I was watching Stephen Colbert on the O Reilly factor when he talks about bears being giant maurading Godless killing machines, and I immediately thought of Rachel just being a killing machine. And I thought of Cassie's wolf and being one with nature, and formidable yet not overly powerful, and I thought of Marco being a gorilla which is rather peaceful and wants to be left alone, much like himself. Plus they are primates, like monkeys and "monkeying around" means goofing off, which applies heavily to Marco. And then I thought how Tobias's bird represents freedom. And I had all these things in my subconscious I suppose but never really dwelled on them. I wonder how many of them were on purpose.