I feel the relationship between Genly and Estraven really hit its stride along the journey over 78 days, as one would expect. I found a few things very interesting in the way that Genly changes his view of Estraven gender wise. Genly still see Estraven as a woman primarily and it is easy to see why. Like a mother would would for a child Estraven figures out how much food will be needed for their journey, he also takes into account how to make sure Genly is safe from cold. To argue that though one could say that Estraven displays a "manly "quality in hunting and butchering food for them.
Halfway through the journey Genly can barely cover any ground yet Genly qualifies that he could "easily pull twice as much as Estraven". What we have here and throughout many phases of the book are attempts by Genly to assert his male dominance over Estraven. He never wanst to cry in fronty of him, he wants to prove his strength and as he says in the tent "show his pride of being a man." he continues to see Estraven as a female because frankly it's the only way he can see him, where gethenians have evolved past race Genly has not. It is not until the very end of the book when Genly can fianlyy see him as a being, all along he knows Estraven is sexless but he never really gets it in my opinion until he speaks with the king and when he sees Estraven's child at the very end.
I see what you are saying and that could be true but that is not how I intrepid Genly’s feeling towards Estraven. I kind of got the feeling that Genly had a little crush on Estraven. I think Genly might of admired Estraven. Not just by how smart he was but by how he was in touch with both the female and male sides of his make up. I think that Genly might have been a little bit jealous of this as well. Genly couldn’t share his feelings, cry, so on because he was a man and in his culture that would show him as weak. Where as Estraven could do any of that because in his culture there is no bias between man and women. I think Genly could not consider him a friend until the end because he was scared of how much he wanted to be like Estraven and admired him. I feel that this relationship was the only thing that kept me interested in the book. It was complex and almost mysterious in a way. I quite enjoyed guessing what each character was thinking and how they would act with each other. I especially enjoyed the little jokes they would have with each other even when the journey got tough.
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