#even so i think this book is neutering the horror of the acts described

[pellaeas]

new audiobook

expectation: politics and history of early american movement for ecological conservationism. i've already read about movements in the PNW in the 70s regarding the North Cascades, Olympics, and major volcanoes, i know the patterns, row row fight the power, save the owl habitat, etc

reality: sure thats what it is, but turns out that was all just harassing and massacring the Blackfeet. and the Crow. and the Sioux. and the Cheyenne. and the Shoshone. and the drive to preserve the first national park can't be separated from the drive to enforce the reservation system on all of them and exterminate indigeneity everywhere else

[tacomasterstudios]

Wise Men Fear Emily Elizabeth

Everybody knows the story of Clifford the Big Red Dog. The lighthearted, heartwarming tale of a little girl with a little dog who, thanks to the love of the girl, becomes far from little. Comical mishap after comical mishap ensues, but the girl loves him all the same. D’aww. And that’s how everybody saw him… that is, until the rise of the Internet.

Then, people started to think about just how terrifying Clifford would be in real life, and the ramifications of having to deal with a dog as big as he is. A dog that size would need a whole lot of food. And a dog shit the size that Clifford would put out would smell absolutely repugnant! And God help us if he hasn’t been neutered. Many memes and videos were made about how difficult cleanup would be and how Clifford is actually a giant monster and all that, and it became sort of an Internet inside joke to fear Clifford.

And yet, despite all this knowledge, I still do not fear Clifford. As far as kaijus go, he’s both on the smaller side (“only” the size of a two story building) and rather nice. He doesn’t rampage through the city like Godzilla. He does not lust after women and kidnap them like King Kong. For the most part, in the books, he acts like a regular lovable dog, merely giant sized. This was actually changed in animated adaptations to make him more sentient, giving him the ability to speak, to varying degrees. But he remains just as friendly.

No, I do not fear Clifford. I am instead afraid of his owner, Emily Elizabeth Howard.

Everyone I have mentioned this fear to has laughed it off. “What’s so scary about Emily Elizabeth? She’s just a regular girl!” And on the surface, that appears to be true. There does not appear to be anything frightening about Emily Elizabeth, aside from the fact that she has two first names. Clifford himself, as innocent as he is, appears to be the scariest part of the Clifford mythos, especially if you think way too long and hard about it.

But not long and hard enough, evidently. Try this on for size, pun intended- who is the one who caused Clifford to grow in the first place?

Let’s rewind back to the beginning, where I described the story of Clifford’s origin- that “of a little girl with a little dog who, thanks to the love of the girl, becomes far from little”. Anyone with a functioning brain should be able to put two and two together. Emily Elizabeth is that girl, and it was her love that caused Clifford to grow so huge. 

And keep in mind the inherent potential horror that the Internet has brought upon Clifford. All the food to feed just this one animal, all the property damage that would be caused by playtime gone awry, all the ginormous, atrocious smelling dog shit… all on the hands of this one girl.

Well, not literally in her hands. Especially in the case of the dog shit. That’s disgusting.

And I know that this power is that of Emily Elizabeth’s, and not tied directly to Clifford or a simple power that anyone with a loving enough heart can give. Because that would mean either Clifford was unloved as a puppy or that nobody in town loves their pets. And not only are neither of those true, but if they were, that would be depressing as hell. Granted, the 2021 live action movie implies that the growth is partially the work of some magical eccentric old man, but this old man has never appeared in any prior piece of Clifford media and the live action movie has very little to do with preexisting Clifford canon and should not be taken into account.

With that said, given that this power is tied to Emily Elizabeth and not Clifford… there is no reason to believe her power is exclusive to Clifford.

Given how her parents haven’t grown, her previous pet Daffodil hasn’t grown (though she has mysteriously disappeared), and even Clifford didn’t begin to grow until a concentrated burst of love from Emily Elizabeth herself, we can suspect that her powers require some concentration and a massive amount of love to use. But still, this means that anything Emily Elizabeth shows extreme affection towards starts growing enormous.

And Clifford? Before Emily Elizabeth made him grow, he was just a tiny little puppy. A runt of the litter. Can easily fit in a bowl of dog food and get lost in the kibble. Too small for even the littlest collar.

And over a matter of mere days, Emily Elizabeth’s love has made him grow to the size of a two story house, only stopping when Emily Elizabeth told him to stop.

Imagine if Emily Elizabeth loved a larger, less gentle pet, like a wolf.

Imagine if Emily Elizabeth reached teenhood, and her hormones started kicking in and she started having crushes on boys. Or girls, depending on her sexuality.

Imagine if Emily Elizabeth was a narcissist.

And believe it or not, it gets worse. You know how the more Emily Elizabeth loves something, the bigger it grows? Well, what would happen in the opposite scenario? What would happen if Emily Elizabeth HATED something?

Because the opposite of love is hate.

And you know what the opposite of grow is, right?

Imagine if you really managed to fuck up, and got Emily Elizabeth to hate you. Like, really REALLY hate you.

Instead of two stories tall, you’d wind up two inches tall.

Except you wouldn’t, because Clifford only stopped growing when Emily Elizabeth told him to stop growing. And Emily Elizabeth wouldn’t want you to stop shrinking. She’d want to see you shrink to the size of a grain of sand, or a cell, or an organelle, a molecule, an atom, a subatomic particle, a quark, one of those funky theoretical strings…

She’d want to see you vanish into nothing. She’d hate you that much.

Now imagine if Emily Elizabeth somehow hated the moon, or the sun. Two celestial bodies necessary for the survival of our planet and all of its life… gone. Because one overpowered little girl hated them.

Emily Elizabeth is a greater threat than her dog could ever hope to be. At the end of the day, all Clifford does is normal dog stuff on a not-so-normal scale. The worst he could do is take a shit in the grass the height of an average man, or lick his balls on an otherwise lovely day in the park and get confused as to why everyone is so grossed out. Emily Elizabeth can alter the size of anything, ANYONE, depending on how she feels about them. She’s practically a walking B-movie factory.

Yes, I admit it. I am afraid of Emily Elizabeth. Why shouldn’t I be? She can make monsters out of those she loves, and specks of dust out of those she hates. We’re all lucky she’s so nice. But she’s dangerous. Too dangerous. Best case scenario, we must teach her to control her powers, and when she should use them, which should ideally be never. Worst case scenario, we must destroy her while we still have the chance. Because she’s the real monster here, not Clifford.

On second thought, maybe Clifford is the monster. And everybody is afraid of the monster. But nobody is afraid of the monster behind the monster. Well… almost nobody.

Fools fear the monster. Wise men fear the monster maker.

Wise men fear Emily Elizabeth.