It can’t be postponed, can’t be avoided. Mary and Doro must face off. Mary tries to send the Patternists away, but she’s too late. She does not anticipate surviving. And yet, and yet. Can the power of the many confront the power of the one?
We are invited, as always, to urgent questions. Have you learned to fight while in the battle? How could we bring our opposition into our pattern? What is the cost of freedom?
Read MoreMary tries to obey Doro, she does. But sometimes obedient intent isn't enough. Pausing the pattern is killing her. The showdown is inescapable. The patternists, once reluctant and resentful, refuse to leave Mary’s side.
We are invited, again, to pressing questions. Have you met someone afraid of your power? Do you understand your power, individually? Collectively? What size pattern sustains you, what can you hold?
Read MoreThe original pattern members - the first family - spread out, then draw close. Mary and Karl unshield, meld, lose control, find themselves. They decide to have a baby, despite the Patternists struggling around children. But Doro is still seeking to control the Pattern, and the tension between him and Mary comes clear. For us, in our world, these questions of control and transition are urgent - and for Mary, too.
Read MoreA beast of a chapter. Two years have passed. The pattern is enormous, and still growing. Mary continues to weave and transition latents. She has taken over towns, and their non-telepathic residents - the patternists control the “mutes,” and use them as slaves. Doro is confident he can still control Mary, and all those in her pattern. But Emma is not as sure.
Read MoreAfter Mary’s show of force, the group cooperates - for the most part. But the biggest surprise is Clay, a life-long latent, who is now in transition. As Mary begins to bring other latents into the pattern, Doro feels his breeding project slipping out of his control. He watches “with carefully concealed emotions of suspicion and envy.”
Read MoreMary calls a meeting of the pattern members. Emotions are high: resignation, resentment, fear and anger. Some try to challenge Mary, and learn quickly just how much control over them she has. She is coming into her power, and likes it.
Read MoreThe telepaths in Mary's web begin to arrive. They try her, full of resentment, looking for weakness. The first to arrive finds it, but Mary learns fast. She studies the others before they arrive, and their shields can't keep her out. And despite themselves, the telepaths she has woven begin to see the benefit in what she has done.
Read MoreWe go deep with Mary and Doro. We learn of Doro's childhood, millennia ago, and the years after he came into his power. We learn more of his breeding programs, and his hungers. And we learn of Mary's power, as she feels into the shape of the pattern.
Read MoreWe meet the other members of the pattern - children of Doro, varied, powerful, damaged, dangerous. Mary's tether hits them like a bolt of lightning, a command they cannot resist, but do resent. Angry and confused, they each begin their journey to California.
Read MoreMary is in her transition, a perilous time. Others with her strength have not survived. Karl rushes home to support her - aid she rejects, at first. But as her transition peaks, she pulls his mind to hers. And then, she can't let him go. The pattern has begun.
Read MoreWe meet Mary, child of Doro, grandchild of Anyanwu, small and strong-willed. She is powerful, long-sought and nearing a challenging transition. She's in love with Doro, but he has other breeding plans.
Read MoreWe are once again with Doro and Anyanwu, who we left at the end of Wild Seed - but we are now in modern times. Doro has continued to breed his powerful offspring, with the same flawed results, full of suffering. Anyanwu, going by Emma now, continues to carry the weight of his cavalier arrogance.
Read MoreWe meet Mary, child of Doro, grandchild of Anyanwu, small and strong-willed. She is powerful, long-sought and nearing a challenging transition. She's in love with Doro, but he has other breeding plans.
Read MoreAnyanwu and Doro find an uneasy peace. But Doro will not, cannot, understand or respect what is sacred to Anyanwu: those she loves. She is done.
But yet again, Anyanwu chooses life. At the end, she draws boundaries and makes compromises. Is this survival?
Toshi and adrienne break down the final chapter and epilogue of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
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Conflict with Doro, and a suicide. Anyanwu, in her grief, returns to the sea to heal. And when she comes home, Doro is waiting. She finds strange comfort in this long-known being, and as always, danger.
Toshi and adrienne break down chapter 13 of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
Read MoreDoro left his son with Anyanwu, to marry her daughter. But the son, Joseph, is a sly, vicious, untenable danger. A murderer, a rapist. Only the leopard can respond.
Toshi and adrienne break down chapter 12 of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
Read MoreForward in time. Doro has been hunting Anyanwu for decades. He finds her, her children, generations of her line. All she has built, he wants. Yet again, she compromises to keep her people safe. And yet again, there is so much he fails to understand.
Toshi and adrienne explore chapter 11 of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
Read MoreA short but fierce chapter. Funerals for Nweke and Isaac. Doro’s emotions push him to change bodies. Anyanwu’s emotions push her to flee. As a dolphin, as a bird, she finds a new clarity, and finally, finally a new sense of her own power. If not partners, then adversaries.
Toshi and adrienne explore chapter 10 of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
Read MoreWe learn more about Doro’s childhood, and more about Anyanwu and Isaac’s love. Nweke’s transition continues with Anyanwu’s support. But Doro’s breeding program doesn’t go to plan. Isaac, Nweke, and everyone come to grief.
Toshi and adrienne explore chapter 9 of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
Read MoreA specific trigger warning for this chapter, for abusive relationship.
Anyanwu helps her daughter Nweke in her transition; Doro leaves them to it. We see anew the power of Anyanwu’s empathy, and Doro’s inability to understand it. We learn of Nweke’s fraught conception, rooted in punishment, power, and death.
Toshi and adrienne explore chapter 8 of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
Toshi and adrienne explore chapter 7 of Octavia E. Butler’s Wild Seed. And as always, offer questions for you and your people to consider.
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