#i like genly because he's a guy who creates problems

[rustchild]

controversial opinion about incredibly niche subjects, but i actually like the use of the universal ‘he’ in the narration of Left Hand of Darkness. I like it for the same reason that everyone hates it, and Ursula Le Guin herself regretted it: because it doesn’t fit.

The book is ostensibly written and translated by Genly, or by the observers that came to Gethen before him, and the central struggle of Genly’s story is his inability to give up the gendered frameworks he’s used to in the face of a situation where they don’t apply at all. Having that baked into the language indicates just how deep that struggle runs. In order for him to understand Gethen, to connect to Estraven--hell, to understand himself--he needs to give up on this idea of gender that is so fundamental to his cultural background that it’s baked into his language, and that’s just as much of a barrier to true connection as Estraven’s memories of Arek are to their use of mindspeech. Having that reflected in the text itself, and showing Genly struggle with it as he writes, is actually a super effective way to not only show this tension, but also draw further attention to the limits of Le Guin’s English-speaking audience.

#lhod #the left hand of darkness #genly ai #i just think it's more effective for building tension and character voice #than it would have been if genly was using a third-gender pronoun the whole time #singular they... maybe #but a genly who is able to adapt a new pronoun from the get go is a different genly than the one we see in the text #the only counter argument i would buy is that genly's writing in retrospective #and by the end of the book has finally (too late) come to understand the limitations of gender #but idk #i like genly because he's a guy who creates problems #not on his own but as a reflection of the culture he comes from #and i think that the fact that there's an inherent contradiction to how the text is presented to us #is a good problem actually #mine #for the three people out there who will care about this