Disclaimer: Tarzan belongs to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and to Disney. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has changed hands.
Author's note: This little ditty is realy just a comment on the differences between what Hollywood did to the Tarzan stories and what the originals were like. I wrote it in defence against a plotbunny attack in about an hour and a half around midnight. For the purposes of this story, only the first four novels were actual "fact". The others were put out for a demanding public that sent death threats to Aurthur Conan Doyle after he killed Sherlock Holmes. Someone once said that if all the "hidden worlds" in ERB's universe had actually existed, Africa would have to have been twice it's actual size. It's best, I think to keep it simple for this one.
A note on dating and modern medicine: From reading the novels, John Clayton III's birthday is November 22, 1888. He was 20 when he met his cousin Clayton and Jane and the rest. That, of course, makes him aproxymately 110 years old when Disney's Tarzan came out in theaters. I have great faith in modern medicine. He could have seen this film. I doubt that he would still be alive today, but given his excellent physical condition, I am confident that he could have reached this age.
John Clayton III, Lord Greystoke, on the Subject of Tarzan
It amazes me at times how people can latch onto something and turn it into a legend. And legends, though usually containing a morsel of truth, are rarely acurate. That can be a good thing, though I'm betting you'd be curious as to how.
I've just finished watching my latest Hollywood incarnation on the silver screen at a prominant London theater. A young corporate man from America watched it with me, rather nervously. His superiors knew that this film had the had the potential to make a great deal of money, and my dear friend, Edgar, had insisted in his will that, following his death, it would be my family who had the final approval on films depicting his portrayal of my life. A bit convoluted, and the young man was sweating bullets with worrying that the senile old man beside him would rubber-stamp the picture with my approval. I rather enjoyed making him squirm. *snort* You would think that after all this time, the visciousness I required in the jungle to keep breathing would have finally left me after all this time away from my first home, but it still creeps up in little ways, even as I near the twilight of my life.
Mr. Buelir, or Balu-ab as I had begun to think of him, which means "baby boy" in my mother tongue, asked me nervously what I thought of the film.
I decided that my best course to make him even more nervous before putting him out of his misery would be to tell him nothing less than the truth. "Let me tell you just a few of the things that were not acurate in your film. My lovely wife, may God keep her soul, was a woman of Boston, Mass, and she had flowing blonde hair. Though you may not be able to tell, my hair used to be pitch black, and while I suppose it's hard to do in animation, my eyes, as you can see, are gray rather than blue. Professor Porter was a good man, not nearly as excentric as you've made him here. As for Clayton, though my cousin was ruthless in politics, he wasn't much in the jungle, and while he was jealous in wanting Jane for his own, he was not evil. The Mangani are not gorillas. The two species are not even friendly with one another. The only female ape I had anything to do with, other than my mother, was Teeka, and I lost her to Taug. Just as well.
"Kala's mate was Tublat. Kerchak, the king of our tribe, hated me with a passion. 'Sabor' means lioness, not leopard. Numa and his mate, Sabor. And lastly, though there are many other little things, Jane did not stay in the jungle with me. She was taken back to Boston, while I travled Northward with my very good friend, Paul d'Arnot. We didn't marry at all until two years later."
I watched for a moment, fascinated by a single drop of sweat that was working it's way to the tip of his nose. Then I grinned, deciding that he'd suffered enough. "I doubt, however, that authenticity was the point of this film at all. It's a very good story. The point of my life in the jungle was that there was no point. My only purpose was to live, to not end up in the belly of a beast or a cannibal or dead by the bullet of a poacher. The jungle has ten thousand ways to kill you. The point of the film, however, is that family is family, whether by blood or not. It's a good message, and I'm honored to be a part of it."
Mr. Beulir glared at me for a moment before smiling. He snorted. "You did that on purpose," he accused.
My grin widened as I grunted and affirmative.