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.
