3. Magic

1

Magic is not just a tool in this story, or even a way of life. It is the fabric of the world. A breaking of magic breaks the world as well.
What did you think about the way magic is used in the story?

Were there any spells or effects that stood out to you?

How did you feel about the way that the breaking of magic threatens the world?

Comments

  • 1

    Magic seemed somewhat akin to religion in the story, rather than a science. For much of the book is was made out that it seemed people stopped believing in magic, and so it was ending - kind of an echo of the decline of catholicism in the English-speaking world. Certainly no spells stood out for me - magic seemed more of a plot device. But perhaps it has been a plot device in all the books. Does that ever change over the course of the series?

  • 0

    It has always seemed to me that magic in EarthSea is intimately connected to language. There's the obvious way in that the key thing in any struggle is to be able to accurately and correctly name your opponent,. Also as you go further away from the centre of the archipelago, common things don't necessarily respond to their names in the same way, or (as in the case of the sea and wind) may simply stop responding. They become unfamiliar, and so nameless, and so uncontrollable.

    But more than that, Ged and other mages who we are meant to admire (such as Vetch in the first book) enact magic as though it were more like poetry - a thing to love and appreciate - rather than some sort of tool or weapon that you just use. Language is a deep part of EarthSea's mythology, as seen in its creation story, and magic has grown up alongside language.

    So breaking magic is akin to the biblical fall of the tower of Babel - effective communication between one person and another, or between people and nature, is broken. (In passing, the Hebrew of that chapter in Genesis is immensely rich and complex, with all kinds of linguistic interconnections tying the whole together)

  • 1

    @Apocryphal said:
    Certainly no spells stood out for me - magic seemed more of a plot device.

    I don't think Earthsea magic fits the tropes of "standard" fantasy, or even much folklore. There are some spells, such as the ones that keep lambs healthy and the ones that allow silk to be collected and dyed.

    I agree with @Michael_S_Miller , magic is the fabric of the world. Mages have the ability to see and manipulate that fabric. But I think @RichardAbbott doesn't go far enough: magic isn't just about language and the ability to communicate, Earthsea make the claim that language is essential for thought and understanding, for people's self-identity. When the mages in Hort Town lost magic, they also lots much of their will. When the dragons lost magic, they lost just about all their reason with it.

    In that sense, the threat of the loss of magic is the threat of the loss of reason, of humanity.

  • 1
    One thing I like in this book is that magic seems to be part of everyone - they're will to make decisions to do things other than just mindlessly carry on. Without it, all that is possible is to go through the motions of life.

    Were animals affected at all? I agree with the above points - magic being will and higher cognition seems compatible with magic being language, if one takes the theory of language being needed for higher thought seriously. It seems to be true in Earthsea at least.

    Gosh, we've had a few discussions about that sort of thing in the book club. Good stuff.
  • 1

    @dr_mitch said:
    Were animals affected at all? I agree with the above points - magic being will and higher cognition seems compatible with magic being language, if one takes the theory of language being needed for higher thought seriously. It seems to be true in Earthsea at least.

    "All the glory of mortality was in [the dragons'] flight. Their beauty was made up of terrible strength, and utter wildness, and the grace of reason. For these were thinking creatures, with speech, and ancient wisdom: in the patterns of their flight there was a fierce, willed concord."

    Dragons, I think, symbolise something very deep in the nature of EarthSea, and although they share features with both animals and humans, they occupy a place different to both. As I recall, she develops this theme a little in Tehanu, and extensively in The Other Wind.

  • 1
    I really need to reread The Other Wind. It was beautiful, and it's been a long time. A Tehanu reread was more recent, but maybe I don't remember it as well as I thought I did.
  • 1
    I think @Michael_S_Miller plans to take us through all the books eventually. I remember Tehanu quite fondly, but without detail, and have no memory of the others, though I’m sure I read at least one book after Tehanu.
  • 1

    The Other Wind is (IMHO, naturally) totally awesome, both as a story in its own right, and also as both a culmination and subversion of the whole mythology Ursula LeGuin carefully set up in the earlier books. Since at a guess we are two years away from reading it I might well indulge myself before then...

  • 1

    I agree that magic on Earthsea is all about language. It’s based in the Old Speech, which cannot lie (except when spoken by dragons). It can perform all kinds of feats, particularly those of illusion, but it cannot stop death, just like language.

    And we must not forget, of course, that LeGuin is a writer, a weaver of words. And Earthsea is a creation of language because Segoy spoke the first word to lift the islands from the waters, but also because it is a series of books. In a metatextual sense, it is a world made of words.

    There’s even a few points where the Old Speech seems to be so profound, so full of truth, that it reaches right out of Earthsea and shapes the narration of the book we’re holding. For instance, most of the book stays very close to Arren’s point of view, and when it leaves his POV to see what the wizards of Roke are up to, it’s very clearly different. There’s a space break or a chapter break to show us that we’ve changed points of view. But when Ged first speaks to Orm Embar, we, the reader, get information that Arren cannot possibly know:

    Then his face became fierce and exulting, and he shouted out aloud, “Nam hietha arw Ged arkvaissaf!”—which in the Speech of the Making is, If thou seekest Ged here find him.

    And later, the narration, which is lovely, but informal, throughout, takes on a very formal tone when one well-skilled in the Old Speech passes:

    So died Orm Embar where his forefather Orm died, on the bones of Orm buried in the sand.

    I love little touches like that!

    (And, yes, @Apocryphal I’ll likely keep going with the series. I might intersperse other selections, though. I love LeGuin’s books, but find them too emotionally intense to binge them.)

  • 1

    I liked how magic was woven into the fabric of life. Yes, mages (and to a lesser extent, wise women and men with their charms) could harness the power to do special things, but beneath this lies another level of ability - that of the craftsman to create mundane items, or the sailor to navigate well. This is the kind of 'magic' most fantasy settings ignore, but it seems quite a valid use of the term in this book.

    I love those observations on how the language changed depending on the context, @Michael_S_Miller !

  • 0
    > @Michael_S_Miller said:
    > There’s even a few points where the Old Speech seems to be so profound, so full of truth, that it reaches right out of Earthsea and shapes the narration of the book we’re holding. ....
    > And later, the narration, which is lovely, but informal, throughout, takes on a very formal tone when one well-skilled in the Old Speech passes:


    Out of curiosity I did some quick searching to see if the Old Speech was based on some linguistic theory (as Tolkien would have done had he written EarthSea). I have not yet found anything, but for those who want to start their wizardly training here is a list: http://www.tavia.co.uk/earthsea/dictionary.asp
    This fan page is exceptionally bland and I suspect many of us could have written at greater length on the subject: https://earthsea.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Speech
  • 1

    Yes, @Apocryphal both skill and "craft" (magic) are the same thing, just different methods of people to shape the world around them.

    Thanks for finding those links, @RichardAbbott The bits of the Old Speech that she published are pretty sparse. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Le Guin named the islands just by what sounded right to her ear. I don't think there was any linguistic theory behind it (which is certainly encouraging for those of us who write fantasy but have no skill with linguistics).

  • 1

    @Michael_S_Miller said:
    But when Ged first speaks to Orm Embar, we, the reader, get information that Arren cannot possibly know:

    Then his face became fierce and exulting, and he shouted out aloud, “Nam hietha arw Ged arkvaissaf!”—which in the Speech of the Making is, If thou seekest Ged here find him.

    I took that as a statement of the power of Old Speech, so that Arren could understand the words without having previously known them.

Sign In or Register to comment.