What’s up with the Shadow in A Wizard of Earthsea? (Caution, post is one big spoiler.)

I keep trying to write a grand scale blog post about Ursula K. Le Guin’s metaphysics of evil in the Earthsea cycle. Unfortunately, there seems to be an unmanageable number of lose ends that must be tied before I can construct an accurate depiction of Le Guine's moral framework. Instead, I will focus on a single loose end, and see what happens.

What’s up with the Shadow in A Wizard of Earthsea?

The central plot of WOE is as follows: Ged, a powerful wizard in his proud youth, unleashes a shadow from the realm of the dead (cue Sylvester McCoy: “That did not come from the land of the living”). Ged spends the rest of the book figuring out how to stop it. He meets with success when he pursues it rather than running from it. He finally defeats it by walking to meet it, clothed in radiant light. He embraces it and addresses it by its true name, which is also his own.

Ged reached out his hands, dropping his staff, and took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined, and were one. 

WoE page 201.

After defeating his foe in this manner, Ged gasps to his friend:

 “Look, it is done. It is over. [...] The wound is healed.” […] “I am whole, I am free.”

WoE page 202

These quotes suggest a philosophy in which good and evil are equally powerful forces within human nature, and that balance and wholeness comes when the individual finds a way to embrace (or perhaps integrate?) both natures within himself. It brings to mind ying and yang.

This was my initial interpretation, and it is consistent with other hints about the nature of evil sprinkled throughout the book. For example, early in WOE, one of Ged’s teachers cautions him:

“You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on the act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. […] to light a candle is to cast a shadow.”

WoE page 56.

This suggests that a good act is but one side of a bad act, as does the following:

“Rain on Roke may be drought on Osskil.”

WoE page 68.

However, other events in the book did not seem consistent with this interpretation.

The Ying and Yang theory suggests that the Shadow which Ged unleashed is a personification of the evil half of Ged’s nature - a Mr. Hyde.  But the shadow spends the middle of the book behaving much like an independent force, something akin to a Christian demon. It is described as wanting to possess Ged:

 It would be on his track now, seeking to draw near to him, to take his strength into itself, and suck up his life, and clothe itself in his flesh

 (WoE 98)

 The following quote frames the puzzle perfectly. 

It [the shadow] was drawn to him and would try to work it will through him, being his creature.

WoE page 99

It seems odd for a creature to work its will through the maker. Usually the maker works his will through the creature. Is this shadow creature part of Ged, or something outside him wanting to get in? Do the evil actions of the shadow represent evil desires that Ged has? They appear to be the desires of a stronger force playing for much higher stakes, wanting to use Ged’s body and power as tools towards a larger purpose.

In the middle section of the book, Ged finds himself in a castle housing a stronger and older evil than his shadow. Ged is tempted to ally himself with this power, but he refuses. We are told:

It is very hard for evil to take hold of the un-consenting soul.

 WOE page 137

This makes it sound like evil is an external force, not an integral part man’s nature.

So then what does it mean when Ged defeats the Shadow with a hug and his name?

Neverwhere

I've been intrigued by the works of Neil Gaiman ever since viewing the animated movie Coraline. I was vaguely aware of Gaiman as a name dropped by my more hip acquaintances, but I was never exactly sure what kind of novels he wrote. Well, now I have read Neverwhere and I still am not sure what kind of novels he writes.

The back of my copy states, "Gaiman is a master...nobody in his field is better than this." That may be so. I have no way of knowing because I still have no idea what his field actually is. I think the inside cover says something about urban fantasy. The style was unfamiliar to me, which was both disorienting and kind of enjoyable. I never did figure out who his target audience was. It didn't read like most popular adult fiction, but it definitely isn't artsy, and while I was reminded of young adult lit, it didn't read like that either.

The story follows Richard Mayhew, a likeable but somewhat boring office worker with a hen-pecking fiance. Throughout most of the narrative, I found myself feeling sorry for the protagonist, but very much wanting him to grow a backbone.

Neverwhere is escapist, as all good fantasy is. The overall premise is that there is an alternative, invisible London that is unknown and unseen by everyday folk. While parallel worlds are the bread and butter of the fantasy genre, Gaiman's is certainly original: a sort of anarchic/feudal society highly reminiscent of Arthurian legend, but with perhaps some campy sci-fi thrown in... It is an original mix of things. I was strangely reminded of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

The story is interesting enough, but as often happens with creative ideas, Gaiman spends so much time crafting his world that he gets lazy with the plot, especially the ending. Even more frustrating is the fact that we never learn all of the details of this imaginary world. We are left to guess and surmise at many important details, which may be intentional, but seemed lazy to my mind. Overall, the world was engaging, but the story was not crafted particularly tightly. Gaiman paints brief portraits of characters that we are supposed to care about, but since he doesn't take the time to firmly establish their personalities or relationships, they seemed two-dimensional to me and I had a difficult time caring about anyone but the two leads. Not nearly enough time is spent with the novel's female protagonist, who had a great deal of potential.

Still, Neverwhere plays with some interesting themes, ones that draw readers of fantasy to the genre. There's a strong sense of "Is this all there is to life?" and the overall question Gaiman is asking seems to be "What if there was something more? What if there were another world you could step into? Would you do it?" It's a fun question to play with, and made the novel worth reading for me. I suppose I'll have to read some more Gaiman, just to see what he's really about.  

Some Thoughts On Sir Kay

And now the mighty T. Rex gushes over Arthurian folk lore.

I’m reading Le Morte d’Arthur, though I am less than a quarter of the way through it (here’s where I grumble about it being a nine-hundred page epic made up of archaic vocabulary stumpers), and this is what I have to say about it today:

I. Love. Sir Kay. He is my favorite knight. And I have no idea why.

One of the first things he does in Le Morte is to run to his dad and say “Hey! I pulled this sword from that stone over there; I’m TOTALLY going to be king!” To which his father responds with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical “Oh really?” (I am paraphrasing, they actually said something with many more words like ‘wherefore,’ ‘anon,’ and ‘gat ye’). Kay hangs his head and sheepishly hands the sword back to Arthur. Then he stumbles around the rest of the book (or the first quarter of it, at least) getting on everybody else’s bad side. He picks fights indiscriminately. His buddies are constantly having to stifle his challenges in order to offer friendship to newcomers. When a bold hero rides out to have adventures, any Big Bad who has captured lots of good men usually has Sir Kay somewhere in his dungeon.

Why do I love this about him so? I don’t typically like hotheaded dishonest war mongers … Maybe it is that he reminds me of my nephew, who is not the smartest or the strongest of his brothers, but really really wants to be the best and the boldest.

Yes, perhaps that is it: Sir Kay wants to be the brave knight on the white charger. For that reason he will always challenge the next Big Bad, no matter how many dungeons he has weathered. He will always pick up his sword and fight again, no matter how many times he is beaten down. He will always stand tall and say “I’m the biggest and the bravest, and I RULE.” Because he yearns to be a hero.

I love Sir Kay.