If you go looking online for answers about the Grinch’s DNA, as I would imagine many reading this are currently doing, you’ll quickly find some absolutist takes along the following lines (I’m paraphrasing):
It’s canonically established that Whos are microscopic (see: Horton Hears a Who!, in which the Whos live on a planet located on a speck of dust). In the Jim Carrey edition of the Grinch movie, Whoville is located on a snowflake. Since the Grinch lives outside Whoville, he must also be microscopic.
Ok, but what about the species, you nerds?
We know a few things about the Whos, and about the hairy green creature living outside their city limits. Among those:
- They can be accessed on small airborne particles.
- Christmas exists for them.
To me, the first detail is less important than the second. We can get to “entire planet existing on a snowflake” in a few ways, and while “they’re microscopic” is part of the story, that aspect runs into conflict with two other facets of the Whos’ existence unless we make a further adjustment. We’ll get to those facets momentarily. For now, let’s leave it at this: It’s possible we’re actually passing through to parallel dimensions when we go to visit the Whos.
The second detail? Christmas existing in Whoville? That’s big.
Notably, I don’t believe we ever see the Whos go to church. However, criticisms of their race as shallowly commercial wither upon confrontation. If they were so obsessed with the commercial version of Christmas, they would react much more negatively to the Grinch stealing it. Instead, love and togetherness seem to be the pillars upon which the Whos’ Christmas stands, and while it’s possible they’re taking a humanistic (Whomistic, you could say) secular approach to the holiday, the holiday still had to reach them somehow. The most likely explanation for the Whos’ embrace of Christmas is that they worship the same god Christians worship, though perhaps from a different angle. Did Christ come to the Whos? We can’t say. But the date associated with His birth matters to them. It matters so much that our canon tells us all of them “liked Christmas a lot.”
Why, then, don’t the Whos go to church? Who are we to say? Hippopotamuses don’t go to church. Velociraptors didn’t go to church. Earthworms don’t go to church, or at least don’t go to church in any manner recognizable to us. Do they worship our same god? We don’t know. But we know the Whos celebrate the feast of Christ’s birth, even going so far as to call it by its Christian name. The Whos, and the Grinch, are distinct from the worms in that they possess intellect and emotions comparable to our own, and perhaps even surpassing our own. But this does not mean they must worship in the same ways we worship.
Earlier, we mentioned the parallel dimension theory, and we vowed to return. The two issues:
First, Whoville, as it exists in Horton Hears a Who!, is not only located on a speck of dust but is located on a speck of dust in a jungle called Nool in which elephants, kangaroos, monkeys, an eagle, and other animals communicate with one another and consider themselves persons. Nool could be a different name for an earthly jungle, in theory, but no jungle on this planet exists in which elephants and kangaroos live together. Maybe Nool is elsewhere in this universe, maybe it’s in a different dimension, but the particular snowflake or speck of dust upon which Whoville is located cannot be found on our Earth. Whoville is not of this world, and not only in the sense that it’s a world unto itself.
Then, there’s the matter of Max.
The Grinch has a dog, guys.
This is my favorite part of this scientific questioning of the Grinch’s biological origins. The guy has a dog. Unless biology works highly differently from what we understand, our world has no microscopic dogs. We do, however, have normal-sized dogs.
Is Max the same size as our dogs? Is the Grinch’s Max the same species as my Fargo? I’m not sure. But I love it either way. Because whether Whoville exists in a microscopic universe in our world, in a parallel dimension with gigantic compassionate elephants inhabiting a jungle named Nool, or in some other metaphysical structure, dogs have found their way there. Dogs have made it to Whoville.
We may never know the Grinch’s genus, let alone species. But whether you subscribe to string theory, loop quantum gravity, or the flat earth theory, your understanding of our universe’s place in broader reality must account for Max. Your physical explanation of existence must acknowledge the fact that everywhere you go, there are dogs. And in all those places, all those corners of all those dimensions, those goofy furballs have found a way to get someone to feed them.
Of course they have.
😊