Pets and Companions

Why do pets and animal companions in fiction feel so immediate, so universally legible, and so devastating when a story takes them away?

We pull threads from everywhere, comic book pets like Krypto, the daemon companions of His Dark Materials, and the long mythic history of loyal animals that reveal a hero’s character. From Odysseus and Argus to the Mahabharata’s stray dog test, we track what separates a true companion from a symbol or a beast of burden: mutual attachment, choice, and the kind of love that costs something.

Transcript

Cold Open To Lyra And Ayn

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Tweaky. What'd you say? Tweaky. That's for a different episode. Tweaky. Tweaky! Tweaky! Oh tweaky!

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Tweaky, okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Beatty beady beatty.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Beatty, beatty, beatty. Gentlemen! Let's broaden our minds.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative.

unknown 0:37

Charge the lightning field.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Anywho. Uh-huh. Uh okay. Yes. Uh we'll get to the dispatch Ajax thing in a bit. Just give me some leeway, okay?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Okay, go for.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

There is almost nothing in this world I love more than my dog. I have a four-year-old Brittany named Lyra. She came into my life as my previous best boy. My quirky companion Ayn was winding down his happy life. He was one of the loves of my life, and I feel his loss every day. But my sweet girl came to me when I needed her, though I had no idea just how wonderful she would be for me and my life. Her sweetness, her love, her constant need for me, and her undying devotion gave me the support to carry on after Ayn's passing. Now, both Lyra and Ayn were inspired by stories of animal companionship. Ayn, obviously, with his full legal name, Einstein Data Dog, was ripped from the flashy but sorrow-soaked space action of Cowboy Bebop. While Lyra was directly inspired by Lyra Balakwa, the main character in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which features the Demon Companions. These are spiritually bonded animal companions that are essentially a tangible, separate embodiment of the character's soul. And namely for Lyra, it's Pantilaimon. Crypto was the focal point of the new Supergirl movie and made me ponder the role of the animal pet companion in both that movie and story's overall.

From Comics To Mythic Pets

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Welcome back to Dispatch Ajax. Pets haven't always just been in comic books. Pets have been around as parts of the story and companions since forever. They are a representative fact of life made manifest in poem, in novel, and on screen, dating back to the mythical tales of old. A lot of characters in myth had particular pet companions that meant a lot to them in stories. Argus was the loyal dog of Odysseus. Lelops, known for its loyalty and vision, was the hunting dog of Artemis. Aethon and Arian were the horses of Ares and Heracles, both known for their loyalty and companionship. Odin had his ravens, Hugin and Munin, to gather information, but it is his loyal wolves that sit beside him in Valhalla, of which Odin gives all of his food to, for he only drinks wine. Don't forget about Thor's goats. I could. The reason I didn't mention Thor's goats, and to kind of get it into this a little bit, but I tried to stay away from things that weren't actual pets. So Thor's goats are they're beasts of burden. They're beast of burden. You get a lot of beast of burden within mythological stories and fantasy tales coming thereafter. You also get a lot of animals that serve more as either figureheads or are symbols of a god or certain character's powers or embodiment of you know representative for aspects of who and what they are. But I was looking more for actual companions to the characters. A thing that required love and connection, working to and fro, that is as there as much to help the character as it is fulfill the character. Something like in the Mahabharata, Yudistiru, it's not easy for me to say, he refused to enter heaven without the stray dog that had loyally accompanied him, choosing his compassion over paradise. Of course, the dog is revealed to be Yama, associated with the personification of Dharma, the god of justice, and was probing Yudhistharu's righteousness. Now I'm not sure about you, but while you were listening to that, uh I sensed a bit of a theme there. There are many other animals that are associated with deities and mythologies, often serving again as symbols, messengers, and manifestations of godly powers and embodying their divine characteristics. But it is the presence of beloved animal companions that are separate entities bonded to and loved by the protagonists that I wish to discuss here. Animal companions in myth and fiction serve many purposes. One is emotional support and loyalty. They often provide guidance, comfort, and companionship, whether that's in a more realistic setting or in a more fantastic world. They often serve as narrative catalysts. They can drive the story forward, they can help reveal hidden truths, and help characters discover their own personal strengths. In some fantasy stories, animal companions also have magical or telepathic abilities that serve as allies to the protagonist. Many fantasy stories feature animals with the abilities of the magical variety, or psychic bonds that help influence both the plot and the character's own development.

What Makes A True Companion

SPEAKER_03 6:05

There are also the fan favorite elements, and that is, these animals can serve as empathetic avatars to both fall in love with and intensely rip out the reader or watcher's heart with the raggedness of their loss. Rtax anyone? Yeah. R-tax John Wick.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Yeah. They are perfect emotional bridges for both the audience who innately has affection for these animals and can understand the devastation of their loss and how it drives the protagonist in whatever pursuit they have thereafter.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Never-ending story is a different kind of creature altogether. But in the case of John Wick, if you kill a dog in a movie, you're an asshole. Even as a filmmaker, you're an asshole in the public consciousness. But John Wick works because that is his motivation for vendetta for redemption. Because his pet was so important to him. It was a tie to his dead wife. In the sense of never-ending story, Artax, that is tragic and horrifying, and still to this day. Look, okay, you and I are about the same age. We're gen Y, and I don't give a shit what anybody says about millennials. I don't know anyone who's into this kind of stuff that isn't completely traumatized by the death of RTX. And I feel like it's the same sort of environment that created the website, Does the Dog Die in the movie? We don't tolerate that kind of shit. We love our companions and we know that they are one of the reasons we continue. You're right.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

But they both serve as emotional shorthands. You don't have to like have pages and pages or an hour or two to like show that development of the connection because we all, while we're watching, I guess not all of us, certain sociopaths or people of different traditions may not have the same connection between, say, a person and horse or a person and their dog. But for most readers and watchers, you don't need the time and investment because it's already there. Yeah. You can personify it easily, and it's it's you can either utilize that to help build on those. And that's why a lot of the animal characters in fiction, they're easy, they're fan favorites. The people automatically have an affinity for them and a connection. And when they are taken away, it's really kind of an an easy cheat code to really like gut the consumer of that tale and drive on the story, either emotionally or narratively.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

What I was thinking of generationally was that like if you think about even in Tarantino for a modern perspective, in Tarantino's Hateful Eight, Samuel Jackson talks about how he has to kill his horse because he couldn't make it up a mountain, and he's like, and I loved that horse. But it's treated in such a casual way, we were like, well, that's just a fact of life. Go all the way to John Wick, and the death of that dog spurned the biggest chaotic action of any action movie of all time, to be honest. And though both of those are obviously modern tales, they're trying to put in perspective how we treat companions and death in general. And I think those things have changed dramatically over the last hundred years or so. 150 years or so.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

I don't think you're wrong. I think the way that we interact with animals as companions throughout history has evolved, and we'll see a little bit of that evolution later on in the pod. But before we get to that, let's dive in a little bit about what it means to be a companion and how animal companions

Why Stories Use Animal Bonds

SPEAKER_03 9:50

function in the narrative. And one thing that you can point to is what's called the Watson effect. And this describes the phenomenon where a finely crafted sidekick or companion can enhance the protagonist's abilities while providing loyalty, intelligence, a unique perspective that helps drive that particular story or narrative forward on and make the character a richer one. Now, obviously, this comes from Sherlock Holmes, his faithful companion, Dr. Watson, who thereafter kind of became a literary blueprint for constructing memorable partnerships, both in real life and in fiction. Now, research suggests that companion animals provide emotional support and enhance quality of life, mirroring the supportive role that fictional sidekicks play for their heroes.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Do you remember what dogs are called in the uh original Battlestar Galactica? Do I? I'm curious if you remember. No. They're called Daggots.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Dag. That's that's very uh uh Australian.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

It actually does sound pretty Australian. It's such a weird show. Like the pilot, they show all these other aliens and then dogs, uh, and then a robot dog. Aren't those the weird things? Like they're not quite dogs. Well, there's the robot dog. Is that not a daggate? I I well I think it's supposed to be like a reproduction of a daggate.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

As you know, we will soon be landing on various alien planets. It's important that we be safe. Ordinarily, we'd use train daggets to stand watch at night while our warriors slept in their encampment. We didn't have any daggots. We just had to see what we could come up with. Naturally, the first one will have to be very carefully looked after.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

That's not Muffin. It's not even a real dad yet.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

That pilot is very, very weird, which was originally supposed to be a movie. Go back and watch that one. That's a weird one. Whatever. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Continue. Uh, that was uh your spot. Oh, okay, sorry, sorry. The science of why companionship is a thing. So human domestication of pets goes back for millennia, probably starting with dogs, over a hundred thousand years ago, and then cats, which doesn't quite go back as far but is still extremely old. But the reasoning behind that kind of companionship

Trauma, Artax, And John Wick

SPEAKER_01 13:03

isn't exclusive to humans, it's just prominent because of our dominance over the natural world. Most of the time it essentially falls into a few categories as to why these things do occur in nature. One of which is parenting. Sometimes you'll see animals create companionships with other species of animal because an infant creature has been abandoned by a parent, and it needs protection and nurturing, and and this usually fits in specifically with pack animals, because that's kind of the nature of how pack animals work, but not exclusively. For instance, birds sometimes will accept birds of other varieties in their nests of an altruistic move. Chimpanzees is a specific instance which a two-year-old chimpanzee named Anjana looked after two white tiger cubs, Mitra and Shiva, after they were separated from their mother at a wildlife sanctuary. Orphaned infants have often been integrated into the packs of other species. Tarzan is a human-oriented version of that. Uh or the jungle book. And then sometimes animals will find companionship in the act of play. The act of play is really just stage dressing for hunting and or gathering whatever that species requires for survival. It's play acting to learn the skills for later on. If you've ever seen footage from zoos or whatever, like an elephant will play with an ostrich, or you can see videos on that online all the time, like a wolf and goats, or like animals that would be normally predator-prey relationships in the wild will team up when those circumstances aren't the same as they would be normally as per evolution. Provision in which the relationships they're basically built on the practicality of survival. There has been documented cases of coyotes and badgers where they will hunt squirrels together. The badgers will dig into the squirrel dens while the coyotes wait and trap any squirrel that flees. I've seen this with dingos and other animals in Australia. I've seen it with wild cats and like skunks. This kind of thing happens. Ostriches and zebras, for instance, they are both on the African continent prey to hunting pack animals because ostriches do have poor eyesight, and zebras have great eyesight, but zebras have a poor sense of smell, and ostriches have a great sense of smell, so they oftentimes work together to warn each other when hordes of animals that are hunting them come around. And there are countless examples of this kind of behavior in the natural world. There was a Russian scientist named Dmitry Bileyev, who is he's extremely important in this world of study because he did an exhaustive examination of how we domesticated wolves into

The Watson Effect And Real Life

SPEAKER_01 16:10

dogs. This guy's work is pretty much the gold standard for how we understand domestication as it is today. He traced it back provably to about 12,000 years ago in the Middle East. But the study that he did focused actually on foxes, not dogs. He just kind of led to dogs. Which is funny, because like people are domesticating foxes again now, but I mean like we didn't en masse domesticate foxes the way that we did dogs or cats. I don't want to go into too much of the minutia of his study, but this Soviet-era study looked at domesticated dogs then based on his work, and could trace back their lineage to wolves, and then try to figure out like how the biology, the physiology, the the basic aesthetics and mechanisms that make dogs dogs, how they are different than wolves, and how we got to where we were. And I've actually seen some studies relatively recently about this, about how if you take a dog and you take a wolf and you put them in similar circumstances, you give them a challenge, some sort of puzzle to figure out, and they can't figure it out. The dog will usually just look to the person and just give up. A wolf won't. It'll get anxious, it won't look to the person, but dogs will. And I know that sounds simplistic, but it's built-in genetic biology. In the 20s and 30s, a guy named Trophim Lysenko, who was an agronomist, he claims to have invented a new farming technique.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

An agronomist, agricultural scientist specializing in soil management, crop production, and sustainable farming practices.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

And he claimed to have created this new farming technique that would triple or quadruple crop yields, which is exactly what happened in China during the the Mao Zedong five-year leap forward or whatever it was called. It was basically a study of genetics and how inherited genetics work. And this became extremely popular during this era. Unfortunately, so his work was at odds with what we consider classical genetics, Mandalayan genetics, where acquired characteristics could not be genetically passed down to your children. That was more nature versus nurture stuff. He proposed that inheritance of traits could be passed down. So behaviors and even uh overall disposition could be passed down to offspring. So, unfortunately, a lot of this stuff, a lot of this field of work, because it started in the 20s and 30s, was abandoned by the Soviets, even though they were leading in this field, uh, because it sort of butted heads up with eugenics,

Domestication, Foxes, And Pack Bonds

SPEAKER_01 18:55

which the Soviets quite rightly declared fascist genetics or fascist science, so they kind of de-prioritized that kind of work. And so it was considered pseudoscience for a long time. But eventually it was picked back up after World War II, and there was this push toward the idea that you could shape direction of a species of companion animal in a very specific way, which seems pretty obvious now, just on paper. But back then they were like, well, dogs are a species and wolves are a species, and those are two different things, and that's true. But their behaviors and their compliance with human beings was something that was interbred into them throughout millennia uh of human existence. So this is actually a sad story, but I want to put it in here because it is a really interesting idea. Oh, fun. Yeah, super, super fun. So Beleyev lost his job at the and this was a real department in the Soviet Union, the Department of Fur Animal Breeding at the Central Research Laboratory in Moscow. Alright. Mm-hmm. Because of his commitment to the research that he believed was true. Though he was fired, he continued discreetly to study these things. And in 1959, Khrushchev reversed some of the Stalinist policies about research, not breeding apes as super soldiers, that kind of thing. And then Beleyev eventually became the director of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which he actually maintained until he died in 1985. So he hypothesized that the antonomical and physiological changes seen in domesticated animals could have been the result of selection on the basis of behavioral traits. Specifically, he believed that tameness of wolves into dogs was the critical factor. So he was able to go back and through genetics and through historical record prove that mankind intentionally bred wolves that were more likely to be amenable to human interaction together so they would create a whole new species of animal companion. It was an exhaustive study, and he was actually the leader in the whole thing, you know, like low aggression, fighting back, not competing for resources, that kind of thing. Originally it started with uh wild silver foxes, and that's how he was able to replicate the experiment. He used foxes because they're they're way more common in Russia. He would take foxes that were more amenable to companionship, to not aggressive interaction with human beings, and breed them into essentially domesticated animals within a couple of generations. So, what they did was they proved that through manipulated selective breeding, which I guess is eugenics, if you we were able to create these companion animals that would to To whom the interaction with people was beneficial. It is interesting because there is a difference between symbiosis and this kind of relationship. And I think that is critical to understanding this. That there are in the wild symbiotic relationships. Those fish that attach themselves to whales or like a Ramora fish? Yes. And then there are ones that are man-made, which are unique. And I think the dog man, not dog man, but dog slash man.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

That's that's something different.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

That's a little different.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

Wait, uh dog slash man? Is that your new fanfic or no?

SPEAKER_01 22:39

It's it's my favorite Reddit thread. Oh it's R slash dog slash man. That's not even a thing. Or the same thing with with man and cats. This idea that they are able to domesticate to artificially guide the evolution of these animals to benefit obviously the people, but is mutually beneficial. Basically, since human beings have existed, we've been trying to do this. Interestingly, shown in the Francis Lawrence film I Am Legend, where the the infected tame and use as companions the infected canines, though they are starting over, it's an instinctual use case that seems universal.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the reasons they use those in the film is to it imbues those quote zombies with a sense of humanity or there's a shared emotional understanding of them bonding and having dogs as useful pets is something that the main character is doing the exact same thing in that film. Right. And so you can see they're not so different.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

We're not so different, you and I. Yeah, that's the idea is that ever since human beings have been around, they have used animals that have skills or similar motivations to help advance their own survival techniques. So dogs are good hunters, foxes are good hunters, cats are good hunters, wildcats especially. They use them in hunting practices and they selectively breed them to more easily facilitate the use of those creatures in the same way. Well, in a less frictional way, and this really only works with pack animals. You can't really do this with other types of animals. Because like I was laying out before, a lot of those companionship relationships that happen in nature don't work en masse or on a larger scale. They only work in situations in which you have animals that have similar pack mentalities. Dogs will, when assimilated into your family unit or clan or tribe or whatever, they will consider that their pack. And that is a natural instinct that works. That's why they elevate certain animals over others as pets instead of livestock. Beasts of burden are never considered the same as pets are. Which I think is kind of absurd, but evolutionarily it makes sense. So we create these situations in which we have companions that are animals because there is a mutual benefit that people can control and guide. And that's where we end up with the pets we have today. I wanted to get into domesticated pigs turning into wild boars, but that's a whole nother story. I don't know if that really uh is fitting for this particular No, but I was going down a whole rabbit hole about genetics and domestication.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

But uh That's a whole mini episode that we can delve time into another point.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

It'll never come up unless we do a whole episode on the movie Razorback.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Uh Russell Mulcahi, is that right? Russell Mulcahi. That was his first film, right? Yeah. A lot of Dran Dran Boar music videos. Well, yes. Okay. Hungry Like a Boar. Rio.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

That one's stretching it. Ordinary Boar. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Boars on Film.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Boars on Film, see? Nah, you redeemed yourself. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

I got about a 500 batting average, which uh and baseball's really good.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

You know what? For baseball? That's great. It's an Hall of Fame numbers. George Brett was the last person to take a 400 average into September. So hey, you're doing great.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Really? I did not know that, but I I haven't paid attention to baseball or baseball statistics since I was a wee type.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Well, you know, the royals were really important back in the day, I guess. Anyway.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

Anyway. From a scientific perspective, we kind of see the evolution of the companionship of animals, and that does flow into the way that animal

Fiction Archetypes And Literary History

SPEAKER_03 26:50

companions are used in our fiction as well. The bond between a person and say their dog, there are certain traits. A boy's dog. Yeah. Certain specific traits emerge from that from that particular scenario. I figured we're gonna talk about that at some point. You know, when I was originally thinking of this episode, that was one of the things I wanted to touch on. And the more I got into and and I did research and wrote this thing, the less I wanted to discuss the rapey aspects of a boy and his dog.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Yeah, yeah. You mean that telepathic dog that told Don Johnson to rape that chick? Hmm. Yeah, probably not great. Yeah. Something we can address but skip over.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Literally sniffing out possible rape victims in the post-apocalyptica. Uh I don't know if how much we need to get into that. Not not the best. For all those people that defend Harlan Ellison, but we can bring that up at the last section of this pod.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

You'll know when we get to it. But again, particular traits emerge from the companionship between animal and man. A lot of times unwavering loyalty, complementary skills, and an ability to bring out the best in their particular partner. The most effective companions almost never overshadow the protagonist of the story, but instead help to illuminate particular strengths and help them overcome weaknesses.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Speaking of, I don't know if you noticed this, but this guy just decided to come up here and Oh hey.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Hi Miles. How are you doing, Miles? He literally came up and stuck his head in while we were talking about dogs. Hi, buddy. What are you doing? You don't normally come up here. What's going on?

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Lyra is passed out on the couch next to me with the uh Wolverine card blanket.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Oh, that's an awesome blanket, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Now, this dynamic often creates opportunities for the growth of a character, or particular plot advancements, or the emotional depth that begins to resonate between the audience across whatever genre or median. Oftentimes, for human companions, they tend to possess complementary skills, emotional intelligence, and loyalty with boundaries, and a certain narrative accessibility. I mean, obviously, they are talking back and forth to each other, but pet companions function more as usually emotional stabilizers in particular narratives and provide support that often mirrors those real-world bonds that you spoke about previously. Loyal companion archetypes manifest differently in animal characters compared to human sidekicks. Certain dogs, like a lassie or fictional wolves, like those in the Song of Ice and Fire, they tend to demonstrate protective instincts and emotional intelligence. Cats in those stories often serve as devoted allies, but yet with a streak of independence. And different birds often represent freedom while maintaining deep connections with the protagonist involved. They provide emotional support without the complexity of human relationships, often offering unconditional acceptance and loyalty that human characters cannot always provide in the same way. This simplicity allows writers to focus on the pure emotional connection rather than having to navigate their way through the interpersonal dynamics between two human characters. The writers who are making these stories often like to emphasize the reciprocal nature of their relationships. The human character provides care and protection, while the animal offers an emotional grounding and some like instinctive wisdom. This mutual dependence often creates compelling story dynamics and provides psychological and emotional resonance. They often remind us of our connection to the natural world, embody qualities that we admire but struggle to express, and offer unconditional loyalty in worlds often characterized by moral ambiguity or betrayal. There's a transition of animal companions from historical and mythological context into a more modern fantasy literature, gradual but meaningful. Certain medieval romances often featured animals as guides or symbolic figures. Like in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hunting scenes parallel the protagonist's moral journey, with each animal symbolizing different aspects of that development in his character. Now, these literary representations establish a precedent for animals as more than just a mere background element, they became integral to a character's development and a narrative progression. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, that saw animal companions evolve even further in literature. In Victorian literature, dogs became central characters in classics like Jack London's The Call of the Wild, featuring Buck, and these stupid books. Yeah. The portrayals often highlighted the primal connection between humans and animals. This is a theme that would become central to many fantasy works after that. And the next logical bridge there would be Tolkien, who set up many conventions that persist to this day, one with like elves demonstrating better communication with animals than humans, while his contemporary C. S. Lewis brought talking animals into his stories extensively.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

He personified them. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

We'll get a little more into this particular element, but what C.S. Lewis is doing is less animal companionship and more Metaphor. Personified humanistic animals as actual full-fleshed characters, just as part of the story.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Tolkien and Lewis both have a particular metaphor they're trying to get at. One is an allegory for World War One, and the other one is the Bible. Never heard of it.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

Yeah, and there are certain building blocks for what would later become commonplace and flourish in literature in the 20th century.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

End of part one.