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The truth about Grendel; I've discovered what Grendel really is!
Topic Started: Aug 31 2010, 10:40 AM (3,648 Views)
Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

Spartan Delta
Sep 1 2010, 09:20 AM
And I didn't say it was polar. I said whales can swim in polar areas, thanks to their blubber. I didn't say that England was polar - just cold. Mostly in the wintertime, anyway.

England isn't cold! It's comfortably warm.

Even in winter. And we have one of the smallest differences between winter and summer temperatures in Europe, even when currents magnify the difference.
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I know you explained it with a "semi-bipedal" possibility, but when something takes such a lifestyle as that, they seem to require a very specific build: a body with small forelimbs, a long and thick tail, and its center of gravity being in its pelvic region (i.e. a huge butt). Currently, very few mammals are known to be bipedal at all (us included), and the only animal that seems to be able to meet semi-biped criteria is the pangolin (which is really really weird).


Prehistoric examples include plateosaurus(generally prosauropoda), and possibly some crocodilians

But bears.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Practically Uninformed
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But bears only stand on 2 legs, don't they? I haven't seen any video of a bear running around like a man.
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

They can kind of stumble forward on their hind legs.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Scrublord
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Quadruped? Carnivorous? Sonar? I think I know. . . Grendel was a Future Predator!
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SIngemeister
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dialforthedevil
Sep 1 2010, 02:43 AM
Thank you for bringing Grendel up i almost forgot about the lovable guy :D
In my project Grendel is the last of a linneage of more savage Alpine Hunchbacks which are actively carnivorous...
I made them a kind of Troll in mine. Which are kind of gorilla dinosaurs. Apart from river trolls. Which are goblin shark-diplocaulus things.
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Pando
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Here's an interpretation of Grendel:
Posted Image

I always pictured them similar, although with sliver fur, a longer snout, and when chased can run quadrupedal. IDK why, that's just how I pictured it.
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Ddraig Goch
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Ar hyd y nos

The latest film adaptation of Beowulf pictured Grendel as some sort of grotesque disformed human.

Posted Image


I loved that film. It had giant one-eyed sea-worms in it as well. :D
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...oh my.
I've always seen him as a somewhat stereotypical ogre (humanoid, possibly horned, large build, etc.), but his mother being a hulking yet wispy giantess of a monster.
From a biological standpoint, though, his kind may be sapient Gigantopithecus.
Edited by Practically Uninformed, Sep 1 2010, 03:46 PM.
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Ddraig Goch
Sep 1 2010, 03:36 PM
giant one-eyed sea-worms
Does this remind you of anything?
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dialforthedevil
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Well im flattered Ddraig but mines slightly bigger :lol:
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SIngemeister
Sep 1 2010, 04:03 PM
Ddraig Goch
Sep 1 2010, 03:36 PM
giant one-eyed sea-worms
Does this remind you of anything?
"...the sea cucumber, with its one eye, blinking and blinking, looking at Rolf like a sandwich-! ...Am I boring you, Edd boy?"
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Carlos
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It reminds me of the arid precipice of human existence - alas poor Glycon -, the bane of the sour dreams of Neoptolemeus, the bacchian principle of the stagnation of the truth, and the urgent necessity to end the tyranny of adonaists, otherwise Tartarus will come unto Midgard and end the will of enjoying the realm of Khaos.
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Practically Uninformed
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...so is the display of our intellects, I suppose.
You may be a king or a lil' street sweeper, but sooner or later, you'll dance with the reaper!
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Spartan Delta
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Sep 1 2010, 01:07 PM
I know you explained it with a "semi-bipedal" possibility, but when something takes such a lifestyle as that, they seem to require a very specific build: a body with small forelimbs, a long and thick tail, and its center of gravity being in its pelvic region (i.e. a huge butt). Currently, very few mammals are known to be bipedal at all (us included), and the only animal that seems to be able to meet semi-biped criteria is the pangolin (which is really really weird).
While it is an intriguing concept-an extreme divergence from a very popular evolutionary line in mammals- it doesn't seem to fit what we know the proto-whales were capable of. Not to mention, there is a lot of literature that points to this thing being very man-like, with people even going so far as to call him a descendent of the biblical Cain.
...but, then again, it's theorized that ancient sailors mistook manatees for humanoid mermaids, so Grendel might've been an Ambulocetus descendant (whose stock, btw, lived in the Middle East).
EXACTLY! People then didn't know how to describe things as well, so I'm sure they'd still associate the bipedal standing as him being man-like.
And I didn't necessarily say it had to be Ambulocetus. Heck, it could be any of the proto-whales in that line.

I know that known proto-whales didn't have that type of body - I wasn't arguing otherwise. I was just saying that it's possible that Grendel could be one that did. I mean, there aren't any crocodilians with that gait alive today, and here we have Egyptians worshiping a bipedal crocodile god. So why would a biped whale be so unreasonable?


El Squibbonator
 
Quadruped? Carnivorous? Sonar? I think I know. . . Grendel was a Future Predator!

Nope. Grendel's semi-aquatic. Remember, they live in a lake?

But as a matter of fact, I did look to Primeval in designing Grendel's mother. For her, I imagined something like a Mer, but with reduced hind legs and larger.
And in fact, the poem says that the lake was on fire during the night, and that might be interpreted as a glow...

...I think Primeval fans can see where I'm going here.
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Spartan Delta
Sep 2 2010, 09:08 AM
Practically Uninformed
Sep 1 2010, 01:07 PM
I know you explained it with a "semi-bipedal" possibility, but when something takes such a lifestyle as that, they seem to require a very specific build: a body with small forelimbs, a long and thick tail, and its center of gravity being in its pelvic region (i.e. a huge butt). Currently, very few mammals are known to be bipedal at all (us included), and the only animal that seems to be able to meet semi-biped criteria is the pangolin (which is really really weird).
While it is an intriguing concept-an extreme divergence from a very popular evolutionary line in mammals- it doesn't seem to fit what we know the proto-whales were capable of. Not to mention, there is a lot of literature that points to this thing being very man-like, with people even going so far as to call him a descendent of the biblical Cain.
...but, then again, it's theorized that ancient sailors mistook manatees for humanoid mermaids, so Grendel might've been an Ambulocetus descendant (whose stock, btw, lived in the Middle East).
EXACTLY! People then didn't know how to describe things as well, so I'm sure they'd still associate the bipedal standing as him being man-like.
And I didn't necessarily say it had to be Ambulocetus. Heck, it could be any of the proto-whales in that line.

I know that known proto-whales didn't have that type of body - I wasn't arguing otherwise. I was just saying that it's possible that Grendel could be one that did. I mean, there aren't any crocodilians with that gait alive today, and here we have Egyptians worshiping a bipedal crocodile god. So why would a biped whale be so unreasonable?


El Squibbonator
 
Quadruped? Carnivorous? Sonar? I think I know. . . Grendel was a Future Predator!

Nope. Grendel's semi-aquatic. Remember, they live in a lake?

But as a matter of fact, I did look to Primeval in designing Grendel's mother. For her, I imagined something like a Mer, but with reduced hind legs and larger.
And in fact, the poem says that the lake was on fire during the night, and that might be interpreted as a glow...

...I think Primeval fans can see where I'm going here.
I think I do...
...GRENDEL'S A TIME LORD!
You may be a king or a lil' street sweeper, but sooner or later, you'll dance with the reaper!
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