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 silently leads his people into the city center—no one sings any songs tonight. All of the groups they’d brought to Central were led by formerly enslaved Athsheans who knew the place, and most of the others had never seen a yumen city. But they’d been having the evil dream and needed Selver to help them control it. First, the formerly enslaved Athsheans broke water pipes, cut wires, robbed the arsenal, killed the guards, and prepped the dynamite in HQ. Then the cacophony began: gunfire from yumens, the sound of explosions.
Earlier, Davidson suggested that the Athsheans would use ex-slaves to attack the humans, since the ex-slaves would know the camp well. As it turns out, he was correct to assume this—but again, the Athsheans’ current retaliation comes after Davidson’s attack on their camp, so their violence is hardly unprovoked. This passage again suggests that humans have permanently affected Athshean society by modeling violence, because the Athsheans share dreams, meaning that Selver’s fantasies of violence are widespread.
Themes
There were 1700 yumens in Central, including 500 females. Selver had chosen this particular time to attack because the females were there. Now, he leads his people through the city and an unarmed yumen man comes running toward them, slipping and falling in mud. Selver tells his people to let the yumen go, but he says this too quietly, because two of Selver’s men grab and kill him. Selver sends out a vocal call to end the hunt, which his group picks up on and echoes.
Again, it’s not yet clear why the Athsheans wanted to target the women, given that the women have no authority in the colony. Meanwhile, Selver clearly doesn’t want to kill all of the men, since he tries to let the human man go here. The fact that the Athsheans quickly kill him instead again demonstrates how naïve Lyubov was to think that Athshean violence could be a one-time thing—now, the Athsheans are killing on instinct.
Themes
They continue on through the city, passing a dead female yumen and another yumen under a beam. It’s unfair that Selver should see him out of all others here, but Selver kneels down to Lyubov and lifts the wood off his back. Selver hasn’t slept for days. He’s spent all his time gathering his people, telling them his dream, and encouraging them to master the evil in that dream. Now, he knows that this—walking among corpses—is the evil dream, and it’s mastered him.
The novella continues to suggest that violence is a choice that has widespread, cyclical consequences. In this passage, Selver realizes that he can’t choose to act violently without spreading that violence and without being permanently altered by it—the same thing Lyubov suggested when he claimed that Davidson kills himself over and over when he kills others. Lyubov’s injury is further proof of the consequences of violence, since Selver has indirectly sacrificed Lyubov in order to save his people.
Themes
Selver believes that he’s dreaming, and in the dream, Lyubov’s eyes open. Selver says that Lyubov was supposed to have left the city, and Lyubov asks which of them is the prisoner here. He says it so clearly that Selver knows that this isn’t a dream at all, but rather world-time. Selver tells Lyubov that all the yumens’ engines are burned, and the women are dead. He’d told his people not to burn Lyubov’s house or his books. He asks why Lyubov isn’t like other yumens, and Lyubov says that he is, and so is Selver.
The fact that Selver at first believes he’s dreaming suggests that his violent nightmares have become reality. Lyubov’s comment that he and Selver are the same, and that both of them are like the humans, further highlights the horror of the humans’ enslavement and of this attack on the human women. Lyubov was isolated from his people, but he now admits that he’s one of them—and the fact that Selver is also like them further demonstrates Selver’s isolation from the Athsheans.
Themes
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Lyubov also says that Selver needs to stop killing men and should return to his “roots” instead. Selver replies that his people’s violent dream will stop when the yumens are gone, but Lyubov says to stop it now. Lyubov’s gaze slackens, and Selver tells Lyubov that he can’t stay with him. Selver begins dreaming again, and he moves slowly away. When he promises Lyubov that he’ll stop killing, Lyubov doesn’t respond, suggesting that he’s dead.
In this passage, Lyubov implies that violence is a choice rather than a natural part of the Athsheans’ identity (or “roots”). While the novella has supported this idea, readers are meant to question whether Selver’s people will choose to stop killing, or whether violence is now a permanent part of their society.
Themes
Someone brings Selver to a makeshift Lodge that’s been set up at a nearby village, Endtor. There, Selver dreams in total insanity for two days. Currently, 500 yumens are being held prisoner in the creechie-pens, and some have escaped. Some are still being killed, as Selver’s people can hear his voice in their heads saying to do so. But some of Selver’s people have abandoned killing. The afternoon after the massacre, a yumen ship flew over the creechie-pen, maybe spurred by the radio silence at Central (since the radios were destroyed). The prisoners yelled at the machine, and it dropped a parachute with something in it. An Athshean ex-slave and leader, Reswan, was worried about attacks from the yumens’ ships.
Again, it seems unlikely that Athshean society can return to nonviolence after this attack, since the Athsheans apparently still feel compelled to kill even after the massacre, and even though Selver promised Lyubov that they wouldn’t. Once again, violence generates more violence, and that seems to be a difficult cycle to break. It's not clear whether or not the humans are planning to retaliate or whether the parachute contained anything dangerous, but for now, the Athsheans appear to be completely in control—even locking up the humans where the humans once locked up the Athsheans.
Themes
Selver wakes up on the third day after the attack. His people have begun to grow disgusted with themselves, but his presence reinvigorates them. Selver tells them that the killing is over, and that he needs to talk with the yumens in the compound. They head to the creechie-pen, where Reswan asks for Colonel Dongh in broken English. Gosse comes out instead, saying that Dongh is sick. They open the gates for Gosse, and Selver tells him his name and that he’s Lyubov’s friend. He also tells Gosse that the killing is finished, and that Gosse’s people can go live in their logging camps, as long as they don’t cut more trees.
Because Selver is a god, he may indeed have the power to stop the Athsheans from killing the humans. At the same time, they were still hearing his voice even as he slept, which suggests that he may not control their image of him. In other words, the violence he modeled and unleashed into Athshean society might be unmanageable, which is what he worried about when he walked past all the corpses. The humans’ forced exile in their logging camps is arguably a fitting punishment, since they’ll be forced to live alongside their ecological destruction.
Themes
Selver says that he’s aware that the yumens could still kill Selver’s people, but the yumens are also outnumbered. They should wait quietly for a ship to come in three years to take them away. Gosse is surprised that Selver knows when the ship is coming, and Selver tells him that “slaves have ears.” Gosse angrily tells Selver that they already promised not to harm Selver’s people, and Selver tells him that this promise was broken: a town was burned in New Java two weeks ago, which Gosse denies any knowledge of. Selver tells him to discuss this with Dongh.
Selver implies that he learned about the colony’s plans when he was enslaved, which may be true. However, he also learned information about the humans because of his friendship with Lyubov—again, their connection was essential to Selver’s decision to attack Smith, as Selver learned about the humans’ motivations from Lyubov. Here, Selver confirms that the Athsheans attacked the humans a second time because of Davidson’s secret attack on the Athshean village. Once again, Davidson’s violence spurred the Athsheans’ violence.
Themes
Before Gosse reenters the pen, he asks if Selver organized the raid. Selver says yes, and Gosse says that in that case, Selver is to blame for everyone’s deaths, including Lyubov’s. Selver doesn’t know about guilt, and Gosse’s words make him afraid. He says that because Lyubov was his friend, he’s not dead. Gosse yells at Selver for killing the yumen women, and Selver says that he did so to sterilize the men. Selver learned what a realist is from Lyubov: a realist is aware of both his dreams and the world around him. None of Gosse’s men understand their dreams, so they’re all insane. Selver had to kill them before their insanity drove his people insane, too.
This passage explains why the Athsheans targeted the human women specifically: they wanted to ensure that the men couldn’t populate the planet with human children. This means that the humans’ patriarchal society endangered the women, because the women were only on the planet to breed, and because they couldn’t defend themselves the way male soldiers could. Earlier, Davidson suggested that realism meant acknowledging man’s superiority over other beings. In this passage, Selver gives another definition and suggests that realists are able to see the bigger picture, which the Athsheans can do because they listen to their dreams. That means that even if Selver feels guilty, he knows from his dreams that his violence was necessary.
Themes
Selver returns to the camp at Endtor, which was once a fishing town. He lies by the fire and asks the men gathered there—all Great Dreamers—whether he’s the one who’s mad. Tubab tells Selver that Selver currently doesn’t know dream-time from world-time, because he went without dreams for too long. An ex-slave says that the yumens take poisons to dream but they can’t control their dreams, and the dreams enslave them. Another Dreamer tells Selver that Selver should sing, and Selver asks the men to sing for him.
Because Selver’s dreams have been violent lately, the fact that he can’t distinguish between dreams and reality hints to readers that reality has become equally violent—and perhaps that the Athsheans won’t be able to neatly separate violence from their ordinary lives in the future. At the moment, the Athsheans can control their dreams, which makes them different from humans (whom the Athsheans believe use drugs to dream uncontrollably). Selver is proof that with the introduction of violence, the Athsheans may not always have this control.
Themes
As Selver listens to their song, he begins to dream. In the dream, he and Lyubov lay in front of a burned building, and Lyubov tells Selver that he has a headache. The next day, the captive yumens in the creechie-pen ask to speak to Selver. Along with Reswan and a few others, Selver meets Gosse, Dongh, and three other yumens under a tree—Selver’s people are afraid to be in the open now. One of the yumens with Dongh is Benton, which makes Selver’s people nervous—Benton used to castrate creechies as punishment.
Even in Selver’s dream, Lyubov’s migraines recur. But this time, Lyubov is a projection of Selver’s subconscious, so his migraines hint at Selver’s own guilt. The fact that Selver explores his guilt through his dream of Lyubov again speaks to their deep connection, which isolated them both from their respective societies. Dongh has been adamant throughout the novella that the colonists followed the Code, but because the Code supposedly forbade violence against the Athsheans, Benton’s actions prove that this was never the case. Earlier in the novella, readers learned that Benton was one of the soldiers who enslaved Selver, so Selver learned violence from both Davidson and Benton.
Themes
Looking genuinely ill, Dongh asks what Selver’s neutrality proposal actually means. Selver asks him for clarification, leaving off the honorific of “Colonel,” which angers Dongh. Selver demands to be called Colonel, too, but his moment of triumph passes, and he wearily repeats the Athsheans’ terms to Dongh. Dongh reveals that the yumens have had a functioning radio for days—which Selver already knew—and that they could’ve escaped all along (though he doesn’t say where they would’ve gone, had they escaped). He reminds an increasingly irritated Selver that the yumens have armed helicopters and firepower.
Despite the fact that the Athsheans have power over the humans now, humans like Dongh still insist on displaying dominance over the Athsheans (hence Dongh’s desire to be called “Colonel”). Again, this suggests that something like the ansible would never have solved the colony’s problems, because the humans still feel that the Athsheans owe them respect. Moreover, the humans’ first response to the Athsheans’ violence is to threaten more violence. This passage also reveals that the parachute the helicopter dropped contained a radio, not a weapon, which suggests that the colonists don’t actually have plans to retaliate violently—they just want the Athsheans to fear retaliation.
Themes
Colonel Dongh suddenly feels weak and asks for a chair, which Selver gets for him. Benton offers to speak on Dongh’s behalf, but Dongh says that Gosse should do it instead. The yumens agree to Selver’s terms: they’ll live in one region and stay out of the forest. Selver and the yumens argue about aircrafts, as the yumens claim they need them to transport their people. Selver agrees that they can keep their hoppers for this type of transport, but he says they must destroy them after. But when the yumens protest, Selver eventually capitulates: the yumens can have the hoppers if they fly them solely on their territory and if they destroy the hoppers’ guns.
Dongh’s strange refusal to let Benton speak hints that he knows about Benton’s violent treatment of the Athsheans. Again, this suggests that Dongh knew the Code wasn’t being followed, which may lead readers to question whether he would have truly followed the ansible’s orders long-term. Because Dongh is known to lie, or at least to stretch the truth, it’s not clear whether the humans wanted to keep the hoppers to retaliate or simply for transportation, as they claim.
Themes
Dongh tells an angry Benton that it doesn’t matter if they destroy the guns, since they can’t use them anyway; they’re outnumbered, and the Athsheans have no centralized government to attack. Selver notices that because Dongh is the yumens’ equivalent of an Old Man, his word is obeyed. Selver then says that his people won’t take anything more from Central except some of Lyubov’s work. He wants to know what the yumen ship will do when it arrives in three years, and Dongh says that they might know the answer to that—and the planet’s colony status—if the Athsheans hadn’t destroyed the ansible.
Dongh’s comment suggests that if the humans could retaliate, they would. In other words, the difference in their population numbers is the only thing preventing them from continuing the novella’s cyclical violence. Here, Dongh chastises the Athsheans for destroying the ansible, but readers already know that the ansible wasn’t a solution to the Athsheans’ problems. The fact that the League hadn’t made a decision about the planet’s colony status suggests that the League might have been passive, allowing the colonists to continue logging as usual. This would mean that the Athsheans’ violence was arguably necessary, as there was no other way for them to defend themselves and their planet.
Themes
This is the first Selver has heard of the ansible, as he previously believed that communication between planets took 27 years. Benton coldly accuses Selver of learning how to sabotage the camp from Lyubov, and Dongh is angry at the insinuation that Lyubov was a spy. But Benton presses on, saying that Lyubov was the one who made the creechies want to attack, and that Lyubov’s interference (at the meeting) forced the change in orders from command, which made the humans vulnerable.
Because Selver didn’t know about the ansible, Dongh was likely right when he told Lyubov that the Athsheans would think that their violence ended their slavery. The men continue to argue that this wasn’t the case—for instance, Benton suggests here that Lyubov’s advocacy put an end to slavery, even though Lyubov had been advocating for the Athsheans for years to no avail. Again, the colonists received the ansible because the Athsheans’ attack drew the League’s attention; Lyubov hinted that Lepennon and Or might have come to the planet because they heard about the violence. This means that the ansible was irrelevant—the Athsheans’ violence was necessary to force the humans to stand down.
Themes
Selver interrupts the men and apologizes for putting them in the creechie-pen, which is bad “for the mind.” He asks Dongh to send for the rest of the yumens, and once they’re gathered here, the Athsheans will open the gates and free them. The yumens say nothing while they stare at Selver, their translator.
The humans don’t speak the Athsheans’ language, so Selver is their translator on a literal level. However, this passage also shows that much as Selver translated the humans’ violence for the Athsheans, he’s also (figuratively) translating the Athsheans’ mercy for the humans. The Athsheans plan to free the humans from the creechie-pen where the humans kept the Athsheans for years, suggesting that they still have the ability to choose empathy over violence. Selver occupies a unique position, as Lyubov did when he was alive—now, Selver alone understands both the humans and the Athsheans.
Themes
Selver heads back to Endtor. The headwoman who accompanies him says that the yumens aren’t as stupid as she assumed, as they clearly recognized Selver’s godly status at the end of the encounter. Tubab says that the yumens are clearly insane, not sensible like Lyubov was. After all, the yumens fight among themselves (although Tubab couldn’t understand what they said).
The Athsheans’ derogatory discussion of the humans mimics many of Davidson’s thoughts and discussions about the Athsheans, whom he always believed were inferior to him. Now that the Athsheans have power over the humans, they’re beginning to see the humans as inferior and even animalistic.
Themes
Tubab wonders if Selver told the yumens that they were insane, and Selver says he didn’t; he told them they were ill. The headwoman refers to the yumens as ugly spiders, and Selver frantically says that the yumens are men, the same as them. The headwoman says that she knows that; they just look like spiders. The Athsheans continue along the forest path, helping Selver walk.
In this passage, Selver recognizes that the Athsheans now view the humans as an inferior species, which clearly worries him, as the Athsheans kill animals. The headwoman’s casual dismissal of the humans’ personhood implies that true to form, the novella’s cyclical violence may continue, even though the Athsheans and humans have called a truce.
Themes
