Back to Basics: Reversing character’s evolution in Science Fiction

A fan-favorite trope in sci-fi stories is the Regressed Civilizations — stories in which human societies have lost or abdicated their technological progress in the far future, creating a world in which science reads like magic. In these stories, the future can look suspiciously like our past. You don’t have to look further than the number one sci-fi darling Dune to find one of those. 

Regressed characters, on the other hand, are less discussed in general. These are personal tales of characters that go through a reversed evolution process, losing or abdicating their own body’s progress at the end of the story. It is something that we all can relate to; it is the natural process in our aging journey.

You can see why this trope is less often discussed: just naming the stories would be a huge spoiler. So yeah, I’m going to spoil three of them for you today.

Let’s make this fun, though. The stories I’m going to discuss today are well-known classics of the sci-fi genre: one novella, one novelette, and one short story. Can you guess their titles? 

SPOILER ALERT: Proceed with caution.

Unwanted regression

I have a confession to make: I don’t like Flowers For Algernon.

Don’t rage quit the article just yet please. Let me explain. 

I grant that Daniel Keyes is a superb writer, and the way he told Charlie Gordon’s story was genius. 

We get to meet Gordon, a mentally disabled person, through his diary entries. He narrates his progress as a test subject in an experimental trial to increase his intelligence. The emotional rollercoaster starts with the realization that Gordon is relentlessly bullied by his coworkers, who he thinks of as friends. As his awareness grows with the treatment, we witness him ditching his bullies and cultivating true friendship. However, the effects of the experiment were temporary, and Gordon is going to lose this awareness again.

The ending configures an unwanted regression. The book ends where it begins, with Gordon being bullied by his colleagues and not even realizing it.

The concept behind Flowers For Algernon is quite appealing. For the longest time, I struggled to put into words my issues with this story.

You see, the reversed evolution plot point only feels meaningful if the peak performance acts as a foil to the final state of the character. It doesn’t have to be a sad ending, nor particularly a happy one, but the meaning of the un-developing process should be clear in this contrast.

In Flowers For Algernon, Gordon’s peak had him self-isolate from the world, and he mistreated people he perceived as inferior (that is, everybody). The sad part about the ending is the bully he suffered, but when he was in the bullies’ shoes, he acted the same! 

It made me think of a quote by famous Brazilian educator Paulo Freire:

When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.

The underlying lesson is that the experiment he was subject to was a failure in more than one way. Still, the most common opinion I see about Flowers For Algernon is that the ending is heartbreaking. And I get it! It is a story that plays with the reader’s emotions more than inviting a reflection on the experiment at play. 

Pinocchio Complex

The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov has a similar plot development than in Flowers For Algernon, but the emotional tone is quite different. Our main character Andrew starts as a housework robot, and little by little becomes something more. He too was bullied when he was still considered a property, and even after gaining his freedom. But the story is not about that; it’s about Andrew’s desire to become human.

Andrew is part of a loving family, who encourages his hobbies and growing independence, and eventually helps him to acquire legal rights never before granted to robots. Over generations, Andrew implemented several modifications to his body to match the requirements of the legal rights designed to humans, without ever acquiring the status of ‘human being’ because of his immortality.

So, Andrew’s last act to become a man is to allow himself to die. He performed an operation to alter his positronic brain to decay and perish. This last act of regression is successful, and, a few days before his death at the age of 200, Andrew is legally recognized as human.

As with any Pinocchio archetype character, the desire to become a ‘real boy’ comes from the search for acceptance. Andrew was an outcast, and his fight to be recognized as one of our own emerged from a deep admiration for humanity.

The Bicentennial Man is a story that inspires us to reflect on our natural aging process. Knowing that our time on Earth is limited is part of what makes us human — something that shapes all aspects of our lives, individually and communal.

Andrew was, in many ways, considered to be “better” than normal people. He was knowledgeable and immortal, so he could become whatever he wanted! And yet, he chose to become human. 

Cropped image of the poster art for the movie Bicentennial Man.

Search for Its Roots 

We’ve seen two different faces of the reverse evolution trope in Flowers For Algernon and The Bicentennial Man. In the first, we got to witness people’s cruelty, and in the second, humanity is something worth pursuing. This next example brings yet another side of this trope.

Zima Blue is a short story written by Alastair Reynolds that later became an episode of the popular series Love, Death & Robots. It is set in the far future, and it tells the story of a famous artist named Zima Blue, who’s about to reveal his final art piece: a return to his roots.

This amazing story is not about the cruelty or worthiness of humanity. As a matter of fact, Zima Blue is not human at all, despite being mistaken by one. And he doesn’t strive to become one. He is in pursuit of something else: a memory, his truest form, the most beautiful art… And he goes on a lengthy journey to realize that his happiness lies in going back to basics.

To do so, Zima abdicated his body modifications to become once again a simple cleaning-pool robot. As with Andrew, in The Bicentennial Man, his regression is intentional. But his reasons are entirely different.

Zima’s pursuit is inspired by Eastern Philosophy. In Taoism, for example, life’s virtue is connected to simplicity, as opposed to human-made complexity. In stripping down of his ultra-technological body, Zima becomes free again; free from the artificial life imposed on him. His last piece of art symbolizes harmony. His mind is finally at ease.

Life has become artificially convoluted in the last hundred years, with the introduction of mind-boggling technology. Our day-to-day life has become fast-paced, isolating, demanding, and overall confusing. This technological context we created for ourselves is lacking in many ways. And stories like Zima Blue invite us to reflect about it by recognizing that there’s beauty in simplicity.

Scene of the episode “Zima Blue” of Love, Death & Robots.

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Have you read these stories?

I started with my least favorite to end on a positive note. The fact that it was sorted by the longest to shortest story was just a coincidence. Or is it me unconsciously favoring shorter stories? I’ll let you decide.

Anyway, what is your favorite regressed character? Let me know in the comments.

See you next post,

Ra

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Carla Ra is a scientist by day, sci-fi writer by night.

You can check out her FREE stories here.