“The beast emerged slowly, reaching out to grip the edge of the box with tiny four-fingered hands. Its fur was damp, and its huge eyes blinked in the glow of the heaters. It looked about attentively, twitching as it pulled itself farther from the broken egg… At least it was clear enough that the creature didn’t eat humans. It was far too small for that, and too… appealing, even with its strange excess of skin. Somehow the large eyes seemed wise and sad. Alek found himself wanting to pick the animal up and comfort it… It was strange, how the creature didn’t give him the same uneasy feeling as other Darwinist creations. It was too small and sleepy-looking, and gave off an air of preternatural calm” (129-131).
As Alek is about to escape from the Leviathan, he notices that one of the eggs of Dr. Barlow is about to hatch. To Alek, the beast seems to captivate him; unlike the other Darwinist beasts, this one seemed to give off emotions like sadness from its countenance. He could tell it was harmless, and it was a creature that made him feel calm, despite his situation and him being a Clanker and therefore being in direct opposition to manmade creations such as this creature.
Based on the author’s illustration of the creature, it reminds me of a monkey and lemur hybrid; it doesn’t striking look to be a creature that would provide Alek with a sense of calm and tranquility, but maybe that’s just me. Yet, this creature is supposed to have the power to accomplish Dr. Barlow’s mission of making the Ottomans allies to the Darwinist nations. So, it’s a cute and adorable creature by the book’s standard, and it possesses a great amount of power to change the tides of the war. It’s definitely ironic and somewhat of a cliché, but it’ll be interesting to see Westerfield flesh this out.
The way that Westerfield describes the beast as “appealing” and the way that it gives off a tranquil aura once again support the idea that not all Darwinist creations are meant for warfare. Well, actually, that’s not completely true; this creature supposedly has the power to change the tides of war, but besides that, its abilities and appearance do not denote anything dangerous about it. Being a newborn baby, or having its image being described as being similar to that of a newborn baby, helps to create this innocence image of the beast and therefore support the idea that Darwinist creations can be majestic in their own right.
As a reference to one of my earlier posts, this cute little creature who can’t hurt a fly supports the idea that our current society is falling victim to “cute, little, fluffy” objects and animals and are buying into this image and appearance. Animal breeders are looking to create animals that will look appealing; toy makers are pushing out products that have this “cute” image, like Hello Kitty or Barbie dolls.
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