I'm Going to be a "Father" *EMOTIONAL*

I thoroughly enjoyed Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild. I think her fear of having something living inside her was very well expressed through the eyes of the young protagonist. While the story as a whole is very strange and thought provoking, the most interesting part of it, to me, was when Gan considered making his sister the host of T'Gatoi’s children. While I was not able to directly connect with this story element, as I am an only child, the idea of coming to terms with your role in society seems pretty universal. He decides against having his sister take his place not only because it’s a harsh life to have to force onto someone else, but also because she has to bear human children. This realization seemed to highlight how women are treated as hosts in human society, similarly to how men are treated in Butler’s story. Childbirth is similar to the alien birth in that it is somewhat secretive, painful, and in some cases quite gory. When we are finally told how the human birthing process works, it is often daunting if not totally off putting. Gan experiences these exact emotions when he finally sees what his role entails.

The switching of gender roles was very interesting to read and is evident, not only in the roles of the humans in the story, but also in the alien society where females dominate. I wonder if the choice of having the alien that takes care of the family be a female reflects Butler’s own upbringing as a child of a single mother. This switch also functions as an extreme inverse of our own society, where men are more typically seen in positions of political power. However, it is heightened to a point where T’Gatoi is excited to see a male being born at all.

One element of the story that I wish was elaborated on was the role of the mother. Gan’s mother seems to resist the advances and traditions of the alien race in the beginning of the story. This may be due to her seeing her husband being used as a host three times in his life. She seems like a character that has a lot to say in opposition to the alien/ human codependency, but instead she takes a back seat in the story. I would love to see her role expanded on.
I think this narrative would make a good accessible graphic novel or short film. However, it would be very interesting to see it as a video game. Instead of the main protagonist being Gan, the player could play as someone coming across a society like this and finding out about the codependency by talking to the humans who live there. It could be played as from an outsider's perspective instead of coming from someone on the inside. While this may lose the personal element Butler has created in her story, I think it could still do well in a horror sci-fi video game genre.

There are also elements of this story that could be considered afro-futurist. As someone who is used to reading futuristic stories from the perspective of white authors, it was interesting to see a future written by someone with a different background. The most obvious element that references this may be the names of the characters. I wish I could point out element other than the implied skin color of the main characters that is particularly afro-futuristic, but as someone who doesn’t know much about the cultural background of the author, it is difficult for me to identify references in her futuristic work. I wonder if someone with a similar background would get more out of the story than I do.

I hope to read more stories like Bloodchild. It was fun to see something so outlandish being made so relatable.