Status Updates From The Left Hand of Darkness

“So all of them, out on these other planets, are in permanent kemmer? A society of perverts? So Lord Tibe put it; I thought he was joking....”

I wonder if he thinks it's like a 24/7 orgy or something on Earth lol

‘“Are they all black as you?”

Gethenians are yellow-brown or red-brown, generally, but I had seen a good many as dark as myself. “Some are blacker,” I said; “we come all colors...”’

Omg Karen you can't just ask people why they're white

“...Damn that lying cold-blooded traitor, I trusted him. I put the silver chain around his damned neck. I wish I'd hanged him with it. I never trusted him. Never. Don't trust anybody. Let him starve in the cesspits of Mishnory hunting garbage, let his bowels rot...”

Damn chill bruh 👁️👄👁️

‘Getheren was frightened, and he said, “I will not stay here. If you had come away with me from our Hearth into the southern lands we might have stayed together and kept our vow lifelong, no man knowing our transgression. But you broke your vow, throwing it away with your life. And now you cannot say my name.”

This was true. Hode moved his white lips, but could not say his brother's name.’

Oh we're doing incest

“He saw away over the ice to the north a white tower like the tower of a Domain, and from this place far away one came walking towards him. After a while Getheren could see that the person was naked, his skin was all white, and his hair was all white....”

What in the White Walker

Wholesome sci-fi?

‘“I'm not sure I've ever served the king,” said the king's prime minister. “Or ever intended to. I'm not anyone's servant. A man must cast his own shadow...”’

Go off Estraven

“No, I don't mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression. It grows in us, that fear. It grows in us year by year. We've followed our road too far. And you, who come from a world that outgrew nations centuries ago, who hardly know what I'm talking about, who show us the new road—”

Outgrew nations??

“Such a man as Estraven must have guards about him somewhere, for assassination is a lively institution in Karhide, but I had seen no guard, heard none. We were alone.”

👁️👄👁️

“Estraven's house, sign of the king's high favor, was the Corner Red Dwelling, built 440 years ago for Harmes, beloved kemmering of Emran III, whose beauty is still celebrated, and who was abducted, mutilated, and rendered imbecile by hirelings of the Innerland Faction.”

👁️👄👁️

“Its front garden was revealed now that the last of the winter's snow had melted and the winter-doors, ten feet aboveground, were sealed off for a few months, till the autumn and the deep snow should return.”

Winter doors ten feet aboveground? That's some deep ass snow ❄️

‘Wiping sweat from his dark forehead the man—man I must say, having said he and his—the man answers, “Very-long-ago a keystone was always set in with a mortar of ground bones mixed with blood. Human bones, human blood. Without the blood bond the arch would fall, you see. We use the blood of animals, these days.”’

👁️👄👁️

“The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like...”

“Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honoured in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.”

Go off Ms. Le Guin!