Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Types of fictional elephants

For this list I have included physical and skill differences as the range of physical differences isn't very wide. Given that the list still remains rather short, I'd say there is plenty of room for imagination when it comes to creating an elephant character.


Woolly Mammoths like Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street and Manny from Ice Age.

Flying elephants, where the ears act as wings, such as Dumbo.

Upright walking elephants, which are also anthropomorphic in personality, such as Babar the Elephant.

Helpful elephants, such as found in the Aesop's Fable The Elephant And The Ant.

Clumsy elephants such as Bump.

War elephants or war mammoths in more texts and games and movies than I can count. The above is from the Lord Of The Rings movies. Frequently war elephants and mammoths are depicted as large or giant versions of elephants and mammoths.



The Elephant Man Joseph Carey Merrick was a man described as an elephant due to the visible symptoms of an illness. He has been depicted as an historical figure, a mythological figure and even a super-villain by DC Comics. In the DC Comic version he is a powerful giant with a thick hide and terrible attitude, nothing like the real Joseph Carey Merrick.

The Elephant God Ganesha  from Indian mythology, who has a human body, four arms and an elephant's head, appears in multiple fictional stories.

Elephant/human hybrids. The above is a piece of art produced by Fortunio Liceti for his 1665  book De Monstris and it shows just one example of a hybrid. Others can be a mix of human and elephant features over the face (eyes forward, big cheeks etc) or features over the body.

Patchwork coloured elephants such as Elmer the Patchwork Elephant by the British author David McKee.

Painted elephants such as that from The Party (though inelegantly so).

Egg laying or roosting elephants, courtesy of Dr Seuss's Horton.

Ballet dancing elephants such as those that appear in Fantasia.

Miniature elephants (not just babies).

Bubble blowing elephants.

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