. Much as I love Eagle of the Ninth's Cub, it wasn't by an Esca-style domestication process where people stole wolfcubs and brought them up as their own, then deliberately made a plan to breed them into chihuahuas. Cub really only makes sense if he's not really a wolf.
It was an evolutionary process that could almost be described as a choice. The animals that are now wolves, Canis lupus, are the animals that have chosen, over at least fifteen thousand years and probably a lot longer, to have nothing to do with humanity. They really, really don't want to soulbond with us. They think we are scary.
We do, of course have animals that are very closely related to Canis lupus which form close emotional bonds with human beings, and can seem almost psychic in their ability to read the scent and body language of our species. They are Canis lupus familiaris : dogs.
Of course there are other differences between dogs and wolves apart from that - dogs are much more variable, and even the most wolflike dogs tend to have smaller teeth and skulls, less powerful jaws, less stamina. Neither species tends to spend much time on jockeying for status and concepts like 'alpha'. We now think that those ideas are more a primate thing : ie, us.
But most dogs are still strong and lethal enough that they could rip your throat out. The amazing thing about dogs is that, as a species, they almost never eat us. If you had an animal with all the physical attributes of a wolf, that could safely mix with people, children, animals - that's not a wolf. That's a dog.
But of course, a man who forms a soulbond with a member of canis lupus familiaris is not news. I suppose the familiar lacks excitement. Plus of course when people really form emotional bonds with not-quite-wolves, it has little effect on their sex lives... I can more or less cope with the Stark children's direwolves - they are not really wolves, more like living heraldic symbols - and the Starks don't communicate with them in humanlike ways, which helps, as does the fact that they are clearly very dangerous and undoglike...
I suppose people like soulbonded sexy wolves for the same reasons they want sexy vampires: the wolves are the dangerous other, the darkness lurking in the woods and that's attractive. But looked at from the wolf's point of view, it seems to me that we are the terror that lives in the light, the red nightmare with fire and spears and guns. Why would they want to soulbond with us? If they wanted to, they would be dogs.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 11:56 am (UTC)But the ones where being psychic - particularly in communication with animals - is basically like having a private phone conversation, with both sides speaking coherently in grammatical sentences just don't seem *likely*. Who thinks like that in the darkness inside their brain?
And introducing animals makes it worse - I just don't believe they think like that,even if people do, which I don't think they do. Animals don't not talk because their mouths are the wrong shape, they don't talk because that's not how they think about communication...
Which is not to say I didn't passionately love the psychic soulbonded Pern-dragons when I was 14. But, I was 14.
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Date: 2012-03-15 02:28 pm (UTC)Um....
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Date: 2012-03-15 02:48 pm (UTC)I reckon I think like this (all at once, like a chord of music from multiple instruments, all getting louder and softer all the time as my attention shifts about)
1- mmmm chocolate
2- my back itches
3- what is Bryth chewing? OI! STOP!
4- imagined sensation of chewing a purple plastic stick
5- psychic animals stories are (word that doesn't exist, I need to find a word that sort of works instead)
6- I wonder why the word psychic ends in a c not a k
7- there is a strange humming noise
8-damn I should be doing some work
5) is the only part of the chord that is a sentence in words, and it needs filtering & tidying & the right word finding for the end, before it can be written down.
It is hard enough for me to hear myself think in that lot, god knows what it would be like with someone else's thoughts getting jumbled in there.
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Date: 2012-03-15 12:10 pm (UTC)One day, when he and a nine-year-old girl were playing with one of his toys, he briefly became angry and lunged at the girl's throat. He didn't touch her, but she collapsed and decided to play dead.
The dog was very worried for a few seconds, and began to shake and whimper. The girl then got up with a laugh.
The dog growled at her, for he had been deceived. He did not, however, tear her throat out in punishment. He immediately trotted off to find the girl's mother, complaining loudly all the way, and once he had found her made sounds and gestures to indicate how indignant he was.
This, I think, illustrates the difference between dogs and wolves.
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Date: 2012-03-15 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 12:33 pm (UTC)That said, I have a visceral loathing for telepathic anything in fiction. I could just about tolerate it in Babylon 5, but season 5 basically used up my lifetime supply, and I now vet any SFF purchases for hidden teep content. My special passionate loathing is reserved for Telepathic Cat Alien Boyfriends in SF.
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Date: 2012-03-15 12:54 pm (UTC)I don't mind fictional telepathy, but if people are going to make up a fantasy species, I wish they'd give it a different name.
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Date: 2012-03-15 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 01:09 pm (UTC)Where are all the psychic soul-bonded giraffe stories, that's what I want to know. Or hippos. There's a *true* challenge for a writer: soul-bonded hippos. :-D
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Date: 2012-03-15 02:31 pm (UTC)What really annoyed me was Philip Pullman's handling of daemons in His Dark Materials, where all the servants had dog daemons. As if there is nothing more to a species which has evolved to live socially and communicate with aliens (us) than servility.
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Date: 2012-03-15 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-16 05:37 pm (UTC)(I'm ignoring Skordh's comments about yaks...)
Date: 2012-03-17 12:12 pm (UTC)And to give her credit, Lackey insists all along that Companions *are not* horses, they just happen to look like them. And later on she establishes basically that Companions are reincarnated Heralds who have come back in the form of Companions. I'm not saying this is a brilliant concept or anything, just that at least she doesn't fall into the trap Bunn complains about of why on earth animals would soulbond with humans and why if so they would communicate in (telepathic) human language.
To be fair, I have also read some books with telepathy or mental communication in general has taken much more the form of images/emotions/sense-impressions, whether between humans or between other species. Of course I cannot remember a single example of this right now...
Re: (I'm ignoring Skordh's comments about yaks...)
Date: 2012-03-17 08:40 pm (UTC)Andre Norton's psychic animals tend to communicate much less verbally, and often are hard to understand even for the soulbonded expert, I think that's what I was vaguely thinking of.
Re: (I'm ignoring Skordh's comments about yaks...)
Date: 2012-03-17 09:58 pm (UTC)Norton - yes! That's definitely the sort of thing I was thinking of, though I think there are other examples too.
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Date: 2012-03-15 04:00 pm (UTC)...not that I would like to be around when they go into heat.
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Date: 2012-03-15 07:29 pm (UTC)Probably less mobile though.
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Date: 2012-03-16 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 02:44 pm (UTC)On Sunday
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Date: 2012-03-15 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-16 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 12:43 pm (UTC)I saw a promo on ebay the other day asking for funds to stop the trade in dogs for meat that takes place in some parts of the world. Wolves probably had the right idea in shunning humans.
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Date: 2012-03-15 01:00 pm (UTC)I think you could argue it both ways : there are a lot more dogs than wolves, so in numeric terms, being a dog has proved a very successful strategy.
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Date: 2012-03-15 02:02 pm (UTC)I like the way that communication is in images, not words, and the way that the night-horses have chosen to live with humans, partly becasuse they're 'addicted to the complexity of human thought', and partly because they like bacon...
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Date: 2012-03-15 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 04:43 pm (UTC)Your thoughts on Cub (via the link) are very interesting (and worrying).
As for telepathy...
Who thinks like that in the darkness inside their brain?
Are you saying you don't think in words? My ex said that he didn't think in words but in feelings, but I have a constant stream of words going through my head, and am always in a telephone conversation with someone -- maybe myself, maybe someone imaginary, maybe someone I know (who isn't there). When I was thinking about writing this comment, I was in conversation with 'you'... So the telephone conversation thing wouldn't be too much of a stretch for me accept.
But I had a very interesting experience watching TV once. They were talking about playing music containing subliminal messages in shops, and I just assumed that the message would be 'Buy more!' But the moment I heard the music, I knew that it said 'Don't steal!'. When they turned the sound up, it actually said 'Shoplifting is theft', so I'd not only heard the message, I'd also processed it. I imagine telepathy would be something like that...
My Legolas & Eowyn have a mental bond. I'm not sure how it came about, now, except that it would have arisen from the plot, but it proves handy because my!Legolas tends to panic when Eowyn's in danger and having him able to 'sense' her fear makes that more reasonable! Also, when the plot demands it, I can have him 'sense' that Eowyn's in danger but OK, and so he can get on with something else. As far as I can remember, I've always described it as a feeling rather than a conversation, though Eowyn does attempt to send messages to Legolas by thinking specific sentences -- as you might if the whole thing was new and unfamiliar to you.
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Date: 2012-03-15 07:48 pm (UTC)Though if we can venture away from wolves for a moment into the general realm of creepy ways to bond with other species I will specially mention Avatar and the whole 'tame flying thing by forcibly penetrating it' concept which... really!
Give me Sutcliff any time: 'You could tame a wild thing, but never count it as truly won until, being free to return to its own kind, it chose to come back to you'. Or Tolkien for that matter: 'If he will consent to bear you, bear you he does; and if not, well, no bit, bridle, whip, or thong will tame him'.
... there is a related thing of wolves as 'spirit animals' that I find slightly uncomfortable for related reasons, but have not been able to pin down till recently.
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Date: 2012-03-15 10:32 pm (UTC)don't think in words
Date: 2012-03-15 08:30 pm (UTC)I do think in words, partly, but it seems to me that there are lots of concepts that are quite hard to fit into words.
I think I translate ideas into words, rather clumsily, from whatever internal language my brain uses to process them, which includes touch and smell and appearance and taste. Quite often this is hard to do so I need to pause for a moment to formulate what I am going to say in my head, which I do with much stuttering and repetition. Maybe you are better at formulating sentences first time than me?
I think if some poor beast was afflicted by a soulbond with me, it might get some words, probably rather confused and repeated until the final sentence worked out, (unless you get some sort of filter so that the poor creature is not driven mad by my lining up synonyms before choosing one).
But I think it would at the same time get images, and sounds and sensations and memories without words attached to them. And I think those would not necessarily even be related concepts, though possibly that's me being unnecessarily flighty and scattered...
And I don't see why an animal that can't talk would mentally vocalise. You'd think it would express its thoughts through images and smells and body movement...
Psychic wolves
Date: 2012-03-15 07:33 pm (UTC)These are not "normal" wolves, these are great bear-like troll-wolves. They are bigger than normal wolves and have less endurance and a different mindset. I thought the first book which I liked very much was too much like a fan fiction story. There was a larger war-band then the civilian populace could support, or even for that matter than the ecological system could support. Our main character was drafted as being the only acceptable young man in the village. But the area could support a group of 30 wolves and men and support staff , which does not make sense in an area in the far North with little surplus food.
I don't think you are being fair to the story, these are not wolves, these are magical creatures with some canine characteristics, like teeth and tail and paws.
Re: Psychic wolves
Date: 2012-03-15 08:07 pm (UTC)1) wolves work by the strongest wolf getting to the top by violence
2) dogs are just like wolves and communicate in the same way - with each other and human beings, who are all in the same hierarchy
3) therefore I should strive to be the strongest wolf by being mean to my dog.
None of these points is true and the results can be irritatingly messy when you have to pick up the bits.
Logically there is no reason why psychic fantasy trollwolves should annoy me any more than, say, psychic fantasy mammoths, yet because I have no personal engagement with any member of the elephant family, I am able to greet such mammoths in the frivolous spirit no doubt intended...
Re: Psychic wolves
Date: 2012-03-15 09:31 pm (UTC)I tried "dog whispering" with a friend's corgi. We were going for a walk and I had Tiger. "Tiger stop sniffing and come along" "No Tiger, I don't want to go in that direction, I want to continue up the path." "Don't you want a nice stroll Tiger?" My friend was laughing at me and she walked along without any problems from the other corgi. Her dogs were perfectly well trained and used to going for walks but Tiger had me buffaloed. She said that if I just kept on walking at a normal pace, Tiger would have kept up without problems.
Do you run into a lot of people who don't know what to do with dogs? I am seeing a lot of dog halters in use and wonder if these were used by people who didn't know how to teach a dog to follow on a leash.
Re: Psychic wolves
Date: 2012-03-16 08:08 pm (UTC)But it's not very helpful to say 'be more naturally confident and authoritative!' to a human being who is uncertain: that theory has a tendency to push them over into yelling, or other excessively 'authoritative' stuff and you end up with a confrontation, which is a really bad thing to have with an animal with a smaller brain but much bigger teeth...
I expect Tiger would have come along if you'd walked briskly, if his owner thought that was what he was expecting - though I bet he'd do it more willingly for Owner, who is the Source of All Good Things, than for you!
The problems I sometimes run into tend to come though when the dog *doesn't* come, but instead, say, growls, or drags his feet, or rolls over - and instead of thinking : 'hmm, is he getting arthritic? Does he have a stomach ache? Is he bored? Is he scared of that Great Dane up ahead? ' - the owner tries to drag him along by the collar, confidently declaring he will 'snap out of it' and 'just needs a firm hand' 'needs to learn who's boss'. Or even worse, lays into him with a walking stick. That is how people get bitten. :-(
I like bribery as a training system. It's a lot harder to get wrong!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-28 06:51 pm (UTC)