Characters / The Left Hand of Darkness

Genly Ai

• But I Would Really Enjoy It: On the ice during Estraven's kemmering, Genly strongly implies the reasons he chooses not to have sex with Estraven are not because he isn't attracted to him. Has elements of I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship.
• Clear Their Name: Genly promises to make King Argaven revoke Estraven's banishment. He fails but it doesn't matter because Estraven dies before they return to Karhide anyway.
• Distressed Dude: When Genly lands on a prison farm in Orgoreyn and has a bad reaction to the anti-kemmer drugs he's given, he seems pretty done in for. Luckily for him, Estraven is there to rescue him.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Or rather Ice Forged. The trek across the Ice is what finally gets him to warm up to Estraven.
• First-Name Basis: Gets there with Estraven.
• Heroic BSoD: Gets one after Estraven is shot by border guards after Genly's ship was signaled.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Completely fails to understand the danger posed by Tibe, who is planning to arrest and possibly execute Genly, believes the Orgoreyn Commensals, who eventually have him arrested and shipped to a gulag, and totally mistrusts Estraven, the one person who's been on his side since the very beginning.
• Interspecies Friendship: With Estraven.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: At the start of the novel, King Argaven tells Genly that a nation must be ruled by fear. Yet it is Genly and Estraven's development of a trusting, respectful, loving relationship that eventually allows Genly to succeed on his mission against Argaven's initial wishes.
• Men Don't Cry: He sticks to this for a long while, which sticks out against the Gethenians who have no such assumptions and are a bit baffled by it.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: A mild example, but he is vaguely sexist, disliking shifgrethor social customs for being too feminine and shifty, and indulging in a Mars and Venus Gender Contrast ideology when Estraven asks him what women are like, calling them more alien than Gethenians and indulging in stereotypes when asked. Of course, half the story's point is for the androgynous people of Gethen to challenge his assumptions of gender, and he gets better as they do.
• Poor Communication Kills: Genly's failure to recognize Estraven as a legitimate ally and effectively communicate with him nearly gets him killed twice.
• Selective Obliviousness: Genly, normally a conscientious and careful Envoy, hits this badly when he enters Orgoreyn. His first day in a police state ends with him and the entire inn put under brutal arrest, but within days of being recovered and put in the hands of the politicians, he's able to convince himself that Orgoreyn is the enlightened nation he's been looking for. Still, all the time he's there his instinct keeps telling him something is off.
• Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Genly is repeatedly accused of being a "pervert" by Gethenians for displaying a persistent, unchanging extant sex. Most Gethenians are agender by default, only exhibiting a distinct sex during a brief period of their sexual cycle.

Therem Harth rem ir Estraven

• Action Politician: Therem is something akin to a prime minister. He also forges documents, infiltrates a prison, single-handedly carries an unconscious Genly out of a gulag, and plans their entire journey across a frozen wasteland in the interest of helping Genly's mission succeed.
• Allegiance Affirmation: After rescuing Genly from the gulag, Therem clearly lays out that he is and has since the beginning been strongly in favor of Genly's mission and made every effort to help him succeed—and intends to continue doing so.
• Anti-Hero: His aim is noble, to unite Gethen with the Ekumen and prevent war. To this end, he's willing to play the role of traitor, thief, and political schemer.
• Beneath the Mask: At least from Genly's perspective. Therem comes off as extremely calm and cool in Genly's narration, but some of the chapters from Therem's POV show how furious he was with Genly.
• Big Brother Attraction: Arek was one year older than Therem, making Therem this.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Therem vowed kemmering—essentially, married—with his full-blood sibling, Arek, which is forbidden on Gethen. Therem births a child from this union.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: Debatable, but it is implied Arek and Therem promised to vow kemmering to each other when they were quite young.
• Crisis Catch And Carry: To get Genly out of the prison farm, Therem knocks him out with a jolt of electricity and uses dothe to carry him out of the prison.
• The Exile: He's exiled from Karhide due to the machinations of Tibe early on. He was also exiled from his home in Estre for vowing kemmering to his full-blood sibling, Arek.
• Heroic Suicide: Discussed. His death crossing the Karhide border might have been a suicide, which is heavily shamed on Gethen....but it might also have been a calculated attempt to save Genly and his family.
• The Idealist: Therem believes so fully and so immediately in Genly's mission that he overlooks that many Gethenians will see the Ekumen as an existential threat and forgets how much of a role national politics still plays in Gethenian society. It bites him in the ass when he loses favor with the king and is ousted by the king's cousin, Tibe.
• Interspecies Friendship: With Genly.
• Meaningful Name: "Therem" was the name of one-half of a famous pair of Star-Crossed Lovers, one of whom was from Therem Harth's home hearth. Therem Harth has been exiled for vowing kemmering to his sibling, Arek. "Estraven the Traitor" as the historical figure was called, earned his name both for kemmering with an enemy and for surrendering a piece of disputed land to end a skirmish that had been ongoing for generations.
• The Mourning After: Therem's first love, Arek, is dead at the start of the story and while we meet Ashe, someone he kemmered with for seven years, Therem implies he never loved Ashe romantically and even tells them he doesn't think his vow of kemmering to them was legitimate (due to his first vow to Arek).
• Persona Non Grata: After King Argaven banishes him, residents of Karhide may not even speak to Therem, let alone offer him board or any other assistance.
• Releasing from the Promise: A version—Therem's former kemmering Ashe shows up after Therem has been exiled and offers to come with him. Therem tells him in no uncertain terms that Ashe owes him nothing based on their dissolved vow of kemmering. Ashe goes ahead to contact Genly in an effort to help Therem anyway.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Therem goes to greater and greater lengths to ensure the success of Genly's mission because he believes it is critical to Gethen's future. This includes violating not only the laws of multiple countries, but also his own ethical code in an effort to keep Genly alive and help him get Gethen into the Ekumen.
• Serial Spouse: Therem has twice vowed kemmering for life only to lose his partner. It is prohibited on Gethen to vow kemmering more than once, but Therem considers his first vow invalid, as full-blood siblings are not permitted to vow kemmering for life.
• Sissy Villain: Deconstructed and subverted. Because Genly is expecting someone who is naturally effeminate and a politician to be an Evil Chancellor, Genly instantly pegs Therem as untrustworthy, especially after he puts a bunch of procedural obstructions between him and the king. In fact, while Therem is an Anti-Hero, his obstructions were attempts at making a good initial first impression - he's nothing but sincere in his attempts to help Genly.
• Suicide by Cop: Arguably Therem's end. He is a known fugitive just reported in the area and comes skiing directly at the border guards, who he has reason to know are armed. Earlier in the novel, he warns the Commensals that foray guns (our standard guns) are not museum relics in Karhide, but are in fact carried by the king's guard, suggesting other law enforcement officers may be similarly armed, or at least that it wouldn't be unusual in Karhide.
• What the Hell, Hero?: "I am the only man in all Gethen who has trusted you entirely, and I am the only man on Gethen you have refused to trust."
• Wrongly Accused: While he is more loyal to Gethen and Karhide than the king, no one with sense would call him a traitor. And yet that's exactly what Agraven does.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Because he vowed kemmering to his full-blood sibling Arek, Therem was exiled from his home in Estre. Although Arek is now dead, Therem is still barred from returning to Estre.

Faxe the Weaver

• Head-Turning Beauty: The first time Genly sees Faxe, he's so taken with them he instantly tries to telepathically reach out, momentarily forgetting Gethenians don't yet have this ability.
• Psychic Powers: Played with. He's the leader of a group of accurate foretellers and Genly wonders if he has latent psychic ability, but it's less a supernatural trait and more a well trained hunch.
• Useless Superpowers: Lampshaded by himself, when he tells Genly "the perfect uselessness of asking the wrong question". Needless to say there's a reason that the Foretellers themselves discourage asking questions, as they know all too well what havoc the wrong question can wreak.
• Vagueness Is Coming: Averted. Genly's quite astounded when the Foretellers give him an accurate and blunt answer to his question rather than dancing around it.

Ashe Foreth rem ir Osboth

• Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: Despite the fact that Ashe has become essentially a monk, and the fact that Estraven is now Persona Non Grata in Karhide Ashe is still willing to help him and even break his religious vows to accompany Estraven into exile. And all THAT is in spite of the fact that their relationship has been over for three years, and Estraven strongly implies he never romantically loved Ashe and isn't even capable of doing so.
• Vow of Celibacy: Ashe took one of these when he joined the Foretellers, breaking his vow of kemmering with Estraven.

Arek Harth rem ir Estraven

• Brother–Sister Incest: Arek vowed kemmering with his full-blood sibling, Therem. As a result, Therem was exiled after birthing their child.
• Meaningful Name: "Arek" was the name of one half of a pair of Star-Crossed Lovers, one of whom was from Arek Harth's home hearth of Estre. Arek Harth's brother and kemmering, Therem Harth, was exiled after they vowed kemmering for life.

King Argaven Harge XV

• The Caligula: Played with. It's less that he has any particular mental illness, and more that being king in and of itself is treated as a mental illness since a king focuses on himself over his country.
• King Bob the Nth: Argaven is the 15th monarch of Karhide to bear the name.
• Royal Decree: The radio announcement declaring Estraven's exile on pain of death.
• Succession Crisis: He has no child of the flesh, despite his best attempts.

Pemmer Harge rem ir Tibe

• Evil Chancellor: He has the ear of the king and intends to stir Karhide to war with Orgoreyn to coalesce the disparate parts of Karhide into a single cohesive nation. War, up to this point, is unknown on a large scale on Gethen.
• Patriotic Fervor: Deconstructed. Tibe is trying to encourage this in his countrymen, but as Estraven notes, in Tibe's approach there seems to be little difference between loving your own country and hating all the others, and Tibe focuses on that above all.
• War Hawk: Notable in that there's never actually been a war on Gethen before, and he wants to be the first.

Sorve Harth rem ir Estraven

• Parental Abandonment: Therem has not seen his child in over a decade due to his exile, and Sorve's other parent, Arek, is dead.
• Raised by Grandparents: Due to Arek's death and Therem's exile, Sorve was raised by his grandparent, who has declared Sorve his heir to ruling Estre.