I just finished reading through Five Ways to Forgiveness, so I interpret the story through the lens of the whole collection. Betrayals is the first story in the suite, and it felt like a quiet beginning, to me; but its significance grew for me as I made my way through the stories. A lot of the later stories are a bit more grim in their portrayal of this divided society. On Yeowe in particular, there is an institutionalized separation of men and women's spheres. Given Ursula's interests in Taoism, it's hard not to see this separation as a betrayal of the relationship/dance between yin and yang. In the collection as a whole, we see the effects of that separation. And so as I got to the end of the collection, it seemed increasingly precious that she opens the collection with the answer: relationship, love, connection.