Themes In John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades

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Is Jared Dirac human? Are any of the Special Forces soldiers human? One of the main themes in John Scalzi’s novel The Ghost Brigades is whether the created Special Forces soldiers are human. But what does it mean to be human? Is it the idea of being able to think for your self and having free will or does it mean being born with the ability to have emotions and therefore have a soul. Or is it simply being created or born with human DNA and a human body. In the book the Special Forces are used as protectors of the human race and are given jobs that any realborn soldier with morals wouldn’t want to do. They are considered to have no emotions and no soul. They are “born” or created into an adult body with no life experience and are therefore a child stuck in an adults world. They are very much like the monster in the book Frankenstein who was also created from dead humans into an adult body with a child like mind. Jared himself after reading Frankenstein wonders if “it was the fate of the Special Forces to be as misunderstood and reviled by the realborn as the monster was by his creator.” (Scalzi 94) Like Frankenstein the realborn soldiers do little to try and understand their creations and their creation in turn feel like…show more content…
At the end of the book after Jared had killed Boutin and himself using the SmartBlood in his body, Jane Sagan has a conversation with Cainen about what to do with the recording of Jared’s consciousness. Sagan had to decide whether or not to try to bring a back Jared by putting his consciousness into a new body. After deciding that Jared did not choose to be brought back Cainen told Sagan “And now you see why I know you have a soul.” (Scalzi 338) Sagan’s ability to think on her own and her ability to take into account other people’s feelings to come up with a individualistic decision changes Cainen’s original opinion that she had no
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