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techneton t1_jctl6e1 wrote

Reply to comment by Pink_Blue1214 in Lauren Oya Olamina from Octavia E. Butler’s “Parable of the Sower/Talents” - is she a Mary Sue? by Pink_Blue1214

I didn't think Butler was trying to make a judgement about the relationship as much as she was illustrating something about Lauren.

I see Lauren's relationship with Bankole as further illustration that she has a kind of...I don't wanna outsized or inflated...but she has a large perception of her own capability and self-importance. She sees herself as special and so, while she is a sharer, she kind of holds herself above and apart from most people, especially those her own age. It's easier for her to feel that Bankole is her equal because he's so much older and more experienced. The wisdom and experience conferred by his age allows her to see him as more "equal" to her than people in her own cohort.

Now that I think about it, I kind of think Lauren being a sharer could be a way Butler tried to humanize her in the first book. Again Lauren holds herself above and apart from other people. Lauren is an adept reader and manipulator of others and is always thinking about how she and hers can best benefit from a situation. If we weren't constantly being beat over the heat with her empathic capability she could have felt kind of sociopathic.

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Pink_Blue1214 OP t1_jctnqbv wrote

That’s a great way of thinking about Lauren’s hyper empathy! Now that you say this it’s function as a character trait feels clearer to me

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techneton t1_jctqdqe wrote

Yeah! And thinking about it a little more, it also serves in-universe to make Lauren a softer and kinder person in Butler's "what might a person who started a religion as a teenager be like" experiment.

As a person, Lauren is so stubborn and ambitious. She has a huge sense of "destiny" and self-importance even at a young age that leads her to view others kind of as pawns or tools in her grand vision.

If she didn't have experiences (hyper-empathic ones) which forced her to constantly directly confront the pain and humanity of others, it might be easy for her single-minded grand vision and self-righteousness to eclipse her empathy and altruism and lead her to trample others underfoot in pursuit of her own goals and affirmation of her own beliefs.

In that regard you could examine Christian America/President Jarrett and maybe Marcus maybe as sort of parallels to Lauren, or more examinations of how belief, vision, and empathy interact with each other in people and in society.

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