Reviews WebComic / Raine Dog

Mark Lungo: Maybe I can explain Raine Dog to you, Potman. At least, this is what I think Simpson is getting at.

You know all those Lions And Tigers And Humans Oh My cartoons and comics where Talking Animals live side by side with humans? I believe Raine Dog is an attempt to deconstruct that trope by exploring what such a world would really be like. The answer? The animals would be second-class citizens at best, because Humans Are Bastards—not all of them, but enough.

What Measure Is A Non Human in Raine Dog's world? Well, we've already seen that animals are treated the same as in Real Life, even though they can talk. If you break the rules, you might wind up neutered, as Raine Dog does. If you're the wrong species, like the cows, you're literally dead meat. When I first read Raine Dog, I wondered if humans would really treat sentient animals that badly—but then I had a Fridge Brilliance moment when I remembered how we frequently mistreat each other. Is it really that much of a stretch to imagine that humans would abuse and exploit creatures who are literally another species?

I hope I've explained Raine Dog (or at least my interpretation of it) to anyone who might be having trouble with it. Thanks for reading!

Thanks, but... um. That really didn't help much. The whole thing still confuses me.

What's not to understand? It's an exploration of the ramifications of Talking Animals in a realistic contemporary setting, from the perspective of a talking animal.

It's a world where animals have human-level intelligence and the ability to communicate; how, then, does what we consider "normal" human behavior towards animals look? Raine is someone's pet, but she's also a person; more a human with canine characteristics than vice-versa. Raine's progression from puppyhood to adulthood is spent tied to a tree in someone's front yard; it's heartbreaking to consider a dog going through that, but if Raine were a human, it would be unforgivable cruelty.

Sure, it can be seen as a bizarre soapbox, but I like the way it plays with preconceptions. That, and the fact that the "present day" scenes imply a world where these Talking Animals are accepted in human society on a human level; it'll be interesting to see how things get to that point.

If animals were that smart, they should have made a civilization of their own. Also a combination of intelligence, dexterity, and the ability to walk upright is the only thing that keeps humans on top. If all of the animal kingdom has that advantage (apparently more due to the fact that the dog can speak to all animals without needing to learn a language and that they have superior senses and strength), humans wouldn't be in the top in the first place.

Not necessarily. Any number of things could have led to humans being on top: Trickery, exploitation, war, ect. The means by which these circumstances arose has yet to be fully explained. One possibility may be they the animals are psychologically predisposed to life outside civilization, as is being hinted in the current arc where Raine becomes part of a wild pack in the forest. However, the pack's desire to remain untamed could very well be a reaction to the maltreatment that dogs have received from humans, leaving the true cause of the disparity unconfirmed.

The only other possibility that I could see comes from the protest flashbacks that occur early in the series. They are analogous to the American civil rights movement, hinting that the circumstances of oppression may have been similar to that of the African Americans'. Again, however, this is unconfirmed.

So what your saying is a specie of weak, stupid, evil, greedy, racist, war-loving, meat-eating people that needs more than decade to mature oppressed a planet of strong, intelligent, humble, nature-loving animals that has the natural ability to talk each other with out education. Also we raised people on farms to be eaten.</sarcasm>

When dealing with these kind of things, it is good to use a good metaphor or to lampshade it and never talk about it again.

I see it more as a simple deconstruction of the Talking Animal genre myself. I mean, using the "they should have built their own civilization" argument, I could just as easily say that all the vigilantes from Watchmen would've gotten their ass kicked.

That said, the allegory does trip it up quite a bit, as do the attempts to be more serious than it really needs to be, but I find it fairly easy to ignore. If anything, I find the Schedule Slip to be the most annoying part...and the Author Avatar who happen's to be Raine's best human friend. That was a Wall Banger.