Content Warning: This section of the book and the guide discusses enslavement.

The novel’s central protagonist, Dr. Ha Nguyen represents empathy and a post-humanist perspective. She believes that to genuinely communicate with the octopuses, she must understand how their conscious minds perceive the world. In one of the many epigraphs from her book, How Oceans Think, Ha argues, “[E]verything will rely on how sensitive we can be to how that alien mind perceives our actions. Everything” (189). Ha’s insistence on studying the octopuses from their point of view highlights her capacity for empathy and her willingness to recognize and accept differences on their terms.

However, Ha’s ability to empathize with cephalopods isn’t without flaws. She represents the archetype of the arrogant scientist whose single-mindedness leads to ethical lapses. In a pivotal scene, Ha confronts her past mistakes and recognizes her self-righteous rationalizations. She recalls her antagonism toward locals who interfered with her cuttlefish project in the past, admitting, “I didn’t care: They were threatening my cuttlefish. They were my enemies. They were wrong, and they were in the way” (307). Her use of the possessive “my cuttlefish” emphasizes a territorial attitude toward an entire species: In claiming ownership of the animals, she felt ethically justified in punishing the locals and regarding them as the outsiders.