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Terra
A Handdarata religious retreat. Sometimes Foretellers all live here together, and sometimes they simply gather when it is time to answer a question.
Fastness Quotes in The Left Hand of Darkness
The The Left Hand of Darkness quotes below are all either spoken by Fastness or refer to Fastness. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5
Quotes
“But we in the Handdara don’t want answers. It’s hard to avoid them, but we try to.”
“Faxe, I don’t think I understand.”
“Well, we come here to the Fastness mostly to learn what questions not to ask.”
“But you’re the Answerers!”
“You don’t see yet, Genry, why we perfected and practice Foretelling?”
“No—”
“To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.”
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“The unknown,” said Faxe’s soft voice in the forest, the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomes, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion…. Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable—the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”
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Fastness Term Timeline in The Left Hand of Darkness
The timeline below shows where the term Fastness appears in The Left Hand of Darkness. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5
...but he marvels at the mountain ranges, and at a tower that functions as a Fastness and is accessible only in the summer. After reaching the summit of the mountain range,...
(full context)
Ai hopes to find a Fastness, and to discover more of the Handdara religion, which was not deeply examined by the...
(full context)
