Okay, this was a topic that was swimming in the back of my mind for a while and it was brought to the forefront in a different thread where Bengali suggested that a character based on the Liger could make for an interesting ThunderCat.
So here’s the thing: Obviously the Thundercats are based on earth Feline species… Cheeetara is a Cheetah, Tygra is a Tiger, etc. But how are these blood lines kept? Obviously the existing Thundercats that we know are not originals. They are the offspring of many, many generations of parents. So why is Tygra so Tiger looking? Is it because his parents and grand-parents always (or almost always) married other members of tiger like Thundareans? This seems entirely possible on one hand… after all there are still distinct “races” of humans despite all the generations of possible “mixing.”
However the Thundarens still seem like they are a few steps ahead of humans… There doesn’t seem to be a superior or inferior race at all like we human some times get in the trap of doing. Because of this I don’t see that there would be the stigma of “cross breading” and I would expect to see more of it, but most Thundarens do not seem to be of mixed feline species.
Why? Here’s my biological idea: Thunderans are not equal in child birth. What I mean is human babies get their genes 50/50 from their parents. Granted, some of ressesive genes are some are dominate, but they still get a 50/50 split and will then pass those down to their kids. My theory is that Thundercats are perhaps more of a 70/30… or even 80/20 split… There the majority of genes come from just one parent, either the dad or (more likely) the mom.
Evolutionarily one might argue that Thundareans might have a very aggressive immune system and this would attack and kill a fetus that was more than 20% different genetically from mom, therefore this uneven split of genes was necessary to ensure that a baby could be taken to full term. In this way an offspring of a lion like father and a cougar like mother would be much more cougar like than lion like… and could pass down to his or her children significantly more cougar like genes. Even extensive mixing of species would still leave a child with a dominate type of cat to be modeled on.
Alright… I’m starting to ramble again. And of course I’m trying to apply “real world” science onto a kid’s cartoon again. Sorry… I tend to do that. If you’re still reading, I’d welcome your thoughts.
I guess they are preserving their lineage within each clan. Each clan chooses a leader. So I assume thunderians although united as a people, divide themselves peacefully among their clans/races.
I read an unused script on this board that revealeld plundarrians were a sect of thunderians that broke away from the code of thundera and left to and populate plundarr. This script also mentioned that both thunderians and plundarrians were humanoid. Plundarrians then began attacking thundera, thunderians originally could not defend themselves from the attacks, so they sent biologists throughout the galaxy to find species which had advanced defensive/offensive features to graft those genetics onto thunderian human genes, creating super humans aka thundercats. The plundarrians, in retaliation, did the same, creating the many mutant races.
Thunderians treated their thundercats like heros/champions, with great respect and equal rights. Plundarrians treated the mutants poorly, eventually the mutants overthrew and enslaved the original plundarrian humans, and took over plundarr as its rulers.
Thought it was an awesome script, had a couple flaws but I really enjoyed this concept.
Well, before you can get into the crossing of breeds, you have to define how ThunderCats (on Old ThunDera) were picked or created. What I mean is, would the child of 2 ThunderCats automatically be a ThunderCat as well, or did they have tryouts? We know Lion-O was the Hereditory Lord, but what about everyone else? In the WildStorm comics, Cheetara was at a ThunderCat tryout, but do we consider that canon? There are some things in the WildStorm comics that don’t easily add up with the original series.
For the sake of argument, let’s say being a ThunderCat was a birthright. That would mean ThunderCats were like the royal families of real history. Therefore, it could have been taboo to marry outside of your own clan/species on Old ThunDera if you were a ThunderCat. But those rules would not apply to non-ThunderCat ThunDerians.
If memory serves me, Tor and the other ThunDerian refugees from the final 20 episodes of the series typically had a mix of charateristics. Plus they usually did not have any form of special ability like the ThunderCats had. Like the ones with spots like Cheetara did not appear to have super speed.
As for ThunDerians originally being humanoid, the episode Touch of Amortis makes it fairly clear that ancient ThunDerians were more cat-like and less humanoid.
Here’s my ideas on it based on knowledge from the cartoon…Panthro states to Snarf in ‘the trial of mind power’ that the ‘Tygra Clan’ has a special gift for it (mind power)…this leads me to invisage a Thundera with seperate clans of ‘nobles’ (who the thundercats are referred to as being in exodus) who are true to the ‘pure’ breeding that keeps their traits as they are, HOWEVER…WilyKit and Kat seem to be a generic mix, and so do the Thundarians so cross-breeding obviously does occur, maybe just not in the houses/clans of the ‘nobles’. Having said that WilyKit/Kat are referred to as ‘nobles’ by jaga also…and Bengali despite being a thundarian previously, certainly has the pure ‘white tiger’ look about him (possibly an off-shoot to the ‘noble’ Tygra Clan).
In conclusion, both pure and cross-breeding occured on Thundera IMO, but within the noble clans ‘mostly’ pure breeding occurs. On thrid earth, cross-breeding would innevitably have occured (tygra+chetarah=WOW!! ), but as they made it back to new thundera it would depend on the remaining living thundarians.
That’s how I always thought of it myself, with Thunderians broken-up into various clans by species with the Thundercats themselves being a kind of noble or warrior-elite class, My fiancee elaborated on this further with their form of government being sort of parliamentary, with the representatives of each clan forming a quorum. Part of the normal duties of the Lord would be to sit in on the quorum meetings and act as final judge or arbitrator for the representatives’ concerns. Needless to say, in our story this was not something that Lion-O particularly enjoyed doing. Even being the youngest Lord in Thunderian history, he quickly developed a distaste for politics!
But getting back to the topic, we also believed there was a likelihood of interspecies breeding, or “cross-clans” as we called them. They just wouldn’t be officially recognized by any clan and were ineligible to be accorded the normal privileges. They weren’t second-class citizens per-se, but it precluded them from achieving any high social status. Our one character, Xendara would have been like this. Our other, Felina, was also cross-clan, but she was also one of the order of Mystics, which sort of placed her above any normal Thunderian social status.
Based on the show, we identified at least nine clans: Lion, Tiger, Panther, Cheetah, Lynx, Puma, Bengal, Jaguar and Wildcat (Kat and Kit’s clan). We also added three others: Ocelot, Cougar and Sabretooth. That last one, we figured, could have been the clan Grune came from. It also could have been the oldest and most warlike.
For some reason, what instantly sprang to my fanfic-fertile mind at the mention of Ligers was Lion-O’s half-brother who, based on lineage, can’t ascend to the throne or whatnot, no matter how much (allegedly) better he would be. So my brain instantly says Claudis was in love with a Tigress, but for political reasons, he needed a “pure” child. And the question would be, on New Thundera, should such ideologies stick? I’m not imagining a brother who is TEH EvIL, but both siblings honestly thinking their the best for the job. Meh, the idea will fade if I don’t feed it.
I’ve also always been of the camp that the nobles were “pure” lineage. It’s not to say a mix couldn’t be a Thundercat, but they couldn’t have taken any real position of power in the Clan. And I’d imagine it’d take a generation or two before everyone would accept the ancestral misfit-DNA-donor was no longer a problem.
Based on the show, we identified at least nine clans: Lion, Tiger, Panther, Cheetah, Lynx, Puma, Bengal, Jaguar and Wildcat (Kat and Kit’s clan). We also added three others: Ocelot, Cougar and Sabretooth. That last one, we figured, could have been the clan Grune came from. It also could have been the oldest and most warlike.
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And just a minor correction…the ‘Bengal’ clan would be an offshoot to the tiger clan as its mirrored on the Bengal tiger which is a sub-species of tiger ofc :)…just being anal about it (curiously though bengal tigers are NOT necessarily white tigers (as they potray Bengali), white tigers are like ‘albino’ humans…a genetic flaw).
Another thing, in the 4th annointment trial Panthro states in response to snarfs question about Tygra’s mind power that “the Tygra clan back on Thundera had a special gift for it”…Strange that a thundercat would have the same name as a main clan (Unless Tygra IS the noble leader of that clan) and Panthro is merely saying Tygra’s clan had a special gift for it!
Damn I over analyse too much :))
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Oh BTW you could include leopard (though as much as I’ve tried I cant think of a suitable thundercat name for it!), a cool name for the cogar char would be ‘Cougara’ :).
Speaking of the cross-breeds, Tigon (male tiger female lion), and Ligar-o/Ligara (female tiger male lion).
At least, when it comes to Tygra and Cheetara (and I guess this applies to all the other TCs), you’ve got clue that they belong from aong, big families of their own species.
In Snarf Takes Up the Challenge, Tygra is tricked into a maze… his curiosity was awaken when he saw “sculpted Tygra heads” in the entrance of the mace. He said it as if it were heads of members of a clan, otherwise it would have been weird having him talking to himself in third person
In Lion-O’s Anointment Fourth Day: The Trial of Mind Power, Panthro explains Snarf and the kittens that “the Tygra clan in Thundera has special mind powers” or something like that.
Finally, in Telepathy Beam, Cheetara refers as herself as "the most powerful of her species (group, clan… can’t remember the exact word) to recover her selfconfidence.
So I guess they, the noble TCs, come from long families of their own species, no interspecies breeding.
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I don’t think the “pure ideologies” existed in Thundera, or at least the show wouldn’t show them as that would be very segregacionist, and a really bad message to kids in this era when everybody promotes union.
This topic also bring up an interesting question, in an early episode, maybe the second or third they mention that they plan to re-establish the glory of Thunderra on Third Earth. Doesn’t that make them basically Conquistadors and they are taking a land that is not technically theirs? I mean they just showed up in the planet and now want to re-create Thunderra. Not very sympathetic the Thundercats after that.
Not to mention how would they do it if all the other ships were destroyed I mean after all theres only two females in the group and that can’t re-form a civilization…They mention that after they were the only survivors so I don’t even want to think what future plans the Thundercats had for Cheetarah and Wilykit.
I think something to keep in mind is that Thunderians aren’t related to Earth cats. They’re aliens, and the fact that they just happen to have similar names to Earth cats and look like Earth cats is really just a big coincidence. They’re all one species, unlike on Earth where cheetahs and tigers are separate species.
I believe that Tygra’s powers aren’t necessarily passed down through genetics, but could be taught through training. Cheetara’s powers probably are genetic though. I would need to go back and check.
Anyway, I believe that it would be more accurate to differentiate the Thundercats by race rather than species. Their distinguishing traits are just the result of differing genes, like with humans. I do agree that interracial children are probably more common among commoners and less among the nobles, but as advanced at Thunderian society is it probably isn’t a huge deal.
Yeah I mean especially in the original series, with their emphasis on morals for kids, I can’t imagine them having an end-of-the-episode lesson that says: “Tigers, stick to your own kind.” Lol
I know what you mean, but at the same time, remember Third Earth has a lot of problems. Mumm-Ra of course, not to mention all the other dangerous things to be found on the planet. So the Thundercats aren’t trying to take over just for the sake of conquering and establishing power, but to protect the people of Third Earth.
Maybe the Thundercats are a little guilty of arrogance at times, hehe, but their goal in life is not a lust for power; it’s justice.
Xendara’s father was a Lynx named Lynxondo and her mother was a Panther named Shiegra. Also, Thunderians who have 4 plus clan bloodlines are called “exotics”.
I get the impression that in the new series, there will be interspecies breeding and that their will be that sense of superior and inferior, if what I’m hearing about some ThunderCats having tails are looked down upon by some in society. What will be interesting to me is if Claudus holds such beliefs and it is Lion-O who changes that with a love and acceptance for those who aren’t purebred. If that makes any sense at all. Somehow this is sounding a lot like Harry Potter to me with their pureblood, halfblood, mudblood plotline.
One would think that if this race and it’s clans are really old many species would’ve died out by now.
They can just simplify how interitance works. Make it like Pokemon, where even things like a whale and a cat can breed (don’t ask..) but the offspring always is the same species as the mother.
Or they can just make the offspring the same species as the parent of the same gender.
It’d be like they’re automatically genetically made to preserve the different clans.
Wilykat looks almost like he could be Lion-O and Tygra’s son, if it were possible XP. Wilykit on the other hand, looks mostly Lyon. They both have the under-stripes like Lion-O and striped hair like Tygra. To me, this indicates that they’re Lygras. Hmmm…if ligers are bigger and stronger than both lions and tigers, does this mean that Wilykat will be bigger and stronger than Lion-O when he’s an adult o.O? The mind boggles.
If you’re still reading, I’d welcome your thoughts.
