Doro ain’t Dead

            This is mostly just a mixture of wishful thinking and denial, but I want to believe that Doro is still kicking. I felt a bond with Doro. Whether it was because he’s been with us from the beginning, or whether I sympathized with his cause, I came out of Mind of my Mind refusing to believe that his death was true. After today’s group discussions I learned that at least some of us share that same sentiment.

           Elise brought up a great point in our group when she suggested that maybe we have this bond with Doro because we started the series with Wild Seed. I couldn’t agree more. Starting with Wild Seed gave us more time with Doro than any other character from both books, and I was sure that Doro would be with us until the end of the series. Even now I refuse to believe that he is dead. One reason I believe this is I find it hard to believe that you can kill a spirit. I understand that Mary has consumed him, but perhaps he is just trapped inside of her. What if when Mary dies, Doro’s spirit will be released and he will take a body just like he has been for thousands of years? Again, this is just wishful thinking, especially after hearing the professor’s reaction to Doro being dead, making it seen more than certain.

          When I think of his death, I think of the loss of such a powerful character in the series. His death, being as soon as it was, did not impact me in the way that I wanted it to. Sure the final fight between Mary and Doro was both exciting and intense, but I just couldn’t help but wish that it was held off a bit longer. Doro needed to show weakness at some point, I believe that, but I saw that as already accomplished in Wild Seed when Anyanwu was able to break him down emotionally with the threat of her own life. After that scene of truly seeing the scared and lonely spirit he really is, I felt that any dehumanization I allotted to Doro quickly vanished. That scene impacted me much more emotionally than did Doro’s death; a part in which I felt more cheated than anything.

          Don’t get me wrong, I know Doro is one f***d up dude, but Butler has definitely achieved in garnering my sympathy for him. When you boil down to it, Doro is just an extremely lonely and afraid spirit, who has been mostly forced to kill for thousands of years. This may sound strange, but you can almost understand how he can be so desensitized to killing. Doro being the Machiavellian character that he is, he believes that the those he kills are minor casualties in a cause that is more noble than any. If you were in his place, could you so quickly say you wouldn’t want the same thing? Doro represents the danger of dehumanizing anyone, because when we dehumanize even the most evil people in our history, we make the risk of not acknowledging that as humans we are all capable of the same evil.

          I thought it important to note that I don’t believe that Mary should have died in his place. Rather, I believe that the conflict had been avoided somehow, or that it still happen, but with Doro reappearing in the series, shocking us more than his death ever did.

One thought on “Doro ain’t Dead

  1. I must say, this was amusing as I read it and I imagine you writing speedily on the keyboard trying to get the thoughts out onto the screen. I do agree with you that Doro is possibly still alive. I feel that is what Octavia Butler has been setting us up for as well. Surely, she is going to hurt us again, well hurt those who actually expect Doro to still be alive. Then again, she may just have decided to hurt readers who expect Doro to be completely dead. Either way, I have a slight feeling that he is within Mary conjuring a counter attack. Interestingly too, when Doro and Mary had a conversation before his demise, Doro implied that Mary must stop recruiting until August was older, just in case something should happen to her, August would be able to help her. So then, if that is a possible case, the minute Doro escapes Mary’s body, August will be there to take him down. Or… maybe August will inherit a power wherein he will be able to monitor the traveling of spirits in every organism, and/or every object, whether it is inanimate or not. A lot of predictions is floating around. We will just have to stay tuned.

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