anyways - back to the question. Are the aliens really "wrong"?
I’m really conflicted about this, because it is so very easy to see both sides of it. However, if you read through to the end, you will know what my final decision is.
On the one hand, the aliens are cultivating knowledge of other species, while at the same time providing the host bodies with health benefits and completely functional and peaceful systems in place in their planets that they were highly unlikely to have ever achieved on their own.
The souls are peaceful right down to their very natures – humans, by and large, may well think of themselves the same way, but to the souls, human beings are unbearably cruel and impulsively violent.
They are capable of terrible acts, which they inflict on themselves, their fellow human beings and their own environment (suicide, homicide, senseless murders, people killing their own children and families, wanton destruction of resources and the environment).
But can the same not then be said of the souls themselves? the way that the resisting humans view the souls is very different from how the souls see themselves, and I think that this shows us what the souls refuse to admit or acknowledge. their supposedly peaceful takeovers are done swiftly and with utmost secrecy, in a way which befits a cunningly controlled and executed operation. they take over a being so completely that they are not just powerless and shut away inside themselves, but they are completely erased.
this, to me, is worse than killing, in a way, because the memories and hopes and dreams that make up a person are STILL THERE, but they are disregarded and neglected because they are seen as brutish and savage. A human’s love for others is used to track people down and shut them away as well. how can something as beautiful as love be used as a weapon? It is beyond cruel. And this cruelty and calculation is present not only in the Earth’s takeover, but on other planets as well. the only similar case was that of the See Weeds, which resulted in mass suicide. The aliens’ desire for perfect, peaceful societies eliminated the things that make a society, things that make up life, and communities and individuals.
This is so true, and it is something that was completely ignored by the aliens who so valued human lives.bodysnatcher wrote:...It made me think about Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, because in the book there is also a dystopian society, where everyone is living literally by every law of the Bible. They do this to get rid of the corruption in society at the time (extremists, lesbians, gays, feminists, etc.) However, the novel shows that there can never be a "perfect society" because humans will always be overcome by natural desires. Just like the humans in The Host, the "perfect society" is based on corruption. The Aliens are corrupt because they are literally STEALING and robbing humans of their lives, by exterminating their minds. That in itseld is killing.
The aliens may not have bad intentions, but they show that the world can not exist in a "perfect society". We need to have sorrow, dread, and loss to know what love, happiness, and passion is. There is no question. How else will we differentiate?
So my overall feeling is that the aliens in general were wrong, but the souls like Wanda and Burns and the parents who did not sacrifice their human child are the exception, because they embraced the true balance of life.
~ Kat
-- EDIT -- Sorry for the monster post - I got a bit carried away...