|Diverse Sci-fi| - Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" - Course Assessment

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

At first I was very confused on the different terms being used, but through Gan's narration, I was able to recognize that he and his family are humans (here called Terrans) who live among an alien species called Tlics. I was confused on why the Tlics would have any bonding relationship with the Terran, by throughout the story I understood is mainly because of necessity. Tlics cannot have children of their own hence why they impregnate Terrans with their eggs. By the end, I felt really scared for Gan, because he had to witness the terrible "c-section" of a human male gone wrong and now he's having doubts on whether to be impregnated or not. He's prepared himself all his life but he pretty much has had this fate since he was born. He chooses to move on with the impregnation at the end as he hopes T'Gatoi will not leave him to do this alone. Even so, it's a very interesting short story on the lives of aliens and their use on humans. It's unfortunate for the humans, hence they're just being used for the alien's own benefit, but I guess humans get their own benefits from it if things go well with the impregnation and the "labor". I'm not necessarily a fan of this kind of story, since I'm not really fond of the idea of giving birth to creepy parasites for the good of another species. It was interesting and a rare change of gender roles, but it doesn't stop it from being terrifying. The way humans are being used as objects rather than as a regular human. Would they have been better off back on their native earth? Probably not, but they're basically trapped and they have this rare love/hate bond with the Tlics. It's scary to believe this is the fate of these humans and there's no way out of it.


2. What connections did you make with the story that you read?
Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

In the end, they both need each other to survive. Tlics give dream-like eggs to the humans to remain young, while Terrans can be impregnated to keep the alien race going. The gender roles are changed and now the women aliens are the ones that work and the human males are the ones that stay home to wait for the eggs to "come out". There's this strange but obligatory relationship in order to survive and we go through it through Gan's uncertainties. In the end everything is about survival, whether you like what you have to sacrifice or not, you have to fight for every little bit you get and you'll do anything to live yet another day.  It's an unsentimental view of life. I guess you could you see the same type of theme in a genre that doesn't necessarily have to be sci-fi. It's all about the different working classes and how they need each other to move on in society.

3.What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

I don't think I would change anything per say on the original story, but I would definitely have the story be illustrated into more of a graphic novel. It would be morbid yet more interesting to have those illustrations of the Tlics and what happens to the Terrans once they "give birth". We can also have better illustrations and details on what the humans look like when they digest the "dream-like" eggs and more specifically how the Tlics looks and how the world looks overall. It's always nice to have such sci-fi themed stories be illustrated since there's so much the reader needs to come up with in their heads as they also try to understand the story going on. Being a graphic novel will also help the readers see the struggle Gan is going through. See his expressions as he's not so sure whether to keep going with the plan or not. It will help give a clearer vision of the story and also emphasize the entrapment and objectification of humans.