You know him. He’s tall, with dark features and a healthy vitality. His existence lies on a plane beyond the rest of us. His energy is seemingly unwavering. There’s an air of mystery about him; he so rarely speaks. He’s desperate for attention, any at all that you can give him. His eyes are comically large but held within are pits of black. He is perhaps, the single most well-known person on campus. He’s Felix the Beaver.
You may have seen this BNOC traipsing around during welcome week, or he might have come to your halls before you all set out on a night out. Regardless, you know him. But do you really know him? Why is he called Felix and most importantly, what is he doing here? To start with, Felix’s name comes from the extended quote from which LSE’s motto is derived—“Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas”—Fortunate, he who was able to know the causes of things.
There’s a lot we don’t know about Felix still, but what we do know is that his larger than life appearances have been increasing in frequency. Like everything at LSE, corporate marketing machinations are behind our favourite beaver friend. Having a mascot is an essential part of attracting American students and their sexy American dollars, whether they enrol for the General Course or all 3 or 4 years of an LSE undergrad degree. For the rest of us though, Felix the Beaver is strange at best and infantilising at worst. Still, there’s a lighter-sided aspect to Felix’s newfound resurgence: he may or may not be the favourite of a certain person whose name rhymes with Shinouche Mafik.
