Killer Instinct

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, child abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse.

Through its depiction of the main characters, Killer Instinct explores how trauma can affect an individual’s behavior and emotions. In depicting the complicated, and sometimes conflicting, ways in which each of the characters responds to current circumstances based on their previous traumatic experiences, the novel suggests that the Naturals’ supposedly “natural” abilities are in fact deeply shaped by what they have been through.

Dean, who struggles to form his own identity away from his father’s influence, illustrates the physical, emotional, and even social impact of trauma. Dean’s feelings of guilt and self-loathing lead him to isolate himself from others and thus deny himself any support. Cassie points out, for example, that “There [is] a chance—a good one—that Dean [doesn’t] need to be alone so much as he [thinks] being alone [is] what he deserve[s]” (69). Dean’s violent reaction to Emerson’s murder, in which he recognizes his father’s MO, shows how trauma has embedded itself not only in his psyche but in his body. When Cassie tries to comfort him, Dean instinctively grabs her arm and appears to momentarily dissociate before he comes back to himself and apologizes. His behavior reflects past traumatic experiences that affect both his instinctive emotional reactions and his conscious choices.

As painful as this past trauma is, however, it is partly responsible for Dean’s profiling abilities. This pattern holds true for the rest of the Naturals. As Sloane points out, “None of us had normal childhoods […]. If we had, we wouldn’t be Naturals” (59). Michael, for instance, grew up with a physically abusive father and therefore learned to anticipate his moods, which made him exceptionally good at reading people’s emotions. Sloane represents a partial exception, as her talent with facts and statistics is implied to have appeared early in her life. However, Cassie remarks that “somewhere along the line, someone—or maybe multiple someones—had conditioned [Sloane] to believe that different, her kind of different, was wrong” (76). Sloane’s trauma therefore stems from other people’s negative reactions to her abilities, but that trauma nevertheless impacts how her abilities manifest—e.g., in her lack of self-confidence. In short, the Naturals’ abilities and their traumatic experiences are deeply intertwined and inform each other.

Despite their origins in trauma, Cassie recognizes that the Naturals’ skills are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but rather morally neutral traits that can be used for good or bad. The narrative therefore suggests that providing the teenagers with a safe environment and positive authority figures helps them not only to process their trauma but also to use their abilities to serve a moral purpose—itself a way of transforming their relationship to what happened to them.