Setting Discussion - "Bloodchild," "Sea Oak," and "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves."

On St. Lucy's, I definitely saw the parallels between the Indian Boarding Schools and the experiences of the girls. The nuns here didn't strike me as bad as the boarding schools - it seemed that the did more coaxing and cajoling than violent acts. Although to be clear- I believe in bodily autonomy and get that actions such as hair removal is an act of violence. The nuns left the gates open and the girls could easily clear the stone walls. But there is the disturbing side of knowing that girls who were not assimilating were disappeared. And when I think about it it feels more ominous given what we are now finding out about mass graves at school sites. The girls who were not assimilated would struggle whether it was in the wolf or human families.

While I was reading this short story, I also thought about assimilation of immigrants. My mother immigrated at the age of about 6 and was mostly educated in Catholic schools. She talks about how the nuns would prevent the kids from speaking Spanish anywhere on campus. I know some elders then refused to speak heritage languages to the next generation but my mother went in the opposite direction by dedicating her career to Bilingual education and making sure my siblings and I were all fully bilingual. I could see a follow up story where Claudette becomes a nun and covertly helps the girls escape.

I loved when they realized that the church service was "the human's moon, the place for howling, beyond purpose. Not for mating, not for hunting, not for fighting, not for anything else but the sound itself. And we'd howl along with the choir, hurling every pitted thing within us at the stained glass." I don't want to get too personal but that paragraph articulated something I've felt and have never seen expressed so beautifully.

Bloodchild

2. I think Gan’s brain is finding the best way to protect him by “loving” T’Gatoi in the same way that victims come to love their abusers at times if they are trapped. He can either love her or he can drown in the despair that he will never escape or be anything more than a possible breeder. T’Gatoi does not and cannot love him in the way we know. She must find a body for her eggs and what greater comfort is there than Gan? He is the son of her “friend” and she has known him all his life. Her love for him is not the ideal give-and-take variety each of us hope for.

Sea Oak

1. Sea Oak began and I wondered if it was a parody for how women are treated in society (sexualized, mistreated, etc). As it went on, I realized it was like reality… but with a dent in it. Something was off, but the rest of the picture remained whole.

I pitied Aunt Bernie. She was someone with a heavy past who decided optimism and ignoring misfortune was the way to plow forward in life. When she came back in life, all the feelings she should have let herself feel came out in full force. She was sad and angry, decisive and bitter. Instead of plowing ahead, she fell apart.

We saw the extremes in how she dealt with her reality and as a result, the other characters suffered. When she was overly optimistic, nothing really changed. She annoyed others and lived an unfulfilling life. When she was angry and decisive, she tried to bully everyone into doing what was best for the family. Neither helped and I don’t think the changes forced on the characters will stick long-term.

St. Lucy's 

1.  I would have absolutely made the same choices as Claudette. Her first human lie tells us that she has realized it is impossible for her to live as a wolf when she is actually human. It is a slow realization, one made slower by Jeanette’s borderline obnoxious successes and Mirabella’s failure.

2.  The stumble between childhood and adulthood is not always hormone-based. It’s about adapting to your peers, realizing that there is more to the world than how you were raised. Learning from others and becoming a person outside of the moldings of childhood is adolescence. It’s awkward and unbecoming at times as teens learn about themselves and who they want to be. They’re presented with a multitude of scenarios and questions; each one shapes them in a way their upbringing couldn’t. For Claudette, she is learning that the childhood she had is a foundation but she must build her own house on it because she is not a wolf. She is a human.

Schooling and education is just as important in this story, too. Schooling is being told what to learn, what to expect, what to do. Education comes when schooling, experience, and choice come together. For Claudette, the beginning of St. Lucy’s is schooling. It is words that have little weight to them, especially to someone who is so wildly out of her element. When she tells her human lie, we understand that she is aware of who she is and what she wants to be-- not a wolf.

I had not thought about this relating to the experience of someone who is bilingual or bi-cultural until this question. I had to sit back and think on it. You could compare Claudette to Lola from “Wildwood” in this sense. Claudette, however, will reject her original culture. Perhaps it won’t be entirely, but she will have to reject most of it if she is to adapt to her desired culture—being human.

Bloodchild

1. Rights have a few components

Legal: There does seem to be some form of social contract or verbal agreement among the Tlic and terran families. The Tlic seem to be the dominant party capable of the use of force and given some form of consent to govern. There doesn't seem to be any representation for terrans. There doesn't seem to be any democracy. As scummy as not educating and getting consent for forced ingestion scifi pregnancy is. Nevertheless, it appears legal but unethical. Like drone bombing double taps. This perspective would posit Tlic have rights to terran bodies. Though that doesn’t mean much as law is a means for ruling classes to impose their will on the subjugated.

Social relations: I wouldn't go as far as to call it a slave-master dynamic, but closer to a white supremacist / capitalists relationship to the poor and working class if not chattel slave women. In this case the labor is physical birthing which does line up well to domestic labor and patriarchal and particularly religious views on birthing. The debate is very wide as to if in complicated birth the mother or child should be prioritized esp. in the wake of that scenario in game of thrones. In this case the right would go to individual cases in ongoing customs. I can see the perspective of black women birthing alien white children.

Ethical: It is an immoral and unethical position. The relationship is exploitative. Evocative of forced birth particularly in the case where the person giving birth will certainly die. Which is a whole can of worms. Unless given expressed uncoerced consent then there is no ethical ground to stand on. It's largely the intent, it's kept a secret largely because they know most terrans would disagree to the deal knowing the truth. In this case the Tlic mirror the various states doing crimes against humanity with impunity and kept secret for "protection" or "defense." But really they find it easier to manage than being in a permanent state of all out war. This lens is against Tlic rights to terran bodies.

My thoughts:

The true answer of if Tlics have rights to terran bodies can only really be answered by the parties involved. I’d opt for no due to the very unethical way it was covered up.

I think the point is to highlight the absurdity of our relationship to our livestock and women. Especially considering the high level of intelligence of terrans and the fact that they can speak for themselves. Especially considering the alternatives that exist with alternate forms of incubation, fertilization, and birth control that are never brought up. It is easier for terrans to birth Tlics but not impossible to use other sources. This comes from the era of sci-fi focused on uplift of livestock and the hypothetical complications of such a drastic change on social relations. The author knocked it out of the park in their weirdest and most interesting way possible. While making me incredibly itchy. Kudos to them

Gan is the most likely candidate for antagonist though I don't think he serves that purpose in the story as he seems to expose the truth more than hinder the protagonist. T'Gatoi seems to be a force of nature villain. Seemingly representing the oppressive pragmatic survivalist aspects of nature and humanity alike. Like a disgusting hustler preacher salesman in weird sci fi bug form.

2. I believe it would qualify as love because Gan seems to have a deep interpersonal affection for T'Gatoi. To the point of sacrificing himself which he likely would have done (without witnessing the emergency c section) even without the threat to his sister. As his little stunt read to me as a bluff or desperation attempt to ratchet up the stakes in the negotiation. There is a definite feeling of a strong attraction and emotional attachment. That said, there are different types of love and the loving relationship between man and his parasite is a new one to me lol

3. Yea, calling the eggs "harmless" is straight up corpo marketing cult speak. I think there's a moral, naturalist, and/or ick factor that prevents Lien from partaking. Likely, this is referencing the diet fad in the 80s of ingesting parasite eggs or speed for weight loss often unintentionally. In many of those cases it was often the result of grifters. In a good mirroring move by the author, the grifter is a salesman and intelligent alien bug person. A stroke of genius. I wouldn't be able to ingest Tlic eggs intentionally no matter the beneficial effects. I don't particularly care for this world, often having bouts of depression. The people often obsessed with immortality are rich egomanics. No drug effect is worth alien parasites crawling around in your system. The ick is too much for me.

Bloodchild:

1. At first, I thought this was a terrible imposition, evil aliens who took over Earth, but my perspective shifted when we found out that the Terran's actually came to the home of the Tlic, and the Tlic both saved and enslaved them. While no being should have the right to the human body, it did become more complicated when the Terran's were the aliens instead. I'm also not sure why more hasn't been done to breed animals who would NOT kill the grubs, although perhaps the host needs a level of intelligence to avoid killing a parasite? to understand that the mother would remove the grubs?

1. Aunt Bernie was so interesting! I liked the magical realism of her coming back, but in zombie-form, and finding her inhibitions are gone and she can finally call out the problems around her. While she is not particularly nice, perhaps she is more kind this way because she is getting her family out of a terrible situation and attempting to save her nephew's life.

2. The clients are demeaned and portrayed as rude, as grasping, as lacking in empathy and kindness. Yet the story does not take much time to consider their internal lives, and I do appreciate how the narrator muses that his "mean" table might have been kinder had they known his aunt just died. In some ways, it seems it just took the stereotypical clientele of strip clubs and gender-bent; it would be interesting to see the perspective that the other dancers have of their clients.

St. Lucy's:

First, I love this story and I actually teach it in my American Literature class! It's prompted great discussions.

1. I thought her choice to remain in the middle of the pack was interesting. It showed that she was perhaps a smarter, more strategic thinker than Jeanette. Again, I'm not sure what I would do, but I do try to stay in the middle of the pack and not draw attention the way I used to do when I was in high school. I do appreciate scholastic spaces where being ahead is not looked down upon!

2. This story reminds me of the Indian Boarding Schools in Canada and the States, and it also highlights some of the experiences my bi-cultural/bilingual friends have shared with me. I think it is interesting how the girls who go through the program belong to neither world, always being too much of the other to go home or to join the American culture. I also see the coming-of-age element, how most people feel at home and comfortable as children then how adolescence and puberty seem to hit everyone at different times. Puberty is isolating, as you start to compare yourself to others in ways you haven't before, comparing your appearance, your popularity, and how well you fit in. We see this with Jeanette, who is like the girl who develops physical attributes of adulthood very early and ends up alienated by her classmates, objectified and envied by those who once were friends. Finally, I see those critiques of the American education system, which hasn't changed much in the last 120 years. While we have some free-thinking teachers and we ostensibly promote critical thinking and freedom of ideas, our schools often get so focused on administrative duties, tests, and political mandates, that students find themselves forced into boxes. The framing device in St. Lucy's, the Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock, could come from books used to teach teachers at almost any point in the last century.