History Literature / TheTombsOfAtuan

* HighPriestess: There are 3 High Priestesses at the Place of the Tombs of Atuan, one for each temple. Kossil is the High Priestess of the Godking; Thar is the High Priestess of the Twin Gods; Arha is the High Priestess of the Nameless Ones. Arha is the highest, "the One Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan, highest of all high priestesses of the Kargad Lands, one whom not even the Godking himself might command."

* AMatchMadeInStockholm: Arha and Ged first meet when he comes to rob her temple, and she imprisons him in the labyrinth and starves him for days. But last time she killed someone she had trauma-dreams about it afterwards, so she doesn't want to do that again. And once they start talking, Arha is so lonely that it really strikes a cord with her. Before too long she's willing to fast in order to smuggle her own food to him. The she sides with him and is ready to help him escape, and leave with him.
* TheMaze: The labyrinth in the tombs of Atuan

** The rite turning Tenar into the priestess involves taking away her name when she's 6 and she's "eaten".
--->'''Arha''': I am not Tenar anymore.\\
'''Manan''': No. I know. I know. Now you're the little Eaten One. But I...

'''Tenar''': I am Tenar. I have my name back. I am Tenar!

-->'''Arha''': Tell me how I was chosen, Manan.\\
'''Manan''': Oh, you know all that, little one.\\
'''Arha''': Yes, I know. At the death of the One Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan, the ceremonies of burial and purification are completed within one month by the moon's calendar. After this certain of the Priestesses and Wardens of the Place of the Tombs go forth across the desert, among the towns and villages of Atuan, seeking and asking. They seek the girl-child who was born on the night of the Priestess's death. When they find such a child, they wait and they watch. The child must be sound of body and of mind, and as it grows it must not suffer from rickets nor the smallpox nor any deformity, nor become blind. If it reaches the age of five years unblemished, then it is known that the body of the child is indeed the new body of the Priestess who died. And the child is made known to the Godking in Awabath, and brought here to her Temple and instructed for a year. And at the year's end she is taken to the Hall of the Throne and her name is given back to those who are her Masters, the Nameless Ones: for she is the nameless one, the Priestess Ever Reborn. ''[beat]'' Now tell me how ''I'' was chosen!\\
'''Manan''': ''[Tells the story of going with the priestesses and finding her as a baby.]''

* PlayingSick: PlayedForDrama when Manan tells the story about how Tenar's mother pretended that baby Tenar had smallpox to try to stop them from taking her daughter away, because disease could make her ineligible. The mother painted pox onto Tenar's skin with berry juice. It would've worked if the fear of contagien kept everyone from looking too closely, but Kossil was brave enough to look closely and see through it.

'''Tener:''' We have the Ring of Erreth-Akbe.\\

* VerticalPowerPlay: Arha is going to speak to her prisoner who she increasingly cares for, but with whom she is trying to maintain a mask of danger and indifference. She makes a point to bring a stool so that she can be above him while they speak.

* IronLady[=/=]SternTeacher: Thar is stern and taciturn, but Arha respects her.
-->''If Thar had been stern, she had never been cruel. It was pride she had taught to Arha, not fear.''

* GuiltInducedNightmare: After sentencing condemned prisons to a slow death by lack of food and water in the name of HumanSacrifice, Arha is sick for several days, has nightmare, and wakes up screaming "They aren't dead yet! They are still dying!"

-->'''Tener:''' Will you stay with me there [on Havnor]?\\

* AffectionateNickname: Manan calls Arha "little one" and "little honeycomb." When Ged calls Arha "little one" too, it strikes a cord with her.

The book focuses on Tenar, a girl born in the Kargish empire, who is taken while still a child to be the high priestess to the "Nameless Ones" at the Tombs of Atuan.