Morphological Conservation in Human-Animal Hybrids in Science Fiction and Fantasy Settings: Is Our I

Advances in Anthropology

2013. Vol.3, No.3, 157-163

Published Online August 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/aa) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aa.2013.33021

Morphological Conservation in Human-Animal Hybrids in

Science Fiction and Fantasy Settings: Is Our Imagination as Free

as We Think It Is?

Matthieu J. Guitton1,2

1Faculty of Medicine, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada

2Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Quebec City, Canada

Email: matthieu.guitton@fmed.ulaval.ca

Received March 1st, 2013; revised April 3rd, 2013; accepted May 20th, 2013

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

The question of whether human imagination knows no boundaries or is, alternatively, constrained by

conscious or unconscious cognitive templates is a key issue in defining human mind. We try here to ad-

dress this extremely large question by focusing on one particular element of imaginary creations, the spe-

cific case of human-animal hybrids. Human-animal hybrids are common inhabitants of human imaginary

spaces, being regularly encountered across numerous mythologies, as well as in modern popular culture.

If human imagination was unconstrained, it would be expected that such hybrid creatures would display

roughly half human and half animalistic features. Using several different popular science fiction and fan-

tasy settings, we conducted an analysis of the morphological traits of human-animal hybrids, both ana-

tomical and phenotypic. Surprisingly, we observed extremely high conservation of human morphological

traits in human-animal hybrids, with a contrasting high use of phenotypic (“cosmetic”) alterations, and

with highly stereotyped patterns of morphological alterations. While these alterations were independent of

the setting considered, shape alterations were setting-dependent and used as a way to increase internal

coherence. Finally, important gender differences were observed, as female human-animal hybrids retained

significantly more human traits than males did, suggesting that conservation of female appearance may

bear essential evolutionary importance. Taken together, these results demonstrate the existence of strong

cognitive templates which frame and limit the expression of the capacity of human imagination, and un-

veil some of the psychological mechanisms which constrain the emergence of imaginary spaces.

Keywords: Anthropomorphism; Gender Differences; Human Imagination; Imaginary Settings;

Science Fiction and Fantasy; Zoomorphism

Introduction

Human beings take great pride in the capacity of their

imagination. From mythologies and traditional folklores to

modern science fiction and fantasy works, human dreams and

fantasies seem to know neither limits nor boundaries. However,

are we as free as we think we are when it comes to creating new

universes, beings, or creatures; or, alternatively, is imagination

constrained by—conscious or unconscious—cognitive tem-

plates? Do coherent imaginary spaces emerge only from ran-

dom imaginary creation process, or from some hidden forms of

cognitive determinants such as general psychological con-

straints of the human mind?

Addressing directly this extremely large question would

however be an impossible challenge. By definition, coherent

imaginary universes encompass numerous components, and too

many factors could be involved in their creation. A good way to

approach this fundamental question is to analyze the way mod-

ern fictional settings are built. Indeed, while mythological sys-

tems and traditional folkloric tales are by definition highly cul-

turally constrained, modern science fiction and fantasy settings

are arguably more “free”, in the sense that their creators are

supposed to be allowed to actively express their creativity to

transcend, and often transgress, the limits of reality. Visual

proximity to standard human appearance has been shown to be

critical in virtual spaces (Lortie & Guitton, 2011). Therefore,

we choose one particular element of imaginary universes—the

specific case of human-animal hybrids—and investigated it

quantitatively in order to unveil the putative existence of cogni-

tive mechanisms underlying their genesis.

Human-animal hybrids (in the context of this study, “hu-

man-animal hybrids” will be considered as isomorphic to an-

thropotheriomorphic creatures, i.e., beings displaying both hu-

man and animalistic features) are common inhabitants of hu-

man imaginary spaces. Such creatures are regularly encoun-

tered across numerous mythologies (Eliade, 1965; Black &

Green, 1992; Pinch, 2004), as well as in modern popular culture.

From the Hawkmen of the planet Mongo (from the comic strip

Flash Gordon) to the Valusian Serpent Men of Howard’s Thu-

rian Age (Howard, 1929) or the Draconians, reptilian humanoid

extraterrestrials from the British television series Doctor Who,

fictional creatures featuring morphological traits both from

humans and from Earth animals are a common element of

M. J. GUITTON

various science fiction and fantasy settings. Such human-animal

hybrids can be extremely various, since any possible living

Earth creature could give rise to human-animal hybrids in one

fictional setting or another. If human imagination was uncon-

strained, it would be expected that such hybrid creatures would

display roughly half human and half animalistic features.

Using three different popular science fiction and fantasy set-

tings taken from cinema and television, we conducted an analy-

sis of the morphological—both anatomical and phenotypic—

traits of human-animal hybrids. Our results unveil surprisingly

high conservation of human traits in human-animal hybrids,

whatever the setting studied, alongside with extremely con-

served anatomical patterns of alterations. In contrast, shape

alterations appear to be setting-dependant. Finally, the results

highlight significant gender differences, female human-animal

hybrids retaining much more human traits than males do. Taken

together, these results suggest the existence of constraining

cognitive models of how living organisms should look, which

are able to overpower the creative processes involved in imagi-

nation.

Material and Methods

General Protocol

Human-animal hybrids were systematically searched for in

three different settings (see below). Regardless of the setting,

only adult subjects were considered. For each human-animal

hybrid identified, anatomical alterations were calculated as a

percentage of the body which differed from a standard human

body. To do so, we used body charts dividing the human body

into proportional areas (Lomanowska & Guitton, 2012). The

Lund and Browder chart is a commonly used body chart which

was developed to assess the amount of skin damage in burn

victims (Harvey et al., 1984; Kasten et al., 2011). The original

chart divides the body into a total of 33 areas. In order to in-

crease its accuracy and resolution power, we further subdivided

the largest areas (e.g., upper and lower legs, torso) and areas

with characteristic features (hand subdivisions, spine), resulting

in a total of 49 areas. The use of these charts has been demon-

strated to have a high degree of reliability and consistency

(Wachtel et al., 2000; Lomanowska & Guitton, 2012).

For each subject, two measures were made for each area:

presence or absence of morphological alterations (i.e., modifi-

cation altering the skeletal structure of the subject), and pres-

ence or absence of phenotypic alterations (i.e., any phenotypic

element not found in a human being, e.g., non-human skin

color, fur, feathers, scales, etc.). The scores were then con-

verted into two percentages: the percentage of the body mor-

phologically altered, and the percentage of the body pheno-

typically altered.

For each subject, the putative presence of additional limbs

(arms, legs, wings, or tails) was noted. Finally, global shape

alterations (taller, smaller, fatter, or thinner than a normal hu-

man) were also recorded.

Corpus 1: Star Wars

We selected as the first model of a science fiction and fan-

tasy setting the fictional universe of “Star Wars”. Centered

around two series of three films (the original trilogy released

between 1977 and 1983; and the prequel trilogy released be-

tween 1999 and 2005), Star Wars is one of the most popular

science fiction and fantasy universes, spanning from movies

and novels to virtual spaces in which very large fan communi-

ties are extremely active (Guitton, 2012a, 2012b).

Star Wars features the classical elements of a science fiction

setting: technologically advanced civilizations, numerous—

humanoid and non-humanoid—alien species, spaceships and

space travel between distant planets, futuristic weaponry, intel-

ligent droids, etc. But interestingly, Star Wars also features the

classical elements of fantasy: the prominent role of a mystical

power referred to the “Force”, the dichotomous opposition of a

monastic order of mystically empowered “knights” (the “Jedi”)

and an evil group of equally empowered hidden warriors (the

“Sith”), characters engaged in epic adventures and far-travel-

ling quests. Lightsaber duels and Force powers provide a por-

trayal extremely similar to a classical “swords and sorcery”

setting. Hence, Star Wars encompasses characteristics from

both science fiction and fantasy, and represents a perfect exam-

ple of what such a universe could be.

Since our aim was to characterize the capacity of human

imagination in a manner that was as unbiased as possible, we

focused our sampling on the movies of the prequel trilogy with

Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released on May 19, 1999;

Episode II: Attack of the Clones, released on May 16, 2002;

and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released on May 19, 2005,

to avoid as much as possible the limitations related to the spe-

cial effects technologies of the early 80s compared to the com-

puter-assisted possibilities of the early 2000s. Among the nu-

merous aliens of the movies, several displayed animal features,

and were clearly originally designed as human-animal hybrids

(Figure 1). Human-animal hybrids were sampled from the

movies, and their anatomical and phenotypic characteristics

were quantified as described above. For each species, only one

individual for a given morphological type was counted. How-

ever, if several different morphological types existed within one

species (for instance the Gungan, with a standard morphologi-

cal type represented by the character of “Jar Jar Binks”, and

with a different morphological type seen with “Boss Rugor

Nass”), all of them were counted. When the movies were not

enough for evaluating the morphological (anatomical or phe-

notypic) characteristics of the subject, or in case of gender-

ambiguous characters, complementary information was ob-

tained from the extensive and authoritative online database of

the Star Wars universe “Wookieepedia” (http://starwars.wikia.

com/wiki/).

Figure 1.

Example of a human-animal hybrid in the Star Wars setting. (A) A

two-headed alien that was not considered as a human-animal hybrid. (B)

An alien (in this case a Quarren) that was considered as a hybrid be-

tween a human and a cephalopod.

158

M. J. GUITTON

Corpus 2: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

To overcome the limitations of the Star Wars universe setting

as a model and to extend our results, we selected another sci-

ence fiction and fantasy corpus: the setting of “He-Man and the

Masters of the Universe”. He-Man is an extremely large media

franchise created by Mattel in 1981, which has been extended

since then to include four animated series, numerous comic

books, films, toy lines and other products, all of them relating

to the adventures of Prince Adam, a member of the royal family

of the fictional planet Eternia. Thanks to a mystically imbued

sword, Prince Adam can become He-Man, a Conan-like bar-

baric warrior with super-human strength fighting with his allies,

the Heroic Warriors, against evil forces lead by the infamous

Skeletor. Like the Star Wars universe, the setting of He-Man

and the Masters of the Universe has the characteristic of com-

bining both elements of swords and sorcery, and of science

fiction, featuring alongside heroic warriors and villainous foes,

ancestral magic, powerful artifacts, mystical creatures, and

science fiction technologies.

For the present study, we selected the most recent material

available from this franchise, i.e., the “He-Man and the Masters

of the Universe” animated television series developed between

2002 and 2004 by Mike Young Productions. All human-animal

hybrids featured in the 39 episodes of the two seasons of the

series were sampled and included in this study. The sampling

approach was the same as described above: for a given species,

only one individual per morphological type was selected. For

instance, all the cat warriors of Season 1 Episode 10 “Dragon’s

Brood” were morphologically identical, hence they were

counted only one time; in contrast, the Andreenids, a bee-hu-

man hybrid race, displayed three distinct morphologies for the

males: the one of the heroic warrior Buzz-Off, the bee soldiers

who were taller and displayed different chitinous alterations,

and the fatter and smaller basic bee workers, which, in addition

to the female Andreenid bee queen, resulted in four different

morphological types, hence four counts in the selected corpus.

Excluded from the sampling were hybrids of human and

mythical creatures (for instance, “King Hiss”, a hybrid of a

human and a hydra, leader of the Snake Men and main villain

of Season 2, first seen extremely briefly in Season 1 Episode 21

“Snake Pit”, then in most of the episodes of Season 2; or

“Snake Face”, a hybrid of a human and a gorgon, first seen in

Season 2 Episode 4 “Rise of the Snake Men, Part 1”, Figure 2).

Excluded were also characters under transient transformation

resulting in a hybrid of a human and a hybrid, or between two

hybrids (mainly seen in Season 2 Episode 8 “Second Skin”,

with a spell hybridizing humanoids with snake men, resulting

in human-lion/human-snake hybrids (cat warriors under the

spell) or human/human-snake hybrids (the heroic warriors

Man-at-Arms, Teela and Mekaneck under the spell). Indeed, in

the case of such complex hybridization situations, the theoreti-

cal 50/50 repartition of human and animal features could not be

assumed, and the results would have biased our sampling.

Two characters that evolved significantly during the series

(namely Stinkor (from a human-sloth hybrid to a human-skunk

hybrid, and Webstor, with two independent and strongly dif-

ferent forms of human-spider hybrid) were thus counted twice,

once for each human-animal hybrid form.

Corpus 3: She-Ra: Princess of Power

Since both the Star Wars movies and the two seasons of the

Figure 2.

Example of a human-animal hybrid in the New He-Man setting. Two

Snake Men, (A) Snake Face, a hybrid of a human and a mythological

creature (a gorgon), which was not included in our sampling, and (B)

Kobra Khan, a hybrid of a human and a cobra, included in our sam-

pling.

most recent He-Man animated series showed extremely few

female human-animal hybrids, we selected a third science fic-

tion and fantasy setting as a model. Since our aim was to spe-

cifically identify female human-animal hybrids, we choose the

setting of “She-Ra: Princess of Power”. Following the initial

success of the “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” series,

Mattel aimed to specifically reach a female audience, and Fil-

mation studios developed the animated series entitled “She-Ra:

Princess of Power” encompassing 93 episodes between 1985

and 1987.

The series takes place on the planet Etheria, where the Great

Rebellion tries to free the planet from the hideous ruling of the

powerful Evil Horde. Odds change in favor of the Rebellion

when former Horde captain Adora discovers she is the twin

sister of Prince Adam and able to transform into the powerful

She-Ra, the female mirror image of He-Man, when wielding a

mystical sword akin to the one of He-Man. This series share

with “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” the character-

istic of featuring both fantasy and science fiction elements.

Despite being a continuation of the initial franchise, the

“She-Ra: Princess of Power” series is clearly aimed at a female

audience, and therefore, the number of female characters is

significantly higher than in most of the other science fiction and

fantasy settings. Thus, this setting suited our needs perfectly.

We sampled all the human-animal hybrids featured in the 50

first episodes of the She-Ra: Princess of Power animated series.

The sampling approach was exactly the same as the one we

described in the previous paragraph (2.2. Corpus 2: He-Man

and the Masters of the Universe). For human-animal hybrid

characters able to shapeshift (shapeshifting being a relatively

common power in the “She-Ra: Princess of Power” setting, e.g.

Catra, Hordak, or Imp), only the “main form”, defined as the

most frequently taken form, was counted.

Statistical Analysis

For each of the anatomical areas evaluated, percentages were

computed for each setting, and within each setting, for each

gender. Independent percentages were obtained for morpho-

logical and phenotypic alterations. Due to various sizes of the

samples, we did not want to assume normality. Therefore,

comparisons between phenotypic and anatomical percentages

of alterations, and comparisons between male and female sub-

M. J. GUITTON

jects were made using non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test.

The non-parametric distribution free Kolmogorov-Smirnov test

was used to compare the distributions of patterns of alterations

(Eadie et al., 1971; Stephens, 1979). All comparisons of distri-

butions with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test were performed at

the 0.05 level of significance. When applicable, results are pre-

sented as mean ± SEM.

Results

Star Wars

Among all the alien characters depicted in the three movies

of the prequel Star Wars trilogy, 26 different morphotypes were

identified as human-animal hybrids. Surprisingly, all of them

were males: while a few Star Wars aliens are female, it was

impossible to clearly identify any of them as human-animal

hybrids. Only 20.1% ± 3.7% of the body of the subjects dis-

played morphological alterations compared to the standard

human body form (Figure 3).

When considering the patterns of morphological alterations,

i.e., the specific anatomical areas which underwent morpho-

logical modification, we uncovered that only a few body areas

were favoured as the main targets of body alterations. The pat-

tern of morphological body alteration was clearly not random

(significantly different from a random 50% per area pattern of

alteration, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, p < 0.05), but was highly

conserved across subjects. Most of the modifications were

concentrated in several common areas (e.g., head, hands, and

feet), while other areas were almost never altered (e.g., torso,

arms). Interestingly, while the hands were often altered, the

alterations mostly consisted of a reduction in the number of

fingers (from 5 to 4 or 3) without other modification of the

shape of the hand or its functionality.

In contrast, the proportion of phenotypic alterations observed

(clearly non-human skin color, fur, feathers, etc.) was strikingly

different. Indeed, the Star Wars human-animal hybrids dis-

played 85.2% ± 6.7% of phenotypic body alterations (signifi-

cantly different from the percentage of morphological altera-

tions, p < 0.001, Figure 3).

Major deviations from the basic anatomical form of the hu-

man body, such as presence of additional limbs, were uncom-

mon. Only 19.23% of the observed subjects displayed a tail,

11.54% displayed wings (never resulting in the loss of the

hands), 7.69% a pair of supplementary arms, and none supple-

mentary legs. Major alterations of shape were more common.

In our sample, 34.62% of human-animal hybrids were smaller

than standard humans as portrayed in the same setting, 19.23%

were fatter, and only 11.54% were thinner and 3.85% taller.

He-Man

We identified 38 human-animal hybrids in the 39 episodes of

the two seasons of the 2002-2004 “He-Man and the Masters of

the Universe” animated television series. No gender-ambiguous

characters were identified. The overall degree of morphological

alterations from human standard anatomy was of 26.6% ± 3.3%

of the body (not significantly different from what was ob-

served for Star Wars, p = 0.122, (Figure 3). Similarly to what

was seen for Star Wars, the phenotypic alterations were consid-

erably higher, affecting 87.3% ± 5% of the body (significantly

different from morphological alterations in He-Man setting, p <

0.001; but comparable to the phenotypic alterations in the Star

Figure 3.

Percentage of the human body morphologically and phenotypically

altered for male and female human-animal hybrids in the three settings

observed. This figure shows the percentage of the body altered for male

(upper panels) and female (lower panels) human-animal hybrids. For

each panel, the left column represent the percentage of morphological

alterations, and the right column the percentage of phenotypic altera-

tions. For each setting and gender, the size of the sample (number of

subjects) is indicated. ***denotes a difference between morphology and

phenotype of p < 0.001, # and ## denotes a difference between males and

females of p < 0.05 and p < 0.01 respectively.

Wars setting, p = 0.889, Figure 3).

However, extremely interesting results were observed when

considering gender differences. Although not common, a few

female human-animal hybrids were identified in the “He-Man”

settings. Among the 38 subjects, there were 33 males and 5

females. Striking differences emerged when considering gender

as a variable. The percentage of morphological alterations of

the 33 males was of 29.2% ± 3.5%. However, the 5 females

displayed only 9.6% ± 5% of their body as morphologically

altered. These two proportions were significantly different (p <

0.05). The fact that it was possible to statistically assess this

difference despite the female group being relatively small con-

firmed the strength of this effect.

A similar dichotomy was evident when analyzing the pheno-

typic alterations. While males showed 94.1% ± 3.6% of pheno-

typic alteration (not significantly different from the Star Wars

setting, p = 0.379), female human-animal hybrids showed only

42.8% ± 22.4% of phenotypic alteration (significantly different

from the He-Man males, p < 0.01).

As observed in the Star Wars setting, additional limbs were

relatively uncommon, with only 21.21% of the males and none

of the females displaying supplementary arms (all of them be-

ing human-invertebrate hybrids, either human-insects or hu

man-arachnids), and no supplementary legs were noted, neither

for males nor for females. The occurrence of tails was compa-

rable between males (21.21%) and females (20%). The case of

wings was interesting, as only 18.18% of the males displayed

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M. J. GUITTON

wings, while this proportion reached 80% among the females

we observed.

Again, as in Star Wars, alterations of shape were common.

However, the type of shape alterations observed was fully dif-

ferent than in Star Wars. In the He-Man sample, 51.51% of

male human-animal hybrids were bigger (taller and with

stronger built), and only 9.09% were smaller, 6.06% thinner,

and 6.06% fatter. No shape alterations at all were observed for

female human-animal hybrids.

Due to the marked presence of the Snake Men, we were able

to identify a sub-group of human-reptile hybrids, consisting of

7 subjects. The case of these human-reptile hybrids was par-

ticularly interesting. Indeed, while 25.43% ± 2.19% of their

body showed morphological alterations, 100% of their body

presented phenotypic alterations. Furthermore, the proportion

of subjects wielding a tail increased significantly to 57.14% (p

< 0.05). Finally, skull and facial alterations occurred in 100%

of the cases for these hybrids, altogether resulting in a particu-

lar and characteristic sub-type.

She-Ra

Since female human-animal hybrids were not commonly

seen in the two previous settings, we specifically considered a

“female-enriched” science fiction and fantasy setting, the

“She-Ra: Princess of Power” universe. As expected, the uni-

verse of She-Ra had an overall higher proportion of female

characters, and a significantly higher proportion of female hu-

man-animal hybrids. In the first 50 Episodes of the series, we

identified 32 human-animal hybrids, including 22 males and 10

females (i.e. a proportion of 24% of females among human-ani-

mal hybrids). No gender-ambiguous characters were identified.

The global morphological alterations observed in the She-Ra

setting represented only 15.9% ± 3.3% of the body, which was

not significantly different from what was observed in the Star

Wars setting (p = 0.34), but significantly different from what

was observed in the He-Man setting (p < 0.01). This difference

can be explained by the high proportion of females within our

sample. Indeed, as seen in the He-Man setting, female hu-

man-animal hybrids displayed significantly less morphological

alterations than males (Figure 3).

When considering only male hybrids, the overall extent of

morphological alterations was 19.6% ± 4.4% of the body,

which was still higher than the proportion observed for male

hybrids in the He-Man setting (p < 0.05), but not significantly

different from the proportion of morphological alterations ob-

served in Star Wars (p = 0.983). In contrast, only 7.8% ± 2.9%

of the body was morphologically altered for female human-ani-

mal hybrids, which was similar to what was observed for the

female hybrids from the He-Man setting (not significantly dif-

ferent, p = 0.16), but was significantly different from the mor-

phological alterations in females in the She-Ra setting (p < 0.05)

and in males in the He-Man (p < 0.001) and Star Wars settings

(p < 0.05).

Concerning the phenotypic alterations, the She-Ra setting

replicates what was observed in the two previous settings. The

overall proportion of the body displaying phenotypic alterations

was 70.8% ± 7.5%, which was not significantly different from

either the Star Wars (p = 0.26), or the He-Man settings (p =

0.166). Once again, we observed major differences between

male and female human-animal hybrids. While males displayed

a proportion of 84.5% ± 7.4% of their body with phenotypic

alterations (not significantly different from the males of Star

Wars, p = 0.753, or of He-Man settings, p = 0.716); females

displayed much less phenotypic modifications, accounting for

only 40.9% ± 14.1% of their body, which was not significantly

different from the proportion of phenotypic alterations observed

for He-Man females (p = 0.667) but was significantly different

from the proportion of phenotypic alterations of She-Ra males

(p < 0.01), Star Wars males (p < 0.01), and He-Man males (p <

0.001)

The female sampling in the She-Ra setting was large enough

to conduct a more detailed analysis of the exact modifications

observed. Again, the proportion of female hybrids displaying

wings was higher than for male hybrids (40% vs. 22.73%).

However, apart from wings, female hybrids did not show sup-

plementary limbs (0% of supplementary arms, 0% of supple-

mentary legs, and 10% of “other” supplementary limbs, in this

case due to one human-octopus hybrid displaying two tentacles).

Shape alterations were also limited (20% of female hybrids

being smaller than regular humans, compared to 22.73% for

males; no other shape alterations were evident for female hy-

brids).

Discussion

The main conclusion of this study is that human imagination

is contrainted by cognitive templates. The process of creation of

humanoid creatures in science fiction or fantasy settings is not

random, but obeys very strict set of—conscious or unconscious

—rules. While the body appearance can be altered, human

morphological traits are highly conserved. The patterns of

morphological alterations are extremely stereotyped. Finally,

female human-animal hybrids retain more human traits than do

males (Figure 3).

Patterns of Alterations: Morphology vs. Phenotype

While phenotypic alterations were extremely common, true

anatomical alterations were much more limited. This was first

observed in the setting of Star Wars. However, this particular

universe presented a few problems: first, despite presenting

extremely important diversity (Guitton, 2012b), the Star Wars

universe was still only one particular setting; second, despite

their famous special effects, the Star Wars movies were still

shaped by the limitations inherent of a movie; third, while fe-

male aliens were observed, no female hybrids were identified in

this setting. Therefore, we decided to choose a second setting—

He-Man—to see whether these results could be generalized.

This was indeed the case. However, very few females were still

observed. Hence, we selected a third setting specifically de-

signed to incorporate a higher proportion of female characters.

The results obtained with the She-Ra setting confirmed our

conclusions.

Almost all types of animal species were represented in our

sampling. Despite a few specific instances related to the set-

tings (see below), modifications were more “cosmetic” than

“structural”. In other words, the observed modifications af-

fected “aesthetics” rather than “biology”. Most modifications

consisted solely of theriocephaly (replacing a human head by

the head of an animal). Tails, one of the most animalistic and

identifiable traits, were largely absent in human-animal hybrids.

Thus, we observed more “animal-tainted humans” rather than

true animal-human hybrids.

Although being often altered, the hands always kept their

M. J. GUITTON

role as an interface used to manipulate the world. In the vast

majority of the cases, the modifications of the hands only con-

sisted of a reduction in the number of fingers. An opposable

thumb was almost always present. In the most extreme cases,

for instance when the hands were replaced by claws, the capac-

ity to manipulate was nearly intact. The claws of Scorpia

(She-Ra universe’s woman-scorpion hybrid) allowed her to

read a book, and the claws of the crab-men (New He-Man set-

ting) allowed them to tie a rope (Season 1 Episode 22 “The

Island”) or to hold a sword (Season 1 Episode 25 “The Council

of Evil Part 1”). Extremely few hybrids had non-functional

hands (for instance, Leech in New He-Man Season 2 Episode 9

“The Power of Grayskull” and in the She-Ra setting, or the

spawns of Webstor in New He-Man Season 2 Episode 2 “Web

of Evil”).

Different sub-types of human-animal hybrids followed more

specific patterns. Supplementary limbs were mostly found for

human-invertebrate hybrids. In the case of human-bird hybrids,

the wings were almost never present instead of hands, but

rather in addition to hands (in all the hybrids we observed, only

one had wings instead of hands). When the wings were not

supplementary limbs, they typically grew out from the forearms,

leaving the hands free.

Human-reptile hybrids also followed a specific pattern of al-

terations, characterized by full phenotypic modifications and an

increased probability of displaying a tail. Interestingly, this

particular pattern can be observed in other science fiction and

fantasy settings, for instance in the Thunder Cats universe with

the reptilian “Slithe”, the brutish leader of the Plun-Darr mu-

tants (the first villains encountered in the 1985-1989 animated

series) or the Lizards (the race of lizard men of the 2011 series),

who are extremely comparable in appearance to the He-Man

Snake Men. In the world of role-playing games, the “Draco-

nians” and “Troglodytes” of the extremely popular settings of

the Forgotten Realms (the Dungeons and Dragons and Ad-

vanced Dungeons and Dragons family of role-playing games)

are other human-reptile hybrids exemplifying these particulari-

ties.

Shape Alterations

Although the global patterns of anatomical modifications

appear to be shared across the different science fiction and fan-

tasy settings we observed, the alterations of global body shape

seem to be specific to each particular setting.

For instance, the Star Wars setting seems to favour smaller

shapes for human-animal hybrids (a third of the hybrids ob-

served were shorter than a standard human). This particularity

extends further than just the human-animal hybrids, and may be

seen as a “trademark” of Star Wars humanoid creatures, as

observed in the original trilogy with the popular Ewoks (hu-

man-bear hybrids inhabiting the forest moon of Endor), or in

the Star Wars extended universe with for instance the Mrlssi

(human-bird hybrids inhabiting the planet Mrlsst in the Tapani

Sector). Similarly, other non human-animal hybrid aliens of the

Star Wars setting seem to share this shape alteration, for in-

stance the Jedi Grand Master Yoda, or even droids. Worthy of

note, one of the very few characters present in all of the six

movies of the two trilogies is the diminutive droid R2-D2.

Symmetrically, the setting of the planet Eternia in the

He-Man universe similarly favours a certain type of body shape

alteration for the human-animal hybrids (in this case, these

hybrids are often bigger and generally more muscular than the

average human of the related setting). Once again, this body

shape alteration seems to reflect a general trend of the setting,

as notably confirmed by the presence of giants (seen for in-

stance in Season 1 Episode 20 “Buzz Off’s Pride”, or in Season

1 Episode 25 and 26, “Council of Evil, Part 1” and “Council of

Evil, Part 2”).

This use of alterations of body shape conserved within a

given setting appears to be a factor of coherence. Creatures

with other shape alterations can of course exist (e.g., Wookiees

in Star Wars), but may look “out-of-place” in the given setting

(for instance, the Kaminoans seen in Episode II of Star Wars

display a combination of body shape alterations relatively un-

conventional for the Star Wars setting: tall and utterly thin, and

“alien-looking” to the Star Wars settings. This unconventional

appearance is reinforced by their distinctive architectural and

design style, contributing to the general role of an alien species

“isolated” from the main galactic influences). The degree of

conservation of shape alterations within a particular setting

could be seen as a degree of internal coherence of this setting.

Not surprisingly, specifically children-targeted settings such as

He-Man present a higher conservation of the patterns of shape

alterations, allowing for an easier immediate identification and

recognition.

Gender Differences

While human-animal hybrids were a common sight in all of

the three science fiction and fantasy settings we studied, female

human-animal hybrids were surprisingly extremely rare. Fe-

male hybrids were absent or almost absent from the first two

settings we studied. Even when looking at a specifically “fe-

male-enriched” setting, the proportion of females among hu-

man-animal hybrids hardly reached one fourth.

Female hybrids were not only much less common than male

hybrids, but also much less altered physically. Indeed, female

hybrids displayed far fewer modifications compared to a stan-

dard human than males, both in terms of morphological and

phenotypic alterations. In addition, alterations of shape were

extremely rare, regardless of the particular setting.

Conservation of female traits seems to be critical. Female

appearance may bear more constraints for identification; these

constraints seem to overpower the creative processes involved

in imagination. Similar higher conservation of female features

compared to male features has also been evidenced in virtual

spaces, through the existence of a compensatory phenomenon

between avatar appearance and naming (Guitton, 2010). While

there was no difference between male human and non-human

avatars, non-human female avatars enriched their names with

“female features” to “compensate” for the departure of their

appearance from a standard human female by hyper-feminiza-

tion of their name (Guitton, 2010). From an evolutionary per-

spective, the “natural” appearance of the human female body

could have more meaning than we thought.

Limitations

While the repetition of the results over three different inde-

pendent settings seem to indicate that the conclusions could be

reasonably generalised, there are still some limitations to this

study. First, these three settings may reflect some cultural bias.

We choose science fiction and fantasy setting to avoid such bias

as much as possible. Second, the role of the expectations of the

162

M. J. GUITTON

audience should not be underestimated when considering a

popular science fiction or fantasy setting. However, it is impor-

tant to note that this is true too for mythological systems and

folkloric tales. Third, one may argue that the observed con-

straints may be related to commercial issues: most of these

visual fictional settings are accompanied by products to be sold

as toy lines. Humanoid figurines would be easier to sell due to

customer identification process. However, examples taken from

toy history of the He-Man franchise seem to contradict this

hypothesis. Indeed, humanoid figurines extremely far from

standard human template (such as the multi-limbed demon

“Modulok”) or even purely non-articulated animals (such as the

Gringer/Battle Cat toy) were extremely popular and sold very

well, despite being actually far more expensive than the stan-

dard toys of the line.

Conclusion

By combining cultural anthropology and anatomical ap-

proaches, this study enabled us to unveil some of the funda-

mental cognitive mechanisms underlying human imagination

process. Studying science fiction and fantasy settings allowed

us to pin-point some psychological determinants defining the

imaginary coherent universes. The process of generation of

human-animal hybrids is not random, but follows constraining

rules, which are shared across settings. The high degree of

conservation of human features, particularly for female hybrids,

as well as the presence of repeated patterns of anatomical al-

terations, suggests the existence of constraining cognitive mod-

els of how living organisms should look like. This importance

of human morphotype echoes the trends observed in virtual

communities in which social organization depend on the degree

of proximity of the avatars to human standard appearance (Lor-

tie & Guitton, 2011). The present study cannot decipher

whether the constraining rules observed are conscious or un-

conscious, or biological or cultural. However, it clearly demon-

strates the existence of strong cognitive templates which frame

and limit the expression of the capacity of human imagination.

Acknowledgements

The present work was supported by the Natural Sciences and

Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC—grant

number 371644). MJG holds a Career Grant from the “Fonds

de la Recherche en Santé du Québec” (FRSQ).

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