Trivia / The Left Hand of Darkness

• Old Shame: Downplayed. While LeGuin was never ashamed of the book itself, she did come to regret using male pronouns for the genderless citizens of Gethen, and later stories set there would use gender-neutral writing to avoid such implications. She also regretted showing solely heterosexual couples, and introduced same-sex couples in the later stories for the same reasons.
• What Could Have Been: LeGuin has mentioned that her original conception for the book was for a society that had never known war being introduced to war, and the gender aspect wasn't involved until later drafts. While the original concept survived, it's now more famous for its take on gender.