Death of the Author

Ankara is the protagonist of Rusted Robots, the novel that Zelu writes at the start of her narrative. Okorafor uses metafictional techniques to enter the narrative of Zelu’s work, blurring the boundaries between the real world and Zelu’s fictional creation. In the larger scope of the narrative, Ankara fulfills the function of a secondary protagonist, supporting Zelu’s journey by functioning as an avatar for her feelings while also completing her own independent character arc.

Ankara is a female-built robot who lives in a posthuman version of Nigeria. She values her heritage as a product of humanity, which categorizes her as a type of robot called a Hume. Humes value their link to humanity so much that they try to resemble human beings in physical appearance. Ankara has a particular affinity for the way humans developed their inner lives into stories. This subcategorizes Ankara further into a Scholar, a Hume who roams the world searching for undiscovered stories.

Ankara goes on a hero’s journey when she meets Udide the Spider, who warns her of the oncoming threat of Trippers coming to destroy the Earth. Udide entrusts Ankara with a countdown, hoping that she will inform the Hume leaders of the issue so that they can work together to prevent their annihilation. Ankara’s journey to fulfill her quest confronts her with the hostility of an opposing faction of artificial intelligences called Ghosts, but it also brings her directly into the path of Ngozi, the last surviving human on Earth. To save her life, Ngozi installs a Ghost called Ijele into Ankara’s system. Ankara’s complex relationship with Ngozi and her symbiotic relationship with Ijele force her to deviate from her main quest but also raise issues about the value of embodiment and the need for collaboration.

Ankara is drawn to Ngozi because Ngozi represents everything Ankara values most in her life. Without humanity to command them, robots are left in search of a purpose. Despite the threat of the Trippers, Ankara spends time with Ngozi. Although Ankara admires the human, she is also ambivalent about Ngozi’s actions, merging Ankara’s consciousness with a Ghost, the Humes’ sworn enemy. Ankara is forced to find common ground with Ijele, which ultimately proves crucial in her quest to save automation from destruction. Their loyalty to one another ensures that Ankara can create the first story ever written by robots. Ankara’s discovery that stories are rooted in experience, not in the mimicry of other stories, directly mirrors Zelu’s process for writing Rusted Robots.

Okorafor uses the end of Ankara’s story to create an extra layer of metanarrative, hinting at the possibility that Zelu’s story may have been the product of Ankara’s work as a storyteller. Ankara suggests that the story she has written is based on the life of Ngozi’s ancestor, who was also named Zelunjo Onyenezi-Onyedele. The ambiguity over which story is true and which story is written drives the reality of the impossible things that Zelu and Ankara achieve. Ankara is just as much a mirror of Zelu as she is a product of her imagination.

Ijele is one of the main characters in Zelu’s novel, Rusted Robots. Initially portrayed as an antagonist to Ankara, Ijele quickly becomes Ankara’s closest and most trusted ally. Ankara considers Ijele necessary in her quest to become a storyteller since their shared experience of Ngozi allows Ankara to paint a more complex picture of her life.

Ijele is a female-built NoBody, an artificial intelligence program that exists without a primary physical body. The NoBodies are further subcategorized into Ghosts, who believe that automation is destined to transcend the physical world. This makes them resentful of any robot who has a body. Consequently, they despise Humes for their affinity with human beings. During their first interactions, Ijele and Ankara debate the necessity of a body. Ankara expresses that bodies are necessary to find wonder and joy in nature and the cosmos. Ijele, on the other hand, maintains that such wonder goes against the capabilities of automation. She frequently cites the infinite space of the network as a counterpoint to the vastness of the universe.

Ijele undergoes a dynamic character arc throughout Rusted Robots. Her journey reflects Zelu’s position that the world is better for its embodiment in physical forms. In Chapter 15, Ijele concedes that she has some capacity for wonder, as she expresses her curiosity about the stars in the night sky. Though Ijele doesn’t openly admit it, she forms an emotional attachment to Ngozi, similar to that of Ankara. After Ngozi dies, Ijele comes in a physical form to honor her human friend. By the end of the novel, Ijele, after helping Ankara write Ngozi’s story so that she can convince Oji to abandon his song of destruction, decides to transfer herself into a permanent physical body. This will disentangle her consciousness from Ankara’s while also setting her off on her own journey to discover herself. This represents Zelu’s assertion that her body does not hinder her from being her truest self. Rather, the body is a tool for one to become what they’ve always wanted to be—in Zelu’s case, an astronaut.