Gender relations are another area examined by the stories. The Yeowans have gained freedom and are struggling to establish their own government and identity, and gain admittance into the Ekumen of worlds. However, in recent years, following the colonization of the second planet, Yeowe, things have begun to change on Werel. For thousands of years, the dark-skinned owners of Werel held the light-skinned assets in slavery. The common themes of the stories revolve around the concepts of freedom and slavery. The book ends with "Notes on Werel and Yeowe", giving details of the two planets and their solar system. 'Old Music' is a minor character in #2, and the protagonist in #5. Both of them know Dr Yeron, and also Esdardon Aya, 'Old Music'. He is also the lover of Rakam in #4, who is mentioned but not named in #3. Havzhiva from story #3 works for Solly from #2. The second, third, fourth, and fifth stories have some characters in common. published earlier in the collection The Birthday of the World. * Only in Five Ways to Forgiveness, not Four Ways. I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last." Le Guin writes, "the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war. It is set somewhat later in time than the other four stories.
" Old Music and the Slave Women" * focuses on Esdardon Aya, also known as 'Old Music'.Also published in the anthology A Woman's Liberation: A Choice of Futures By and About Women (2001). "A Woman's Liberation" - Rakam, a woman born as a slave on Werel, tells of her life and her growing self-awareness.It contains the most extensive description of Hain's environment and culture in Le Guin's work. " A Man of the People" - Havzhiva is a man who grows up on Hain, is educated there and then works for the Hainish embassy on Yeowe.
"Betrayals" - The story of Yoss, an elderly, retired science teacher who lived through Yeowe's War of Liberation, and her neighbour Chief Abberkam, a disgraced leader from that war and an opponent of contact with the Ekumen, both living in a desolate area of the planet.The nations of Werel are nervous that the "assets" on that planet might attempt the same thing for themselves. Eventually the slaves on Yeowe conducted a successful revolt and gained their independence, an event that occurred in the fairly recent past of the four stories. When the Ekumen recontacted the Werelians, the shock spurred one of the Werelian nations, Voe Deo, to develop a space program and settle the other inhabitable planet in the system, Yeowe, transporting a primarily slave population to do so. (This 'Werel' is not the same as the world called Werel in Le Guin's Planet of Exile and City of Illusions.) Werel has a long history of institutional enslavement of its lighter-skinned ethnic groups by its darker-skinned ethnic groups (the latter's derogatory term for the former is "dusties"). The stories in the book are set on two planets in a distant solar system, Werel and Yeowe, inhabited by humans placed there by the ancient Hainish.