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Author: Theriocephalus

Nov 9th 2017 at 4:53:20 PM

Personally, I support the idea of making this a sister trope to HorseOfADifferentColor and expanding it to include the use of any "exotic" animal (i.e. not oxen, draft horses, sled dogs, etc.) as beasts of burden. There just doesn't seem to me to be a good thematic reason to only include cats -- the reasoning seems to be that they're difficult to train and associated with magic, but these things apply to a lot of animals.

Anyway, if the trope ''does'' get expanded, here's some examples for later. I included some examples I saw in the comments to put them all in one place.

* In ''Film/TheHobbit'', Radagast is shown riding a sled pulled by a team of enormous rabbits.

* In ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'', the humans of Arianus use a species of enormous flightless birds known as tiers as beasts of burden.
* In ''Literature/{{Leviathan}}'', the Darwinists use a large variety of bio-engineered creatures as chariot-pullers and beasts of burden. Among those seen are elephantines and mammothines (presumably modified elephants and mammoths) as well as a cart pulled by a pair of wolf-tiger hybrid creatures.
* In ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'', Jadis the White Witch rides a chariot pulled by a pair of polar bears in battle.

* Myth/NorseMythology:
** Thor rides a chariot pulled by a pair of billy goats.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}''
** The Dark Elves use chariots pulled by Cold Ones -- essentially, vicious, scaly ''Franchise/JurassicPark''-style raptors.
** The Beastmen use chariots drawn by enormous, mutated boars covered in bony spikes.
** Among the Greenskins, Orcs use chariots drawn by normal (but still huge and foul-tempered) boars, while the Goblins use wolf-drawn chariots instead.