Bitey

Bitey

Bitey is a dashkin and is one of the main characters of the Brackenwood series. He resembles a hairy faced humanoid with horns and has legs that bear resemblance to a goat. He has the ability to travel great speeds over the planet and uses this to create mischief and generally be an annoyance to the other creatures of the world. In the present, Bitey generally makes himself a nuisance to other animals and creatures on Brackenwood. He has encounters with prowlies, morrugs, Lemonee Wee, the Auld Sage and Bingbong, just to name a few.

Being an intelligent creature in a world of animals, and having grown up as the last of his kind, without any parental figures to teach him the meanings of pity and friendship, Bitey's view of life has been corrupted. His opportunism is only a facade though, masking an intense loneliness. It is possible that he may learn of his mistakes in the future, and better himself.

History

Early life

Bitey was born to two unknown parents. While Bitey was still a baby, all of his people, the dashkin, as well as the Viccans, vanished into thin air. Bitey's earliest memory is waking up inside a globe tree as an infant and being surrounded by other infant creatures. When he left the protective globe he wandered around the planet alone, exploring as he went. He was eventually found by two morrugs and was taken into their care. The two of them fed Bitey and cared for him as if he was their own child. Unfortunately, sometime later, the Morrugs curelly but naturally abandoned him after they produced offspring of their own.

Bitey then wandered again, alone. A chance encounter with some fleels led him to discover his ability to traverse the ground swiftly and he grew up honing this skill to his advantage.

Bitey of Brackenwood

Main article: Bitey of Brackenwood

One day Bitey happened upon Jiblet the fatsack sitting by itself in a small clearing in the forest. Having not seen Bitey yet, the Jiblet was surprised when the dashkin brust out of the bushes and began chasing after the creature. Despite trying its best to flee, Bitey eventually caught the creature and bounced it on his head like a football before batting it away into the air with a stick.

Bitey later came across the garden of Lemonee Wee and her house situated in a whispering tree. He decided to investigate and leapt up to the house and looked through the window to see the Auld Sage and Wee enjoying tea together. To cause some mischief, Bitey kicked over one of Wee's plant pots and started to leave just as the witch burst out of the door and attempted to hit Bitey by flying at him. Since this strategy didn't work, she instead used her magic to summon water that acted and behaved like fire and trapped him in it, sending Bitey floating away.

Bitey continued to toss and tumble in the water until a Morrug grabbed him out of it and held him upside down by his foot. The Morrug looked to his left where the beaten and bruised Jiblet sat. Realising Bitey is the one responsible, the Morrug took a run up and then kicked Bitey like a football into the air, sending him soaring out of sight.

Prowlies at the River

Main article: Prowlies at the River

One night Bitey was sleeping inside a hollow tree. He dreamed of playing with a fatsack as a friend before awakening as if it were some sort of nightmare. Bitey noticed a hole being drilled in the side of the tree. A Chisel-Lizard had begun to do what it did best on his tree and this annoyed Bitey. He reached his hand out to grab the creature and tried to look through the hole before being pecked in the eye. Frustrated he tried to grab the creature with bhoth of hands and then climbed down to the bottom of the tree. He picked up a rock from one of the tree branches to uncover a personal water supply. However, just as he was about to take a drink, the Chisel-Lizard defecated, contaminating the water with its dropping. Bitey threw the rock at the creature and then sped off into the forest to find another source of water. In the process he landed on a tree, bent it down to the ground and let it go, slapping a Mood Bird in mid-flight with it.

Bitey came to a river where prowlies are staying. As one of them went to have a drink, Bitey suddenly appeared behind it and screamed, making it jump into the river. The other prowlies ganged up on Bitey and begun to punch and slap him. He suddenly dashed to the other of the river and then charged at the groupd, sending the prowlies flying into the air. He grabbed one of them and slapped it into the river, watching as it swam to the other side. The other prowlies climbed into a tree to stay out of Bitey's way.

Bitey jumped into the river and submerged himself to clean before taking a drink. He paused when he noticed the prowlies laughing. He looked up and saw Bingbong standing at the top of a waterfall near the river, urinating into the water. Bitey gagged and spat out what he had just drank as Bingbong finished his "business".

LittleFoot

Main article: LittleFoot (episode)

In the forest Bitey was listening out for the calls of a creature before hurling a rock in its general direction. A painful cry from far away proved his success. Bitey turned around and suddenly saw one of his only fears: a spider. He attempted to knock its web down using a stick, but after a leaf and a stick landed on him, Bitey got spooked and fled from the area.

Bitey found himself at the edge of the grasslands and noticed a little orange speck far away. He decided to go and investigate and the speck turned out to be a little, orange morrug baby. When the baby noticed Bitey following it, it tried to run up the hill as fast as it could, but Bitey merely needed to walk to keep up with it. Bitey jumped in the air, out of view, and the baby believed it had outrun him. However, Bitey landed in front of it and blocked its path. The baby tried to get by, but Bitey was too quick and blocked him every time. Suddenly, the baby snapped into "berserker mode" and started to attack. A surprised Bitey frantically tried to rip the creature off him and eventually did so, sacrificing some of his leg hair in the process. The baby grabbed his face and tore some hair off there as well, prompting the dashkin to hold the baby still and growl at it angrily. Suddenly, Bitey let go of the baby as its mother appeared, roaring at Bitey and grabbing the baby away from him. The mother then carried its child up the hill. Determined to have the last laugh, Bitey dashed up the hill and threw a lump of dirt in the morrug's face before leaping back down again. The morrug angrily picked up a large rock almost twice its size and hurled it at Bitey. Whilst Bitey managed to avoid this, he was knocked unconscious by a rock thrown by the baby morrug. The two entered the forest, leaving Bitey out cold against a rock. As night fell, a mass of dark shadowy creatures appeared and announced their plan to "steal" Bitey.

The YuYu

Main article: The YuYu (episode)

Rendered unconscious by LittleFoot's rock, Bitey was surrounded by the YuYu in their dark cloud form. He woke up to find that he had been partially transported to the shadow world of the YuYu, and managed to burst out of the cloud and make a run for it. Realising that the YuYu can move just as fast as him, Bitey went as quick as he possibly could and seemed to leave the YuYu in the dust. But to his dismay, the creatures were waiting for him when he stopped for a moment. Realising he needed to fight them, Bitey charged through the cloud multiple times, dispersing it until the individual YuYu creatures were left exposed. They tried to run, but Bitey quickly stomped on all of them and emerged triumphant.

Waterlollies

Main article: Waterlollies (episode)

Leaping quickly through the forest, Bitey stole a feathergnat nest and fled through the forest with it in hand. The gnats angrily pursued him until he got away and lost them temporarily. Bitey broke into the nest to eat the liquid contained inside and then threw the nest absentmindedly away. The nest hits an angry morrug peeing against a tree, who subsequently tried to chase Bitey, but he was too slow, allowing Bitey to escape.

Soon afterwards Bitey ran by a lake where the Auld Sage was collecting waterlollies from the water. Bitey grabbed the basket of waterlollies and subsequently ate them whole. The Auld Sage was horrified and threw a waterlollie at him. It landed on the ground, shocking it and making it inflate. Bitey then realised that one false move could kill him and he was forced to slow down to a walk to avoid shocking the waterlollies in his stomach. He entered the forest and saw various creatures he had caused trouble in the past surrounding him, including the prowlies and the morrug. Bitey managed to crawl away and found shelter under a rock, just as the gnats he had disturbed before flew over. He was about to rest when he looked up above him and saw a bunch of spiders. His sudden outcry caused the gnats to discover him again and he retreated into the water nearby to escape. Bitey swam to the other side and lost them. He crawled away in the grass, taking care not to impact his bloated stomach in any way.

Bitey found a hollowed-out tree to rest in but noticed a creature making a nest inside. He kicked the creature out into the hands of the morrug he had hit with the gnat-nest earlier. The angered morrug proceeded to stick him to the tree by his horns, the sudden impact causing Bitey to hurl up the waterlollies one by one.

The Last of the Dashkin

Main article: The Last of the Dashkin

Bitey has continued his mischievous ways, speeding through the forests and causing trouble and harm to many creatures. Although he seemed to loathe everyone, his opportunism was truly a facade, masking an intense loneliness. All around him Bitey would see creatures in the comfort of their kin, and deep down he yearned for the same, but he was the last of his kind. Bitey had never had any parents who could teach him the good values of pity and friendship.

Bitey sped through the forest and slammed a feathergnat nest on a large morrug's head before running away. Later, in the night, he is resting, and as he fell asleep and had a very unusual dream. In the dream the dashkin saw glimpses of figures identical to himself as well as Lemonee Wee fly and surround a large creature at night-time as if in some sort of battle before suddenly being consumed in a dark cloud. Next he dreamed of his infancy and how he was adopted by two morrugs, who subsequently abandoned him after producing offspring of their own, and how he discovered his talent for speed.

Later in the present time, Bitey ran across the Brackenwood landscape when suddenly a dark, cloaked figure came up alongside him and blocked his path. The figure turned out to be the last of the viccans, Lemonee Wee. She readied herself for whatever would follow, conjuring up magic water, preparing to possibly withhold Bitey, while the dashkin looked at her in puzzlement.

Future

Main article: The Last of the Dashkin 2

The future for Bitey is anyone's guess. It may be possible he will wander the planet alone until he dies, or may find a way to be re-united with his lost race. His meeting with Lemonee Wee at the end of the latest episode hints that his future will be interesting to say the least. Adam Phillips announced in 2016 that he was working on the sequel to The Last of the Dashkin, which will continue where the episode left off. However, as of 2017, work on the sequel has been put on hiatus while Phillips is working on the Dashkin game, which Bitey plays a central role in, and the Brackenwood Wildlife Documentary Series.

Physical appearance

Being a dashkin, Bitey have a relatively humanoid shape with two legs and two arms. His upper body, safe for his head, is largely hairless, resembling a human's, while his lower body, the legs, resembles a goat's leg, with brown fur and hooves. Bitey has five fingers on each hand. His head is covered in brown fur as well, and his eyes are large and glowing white. He has a pair of pointing horns protruding from his forehead. Bitey has white skin.

Personality

Bitey loves nothing more to make his day that ruin someone elses. He doesn't care much for others and enjoys playing jokes on them, even going as far as to use a fatsack as a football. He is shown to be somewhat of a vandal as well, having destoyed some of Lemonee Wee's flowerpots before being catapulted away by her magic. However, Bitey always ends up getting his just desserts at the end of his meddling.

Being an intelligent and emotional being in a world of animals, Bitey has grown to have contempt for those around him and has become an opportunist. He exploits others to get what he wants, even if that means irritating or harming them in the process. There is a reason for his cruelty, however. The sadness and bitterness of his solitude from his race have made him jealous of the animals he sees around him, who have the comfort of their own kin. Deep down inside, Bitey yearns to be with others like himself, even despite the fact he is the last of his kind. For example, in Bitey of Brackenwood, he abuses a fatsack, but later on dreams about having one as a pet.

Although Bitey has never had any parental figures who could teach him the good values in pity and friendship, being an intelligent creature it is assumed that might possibly learn these things in the future, if he eventually make an effort to do so.

Bitey has a severe fear of spiders.

Trivia

• Adam Phillips originally created Bitey to be Bingbong's nemesis, when the foolish, young elf was the main character. However, Phillips found Bitey, then called "Mortis", to be more interesting as a character, and as he fleshed out the world more Bingbong became secondary and then incidental to the story, and Bitey took his place as the central character.
• While designing Bitey Phillips struggled with coming up with an interesting face for him. One day, in frustration, he scribbled over the head on a sketch of him and accidentally created the fur-faced design that fans have come to know.
• Phillips chose the name "Bitey" because he wanted something more simple and with a slightly sinister undertone. Since Phillips was a child he had used the word "bitey" to describe nasty creatures.

• Bitey's origins were unknown and open to speculation until the most recent episode of the series. Through a series of flashbacks, it was revealed that the dashkin and viccan races vanished into thin air after being surrounded by a dark cloud, assumed by most fans to be the YuYu.