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Fastness
A Karhidish Domain in the west of the nation. Home to a Fastness where Genly Ai lives for some time, and where he asks the Foretellers a question.
Otherhord Quotes in The Left Hand of Darkness
The The Left Hand of Darkness quotes below are all either spoken by Otherhord or refer to Otherhord. 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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Otherhord Term Timeline in The Left Hand of Darkness
The timeline below shows where the term Otherhord appears in The Left Hand of Darkness. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5
...where Ai stays for the night before heading south in search of the town of Otherhord, which he knows houses a Fastness.
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...is walking in the woods he comes across Goss, a young man who lives in Otherhord. Ai tells Goss he’d like to ask a question of the Foretellers. When Goss asks...
(full context)
Ai enjoys his time in Otherhord. The town and the Handdara help Ai understand Karhide better, especially the “silent…fecund darkness” in...
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