You know, I never really thought about it in the same sense as Temeraire, Valdemar, etc, but you have a point!

And I wonder if that's a big part of why I disliked Fuzzy Nation so thoroughly on an emotional level, because it'd be sort of like someone writing a take on Valdemar in which the horse-analogs loathe being Companions and are only putting up with it for self-serving reasons while plotting against the Heralds. It torpedoes the fantasy right in the aspect of it that makes it emotionally appealing ... which I guess works fine if you aren't into the fantasy, but if that's actually what drew you to the thing in the first place ...! (See also: me and Lev Grossman's books.)