Yeerk Love

[Darth Zakryn]

Why don't the Yeerks love? I mean, seriously. Is it because they don't have personal relationships with their parents and mates (a term I use very loosely)? If so, that might explain it, but it's kind of disgusting to me that the Yeerks will never view love or personal relationships with anything more than contempt. Forgive me, but I'm kind of a romantic at heart, I believe in love at first sight, soul mates, things like that, so I guess I'm saying this from a biased point of view. It also makes the Yeerks REALLY selfish; they don't care about others except in the vaguest sense, as comrades or friends, but nothing else.

Anyway, ideas?

[Chad32]

I think it's a few things. For starters Yeerks don't have relationships with their parents, and Yeerk sex ends in death. So sex can't really be used to bring couples together like it does with Humans. There's also the indoctrination that causes Yeerks to view their hosts as property, and try to remain separated from the feelings of their hosts. Though I feel that's very difficult for Yeerks to do. I think it's a kind of instinct for Yeerks to take on parts of their host's mentality as they live with those hosts.

You've got Human controllers like Visser 1, that guy in book 8, and pretty much anyone in the YPM that are more compassionate towards each other as well as Hosts. You've got Hork-Bajir controllers that talk in Hulk-speak, even though a Yeerk in a Human can speak just fine. You also have Visser Three who is quite insane, and his insanity is possibly partly because of Alloran.

It's a different species with different functions. They're just not going to always act the same as us.

[RYTX]

I'm with chad; the guy in book 8, edriss-there's no reason to believe yeerks can't love.
Maybe be different than what's normal, but isn't the saying "among 100 different people you'll find 100 different types of love"? Something like that

Besides, most of the yeerks we see are power hungry warmongers: The only thing they care about is there own power: who's to say that the rest of the yeerks don't devote themselves to the most intimate connection a tri-mating parasitic brain slug can form
I know that sounds sarcastic, but I mean it

[TobiasMasonPark]

     It's just how they've been living for centuries. Maybe it has to do with the fact that they're genderless. Or maybe the after effects of mating scares them; emotions=bad. Who's to say Yeerk mating involves any emotion, anyway?

[wildweathel]

Besides, most of the yeerks we see are power hungry warmongers: The only thing they care about is there own power

If you're a Yeerk leader with only a limited number of hosts are you really going to assign one to an openly anti-parasitic Yeerk?  No, your going to get him (curse you English and your lack of gender-neutral pronouns!) the hell off your ship and life-support budget as soon as you can.  At kindest, you'll find him a planetside pool.  We're definitely looking at a biased sample.

[Dogman15]

I think Yeerks are capable of varying degrees of love, but the indoctrination of the Yeerk Empire discourages them from finding love, either with another Yeerk through hosts, or with a host directly.

[Myitt]

Clearly Aftran felt affection for her brother if she started stalking the mysterious shape-shifting creature who killed him.  And I think at one point in Visser, love is termed "exaggerated sympathy" by the Council.  Clearly they don't have a proper word for "love", but I think it's safe to say that Yeerks could feel affection, and with the influence of their host (especially humans) that could be molded into something stronger. 

[Chad32]

That's another good point. Aftran's host was like Sara's age or something, and she followed Cassie because Cassie killed her brother. That's something.

[LisaCharly]

Fairly sure what Edriss feels isn't love, it's possessiveness that she mistakes for love.

"The children? Visser Three had made Darwin a host. Darwin, my son, was lost to me. But what about Madra? Was she still free? Could I… No. I couldn’t. Someday, not yet.
But someday she would know me. I would tell her all about me, all about who I was, how she had come to exist. And she would love me, as a daughter loves a mother.
And if not, then I could always infest Madra, place some well-trained Yeerk in her head. Then she would love me. She’d have no choice."

Wuv, twu wuv...

Aftran and the guy in #8 definitely feel something closer to love, though.

[Blazing Angel]

Some yeerks do fall in love as proved in visser. And they do have friends I remember in one book (cant remember which) a yeerk came for revenge on Cassie for tearing a friends throat open.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     The book was Animorphs 19: The Departure.