Stories, Myths, and the Power of Narrative in Remote Control

The Thematic Claim: Stories as Soothsayers, Truth-Tellers, and Liars {#the-thematic-claim-stories-as-soothsayers-truth-tellers-and-liars}

In Remote Control, Nnedi Okorafor presents stories as living forces that shape identity, reputation, and fate—yet remain fundamentally unreliable. The novel's central statement on this theme comes from Sankofa herself: stories were soothsayers, truth-tellers and liars. The folk tale that casts Sankofa as Death's adopted child circulates through villages, towns, and cities, and it does real work in the world: it frightens people into shutting their doors, it poisons a gateman's mind until he attacks her, and it also moves strangers to offer her gifts and kindness. But the story is also wrong in ways that matter deeply to Sankofa. It claims her parents abandoned her at Death's doorstep, and she knows this is false. The gap between the story told about her and the life she actually lived becomes the novel's central tension: narrative power can protect, endanger, and distort all at once.

The Folk Tale and Its Many Versions {#the-folk-tale-and-its-many-versions}

The folk tale that opens Chapter 10 is the novel's most explicit treatment of this theme. The story goes that a living child was born to dead parents, left at Death's doorstep with a note pinned to her blanket, and raised by Death until age seven, when she gained the ability to send people back to The Essence. The tale names her Sankofa and describes her as petite, looking nine years old though she is actually thirteen.

Sankofa has heard this story in many forms. She once sat in a circle of children while a woman told this exact version, unaware that the subject was listening. She watched a naked madman in a market tell it to himself. Two teenage thieves used an exaggerated version—complete with a magical rusty machete—to try to convince her they could protect her from Death's Adopted Daughter. The variations multiply: some say she is riddled with leprosy, some say she is pretty like an American, some say she is an adze, a mythical vampire, some say aliens tainted her blood with radioactive gas through a black hole. What everyone agrees on is that wherever she goes, she brings death.

The one part of the story Sankofa hates is the claim that her parents left her. The evidence of her own life contradicts it: she had the best parents in the world. This is the contradiction at the heart of the theme. The folk tale is not simply false—it accurately captures that Sankofa brings death, that her power is real, that she is small and strange. But it is also not simply true, because it gets the most personal detail wrong. Stories, the novel suggests, are never purely one thing.

Stories as Weapons: The Gateman and the Mob {#stories-as-weapons-the-gateman-and-the-mob}

The gateman's attack in Chapter 1 demonstrates how stories can become weapons. Sankofa arrives at a Christmas Eve party, eats ravenously, and demonstrates her green glow for two children, Edgar and Ye. When she leaves, the gateman confronts her, accusing her of killing his brother, and fires a gun at her. Her green light explodes the bullet and incinerates him, leaving only a bone.

The novel later clarifies that the gateman's mind was poisoned by the wild rumors that preceded her. He did not know Sankofa. He acted on what he had heard. The story of Death's Adopted Daughter, circulating ahead of her, created the conditions for violence. The gateman's death is a tragedy of narrative: a man killed by a story he believed.

This pattern repeats in Chapter 8, when a mob in RoboTown stones Sankofa after the robocop kills a child at an intersection. The mob blames her because the story about her—that she brings death—makes her the obvious culprit. Her light bursts forth, killing several people, including Alhaja Ujala. The story of who Sankofa is becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: because people believe she brings death, they attack her, and her defensive response brings death.

Stories as Comfort: The Bus Passengers {#stories-as-comfort-the-bus-passengers}

But stories are not only weapons. In Chapter 9, after Sankofa survives the leopard attack and stands in the road, a bus stops and passengers recognize her. One woman, working on a drone delivery system for local hospitals, tells her that good stories circulate about her there. She recounts how a man whose aunt had terminal cancer said Sankofa truly was like an angel. Other passengers offer her clothes, food, money, and a jar of shea butter. The teenagers record the moment and post it online, creating new stories in real time.

This scene shows the double edge of narrative. The same reputation that made the gateman attack her also makes strangers treat her with reverence and generosity. The good stories humanize her, even as the wild rumors dehumanize her. Sankofa accepts the gifts, and the novel notes that she preened afterward—she enjoys the positive attention, even as she knows the stories are incomplete.

The Seed and the Box: A Counter-Narrative {#the-seed-and-the-box-a-counter-narrative}

The seed and its box function as a physical counter-narrative to the folk tale. The seed fell from the sky during a meteor shower when Fatima was four or five, landing at the end of one of her sky words drawings beneath the shea tree. It burned her hand, sank into the soil, and returned a year later in a wooden box that emerged from the churning earth. The seed cured her fever. Then her father sold the box to a politician's aide, and the aide robbed the politician that same night. The money bought a truck and paid school fees.

The seed is the true origin of Sankofa's power—not Death's adoption, but a glowing green object from the sky. Yet the folk tale has overwritten this origin with a myth. Sankofa spends years tracking the seed, following it from town to town, and in Chapter 9 she tries to destroy it, smashing it with a stone until she is exhausted, but it remains whole. She buries it, then digs it up again when she leaves. In Chapter 10, she returns to Wulugu and buries the box beneath the family shea tree, crushing it and declaring it a curse. That night, she sees glowing green seeds at the base of nearly every shea tree in the farm except hers, and she deliberately brightens her light, intensifying their glow.

The seed is the story Sankofa cannot escape. She tries to destroy it, bury it, and leave it behind, but it keeps returning, just as the folk tale keeps circulating. Her final act—burying the box and then intensifying the other seeds' glow—suggests she is choosing to let the story transform, to let it spread beyond her.

Names as Stories {#names-as-stories}

Names in the novel are themselves narratives. Fatima's grandfather called her Starwriter because she claimed to see words in the sky, but the name never stuck. After the accident in Chapter 3, she forgets her own name. She later takes the name Sankofa, from the carved Sankofa bird she broke in her brother's room. The Sankofa bird is a symbol of looking back to move forward, and the name carries that meaning even as Sankofa tries to bury her past.

The name Sankofa is also the name the folk tale gives her—Death's adopted daughter. She cannot escape it, because it is the name everyone knows. Her identity is shaped by a story she did not choose.

Complexity and Contradiction {#complexity-and-contradiction}

The novel refuses to resolve the tension between stories and truth. The folk tale is wrong about her parents, but right about her power. The good stories are kind, but incomplete. The rumors are dangerous, but they also give her a kind of power—in Chapter 5, the novel notes that people gave Sankofa power, and she started to believe she was powerful. Her reputation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in both directions: she is feared, and she becomes fearsome; she is revered, and she becomes worthy of reverence.

The old farmers in Chapter 9 offer a model of how stories can be contained. They know who she is and what happened in RoboTown, but they say, secret stay here. They respect her without needing to tell her story. They give her seeds and supplies, and they laugh with her about her talent for cultivating life despite her talent for taking it. Their code of secrecy suggests that stories are not inherently good or bad—they depend on how they are used.

Study Questions and Answers {#study-questions-and-answers}

1. What is the thematic claim about stories in Remote Control?

The novel claims that stories are powerful forces that shape identity, reputation, and fate, but they are fundamentally unreliable. Sankofa's own formulation—stories were soothsayers, truth-tellers and liars—captures this: stories can predict, reveal, and deceive simultaneously. The folk tale about Death's adopted daughter accurately describes Sankofa's power but falsely claims her parents abandoned her.

2. How does the gateman's attack in Chapter 1 illustrate the danger of stories?

The gateman attacks Sankofa because his mind was poisoned by the wild rumors that preceded her. He believes the story that she brings death, and he accuses her of killing his brother. His attack triggers her defensive green light, which incinerates him. The story creates the conditions for violence, and the violence confirms the story.

3. How do the good stories in Chapter 9 differ from the rumors?

In Chapter 9, a woman tells Sankofa that good stories circulate about her—a man whose aunt had terminal cancer said Sankofa was like an angel. These stories humanize her and lead strangers to offer gifts and kindness. The rumors, by contrast, dehumanize her and lead to fear and violence. Both are incomplete, but they have opposite effects.

4. What role does the seed and its box play in the theme of narrative?

The seed is the physical origin of Sankofa's power, a counter-narrative to the folk tale. It fell from the sky, was taken from her, and she spends years tracking it. She tries to destroy it and fails, then buries it and digs it up again. The seed represents the true story she cannot escape, even as the folk tale overwrites it.

5. How does Sankofa's reaction to the folk tale reveal the complexity of the theme?

Sankofa resents the claim that her parents abandoned her—she knows it is false. But she also accepts the gifts and reverence that the story brings her. She cannot fully reject the story because it is the only identity she has. The novel suggests that stories are never purely true or false; they are living things that shape us whether we choose them or not.