So, there's a minor character in my urban fantasy setting who's the 10-year-old son of a minobous (female minotaur) and a werewolf. As both of these species are known for having superhuman hearing, it was perhaps inevitable that their son developed this supernatural ability as well. This, however, brought up the topic of some issues that parents would have when raising such a child. Since mythical humanoids like this family, as well as the existence of magic in its entirety, are secrets that humans don't know about, the vast majority of the human race conducts itself without regard to what individuals with superhuman hearing might overhear them saying or doing. Which means it's going to be basically impossible for this couple to keep their son from overhearing nearby humans talking about subject matter they wouldn't dream of talking about in front of a child, because they have no idea that a child can hear them. And now I'm trying to get into the headspace of these parents and try to figure out how they've been raising him. Trying to figure out how responsible parents (assuming for the moment that his parents are in fact responsible) would tackle the innumerable awkward questions this child is bound to ask, and try to ensure he has a stable, healthy and non-dysfunctional childhood despite all the things he's inevitably going to overhear. Any thoughts?
I think we need more information. First, how good is this hearing? To me, my first thought was this would be the least of their worries, since just trying to keep a minotaur/werewolf child from being killed by a frightened human, or keep the child from killing a human and sparking an investigation would be number one on my priorities. But maybe I don't know what minotaur/werewolf hybrids look like in your world or what powers they have. I'd stay hundreds of miles from humans if I were a minotaur, to be honest. In my experience, even human kids overhear more than you'd think, and it's a struggle trying to find a way to deflect questions without outright lying to them.
Remember the scene from Rudolph where his dad digs up some dirt on his hoof and smashes it all over his nose to stop it from glowing? They do the same, but jam dirt (or something, maybe some wax) into the kid's ears and tell him him he must always wear it or be discovered as a freak and burned at the stake. Or whatever. I'm half joking, but I'm serious that maybe they'd want him to hide his ability, and at the same time protect him from learning entirely too much too soon about everybody. But then the story sounds mythological to me and this is something that would happen in a myth. And I mean, they might actually decide it's the most humane (if such a word applies) option. And what does humane or responsible really mean in this context? Actually protecting him? Or being nicey-nice? Tough love is a lot better than namby-pamby niceness. But bear in mind I'm half joking, I haven't thought it through much and this option made me laugh, so I posted it. But I do want to impress the idea that what society might think of as 'responsible' might actually be the opposite, especially since he's not what they think he is. Or, more extreme version—maybe after he digs it out in his rebellious 2's, they damage his hearing permanently, hoping to only diminish it to somewhere near a normal level. For his own good. Of course it depends on what the son is. Human? Able to pass as human? Or something else? I sort of assumed he seems human. And of course, it becomes far better if one parent half-deafens the kind brutally and the other thinks that monstrous and horrible. Some nice story conflict right there! It wouldn't do to have stories filled with good, responsible parents. What would the world come to?
Well, I haven't fully determined how well he "passes" for human yet, but it's not going to be that major of a problem for him specifically. While there are species that have to hide from humanity or else instantly be exposed as a freak, his dad is the shapeshifting variety of werewolf who can look fully human whenever he wants. The mom has it rougher, and has furry hooved legs and cow horns, though everything else looks pretty much human. Hybrids are tricky and no two hybrids of the same two species ever turn out quite the same. They often get a mix of their parents' powers or a bizarre reinterpretation of their magical genetics as a whole. But if both parents can do something, odds are extremely high that the child can do it too. Hence why one thing I know for sure about this kid is that he can hear really well.
My thought is that since both parents are half human, maybe the kid manages to get almost all human DNA? At least enough to look and seem human.
Well, I figure in answering this I answer that. This is just what made me first think about the subject.
I don't think this is an issue unless you deliberately make it one. Which is fine if it's an interesting conflict/plot point, but otherwise nobody is going to notice it as a hole or anything.
my thoughts exactly... but a little more defined lol.... like a reverse hearing aid or something. something that seems normal to everyone else but has a different purpose completely. I'd say noise canceling cordless earbuds, but people would be bound to ask questions as to why the 10 year old keeps them in almost 24/7. a hearing aid looking device is not going to get questions. it can also lead to more drama in the future. say, he wears it no questions asked.... until he turns 10, he goes out without it and hears EVERYTHING, and then decides he'd take off his "reverse hearing aid" when his parents arent around. kind of like he opens up Pandoras Box and the parents have to figure out how to deal with his sudden new awakening
I'm a little confused. Are minotaurs (or bovines in general) well-known for their acute sense of hearing?
Surely this should be the main character - they subvert a trope! I reckon the child would learn superhuman discretion because repeating things he wasn't supposed to hear got him into so much trouble. Also to ignore most of the details of anything anyone says (because it's all lies) and go by the way they smell. It's already a problem that affects pet cats and dogs. They hear their owner saying "that bloody cat, I never should have bought her. Next time she does that I'll throw her in the well" - and the cats know the gist of it - but they don't let it bother them. They know we're full of hot air. ~ Minobous see - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=bou=s&la=greek&can=bou=s0#lexicon I don't like this recent fantasy coinage because:- 1. the Minotaur is the bull-of-Minos, the particular accursed male man-bull from the myth. If in English we're going to have small-m minotaurs without them referring back to Minos and Theseus and all that, then we don't need to worry about the fact that tauros was gendered in Greek. It's fine to call her a minotaur, and clearer to our readers 2. Bous doesn't gender the animal and isn't a female counterpart to tauros. This seems to apply an Anglo-Saxon logic of animal genders (e.g. boars+sows, stallions+nags), and/or gender-endings (e.g. actor+actress), defeating any authenticity we might think we gain by avoiding a female tauros. Most of the time the male bovines on the farm are bous's, except when they're trying to gore us or mount a cow: then they're a 'tauros' to avoid ambiguity. LSJ does mention that bous more commonly marks the female animal, but (i) commonly not definitively (except possibly in Homer, where they're female by default), and (ii) does it?: farmers keep more cows than bulls anyway. Lots of the textual examples have a definite article (e.g. Aesch. Ag. 1125) meaning we need to decide how much of a cow's feminity is inherent to 'bous' and how much is applied by the feminine definite article 'he'. And where a female bous is opposite a male tauros (as in the Aeschylus reference) is the word 'bous' being gendered by inference from 'tauros'? 3. I'd like to suggest boucephaloi as a species name: the people with cows' heads. We know that would have made sense to the Greeks because Alexander the Great named his horse that. And then we can gender it as ho boucephalos for the male or he boucephale for the female, without worrying whether a male human with the head of a female cow would be a Minotaur or a Minobous. Really, if we're worrying about the head, we're at the wrong end 4. I like to think the Greeks would have understood 'taure' or 'minotaure' the same way as we understand Bullwoman-of-Minos, or Ladybull. It's incongrous, but speculative fiction can be incongruous
This convinced me to have at least one early chapter where he's the POV and see how he fares. A decision helped by the fact that the story starts just before halloween, which of course would be far more interesting for a child.
