O Brave New World, That Hath Such Good Boys In't

Genuine question for my readers: has anyone actually ever read Animorphs?

It just gets worse the longer you look.

 

I would walk past their shelf at my elementary school library, but the disturbing cover art as well as sheer volume of media intimidated me too much to ever pick one up. As I was reading the chapter for this week, which talked about human/dog hybrids, this repressed memory resurfaced.  

Scientists were so concerned with whether they could, they never wondered if they should.

Through meticulous research, here is what the 54 book series is about: 

Five children and one alien gain the ability to turn into animals by touching them. Being in morph form allows them to heal injuries and communicate telepathically. However, they can only sustain this for two hours or their transformation will be permanent. One of the characters, Tobias, permanently turns into a red-tailed hawk, which everyone is just okay with for some reason. They use these abilities to fight a race of parasitic aliens called Yeerks. If you want a funnier and more in depth description, check out this article from a guy who read the entire series in 5 days.

From what I can tell, these books get pretty heavy. They talk about the horrors of war, killing your family members, PTSD, and the tenuous grip we hold on sanity. This is a little odd when you consider that this was being published by the same people who allowed over 200 Babysitters Club books onto the shelves of the 90s.  

This article suggests that Animorphs was a sort of diamond in the rough. As I have never read them, I can't say for certain. The point is, the incredibly graphic descriptions of animal transformations could be seen as a metaphor for puberty. Feeling like no one understands you, your body doesn't make any sense, and you have the weight of the world on your shoulders sounds exactly like being 14 years old. The bizarre sci-fi plot is only a vessel to transfer these messages to young teens, while keeping adults away because the covers literally look like this: 

But let us move from the disturbing to the adorable. The main thing that caught my eye in the reading was the reference to Wallace and Gromit. I love anything stop-motion, so these short films have always been dear to me. So, for research purposes, I watched "A Close Shave". If you want to watch it, here is the whole thing. 

Wallace and Gromit on their way to wash some windows.

I was nearly moved to tears watching this and I don't know why. Watching this got me out of a week-long slump, cleared my skin, did my homework, washed my windows, and served me a delicious cup of tea and some Wensleydale. 

This is how I imagine all British people.

 The story is very simple and told mostly visually. Wallace and Wendolene are the only talking characters, and most of Wallace's lines are something like "Gromit! Help!" Essentially, Gromit is wrongly accused of stealing sheep, but it turns out that he was framed by Wallace's love interest, Wendolene, and her dog Preston, who run a yarn store. The twist is that Preston is actually a "cyber dog", which we learn after his fur was knitted into a comically large sweater. 

I would say spoiler alert, but you've had 30 years to watch this.

The part that will interest us dog scholars is that Preston was created to protect Wendolene, but turned against her. Furthermore, Wallace rebuilt a nicer Preston after the cyber dog attempted to push him, Gromit, and a herd of sheep into a meat grinder. I think that this indicates the natural state of innocence we give dogs. Even when doing things we don't want them to, we are willing to forgive dogs.

If Gromit is the hero of the story and Preston the villain, surely this is a statement about man's power over machines. But Gromit is a dog! Why would the main conflict be carried about between dogs? 

I would argue that this is because Gromit is the most sympathetic character of the story, even for us humans. He is literally voiceless and often ignored in favor of humans (such as when he is left dangling by a bungee cord while Wallace talks to Wendolene), but constantly called upon to save the day. It's interesting that he is the one who makes porridge for his human, albeit through a wacky series of Rube Goldberg machines. Gromit is the dog behind the curtain, the almost-human face who steers his friend through the complicated industrial world.

So, as we tread an uncertain future, whether that be personally or technologically, we want our animals to be by our sides. The rough transformation into adulthood can make us feel inhuman. As our lives are increasingly controlled by machines, we want organic, living pets to support us and ground us in reality. Let us not forget that dogs went to space before humans.