Do talking animals change the nature of a story?

[Derin]

Basically I'm willing to put up with talking animals provided the author is aware that they would speak, think and act differently from humans, and has given serious thought to *why* the animal would be talking, instead of just adding it for fun. On the other hand, anthro characters - upright, two-legged creatures with animal heads and fur - don't bother me, since they're not real animals and aren't expected to act that way.

They bother me when they're supposed to be representing true animals, but not when they're other sentient races that share superficial characteristics with nonsentient animals, such as those tiger-people in Call of the Icemark (I forget what they're called) or the kistu and nekoyokai of Tales of MU.

 

[myrddin173]

such as those tiger-people in Call of the Icemark

Actually they're Snow Leopards. On topic though, I agree with most of the people here. When the animals act like "humans in sheep's clothing" it feels childish. If the authors are able to develop the talking animals' personalities/attitudes/mannerisms as fitting their species then I quite enjoy it.