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Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.8-10

Frankenstein, Motherhood, and the Serpent

By Paul LevinsonPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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The story brought vividly home in Raised by Wolves 1.8 and 1.9, that androids can bear biological children, a hybrid of some sort of android and human, lifts this series into territory not even explored in a series as sophisticated as Westworld. Of course, Westworld takes place on Earth, with a science a lot earlier in its development than what we see in Raised by Wolves, so I'm not criticizing Westworld on this account as much as noting the difference. And that difference is about as profound as it gets.

A question I started addressing in the 1980s when I first began considering artificial intelligence was the connection between artificial intelligence and life. Since the only intelligence that we know arose in living beings -- i.e., us, we humans -- it struck me that an attempt to develop artificial intelligence truly worthy of the name without first understanding how intelligence arose out of our own DNA was "putting Descartes before the horse" (see Mind at Large: Knowing in the Technological Age, 1988, p. 180; or see this if you don't want to read the book). Yet most artificial intelligence, in science fiction as well as our real world laboratories, has proceeded on the basis of non-living circuitry.

In fiction, the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein -- colloquially known as Frankenstein, in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel of the same name -- can be considered the first modern android. It is made of flesh and blood, and has a DNA-developed brain, so there is no reason he and his eventual almost-bride could not have had children -- indeed, it is Dr. Frankenstein fear of creating a species of monsters that gets him to abandon his project of giving the monster a mate. Even in the Boris Karloff movies made over a century later, in which a bride of the monster is created, one catastrophe or another that befalls the "monsters" always preclude them from reproducing. Which makes what was is happening in Raised by Wolves all the more remarkable.

How exactly Mother, now on the way to being a completely biologically apt name for her, came to be impregnated is not completely clear, and she doesn't completely or even mostly understand herself. She had virtual sex with her male human creator in a simulation. Presumably this triggered a fetus that developed from what already was inside her, in contrast to the embryos that were implanted in her and we met in the first episode.

With only one more episode left this season, it will be fascinating to see where this -- "the future of humanity" -- goes. It was good to see Father back to his senses, and all the children together, and Marcus get his comeuppance, though I hope he's not dead, he's too important and well-acted a character. It occurred to me as an outside possibly that possibly Marcus had sex with Mother at some point after he so nearly kissed her, that we didn't see. Maybe that relates to that look on Mother's face that I talked about in my earlier review, though that's not very likely.

***

The big reveal the Raised by Wolves finale (episode 1.10), on last night, was that Mother and I and everyone was wrong about how her baby came to be, and what it in fact was. The virtual sex she had with her creator apparently didn't inseminate her via triggering some kind of organic material she already had insider her. Whatever it was that got her pregnant presumably came from this extraterrestrial Kepler world. I say "apparently" and "presumably" because I suppose it's still possible that the hellish serpent she delivered was indeed something that her creator embedded in her back on Earth, and this "baby" is indeed the future of humanity. But at this point it looks as if that entire virtual, remembered conversation and activity with her builder was just a piece of masterful misdirection.

Other than all of that, which was game-changing, the season finale had a variety of good touches, ranging from Father's jealousy to whatever was going on with Paul. Again, presumably, I'd say that the voices he heard in his head came not from Sol (of course not) but that ship that we saw hovering in the atmosphere. No doubt that ship will have a major role in the second season (and great that Raised by Wolves has already been renewed.

Another provocative element is the devolution of the beings on Kepler-22B. I've been thinking ever since we first saw one of those beings early on that there was a human-like quality to its head. A Neanderthal skull was also revealed in the finale -- works for me, Neanderthals were the centerpiece of my first novel, The Silk Code -- and that skull also raises the possibility that there was a connection between Kepler-22 and Earth in the distant past, if parallel evolution isn't the explanation for Neanderthals appearing on these two worlds, so very distant from each other.

Lots of fascinating issues left hanging. Good setup for the second season!

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About the Creator

Paul Levinson

Novels The Silk Code & The Plot To Save Socrates; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Best-known short story: The Chronology Protection Case; Prof, Fordham Univ.

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