Bloodchild and Other Stories

“Thus, we were necessities, status symbols, and an independent people.” 

This is Gan’s initial account of the relationship between Terrans and Tlic in “Bloodchild.” He contrasts this political view with his own personal relationship with T’Gatoi, which makes him feel special. This also blinds him to the complexities of the inter-species relationship, and he cannot understand why his mother seems so resentful of T’Gatoi. Because this is the first statement about the two groups, the reader can refer back to it later and compare it with Gan’s feelings after witnessing Lomas suffer, talking to Qui, and finally reconciling with T’Gatoi.

“One of my earliest memories is of my mother stretched alongside T’Gatoi, talking about things I could not understand, picking me up from the floor and laughing as she sat me on one of T’Gatoi’s segments. She ate her share of eggs then. I wondered when she had stopped, and why.” 

At the beginning of “Bloodchild,” Gan is too immature to understand the tension between his mother and T’Gatoi. He doesn’t understand why his mother used to be friends with T’Gatoi, and why the closer he got to sexual maturity, the more Lien withdrew from T’Gatoi. At the end, when Gan is impregnated, he is able to understand the maternal feelings of love and protectiveness that his mother feels towards him. Thus, it becomes clear that she resents T’Gatoi because the latter is taking her child away. Gan becomes a sexual partner, which means a loss of childhood reliance on his mother. However, Lien also feels intensely guilty for giving her son away to T’Gatoi in order to preserve the rest of her family.