The Host

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of addiction, child sexual abuse, and graphic violence.

“Violence is part of your life choice. Does enough of your body’s native temperament linger to give you enjoyment of the horror?”

While the souls accept that Seekers must exist, the Calling is looked down on. This highlights the souls’ disgust with violence and implicitly contrasts them with humans, whom the novel depicts as often glorifying violence. The quote also introduces the idea that the body one occupies shapes how one thinks and feels, which becomes an important plot point as well as a key element of the novel’s exploration of The Transformative Power of Empathy.

“But there were whispers of this: of human hosts so strong that the souls were forced to abandon them. Hosts whose minds could not be completely suppressed. Souls who took on the personality of the body, rather than the other way around. Stories. Wild rumors. Madness.”

This quote foreshadows the struggle that Wanderer will endure when Melanie remains present in their body. It also illustrates the difference between humans and the other groups that the souls have colonized: Humans have a unique capacity for resistance, which highlights the theme of The Meaning of Survival.

“Love simply is where it is. My host loved Curt’s host, and that love did not die when the ownership of the minds changed.”

This quote captures a key facet of the souls’ colonization of humans: Being in a human’s body shapes their mental and emotional experience, underscoring the transformative power of empathy. That the Comforter’s host’s love for her husband transferred to the Comforter also foreshadows Wanderer’s experience falling in love with Jared. Finally, it hints at The Power and Complexities of Love, as even the suppression of one’s personality—a kind of death—cannot destroy love.