Talk:A Wizard of Earthsea

harry potter

Harry Potter is not and should not be the frame of reference for all children's fantasy! Needs a mild rewrite -- Tarquin

Done. -- Henriette

Nice job :-) -- Tarquin

Does "The Worst Witch" have anything to do with Le Guin? If not, that ref should be on a Harry Potter page, not here. Vicki Rosenzweig

No it doesn't. But neither does HP have anything to do with LeGuin. It's merely another "school for wizards" book for kids. -- Tarquin

dragons & names

IIRC, it wasn't the tongue of dragons that was used to give things their 'true' name, but an older language. The tongue of dragons was merely the closest actual spoken language on Earthsea. But I don't have the books, and it has been a while since I read them, so I may be making this up. -- Kimiko

Not so. The 'True speach' is inate to dragons. Le Guin explains this fully in 'A Description of Earthsea' which is part of 'Tales From Earthsea'. -- Daran

Also, the concept of a thing's 'true' name having power over it is fairly common in Fantasy stories AFAIK. In the SF novel Snowcrash (sorry, forgot the author) explained it from as coming from ancient Sumerian mythology or something. -- Kimiko 22:06 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

discovers powers

"While saving his village from pirates, he discovers that he has the inborn aptitude to practice magic"

Actually he discovers his magical powers accidentally while herding goats. Don't recall the details of the pirate scene, but the paragraph in question certainly needs a rewrite. -- Lee M

Shadow

Recently, this:

In the end, Ged confronts the shadow that hunts him, and defeats it by realizing that it is his own shadow. He calls the shadow by name, that which was thought to be nameless; he calls it "Ged". In doing so, he reconciles both sides of himself and takes responsibility for his past mistakes, which until then, he had run from.

was replaced by this:

In the end, Ged confronts the shadow that hunts him, and defeats it by realizing that it is the shadow of his own death. He calls the shadow by name, that which was thought to be nameless; he calls it "Ged". In doing so, he reconciles both sides of himself and takes responsibility for his past mistakes as well as his own mortality, which until then, he had run from.

I really don't think it is an improvement. But perhaps "shadow" should be linked to the Jungian concepts, or something?--Niels Ø 20:36, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't happy with that edit, either. I don't think UKL is talking about mortality at all -- except maybe, remotely, as one single aspect of the Shadow; it certainly isn't central. And, anyway, as we find out in the last books, that land whence it comes isn't really death at all, but only some inadequate substitute for limbo. Linking to Shadow (psychology) would be super-duper, IMHO. –Hajor 01:49, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

The article says the shadow is called a "gebbeth". I believe that "gebbeth" is the term used for a person the shadow has possessed, not the being itself.JBPostma 22:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Quite right. Kind of silly to identify it and then have Ged unable to defeat it because of its namelessness. Clarityfiend 23:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

My Point of View

It was a great book and really shows extrodinary topics in the Fantasy world. It is a great book and I recomend it to everyone.Ursala K. Le Guin did a great job writing this book and I am looking foward to more. You should definetly read it. ==

Trivia Removal

Deleted "The author is famous for her science fiction and fantasy works; over her career she has received about an award a year,[1] among them a total of ten of the most prestigious of them all, the Hugo and Nebula awards."

While probably true, this has nothing to do with the book itself. If anything, it should go in the Le Guin article. Clarityfiend 20:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Someone adopted a semi-creative form of vandalism for this page (replacing all B's with "Chunky" and all d's with "sex"). If I could easily fix it, I would, but I don't remember how to revert a page. Samer 12:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler warning

The plot summary in this article is helpfully labelled "Plot summary". Easy enough to understand, I can't see anyone reading beyond those words and not expecting to see a plot summary. Accordingly I've removed the superfluous warning message. --Tony Sidaway 23:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The disputes about spoilers are properly conducted on the pages about the template, not here. Goldfritha 00:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not concerned with the dispute at the moment, only the unnecessary and intrusive text that messes up the article. And please don't use that word "unilateral" when it's obviously you who are repeatedly reverting edits by multiple editors. --Tony Sidaway 00:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that you are not concerned; you are enforcing one side while the consensus does not exist.

And please don't complain about the world "unilateral" before looking up and seeing that it means "one-sided" and then checking to see that you are not, indeed, acting unilaterally. Goldfritha 00:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

needs summary

This doesn't fit here, but doesn't fit anywhere else so... This page does almost nothing except provide a summary for would be readers. Why doesn't it have more detailed summaries and analysis like other books. (To Kill a Mockingbird for example) This book has issues on growth and about tragic heros and flaws. Surely this is reason enough to at least try to improve this page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slein (talk • contribs) 03:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Wizard earthsea.JPG

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The Shadow's Name

It's not that Ged discovers the shadow's name and uses it against it. What he does is more significant and more powerful than that. The shadow represents the dark aspects of himself, and as such has no unique name. He names it with his own name when he says "Ged" in their confrontation, thus accepting and integrating his shadow-self as part of himself. And, of course, destroying the shadow as a separate being. It's fairly clear (to me, at least) that le Guin was referencing Jungian psychology here.

That aside, the shadow definitely doesn't have a name until he Names it! -Sir Ophiuchus (talk) 14:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That was my reading of the book too. It's not that he discovers that it is part of himself, but that he makes it part of himself by naming it with his name. I thought I might have misinterpreted that, until I saw your comment here. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 14:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely agreeing here. This is classic Jung.

Cover art

Do we really want two versions of the cover of this book? there have probably been a few dozen so far. the first ed hc makes sense, as would the ace sf special paperback, but is the puffin ed important?Mercurywoodrose (talk) 00:32, 29 November 2009 (UTC)