Re: Harry Potter and Adults

"Ross TenEyck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Charlie Allery" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >"Joshua P. Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> >> Hey, I bet Jim can whomp cheetah /any/ day.
>
> >Um, 'Jim' would be a boy from said Huckleberry Finn? And you think he
could
> >defeat a full-grown chimpanzee? <retreats ten paces and waits for the
blood
> >bath>
>
> >I wouldn't back a full-grown man against an angry adult chimp.
>
> True 'dat.
>
> Furthermore, while I haven't read all of the Tarzan books, I don't
> recall him hanging out with a chimp in any of them.  He grew up with
> the *gorillas* [1], and *that* contest doesn't bear thinking about.
>

Yup, Tarzan was raised by 'great apes'. It's not speicifed that they were
gorillas, in fact they were described as being more man-like than gorillas
ISTR. Anyway, Tarzan's real companion was a small monkey called Nkima. No
specific type given, but small and agile and usually sitting on Tarzan's
shoulder. Cheetah was an invention of the TV series along with Jai.

And of course, in the end, Tarzan did kill the ape that raised him as his
father - when he threatened his ape mother. And then he raised his face to
the heavens and gave the great call of the bull ape that has killed ... um,
sorry, got carried away there. Anyway, he did use a knife (Lord Greystoke's)
and did have the element of surprise in that the ape knew him and still
thought of him as a small naked manling, not a worthy opponent.

>
> [1] Well, apes.  Gary Larson, I think it was, ranted briefly about this
> in the complete Far Side collection; ERB at some point drew a distinction
> between the "apes" that Tarzan grew up with and the gorillas, and they
> clearly weren't chimpanzees.  But those are all the apes there are in
> Africa; so it's not clear what ERB was thinking of.  Perhaps he was
> imagining a larger and more aggressive subspecies of gorilla, like grizzly
> bears and brown bears.

Ah, well, clearly they're hidden in the depths of Africa. The unexplored
regions where the Lost legions of Rome and the lost cities of the Pharoahs
etc still survive <g>.

Charlie