This book made me think entirely too hard about things I am not comfortable thinking about - what is human, what is free will, do humans really suck this much, etc etc etc. Now that I’ve finished, I’m still stuck thinking about it, but I am having a difficult time grounding what I have to say in the text, or even articulating it in something approaching a coherent fashion. I’ll give it a shot, though.

One thing before I start: Regardless of whether the Contradiction would lead inevitably to human destruction, refusing to help humans continue as humans because they will eventually destroy themselves – because helping them would be like “causing the conception of a child who is so defective that it must die in infancy” – is a little like demanding all fetuses be aborted because men are mortal and will die at some point, anyway (532).

I'm really more of a fantasy than SF girl - I've read more fantasy books, good and bad, than I care to admit. Especially with high fantasy, the stakes tend to be pretty high – set out on this quest to drop this ring in a fiery volcano or the world will end, journey into the mountains to awaken the dragons to save the kingdom, and similar. (Side note: I know that there are exceptions – I’m running with standard structures here) The main character is often plucked out of obscurity, but because of one thing or another, they are in some way “destined” to carry out this task set to them. The protagonist sets out on this journey knowing it will be long and hard, and the plot concludes with a great release of the built-up tension – a crashing together of great armies, an epic battle with the evil lord, etc.) The main character may start out as an everyman, but through his or her actions and words, it becomes clear that the protagonist is suited to the heroic lifestyle, so to speak. I find it difficult to describe exactly what I mean, but hopefully this makes sense

Most of the science fiction books I’ve read fit into this style, as well. Some, like The Handmaid’s Tale, do not follow this structure, but Offred is never set up to be a hero, never does anything particularly significant on a grand scale; that’s the point of the book. Lilith’s Brood, on the other hand, repeatedly sets up a scenario perfect for the heroic structure – the woman chosen to lead humans into a new world, the first human-born male construct, the first ooloi construct. However, none of them are particularly heroic. Though they never behave as proper, traditional heroes do, through smaller actions they manage to accomplish the same things.

Every one of Butler’s protagonists really is an everyman. Lilith, Akin, and Jodahs actions are dictated by their own and their companions’ everyday needs. It is through these smaller actions that they manage to accomplish such extraordinary things. They seem less unusual, untouchable, and heroic, and more like regular people who were put in extraordinary situations and managed pretty well. It is easier for the reader to put themselves in their situation, to relate, and therefore erases much of the the Oankali alien-ness. It brings out the humanity in the Oankali – or perhaps the Oankali in humanity.

For example: Lilith never accepts the role the Oankali give to her as the shepherd of humanity, but neither does she radically reject it. She just rolls with it, because either radical action is too extreme for her, and it’s easiest to take the middle road. Even in the last paragraphs of Dawn, she still says, “…perhaps the Oankali were not perfect. A few fertile people might slip through and find one another. Perhaps. Learn and run! If she were lost, others did not have to be. Humanity did not have to be” (248). She does not initiative to become un-lost – that is the job for someone in the future.

In a further rejection of the traditional plot structure, there is no real climax to the trilogy. The final scene of resistance in the mountain village is pretty anticlimactic – the people have been subdued by Jodah and Aaor’s healing abilities, and when the Oankali ship comes, “there was no panic on the part of the humans…it was a measure of the Human’s trust that they let Aaor and me and our mates go down to meet the newcomers” (737). Even the last Human holdouts are defeated gently, by the kindness (and chemicals) of the ooloi, and it is questionable whether they are defeated at all. They are moving on to a better life on Mars, but they are still behaving as the Oankali want them to.

The end is ultimately ambiguous; the last sentence of the book, “Seconds after I had expelled it, I felt it begin the tiny positioning movements of independent life,” has no real feeling of conclusion to it (746). Rather, it hints that life will continue on pretty much as it has through the entire trilogy, and it is through little actions and normal people that change will come.