There was a thread called “Beasts” before that mentioned animal life, but it’s under Season 1 and became entirely about Ungoliantë, so I started a new thread. In a way this is in reply to the first few posts of that thread which did discuss wildlife and Huan.
I feel that the wildlife, landscapes, and plants of Beleriand should resemble real-world, prehistoric western Europe. I discussed at length how I feel about the geographic and time-period correspondence here: https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/geographical-parallels.742/#post-12953
I can summarise by saying that, I feel, Beleriand and the Northlands should have a feel like western Europe during the very end of the Ice Age (14,500 to 11,500 years ago in the real world), with a cold and dry steppe climate in the Northlands, with Beleriand itself resembling a milder period with forest, woodlands, and mosaics of woodland and meadows and wooded steppe. I don't think there needs to be any emphasis or focus on wildlife, in fact outside of hunting scenes it can be ignored. But I do feel strongly there should be nothing non-European and nothing from any pre-human time period.
In Europe very recently (until massive deforestation and overhunting/extermination) there were wisent/bison, forest horse/forest tarpans, woodland reindeer, brown bears, northern lynx, elk/moose, wild boar, red deer, roe deer, grey wolves, badgers, and beavers all over the landscape, plus ibex and chamois in the hills and mountains, and seals and great auks all along the west coast. I also imagine that in the First Age there were some specific animals from the very late Ice Age: woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, steppe bison, wild horses/steppe tarpans, giant deer/"Irish elk", tundra reindeer, cave lions, cave hyenas, and wolverines – especially in the northlands (Hithlum, Ard-Galen, Lothlann) and northern East Beleriand -- plus polar bears and walrus on the Lammoth coast. Maybe wild oxen/aurochs and/or cave bears in southern Beleriand. East Beleriand, Lothlann, and Ard-Galen would be the "megafauna" hunting destination spots (although most of those animals aren't really that big, except mammoths* and rhinos*).
I would not like to see anything from any pre-human time period in Beleriand: no dinosaurs, entelodonts, Andrewsarchus, etc. Nothing that would be at all out of place in west Europe at a time when modern humans were living there. I accept that pterosaurs survived somewhere so Sauron could turn them into Fell Beasts, but I don’t want to see those in Beleriand. I think Dragons were based on regular snakes and lizards, to judge from how Tolkien illustrated Smaug and Glaurung as long and serpentine with dragging bellies. I do not see werewolves or wargs as being mutated from anything other than ordinary grey wolves, Canis lupus. Not whatever weird imaginary hyena thing Peter Jackson used, ugh.
*respectively, the size of a modern Asian elephant, and smaller than modern African rhinos
I like Irish wolfhound for Huan, though he does need to be larger than real ones so Luthien can ride him like a horse. So, pony-sized. Like so:
I feel that the wildlife, landscapes, and plants of Beleriand should resemble real-world, prehistoric western Europe. I discussed at length how I feel about the geographic and time-period correspondence here: https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/geographical-parallels.742/#post-12953
I can summarise by saying that, I feel, Beleriand and the Northlands should have a feel like western Europe during the very end of the Ice Age (14,500 to 11,500 years ago in the real world), with a cold and dry steppe climate in the Northlands, with Beleriand itself resembling a milder period with forest, woodlands, and mosaics of woodland and meadows and wooded steppe. I don't think there needs to be any emphasis or focus on wildlife, in fact outside of hunting scenes it can be ignored. But I do feel strongly there should be nothing non-European and nothing from any pre-human time period.
In Europe very recently (until massive deforestation and overhunting/extermination) there were wisent/bison, forest horse/forest tarpans, woodland reindeer, brown bears, northern lynx, elk/moose, wild boar, red deer, roe deer, grey wolves, badgers, and beavers all over the landscape, plus ibex and chamois in the hills and mountains, and seals and great auks all along the west coast. I also imagine that in the First Age there were some specific animals from the very late Ice Age: woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, steppe bison, wild horses/steppe tarpans, giant deer/"Irish elk", tundra reindeer, cave lions, cave hyenas, and wolverines – especially in the northlands (Hithlum, Ard-Galen, Lothlann) and northern East Beleriand -- plus polar bears and walrus on the Lammoth coast. Maybe wild oxen/aurochs and/or cave bears in southern Beleriand. East Beleriand, Lothlann, and Ard-Galen would be the "megafauna" hunting destination spots (although most of those animals aren't really that big, except mammoths* and rhinos*).
I would not like to see anything from any pre-human time period in Beleriand: no dinosaurs, entelodonts, Andrewsarchus, etc. Nothing that would be at all out of place in west Europe at a time when modern humans were living there. I accept that pterosaurs survived somewhere so Sauron could turn them into Fell Beasts, but I don’t want to see those in Beleriand. I think Dragons were based on regular snakes and lizards, to judge from how Tolkien illustrated Smaug and Glaurung as long and serpentine with dragging bellies. I do not see werewolves or wargs as being mutated from anything other than ordinary grey wolves, Canis lupus. Not whatever weird imaginary hyena thing Peter Jackson used, ugh.
*respectively, the size of a modern Asian elephant, and smaller than modern African rhinos
I like Irish wolfhound for Huan, though he does need to be larger than real ones so Luthien can ride him like a horse. So, pony-sized. Like so:
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