YMMV / Griffin Ranger

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Harrell presents an interesting case, especially at his My God, What Have I Done? point, and how he changed afterward. Was he truly just a loose cannon and amoral killer that simply killed because it was the most expedient solution? Or was he so freaked out by the completely alien sight of a hanz trying to kill a griffin that he panicked and killed out of reflex? Either way, karma came to him hard after that terrible mistake.
  • Kwap is in many ways an ambiguous character, particularly at the end after humans are trapped on griffin!Earth. Harrell is all for killing the "monsters" and he might well not be wrong that time. Kwap overrules him and goes to study them instead. Why would he want to risk opening what would be Sealed Evil in a Can on his world? Is it he simply can't resist the Forbidden Fruit that the monsters' advanced knowledge represents? Or is a case of studying the enemy, because To Know Him, I Must Become Him? The narrative heavily suggests the latter, but there is very likely an element of the former as well. Kwap often takes the long view, even when he's in truly desperate survival straits, but what his long game is here is murky. Harrell thinks the whole situation is rotten, and for once it's hard to blame him.
• Complete Monster: Deverall is a monstrous scientist commissioned to create and release a genocidal plague to wipe out the griffins and hanz. Putting his subjects through torturous experiments, Deverall even forces the captive griffins to rape one another to produce eggs to incubate the virus and swiftly kills those he finds useless by repeatedly infecting them with strains of the virus. Ordered to terminate the griffins by his superior, Deverall instead kills only half, attempting to keep the rest as a private "zoo" for himself to enjoy tormenting.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • When Harrell and Kwap first meet Kinnee, he's on the final downward spiral of alcoholism and death, convinced that his griffin Altera Blue abandoned him, and all but destroyed as a result. While hanz are known to have strong bonds with their griffins his extreme reaction confuses Harrell. When Harrell is captured, he finds Altera Blue alive, one of the kidnapped griffins. The moment he mentions to Altera that he found and rescued Kinnee, his Death Seeker attitude almost instantly turns around into The Determinator. Altera is a really, really nice griffin and loved his hanz Kinnee intensely, and the idea that he'd abandon Kinnee literally broke the hanz's brain.
• Fridge Horror:
  • Directly invoked by Whitehead. Aera, during Whitehead's interrogation, tells him that he doesn't dare kill her - and he backs down. But after Harrell is forced to betray Ranger Cheer from Whitehead's Sadistic Choice, he leaves this cryptic statement behind:
  Whitehead: Let me leave you with this thought, Ranger chick. These creatures do not know that you and Ranger White-Shoulders there are related - and I am not going to tell them.
  • Once the Dark Secret of the captives is revealed that they're forced to gang rape one another to get the females to lay eggs, it slowly dawns on Harrell the real meaning of Whitehead's statement: That he may be forced to do the same thing with his own daughter. The thought is intense Nausea Fuel, but he nonetheless tries his best to reassure his daughter that whatever happened, he would keep their Dark Secret as faithfully as they did...even from Vaniss.
  • While Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil, when you really think about griffin psychology, Fridge Horror starts kicking in. Griffins are a Proud Warrior Race that pride themselves on their independence and honor, consider bringing shame to their clans and families a capital offense...and it is a matriarchal society. Worse, Word of God states that part of a subadult's Rite of Passage is to prove they have mastery over their animal instincts and impulses - to prove they can be civilized. That the subadults are forced to rape one another by the use of hormones forces them to fail the final test of joining griffins society, and the females are forced to passively accept mating with every single male captive that's capable. It's a trifecta of horror: First, the females are denied the right of choice (and so are the males). They, as with any rape victims, feel an intense sense of shame and violation. And finally, and they're forced to fail the most important Rite of Passage to adulthood, bringing more intense (or so they believe) shame on both themselves and their families. Little wonder one of the teenaged friends of Aera committed suicide right after the first gang rape.
• Genius Bonus: Quite a few for bird geeks.
  • For example: Most of the griffins don't refer to their stomachs, they refer to their crops. That's not just a synomym for "stomach"; the crop is a storage compartment halfway down the esophagus that most birds possess, holding food until the stomach is ready for it and sending signals about fullness to the brain. Food is easy to bring up from the crop and always stops there on the way down, so it gets used in place of 'stomach' both for eating food and for stomach ailments.
  • Another is the throwaway reference to how little sex Kwap got in his native land, because he was a mediocre dancer. Birds of Paradise have some of the most extreme male:female imbalances among birds, and worse, one genus uses "lek mating" where all the males display in an arena, and the closer to the center, the higher your rank. The vast majority of females all mate with one male - the one in the center. For those that don't use leks, a male's dance is a huge factor in hens selecting mates - the longer and more elaborate, the more likely that male is to be selected. Dancer-griffins use both systems simultaneously. It's little wonder Kwap had trouble finding mates among them!
  • There are quite a few exotic (to American audiences) birds of prey represented, such as the White-Tailed Eagle and Verreaux's Eagle.
• Moral Event Horizon: It's a subtle one and in the background, but Doctor Deverall and his lab staff has one. They were originally told the griffins were bestial animals, no different than any other lab animal. But contrary evidence starts to pile up: One kills themself right after the first gang rape, something animals cannot do. The others start clearly coordinating their efforts: To attempt to communicate, to attack, to execute complex escape plans, including stealing ID badges for lock access? Eventually even the thickest Mook would see they're torturing and murdering sentient aliens. Deverall doesn't treat them one jot better and goes right ahead with his genocidal plague. Even when Whitehead tries to warn him the griffins are fully intelligent just like greenies and need to be taken seriously as a threat, it makes no difference to Deverall. He's happy to inflict Cold-Blooded Torture and genocide on an intelligent, nonhostile alien race simply For the Evulz.
• Jerkass Woobie: Harrell becomes this after the horrors he survived in the human lab. By the end of the story, he Ain't Too Proud to Beg, but is a massively Shell-Shocked Veteran, and he's unable to continue as a Ranger.
• The Woobie:
  • It's hard not to feel sorry for the Herder pup Tyke Bombs that were imprinted on humans. One dies a horrible death at the talons of the captives, and the rest are rejected by the Herders for being 'turncoats' and allying with the greenies against the griffins. They took a side, which was bad enough, but that they directly allied with torturers, murderers and a genocidal maniac was a bridge too far for the Herders. It doesn't matter that they were brainwashed into it - they're as good as dead.
  • Aera. She's forced, far before her time, to become The Leader of the griffin captives trapped on Earth, forced to endure gang rape and torture, forced to watch one after another of her friends be hauled away to their deaths...and finally forced to acknowledge, worst of all, that there is nothing she can do for her "adopted" child Voll but leave him to die alone. The only thing that keeps her mind together is the fact she's a griffin, not a human...but her pain is every bit as acute, as is her depression, sense of violation, and Survivor Guilt. Even if she is a seven foot tall predator with seven inch murder knives for fingernails, you really want to give her a hug after all she goes through.
  • Voll, an Iron Woobie juvenile (prepubescent child) that befriends Aera and becomes her heart. He is Wise Beyond His Years and provides invaluable advice and information about the lab and the "monsters", living side by side with her for 2 years. Then he's taken away to be killed; when Aera discovered that he'd been effectively murdered when she goes to try and rescue him later, it completely breaks her.
  • Altera Blue. An innocent courier that was kidnapped out from under his hanz, Kinnee, he has a disease from the human world leave him permanently blinded - a handicap that a griffin is expected to commit Seppuku over. He starts out a Death Seeker, but with Harrell's encouragement, he finds a reason to live - so he can see Kinnee once again. When one of Kreet's chicks are killed and she goes catatonic, Altera adopts the other chick...and finds a new purpose. After they are all rescued, Altera, Kreet's chick, and Kinnee form a family together. Harrell doesn't think much of Altera's chances, but somehow you know things are going to turn out okay for him.