Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Word for World is Forest, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Violence, War, and Colonization
Nature and Ecology
Communication and Translation
Gender and Masculinity
Summary
Analysis
Selver hasn’t dreamed about Lyubov for a long time, ever since that last conversation with Davidson. But when the yumens’ ship comes back (three years after the last attack), Lyubov is there in Selver’s dream world, silent and tired. Selver’s yumen speech is rusty now, but after the ship’s yumens speak to him, he surmises that they’re reasonable people. He hands them a box of Lyubov’s work on the Athsheans and tells them to take it where Lyubov wanted it to go. The tall man named Lepennon agrees and says the work will be valued, which makes Selver happy, but it upset Selver to speak of Lyubov. He steps back and watches the yumens gather, including Dongh and Gosse, who look unkempt, lost, and somewhat insane.
This passage suggests that Juju Sereng was wrong: the humans’ ship won’t attack the Athsheans and will instead remove the humans from the planet. Again, Lyubov and Selver’s connection helped to save Selver’s people, but it also required them both to sacrifice a great deal. Meanwhile, Lyubov’s kindness made it difficult for Selver to understand the humans’ violence. It makes sense that the memory of Lyubov is painful to Selver, because while Lyubov wanted their friendship to exist separately from the humans’ violence, this was never possible.
Themes
Currently, they’re all at the edge of the forest, a neutral zone. Selver and his people sit and rest under a tree, and the ship’s Commander (Yung) approaches Selver, saying that the Terrans will soon be taken away and that this world won’t be a colony anymore. No one will ever return, as Selver’s world is under the League Ban. Then maybe after five generations, some scientists will come back to study the land. Selver observes that yumen orders are quickly followed, which isn’t the case for the Athsheans; one headwoman’s order wouldn’t be followed by the neighboring village.
It's not clear whether the League Ban is the result of the Athsheans’ second attack on the humans or whether it was an inevitability. But because the ansible was a useless device, Yung’s assurances are questionable—humans might follow orders to begin with, but orders depend on good-faith actors. As Selver notes, Athshe operates differently, which is likely how they’ve retained such stability: there are no ambiguous orders, and their world never depended on men’s honesty or obedience.
Themes
The Commander says the difference is that the humans now have one centralized government. Besides, the Commander has heard that when Selver gave orders, people obeyed. He wonders why, and Selver explains that back then, he was a god. After the Commander leaves, Lepennon comes to speak to Selver. Lepennon makes Selver nervous, because he’s like Lyubov: he’ll understand Selver, but Selver won’t be able to understand him, because even the nicest humans are incomprehensible. This is why it’s painful to think about Lyubov, even though Selver can dream of his dead wife peacefully.
Again, a centralized government wouldn’t have prevented what happened on Athshe—the ansible came from the centralized League, and Davidson still ignored its orders. Moreover, Selver’s godhood never appeared to be desirable, and the fact that he’s apparently no longer a god suggests that the Athsheans quickly abandoned this temporarily centralized approach to government. Despite the fact that Selver has now acted violently, he apparently still doesn’t understand the humans. And as previously noted, his connection to Lyubov only ever made his decision to kill the humans more complicated, even though that connection also saved him and his people.
Themes
Lepennon tells Selver that he met Lyubov the last time he was on Athshe. He says that Lyubov’s work is now finished, as Athshe is free of Terrans. Selver is more nervous than ever, because Lepennon talks like a Great Dreamer. Lepennon asks if there have been any killings since the attack on Davidson’s camp at New Java, and Selver says that he didn’t kill Davidson. Lepennon says that’s irrelevant, and Selver realizes that Lepennon misunderstood: Selver meant to say that Davidson wasn’t dead, not that someone else killed him. This error is a relief to Selver, because it means Lepennon isn’t infallible.
As previously established, Great Dreamers are able to see the bigger picture in a situation, a trait Selver lost when he began to act violently. Although Lepennon makes factual mistakes that the Great Dreamers wouldn’t, he’s also not narrow-minded like the other humans are, which again complicates Selver’s idea of who humans are. Apparently, Selver has no plans to tell the humans that Davidson is alive, which is another act of mercy (as they would likely execute Davidson if they found him).
Themes
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Selver says that there haven’t been killings; Lepennon can ask Dongh and Gosse. But Lepennon says that he meant to ask if there had been killings among Athsheans. Selver doesn’t respond. Then he says that sometimes, gods show people new ways of doing things, and that can’t be undone. Things in world-time can’t go back into dreams, and pretending otherwise is insane. Now, the Athsheans are aware of how to kill each other, and it’s pointless to act like they aren’t.
This passage confirms that the Athsheans can’t return to the nonviolent people they once were. Because violence in the novella is cyclical, it always generates more violence. Even though Selver wanted to stop the Athsheans from killing anyone else after the final attack on Davidson, and even though people like Lyubov believed that the Athsheans would be able to stop killing if they chose to do so, it seems that violence has permanently altered their society. While the novella suggests that violence is a choice that men make rather than a natural state of being, it also suggests that violence is never isolated and always has consequences.
Themes
Lepennon tells Selver that he shouldn’t act like there’s a purpose to murder, because there isn’t. Soon, the humans will leave forever, and everything will go back to how it was. Lyubov emerges from Selver’s mind, saying that he’ll still be there. Selver tells Lepennon that both Lyubov and Davidson will remain here. Maybe after Selver dies, things will go back to normal. But he doubts it.
Lyubov, Davidson, and Selver are all people who have been isolated from their societies, and now they live on, both in Selver’s head and on Athshe. The novella suggests that their impact on Selver is permanent—Davidson taught Selver violence, which Lyubov then attempted to curb. Selver ended the cycle of violence, but it has left an impression on him and on Athshean society more broadly.
Themes
