Uh, this isn’t about the ones you go to but the ones writers follow when they craft the stories.
Okay, let me back up and say that I spent all day yesterday at the ER with my dad – he’s relatively fine now other than a slight urinary infection – and today getting him settled back into a routine. And wouldn’t you know it, this all happens when I didn’t have anything backlogged to post. So this is the first time today I’ve had a chance to sit down and think about something to post and therefore it may not make much sense.
Over the last day or so I’ve been rereading Michelle M. Pillow’s Dragon Lords and Lords of the Var books on my eBookwise and I do have a question about shafeshifters that’s been bubbling in the back of my brain for a while now. (Can you tell I’ve been reading a lot of shifters lately?) Why is it that only werewolves seem to be able to shift into both bipedal and fourlegged altered forms? Other than their human forms, I mean. Yes, I know it depends on the story universe but as a general rule, Pillow is the first I’ve run across that has cats who do a half-human/half-cat shift as well as a full-cat one besides their human form.
Now, her dragons only do human and bipedal dragon forms. So what’s up with that? I mean when they’re from the same planet and all?
Anyway, what I’m getting at is this, are werewolves considered the holy grail of shifting or something in most scenarios? Because it always seems like werewolves have this elevated status or something that I’m not sure I get. What am I missing here?
Mailyn: You’re probably right about them being more famous. I was just wondering though if I’d missed something in the mythology about the rest. And it did occur to me that maybe it had something to do with how long dogs have been associated with man, i.e. much, much longer than any of the rest of the animals.
Cindy: He’s doing much better. Personally, I think it was a lot more than a little infection with the turnaround he’s had but that’s another story entirely. As to the wolves mating for life, that’s a big one, too. I mean some of the books even make that a big deal between the shifter “species”.
Jane: I’ll tell which two books exactly brought it to the forefront of my brain and that’s because they approach it from almost the exact same, um, convention. Put it this way, I had to double-check and make sure they weren’t the same authors writing under different names. The first was Captive Moon by C.T. Adams & Cathy Clamp with a complete hidden society of shifters of all types of prey animals trying to integrate themselves into Earth societies. They shift completely into the “real” animals, too. No half-way stuff at all as far as I can see but definitely some magical abilities.
Then I read She’s No Faerie Princess by Christine Warren just recently and doggone it that universe doesn’t have almost the exact same set-up of a hidden magical world of shifters trying to integrate itself into humankind. Only their wolf shifters at least do all kinds of half-way stuff, including the nine foot tall upright horror-type werewolf form, and it got me to thinking. And wondering. ‘Cause they were never really clear about whether the cat shifters in that world have a “half-way” form or not. At least not a nine foot tall one, anyway.
I mean, you can’t help asking what gives. What determines the choices.
Interesting question and one that I haven’t spent any time contemplating. Does it depend on the world. I think with one author whose name escapes me, when they shift, they don’t actually become the fourlegged variety.
First – I hope your father is feeling better!
Second – I have wondered that also. I guess I wonder why some change to be humans with fur and big teeth or into full fledged animals. I guess a wolf that is bigger than a human would be more terrifying. As to werewolves being more popular for romance I wonder if it has to do with wolves mating for life. That’s romantic 😉
CIndyS
Well, I think they are just more famous, like vampires, because old horror movies used thosetwo more than anything else. Thus they became popular in mainstream and started popping up everywhere. Then, as with anything else, the Romance genre has a lot of the two because they are the most popular. They have a history, so to speak. I guess the others aren’t as developed ]literary wise] so the authors are still coming up with ways to portray them while with werewolves and vamps the myths were pretty much there already. They just have to elaborate or change a few things to fit their taste/story.