These are the dryest, most frustrating books of the series. Le Guin shrouds nebulous social commentary in contrived scenarios with annoying, agency-less characters; strawmen abound.

Betrayals: 5

Nothing happens that we care about. Old woman lets two kids copulate in her house. She befriends an old warlord of the anti-Ekumenical revolution (which she disagreed with) and they become begruding friends. Her house burns down and she moves in with the old man. Tragedy brings people closer together or something. zzzzz

Forgiveness Day: 5

A mixed-Terran woman arrives on Werel and is shocked by the social stratification, slavery, sexism, and ass-backwardsness despite the advance of supposed prosperity brought about by the ansible (some things never change ig).

She gets kidnapped and becomes more compassionate towards her pseudo-hubby there. Same shit as the last story.

A Man of the People: 6

At least we learn something about Hain, finally. Weird, and not in a good way, but rather the "vile" way. A guy is groomed to be an emmissary of the Ekumen and given the choice between being sent to one of two worlds involved in civil wars. He opts to go to the less-developed one which recently shedded it's racist slavery practices. They have a bunch of very un-cool rapey practices of tribal initiation for militant aged men (and also the women). This guy facilitates their introduction to the Ekumen but the whole story is kind of stilted through a lens of cultural relativism whereby he precludes himself from passing judgement. F that – drugging girls and subjecting them to all the other men of the village is evil full stop. Le Guin's not dying on this hill, but also not condemning it (which would be equally meh since it's a straw man against a fictitiously vile culture). The story is just like,,,, okay so why?

A Woman's Liberation: 6/10

Another vile slave story detailing the exploitation of a girl who is groomed to be a consort for a member of the elite class. Son of the woman who exploits her is a progressive revolutionary who is effectively imprisoned in the plantation house (oh yeah, literal slavery). The slave-owners of the plantation die of a virus, the progressive heir emancipates everyone on the estate and then fucks off to go be an activist, leaving them to fend for themselves. They're subsequently raped, murdered, and tortured by their previous owners of the estate (not just owned by a single family, but like a whole feudal region). The story continues to follow the girl who's mother died in that massacre who flees to another area where she continues to be enslaved and exploited (despite being "freed" by the asshat non-re-constructionist) and yet she fails to assimilate into any other kind of society because she was born into uber-hierarchical slavery. The protagonist claims that she cannot even fathom a life unlike the one she was raised in (Stockholm) but simultaneously leverages philosophical (author-self-insert) takes like "Politics of the flesh are the roots of power" – no girl you just said 1 page ago that you can't comprehend a set of politics that gives you a voice to even have ideas like that for yourself. She has no interest in any life outside the plantation that she's newly indentured to (to be generous). Le Guin goes so far (on whatever thesis she's dodging around in these last two stories in this collection) as to sacrifice one of the other supporting characters as a transparent implication that the only way to gain freedom is through death.

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