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queenluaI could pretend this is meta but this is really just a massive excuse for me to talk about wolves.
So when I was younger I read an awful lot about wild wolf behavior, and probably one of the more interesting/informative books I read on the topic was one called Wolves at Our Door. It's the memoir of a guy who spent many years in Idaho filming documentaries about wolves. Prior to these documentaries, there just wasn't much good wolf footage, since wild wolves are notoriously flighty bastards and difficult to observe (there's a joke in the book about finding canis lupus minisculus, hee). The idea was, get a bunch of wild wolves together in a massive enclosure, try to let them live as naturally as possible, and observe the pack dynamics as they develop.
And those dynamics turned out to be really, really interesting. Contrary to popular belief, the pack alpha is not just a big, bad bully that rules by brute strength, the beta is not just a second-in-command that's forever nipping at the alpha's heels, and being omega isn't just about getting shat on all the time. Rather, there's a lot of subtle interplay and community feedback that guides these roles. The wolf who serves as alpha for the majority of the book, Kamots, is very physically strong—but it's also consistently noted that he tends to be more observant, more alert to threats, and often cleverer than the other wolves. And in a survival scenario, those are absolutely the traits that are going to keep your group alive longer than brute force.
And there's some other neat interactions. The beta, rather than just being a less-buff version of the alpha, more often serves a "peacekeeping" sort of role, interfacing between the alpha and the subordinates and helping to cool tempers when scuffles become too violent. And while it's undeniable that the omega frequently gets the shaft (last turn at feeding, often picked on by subordinates, etc), it's also undeniable that the omega is a member of the pack (there's a wolf that's basically driven out of the pack at one point in the book—that wolf is attacked brutally and forbidden to feed at carcasses, whereas the omega is never allowed to simply starve and is never seriously injured by others). Interestingly, the omega appeared to serve something of a "jester" role in the pack, as he was often the first to initiate play.
(I guess I should note here that something something this could just be anthropomorphizing but eh, it all seemed reasonably legit to me.)
I'm vaguely pretending this is relevant to FE because of the way laguz leadership is done. We're told that leaders are chosen roughly unanimously based on their strength—but the idea that this implies raw physical (or in the case of herons, magical) strength seems somewhat misguided. I imagine it's something closer to a blend of political positioning (the way rulership is done in beorc societies) and practical, proven prowess a lá a wolf pack. I'd really love to see more about how that kind of leadership is gained, challenged, won, maintained, etc—I dunno, I just find this aspect of laguz society sort of interesting and not touched on very often, and it'd be neat to see how, say, Nailah maintains her position based on both her political savvy and her proven (how is it proven to the kingdom at large?) keenness / alertness / acumen / physical strength that allows a wolf in the wild to implicitly hold power over their peers.
So when I was younger I read an awful lot about wild wolf behavior, and probably one of the more interesting/informative books I read on the topic was one called Wolves at Our Door. It's the memoir of a guy who spent many years in Idaho filming documentaries about wolves. Prior to these documentaries, there just wasn't much good wolf footage, since wild wolves are notoriously flighty bastards and difficult to observe (there's a joke in the book about finding canis lupus minisculus, hee). The idea was, get a bunch of wild wolves together in a massive enclosure, try to let them live as naturally as possible, and observe the pack dynamics as they develop.
And those dynamics turned out to be really, really interesting. Contrary to popular belief, the pack alpha is not just a big, bad bully that rules by brute strength, the beta is not just a second-in-command that's forever nipping at the alpha's heels, and being omega isn't just about getting shat on all the time. Rather, there's a lot of subtle interplay and community feedback that guides these roles. The wolf who serves as alpha for the majority of the book, Kamots, is very physically strong—but it's also consistently noted that he tends to be more observant, more alert to threats, and often cleverer than the other wolves. And in a survival scenario, those are absolutely the traits that are going to keep your group alive longer than brute force.
And there's some other neat interactions. The beta, rather than just being a less-buff version of the alpha, more often serves a "peacekeeping" sort of role, interfacing between the alpha and the subordinates and helping to cool tempers when scuffles become too violent. And while it's undeniable that the omega frequently gets the shaft (last turn at feeding, often picked on by subordinates, etc), it's also undeniable that the omega is a member of the pack (there's a wolf that's basically driven out of the pack at one point in the book—that wolf is attacked brutally and forbidden to feed at carcasses, whereas the omega is never allowed to simply starve and is never seriously injured by others). Interestingly, the omega appeared to serve something of a "jester" role in the pack, as he was often the first to initiate play.
(I guess I should note here that something something this could just be anthropomorphizing but eh, it all seemed reasonably legit to me.)
I'm vaguely pretending this is relevant to FE because of the way laguz leadership is done. We're told that leaders are chosen roughly unanimously based on their strength—but the idea that this implies raw physical (or in the case of herons, magical) strength seems somewhat misguided. I imagine it's something closer to a blend of political positioning (the way rulership is done in beorc societies) and practical, proven prowess a lá a wolf pack. I'd really love to see more about how that kind of leadership is gained, challenged, won, maintained, etc—I dunno, I just find this aspect of laguz society sort of interesting and not touched on very often, and it'd be neat to see how, say, Nailah maintains her position based on both her political savvy and her proven (how is it proven to the kingdom at large?) keenness / alertness / acumen / physical strength that allows a wolf in the wild to implicitly hold power over their peers.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-03 07:37 pm (UTC)