I see a lot of people trying to give more precise definitions of furry, but end up often drawing some artificial lines in the process. You talk about picking based on underlying themes and not say what someone wants out of furry, but then draw a line that is more superficial than an encompassing theme. It seems like a vast majority of furry interest does not care about the particular origins of a creature, but the final result. There are furs with interest in specific types of origins, but they fall all over the spectrum. It also seems kind of awkward to have a work that would be labelled furry, only to have it potentially de-labelled if a sequel reveals the origin stories of a character(s).
Also, it seems funny how picky some can be when dealing with chimeric creatures, where certain mixing of traits are ok, but others are not. When mixing and matching traits of creatures, there is no more clear cut line between "This is based on a real animal" and not. There is a whole spectrum from intelligent/talking forms of an animal, to something heavily based on that animal, to something inspired by the animal, to something inspired by a general class of animals or multiple animals. Saying there is some clear cut-off point here isn't looking at the themes, when any of those can heavily cover themes central to large parts of furry interests. And such a cut-off really only ends up in pointless arguments about various details and exceptions while not really accomplishing much even if settled.
I see a lot of people trying to give more precise definitions of furry, but end up often drawing some artificial lines in the process. You talk about picking based on underlying themes and not say what someone wants out of furry, but then draw a line that is more superficial than an encompassing theme. It seems like a vast majority of furry interest does not care about the particular origins of a creature, but the final result. There are furs with interest in specific types of origins, but they fall all over the spectrum. It also seems kind of awkward to have a work that would be labelled furry, only to have it potentially de-labelled if a sequel reveals the origin stories of a character(s).
Also, it seems funny how picky some can be when dealing with chimeric creatures, where certain mixing of traits are ok, but others are not. When mixing and matching traits of creatures, there is no more clear cut line between "This is based on a real animal" and not. There is a whole spectrum from intelligent/talking forms of an animal, to something heavily based on that animal, to something inspired by the animal, to something inspired by a general class of animals or multiple animals. Saying there is some clear cut-off point here isn't looking at the themes, when any of those can heavily cover themes central to large parts of furry interests. And such a cut-off really only ends up in pointless arguments about various details and exceptions while not really accomplishing much even if settled.