Octavia Butler definitely has a type. Just like in Parable of the Sower, her protagonist is a strong, perceptive, black female who must lead and press on when those around her loose focus or even hope. However, Lilith lacks Lauren’s unwavering commitment to follow her morals. Whereas Lauren creates a new religion and leads a group of followers to salvation, Lilith continually alludes to Christianity, an old religion from a world that sickened itself to its own demise, admitting her own role as Judas, the traitor of her own kind. And yet, she continues to play her role as Judas. To the very end, she looks forward to training another group of humans from within the Oankali’s clutches, though her own lover is dead and her dream of returning to Earth will never be realized (p. 247).

Is Lilith a protagonist or an antagonist? Is she the fearless human leader that Nikanj has molded, or the alien-loving traitor that Curt and Peter see her as? Is she even human anymore at the novel’s close? Just like her morals, Lilith’s very humanity is subtly eroded throughout the novel. While she maintains her mental identity as a human, she allows her genetic material to be tweaked, the results of which are unchecked until she awakens more humans, more than halfway through the book. The oddest thing about Lilith is that she refuses to respond to the complaints of the other humans. While they complain of her foreignness and alien nature, she continues to stay distant and withhold information. She refuses to see her disconnect with the other humans as a disconnect with humanity itself, and her alien adaptations as a tradeoff for her most basic identity. She encourages the humans to run away, and would hope to do so herself, but she can never escape the changes she has made to her own self. How can someone who is no longer wholly human hope to restart humanity?

Despite her modifications from Nikanj, Lilith still retains one of the most human qualities of all, obliviousness. She refuses to admit that she has changed, still clinging to a perfect vision of an imperfect past, until that which she feared most, a hybrid child of human and Oankali, is growing within her own skin. And still she believes she will save and purify and humanity.