Predators Editor: Kit 
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What's your favourite predator - real or fictional?
Humans are drawn to predators. And they make for great stories.
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter, then, contains cats, and dinosaurs, dragons and and other creatures of tooth and claw.
Kit |
I have a predator on my lap. He's purring. Benji's large, and soft, and fluffy and a truly adorable cat. It's easy to forget that he's a predator. That, to smaller creatures, he is definitely not as cute as he is to me.
I live in a country where there are no big predators that could threaten me - not nowadays. Apart from other humans, I suppose. When I walk the cats at night, I don't have to fear being hunted. I do have some instincts that remain from when my ancestors must have been around big predators - sometimes, in the dark, when there are rustlings in the undergrowth, or animal calls that I do not recognise, the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I feel on guard. Is it a deer, a fox, a badger? My mind cannot help but conjure up images of something bigger, toothier... dangerous.
I love movies about big predators. Jurassic Park is my favourite movie, after all. I know that the dinosaurs aren't exactly historically accurate, but that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of it. I watched it in the cinema, back in the day, and when the T-Rex approaches it felt like the ground shook. Imagine facing a predator like that! Or the velociraptors! Of course, dinosaurs went extinct long before humans emerged, so no human had to ever face one. There have been other big predators around, though, over the course of human history. Sabre-toothed cats, cave lions... I love cats, but I don't think I would have wanted to get close to one of those!
Still, predators can make for wonderful stories - whether the predator is real, or is the product of human imagination. The movie Predator, for example, sees humans targeted by something of a more extra-terrestrial nature. This, too, is the case in the movie Alien.
I don't tend to watch the more traditional monster movies, like King Kong, because I often end up feeling sorry for the monster. That may be the intention - to show how reactionary humans can be - but then I end up feeling bad about being a part of humanity and that's not what I look for in my entertainment, either. And don't get me started on the whole dragon-slaying thing. I much prefer stories where humans and dragons work together. That said, I do like how the A Song of Ice and Fire novels examine the reality of living with an enormous predator like that. A dragon is a predator. It needs to eat. That can cause devastation around its local area - then again, so does feeding a human army.
If we could befriend dragons, would we treat them as equals or try to use them as a weapon? Some of us might simply rejoice in the wonder of friendship, and flying on a dragon's back, whereas it's likely that others would be unable to resist the power that it could give them.
Humans are weird... or it seems that way. We may be predators, but some of us are far more predatorial than others. Our ancestors were both hunters and gatherers. We've formed interspecies bonds with herbivores, omnivores and carnivores. A percentage of humans actively chooses to not consume any animal products. We have moral rules, though those morals differ from nation to nation, across time, and even from person to person. War has been with us throughout our history, yet many people abhor violence. We philosophise about right and wrong. About the secrets of the universe and our place in it. Our obligations to the world around us. Perhaps this is because the majority of us no longer has to hunt in order to survive. Our societies have become highly complicated, but with less of a sense of threat and urgency (outside of war zones, anyway). I don't know the internal world of a lioness, but I figure there's less room for moral philosophy when she has to pounce that wildebeest to feed her family.
It's just as well that my cats are the size that they are. And well-fed. I still find it special, the way we humans have come to share our lives with such different beings - from birds and horses to cats and dogs. Despite our differences, we have found a way to coexist, and even thrive together. I love my little predators. Even when I now cannot move, because one must never move a sleeping feline.
Kit
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Action/Adventure: July 15, 2026 Issue [#13847]
