Mermaid Anatomy

      I spent almost a decade of my life wanting to be a marine biologist. (It started because the ocean is beautiful and terrifying and I wanted to conquer some of my fear. The reason it lasted so long is that I am prone to obsession and have stubbornness issues.) As a result of spending so long learning about fish and whales, etc. I have developed a major problem with mermaids. Well, merpeople. It's not limited to the females. 
      The issue isn't that they're creatures of legend. No, my issue is that they're supposedly part-fish, but traditionally the way they're anatomically portrayed they would be mammals. If you've ever taken the time to observe differences between marine mammals and fish, there is one very obvious difference that can be noted from a distance.  Dolphins, whales, manatees all have tail fins that are horizontal and provide thrust with an up and down movement.  Sharks and all other fish have vertical tails that move from side to side. Now, picture Disney's Ariel in her mermaid form, or any other portrayal of a mermaid.  I'd be literally shocked if any of them didn't have horizontally positioned tail fins. 
      The anatomical issues of the merpeople continue with their upper half. Their human half is obviously that of a mammal with the appropriate vertebrae. With the spine of a human, it would be impossible for a mermaid to get any sort of speed if it were actually half-fish. The motions necessary to produce thrust would be extremely difficult and clumsy. So basically, if mermaids were a reality, they would be mammals, not fish, and would therefore have to surface regularly to breathe. Additionally, their lack of a blowhole would make breathing a huge hassle. (Pretty much mermaids are much more illogical than most people realize.)
       Historically it makes sense. It's believed that the legends of mermaids began as a result of sailors spotting dugongs or another manatee relation munching on long seagrass and a combination of limited visibility and long months at sea resulted in the stories of mermaids that have continued through generations down to our time. Or maybe mermaids did once exist, but their many anatomical failings brought about their own extinction.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Good Storytelling and Bad

      Good storytelling requires two things: firstly, you need the audience to be interested in the story you're telling. Secondly, you have to keep them interested. The particulars on how to do so vary a bit genre to genre.  However, one of the most effective ways to lose an audience's interest is to tell them things you aren't showing them.      What do I mean by that? Well, for example, say I'm watching a movie and five or ten minutes in the main character is described as "caring too much", but everything I've been shown about this character makes them seem flighty, immature, attention seeking, and a bit self-righteous. Now as an audience member, I'm immediately distrustful of anything I'm told going forward. Admittedly, Edger Allan Poe does an amazing job using the "tell something not shown" concept rather ironically in "Tell Tale Heart", so it is possible to tell a compelling narrative like that, but only if you're tryi...
Read more

A Fairytale Not Forgotten, But Maimed

    Hans Christian Andersen published a story in 1837 and this tale, like many of his other works became a well known fairy tale. A classic. Then in 1989 something happened.  Someone made a movie of this story. Sort of. It had the same name. It even shared a number of major plot points, but the ending...  Let's just say so many artistic liberties were taken that the original storyline was murdered, dismembered, and then reconstructed into something that bears a faint resemblance to what it once was, much like Frankenstein's monster.      I am speaking of The Little Mermaid .  So, what did Disney's plot salad get right? A number of things: the little mermaid being youngest daughter of the widowed sea king, a bunch of sisters, her fascination with the surface world, a prince having a birthday party on a ship that sailed into a storm, her rescuing him and leaving him on a beach, trading her ability to speak and sing to a sea witch for legs, the princ...
Read more

Fantasy Anatomy: Wing-ed Humans

Something that annoys me, as made apparent by my previous mermaid related rant, is fantasy anatomy that doesn't account for the actual movements necessary for the modifications or additional appendages to be useful. The addition of wings, to otherwise human characters commonly suffers from this pitfall.  For whatever reason, generations of writers have attached wings to the shoulder blades. If you were dealing with insect based wings, such as those of a dragonfly, bee, or butterfly, as commonly found in descriptions of fey folk such as pixies, it isn't so much an issue as the mechanics involved in their flight are distinctly different from those of bird or bat wings.   For characters with bird or bat-like wings however, the range of motion needed to actually fly isn't possible if the wings sprout from the shoulder blades. These wings are attached to the animals body from the glenohumeral joint, or where our arms attach to our torsos, and need the same range of motion as o...
Read more