Claire Fayers
You’re right – whales are not fish, but on two occasions in the book, people refer to a whale as a giant fish. They should know better, but they don’t.
The reason is that the world of the eight oceans has many echoes of our own world, but in terms of science they are mid 1700s at most. Aldebran Boswell came up with his equivalent of Newton’s Laws of Motion about a hundred years ago and steam power has not yet been invented.
Our modern system of the classification of animals comes from Carolus Linneaus who, in the 10th edition of his Systemae Naturae, introduced the classification of Mammalia and puts whales into it. That was in 1758. Before that, most people would follow Aristotle’s thinking that if something lived in the water, it was a fish. I gave Peter and Brine a scientific understanding of an intelligent person from around 1730 and so, to them (and most other people in my world) whales are fish.
Maybe I over-thought this one a little, but that’s the reason.
The reason is that the world of the eight oceans has many echoes of our own world, but in terms of science they are mid 1700s at most. Aldebran Boswell came up with his equivalent of Newton’s Laws of Motion about a hundred years ago and steam power has not yet been invented.
Our modern system of the classification of animals comes from Carolus Linneaus who, in the 10th edition of his Systemae Naturae, introduced the classification of Mammalia and puts whales into it. That was in 1758. Before that, most people would follow Aristotle’s thinking that if something lived in the water, it was a fish. I gave Peter and Brine a scientific understanding of an intelligent person from around 1730 and so, to them (and most other people in my world) whales are fish.
Maybe I over-thought this one a little, but that’s the reason.
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