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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to Stephan

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Speaker 1: Never Told You production of iHeartRadio, and welcome to our

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Speaker 1: sub sub sub sub sub segment fictional women around the World.

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Speaker 1: Credit where credit is do with this? When I got

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Speaker 1: this idea from our book club pic.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was looking at this was like, this sounds familiar.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it was such a good one. So I have

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Speaker 3: read this book. It's been a while.

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Speaker 1: It's actually a series, but it has been It was college,

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Speaker 1: which for me has been a while.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so just a note on that.

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Speaker 1: But when I was reading it, I was like, oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: I remember loving this so much, and I thought it

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Speaker 1: was a really good example. It was given as an

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Speaker 1: example of a woman with a disability, and since it

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Speaker 1: is Disability Pride Month, I thought that was appropriate. But

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Speaker 1: also our series on religion kind of related. I will say,

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Speaker 1: as always it bums me out when we do these,

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Speaker 1: but I had difficulty finding a character a woman, especially

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Speaker 1: with a disability when I was researching this, other than

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Speaker 1: like every hero ever has PTSD, which counts like I

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Speaker 1: had some trouble. So that's not great. But this story

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Speaker 1: does have a lot of fans, to the point that

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Speaker 1: it is now a traveling opera, which is really cool.

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Speaker 1: I was listening to the music. Yeah, it was really

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Speaker 1: good when I was researching this, and I love Octavia Butler.

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Speaker 1: It was one of my favorite because you know, you

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Speaker 1: get assigned reading in school. It was one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite assigned readings I ever got was Octavia Butler, and

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Speaker 1: I actually recommended it. Lillis Breod too. I was on

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Speaker 1: this podcast hosted by two young women. At the end

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Speaker 1: they asked for a book recommendation, and I recommended that,

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Speaker 1: and then I was like, huh, I don't know if that

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Speaker 1: was age appropriate recommendation.

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Speaker 3: Okay, well I'm thinking the same thing. I was like,

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Speaker 3: you did what?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Sorry, to be fair, I read a lot. We've

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Speaker 2: discussed this. We've read a lot of adult books as children.

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Speaker 2: I was talking to my partner and he had read Tolstoy,

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Speaker 2: I think, and I was like, yeah, I read Corinna

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Speaker 2: in the seventh grade or the excelerat Point exactly.

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Speaker 3: It is really dark. They were worth a lot of

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Speaker 3: porns though, Yeah I remember it so fight yep, no,

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Speaker 3: me too.

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Speaker 1: All right, so all of that prelud decided. Today we

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Speaker 1: are talking about Lauren Olamina, who is the fifteen year

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Speaker 1: old black protagonist from Octavia Butler's nineteen ninety three speculative

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Speaker 1: fiction Parable of the Sewer. For some reason, I've always

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Speaker 1: said a parable of the sour, even though I know

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Speaker 1: what you reap is what you so I don't.

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Speaker 3: Know what why? Yes, please don't make fun of me.

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Speaker 3: So I'm sorry. I'm learning all the time.

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Speaker 2: This is one of those religious words that I know

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Speaker 2: so clearly. That right, shocking, And then I forget that

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Speaker 2: you're not you were like you grew up not as

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Speaker 2: religious as I was, because we talked about that in Christianity.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, that's this word and you have never

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Speaker 2: said it, but I knew it really well, so that

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Speaker 2: makes sense.

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Speaker 3: Sorry, that was that was.

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Speaker 1: Me.

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Speaker 3: I do know what EU reap is what you saw, though,

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Speaker 3: but whatever, now I know. I'm glad I looked it up.

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Speaker 3: Even though you could have corrected me. That's good. I

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Speaker 3: would have.

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Speaker 2: I think there would have been a moment of like

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Speaker 2: me just giving you a confused.

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Speaker 3: Page, like, yeah, have I been saying it wrong?

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Speaker 2: Because I want to believe that too. Well.

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Speaker 1: The story takes place in twenty twenty four, which was

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Speaker 1: kind of frightening. We'll talked about that more in a

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Speaker 1: second and Lauren lives in a Waldorf community in the

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Speaker 1: fictional Roblado, California, and due to issues like climate change,

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Speaker 1: economic disparity, and racial divides, the US is an absolute

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Speaker 1: violent chaos and a mess and pretty.

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Speaker 3: Much a dystopia.

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Speaker 1: Lauren is the daughter of a Baptist preacher and a

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Speaker 1: woman who died in childbirth. Lauren comes up with her

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Speaker 1: own idea of God, a god based on what she

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Speaker 1: has seen and observed. She gives her belief system the

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Speaker 1: name earth Seed. Basically, the core of the system has

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Speaker 1: to do with the idea that God is changed and

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Speaker 1: humanity's future is in the stars. Changes something that shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be run away from but embraced in her mind. And

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Speaker 1: we get a lot of insights into the character through

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Speaker 1: her writings because she's an author too, and so there

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Speaker 1: are excerpts from her work earth Seed the Books of

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Speaker 1: the Living. If God has changed, then actively working to

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Speaker 1: change things is spiritual godly work in her mind. So

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Speaker 1: here's a quote. At least three years ago, my father's

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Speaker 1: God stopped being my God. His church stopped being my church.

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Speaker 1: As she shares her ideas, it becomes clear that her

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Speaker 1: beliefs resonate with others and it makes her goal feel

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Speaker 1: like it could be a reality. With the imminent destruction

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Speaker 1: of her community hanging over her, takes measures to prepare

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Speaker 1: for the coming evacuation. Her dad is also worried, but

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Speaker 1: he's worried about a condition too that she was born

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Speaker 1: with called hyper empathy, meaning she can feel the pain

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Speaker 1: and pleasure of other people, and this was caused by

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Speaker 1: her mother abusing drugs during pregnancy. It can be something

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Speaker 1: that is debilitating, but also is something that gives her

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Speaker 1: the ability to interact with others in a way that

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Speaker 1: other people can't, particularly after the place she lived in

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Speaker 1: is destroyed. It highlights and heightens her compassion as she

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Speaker 1: encounters others who are lost in one way or another

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Speaker 1: along the way, often accepting travelers into her fold after

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Speaker 1: hearing their tragedies. Through her actions, she builds a reputation

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Speaker 1: and people are drawn to her and her teachings in

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Speaker 1: the promised Land of Northern California. She garners respect through

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Speaker 1: her teachings and actions. For a long time, she tries

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Speaker 1: to hide her disability, and on top of that, not everyone,

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Speaker 1: including her best friend or on board with her beliefs,

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Speaker 1: and I did find a lot of essays about this book,

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Speaker 1: which is really cool.

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Speaker 3: I love and one of them. Here's a quote from

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Speaker 3: Tamisha A.

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Speaker 1: Tyler. The person who would lead us to something better.

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Speaker 1: A teenage androgedist looking black girl with a disability, who

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Speaker 1: dresses like a man for her own survival, cares for

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Speaker 1: those in her community through teaching and sharing her newly

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Speaker 1: found religion, and who survives by any means necessary. Lauren

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Speaker 1: shares her thoughts via journal entries, and in doing so,

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Speaker 1: allows us to see through her eyes, offering shrewd insight

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Speaker 1: into the world from her home in Robledo in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four, the daughter of a Baptist preacher and professor,

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Speaker 1: Lauren begins our journey by rejecting her father's Christian God

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Speaker 1: in place of what she calls the God of change.

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Speaker 1: All that you can touch you change, All that you

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Speaker 1: change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God

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Speaker 1: is change, and she's literally aiming for the stars. Here's

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Speaker 1: another quote Otavia. Butler's Parable novels, while ultimately a mechanism

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Speaker 1: to provide commentary on race and gender in America, essentially

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Speaker 1: serve as the coming of age story of Lauren Olamina.

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Speaker 1: Lauren continuously discards elements of her identity in exchange for

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Speaker 1: new characteristics that enable her to evolve and survive. She

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Speaker 1: eventually becomes the shaper of a progressive, wealthy, successful, and

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Speaker 1: wide reaching religion, Earth's Seed, acting as a quasi totalitarian demigod.

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Speaker 1: Just prior to her death, Lauren sees her childhood vision

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Speaker 1: come to fruition when Earth's Seed sends its followers into

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Speaker 1: space to live aboard a starship and yees. She loses

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Speaker 1: her family to a violent attack, along with most of

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Speaker 1: her community, and she does spend time disguised as a

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Speaker 1: man for her safety. There are things that are scarily

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Speaker 1: reminiscent to today, like interracial marriage is stigmatize, women fear

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Speaker 1: sexual assault, and a type of enslavement has returned through

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Speaker 1: indebted labor. It is kind of eerily prophetic. In the sequel,

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Speaker 1: there's an authoritarian dictator who uses the phrase make America

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Speaker 1: great again, which Butler heard Reagan use when he was campaigning.

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Speaker 3: Both still freaky.

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Speaker 1: There is still ideas around race and racism being not

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Speaker 1: easy to escape even after an apocalypse. There's stuff about

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Speaker 1: the gender binary as outdated there's discussion around passing as

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Speaker 1: a survival strategy, both racially and genderly.

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Speaker 3: That's not a word I'm going to use it. Here's

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Speaker 3: another quote.

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Speaker 1: By creating characters that are able to pass as a

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Speaker 1: member of a gender other than the one with which

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Speaker 1: they biologically identify, Butler presents strong social commentary on the

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Speaker 1: prescriptive nature of gender and contemporary society, suggesting that gender

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Speaker 1: is merely a performance and has no basis in biology.

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Speaker 1: And then another quote. If Lauren must pass his mail

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Speaker 1: in order to survive, then what hope is there for

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Speaker 1: black women? So there's a lot of talk about being

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Speaker 1: a woman being life threatening. So here's another quote. Repression

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Speaker 1: of women has become more and more extreme. A woman

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Speaker 1: who expresses her opinions, nags, disobeys her husband, or otherwise

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Speaker 1: tramples her womanhood and acts like a man might have

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Speaker 1: her head shaved, her forehead branded, her tongue cut out,

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Speaker 1: or worst case, she might be stoned to death or

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Speaker 1: burned in her ability. This hyper empathy has been likened

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Speaker 1: to several real world things. And I actually wrote a

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Speaker 1: character like this too, And now I'm wondering if I

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Speaker 1: was influenced by this.

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Speaker 3: I didn't know because of her ability.

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Speaker 1: She is very compassionate isability ability depending on how people

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Speaker 1: frame it, and in it for everyone and not just herself.

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Speaker 1: So she can even sense animals to a point. But

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Speaker 1: there is some discussion from her too about the duality

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Speaker 1: of disability. So here are two quotes. But if everyone

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Speaker 1: could feel everyone else's pains, who would torture? Who would

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Speaker 1: cause anyone unnecessary pain? I've never thought of my problem

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Speaker 1: as something that might do some good before, but the

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Speaker 1: way things are, I think it would help. I wish

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Speaker 1: I could give it to people. And then, on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, take my word for it bad bad idea

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Speaker 1: self defense shouldn't have to be an agony or a

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Speaker 1: killing or both. I could be crippled by the pain

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Speaker 1: of a wounded person. I'm a very good shot because

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Speaker 1: I've never felt that I could afford just to wound someone.

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Speaker 1: And then there's also a lot of discussion from this

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Speaker 1: around community as something necessary for survival, and Lauren goes

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Speaker 1: from kind of a dogg eat dog mentality to a

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Speaker 1: more community based mentality, and a part of that is

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Speaker 1: pushed by her hyper empathy. And I'll also say, when

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Speaker 1: I was researching this, a lot of nerds from the

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Speaker 1: fondness of my hard fellow nerd connected to her because

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Speaker 1: she was an avid reader and writer.

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Speaker 3: So that's liked that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I really recommend these books if you haven't read them.

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Speaker 1: They are frighteningly relevant right now. Like there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff about climate change, racial unrest.

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Speaker 3: It's scary. It's scary, it's a lot. Maybe it's sill.

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Speaker 1: It is it is ahead of its time. It's not

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Speaker 1: often I hear that term and I kind of am like, yeah, sure,

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Speaker 1: but this one, I'm like, no, it's time do true. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So go check it out if you haven't, I haven't

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Speaker 1: checked them out already. In the meantime, you can contact

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Speaker 1: us if with any suggestions, be they book or character

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Speaker 1: at our email, which is Stuffandia mom Stuff at iHeartMedia

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Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us on Twitter at

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Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff

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Speaker 1: I've Never told you. We have a tea public store.

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Speaker 1: You can check us out there.

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Speaker 3: We have a book.

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Speaker 1: You can pre order it on stuff You Should Read

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Speaker 1: Books dot com and on Audible. Thanks as always to

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Speaker 1: our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and our

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Speaker 1: contributor Joey, thank you and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: Stuff I'll Never Told You is the production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts on my heart Radio, you can check

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Speaker 1: out the heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows