Runt

Though the humans are only seen a few times throughout the book, their presence influences pack dynamics—most particularly through the relationship between King and Bider, as well as how Runt moves away from the pack in later chapters. King warns that humans mean death for wolves, and Runt initially trusts King enough to believe this without question. Runt’s first encounter with a human in Chapter 6 shakes his confidence in his father’s wisdom, leaving him unsure of whether to trust his father or Bider. While humans smell strange, Runt doesn’t feel threatened by them, and this makes him question King. Bider’s insistence that King is a coward solidifies Runt’s questioning. Runt wants to believe that he is brave and worthy of the pack, but without King’s approval, he struggles to do so. By choosing to believe that King is a coward, he temporarily escapes his need for King’s approval. Eventually, he will have to learn to value himself on his own terms, regardless of what others believe. 

Following his encounter with the humans, Runt becomes determined to prove that he is brave, with the goal of earning “Brave” as a new name. Runt incorrectly defines bravery as never being afraid, and he quickly learns a painful lesson in The Importance of Managing Risk. The events surrounding the porcupine reveal that fear is a tool. By picking a fight with a porcupine and ignoring her warning, Runt exposes himself and Thinker to significant danger for no good reason. This encounter teaches Runt that actions have consequences. The humans who help Runt also further Runt’s belief that King is cowardly and misinformed. Since humans save Runt, he believes that he knows better than King and that this knowledge should earn him favor in the pack. Instead, the pack focuses only on how Runt’s actions harmed Thinker, which leaves Runt feeling even more distanced from the pack than before. Thinker’s situation also illustrates the problem with absolute ways of thinking. Since King and the other wolves believe that humans are bad with no exceptions, they cannot see how the humans have saved Runt’s life or how the humans could save Thinker. The pack ignores Runt’s attempts to tell them about the humans, condemning Thinker to his fate.

Runt’s brief relationship with Goldie explores The Tension Between Autonomy and Belonging. Runt longs for a sense of belonging, and he initially envies Goldie’s sense of belonging among the humans. They love and care for her, and she never needs to worry about finding enough food. However, Runt soon realizes that in order to belong among the humans as Goldie does, he would have to give up his freedom. He struggles to comprehend the idea of being owned by someone else because there is no comparable idea in the wild. The differences in how Runt and Goldie view belonging speak to how experience informs understanding. As a domesticated dog, Goldie has never known the wild. Thus, being owned by humans is just something she accepts because it comes with being cared for, even if it means that she wears a collar and is chained to the humans’ residence. To Goldie, these things are conditions of her belonging and being part of a family, and she accepts them because she knows nothing else. When she learns of Runt’s struggles for food and shelter in the wild, she chooses to continue accepting the terms of her belonging because the benefits seem to far outweigh the freedom to go where she pleases when she wants. By contrast, having grown up with total freedom, Runt cannot fathom belonging to humans and being confined. Still, his ability to consider such a life after the events of Chapter 11 shows how Runt might consider such a life if it came with the chance to feel accepted, revealing the importance of feeling like one has a place.