Phillipe
From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia.
Phillipe is an ongoing novel-project created and written by Royal-Sovereign, with illustrations by Tiggstar, and occasional fanart by the author's friends. The novel centers around the episodic goings-on in the life of Christophe-Phillipe de Rohan, a gay teenage Kitsune at an affluent high school.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Phillipe's trials and trevails, episodically narrated in "books" made up of varying numbers of chapters, are part of an overall attempt to paint a more accurate -- often unflattering -- picture of the high school experience in an upper-middle class community ambiguously set somewhere in Virginia, and are often idealised or partially fictionalised accounts of Royal's own life experience.
Although every male character in the story is, in some way, homosexual, Royal does not consider his novel to be "gay-themed" -- nor, despite the fact that the main character is a 16-year old, could it be labeled a "coming-of-age" story.
While the misadventures of Phillipe and his friends could be classed as slice-of-life, the subject matter of the novel comes closet to (as one of Royal's friends reportedly put it) "a Furry Degrassi" -- a combination of soap opera and light-hearted teenage drama.
[edit] Setting
The high school in which the action takes place, called Cypress Valley, is inspired by both Royal's own high school -- a rich, largely "Preppy" student body which is sub-divided into brutally divisive cliques and groups.
The school's atmosphere and social life are drawn from both Royal's observations of teenage behaviour, but also heavily and descriptions of court life at Versailles by 20th Century author Nancy Mitford during the lifetime of Louis XIV, of which Royal took a keen interest -- using the latter to better illustrate just how cliquish a high school can be, and thus using the aforementioned mechanics to have the story be read in its proper context.
[edit] Production
Started in February of 2006, the main storyline for the project was developed in August of that year, and has been in constant production -- often hampered by Royal's own professed obsession with perfection and details, which often result in several rewrites of a single chapter and countless more for future (unwritten but planned-out) plots.
The publication on Lulu of the first chapter, You Can't Win If You Don't Eat Your Breakfast, was short-lived, as Royal took it down from public view to revise it. It is unknown when this chapter, or any of the subsequent ones, will be finished.
[edit] Influences and inspiration
While a great deal of Phillipe was written, as has been mentioned, as a partly fictionalised or idealised account of Royal's own experiences from high school, the novel has been described by Royal as an "amalgamation" of various sources and genres, many of them from manga (specifically Eyeshield 21 and Off*Beat) and anime (very particularly the third episode of the groundbreaking series FLCL).
Material from Royal's earlier works found its way into Phillipe as recycled and altered from its previous life -- in some cases, entire passages were lifted from defunct projects Royal had long abandoned and incorporated into the novel as-was, with little or any editing along the way.
[edit] Effect on characters
Some of the behaviour, appearance, and even personality of the main characters are drawn from sources that would not be readily recognisable to anyone unfamiliar with the source-material: for instance, Phillipe's best friend Yow Kobayashi's unexpected bursts into unintentionally comical melodrama and over-emotion are based on similar actions (also meant to be humourous) of the Fullmetal Alchemist character Major Armstrong -- much of Yow's personality and dress was also based on Shindou Shuichi from Gravitation. Yow has a chicken-and-egg existence with Shuichi, as he openly loves Gravitation and wants to be a J-Pop singer when he graduates high school.
In a similar vein, another of Phillipe's best friends, Jack Turing, has his personality, character, and physical appearance (in particular the detail of the reflectively shiny glasses ) based almost entirely on Gendo Ikari from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.
NGE also provided Royal with one of his main inspirations in writing the plot and characters. It has been said, indeed by Royal's own admittance, that the manner in which the main characters in the novel have been drawn is exceedingly -- it has been accused of being excessively -- complex, which is analogous to similar themes found in NGE, itself featuring an entire cast of characters with emotional problems that compounded the apocalyptic nature of the show.
It was this attitude that the author brought to the novel, cleverly presenting Phillipe's high school experience at the outset of the novel -- adjusting to his loss of the majority of his friends after the school-wide revelation he was homosexual -- as a "post-apocalyptic" world.
The protagonists of both works (Phillipe and Shinji Ikari) share a painful longing for a late mother and a Kafkaesque, almost pathological hatred for a biological father.
[edit] Universe
Phillipe is set in an indepth alternate universe that was designed along with the book itself. It comes as surprising to some that, as a start, this universe perfectly mirrors our own (even paralleling the development of human history and civilisation) with only minor but appropriate changes.
The dominant species of the Earth are still upright-walking, bipedal, sentient mammals (like humans) -- but which evolved from canines as opposed to apes. All quadrupedal canines in the wild have vanished, replaced entirely by their respective humanoid (or rather anthro) counterparts.
"Caninity" (scientifically classified as Canis sapiens, "Wise Canine") is the word used in Phillipe as a substitute for humanity. The words "man" and "woman" do not exist, and are replaced by the respective biological terms for the given species -- Phillipe's mother was a vixen, for instance.
A male dog (Canis sapiens habilis) is called just that, a "dog," while his female counterpart is a "She-Dog" -- it is important to note that "Bitch" is retained as semi-obscene and offensive term, applied (as it often is in our universe) as a generic and pejorative moniker for a difficult or mean-spirited female.
No other species is humanoid -- a unique point of departure for most Furry fiction, as usually many species of mammals are given representation. Royal did this as a precaution because of the constant inter-special pairings found in Furry fiction, and the questions that would arise from it -- namely, if a tiger and a wolf would reproduce, what would the result be?
[edit] Biology
To this end, Royal decided on a simple way of "combination" -- two canines of separate species, after mating, would produce a pup that would be either one species, or the other, and not a combination of the two.
If, for instance, a wolf and a fox were to have a child, the offspring would be either a fox or a wolf, not a foxwolf (which do not exist at all in Phillipe's universe, despite their proliferation in the Furry fandom).
Mating between members of the same species is slightly more complicated, but mirrors similar reproduction in humans.
Phillipe's father was an Arctic (silver) Fox, as per most all French aristocrats (the Eastern European nobility were mostly wolves, however, and the Romano-Italian nobility were exclusively hounds). Phillipe's mother was a Kit Fox -- i.e., of "commoner" stock. When the two of them mated, the resulting kit, Phillipe, being of two "kinds" of fox, had combined features of both, giving him silver headfur and tuft of silver on his chest (from his father), and blonde-gold overall bodyfur (from his mother).
Such combinations are not rare at all: Edward, Phillipe's closest friend, has a black (furred -- not a denotation or reflection of human race-labeling) father, whilst his mother has white fur, and they are both wolves -- following Royal's logic, Edward and his three brothers (Edmund, Edwin, and Edgar) are thus all mostly black except for a white blaze from their necks to their waists: the white wolf and black wolf combined.
No matter what colour or physical differences, if a white wolf and a black wolf (or red, or grey, et cetera) are in the same room, they are all referred to as "wolves," because they all belong to Canis sapiens lupus. Fur colour denotes ethnicity -- and, in times past, social status and birth -- and not separate species, as it would in our own universe.
To that end, Royal has stated that only foxes are prone to having supernumerary appendages (read: tails) and thus have a specific sub-classification, colæ, which means "tails" -- the number of tails (usually no more than three -- more than that number is considered a detrimental deformity) is specified by the prefix on the word colæ: hence, Phillipe is tricolæ, or "three-tails."
In recent years (within the context of the novel's universe) the colæ has been dropped in favour of the easier Japanese term, kitsune, which was coined concurrently but independently of colæ in centuries past.
The causes for a female giving birth to a Kitsune have never been determined, similar to the raging debate over homosexuality -- to a degree.
[edit] Soundtrack
Royal has intended there to be a soundtrack in the works to accompany the book, using songs from his favourite artists -- including individual themes for each character, and incidental music for different chapters and events in the novel.
The original intent of the novel having a soundtrack was in preparation for its (theoretical) adaptation into an anime -- the very notion of having specific music added to it, in and of itself, was inspired by the soundtracks to many videogames, in particular the Final Fantasy series.
The music selected has a distinct, "minimalist electronic" feel, with several entries from the Synthpop, Avantgarde, and Techno genre's, to give the entire soundtrack an immersive, "uniform" feel to dovetail the book, and help readers better identify with the characters and setting.
[edit] Reaction
Reviews when the first two chapters appeared in finalised and "work-in-progress" form were generally positive, although some concerns were expressed the text was too dense and the vocabulary utilised too difficult to understand, especially in the context of the plot and setting. Similarly, reviews for older versions of chapters some months before, tended to be positive[1] with varying degrees of enthusiasm[2].
However, the work has not been entirely free of criticism: a mutual critic of Royal's told him in private that the book's intensely psychological structure, with its heavy emphasis on the main character's inner thoughts and, occasionally, those of the other characters "actually gave [him] a headache."
The book has also been criticised as being "...wandering and convoluted in such a manner as it seem the author placed the enjoyment of the reader second to their personal will to put down every last thought that occurred to them as they occurred to them."
The universe the book is set in has been criticised because of its "canine-only" policy and lack of variety with other kinds of furs -- which, some have suggested, amounts to "glamourised speciecism" or "even racism in disguise".
Royal's defence is often met with skepticism because of his personal past (he has admitted being a Neo-Nazi at one point) and because they are complicated and not easily understood for those unfamiliar with the storyline or characters, however erudite or well-thought-out he intended his explanations to be.
However, Royal's theories on Therianism, his marriage with Volk (a white wolf), and the fact that many of his friends in real life merit his theories that they are, in fact, part canine as well, have all been given as further evidence that Royal deliberately snubbed other species (like lions or cats, popular choices for characters in furry fiction) regardless of his various professed hypotheses on the problematic genetic and reproductive scenarios that interspecies (feline-canine, for instance) mating would engender.
Furthermore, the idea that the novel should have a soundtrack was met with mixed reaction: some praised it for being innovative and bringing the characters and plot a refreshing feel, while others felt having a soundtrack to a non-visual work (such as book) was a superfluous effort.
