Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World – Coursera Assignment 9
The Left Hand of Darkness
Gethen, held fast in perpetual winter, also held secrets that the Ekumen would be studying for generations. One of these mysteries was the faith practiced by the Handdarata, and Genly Ai made it a priority to set out for the ancient Fastness of Otherhord to understand the discipline of Foretelling. In this remote setting, Ai learned a lesson in how the people of the Fastnesses attained order and balance by accepting the insane into their community.
Wise and learned Foretellers had long been divining answers to questions concerning the fate of Gethen. Ai was a witness to the Foretelling ritual, where he came in contact with two of Handdara’s most ardent devotees, the Zanies. It is unclear what definition Ai would have used for the word zany, but the Handdarata assigned a mystical significance to the name.
When Ai’s host in Otherhord, Goss, called the Zanies insane and “time-dividers,” the envoy did not share the same understanding of these words as Goss. According to Ai’s point of reference, insanity was a condition in need of curing. Not every society sees the value of one who travels to the edge of time and back from within a magic circle. It’s a dangerous business if visions and voices fill one’s head, no matter the number of faithful. Being rocketed through space in a ship is easier to explain, and more socially acceptable. Is it considered communal psychosis, then, if everyone believes the same thing?
Genly Ai, by his own account, was taught that truth is a matter of the imagination. A willingness to extend disbelief, even to the point of questioning one’s sanity, is a quality an explorer of inner and outer space should possess. Crazy is not easy to define, and it threatens the sense of community when the visionary, lunatic or otherwise, is pushed to the margins of society.
Works Cited:
Le Guin. Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ace premium edition 2010, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York
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