voidmoth

Moira/Mallory/Magpie/Molly

Electronic literature, tool-building, poetry, games, puzzles, &cet. 29.


Itch.io
m-campbell.itch.io

yrgirlkv
@yrgirlkv

absolutely one of the best moments in left hand of darkness is when one of the ekumen's scientists is theorizing as to why there's never been a war on gethen and is like "is it because they're dual-sexed there? because they lack the masculine urge for violence, or the sexual differentiation to sort people into victim class and aggressor class?" and then a paragraph later they're like "actually now that i think about it it's probably because it's so fucking cold here that nobody can afford to fight a war when there's ice to survive through"


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @yrgirlkv's post:

That whole through line in the book is really funny, with Genly constantly overanalyzing the gethens instead of seeing them as, like, very understandable and quite similar people. He’s got anthropologist brain rot lol

I love that book. Sometimes there are bit where the main protagonist seem to have a kind of residual sexism, which isn't really address, the book gesture toward the idea that his sexism is another barrier toward his understanding of the gethen culture but only slightly.
That being said, it is a great book. Another thing I love about it, other than its defiance of gender role, is how it shows that honesty can actually be a tool malicious actor use to manipulate their victim. And I love the whole metaphor of "someone's shadow", which is kind of like their personal honour but also their secret? I thought that was cool.