Yet that’s only what starts us reading books like Eragon and Eldest—“explaining nature” evolved through thousands of years into using personified animals as a medium of entertainment, teaching, and tradition. We savor the originality these animals display, we laugh, learn, generation after generation. Like metal, they are good conductors; like metal, they are treasured.
Originality
A hard knot formed in his stomach as unfathomable sapphire eyes gazed back at him. For the first time he did not think of the dragon as an animal. It was something else, something . . . different. (Eragon)
Anthropomorphic animals are appealing because they offer something that doesn’t exist in the real world. Something new emerges when human and animal characteristics are combined. Mottled in the shadows of reality, these characteristics are exciting because they are tantalizingly familiar, but blink, and you find they are not quite so. From that combination, anthropomorphic animals can have a seemingly illogical juxtaposition of roles and can do almost magical things their real-world counterparts never do.
It’s puzzling how opposing characteristics can exist in a creature without seeming ridiculous. But it’s a special mark of anthropomorphic animals and is used to sculpt the most important part of those characters’ identity. The nature of personified animals as both human- and animal-like is what makes such impossibilities possible. For example, the most noticeable conflicting characteristics within Saphira are that she’s really old and young at the same time. True, her actual age is only a few months, but she’d lain curled in her egg for a century, quite aware of the elves and humans around her all those years. Because she is an anthropomorphic character, she can act out being both old and young. We know that animals rely on inherited instincts to live. Humans, on the other hand, must learn their life skills. Having the characteristics of both animals and humans, Saphira behaves authoritatively and commandingly at one moment, and immaturely at another. After all, by instinct she has many magical powers deeper than Eragon can understand. Still, she has yet to fully understand or learn to control them herself—how she turned Brom’s grave into diamond and placed a gedwëy ignasia on Elva. And though her knowledge of the dragons and judgment of men exceeds Eragon’s, it is from him that she learns language, a rudimentary skill for humans. Her rapidly switching role from teacher to charge can be seen in the scene in Eragon right after Saphira carries Eragon away from Carvahall to avoid the Ra’zac, strangers in their village:Why do the strangers frighten you?
Murderers, she hissed.
Garrow is in danger and you kidnap me on this ridiculous journey! Are you unable to protect me? She growled deeply and snapped her jaws.
Saphira points out to Eragon the danger he does not realize, knowing instinctively that the Ra’zac are enemies. Yet when Eragon, in his ignorance, lectures back at her, she doesn’t say anything. She allows Eragon to be back in charge.
Another fascinating aspect of anthropomorphic animals is their behavior: In Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White, Charlotte the spider saves her friend Wilbur the pig by spinning words on her web. Spinning a web comes naturally to spiders, but it is a human ability to modify one’s skill to suit a new purpose; it is human competence to understand the meaning of words, and human nature to have compassion. Combining these things, spinning words on a web to save someone else, is something to wonder about; it creates a trait belonging solely to the anthropomorphic spider. Originality is an important aspect of what makes animal fantasy so compelling for readers.
Entertainment
Eragon.
“Is that all you can say?” he snapped.
Yes. (Eragon)
Ha ha! Anthropomorphic animals are also enthralling because they entertain. Laughter cures us of boredom and stress. We can’t suppress a grin when we see characters act silly, and who wouldn’t be delighted at unexpected and exaggerated actions? However, with their cleverness, their special abilities, their different point of view (and a quirk or two), anthropomorphic animals have a special way of winning our smiles.
In animal fantasy, because we accept that animals are unfamiliar, we set aside our expectations and wait patiently for every new detail. Remarks that we may pass over in human characters suddenly sound clever and different when spoken by animals. For example, Saphira answers yes when Eragon asks if his name is all she can say. A baby dragon saying it makes it amusing, but suppose a normal human were to say such a thing, then the line would lose its luster. Why? The key reason is that we always underestimate the intelligence of anthropomorphic animal characters, and we delight in being surprised and proven wrong.
Clever remarks can bring about a grin, but it’s the descriptions of the special abilities of animals that really excite us. “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound....” It’s Superman . . . or is it Saphira? Though we’re drawn to the abilities of animals just as we’re drawn to those of human superheroes, animals’ abilities are real—or at least more scientifically plausible. We see them. And through reading, we get to experience them. Here Eragon rides Saphira as she flies:Even as they plummeted toward the ground, there was no fear of collision. They snapped open their wings at just the right moment, pulling out of the dive with their combined strength. Slanting toward the sky, they shot up and continued back over into a giant loop. (Eragon)
Because anthropomorphic animals have the abilities we don’t, they remain fun and exciting no matter how many times we read about them.
Another great source of entertainment comes from reading about an animal’s perspective. We have to admit, we all can be a bit little self-conscious, and want to know what others think of us. Learning the thoughts of anthropomorphic animals in fantasy is interesting, because we never get to know what animals think in real life. What do animals think of humans, and how do they think of themselves? After Eragon rides Saphira, they talk:Once he had recovered, he exclaimed, That was incredible! How can you bear to land when you enjoy flying so much?
I must eat, she said with some amusement.
When we glimpse an animal’s point of view, we feel connected and thus interested.
It’s also entertaining when an animal possesses a quality that surprises us. When we read about an animal—a dragon, for instance—we think of traits automatically relating to dragons, such as nobility and bravery. When an anthropomorphic animal suddenly displays the opposite of what we expect, it’s hard not to giggle as if shown a secret. They make us rethink what we have taken for granted. One of my favorite humorous scenes in Eldest is when Saphira drinks mead at a dwarves’ celebration:Even Saphira took a sip of mead, and finding that she liked it, the dwarves rolled out a whole barrel for her. Delicately lowering her mighty jaws through the cask’s open end, she drained it with three long draughts, then tilted her head toward the ceiling and belched a giant tongue of flame.
The noble dragon, who has helped win a battle, suddenly takes interest in something modern—a cask of beer. The entertainment level rises as we see exaggerated foolishness: Eragon stood and bowed, which brought more cheers. Beside him, Saphira reared and swung a foreleg across her chest, attempting to duplicate his move. She tottered, and the dwarves, realizing their danger, scrambled away from her. They were barely in time. With a loud whoosh, Saphira fell backward, landing flat on a banquet table.
Quirks in characters make them entertaining for us. After all, we know we could not possibly display similar ridiculousness.
Learning
“Open your mind, Eragon. Open your mind and listen to the world around you, to the thoughts of every being in this glade, from the ants in the trees to the worms in the ground....” (Eldest)
When we read about anthropomorphic animals in literature, it is like being handed a present. Curiosity may compel us to start flipping the pages, but as we become immersed in the story, we gain knowledge and morals, and ways to expand our imagination and strengths. Who knew? Our gains are greater than our expectations.
Readers notice it instantly when the personified animal in a story displays a trait that an animal normally doesn’t have in real life. This can be a way to deepen the story’s moral context and facilitate understanding, because it lets us look at human nature from a more removed angle. We can see ourselves better that way.
In the Inheritance Cycle, Saphira is linked with Eragon, and they can converse through their thoughts, share their strength, even combine their consciousness. Indeed, they are “a soul dwelling in two bodies,” their magical link a beautiful metaphor for their friendship, and perhaps for our own friendships in our world as well.
In The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White, Louis the swan is born mute. He decides to go to a school and learns to understand the human language. With chalk and slate to write words, he can communicate with humans but still not with swans. His father steals a trumpet for him, and Louis leaves for the human civilization to make money to pay for the stolen instrument with his trumpet-playing. The story ends happily because Louis can produce the sounds of swans with his trumpet. To me, the moral behind this story is that if you work hard to make up for shortcomings, eventually the shortcomings bring forth talents. Real-life swans do not have trumpets with them, and they do not understand concepts such as money. By using an anthropomorphic swan instead of a human being, the author makes sure that we notice and understand the moral.
Sometimes morals are expressed by using exaggeration and symbolism among animals. A classic fairytale to illustrate this would be the story of the three little pigs. Three pig brothers each build a house: one of straw, one of wood, and one of brick. The Big Bad Wolf wants to eat them, and he huffs and puffs and blows down the first two houses, because these pig brothers were too lazy to take the time to build sturdier ones. Only the brick house remains standing. Here the Wolf’s breath is exaggerated in order to symbolize the test of time. Though humorous and entertaining, the story of the three little pigs solemnly warns us not to be lazy. The wonderful thing about personified animals in fantasy is that they need not cause you terrible anguish or torture you to tears, yet they can carry the weight of important messages just the same.
Imagination
Personified animals help expand our imagination by testing readers’ creativity as they follow the storyline. Because realistic fiction is usually confined to representing the normal rules of life, the possibilities for variation in them are limited. However, anthropomorphic animals, themselves otherworldly, offer surprises in their stories that dare us to logically analyze and draw conclusions in unfamiliar circumstances. These animals unlock doors but leave them unopened for us to explore further—showing us something new but leaving it up to us to make sense of it . . . and then even apply what we have learned to the real world. For instance, the background of the Inheritance Cycle’s storyline mainly concerns the welfare and future of the dragons, elves, dwarves, and humans. The near extinction of the dragons causes an unbalance of power and warfare. One can connect this to our world’s problems—many of our animals are becoming extinct too. Will this ultimately cause warfare in some way? By reading books like Eragon with anthropomorphic animals, we become more aware of our world.
Another book that has really enriched my imagination is The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting. The animal doctor who can speak lots of animal languages proves a man innocent in court by translating the statements of a dog witness, and he asks a fish about the geography of the ocean floor, as well as the whereabouts of Christopher Columbus’s diaries. The animals he talks to have distinct personalities, and they are as smart as any human. It made me wonder: If we could talk to animals, could we solve lots of our everyday problems? Could we know much more about the world?
Confidence and Motivation
Reading the anthropomorphic stories also gives us confidence and motivation. Huge imaginary animals, thrilling us with their power, show us what we should aim for. Saphira is such a creature. She can make deep gorges in the earth when she lands and outdistance any animal with her speed, but she does not flaunt unnecessarily, and she doesn’t turn pompous. That is a power in itself. She bravely bears the burden of being the last female dragon, aiming to fulfill her duty and the expectations of her allies as well as guiding Eragon. Still, she makes mistakes. During her studies with Glaedr, her dragon tutor, she is so distracted by him that she carelessly abandons her studies to try to play. It results in his anger and her injury. She acknowledges her error:You warned me about Glaedr, but I was too proud to see the truth in your words. . . . I have failed to be a good companion for you, betrayed what it means to be a dragon, and tarnished the honor of the Riders. (Eldest)
When huge, powerful animals can admit their mistakes, we feel that there is no reason why we shouldn’t.
Another supernatural character I admire is Monkey King in Journey to the West, a Chinese classic by Wu Cheng’en. Monkey King can “ride the clouds and mount the mists,” soar 18,000 li with one somersault, and change into seventy-two different forms. But he has learned all these skills through years and years of practice.
Indeed, these animals are what we hope to become. They set examples.
On the other hand (or rather, paw—or claw), small animals give us motivation. We all care for and sympathize with the weak. We want to help them. Kids are small, so we turn to the animal world and act like guardians to even smaller creatures. So when small animals in books do something unexpected, profound, and brave, we feel we can do big things too. Desperaux, a small mouse from The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo, saves himself and a human princess from death with stories, words, and a needle. Characters like him inspire.
Mao Zedong once said, “Dare to fly through nine layers of the sky to embrace the moon; dare to dive into five seas to catch a turtle.” This is the courage and spiritual strength that these animals teach us to possess.
Anthropomorphic animals shower us with gifts. They provide us with knowledge and morals so that we can become better people. They enrich our imagination so that we can become more aware of the world and other beings. They guide us by inspiring and setting examples. We might not expect to receive so much from reading a book, but we do—and that gain is a reason why anthropomorphic animals are beloved in literature.
Continuity
As the dragon’s baleful eye fell upon him, Eragon knew that the creature was no mere apparition but a conscious being bound and sustained by magic. . . . In his mind echoed a voice of fire: Our gift so you may do what you must. (Eldest)
Because anthropomorphic animals surprise, entertain, and teach, they withstand the test of time. And the longer they last, the more they surprise, entertain, and teach. It becomes a cycle, increasing the appeal of animal fantasy with every turn. But the cycle might have collapsed if adults hadn’t liked them along with kids. Kids love reading anthropomorphic tales because they are interesting and easy to understand. Grownups recommend that children read the stories because, having read the books themselves, they know how these books easily teach morals that will be useful to their children throughout their lives. When I was small, my parents would read aloud animal stories. When I grew older, my grand-parents told me animal stories. Now I write animal stories.
We’re probably all familiar with Goldilocks and the three bears and Little Red Riding Hood. From fairytales we move on to characters like Winnie-the-Pooh and Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse. “Do animals really talk?” children might ask. Grownups know animals don’t. So why not tell the truth to children? Perhaps the real point of telling children stories of talking rodents, birds, and dragons is, somewhat paradoxically, to guide and prepare them for reality. Reading about the death of a bird or a mouse character can help kids understand and deal with a death of a family member in real life. Animal fantasy shrinks the wide world to a more acceptable, more understandable size. It shows examples of death and other truths that are compelling enough to the reader to affect them, but just distant enough that they can
guide without being uncomfortably personal. Because of that, kids reading the books have courage to stretch and deal with bigger concepts that they don’t face at home or school. Personified animals play a crucial role in initiating young people to the world.
The sun and the stars have been with us since the dawn of history. Poets and writers still praise them. So it is with animals. They will never be out of fashion, because they’re going to be with us for a long, long time. And animal fantasy has no boundaries across countries and cultures, because animals are everywhere.
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