Line #184 Literature/Earthsea


1	[[quoteright:292:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/979688_732.jpg]]
2
3	->''The name is the thing, and the truename is the true thing. To speak the name is to control the thing.''
4	-->-- '''"The Rule of Names"'''
5
6	A classic series of high fantasy books by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin, which began as a pair of short stories:
7
8	* "The Word of Unbinding" (1964)
9	* "The Rule of Names" (1964)
10
11	These stories were shortly followed by a trilogy of young adult novels:
12	[[index]]
13	* ''Literature/AWizardOfEarthsea'' (1968)
14	* ''Literature/TheTombsOfAtuan'' (1971)
15	* ''Literature/TheFarthestShore'' (1972)
16	[[/index]]
17
18	Decades later, Le Guin returned to Earthsea with a fourth novel, followed after another decade by a collection of new short stories and one final novel. These books were more adult than the original trilogy, dealing with some very mature subjects.
19	[[index]]
20	* ''{{Literature/Tehanu}}'' (1990)
21	* ''Tales from Earthsea'' (2001)
22	* ''Literature/TheOtherWind'' (2001)
23	[[/index]]
24
25	Le Guin revisited Earthsea again with a few more short stories:
26	* "The Daughter of Odren" (2014)
27	* "Firelight" (2018)
28
29	The world of Earthsea is a sprawling archipelago where magic is a part of everyday life, dragons are an occasional threat, and the afterlife is a very real place. The original trilogy focuses on Ged, a wizard who rises from a modest life as a goatherd in a sleepy village to become the Archmage, the master of the school of magic who rules in place of Earthsea's long-abandoned line of kings. Ged overcomes grave mistakes made early in his life in ''A Wizard of Earthsea'', then acts as a mentor to the young priestess Tenar in ''The Tombs of Atuan'' and the young prince Arren in ''The Farthest Shore'' as each of these characters comes of age and accepts their role in life as he once did.
30
31	The later books shift the focus away from Ged and instead build Earthsea itself as a more complex and rich character, exploring the history and geography of its various islands, examining the lives of commoners who don't spend their days sailing around on grand adventures and speaking to dragons, and addressing the massive weaknesses of the archipelago's society, especially its treatment of women.
32
33	In many ways the Earthsea Cycle represented a radical departure from the then dominant view of fantasy in featuring a wizard as the main character rather than as a supporting character, featuring a cast of mostly brown-skinned and red-skinned characters, featuring women in prominent roles, exploring an islander society instead of the standard medieval European setting, and advancing the story by having the characters make increasingly complex moral and personal decisions rather than simply winning in sword fights or obtaining treasure. It also avoids ever becoming particularly verbose; all but the fifth book are well under 300 pages, with few words spent on the intricate and time-consuming exposition that defines other fantasy authors like Tolkien. 2018's ''The Books of Earthsea'', the first book to collect the Cycle in its entirety, books, short stories and all, clocks in at just over 1000 pages in hardback, including Charles Vess's illustrations.
34
35	The series was the subject of an animated film from Creator/StudioGhibli called ''Anime/TalesFromEarthsea'' and a TV adaptation by Creator/{{Syfy}}, originally called ''Legend of Earthsea'', and later retitled ''Series/{{Earthsea}}''.
36
37	Creator/{{The BBC}} adapted the works as radio dramas twice: in 1996, as a two hour adaptation of ''A Wizard of Earthsea'', and in April and May 2015, as a full adaptation of the original trilogy (''A Wizard of Earthsea'', ''The Tombs of Atuan'', ''The Farthest Shore'') in six episodes, each half an hour long.
38
39	----
40	!!This series contains examples of:
41
42	* AggressiveCategorism: As far as Earthsea is concerned, all female magic users are both weak and wicked. All those good and powerful ones are just because they're too weak to pose a threat or they stole it from other male magicians. It gets especially bad in ''Tehanu'', where the local lord believes [[EvilSorcerer Aspen]] is trustworthy while Tenar is a WickedWitch based solely on their genders.
43	* AllDeathsFinal: Mortality is a necessary and fundamental part of the world in Earthsea: attempts to circumvent it are disastrous and unsustainable.
44	** In ''A Wizard of Earthsea'', [[spoiler: Ged attempting to prove his prowess as a mage by summoning the dead spirit of a legendary woman instead releases the Gebbeth, killing Nemerle, scarring Ged and setting the stage for the hunt over the rest of the book.]]
45	** In ''The Farthest Shore'' [[spoiler: Ged encounters the mage Cob who claims power over the dead, and brings him physically to the barrier of life and death in order to humble him. The mage instead uses the experience to open a passage between life and death that allows him to return from death eternally but in doing so disastrously upsets the balance of the world, draining art and magic through the wound. In the climax, Ged reveals that even Cob himself has been diminished by sacrificing his mortality: he can no longer remember his true name, nor can he exert power through the true names of others.]]
46	* {{Animorphism}}: Wizards are capable of transforming into animals, though the process is dangerous, due to the animal form's instincts slowly dominating and overriding their human thought processes. In one particularly memorable example, Ged turns into a hawk in order to escape an enemy--and, forced to spend weeks in his new form, almost ends up getting [[ShapeshifterModeLock stuck that way]]. Also, a tragic warning story told at the WizardingSchool is of a wizard who loved turning himself into a bear, until he actually ''became'' one in mind as well as body, killed his own child, and was hunted down and killed like any other dangerous wild animal.
47	* BadassBoast: In a world where the magic of true names is a serious thing, and someone who has your true name and sufficient willpower can control you with it, Orm Embar proudly uses his true name as his only name. Of course, he is a very powerful dragon, but it's still an impressive boast.
48	* BluntYes:
49	** In the novella "The Finder":
50	--->'''Rush:''' Are you fetching and carrying for witches now?\
51	'''Tern:''' Yes, and I will till she dies. And then I'll take her daughter to Roke. And if you want to read the Book of Names, you can come with us.
52	** In the short story "Dragonfly":
53	--->'''The Patterner:''' We are four against him.\
54	'''The Herbal:''' They are five against us.\
55	'''The Namer:''' Has it come to this, that we stand at the edge of the forest Segoy planted and talk of how to destroy one another?\
56	'''The Patterner:''' Yes. What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.
57	* BroughtDownToNormal: [[spoiler:Sparrowhawk]] in the later books.
58	* CelibateHero: Ged, in the first three books.
59	* ConLang: Hardic, which we see a little of. And Kargish, Osskili and [[LanguageOfMagic Old Speech]], in which wizards cast spells.
60	* CoversAlwaysLie: Early ''Earthsea'' covers had a marked tendency to [[RaceLift show Ged as white]], and the setting along the lines of MedievalEuropeanFantasy. Le Guin resented the publishers' art departments for insisting that this was what would sell, and was ashamed of the misrepresentation.
61	* DarkerAndEdgier: Every book has its fair share of darkness, but as the series wears on, more and more down-to-earth concerns are introduced. ''The Tombs of Atuan'' introduces religious fanaticism into the setting, ''The Farthest Shore'' discusses drug addiction and slavery, and ''Tehanu'' concerns child abuse and sexist violence.
62	* DemotedToExtra: Ged is the main character of the first and third books (being the eponymous Wizard of Earthsea), and plays an important role in the second even though he's not its protagonist; but after [[spoiler:he loses his power]] at the end of ''The Farthest Shore'', he becomes a peripheral figure in ''Tehanu'' and ''The Other Wind'', having given way to Tenar and Tehanu.
63	* DragonHoard: The dragons in the series are obsessed with hoarding jewelry... at least at first.
64	* DragonRider: Ged earns the title of Dragon Lord simply because he's one of the few humans the dragons will deign to ''speak'' with. So when the most ancient dragon gives him a lift home, it's a significant mark of honor.
65	* EldritchLocation: The Immanent Grove of Roke, a place where the trees themselves seem to be teaching advanced magic. It is stated that for the people outside, the Grove seems to be moving all over the island of Roke. In reality, it is anchored in the very fabric of reality; the Grove cannot move, Earthsea does.
66	* EndlessDaytime: One of the backstory's greatest heroes, Erreth-Akbe, is said to have gained eternal fame by defeating a being (a mage or possibly a dragon) called the Firelord who sought to stop the sun at noon so that there would be light unending.
67	* ExpandedUniverse: Le Guin's Earthsea short stories, some of which were compiled into ''Tales From Earthsea''.
68	* ExponentialPotential: Dragons seem to follow this pattern. Any competent wizard can kill a young dragon with little to no effort--early in his career, Ged defeats ''six'' dragons in rapid succession pretty easily. ''Ancient'' dragons, however, are almost impossible to kill by conventional means and can use magic just as well if not better than the most powerful human mages.
69	* FamedInStory: ''A Wizard of Earthsea'' is explicitly described as being about Ged when he was young and not famed in story; in it, a friend declares he will make a song so his deeds will be remembered, but either he didn't or the song was lost (only distorted pieces survive). However, by ''The Farthest Shore'', Ged is indeed famed.
70	** Despite the lines in ''A Wizard of Earthsea'' saying that stories of the events of that novel were lost, it is clear that they are common knowledge by the time of ''The Other Wind'', as shown by Alder.
71	* FantasyCounterpartCulture: WordOfGod claims there's no specific analogue but draws heavily from many non-European cultures, an aspect that perhaps is one of the setting's strongest points. Broadly speaking, the world seems to be based on a Polynesia with metallurgy, some cultures even vaguely matching Hawaii, Rapa Nui and the Maori, but elements from Babylon, Mesoamerica and West African are also abundant.
72	* FantasyWorldMap: One of the more famous examples.
73	* FatBestFriend: Vetch, although he is more intelligent and complex than most examples of this trope.
74	* FemalesAreMoreInnocent: Inverted. Part of Earthsea culture is the assumption that female magic users are wicked.
75	* FeministFantasy: In the later books, from ''Tehanu'' on, Le Guin re-examines the setting and its assumptions (such as that wizards must all be male and celibate) with a feminist eye.
76	* FictionalConstellations: ''A Wizard Of Earthsea'' discusses the constellations of the land of the dead, which do not match those of the living world. Their names include the Sheaf, the Tree, the Door and the One Who Turns.
77	* FictionalHoliday: The Long Dance, a festival celebrated by every culture in Earthsea.
78	* ForcedTransformation: A spell to change another person involuntarily into an animal is possible, but difficult.
79	* FunctionalMagic: The magic taught in Roke seems to cover the gamut pretty widely, though with an unusual caveat of ''geography'': the further one gets away from Roke, the less reliable the magic that Roke teaches becomes. Vetch, grown up in the East Reach, says that certain spells he learned at home are useless at Roke, while some spells taught to him in Roke lose their potency in the East Reach.
80	** Additionally, the way magic works in Earthsea is that it's impossible for anything said in the [[LanguageOfMagic true speech]], the dragons' tongue, to be a lie. Anything you say in the true speech ''is true'', [[RealityWarper even if physical reality has to change to make it so]]. The only exception seems to be dragons, who speak nothing but the true speech, and can still lie all they want.
81	* GenderRestrictedAbility: The original trilogy features mostly male wizards. In fact, there was a proverb "As weak as a woman's magic." Later books reveal that this is more of a cultural restriction, however.
82	* GoodScarsEvilScars:
83	** Ged, after unleashing a never-exactly-specified evil into the world, is scratched up rather terribly by the thing on one side of his face, and scarred for life. However, in that same book someone says approvingly that the scars indicate him as a true hero--and more importantly they are a sign of his kinship with the Nameless Ones, which Tenar is priestess of. Ged himself is actually not aware that anyone thinks his scars are heroic. The guy who thinks this is very young, and very awed by Ged, and he thinks the scars are the tracks of a dragon's claws, since Ged is known for having vanquished an important dragon early in his career.
84	** Averted in ''Tehanu'', where Therru gets a terrible set of scars after being thrown in a fire, but these are not an indication that she's a terrible person.
85	* GrandFinale: The story "Firelight", about Ged's last days, which also served as the last piece of fiction that [=LeGuin=] ever published.
86	* HeroicSacrifice: Erreth-Akbe. The dragon Orm attacks Havnor, forcing Erreth-Akbe to take dragon form and prevent Orm from destroying the city. [[spoiler:Erreth-Akbe manages to defeat Orm, but dies in the process.]]
87	** His descendant, Orm Embar, goes out the same way, [[spoiler:destroying Cob's physical form in ''The Farthest Shore.'']]
88	* HeroicSuicide: In ''The Word of Unbinding'', the good wizard Festin is entombed by the evil Voll, and after trying every means he can to escape but failing, ends his life with the titular word. This sends him into the afterlife, in which he can find Voll's corpse and seal him to it, which prevents him from harming any more of the living.
89	* TheHorde: The Kargs.
90	* HumanSacrifice: Done (and threatened to be done) quite often in ''The Tombs of Atuan''.
91	* HumansAreWhite: {{Averted}}. The only white people are the Kargish, and they make up a small portion of Earthsea's population. Everyone else is AmbiguouslyBrown. Most of the Archipelago's people are red-brown. The people of the East Reach are black-brown.
92	* IKnowYourTrueName: The name is the thing, and the true name is the true thing. Know the true name, and you can control the thing. This power is limited in that there are literally countless numbers of names in the world, and no human, at least, can ever learn them all. You can't control the sea, for example, because you would have to know the name of ''every shore it touches'', something impossible for a man to do in one lifetime.
93	* InternalDeconstruction: The first trilogy (and the first book especially), portrayed female magic users as near universally wicked and weaker than their male counterparts, and always out to steal power they couldn't control. The second trilogy gives a hard look at both where this assumption came from, and what believing in it can do to a culture.
94	* ItWasAGift: Ged's half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe.
95	* LanguageOfMagic: It even has regional dialects!
96	* LanguageOfTruth: The Old Speech. Except for the dragons. Well, dragons can't ''lie'', but they can certainly omit, obfuscate and otherwise mislead.[[labelnote:*]] Or, you know, set you on fire and eat you.[[/labelnote]]
97	* LegendFadesToMyth: Discussed as regards the legendary Princess Elfarran. Evidently she was real, though, because when Ged tries to summon her spirt they do see her, for a moment, before the shadow leaps out of the rip instead.
98	-->'''Ged:''' Elfarran I will call, the fair lady of the ''Deed of Enlad''.\
99	'''Jasper:''' She died a thousand years ago, her bones lie afar under the Sea of Éa, and maybe there never was such a woman.
100	* TheLegendOfChekhov: The myth of human-dragon hybrids trapped in human form, mentioned at the beginning of ''Tehanu'', is proven true at the book's end and forms the basis for the plot of the next novel, ''The Other Wind''.
101	* LivingLegend: "His life is told of in the ''Deed of Ged'' and in many songs, but this is a tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made."
102	* MageTower: The Master Namer of Roke, Kurremkarmerruk, lives in a tower some way from the School.
103	* TheMagicGoesAway:
104	** A much more specific example, limited to [[spoiler:Ged only, who used up all his magic to seal the door between the land of the dead and the living]].
105	*** [[spoiler:Which makes for a parallel with his teacher Ogion, who used much of his magic up to stop a disaster of some kind prior to the first book.]]
106	** The later novels suggest that the full-scale version may be beginning.
107	* MagicStaff: Wizards trained on Roke are distinguished from mere sorcerers by carrying staves. Ged is awarded a staff made of yew bound with copper in ''A Wizard of Earthsea''. When it is lost [[spoiler:in Osskil,]] Ogion makes him a replacement from a length of wood formerly intended for a longbow. Wizards of Paln, certainly Seppel in ''The Other Wind'', and at first Cob in ''The Farthest Shore'', do not seem to use staves-- but Cob does acquire the metal staff of the Pelnish Grey Mage later in the book.
108	* MagicalIncantation: Magic works by the user speaking the language of dragons; since it is [[LanguageOfTruth impossible to lie in said language]], the universe will change to make what is said true.
109	* ManInTheIronMask: The brother and sister on the deserted island. [[spoiler: They're a Kargish prince and princess who were abandoned to get them out of the way without outright killing them. It's from one of them that Ged gets the first half of the long-lost Ring of Erreth-Akbe.]]
110	* MedievalEuropeanFantasy: Totally averted. Most of the characters are dark-skinned/non-white (with great care taken to distinguish between the various shades of brown), and if any era of actual history matches Earthsea, it's ancient times, not the Middle Ages (for instance, the tech level is late Bronze Age, augmented by widespread use of magic for things like animal husbandry and weather control).
111	** If you're having a hard time figuring this out, just envision the settlements as looking Middle Eastern or Indian or perhaps Polynesian (and yes, African), and you'll probably end up freeing yourself from the chains of this trope forever.
112	** The [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/59/AWizardOfEarthsea%281stEd%29.jpg/200px-AWizardOfEarthsea%281stEd%29.jpg first edition cover]] appears to be Mayan-inspired.
113	* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: The reason why it's dangerous for a wizard to stay shifted into an animal shape. The longer you stay in a given form, the more your mind gets taken over by that form's instincts.
114	* {{Namedar}}: High-level wizards are implied to have Namedar for people's True Names, which is used in coming-of-age ceremonies, among other things.
115	* NamingCeremony: Children are given their TrueName by a wizard in a special RiteOfPassage ceremony when they come of age.
116	* NeverLearnedToRead: The Kargs as a people view reading and writing as "black arts" and avoid them at all costs, though ironically they are excellent at mathematics. When Ged rescues Tenar from the Tombs of Atuan and brings her with him to his land, she eventually learns to how speak his language, and then to read and write in it.
117	* NiceJobBreakingItHerod: A king received a prophecy his empire will fall because of a person from the former royal house. By then, there were only two children left; a boy and a girl. He was afraid to kill them (RoyalBlood), so he banished them to a desolate island. They survive until old age. Then, one day, Ged is washed ashore. The girl gives him an old family keepsake...
118	* TheNothingAfterDeath: The land of the dead is presented as a dry sunless place where the dead keep their names, but not their spirits. This is later revealed [[spoiler:to not be the real afterlife but a ''barrier'' to reaching the real one, established because the first human wizards wanted access to the [[LanguageOfMagic true names]] and thus power. Nice job breaking it, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero wizards.]]]]
119	* OceanPunk: One of the classic and most refined examples.
120	* OneWingedAngel: Subverted in "The Rule of Names". Two sorcerers get into a duel involving shapeshifting; it ends with one back in his human form, and the other a dragon. [[spoiler:The human says something like, "I'm tired of this; it ends now; show me your true shape, by the power of your True Name." He speaks the Name. The dragon is unaffected, and replies, "That is my true name; this is my true shape." CHOMP!]]
121	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Most people in Earthsea are like this--they receive a TrueName when they come of age, but keep it a secret to all but those whom they trust completely. They go by a "use-name," which may differ from the name their mother named them as a baby. Ged for instance, was named Duny by his mother, and is known to the vast majority of Earthsea's population as Sparrowhawk.
122	%%* OrphansPlotTrinket: The MacGuffin in ''The Tombs of Atuan''.
123	* OurDragonsAreDifferent: The intelligent and deadly Tolkien variety, at least in the Dragon Run corner of the far West Reach. When one approaches the East Reach, the farthest islets of Earthsea, there are still dragons... but they're about the size of housecats, and completely harmless and unintelligible. The dragons depicted in the earliest stories and novels resemble [[Literature/TheHobbit Smaug]] (intelligent, capricious Western Dragons), but gradually become more varied. They are highly magical, and indeed seem to be affected by the geographical limits to magic -- magic in the West Reach, where dragons are huge, cunning, and rich, and rule both the skies and islands, is different from magic in the East Reach, where dragons are very small, unintelligent, and often domesticated as housepets. Although they're highly intelligent, often wise creatures, they're inclined to simply kill most people who get near them. A rare, powerful mage may become a Dragonlord, which Ged (who is one himself), describes as simply someone with whom a dragon will reliably speak rather than eat. Dragons and humans are strongly implied to be descended from the same original species. Also, dragons naturally speak the world's original language, the True Speech, which is significant because in Earthsea, [[LanguageOfMagic magic is in words]] [[IKnowYourTrueName and names]]. Humans have to learn it, and cannot lie in it, while dragons can. There's also the existence of [[spoiler:dragon-people such as Tehanu and Irian]], though how exactly that whole thing works is never fully explained.
124	-->'''Tenar:''' [Erreth-Akbe] was a dragonlord, they say. And you say you’re one. Tell me, what is a dragonlord?\
125	'''Ged:''' One whom the dragons will speak with, that is a dragonlord, or at least that is the center of the matter. It’s not a trick of mastering the dragons, as most people think. Dragons have no masters. The question is always the same, with a dragon: will he talk with you or will he eat you? If you can count upon his doing the former, and not doing the latter, why then you’re a dragonlord.
126	* PathOfInspiration: Originally, the series portrayed the Kargish religion this way, its religious beliefs (particularly their prejudice against magic-users) being imposed by evil gods. This was later retconned into being a good/neutral religion which got corrupted.
127	* PeopleOfHairColor: The Kargs are typically blond.
128	* PortalStatuePairs: The land entrance to the Port of Gont is flanked by two dragon statues.
129	* ThePowerOfLanguage: A CentralTheme of the series. Earthsea starts out fairly simply, as a world with a LanguageOfTruth that doubles as a LanguageOfMagic reliant on the memorization of things' {{True Name}}s, but as the story progresses, it questions the origins of this magic and reveals that words only have so much power--language-based magic is a relatively shallow, masculine form of magic, and there are deeper forms of magic and understanding that do not rely on the imperfect medium of speech.
130	* PrimalPolymorphs: A cautionary tale every wizard student knows tells of a wizard who liked becoming a bear so much, one day he [[TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody became a bear for real]] and killed his own son. The people were forced to hunt him down after that.
131	* RealityWarper: A wizard can do this, if he changes something's true name, or otherwise changes something's nature.
132	-->'''Master Hand''' This is a rock; ''tolk'' in the True Speech. A bit of the stone of which Roke Isle is made, a little bit of the dry land on which men live. It is itself. It is part of the world. By the Illusion-Change you can make it look like a diamond--or a flower or a fly or an eye or a flame. But that is mere seeming. Illusion fools the beholder's senses; it makes him see and hear and feel that the thing is changed. But it does not change the thing. To change this rock into a jewel, you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, even to so small a scrap of the world, is to change the world.
133	* RealityWarpingIsNotAToy: If you use the Old Speech to warp reality, you ''will'' face the consequences (probably). Plus, some forms of reality warping are just plain impractical: For example, one could use it to change a rock into a diamond, but due to the way True Name magic works, all of the islands of Earthsea would change into diamonds too, which obviously would make them pretty unsuitable for living on.
134	-->'''Master Hand''' To change this rock into a jewel, you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, even to so small a scrap of the world, is to change the world. It can be done. Indeed it can be done. It is the art of the Master Changer, and you will learn it, when you are ready to learn it. But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow . . . A rock is a good thing, too, you know,. If the Isles of Earthsea were all made of diamond, we'd lead a hard life here. Enjoy illusions, lad, and let the rocks be rocks.
135	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Ged to Cob, about exactly why his attaining immortality was a very bad thing.
136	* RescuedFromTheUnderworld: Attempted by Ged in ''A Wizard of Earthsea''; he follows the soul of a dying child on the way to the land of the dead, but he doesn't manage to keep her from entering it and being lost.
137	* ResurrectedForAJob: It is mentioned that one wizard used to summon souls of ancient kings and wizards for royal council. It ended up with him being exiled, since, apparently, the advices of the dead are of little use to the living.
138	* RobeAndWizardHat: Averted in the main series, as while wizards usually wear simple robes and practical cloaks, they never have hats -- at most, they have a hood. However played straight in ''Tales from Earthsea'': before the existence of Roke, when wizards acted as magical mercenaries and magic was still a wild and mysterious thing, they all wore extravagant robes of many colors covered in runes, as well as tall, pointy and wide-brimmed hats to look even more imposing.
139	* RoyalBlood: Why the God-Emperor did not just kill [[spoiler:the prince and princess but instead stranded them on an island where Ged ran into them]].
140	* SacredHospitality: Sacred hospitality appears pretty deeply ingrained in Earthsea, in both the Hardic and Kargad lands. Despite Ged's private gripe in ''A Wizard of Earthsea'', his boat was provisioned for free on the island where people thought he might be some kind of demon, and the innkeeper who told him their island already had a wizard gave him free lodging, food, and ale. Staff-carrying wizards almost never pay for such things, or for ship's passage. While hospitality to wizards is mere common sense, there are many examples in the stories of non-wizards (or wizards in disguise) getting the benefit of sacred hospitality.
141	* ScarsAreForever: Ged has disfiguring scars down one side of his face, inflicted by an evil LivingShadow he summoned as a boy, which remain even when he is the Archmage. He seems to regard them as a reminder of the cost of arrogance and misuse of magic.
142	* SealedEvilInACan: Most {{Eldritch Abomination}}s are this. Some are locked in tombs, one is bound into a rock... doesn't stop them from causing a good deal of trouble.
143	* ShapeshifterModeLock: Wizards who spend too much time shapeshifted into animal forms can forget their humanity, especially when distracted by the animal's power of flight or ability to freely range the oceans. Ged almost loses his personality once. It is stated that one wizard spent so much time as a bear he lost his humanity and killed his son. He had to be hunted down afterwards.
144	* ShoutOut: The word for stone in Old Speech is ''tolk'' and that for sea is ''inien'', making ''Earthsea'' translate as "[[Creator/JRRTolkien tolkienian]]".
145	* SmallSecludedWorld: The exiled brother and sister Ged encounters on a small island in ''A Wizard of Earthsea''. They were marooned on the island as small children, and having spent their whole lives there have "forgotten that there were other people in the world."
146	* TelescopingStaff: Ged's staff in ''A Wizard of Earthsea''. He picks a blade of grass, he speaks to it to expand it into a full-sized wooden staff, and to suit this trope, it is able to shrink/grow it again.
147	* TitleDrop: A variant -- the titles of the books are often casually said early on, and then dropped traditionally with meaning.
148	* TogetherInDeath: Averted. There are no emotions in the afterlife. Though this is possibly {{subverted}} in ''The Other Wind'', when Alder is reunited with his dead wife Lily.
149	* TrainingTheGiftOfMagic: Ged is first taken as a trainee by a witch when he shows a remarkable ability to cast simple spells after hearing them once, then recruited for (extensive) training at a WizardingSchool after showing greater but still limited power. It's possible that anyone could achieve something if they knew the right true names, but most people would probably be dangerously clumsy at best.
150	* TrilogyCreep: Additional volumes were very belatedly added to the original three.
151	* TwoFaced:
152	** Ged has a half scarred face from an encounter with a vaguely defined creature that he accidentally summoned. (It later turns out to be, appropriately, [[spoiler:his own dark doppelgänger]].)
153	** Therru provides a full body example of this trope, having been horribly burned [[spoiler:by her parents]] prior to the events of the book.
154	* UnequalRites: A distinction is made between "true" magic (based on an ancient language, studied in a WizardingSchool, practiced only by men) and several lesser forms of magic, including sorcery, illusionism and village witches. There are also other forms of religious magic in different cultures.
155	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Roke Island is home to the [[WizardingSchool School of Magic]] which results in all sorts of bizarre occurrences such as flying houses, people transforming into an animal (or vice versa), etc. The locals are used to this and barely give a second glance.
156	* VowOfCelibacy: Wizards are required to be male and celibate. One entry in ''Tales from Earthsea'' shows the origins of the WizardingSchool on Roke, showing that they initially admitted women and didn't require celibacy, but an extremist faction gained control of the order early on and changed the rules. Another entry has a woman with magical gifts attempt to gain admittance to Roke, with the help of a wizard who was kicked out for bringing a barmaid back to his dorm room and getting caught ''in flagrante delicto''.
157	* WanderingCulture: The Children of the Open Sea, a tribe of raft-dwellers who only come to land once every year, when they need to cut some trees for their homes. They provide a BedouinRescueService to the heroes in the third book.
158	* WeatherDissonance: Wizards like controlling the weather. It's the first ability that Ged manifests. But it's not always wise. In the sixth book, the sea-captain Tosla grumbles about sailing to Roke, saying there's not an honest wind or current for miles around the island, but all wizard's brew.
159	* WeirdnessMagnet: Even after Sparrowhawk [[spoiler:loses his magic in the third book]], he retains his ability to turn up precisely where and when he's needed. Tenar comments on this pointedly.
160	* WhiteAndGreyMorality: Le Guin dislikes unambiguously evil characters. Even obviously antagonistic figures like Cob and Aspen are portrayed as [[RousseauWasRight warped by society or their own fears]], rather than doing anything ForTheEvulz.
161	** [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragons]] are described as having their own morality, and while perilous for humans to interact with, are not actively evil. They appear to qualify more as BlueAndOrangeMorality.
162	* WizardingSchool: The school for magic on Roke, which only admits men, and which is portrayed pretty much as the center of the magical world. May be the TropeMaker.
163	* WorldBuilding: Le Guin and her creation of Earthsea.
164	* YourMagicsNoGoodHere:
165	** When Sparrowhawk (Ged) travels to the island of Osskil in the far north, his magic fails because he isn't familiar with the differences in magic there. Roke-taught magic also cannot summon fish in the deep sea, apparently because the fish there "don't know their own names".
166	** The mage Vetch tells of the differences in magic between locations.
167	--->'''Sparrowhawk:''' They say, Rules change in the Reaches.\
168	'''Vetch:''' Aye, a true saying, I can tell you. There are good spells I learned on Roke that have no power here, or go all awry; and also there are spells worked here I never learned on Roke. Every land has its own powers, and the farther one goes from the Inner Lands, the less one can guess about those powers and their governance.

Context Literature / Earthsea