“Bloodchild” Response

1.     “Bloodchild” is a somewhat disturbing story. I felt that the story’s message was to shift people’s perspective away from being on top of the food chain. There’s a parasitic relationship between the two species, but it’s shown as being normalized through a social structure with undertones of a political structure. Since the story is from the perspective of a Terran that’s about to have eggs put in him we identify with him and see the world from this caged, submissive, perspective. The life of the Terrans seems demeaning and subservient to us, it feels like they’re just a resource. This makes the story successful in flipping the reader’s perspective.

2.     I was able to connect the story to sentiments felt by people today. In the story it feels like there’s an authoritative Tlic State governing the Terrans and controlling their lives completely. For example, the Terrans are not allowed to have weapons, “for our protection, we were told.” There’s a sort of offhanded sarcasm to this remark on the part of Gan. It goes further, after Gan threatens to kill himself, then changes his mind, T’Gatoi tries to take the rifle from him saying, “it’s the law.” Gan appeals to her saying there must be trust in their relationship, but later she says she’ll take it anyway. This shows that this is really no trust and that Gan is just something for T’Gatoi to use.

3.     If this story was adapted into film, there would need to be some significant changes. Currently the story is Gan “coming of age,” and starting to understand how the relationship between the Tlics and the Terrans really works. However, I do not feel this is a compelling narrative for the screen. The story relies on suspense to get the reader into it, slowly introducing how foreign the story is to the modern reader. This cannot be done on film, as soon as we see T’Gatoi we’ll know that she’s some alien centipede thing. Also, nothing much changes over the story. It would be much more exciting if Gan starts a revolution and overthrows the Tlic. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that extreme, but I feel like there needs to be a bigger change over the course of the story.