Click to see the glory of Horteth and his extra toes!
Coloured and edited by Con
it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope,
and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.Horton Hears a Who & The Lorax BlueQuote:
"A person's a person, no matter how small.”
Name: Horteth
Colour: Blue
Age: 22 months
Feel of voice: A slightly off-beat dance, a sense of attentive listening, the feeling your favourite childhood story gave you.
Appearance: In terms of his conformation Horteth is average in every way... except he has seven toes on each forefoot, six on each hind foot, and six fingers on each wing. His feet will always appear comically oversized and as a youngster he will trip a lot but as he grows he will become remarkably sure-footed, note that that's sure-footed not
graceful. In the air however he actually will be graceful, undeniably so in fact. Having one extra finger on his wings makes each individual portion of sail smaller and gives him enviably fine control in the air. Especially fast he will never be but he will excel at tight turns and compensating for high winds.
Personality: Everyone matters, so Horteth believes. Whether you are big or small, shiny or dusky, six limbed or four, male or female or otherwise, whatever you are you are important and deserve to be happy. He does not seem to have and capacity for deliberate cruelty and always strives to be thoughtful to others, considerate of their wants and needs. He is not especially interested in changing the politics of the Weyr (though if he could stamp his foot and make the system equal for all he would), what preoccupies him is the way people are treated and the conditions of their day to day lives. Horteth does not think it right that for all of their hard word drudges eat mainly hard bread and don't even get a smile from most people most days, or that the phrases 'only a green' and 'this is
men's work, dear' exist. Such things will never be heard from Horteth and on occasions when he slips up on more subtle matters - inadvertently insulting or undermining a person or group of people he didn't properly understand - he will be quick to apologise, sincerely, and will seek to understand better next time.
Horteth really
does listen well and not just that he pays attention too, pays attention to what people actually say they need and want rather than what he might think that they should. You can't call yourself a true friend if you project your own ideas too much onto what people say, and you can't really help people you don't understand properly, and you won't understand if you don't listen properly! Anyway he likes to listen to people, everyone has something interesting to say if you listen well enough.
If everyone matters, which they do, then it can't be right for any one person to have so very much more than another. Horteth despises materalism and the hoarding of wealth; he will not tolerate it in those he loves. Comfort is fine of course; he would not
want to deny his rider comforts and little luxuries but extravagance is right out. Couldn't the money you are saving for a thick golden arm ring, or shining golden firelizard be better used to help somebody who isn't even comfortable? Visit a small Hold and give a fraction of those marks to a struggling family, see what they can grow from so little; or perhaps you could pay an apprentice fee or two, or three? Imagine the difference to the world one bright child able to follow their calling could make if only you reached out and gave them that chance. He will be quite upfront, though not confrontational, with his rider and those he is very close to on matters such as this but with those he knows less well Horteth is rather more oblique....
A lot of people, perhaps even most, will probably think that Horteth is a silly and possibly not very bright dragon full of silly stories. These people are wrong, well about the not very bright bit anyway; Horteth
is rather bright and can sneak an awful lot of stuff past a lot of people by talking them in circles until their eyes cross. While the tales this blue spins are whimsical they're certainly not silly; they all have a moral to them (though he's clever not to beat people over the head with the message), and it is through his stories that he communicates his beliefs about fairness, embracing diversity and so on to most of the world. Horteth's memory for his own tales is quite exceptional; they will often change in small ways from one telling to another but he never forgets the important parts of the narrative.
Personal freedom is also very important to Horteth and he doesn't believe that people should be forced to take a path in life they don't want to. Why should a Weyrbrat become a candidate if they would rather follow a craft? Why must every dragon and rider pair stick to the work of the nine wings? Fighting Thread, well he understands that, but not the rest. Why not let a rider craft if they would be better at that? If they wish to work in the crèche not swing a sword or push papers, why not? And why are dragons, thinking feeling creatures, given so little power to decide their own destiny? When it comes to his own duties Horteth can be a little lackadaisical... okay maybe even a bit lazy. He can focus on the immediate work of a drill but paying attention for long outside that will not be his greatest strength; he will have a bad habit of disrupting things by chatting to his wingmates, and may doze off or
wander off if his wingleader goes on for too long.
Positive: Kind, considerate, creative, intelligent
Negative: Lackadaisical, a bit lazy, short attention span for things that bore him
Why me?: Horteth listens to people, picking up not just on the surface of things but on potential too. He choose Vanavia because he believes that she has the potential to blossom into something wonderful given the right encouragement, and because he loves her curiosity about the world; a trait he shares with her! This thoughtful blue will introduce his rider to experiences and points of view she might never have experienced had she not left home, and he will encourage her to be a little more open herself. In return, well Horteth could probably use some of Vanavia's sense of duty. He will need her encouragement to focus on his work and his duties, to keep him from just wandering off to talk to new and interesting people when he should be paying attention!
Inspiration: Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, began work on Horton Hears a Who! in the fall of 1953. The book's main theme, "a person's a person no matter how small", was Geisel's reaction to his visit to Japan, where the importance of the individual was an exciting new concept. Geisel, who had harbored strong anti-Japan sentiments before and during World War II, changed his views dramatically after the war and used this book as an allegory for the American post-war occupation of the country. He dedicated the book to a Japanese friend. The story centres around an elephant named Horton who, while splashing in a pool, hears a small speck of dust talking to him. Horton surmises that a small person lives on the speck and places it on a clover, vowing to protect it. He later discovers that the speck is actually a tiny planet, home to a community called Whoville, where microscopic creatures called Whos live. The Mayor of Whoville asks Horton to protect them from harm, which Horton happily agrees to, proclaiming throughout the book that "a person’s a person, no matter how small." He then goes through a series of misadventures in his attempts to protect the Whos from the other jungle animals who don't believe the Whos exist.
The Lorax meanwhile chronicles the plight of the environment and the Lorax, who speaks for the trees against the greedy Once-ler. The book is commonly recognized as a fable concerning the danger corporate greed poses to nature, using the literary element of personification to give life to industry as the Once-ler and the environment as The Lorax.
Though Geisel made a point of not beginning the writing of his stories with a moral in mind, stating that "kids can see a moral coming a mile off," he was not against writing about issues; he said that "there's an inherent moral in any story," and he remarked that he was "subversive as hell." Many of Geisel's books express his views on a remarkable variety of social and political issues, including Horton Hears a Who (1954) and The Lorax (1971). Other notable examples are "The Sneetches" (1961), about racial equality; The Butter Battle Book (1984), about the arms race; Yertle the Turtle (195
cool , about Hitler and anti-authoritarianism; and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957), criticizing the materialism and consumerism of the Christmas season.
Geisel wrote most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, a poetic meter employed by many poets of the English literary canon. This is often suggested as one of the reasons that Geisel's writing was so well received. Anapestic tetrameter consists of four rhythmic units, anapests, each composed of two weak syllables followed by one strong syllable (the beat); often, the first weak syllable is omitted, or an additional weak syllable is added at the end.
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