Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
One's three feet tall with little arms and eight legs, the other's eight feet tall with a mean right hook. It's easy to tell the Boov and Gorg apart, but what do these alien species mean? We're not talking about why they're on earth or what their goals are; we're thinking symbolically. And along this line, we don't think the Boov and Gorgs have anything to do with aliens or foreign galaxies. Instead, we think the different types of aliens are here to get us as readers thinking about race.
Did you notice that J.Lo tells Gratuity all kinds of things about the Gorg without even talking to any of them? They bring bad weather, they can't get sick… and the list goes on. We're not saying that the Gorg are a nice bunch or anything—in fact, we think they're downright mean—but this doesn't change the fact that the three groups in this book all make snap judgments about each other. Hmm… What is it called when you judge someone by the color of their skin or where they're from? Racism, that's what.
A prime example is when J.Lo is teaching Tip all about the Gorg. He tells her:
"But the Nimrogs, these are so awful they can not to even get along with themselves. They fight each other— over land, over ideas." (3.243)
Okay, so all Gorgs fight constantly. That's a little hard to believe given the diversity we can recognize amongst our own species. From outer space, it sure might look like all humans do is fight—but we know that when you zoom in, we’re a whole lot more complicated than that.
J.Lo also claims that all Gorg love musical theater and are left-handed. Later on, though, he fesses up that he might not know everything there is to know about the Gorg. After all, he says it's downright impossible for them to sneeze, since they don't get sick… but when Tip sees them sneeze more than once, she figures out they're allergic to cats.
This isn't the first time J.Lo has to come to terms with some stereotypes he's been making about other species. When Tip chooses him over her fellow people, he says, "We were told the humans were nasty and backwards" (2.634), before apologizing. Our point? There are a lot of "facts" told to us about Gorg, Boov, and humans throughout the book, but not all of them turn out to be true. Sometimes the characters—ahem, Tip and J.Lo—have to figure out that other species aren't so bad. This is, after all, the key to their friendship.