KA's dolphins

[Coal Kropotkin]

i was just wondering, if anyone else was disappointed by KA's depiction of intelligence in dolphins?

she made them child like, and while i liked that aspect, i just felt they should have been... smarter...

anyone feel the same?

[DinosaurNothlit]

I believe it's been said that the morph-mind is usually just the basic instincts, so it made sense to me that the playfulness of the dolphin is played up and the intelligence is played down.

My answer is thus sort of a cross between "didn't notice" and "was not [bothered]", but I actually answered the latter.

[Mira]

By the way... Who says you can't be intelligent just because you are child like?

[ChimichangaChupacabra]

What do you want, them setting up little underwater chem laboratories or something?

Dolphins are smart.  Smart for animals.  They still basically have the same personalities as Jake's friggin' dog.

[Phoenix004]

I know some very intelligent people who still act like toddlers half the time, that's just the way they are. Your personality isn't the same thing as your intelligence. Personally I rather liked how KA described the Dolphins.

[Coal Kropotkin]

I believe it's been said that the morph-mind is usually just the basic instincts, so it made sense to me that the playfulness of the dolphin is played up and the intelligence is played down.

My answer is thus sort of a cross between "didn't notice" and "was not [bothered]", but I actually answered the latter.

okay that i understand.

and no i did not wan underwater chem labs, but even the animorphs were wary of morphing them because they expected much more intelligence.

[agentAK]

This isn't Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

[Chad32]

Cassie was the only one wary about morphing them. I think the dolphin morphs were fine.

[Coal Kropotkin]

This isn't Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

haha! beautiful! lol!

okay fine then jeeze! i'm the only one, okay! lol

[Galladerotom]

To be honest Applegates interpretation of animal minds was mainly based on basic knowledge in many cases. Plus I don't think they had as much information on animal psyche as we do now.

[Loligo]

I really didn't think that any more description into dolphin intelligence was necessary beyond a basic "dolphins are smart" speech from Cassie. People are generally more entertained by their playfulness than their intelligence, which was why I think she spent much more time on that.

To be honest Applegates interpretation of animal minds was mainly based on basic knowledge in many cases.

All too true. For the "fun" creatures like dogs, birds, and dolphins, she seemed to put a little more effort into researching the behaviour and psyche. However, I was severely disappointed when they morphed sharks, and it seemed that all of her information came straight from "Jaws". Sharks are mindless, man-eating machines? Please.

[wildweathel]

To be fair, she didn't say or even imply "man eating," just intensely focused and having strong instinctual reactions to prey stimuli.  Even though (fairly recent) research has shown that sharks have problem solving skills and even play, that does not change the fact that sharks do not teach their young to hunt (unlike felids, canids, and apes, for example), and thus have a fairly high degree of instinct at their disposal.

[Shock]

K.A.'s Dolphins were pretty much what a kid's book needed to be.

fun, playful, etc.

however, real-life dolphins can become(and sometimes, are) nasty little ****ers socially. they hunt, they compete for mates (have seen a case where two male dolphins isolated a bunch a females to their cove so that they would only mate with them and male dolphins occasionally kill younger ones) and they have trials of dominance like every other social species on this planet.   

[esplin]

I liked her dolphins alright, But I can see what you're getting at.

[CDJV]

The Pemalites were playful little guys, and they invented the Chee. So I think KA did fine.