The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula K. Le Guin

The protagonist of the novel is Genly Ai, a male Terran native, who is sent to invite the planet Gethen to join the Ekumen, a coalition of humanoid worlds.

The novel begins the day before an audience that Ai has obtained with Argaven Harge, the king of Karhide. Ai manages this through the help of Estraven, the prime minister, who seems to believe in Ai's mission, but the night before the audience, Estraven tells Ai that he can no longer support Ai's cause with the king. Ai begins to doubt Estraven's loyalty because of his strange mannerisms, which Ai finds effeminate and ambiguous. The behavior of people in Karhide is dictated by shifgrethor, an intricate set of unspoken social rules and formal courtesy. Ai does not understand this system, thus making it difficult for him to understand Estraven's motives, and contributing to his distrust of Estraven. Discouraged, Ai decides to travel through Karhide, as the spring has just begun, rendering the interior of the frozen country accessible.

Ai travels to a Fastness, a dwelling of people of the Handdarrata, one of two major Gethenian religions. He pays the fastness for a foretelling, an art practiced to prove the "perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question". After several months of travelling through Karhide, Ai decides to pursue his mission in Orgoreyn, to which he has received an invitation.

Ai reaches the Orgota capital of Mishnory, where he finds that the Orgota politicians are initially far more direct with him. He is given comfortable quarters, and is allowed to present his invitation to the council that rules Orgoreyn. Three members of the council, Shusgis, Obsle, and Yegey, are particularly supportive of him. These three are members of an "Open Trade" faction, which wants to end the conflict with Karhide. Estraven, who was banished from Karhide, is found working with these council members, and tells Ai that he was responsible for Ai's reception in Orgoreyn. Despite the support, Ai feels uneasy. Estraven warns him not to trust the Orgota leaders, and he hears rumors of the "Sarf", or secret police, that truly control Orgoreyn. He ignores both his feeling and the warning, and is once again blindsided; he is arrested unexpectedly one night, interrogated, and sent to a far-northern labor camp where he suffers harsh cold, is forced into hard labor, and is given debilitating drugs. He becomes ill and his death seems imminent.

His captors expect him to die in the camp, but to Ai's great surprise, Estraven—whom Ai still distrusts—goes to great lengths to save him. Estraven poses as a prison guard and breaks Ai out of the farm, using his training with the Handdarrata to induce dothe, or hysterical strength, to aid him in the process. Estraven spends the last of his money on supplies, and then steals more, breaking his own moral code. The pair begin a dangerous 80-day trek across the northern Gobrin ice sheet back to Karhide, because Estraven believes that the reappearance of Ai in Karhide will convince Karhide to accept the Ekumen treaty, knowing that Karhide will want the honour of doing so before Orgoreyn. Over the journey Ai and Estraven learn to trust and accept one another's differences. Ai is eventually successful in teaching Estraven mindspeech; Estraven hears Ai speaking in his mind with the voice of Estraven's dead sibling and lover Arek,