User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-35218602-20200819204908

I have noticed an inconsistency in the way that we handle describing the species of characters who are of the nature of fictions come to life, particularly in the case they are representations of other real world and/or DWU species. For example;

Mona Lisa has her species listed as painting.

Articles like Lemuel Gulliver and Childeric studiously avoid using a species entirely.

The article Streaky Bacon explicitly identifies its subject as a "pig".

Now, to get philosophical for a second, can a fictionally created representation of a species truly be said to be a member of it? What defines a "non-human". Certainly, the point of The Holy Terror is that the people in Eugene's World were indeed people, and their slaughter at the hands of the child is a tragedy. But, in the DWU, "people", doesn't always equal "human".

The way I see it, we have multiple options;

1. Call each one a "unique being" (seems a bit odd to me, but, hey, we're all individuals!)

2. Have each "variety" of fictional character as its own species (i.e. Land of Fiction creation, Living painting, etc.)

3. List stuff like "cartoon", "painting", and "novel character" as "species"

4. Have each sub-subversion be a separated species (i.e. Eugene's World humanoids, Crooked World porcines)

5. Treat "fictional character come to life" as a "species", placing Eugene's World people, crooked world creatures, land of fiction people, living paintings, etc. under one banner and as all of the same race (albeit a rather abstract one).

6. Simply studiously avoid any and all species references on any and all such pages

Which should we do? Because at the moment we seem to be inconsistently implementing various variations of the above from article to article. I see no argument for Streaky Bacon being any MORE of a "pig" than Childeric, O'Grady, and Lemuel Gulliver are humans. Maybe Mona Lisa is a little different since she openly balks at being called human and requests to be called a living painting, but, even then, we list CyberConversion victims with self-awareness like Sally Phelan and Yvonne Hartman as "Cybermen", and Oswin Oswald as a "Dalek", designations they would equally protest to. Perhaps there is some other option I haven't though of, but, whichever way it is done, it should at least be somewhat consistent, as, right now, its a free-for-all.

In a nutshell: What measure is a non-human, are living fictions still fictions, and is Panda REALLY a Panda?