Throughout “WE3”, these bio-engineered animals are painted as dangerous things that must be destroyed immediately. It is repeatedly reinforced throughout the book by everyone but there creator that they are trained to kill anything and everything and that to allow them to be loose among civilians would cause numerous murders. However, the animal’s actions suggest something different.
When I was reading through the text, the animals kept saying they wanted to go “home” but they didn’t know where that was. In addition they always looked out for one another and tried they fought to keep each other safe. They appeared to be extremely loyal and actually kind animals that had been forced into these killing machines.
Pages 80 and 81 of the book shows the gentle nature of the animals. On the page, a homeless man has found the animals and he feeds them a burger. There is an image of the dog licking the man’s hand and he looks so helpless and sweet. In the image all of his “gear” is cut out of the image probably to reinforce the idea that underneath all of the armor, he is still just a regular dog that wants to be loved and cared for. On page 81, the dog asks the man “Is gud dog?” which is the same phrase he has repeated throughout the entire story. The repetition of the phrase shows the nature of the dog and how he only wants to please his master, most likely in return for love and affection. This made me think that these animals really don’t understand what they are being trained for, they were simply doing what they were told in order to gain the affection they wanted from their creator. These animals were not bad souls, they just got plucked off the streets and forced into something that many humans would consider dangerous. It was more of a case of “wrong place, wrong time” for them than these animals actually being born blood-thirsty killers.