Friday, July 31, 2015

5 Fandom Friday: Five Fictional Pets I'd Like to Adopt.

Time for another 5 Fandom Friday!  But before I get started on this week's prompt, now that I've been participating for almost two months, I just want to shout out a huge thanks to The Nerdy Girlie and Super Space Chick, who first dreamed up and organized this phenomenon (and who graciously welcomed me and my long list of prompt ideas--I tend to hit the ground running when I'm excited--by using three of my suggestions this month!), and another huge thanks to EVERYONE who participates in 5 Fandom Friday, because all of you have made my Fridays something to look forward to--I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through so many different perspectives every week, representing such diverse fandoms, that all share the whole-hearted enthusiasm we each have for the things we love.  Your excitement has led me to find new fandoms to explore and get excited about--and finding new community is really so much of what fandoms are about, isn't it?  So thank you for welcoming me into your community. :-)

This week's prompt is "Five Fictional Pets I'd Like to Adopt", because I constantly find myself falling in love with the pets and non-people sidekicks...I'm so much more an animal person than a people person!  So my struggle this week--okay, it's basically the same struggle as I have every week--is narrowing down a ridiculously long list into a list of my top five....

1. Goliath (Ladyhawke)

This movie holds a strangely special place in my heart because of how I stumbled upon it: when I was somewhere around eleven or twelve, I was channel-surfing, and happened to catch this scene--of course, two knights astride beautiful horses and engaged in an epic battle inside a church caught and held my attention, and afterward, I occasionally wondered for years what movie it had been, with its cryptic "night without day, day without night" bit at the end, but I never had any luck with my casual efforts tracking it down...until, one day in high school, my dad randomly handed me this movie he picked up in a $5 bin that he remembered watching years ago and thought I might like.  I didn't realize until I got to that particular scene, that this was the mystery movie I'd been hoping to find for so long!

There are a few movies every horse lover should watch (such as Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken and The Man From Snowy River), and this film makes the list because of Goliath:

Goliath ("Ladyhawke").

Played primarily by a 19-year-old Friesian stallion named Othello, Goliath alone makes the movie worth watching.  Isn't he gorgeous?  (I'm afraid the pictures just don't do him justice...you'll have to watch the film to see him in all his glory!) But the movie itself, though rather dated by its style and soundtrack (I lived too little in the 80's to appreciate the era), is actually pretty good.

2. Rancor (Star Wars)

I've wanted a rancor since I first watched Return of the Jedi when I was six or seven.  (Yes, I've always been that weird.)

Rancor ("Star Wars").

I mean, it wasn't his fault he fell into the hands of the cruel Jabba the Hutt, who kept him chained underground and fed him the guests who displeased his owner.  Oddly, I always identified with this guy:


(...you know, the one who sobbed after Luke killed the rancor.)

So I love this adorable comic, with its cute backstory and happy ending:

"BFFs" by Chris Gugliotti; print can be purchased here.

If I had a rancor, we'd totally be BFFs.

3. Velociraptor (Jurassic World)

In a lot of ways, I feel like Jurassic Park and The Lost World--both books and movies--defined my middle school years, and I thought the newest addition to the saga, Jurassic World, lived up to to the legacy of its predecessors wonderfully (you can read my full review here).  JW also inspired a new life goal: to become a raptor whisperer.

Velociraptors ("Jurassic World").

Obviously, I missed my calling.  Global extinction event aside, I really feel like I was born to train to raptors.  Plus, making a man the alpha of a pack in an all-female dinosaur park?  How patriarchal is that?  (Kidding!)  But maybe a woman could have kept the clever girls in line when the new girl, Indominus, tried to stake her claim as top dog--after all, there are lessons every girl learns in high school hierarchy that might have come in handy in putting down the new girl. :-P


But while Jurassic Park inspired my eleven-year-old self to learn all the dinosaurs, my interest in the extinct creatures had actually been awoken long before that, through James Gurney's Dinotopia.

James Gurney's "Dinotopia".

I used to pore over every illustration and pick out which character in it I would be--usually it boiled down to, which dinosaur do I want to ride?  The only reason the raptors in JW edged out any of the dinosaurs in Dinotopia this week is that Gurney's world paints a picture in dinosaurs are far more partners than pets.

4. Sam (I Am Legend)

Just as I, as a horse person, had to include my favorite horse in film or literature--as a dog person, I have to include my favorite dog: Samantha, of I Am Legend.

Sam ("I Am Legend").

At the end of the world, the last man standing--or so he fears--has one companion to keep him sane: his daughter's dog, Sam (short for "Samantha", we learn).  She's so much more to him than a pet--she's his loyal friend and faithful comrade in their fight for survival and search for some semblance of a life, in the midst of basically the zombie apocalypse.  MAJOR SPOILER: I don't think anyone's heart broke at his death the way it broke for Sam's.  I'm pretty sure even my husband, a cat person, cried when Will Smith sang to her in her final moments, and I credit that scene to my hubby's willingness to even consider letting me get a dog someday.

5. Dragon (The Pit Dragon Chronicles)

I'm guessing dragons are going to be a popular pick this week, though I'm also guessing that most will be of the Game of Thrones variety, with perhaps a few Eragon or The Hobbit outliers thrown into the mix.  But while I haven't yet met a version of dragons that I truly didn't like, my absolute favorite dragons are the ones in a book series I read well over a decade ago: The Pit Dragon Chronicles by Jane Yolen.

"The Pit Dragon Chronicles" by Jane Yolen.

Set in a harsh world of desert climate and brutal dragon-fighting, the first book of the sci-fi/fantasy series follows a bonder (low caste) boy who steals a baby dragon to raise on his own, training it to fight in the dragon pits so he can buy his way up in the world.  I instantly loved the Australia-meets-Tatooine vibe of the world Yolen created, but her breed of dragons only grows more interesting as the series progresses.  Not the average fire-breathing, treasure-hording creatures, hers are intelligent and telepathic, and her series explores the impact on humans of the closer relationships with dragons that the protagonist incidentally forges.

Apparently, there's a fourth book out now, which was released long after I'd read--and purged from my "too-large" book collection, which I still regret--the original trilogy...just talking about her dragons has me itching to read the whole series.  So, on that note, I'm going to wrap this post up so I can look up the ebooks on Amazon... :-P

So who/what are your favorite fictional pets?

17 comments:

  1. Awesome choices. I thought about the Rancor but like Falkor from the Never-Ending Story I was wondering how you would house them and the food bill each month. Ha! :) Love the post!

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    1. Good point! I hadn't even taken that into consideration.... :-P

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  2. This is a very dangerous list!

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    1. Yes, it is...I guess I've always preferred animals that could kill me if they wanted to! I used to ride and work with horses, and my dad still talks about how weird it was watching me, as a petite ten-year-old, shove huge draft horses around so I could muck their stalls. ;-) Of course, the average horse is probably a good deal sweeter than the average dragon or dinosaur.... :-P

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  3. Excellent list! I didn't include a raptor in mine, but "owning" one like Blue would be really awesome. And terribly dangerous. But mostly awesome. ;)

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  4. Brilliant choices! I love LadyHawke! Not sure on the Velociraptors - with or without Chris Pratt - you're bolder than I am :)

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    1. Thanks! Yeah, I did pick a few pets that might eat me. But if they didn't, we'd have a great time! :-P

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  5. Could you imagine bath time with the rancor? Haha

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  6. Wow. You made me feel warm fuzzies for the rancor. I never EVER would have picked him on my own, but now after hearing you talk about it (and seeing that comic) I kinda want to raise a family of rancor...

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    1. Can you imagine a whole litter of little rancor babies?? Forget kitten videos, we could make itty-bitty rancors the new internet sensation.... :-)

      I LOVE that comic! I stumbled upon it on Pinterest ages ago, and it was the first time I felt like someone else "got" how I felt about the rancor! I have no idea why I like the rancor--I mean, shouldn't the average seven-year-old be terrified of such a beast, instead of wanting to adopt one? But I've always wanted one. :-P

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  7. This is a wow list!!! OMG! Okay, I am starting to see the good side of having velociraptors as pets.
    xoxo
    dePepi.com

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    1. Plus, you'd NEVER have to worry about break-ins! Though they might make as much, or more, of a mess as any burglars might.... :-P

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  8. Aw, Sam from I Am Legend is an awesome choice! Too many feels:( Fun list, I love that you picked a rancor!

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    1. Thanks! Sam was definitely my favorite character in that movie...not that there were many to pick from! :-P

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