Octavia Butler uses dialogue throughout the book to say a great deal more than one would initially interpret. She uses the Oankali and their projected image of omniscience to convey criticism of humanity and our civilization, even in situations where the Human culture is not specifically under scrutiny. Less helpful to the story is her tendency to constantly ram the “Human Conflict/Contradiction” down the throats of her readers, yet never properly investigating just what is so flawed in it. Because so much of the trilogy deals with the indoctrination of Humans or the raising and educating of children, there is a lot of room for explanation to the reader and we often hear the same situation explained from multiple perspectives. This method of getting information to the reader is interesting because it points out the contradictions the Oankali are responsible for and the subtle manipulation and destructive lies through omission. Much of the Oankali deception is only a suspicion until the third book, where the reader gets a very in depth view into Jodahs’ reality and how he twists people to match his will. The concept of love in these inter-species relationships is completely dismissed, Lilith herself even says at one point that it’s only a matter of pheromones, and that becomes absolute fact when we experience Jodahs’ perspective. As far as Jodahs and Aaor were concerned it seemed not to matter at all which pair of Humans were chosen as mates, just that they found two warm bodies of roughly the right age. Love is occasionally mentioned, but quite frankly it seems to exist more to point out just how ridiculous that concept is with the degree of control the Oankali and constructs have over the Human perception of reality, than as any kind of serious statement.
One passage of Adulthood Rites that really stood out as saying more than it seems was when Akin and Tiikuchahk were on the shuttle to Chkahichdahk with Dichaan. Dichaan allowed Akin to “taste the ship’s perceptions” and then offered to do the same with Tiikuchahk (444). Tiikuchahk asks its sibling whether or not it should also have this experience, as it had clearly been painful to Akin and it is Akin’s response that is interesting.
“Yes,” he said. “Do it. It hurts, and you won’t like it, but there’s something more in it than pain, something you won’t feel until afterward. I think maybe…maybe it’s a shadow of the way it will be for us when we’re adult and able to perceive directly. It’s worth what it costs, worth reaching for.” (444)
This passage not only answers Tiikuchahk, but also answers how the Oankali, and constructs who are sufficiently swayed by the Oankali way, feel about hybridizing humanity. From their perspective Humans should breed with them, sign over their free will and reproductive abilities. It will hurt. They will go against their better judgment and resent their own weakness – not realizing just how little choice they had in the first place. But the Oankali and constructs are convinced that the trade is the correct choice and in the end the Humans will understand that the preservation of even the remotest slice of humanity is worth losing all trace of what Humans had once been. Even though Oankali explain throughout the book their reasons for the trade, their efforts to make Humans happy and save them from extinction, this passage seems to offer clarity of opinion that seems different from the more outright declarations in the book. For some reason this statement, that is not even about directly about Humans, explains the essence of the Oankali reason for continuing to force themselves on humankind against their wishes because of a belief that the pain is “worth what it costs.”