What are each of the main characters’ motivations? How do those motivations change over time? How do they vary from one another’s? How do underlying motivations inform Dorothy’s choices during her epigenetic vision?

Lai King faces xenophobia and racism from a very early age. How does that affect her interaction with the world around her? How does her experience of racism change and evolve as the plague strikes, during the quarantine period with her parents, and/or as she sails to Canton?

Do all characters stand up to racist violence? If not, how else do they respond? Does Ford put the onus to change on the shoulders of the perpetrators or the survivors?