Wild Seed

Despite being the antagonist of the novel, Doro goes through the most fundamental transformation by the end. Many science fiction novels feature the “mad scientist” archetype. Like Dr. Frankenstein, such mad scientists are often overcome by the hubris of their creative activity, killed by the creatures they manipulate and mold. In Wild Seed, Doro is instead consumed by love and mutual responsibility.

His power, at first subtle to apprehend, becomes staggering in its implication. He can telepathically link with another human being, killing them and taking over their body. There is no limit to this power, and he has long lost track of his body count. This power is instantaneous and total, and so its demonstration near the living people he wants to manipulate is necessary in order to get from them what he wants. He demonstrates this power often. This leads him to his secondary power; he is immortal, his mind always sharp. He has lived for millennia, and is a master manipulator, and knowledgeable of the world in a way no other person can be. Whereas many mad scientists are inhuman mechanical geniuses, creating zombies and doomsday devices, Doro is inhumanly sociological. He creates whole towns of people subject to his whim as if he were observing bacilli swimming in a petri dish.

Doro comes from a time a thousand years past. “His parents were all that he could recall had been good about his youth [...] His were a tall, stately people—Nubians, they came to be called much later” (190). His own origins are prehistoric to himself, and he only remembers being cast aside by the Egyptians as they resettled the Nile River at the dawn of history. His origins also mirror the ancient Igbo myth of an ogbanje, the evil spirit that recurs again and again to haunt and finally destroy a family. Where Anyanwu represents life and rebirth, Doro is forged by death and disorder. In his way, he also embodies the Western ideal of Cartesian existence, which depicts the mind and body as completely separate entities. Though he occupies a variety of bodies—men, women, children, the aged—these never interfere with the pure purpose of his mind. 

Many characters come and go in the universe of Wild Seed, and we as readers are encouraged to view them much as Doro and Anyanwu see them; as short lived and insignificant. Only a few characters rise from this milieu, and Isaac is one of them. He has the power of telekinesis, able to move objects several times his own weight with his mind. He presents as a handsome blonde-haired white man. The cultural traditions under which he operates are neither African, nor European, nor fully American, and Butler seems to suggest that such traditions are beside the point for Isaac. Cultural tradition is a marker of what Doro dismissively calls “Wild Seed,” and Isaac is definitively not that. His morals and worldview are shaped by having been raised as an infant under Doro’s control

Normally, Doro does not distinguish between his several children and those who commingle with them. After all, when he sires children, he does so with someone else’s body, which he will eventually discard like clothing. His usual interest is in whether they are useful to him. Curiously, Isaac does indeed demonstrate the usefulness of his power, as when he drags their ship out of a squall that threatens to drown them, but mostly Isaac is shown in pursuit of pleasure. He is not restricted by society into hiding his powers, and whenever possible, he uses them to fly. Perhaps this is what endears him to both Doro and Anyanwu, who treat him with favor even when his cheery disposition disguises an indifference to his father’s lack of respect for human life.