The struggles that Genly Ai encounters to understand the people of the planet he has arrived at is a somewhat relatable one. The Gethenians are a backwards race to that of Ai’s. For instance they do not have any gender and only reproduce in a particular season. Their physical hight is shorter and the pigment of the skin is lighter compared to Ai.To Ai the Gethenians are an odd race but they see Ai just the same. Ai is sometimes asked about his physical appearance by the Gethenians and being questioned his behavior and responses to their everyday tasks. This is the same responses and reactions tourists from our world get from the citizens of the countries they visit. So the struggles Ai encounters are completely reasonable.
Genly Ai is an alien who is visiting “Winter” on behalf of his home planet. His home planet is the head component of a chain of many planets that are ruled under a system by the Ekumen. I suppose by the behavior of Ai that he comes from a self-proclaimed civilized planet full of individuals that seem to have a well developed system of government. This situation is very similar to that of the United Kingdom in our world. Besides conquering and proclaiming land their own that of like the British before, the Ekumen seem to send representatives of their planet to discuss amends with leaders of planets in their galaxy. But it seems like Ai has difficulty getting the king of Karhide to make a relationship with Ai’s home planet. This shows that are our protagonist isn't strong in persuading and probably regrets taking on such a task.
I like the way you connected the Ekumen to the United Kingdom, but at least the UK is pretty successful with getting people to join if by force or not. The United Nations is also a good connection to make because, just like Genly, they are not very successful in many aspects. King Argaven uses fear to drive his power, and uses force to stop "threats" of others he fears. Though this planet has not had a war, Argaven's fear is related to the wars that the Americans fought against terrorism, becuase we also used force to protect ourselves from those that sprung up fear in the country. Ai just needs to continue on with his mission since the foretellers said they would join the Ekumen within five years, but is it what he truly wants?
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