# Talk:The Word for World Is Forest

I removed this section from the main article. Since it's a significant cut, I wanted to add to talk page for the time being in case there is dispute. Explanations below.
A copy of The Word for World Is Forest is visible at the bedside of the character Joker in a scene set in Vietnam in Stanley Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket (this is an anachronism as the movie takes place in and around 1968, while The Word for World Is Forest was published in 1976). However, given the movie's focus on the Vietnam War (as well as Kubrick's infamous attention to detail), this is likely a purposeful allusion. (The novel's appearance in the movie is factual but essentially trivia. The novel's significance in the movie is unclear and this paragraph seems to contain original research (see for instance the un-sourced phrase "likely a purposeful allusion"). If the novel's appearance were in fact notable or illuminating, I think that would belong in the article for Full Metal Jacket anyway, not this article.)
In chapter 43 of the expanded version of Stephen King's 1978 novel The Stand, dialogue between the characters Nick Andros (who is characterized as an avid science fiction reader) and Tom Cullen alludes to The Word for World Is Forest as they enter Woods County, Oklahoma: "'The world is the place I mean,' Tom said. 'Are we going into the world, mister?' Tom hesitated and then asked with hesitant gravity: 'Is Woods the word for world?' Slowly, Nick nodded his head." (This already had the OR warning dating from 2011. While possibly true—it certainly sounds like an allusion—this would just be trivia even with a source.)
Discussing James Cameron's movie Avatar, SF critic Gary Westfahl said that "the science fiction story that most closely resembles Avatar has to be Ursula K. Le Guin's novella The Word for World Is Forest." (This paragraph is misleading since it suggests this comparison is significant—either Avatar was inspired in some way by this novel, or this critic's opinion represents a commonly-held belief. Neither is supported by the sources listed. As it stands, this critic is drawing an illustrative comparison but does not state that either work has directly impacted the other.)
Geethree (talk)
Personally, I found this section to be far more informative and useful than the current "Resemblance to Avatar" section which, frankly, looks like it belongs in a review or opinion piece. Psychonautical1 (talk) 15:23, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The article needs a spoiler alert. (oops)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.119.15.23 (talk) 00:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC) 

It had the automatic warning up to 9th June, when it was removed on the grounds that plot summaries should be assumed to be spoilers.  Not something I'd have done, but that seems to be the consensus.--GwydionM 17:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The article should be corrected to reflect that Raj Lyubov's rank is Captain, not Corporal as the article states.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.198.146.30 (talk) 11:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC) 
First paragraph second sentence in the Publishing History section, the article refers to "Ellison." But there is no other mention of Ellison (Harlan?) in the rest of the article.

The link to the essay on _The Lathe of Heaven_ should be moved to the page for that book.  They essay only tangentially mentions _The Word for World is Forest_.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.161.244.253 (talk) 22:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC) 

Someone added the text below, and probably means well, but they wiped out a lot of other text without discussion or consultation.  It is there to be added again, with suitable editing.
 ==Setting==
Several centuries in the future, humans from Earth have established a logging colony and military base named "New Tahiti" on Athshe, a tree-covered planet whose small, green-furred, big-eyed inhabitants have formed a culture centered on lucid dreaming.  Terran greed spirals around native innocence and wisdom, turning the ancient society upside down.
Humans have learned interstellar travel from the people of Hain (the origin-planet of all humanoid races, including the Athsheans, despite their appearance).  The various planets have been expanding independently, but during the novel it is learned that the 'League of All Worlds' has been formed.  News arrives via an ansible, a new discovery.  Previously they had been cut off, 27 light-years from Earth, meaning a 54-year delay in question and response.
Athshe's plants and animals are similar to those of Earth, placed there by the Hainish people in their first wave of colonisation that also settled Earth.  The Cetian visitor also states categorically that the native humans "came from the same, original, Hainist stock".  It is not explained why they are green-furred and only one meter tall.  Other distinctive humans such as the Gethenians are said to have been produced by genetic manipulation by the ancient Hainish colonisers.
The events of the novel occur after The Dispossessed, where both the ansible and the League of Worlds are unrealised dreams.  Also well before Planet of Exile, where human settlers have learned to coexist.  A date in the 24th century has been suggested.
The Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1976 and based on her 1972 novella. It is part of the 'Hainish Cycle'.
Contents [hide]
1 Setting 
2 Plot summary 
3 Publishing history 
4 In popular culture 
5 References 
6 External links 
 
[edit] Setting
Several centuries in the future, humans from Earth have established a logging colony and military base named "New Tahiti" on Athshe, a tree-covered planet whose small, green-furred, big-eyed inhabitants have formed a culture centered on lucid dreaming. Terran greed spirals around native innocence and wisdom, turning the ancient society upside down.
Humans have learned interstellar travel from the people of Hain (the origin-planet of all humanoid races, including the Athsheans, despite their appearance). The various planets have been expanding independently, but during the novel it is learned that the 'League of All Worlds' has been formed. News arrives via an ansible, a new discovery. Previously they had been cut off, 27 light-years from Earth, meaning a 54-year delay in question and response.
Athshe's plants and animals are similar to those of Earth, placed there by the Hainish people in their first wave of colonisation that also settled Earth. The Cetian visitor also states categorically that the native humans "came from the same, original, Hainist stock". It is not explained why they are green-furred and only one meter tall. Other distinctive humans such as the Gethenians are said to have been produced by genetic manipulation by the ancient Hainish colonisers.
The events of the novel occur after The Dispossessed, where both the ansible and the League of Worlds are unrealised dreams. Also well before Planet of Exile, where human settlers have learned to coexist. A date in the 24th century has been suggested.[1]

There's a broken link in the External links section:
http://wwwscience.murdoch.edu.au/teaching/a108/essay3.html
Can someone find where the article has moved to?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.166.140 (talk) 21:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC) 

I looked at it via the Internet Archive, where I found a copy of it from 2007, when it was added as an external link. It was a student essay which a college had posted anonymously as an example. It is thus not a reliable source, and it does not seem appropriate to link even to an archived copy, any more than I would link to some paper I wrote as a college student. I also removed another dead external link to an anonymous fan site. Edison (talk) 17:24, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

The author specifies that the novel's antagonist is a black man from, if memory serves, Cincinnati, Ohio, on the earth, which is, at the time of the story, a slum- or a ghetto-planet inhabited primarily, if not entirely, by blacks, peoples of other races having long since departed. Since he is black, it should be clear that he is not the leader. There is racist irony in the fact that it is the nigger who has come up with a term of opprobrium for the local humans. Ms. Le Guin also notes that the woman raped has suffered internal damage because of the large size of Davidson's penis. That black men possess unnaturally-large penises is a stereotypically-racist stereotype. In other work, this author has also shown a negative attitude toward Affirmative Action in higher education. E.g., in a short story, a brilliant white mathematics major is denied access in favor of an undeserving black student who uses Affirmative Action to game the asmissions process.
Hwgray (talk) 20:16, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

She has a distinctly positive black hero in Earthsea (and complained when the television version made it almost all white).  Also a confused but well-meaning black character from Earth in The Left Hand of Darkness.  Also The Word for World Is Forest draws inspiration from the Vietnam War, in which most Afro-Americans did identify with the US cause and some committed atrocities.--GwydionM (talk) 12:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Davidson is indeed a "euraf" in the book, but while the book makes clear he likes to rape, absolutely no mention is made of him or anyone else having any particular size of penis. Hwgray appears to be wrong about this, unless he/she can provide a page number and edition where LeGuin says such a thing in the book. No mention is made in my copy of the book of the native female having suffered "internal injuries," just that she died while or shortly after he raped her. Since she was only 3 feet (or one meter) tall, he could have  smothered her inadvertently, crushed her under his weight, or beaten her to death. Edison (talk) 17:49, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I am planning to write or rewrite parts of this article using books as sources. Using sfn formatting would make this much easier; so I am going to go ahead and change the formatting. If anybody has any objections, however, I am quite willing to self-revert and discuss. Regards, Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:17, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

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"as well as through instantaneous interstellar communication using the ansible, introduced in The Dispossessed." is a current quotation, with a reference to the Cummins book on her. This is simply inaccurate, regardless of what Cummins wrote, as the ansible is a major plot element of Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969, whereas the Dispossessed was published in 1974. I am going to remove the "introduced in the Dispossessed" from it, and omit this context, as it isn't really necessary enough to have it be inaccurate. -T (talk) 21:54, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The last paragraph of the BACGROUND section seems to have been misplaced, so I moved it to the end of the introductory section. SRFerg 22:57, 4 April 2025 (UTC)