Maybe I’m just too sensitive. They do have big ears. Maybe it’s just tug left, tug right? It’s the other end of the spectrum, the “300” war elephants that makes me sad. Like, pierced cheeks and barbed chains and shit?
The entire time I was in the alps this past summer I kept pointing at the mountains and randomly saying "dudes rode elephants over that", men used to have cool hobbies smh
I've read that elephants will remember who's treated them kindly and who hasn't, so your chances of survival likely depend a lot on having befriended the elephant.
I’m sure most were, but I bet there were a few that got addicted to the adrenaline. Only felt alive while deployed. Too busy fighting to worry about elephant Jodie smashing his elephant wife while his elephant kids forget what he looks like. Preferred field rations to fine dining. One in every unit.
The answer to the 'how do you get them' is 'capture and domestication.' No one seems to have mastered breeding war elephants in captivity, at least not to the quantities required.
Off the top of my head there’s Return of the King and the part of Oliver Stone’s Alexander where he fucked up the color on the film stock but decided to use it anyway
There’s the bit of “300” where Xerxes sends in war elephants and within 30 seconds they all accidentally fall off a mountainside so they won’t inconvenience the writers & CGI artists too much
Animatronic elephants are very expensive, and using real elephants would probably be animal cruelty. We got the Mumakil and Cersei seething, that's all
When I was a small child, and would sit on my dad's shoulders to be carried around he would do this thing with me where he was like "Who am I?" Me ""AN ELEPHANT!" "Who are you?" "HANNIBAL." "What are we doing?" ""CROSSING THE ALPS!" "Why?" "TO FIGHT THE ROMANS!" "Who's going to win?" "THE ROMANS!"
Every time I see a reference to war elephants, I think of the abstract below, which I hear in a huffly puffly scholar accent. Because I'm sophisticated that way. 🥸 "if one assumes that by 'elephant' he means" 🥸
Dio's reference to Claudius using war elephants is a puzzle (since there is little other evidence of Romans using them in The Principate) but as the article goes on to say it's hard to explain it away.
It leaves us pretty well where we began. Dio is writing a couple of centuries after Claudius but he's generally regarded as reliable on other topics, like Augustus.
I absolutely recommend it as it I had not thought about it in years but I DO think of it any time anyone mentions war elephants and it still make me smile 38+ years later.
Having ridden an elephant, I can attest to this. I can’t find the pics of me actually riding the elephant, but here’s a picture I took on top of the elephant and a picture of me riding a camel and immensely enjoying it for reference:
The book sold the Oliphants better because Legolas wasn't a Jedi in it, and it focused more on how amazed Samwise and Frodo felt learning that a silly childhood storybook creature was actually real.
I figured I was raising my kids okay when we watched The Return of the King and Legolas does his oliphaunt thing and our older kid's reaction was "well why did he do that, the elephant was innocent!"
The more you learn about fascism, the more in-character the Empire's stupid decisions seem. It's the inevitable consequence of a philosophy that says action is superior to thought.
The Nazis insisted on making big heavy tanks, ignoring anyone who predicted they'd get mired in mud.
The Empire insisted on making big scary-looking walkers, and when a pilot pointed out their fatal flaw, they busted him down to stormtrooper and stationed him on Tatooine.
(According to one of the Star Wars short story collections, anyway.)
The mongol hordes of Genghis Khan were charging into battle riding little ponies and they were terrifying, elephants must have been so terrifying everyone who saw them could only speak in gibberish afterwards
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Counter-counterpoint - if you’re riding an elephant into battle, it’s probably a just war.
Also, Faine, may I recommend a bit of Schafer 1957? https://www.jstor.org/stable/1579643
The answer to the 'how do you get them' is 'capture and domestication.' No one seems to have mastered breeding war elephants in captivity, at least not to the quantities required.
but idk maybe they had saddles
Well, okay, that settles everything...
My dad is pretty cool.
Source: Did you miss where it says immortal? I was there.
I can't remember rn if there were elephants, but it definitely had war steed elephant energy
But probably great visibility. And damn those things are big.
The Nazis insisted on making big heavy tanks, ignoring anyone who predicted they'd get mired in mud.
(According to one of the Star Wars short story collections, anyway.)
So the Romans learned quickly just to move out of the way and then surround the elephant and wear it down.