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R-H-MacLanahan — Because They Are Mythical
by-nc-nd
Published: 2011-09-29 05:11:05 +0000 UTC; Views: 1193; Favourites: 21; Downloads: 10
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Description
If mermaids had extended spines they would look like tubes of toothpaste.Just look at the bone structure of dolphins, or whales, or seals, or fish. They look like toothpaste tubes.
Anyway, in my research for Scott last year I noticed this sort of thing.
This was from a sketch in my notebook today in response to a very stupid remark from one of my ignorantly dumb classmates.
But really, does it even matter?
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Comments: 32
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Nice job by the way did you have see the animal planet with a documentary called mermaids the body found , they are sea mammals in real life and really cute and beautifull mammals , no human face but beautifull without kneeks for say the truth !
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Why not...? Someone once asked me why my mermaids have buttocks. Answer: Because I wanted it that way!
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That is all it should take.
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I've always been of the opinion that a proper mermaid would have neither knees nor hips. But I myself am very particular about what I consider a proper mermaid. I know they're a fantasy creature but I still try to view them from a standpoint of believability. I'm not saying they should be tubes either though. I also don't think a mermaid can be both fish and mammal, so depending on the style of the mermaid I choose to see them as aquatic mammals or humanoid fishes. I'm not big on the dramatic half and half split in the middle. Sadly not many of my mermaids have made it to to DEV. On well. Its a thought provoking topic.
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I dont understand why many believe mermaids wouldn't have knees. Whales have leg bones and dont have legs. Hips support the entire pelvis area and organs too. I get seriously annoyed when people look at my photos and say "no knees" it's like, this is a representation of a fake creature. Dont tell me what it has and doesnt have thanks.
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Exactly.
And without hips, there would be an absolute lack of a butt.
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Not quite- the arrangement of muscles could still produce a buttocks-like structure, if they had a waist for that matter.
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They need the pelvis to anchor their tail muscles. Also, some have fins that attach to the hip sockets where their legs would normally be.
Also, also they're more sexy that way!
(I have nothing against mers with knees.)
Alveric
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I could see that, but there would need to be a major rearranging of intestines, major rotation of the hipbones (unless there is a second set of ribs after the hips, that way the hip bones could be free of the spine [but that would lead to the shrinking of the hips to the point that all aquatic mammals have today which is two small free floating bones that have no purpose. Then why have the ribs back there unless there is another set of organs... But I digress.]), to allow for the spine to extend into a tail. But really, the extension of the spine into an appendage that takes place of the legs, the hip bones would be a point of major inflexibility.
I agree with the sexiness wholeheartedly!
(I have nothing against mers without knees. It gives them more of an otherworldly feeling. It is just when I am told that I am wrong, that I get defensive over a subject that doesn't really matter.)
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Since Mers could never evolve on their own, there are only two ways they could ever exist, science or magic. Both can ignore inconvenient facts that evolution could not.
Those created by science would probably have knees since researchers would tend to build upon existing structure, whether using surgical or gene manipulation.
With those created by magic, anything goes, knees, no knees or just one knee.
Alveric2
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Your logic seems sound.
LoL! A one kneed mermaid. Ahem.
I agree wholeheartedly. I have to quote a good friend of mine. "When writing, and you cannot explain something, use magic... or glowing green space rocks. With those, anything is possible!"
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Mermaids are representations of what men long for when they're at sea.
And what do men live? Hips.
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And the closest things Columbus got to mermaids were manatees.
I am a man, and I like hips.
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I STILL don't see how we thought they were mermaids XD
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A man who has not laid eyes on a woman in months is a very strange creature indeed.
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I like to think of mermaids as temptation. They play off of what men desire most when they're away from their wives or girlfriends.
As for thinking manatees are mermaids, well, the sailors go too much sun XD
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Because without hips, they wouldn't have a waist. 
Beyond that. . .I really don't know. 
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Probably.
All I do know is that marine mammals lack hips.
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They also lack hair and arms and hands.
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In other words, at that point they are nothing but a 
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The muscle and bone structures are different from how they are in the upper torso. So it would make sense to have some kind of pelvis bone. Additionally how their torso articulate compared to their tails is different, so some sort of transition would be needed.
As you said, mermaids are not tubes, so they need to resemble humans in a few ways or else they wouldn't be attractive in our eyes!
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But does it really matter?
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Look, I only go so far into the scientific realms of possibility when it comes to mermaids. IMO, mermaids do not have external gils, extra dorsal and forearm fins, webbed hands, pointed ears, fairy-like wings, don't magically transform, or have a human-like knee. I don't ask myself why-or-how it would work biologically, that's just the image I have of them. (By contrast, a lot of the traits I like in mermaids are also debatable- long beautiful hair, human-like skin, whether they are mammals or fish, the size and shape of their breasts, if they are truly attracted to human males or strictly water-borne predators, etc.)
I learned a long time ago that people have many different perceptions of their ideal mermaid, and for mer-philes in particular it has a lot to do with which one first caught their attentions- be it animated, drawn in a comic book, written in a novel, a photograph of a costume, some kind of movie magic, etc. Most mer-philes stick to that one image and are surprisingly stubborn that it is the "best" one, and it takes a lot of effort on either the part of other artists or the mer-phile themselves to break from that mold.
For me, it was that caught my attention in 1989 when I saw her on the big screen at age 7. If you look in My Favorites gallery, the vast majority of mers in there fit that image with little variation, and the collection I have on my own computer from over the years is much the same.
So, please forgive me if I disengage when you say "Does it really matter?", because at the end of the day, they are nothing but fantasy and magic and wonder, and I will never get to meet one in this lifetime no matter how much I want it.
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Because hips make them look sexy or something I suppose. o3o
I dunno.
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That just about sums it up in my opinion.
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