They’re Not Animals

Part of the Anthropomorphic Writing series

Last time, I introduced the concept I call “Humans in Fur Coats” — the idea that my anthropomorphic characters are, at their core, fundamentally human in mind, soul, and purpose. That naturally raises a follow-up question: if they’re so human, what actually makes them animals?

The answer might surprise you.

Nothing.

At least, nothing to them.

The Internal Worldview

In my world, the anthropomorphic characters do not think of themselves as animals. They never have, and they never will. The words “Man,” “Woman,” “Child” — these flow naturally from their lips, without irony and without quotation marks. They are the words they use because those are the words that fit. Because those are what they are.

If Boris Volorsky — a Lupenite, what we might call a “wolf-person” — somehow crossed into our world, he would not identify himself with a wild wolf on a nature documentary. He would look at us — at regular human beings — and see just another species of human. He might wonder why we have such flat, round faces, why we only grow hair on the tops of our heads, why we have such smooth skin and no tails. But he would adjust quickly. Because in his mind, humanity is not a single mold. It never has been.

He wouldn’t even know what a “wolf” is. Wolves don’t exist in his world. Lupenites do. And Lupenites are people.

Why Only Carnivores?

This raises an important question: if multiple species bear the Image of God in my world, why only carnivores? Why not rabbits, deer, or horses?

The answer lies in a principle of harmony — a reflection of how God has ordered creation in our own world.

In our world, Mankind stands at the top of the natural order. We are the apex of the food chain, not merely biologically, but by divine design. God placed Man over creation — over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves on the earth (Genesis 1:28). This dominion is both natural and spiritual.

In my anthropomorphic world, I asked: what creatures most closely mirror that position? The answer is carnivores — the apex predators of their local ecosystems, sitting at the top of their food chains exactly as Mankind sits at the top of ours. These two facts harmonize. Carnivores are “Human” in my world because they most closely reflect the real-world order of Mankind as the crown of creation, beneath God Himself.

Anthropomorphizing herbivores would break this harmony. It would not only disrupt the ecosystem’s balance — it would blur the theological logic that holds the whole world together.

Imago Dei — The Image of God Across Species

This is where the concept I call Imago Dei becomes essential.

The question I asked when building this world was this: if God were to create an anthropomorphic world, how would He do it?

My answer: He would give His Image to many creatures rather than one — creatures of different sizes, shapes, and physical variety — while keeping the same spiritual and moral foundation in place. The result is a world populated by distinct people groups, each bearing the Image of God, each fully human on the inside, each living within the natural laws God set in place for such a world.

The best analogy I know is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings, you have Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, and Men — four distinct species, each with their own culture, history, and appearance. There are no crossbreeds in Tolkien’s world. These groups remain separate and distinct. And yet, implicitly and explicitly, they all bear the Image of God. They all have souls. They all have moral weight. They are all, in the deepest sense, human.

Another example: Superman. Clark Kent is, technically speaking, a Kryptonian alien. He is not biologically human. And yet no one who reads a Superman comic thinks of him as anything other than profoundly, undeniably human — in heart, in soul, in the way he wrestles with sacrifice, love, duty, and grief. His humanity isn’t in his DNA. It’s in his Imago Dei.

The same is true for Wonder Woman. Diana Prince is, technically, the daughter of Zeus and Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons — a divine being, a goddess with a lowercase g. And yet the most compelling Wonder Woman stories are always about her humanity — her brokenness, her compassion, her struggle to understand the world she has entered. She is fully human where it matters most.

My anthros work the same way. Boris, Sergei, Larissa, Dimitri — despite their differences in appearance, size, and physical ability — carry the same spiritual DNA as we do. The Imago Dei is not a human-shaped stamp. It is a divine one.

The Naming Principle

This is also why there are no wolves, lions, or bears in my world.

Wolves, lions, and bears are animals — creatures from our world, carrying all of our world’s associations with wildness, instinct, and nature. Those associations have no place in a world where these creatures are people.

In my world, they are Lupenites. Leonites. Ursinians. Vulpens. Tiscythians. These are not animal species. They are people groups — the way “Japanese” or “Nigerian” or “Scandinavian” describes a group of human beings. The naming convention is a worldbuilding statement: these are civilizations, not classifications.

In their world, animals are something else entirely. Animals are Sergei’s pet rats, Gus and Herbert. Animals are the elephants and zebras at the zoo. The distinction is clear — and it is never lost on the characters who live there.

The Fourth Wall Problem

Most anthropomorphic fiction takes a very different approach — and it’s worth understanding why, and what it costs.

In most anthro stories, the characters seem acutely aware that they are animals. And more than that — they seem aware that the reader knows it too. This creates a kind of winking self-consciousness: the wolf character makes a joke about howling at the moon, the rabbit nervously twitches her nose at a tense moment, and the audience leans forward and points at the screen: “See! She’s being a rabbit!” The story and the reader are in on the joke together.

This is a legitimate creative choice, and works like Zootopia and Beastars have done extraordinary things within that framework. But it does introduce a specific limitation: when characters are measured against the expectations of an outside audience, the fourth wall is always present — even when it’s never literally broken.

The most telling example is how “enhanced senses” get handled. A wolf character will be described as having hearing or a sense of smell far beyond what a normal person possesses. And that’s true — compared to us. But that’s exactly the issue. The word “enhanced” only has meaning relative to a baseline. And in most anthro fiction, that baseline is the human reader on the other side of the page. The characters are, in a subtle way, always performing for an audience outside their world.

In my world, that framing doesn’t exist. Boris does not think of his sense of smell as “100 times stronger than a human’s.” It is simply his sense of smell. It is the baseline. It is normal. He has no other frame of reference — and neither does anyone around him. There is no wall to break when the wall was never built in the first place.

What the Animal Element Actually Does

None of this means the animal element is irrelevant. Far from it.

The animal qualities in my characters do real work — they just do it quietly, in the background, without ever pulling the story out of its world.

Size and physical stature vary dramatically between people groups. Vulpens stand about two feet tall. Leonites can reach nine feet. Grizzly and Polar Ursinians — the largest among the people groups — can grow to twelve feet. These are simply facts of their world, as natural as height variation between human ethnicities.

Physiology matters too. Lupenites carry roughly twice the muscle mass and produce roughly twice the hormonal baseline of you or I. This is why Boris and his sons look like they stepped off an Olympic stage just from lifting weights three times a week — and why the women of that line carry a natural beauty that turns heads wherever they go. It is not magic. It is biology.

And then there is movement. Wolves, in nature, must keep moving or their systems begin to decline. This fact echoes through the Volorsky family in ways they would never articulate as “because I’m a wolf.” For them, it is simply who they are. They are obsessed with fitness, with discipline, with physical excellence — because something deep in their makeup demands it.

The animal shapes the character. It never announces itself.

Simply Human

The difference between most anthropomorphic worlds and mine comes down to a single question: who knows what?

In most anthro fiction, the characters know they are animals, the reader knows it too, and the story is built on that shared understanding — often with great creativity and skill.

In my world, no one knows. Because there is nothing to know. The Imago Dei has been given broadly, to many kinds of creature, and each of those creatures is simply living the fullness of what they are. The fur, the tails, the ears — these are not markers of animality. They are simply what it looks like to be human in a world where God chose to make human look like many things.

Boris is not an animal who thinks he’s a person.

He is a person. Full stop.

And if you told him otherwise, he would be confused — and more than a little offended.

— Eric Flegal