How to Introduce Something Potentially Laughable?
Here's the set up. You're reading a traditional fantasy. Something is attacking the land of the elves. At long last the invaders are discovered, and they are... intelligent rabbits.
My idea isn't quite that far out, but it is similar in nature. Assuming you aren't writing a comedy, how could you pull something like that off while still maintaining the serious, epic, LotR feel you're going for? More importantly, how can you introduce something potentially laughable, and have the reader accept it as part of the story?
My ideas:
At first I thought you should do it bit by bit. Find signs, tracks, rumors, that sort of thing. That would lessen the shock. The problem I see here is that doing so would increase the suspense, which could then result in a big let-down for the reader when the invaders aren't what he expected.
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Describe don't name
To summarise your problem, you have a very serious, very deadly in world threat that bears an unfortunate resemblance to something out of world that the reader's will identify with humorous connotations.
You have identified that the protagonists of your story will find the invaders foreign but does that mean they find them humorous as well? The answer to that question informs how you should handle it.
If your protagonist finds them funny
Do nothing. If they are funny, let them be funny. Your characters aren't taking them seriously neither should your readers. Introduce them as you would any other character, race or creature. Their true nature will show through once the novelty wears off.
If your protagonist doesn't find them funny
If the reason the invaders are humorous is nothing to do with the beings themselves but entirely to do with the real world connotations of the creature then you have do it differently. You want to introduce the beings through the actions and temperament rather than their appearance (assuming their appearance is the thing that is funny). There are dozens of books that do this well and I will highlight a couple of them.
Magician by Raymond Fiest deals with an invading army that initial seemed weak. They come from a world with no metal and the protagonists initially dismiss their wooden weapons and armor as not a threat until Fiest shows us that they are. He uses rumours, ambushes and misinformation to grow the threat of the invading race. You can use similar techniques to make your invaders feel both alien and serious.
In the Tiger and the Wolf series by Adrian Tchaikovsky we are first introduced to the invaders through the fearful campfire stories of the protagonists. We only ever see the enemy though the eyes of the characters, with all their prejudices and fears. As skeptical readers it is easy to determine who the invaders are but within the suspension of disbelief they are a terrifying unknown. Using the wrong words for things that the readers will recognise but the characters would not (i.e. death stick instead of gun) is a good way to communicate the fear of the unknown.
Use a serious tone and refrain from referring to the enemy as something the readers will find humorous, create in world terms for the same creatures but with different connotations. Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden does this well, never quite referring to the enemy by name but giving us a clear description of what they are.
Finally, stick to your guns. If you are writing a good story readers will gloss of the humor get to the good bits. The spells in Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling are rediculous, but we ignore that for the sake of a ripping yarn. Be confident and don't just to apologise for the funny aliens within the text, if done properly you won't need to.
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First of all, let's define laughable. Summarising from several dictionaries, one can say it refers to something that makes you laugh because:
a) it's amusing (which seems to imply something pleasant, comical, entertaining)
b) it's absurd
Now let me pick up the given example: intelligent rabbits are invading.
This example plays the absurd line: everyone knows rabbits are small animals with a high level of cuteness but low intelligence that reproduce quickly in order to survive a world where everyone eats them (a pity that cuteness doesn't deter predators). They're physically harmless to bigger, hardier creatures.
The absurdity stems from the wide gap separating the well-known reality - cute harmless creature - from the uncommon fictional reality - a capable invader (which implies intelligence, big muscles, and... well, big bodies). After all, films have given us intelligent sharks (and other animals I fail to remember) and the absurdity stemmed mostly from the plot and the humans' actions, because the threat the sharks presented was relatively legit.
The Gremlins come to mind too. For as long as they're cute little furballs, they're harmless. Once they lose their fur and become scaly, toothy monstruous looking critters, then their level of threat can be taken seriously (and this was a comedy).
Bottom line: an appearance describable as small, cute and harmless cannot be taken seriously and becomes laughable when presented as a threat.
What one must keep in mind, however, is that small, cute and harmless only come together within the reader's notions! It's basically a prejudice: if a creature is small and cute, surely it can do no harm. Just look at koalas! They're like big, sweet teddy bears, right? Except one should avoid getting too close as they have a vicious bite. And bunnies themselves! Through the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, bunnies were not seen as cute and harmless in Australia. They were a pest that cyclically made the headlines as plagues swept the country.
Perhaps the reader is 'prejudiced' and thinks of cute harmlessness at the sound of the word 'bunny'. What about the fantasy world inhabitants? I'm pretty sure 'bunny' for them would be, in the very least, the equivalent of 'rat' for the reader.
How to set it up?
Let's say one wants to go all the way and use the word 'bunny' coupled with the actual visual of our real life rabbits.
First of all, why are they a threat? Surely it isn't because they're super-strong axe-wielding warriors. Because we're keeping their biology intact, they can't even create tools since their paws don't allow it.
Let's see:
1) They have developped intelligence and their aim is to create large areas that are predator free.
2) As their numbers grow, they will spread out. Despite their intelligence, they haven't yet realised that the world is finite and they will one day have nowhere else to move to (big surprise: how many milennia did humans take to realise it?).
3) They do have a culture, that varies across the different communities. They have different languages and art (they carve trees using their teeth). It looks like random chewed stuff to humanoid races, but the bunnies are aware of how delicate and deep such works are.
4) They have two classes of enemies: irrational predators (like foxes and eagles) and rational predators (humans, elves, etc).
4a) The irrational predators are dealt with through traps, guerrilla techniques and a sort of 'pavlov reflex' (if the predators can learn that bunnies does not equal certain lunch, they'll prefer easier prey).
4b) Rational predators are a two fold danger: they do not only hunt and kill bunnies, but their towns and fields also encroach in what the bunnies consider to be their ideal environment.
They have developed specific fighting techniques to face them: to undermine their food source (only the best warriors - fast and experts at hiding), they destroy their crops and kill their cattle. They have learnt to use specific poisonous plants which they chew just before biting the animals, with the poison spreading through their blood system. Only a specific warrior class goes through the training to become immune to these poisons. If the humanoids use water pipes, they will be gnawed and poison will be added to it.
To use the same poisoning technique in the humanoids is tricky, but it's still widely used with solitary individuals. Their biggest advantage was that the humanoids had no idea where the danger lay, but, unfortunately, the elves have figured it out. Fortunately, orcs and humans still underestimate their abilities.
In the meantime, their most intelligent members are working on ways to transmit the humanoids a disease which will prove deadly to them, while inconsequential to the bunnies.
In the story
Now the world building is done, let's focus on the writing. The trick is to make sure the reader only sees the word bunny in association with how negative they are. Soon, even the reader will shudder at the thought of bunnies.
"Weirian, we must rally everyone: I've come across bunny markings."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes. Right next to the well, and you know what that means: poisoned water. I've already sent my wife and children to my sister's. They live further from the fields."
Weirian closed his fists tight. A single bunny had once burrowed into his house, three years ago, then bitten his young child with their poison. They were small and discrete, and had been known to kill whole sleeping families. Weirian lived to eradicate those monsters.
Conclusion
What turns something laughable into credible is... making the threat credible. Think up the least threatening creature (or individual) at first sight, then focus on the world-building part and give them something that makes them truly dangerous. Going with a (mildly) realistic threat is probably better. One already has to suspend disbelief to see the bunnies (or whatever) as threatening, so make sure the rest isn't too far-fetched.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41113. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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If you're not telling a humorous story, and your protagonists come across something which looks like it should be funny but ends up being deadly, then you have a Killer Rabbit situation.
Bear with me: In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the knights come across the Killer Rabbit in the cave. They protest: "It's just a harmless little bunny!" But the rabbit flies out of the cave and attacks them savagely. Being Monty Python, of course, it's taken for laughs ("Run away! Run away!"), but three armored, armed knights are killed in the charge.
So play it as if it were real: your protagonists see the intelligent rabbits and snicker amongst themselves about Oh look, the widdle bunnies, let's go talk to Mister Cottontail Fluffypants, and then the six-foot jackrabbit pulls out a pair of swords and lops the arms off the two guards sent to talk to her, and nobody's giggling any more.
Take your readers and your protagonists on the same journey. The MCs may or may not be tracking footprints, finding clues, whatever you'd normally do to set up an opponent. They come to the warren/camp/city and see huge angry-looking soldiers walking around wearing armor and looking irritated. Maybe you do the reveal from behind, so first we only see warriors, and weapons, and then one of the soldiers turns around... and it's a bunny.
The readers will be laughing at the enormous bunnies, right up until they moment everyone realizes they aren't funny because they're genuinely dangerous. Your killer rabbit characters are accustomed to being underestimated, and they use that to their advantage.
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