Lauren’s father has disappeared. No one knows whats happened to him. Shortly after, the community was attacked. Lauren’s prediction of the communities inevitable fall came true. Almost , no one made it out alive. People were beaten, raped, and killed. Houses were burned to the ground. The day after, scavengers roomed the streets looking for any goods they can salvage.

Lauren went back to see if she can be reunited with Cory and her siblings. But alas, she finds out that as soon as they got separated her family was killed. She forms this small group with two survivors from the community. Zahrah and Harry. They decided to travel together north. They begin to realize theirs more than meets the eye when it comes to these three. Zahra use to live in the streets before being sold to her Husband. She has streets smart that come in handy. Lauren has quickly adapt and her survivor instincts have kicked in. She is willing to do any thing in order to stay alive. Harry and Zahra are taken aback a bit because they are use to seeing her as a preachers kid. Harry is still a reluctant to do steal or do anything to secure their survival. “out here , you adapt to your surroundings or you get killed”(182). Lauren is trying to get in to Harrys’ head that he need to change that way of thinking and get with the program if he wants to stay alive. The unlikely trio manages to work together. After an attack on the group Lauren informs the group about her disease. “I’m going to tell you abut myself”(191). The group is speechless at first, ask questions but ultimately accept her for who she is. Afterwords, she shares earthseed with them as well.

After being told to fear everyone beyond the walls Lauren, Harry, and Zahra realize people are just like them scared, non-violent unless provoked, and seeking a way to survive. Through acts of kindness and Lauren’s hyper-empathy her group begins to get bigger and bigger. They come across a racially mix couple with a baby (who are the first to join).Then an older man, who Lauren takes an interest in, and soon after two sisters the group rescues after an earthquake. They also, take in a child whose mom is killed one night. All of this while heading north. She shares her ideas about earthseed with them. Manages to convert most of them.

Usually in times of crisis peoples differences is what separates them. In a post-apocalyptic word, Lauren’s group; people from different backgrounds , ages, and gender come together in order to survive. Despite having differences they look after each other , take care of one another, and take turns keeping watch. Lauren now more than ever believes she has purpose. Just like her dad, she aims on unifying her group with earthseed and building a new and better community.

In “Parable of the Sower,” Lauren’s hyperempathy play a big role and ultimately determine some of her descisions. In a world of pain and suffering, Lauren’s hyperempathy is a weakness and Lauren herself agrees on it. From the reader’s point of view Lauren’s hyperempathy can be seen as a strength, which make her realize the cruelty of the world and prepares her. Hyperempathy for Lauren help her understand people pain, that can be in a good or bad way depending on many factors such as situation, internal or external pain. Hyperempathy is helpful and useless for Lauren, it help her survive but can also be the cause of her death.

As Lauren travel along with Harry and Zahra, her hyperempathy can be see a as strength. In a way Lauren hyperempathy help her out in situations that would hurt others. When Harry asked about his relative after the raid Lauren responded with “I didn’t see your parents”(170). Leaving the question open for Harry to interpret it. If Lauren told the truth she would have felt the overwhelming emotion and render Harry a liability to the group. Through hyperempathy Lauren is able to learn new skills that would help her. When Lauren was attacked by a dog, she shot the dog and “The dog drop without a sound. I dropped”(209). Lauren in a prone position was able to shoot better and scared away the dog. The hyperempathy benefitted Lauren so that she could survive in the harsh world. Every step Lauren take (metaphorically), she has to consider the emotion of other.

Lauren hyperempathy is consider a weakness in the world that she lives in. Even though Lauren can understand others through her hyperempathy is useless and holds her back. When Harry was being attack, Lauren throws a rock and “brought it down with all my strength on the back of the intruder’s head. And I brought myself down”(188). Hyperempathy make Lauren vulnerable when she injure someone. After Lauren  injured the attacker she made herself useless to the group at the moment. Lauren even see that her hyperempathy is a weakness. When Harry said “what if I broke my arm?”, Lauren responded with “then I might not be much good to you”(193). Lauren knows that her hyperempathy limits her ability to function and help other in tough situation. Even Lauren’s hyperempathy is seen as a weakness to Harry and the group. The group understand if one of them is in serious pain Lauren will go down with them and the group can easily be picked apart that is why they allied with the Douglas.

in a world of pain and suffering, Lauren’s hyperempathy can either destroy or help her. Hyperepathy for Lauren is seen as a weakness, but from a larger perspective it can be seen as a strength rather than weakness. Lauren can either understand others through the pain or emotion she feel from other or she can suffer the pain of others. In the end Lauren had gotten very far because of her hyperempathy keeping her in check, making her realize the pain of what the world is and she must prepare for the pain.

What does it mean to have individual strength over people who stand beside you? If being in a herd of sheep is considered weak than why do wolves hunt in packs? Parable of the Sower is a story that revolves around a group dynamic instead of focusing on a single character. The group that has been dubbed the Earthseed community is filled with a number of people from different backgrounds and statuses. Both educated and uneducated side with them. Different people have different opinions about the Earthseed religion. But that is what makes this story so interesting. You can only understand a character so much until you have their entire life’s story memorized and than there’s nothing left to explore about them. Then there’s how they interact with other people. How do characters interact with other characters? That is something that is incredibly interesting.

As much as I would hate to make this comparison, I’m doing it because this is a discussion. The cast of characters look like a party in a role playing game. They get into plenty of fights, random encounters and loot everything. But it also has the same party dynamic that a lot of story driven role playing games have. People will tell each other jokes, argue, become friends and perhaps become lovers. This is one of the most interesting aspects of story driven role playing games. One of the primary selling points of Japanese role playing games is the story content and the way the game’s unique characters interact with each other. There are innumerable examples of these kinds of group dynamics, foreign or otherwise. And these kinds of interactions makes it much harder to see a character die.

Once you have built a connection or kinship with a character you tend to respect and value them. Than when for some reason that character dies you lose your mind. If you don’t do that then don’t judge me. Once I learned about a character’s story I either hate them or love them. When I hate them than I feel great. I feel like something great has happened. When a character I love dies I lose my mind. A game series called Fire Emblem has a game feature where a unique and interesting character who has fallen in battle stay dead. It’s recent titles have had a casual mode so that this no longer happens. When I played the games before this feature was implemented I was devastated. And it wasn’t because that character had a steel great lance on their person when they died, but a character who I have used to carve my way to victory just suddenly died. All those battles and close calls were because they were so helpful to me and my journey through the game. Now the later chapters of Parable of the Sower has killed some of it’s characters as well. Although I did not have a similar attachment to these characters as I did playing Fire Emblem, I felt that a story has ended. In my eyes, each character is a book. They told their story and that is the book’s history. As they joined Laura and her group of survivors I witnessed their story being written. And when they died their story ended. Unique characters and the interactions between them are something that I enjoy. And it is a great revelation when you witness their accomplishments and a burden to see them fall.