Are the Souls really "bad?"

[Squirrel_Girl28]

The souls aren't trying to be mean, and malicious and take over the world. The only thing they are doing is attempting to rid the world of violence and hatred. We as humans will never be able to stop the murdering, genocides, world hunger, greed, competition, war, fighting, pollution, hate, racism, or discrimination. The Souls know that they are able to fix these things, and rid the world of these things. I don't see them as bad. They are only trying to make the world a safer place for others to live. However, I am slightly mad that they couldn't find some other way of doing it, and I am sad to think that they almost wiped out the entire human race.

[Elizabeth]

I do not think that the souls are bad. They think they are good... (page one). Its hard to explain how i think about this because my english is not best!
But I'll try
Ok i do not think that someone will do something he thinkgs its bad. Everyone of us will just do thinks which we think are good.
Or we do not think about the consequenses for others. And i think thats the point.
The souls do not think about the way humans feel... Like a prisoner...
They think its their right, to take their bodys... Because thats the way souls live.

OK i hope u understood what i meant to say^^

[librarybooks]

This seems like a good place for me to point this out.

I don't know if many of you have read Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, but this book kept popping into my head as i was reading The Host.
Basically in Uglies, humanity is being controlled by giving everyone an operation that eliminates the violent and negative instincts of humans by making the humans bubble-headed pretties.
There is a refuge called The Smoke that reminded of where the remaining humans were hiding in The Host.
The Seekers in The Host were like Specials in Uglies.

The Pretties are like the Souls, beautiful and oblivious (yet souls are more pure and innocent than pretties)

I could go on and on about the connections between the two books but it really all boils down to one thing...

Humanity can not be oppressed unless dramatic measures are taken (i.e. brain damage or sticking a soul in a humans body) and even then some people will slip through. Maybe, no matter how awful we all, we aren't meant to be controlled?

I am so glad someone else thought about Uglies!! I could NOT get Uglies out of my head while reading the Host.

I prefer Uglies to The Host because you get a more complete resolution to the story. (Unless of course Stephenie writes more...)

I do not believe the Souls are "bad" and THEY truly believe they are doing a good thing. However, no matter if it is good intentions or not, it is not right.

The Souls/Hosts should go back to their Origin planet and STOP being parasites on other planets. Unless of course someone CHOOSES to have a parasites make decisions for them. I do not believe it is right to take away someone's freewill.

[BlackLace]

The souls aren't trying to be mean, and malicious and take over the world. The only thing they are doing is attempting to rid the world of violence and hatred. We as humans will never be able to stop the murdering, genocides, world hunger, greed, competition, war, fighting, pollution, hate, racism, or discrimination. The Souls know that they are able to fix these things, and rid the world of these things. I don't see them as bad. They are only trying to make the world a safer place for others to live. However, I am slightly mad that they couldn't find some other way of doing it, and I am sad to think that they almost wiped out the entire human race.

Yeah, well said. I don't believe that they actually know what they're doing... I think if they actually got that they were hurting/killing people they wouldn't want to do it anymore at all.

I still don't see why they can't just live at the 'orgin' their lives...

[~I have his silent heart~]

The souls aren't trying to be mean, and malicious and take over the world. The only thing they are doing is attempting to rid the world of violence and hatred. We as humans will never be able to stop the murdering, genocides, world hunger, greed, competition, war, fighting, pollution, hate, racism, or discrimination. The Souls know that they are able to fix these things, and rid the world of these things. I don't see them as bad. They are only trying to make the world a safer place for others to live. However, I am slightly mad that they couldn't find some other way of doing it, and I am sad to think that they almost wiped out the entire human race.

I agree. And just to add on, I don't believe they thought what they were doing was wrong. I mean alot of them didn't know better and were just doing what they were told so to speak.

[Midnight_Sunshine]

I still don't see why they can't just live at the 'orgin' their lives...

If they lived on the 'origin' their whole lives then Ian would have never met Wanda!

[whitequeen@heart]

ok, so it's a little lame, but i kept on thinking of the yeerks from the animorphs series while i was reading this. just the bit about taking over humanity i mean (the souls' reasons were much more noble) anyways, i think that the souls aren't neccessarily bad. in my opinion, they are in the mindset of "the ends justifies the means". making the world a better place, just wiping out humanity to do it. i'm not saying that it's right, but it does, in its own weird way, make sense.

[bluedragon]

I don't think the souls are bad at all. They lived in all these different worlds where violence was absolutely unheard of. Seeing the way humans treat each other when you have never known violence would be pretty horrifying. That said, I think they are extremely hypocritical, but they do not know it. They shy away from things that cause physical pain, indeed. But they cannot imagine emotional pain. They don't understand the mind, really. When they caught Melanie, they were concerned about her jumping down the elevator shaft... But their concern was for her physical body and how she would be in pain from broken limbs, etc... They were not concerned about the inner battle with herself, the fear she probably felt. And the fear went beyond herself - it was also for Jamie and Jared. She knew they would take over her mind, which is as good as death (And if they did take her mind, they could find Jared and Jamie, something that terrified her.) The physical body means little in that case. Which is why Mel would rather jump down that shaft than be caught. That is something about humanity that the souls do not understand. And that's probably why their little Utopia doesn't make any sense to me.

[Xiijes]

It's interesting that they call themselves the human word Souls. Why? Because in English, souls are the unseen thing that give us our personalities, our individuality, that raise us above the teeming mass of humanity. Which is why Wanda's realization of Walter's death is such important plot point.

This brings up something important that I haven't seen anyone else mention. Maybe part of the reason that we're having trouble seeing the souls as completely evil is simply because of the fact that they're called "souls". A human soul, as you've mentioned, is something quite special. The word itself has a very positive connotation and even though we're using it to describe what is essentially a parasitic worm, we still feel the same way about the word "soul". If they were called Vööfz (or whatever) then it would be easier to hate them.

[Ostentatious6277]

I guess it's whatever way you look at it. From a Soul's prespective, then absolutely not, they're just surviving. It might be from a human's perspective because they're taking people's lives from them. Me myself, I don't think that they're bad. Humans survive and so do souls.