Joan Macht Covenant

[iQuestor]

by picking away at your dominance do you mean taking a bite out of your ass when you turn your back? or running up on you and knocking you down with their chest? Ive seen that happen and ive had a pony try to bite my shoulder before, luckily he got me with his lips first and i was able to get away with a torn shirt. I never thought horses would chase you ..but they will LOL..my friend was in a field getting some wood...uh..let me specify wood for the fire that night and 5 horses came trotting up and he started running and dropped the wood and the horses broke after him and actually tried to cut him off from running back to the main fence, i have Brahma bull stories too but I'll stick to the topic of horses for now, I can imagine trying to work with an animal that big and train it. seems to be a few horse trainers here, so im sure you have run into an untrainable horse? something you cannot dominate? what happens to that horse when its spirit cant be broken? do they punish horses for acting like Ranyhyn in our World?? hehe..

I worked at a horse farm in high school. They raised Appaloosas. Most were trainable; they used a round pen and a short crop. There was one who would bite, but not really come after you. Horses that are allowed to roam freely and are not normally used for shows or riding can get a little wilder since they are used to more freedom and less control.

I dont think SRD got it wrong -- people who take horses to horse trainers are there to spend a lot of money, and its generally a business decision. Sure, those horses can be mean and may be aggressive, but usually not over the top as you describe above. Most of these horses have a lineage or are bred stock. Unusually agressive horses who cannot be brought under control are likely either destroyed or used for another purpose.

The guy in your story ran from the horses. A Trainer would never do that, indeed never turn their back on the animal, its rule number one. Horses are animals and they will take the upper hand if you give it. If your friend hadnt acted that way, the encounter would very likely have been less aggressive -- Horses are curious. Cows will do similar things, though not as aggressive as horses. Also, if one of the horses had a foal or felt like it was protecting its turf, it is also more aggressive. Horses brought to trainers arent protecting their own turf or their young. A competent trainer will always have the upper hand, and can mostly keep themselves out of danger.

[Lepus]

This is fascinating stuff. I'm particularly interested in the interaction thread.

A bit like TC, I'm afraid of horses. I have no idea why - I'm not scared of Elephants, and big dogs don't frighten me in the least. That is not to say I'm not sensibly cautious but I just don't feel the fear I have around horses. Even the tiny ponies we have in the New forest frighten me.

So what is it that allows us to dominate other creatures - human beings included? (Cats excluded, obviously.) Is it simply lack of fear? I know from training dogs that one must establish oneself as being "Alpha" and that being "Pack Leader" is born out of fear.

But this simply does not work with Elephants - you can train an Elephant with rewards of pain and punishment and that is fine until the Elephant decides you would look better as a steaming puddle. SRD's idea of seduction, IMO worked better. Or maybe I just worked with some really gentle heffalumps.

So - with Dogs it is fear and Elephants friendship (and, again, I'm no expert so please correct me). Where do Horses lie? *

And where do humans?


* Yes - I know Horses sleep standing up - most of the time...

[hue of fuzzpaws]

Just a query. Is Macht Joan's surname before her marriage?

Also, has there been any discussion about how SRD showed that both TC and Joan are both creators, for example, how TC created his first novel, then, SRD contrasts this with Joan's inward creation of Roger.

LFB pg 15 " Then, when her body told her that the time had come, she [Joan] quit working. At that point, her life turned inward, concentrated on the task of growing her baby with a single-mindedness that often left her outward eyes blank and tinged with expectation."

[iQuestor]

Just a query. Is Macht Joan's surname before her marriage?

Also, has there been any discussion about how SRD showed that both TC and Joan are both creators, for example, how TC created his first novel, then, SRD contrasts this with Joan's inward creation of Roger.

LFB pg 15 " Then, when her body told her that the time had come, she [Joan] quit working. At that point, her life turned inward, concentrated on the task of growing her baby with a single-mindedness that often left her outward eyes blank and tinged with expectation."

I think it was something like 'SatansHeart' or 'SoulCrusher'

[Lepus]

I think there may have been some confusion here - are we talking pregnancy or chocolate?

[Linna Heartbooger]

Or did he get them wrong too? You tell me, as I don't know much about horses either. In fact, just about all that I know of them I've learned from reading the Chronicles. So if SRD has been telling lies about horses, it's up to you to straighten me out.

Umm, see... with the Ranyhyn.. they are not "horses" - they are "the horse people." They are a people of their own, and also have many attributes of horses. I think I sorta suspended what I expected horses to do, and thought of them as "beings of the Land" and I never much bothered to compare them. They in many ways embody the external beauty, power, glory, and gracefulness that _I_ see on the outside when I see a horse galloping... so maybe that is alot of it.

So I'm weaseling out of answering that one.

I'm guessing that much of how he wrote about horses had to do with personal experience... see the links amanibhavam posted.

seems to be a few horse trainers here, so im sure you have run into an untrainable horse? something you cannot dominate? what happens to that horse when its spirit cant be broken? do they punish horses for acting like Ranyhyn in our World?? hehe..

See, I don't believe that there is such a thing as an untrainable horse. Just a horse that no person has yet learned how to control...

A wise trainer would discipline such a horse mildly, and with forethought and consistency in such a way that the horse associates discomfort with bad behavior, and reward (or release from pain/discomfort) with good behavior.

A foolish trainer would probably get his/her ego into the situation, and beat the horse unreasonably, and in a way in which the horse does NOT associate the punishment with the actual bad behavior ...sadly, THIS poor training and the resulting fear in the horse is what usually results in the so called "untrainable" horses "with bad habits."

So what is it that allows us to dominate other creatures - human beings included? (Cats excluded, obviously.) Is it simply lack of fear? I know from training dogs that one must establish oneself as being "Alpha" and that being "Pack Leader" is born out of fear.

One major reason is just that we humans are way smarter. iQuestor mentioned the round pen. We humans figured out that if someone stands behind a horse's center of balance and motions a stick, they can command the horse to move forward. (I've never used a round pen myself, but I totally believe the people who talk about this method. If you're bored and interested in this... I'm pretty sure that googling the horse trainer "John Lyons" would bring up some fascinating info. It's kinda amazing.)

We humans are able to think outside of ourselves, and make long-term goals. We know that horses generally want to do what is the "easiest thing possible." So we contrive means (generally using small bits of reward-and-punishment) to make "what we want the horse to do" to become easier than resisting. We humans develop saddles, bridles, and harnesses which put pressure on to small areas of the horse's bodies, but make it impossible for them to resist.

We also know the long-term picture. The horse doesn't know we are planning to take him on a 25-mile trail ride. He just knows that every time that he tried to stand still and not move forward for the past 500 times, he was uncomfortably squeezed or kicked by the rider's legs, or turned in tight circles or serpentines. (this latter method was how I trained one pony to move forward! No amount of kicking could get him to move forward - but he could not resist my pull on the bridle to the left, so he'd have to turn his head; then he became uncomfortable holding his neck curved to the left, so he took one step to turn his body, and then another.)

And another reason that I am led to believe... though I actually feel weird stating it; others I know have integrated this idea more thoroughly into their beliefs.. There is the idea that God gave all the creatures to humans to care for, and also to "have dominion over."

...with horses, either you were in charge or they were. So you had to establish dominance and you had to maintain that dominance so that in the horses eyes, you are the leader. You also had to be able to recognize the signs of when your horse was doing little things to pick away at your dominance.

The thing that _I_ don't understand is... once I established dominance over my ponies, they didn't seem to challenge it! My mare went from biting if she had an opportunity, and kicking if we walked up behind her while she had feed - to NOTHING. Though what I totally expected was what Soulbiter described. I think perhaps my confidence grew so much that _I_ was correcting the tiny challenges to my dominance (that I had come to expect) before they really became a problem.

(Wooo! I got to talk about horses!)

Also, has there been any discussion about how SRD showed that both TC and Joan are both creators, for example, how TC created his first novel, then, SRD contrasts this with Joan's inward creation of Roger.

Also, this is an idea I'd never noticed! Cool! I never really thought of myself as having much of a say in how my baby was "created" during pregnancy! But that's my way of thinking, not the logic of SRD's story, and it DOES make sense that SRD _is_ trying to show this, at least in the story!

[Lepus]

WOW Lina - powerful stuff.

But just how can you say humans are smarter?

[Bran Pendragon]

It's fairly obvious isn't it? If horses were smarter, we'd pull the carriages and ploughs and they'd be on the web.

It's the understanding of long-term cause and effect and the ability to formulate complicated plans to achieve an objective that I would suggest is the relevant part of us "being smarter".

[Lepus]

It's fairly obvious isn't it? If horses were smarter, we'd pull the carriages and ploughs and they'd be on the web.

It's the understanding of long-term cause and effect and the ability to formulate complicated plans to achieve an objective that I would suggest is the relevant part of us "being smarter".

Bees, ants and termites all satisfy that requirement.

Ooh - I miss my old library. Douglas Adams once wrote something on these lines - was about the relative intelligence of Humans and Dolphins.

Can anybody help me out with this? I'm suddenly short-footed without the books to back me up!

[Rocksister]

The Ranyhyn are the horses, the Ramen are the people who cared for the Ranyhyn. Macht was Joan's maiden name, not her middle name. Interesting that this discussion is up here now. Guess we'll find out where it goes in two years, 7 months.