Behemoth - Elephantines

“I didn’t know Clanker countries had elephantines!” Newkirk cried.
“That’s no beastie,” Deryn said. “It’s a barking walker.”
The machine lumbered forward on huge legs, its tusks swaying back and forth as it moved. Four pilots in blue uniforms sat on saddles that stuck out from its haunches, one pilot working the controls for each leg. A mechanical trunk, divided into a dozen metal segments, swept slowly back and forth, like a sleeping cat’s tail…
“Diplomacy is all about symbols,” Dr. Barlow said. “Elephants signify royalty and power; according to legend an elephant divined the prophet Mohammed’s birth. The sultan’s own war machines are made in this same shape” (101-102).

In this scene, the crew aboard the Leviathan witnesses an elephantine that has come to pick them up and escort them in Istanbul or Constantinople. However, upon closer inspection, it was not a Darwinist creation, but a Clanker creation modeled in the same fashion as an elephant with the same body parts with a pilot controlling each body part. Dr. Barlow explains to the crew that this walker was modeled after an elephant for it symbolically represented.

I think it’s neat that the Clankers have developed their machinery after Darwinist creations; there’s definitely a sense of synergy between the two different types of technology used within the novel and it does give the impression that the two can coexist with each other rather than pit each other’s technology against one another. Modeling animals with technology has already been done in real life too; we have cat-shaped alarm clocks, and teddy bear cameras, so having this kind of cooperation in the novel seems reasonable.

In a more serious sense, modeling Darwinist creatures with Clanker technology is a way of paying tribute to the power and beauty of such animals like the elephant; it’s nothing like in reality where this is really just used for the “cuteness” appeal to children who don’t know any better. This passage reveals how such modeling is a way of symbolism and diplomacy and shows the readers how much animals are revered in this world, even by the opposition, who goes so far as to even model their machinery and creations after the Darwinist creations. Vivid description from the author of the elephantine walker, as well as Dr. Barlow’s description, helps establish this idea to the readers that animals are revered as symbols of the world. This sort of idea does counteract the idea established in previous posts that the Darwinists have the potential to create dangerous creatures; they also have the potential to create majestic creatures of symbolic importance as well to the world.

While advertisers and marketers in the present day continue to push out toys and products modeled after animals to target the younger audience, this book seems to indicate that we should be taking a different approach. Instead of using these models for entertainment purposes for younger audiences, there lies the possibility of using animal-modeled technology for convenience purposes or travel purposes; imagine being able to travel on an elephant across a river…