The Book Nook - E10 - Dragonfly (Tales from Earthsea)

[00:00:00] Hey, listeners. If you've been listening to our show, chances are you've heard the wonderful

[00:00:07] contributions of our favorite Tolkien scholar, Marilyn R. Pukela. Marilyn just launched her

[00:00:12] own podcast on our network called Rings and Rituals.

[00:00:15] Join me and Dr. Sara Brown on our journey through the Lord of the Rings, the Rings

[00:00:19] of Power, through the lens of ritual. Episodes drop every other Wednesday on the Rings

[00:00:24] and Rituals feed linked in the show notes. See you there!

[00:00:30] Welcome to the Book Nook, where The Lorehounds your guides to the archipelago of Earthsea.

[00:00:50] I'm John. And I'm Marilyn. And this is our continuing coverage of our reading of

[00:00:56] by Ursula K. Le Guin. In this episode, we'll be discussing the short story Dragonfly,

[00:01:03] which is a continuation of the narratives from the first four books. And you can find

[00:01:07] that within Tales from Earthsea. Be warned, there are spoilers ahead. We're going to

[00:01:13] be talking about the short story and the book in depth. So if you haven't read it

[00:01:17] yet and want to preserve the mystery, turn back now.

[00:01:21] While we enjoy discussing all this nonsense in Earthsea ourselves, we also want to hear

[00:01:25] from you. And there are a lot of ways you can join the discussion. You can send us

[00:01:29] an email to book at the lorehounds.com. You can also visit our website at the lorehounds.com

[00:01:36] slash contact. And you can either use the form or leave us a voicemail that we can

[00:01:42] include in the next episode. We love to have multiple voices.

[00:01:45] Absolutely. And speaking of voices, we'd love to also invite you to our Discord

[00:01:50] server. You can find links to all of that in the show notes below, and we have a really

[00:01:54] fun and welcoming community where you can chat. Lastly, if you want to support the

[00:01:58] podcast, you can go to patreon.com slash the lorehounds or check the show notes

[00:02:03] for our Supercast link. And you can help us support all the different projects that

[00:02:08] we're doing, help us keep supporting this venture to our partners and making sure

[00:02:13] that we have the time to make to talk about dragons.

[00:02:18] Marilyn.

[00:02:19] John.

[00:02:20] My favorite Tolkien scholar.

[00:02:22] Ah, thank you.

[00:02:24] It's it's lovely to talk to you for a second night in the road, this time not

[00:02:28] about Tolkien. We recorded Silmarillion stories last night.

[00:02:31] Yeah.

[00:02:32] And now we're back in Earthsea and it's been a time.

[00:02:36] I've missed it. I have really missed it.

[00:02:38] Yeah, me too. So you might notice there's a missing voice here. Our archmage has

[00:02:42] returned to Gaunt and is tending the goats.

[00:02:47] We know not whether he shall return to this series.

[00:02:51] He's he's busy with a lot of other projects on the feed, too.

[00:02:54] So Marilyn and I have got it, I think.

[00:02:58] You know, if we need to, we got it.

[00:03:00] Absolutely. Yes. He may be done with doing at least on this particular area,

[00:03:05] but he's certainly doing an awful lot elsewhere.

[00:03:08] So absolutely.

[00:03:10] We believe in balance.

[00:03:11] We believe in equilibrium.

[00:03:12] We certainly don't believe in people making themselves sick over something that

[00:03:16] is intended to be fun.

[00:03:19] Absolutely.

[00:03:20] So today we're covering Dragonfly and we had a very good plan for the first

[00:03:28] four books, and then we got through the four books and we said, OK, what

[00:03:32] now? How do we continue covering this series?

[00:03:34] Because it's kind of a hodgepodge of works.

[00:03:38] You've got Tales from Earthsea, which is a collection of short stories,

[00:03:41] and you've got The Other Wind, which is a full novel continuing the story.

[00:03:45] And Dragonfly is the bridge story between the first four books and the

[00:03:50] fifth book. Is that right?

[00:03:52] Definitely is exactly that.

[00:03:54] It answers a lot of questions that we actually heard people raise over

[00:03:58] the course of the first four books that were issues that Le Guin was

[00:04:05] still thinking about.

[00:04:07] And the Tales from Earthsea volume was her exploration of this realm that

[00:04:14] she had created, and she felt that before she could finish off the series

[00:04:18] with The Other Wind, she needed to know some history.

[00:04:21] She needed to go and visit the archives in Earthsea itself to find out

[00:04:29] why was it that women's magic was supposed to be weak and wicked?

[00:04:34] And so many other things in various stories, but this one chronologically

[00:04:41] is very closely tied in with the end of Tehanu and the beginning of

[00:04:45] Other Wind and helps to answer some specific questions from that area.

[00:04:51] And I won't say too much more because nice to just have it unfold

[00:04:56] as it unfolds.

[00:04:58] Right. We're still in our spoiler free section.

[00:05:00] So you're safe here.

[00:05:01] You're OK for a minute.

[00:05:03] At least spoiler free for Dragonfly.

[00:05:05] I don't think we're fully spoiler free for the rest of the series.

[00:05:08] But just to be clear about what we're doing for the rest of the series,

[00:05:13] we're currently doing Dragonfly in this podcast.

[00:05:16] Next episode, we're going to start at least tackling The Other Wind.

[00:05:20] I'm saying I want to do it in one podcast.

[00:05:23] You're saying, Marilyn, off air that it's definitely not going to happen

[00:05:26] and we're going to have to do multiple.

[00:05:28] Let's see where we're at when we get there.

[00:05:31] But the next podcast will at least be on the first part of The Other Wind

[00:05:34] or perhaps the whole thing.

[00:05:36] Read that in advance.

[00:05:37] And after that, there's a bunch of other stories in Tales from Earthsea.

[00:05:41] So we're going to figure out we're not sure our exact plans yet,

[00:05:44] but we're going to figure out how to organize a podcast around those.

[00:05:48] Yes. And we might not do something on every single story.

[00:05:52] Yeah, I think maybe we'll talk about our favorites.

[00:05:55] Yes. And the ones that are most relevant to the sweep of history

[00:05:59] that we already know.

[00:06:01] But if you're reading Tales from Earthsea

[00:06:03] and you're really passionate about a story and you're like,

[00:06:04] that's a short story, I don't know if they're going to cover that right in.

[00:06:07] Give us your pitch for it.

[00:06:08] And please, we want as many voices as possible on our last few

[00:06:13] Earthsea podcast because this is the last chance we're going to have

[00:06:16] to talk about it on air.

[00:06:17] Definitely, definitely.

[00:06:19] We might even possibly invite one or two voices to contribute.

[00:06:24] We're talking, we're talking. Watch this space.

[00:06:26] A lot of plans in motion.

[00:06:29] All right. So Dragonfly, can you give people

[00:06:33] your general spoiler free impressions?

[00:06:36] Is this a must read if you're going through the story?

[00:06:40] I think so because it it's it makes clear

[00:06:45] so many questions that were raised.

[00:06:48] It points in the direction of where the other wind is going to go next.

[00:06:54] And it serves as a wonderful piece

[00:06:59] in a process of development.

[00:07:03] That societies and individuals

[00:07:06] and cultures go through,

[00:07:09] which I may talk about more towards the end,

[00:07:12] but basically it's order disorder reorder.

[00:07:17] Anybody who's familiar with Richard war will recognize that

[00:07:19] that particular pattern we've seen in the first two novels.

[00:07:26] Wizard of Earthsea and the Tombs of Atsuan,

[00:07:29] we've seen this ordered society.

[00:07:31] You know, it's clearly got its rules and regulations, as it were.

[00:07:36] Its beliefs.

[00:07:38] It knows how it wants to function. Right.

[00:07:42] And then in the third novel, The Farthest Shore,

[00:07:45] we get the beginnings of the disorder.

[00:07:47] We have someone who breaks the equilibrium for the sake of

[00:07:52] supposedly living forever, which doesn't really work out all that well.

[00:07:56] And then the following book, Tohanu,

[00:07:59] shows further evidence of the disorder that has entered.

[00:08:04] And Dragonfly gives us a bridge to the beginning of the reorder,

[00:08:09] which we see in The Other Wind.

[00:08:13] I like that.

[00:08:14] The chaos ensues and something needs to give.

[00:08:19] And the way it needs to give is through

[00:08:25] acceptance and transcendence.

[00:08:28] You know, we actually see a little bit of that

[00:08:31] at the end of the Dragonfly story.

[00:08:34] Yeah, you know, throughout this book, I'm thinking

[00:08:39] one of the best themes of this story in particular

[00:08:45] is the power of youth in questioning social norms.

[00:08:51] Ah, interesting. Yeah. Say more.

[00:08:54] I just think and I think it'll be easier to talk about it in the spoiler section.

[00:08:58] But just the fact of being young

[00:09:02] and asking why is a big part of why we ever see change in society.

[00:09:08] And I'm old now, so I get to compliment the youngins on their

[00:09:12] vigor and ability to

[00:09:15] ability to spark social change.

[00:09:19] And I just think that it's interesting how just like the disbelief,

[00:09:24] the lack of sureness, the lack of comfort with tradition

[00:09:31] can already begin to change, even if you're not actively trying to change it.

[00:09:37] Oh, sure. Absolutely.

[00:09:39] I mean, as you say,

[00:09:42] you could say that it's actually a function of the next generation,

[00:09:47] quote unquote, to question what has come before.

[00:09:50] And that doesn't mean it all has to be torn down.

[00:09:52] The all the answers may be, OK, yeah, this is working pretty well.

[00:09:56] But if it isn't, then you have to have somebody who is willing

[00:10:00] to pick it up and say, OK, what are we going to do about this?

[00:10:02] And not necessarily expect applause and a,

[00:10:06] you know, a welcome parade in a bunch of roses from people

[00:10:09] who have set up the current system and think it's just fine.

[00:10:12] Thank you very much. Yep. Yeah.

[00:10:17] Well, anyway, this story is a short one, but a good one.

[00:10:21] I very much enjoyed it more on my second reading.

[00:10:25] The first time I was I was I was just kind of like, where is this going?

[00:10:29] I'm not really sure where what's going on here.

[00:10:32] And at the end, it had another surprise ending just like the previous story.

[00:10:37] And yeah, the second time kind of knowing what to look for.

[00:10:42] It made a lot more sense to me and I think I got a lot more out of it.

[00:10:45] So I would say that this is one of those books that ages well over a reread.

[00:10:51] I agree. Absolutely.

[00:10:52] And I wonder, did you also feel that with the second reading,

[00:10:56] you suddenly understood more of Tohanu than you did before?

[00:11:01] Certainly. Yeah, certainly.

[00:11:03] I think so. Yeah.

[00:11:05] I think that's one of its really important functions. Yeah.

[00:11:09] Well, we're dancing around the spoilers now.

[00:11:12] So I think we're probably going to have to start moving into spoiler

[00:11:16] territory. Absolutely. Let's do it.

[00:11:19] Let's give the big spoiler warning now.

[00:11:23] Be gone, ye who have not ventured into the story of Dragonfly.

[00:11:28] I would really recommend you read this one before tuning

[00:11:31] into the full spoiler section of the podcast.

[00:11:33] But if you just want to hear what happened,

[00:11:36] we'll give you the Cliffs notes for your school book report.

[00:11:39] There you go.

[00:11:42] All right. So, Marilyn, you put together this lovely synopsis in four parts.

[00:11:46] So I'm going to read each synopsis before we discuss the section. Good.

[00:11:53] Part one is this.

[00:11:56] On the fertile island of Wei,

[00:11:58] a young girl named Dragonfly will be the last to inherit

[00:12:01] a once rich holding going to ruin from her father's endless lawsuits

[00:12:05] to gain the remaining lands he claimed to have lost.

[00:12:09] When she turns 13, she begs her witch friend Rose

[00:12:13] to give her her true name, which turns out to be Erian,

[00:12:17] the name of the inheritance.

[00:12:19] She is furious with the name, but Rose tells her that was what came to her,

[00:12:24] although she felt there was something else there as well.

[00:12:30] This whole idea of an incomplete name

[00:12:35] really resonated with me

[00:12:38] the the, you know, the second time I read it.

[00:12:41] And I think about in real life, when you have

[00:12:47] different parts of your life, different groups of people,

[00:12:50] you know, we all put on masks with different audiences. Sure.

[00:12:53] And we all sort of go through different phases in our life.

[00:12:57] But it's not like we replace one phase with another.

[00:13:00] We just add a new layer on top of it.

[00:13:03] And it just feels so natural to say, I am this.

[00:13:07] And now I'm also this. Right.

[00:13:11] Right. That's actually a key theme of of Le Guin's.

[00:13:15] If you think back to Tehanu, we hear Tanar thinking to herself.

[00:13:21] Or actually, I guess it was in it was in her essay

[00:13:24] revisioning, Irsi Revisioned, in which she says that Tanar

[00:13:30] is still every person that she's ever been.

[00:13:33] So she has access to the language of the young Arha.

[00:13:36] And she has access to her lessons with Ogi.

[00:13:39] And she has access to the young wife

[00:13:42] and then the mother and so on and so on, that the previous cells

[00:13:46] are not killed off when a new self is developing.

[00:13:50] She's and the lovely phrase she uses is like an apple tree.

[00:13:55] She continues bearing.

[00:13:56] She continues bearing fruit. Right.

[00:14:00] And so the notion that, you know,

[00:14:02] maybe a single name for your whole life isn't enough

[00:14:06] seems to be testing the water somewhat here.

[00:14:10] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:11] And many people today change their first names.

[00:14:15] Yes. They give a name.

[00:14:16] Yes, yes.

[00:14:17] And in different cultures, there is the sense of you don't

[00:14:21] name a child until they're seven or eight,

[00:14:24] partly because of the possibility that they might die before then.

[00:14:28] Right. But also

[00:14:31] because it may well be that you only have a

[00:14:34] true sense of who and what they are much before seven or eight.

[00:14:38] So yeah, that's interesting.

[00:14:43] Can I bring in choosing one's own name

[00:14:47] because that's something that Dragonfly brings up to Rose

[00:14:50] and was like, that's not something you could do right.

[00:14:53] Right. Why not?

[00:14:56] Dragonfly asks, and this is one of the the,

[00:14:59] you know, the resistance of youth, the passive resistance

[00:15:03] of youth, of just being like, why?

[00:15:05] Why can't I choose my own name?

[00:15:09] And is there something inherent to me, right, that I can't alter?

[00:15:13] Is there something inalterable about my soul, basically?

[00:15:17] Well, I like Rose's point that.

[00:15:21] If you were the only person.

[00:15:24] You wouldn't need a name.

[00:15:26] And so a name.

[00:15:29] Dragonfly comes to conclusion, so it's a gift and it is,

[00:15:34] but a name is also a reflection of of communion, if you will, community.

[00:15:41] It is required to distinguish yourself from someone else.

[00:15:46] But then we come to the power

[00:15:50] of knowing names and knowing true names.

[00:15:53] And of course, that's very much tied in with mage power

[00:15:55] as we've experienced it up to this point.

[00:15:58] And she wants to know, Dragonfly wants to know,

[00:16:02] how do you know what to say, Rose?

[00:16:04] You know, does the water tell you?

[00:16:06] Because the ritual always happens in flowing water.

[00:16:10] And she says, I can't tell you.

[00:16:14] And she doesn't mean she won't tell her, but that she just can't.

[00:16:17] She can't. She has never put words to it.

[00:16:21] And then she says, it's the power, like I said, comes just so.

[00:16:25] You're there in the water together, you and the child.

[00:16:28] You take away the child name.

[00:16:30] People may go on using that name for a use name,

[00:16:32] but it's not her name, nor ever was.

[00:16:37] So now she's not a child and she has no name.

[00:16:39] So then you wait in the water there.

[00:16:43] You open your mind up like, like opening the doors of a house to the wind.

[00:16:48] So it comes. Your tongue speaks the name.

[00:16:53] Your tongue speaks it the name.

[00:16:55] Your breath makes it.

[00:16:57] You give it to that child, the breath, the name.

[00:17:01] You can't think of it.

[00:17:02] You let it come to you.

[00:17:04] It must come through you and the water to her it belongs to.

[00:17:09] That's the power, the way it works.

[00:17:11] It's all like that.

[00:17:12] It's not the thing you do.

[00:17:14] You have to know how to let it do.

[00:17:17] That's all the mastery.

[00:17:19] Hmm.

[00:17:20] Mages can do more than that, the girl said after a while.

[00:17:24] Nobody can do more than that, said Rose.

[00:17:29] So that's fascinating to me because we spent the first few books of Earthsea

[00:17:35] thinking Ged was amazing for being able to discern something's true name

[00:17:39] without being told, right?

[00:17:40] Wasn't that his special sauce that turned him into Archmage?

[00:17:45] All all mages need to have that ability to some degree.

[00:17:49] Sure. But but Ged's like super powered in that.

[00:17:51] Yeah, he doesn't think about it. It just happens.

[00:17:53] He opens up his mind, like Rose says, or doesn't even open up his mind.

[00:17:56] He's just kind of in proximity to somebody and suddenly he's using their

[00:18:00] right here.

[00:18:02] You know, their their inner name.

[00:18:03] And it is pretty astonishing.

[00:18:06] Yeah, I really like this this whole idea of relational.

[00:18:12] Components to naming.

[00:18:14] You know, you're I mean, we spent months agonizing over to what my

[00:18:19] what to name my son.

[00:18:21] And that's because it's just

[00:18:24] it says something about them.

[00:18:26] It says something about you.

[00:18:28] It creates preconceptions when people hear the name.

[00:18:33] And it's just so difficult.

[00:18:35] I mean, if we could all be George Foreman and name our sons

[00:18:38] the same thing, that'd be one thing. But but

[00:18:43] yeah, it's it's so tough.

[00:18:45] And I love this idea that Le Guin is putting forward

[00:18:48] about the relational nature of naming.

[00:18:52] Yeah. And don't you think you kind of laid it on your son to call him

[00:18:54] what we want? I mean, come on.

[00:18:57] That's a pretty high.

[00:18:58] That's just his that's a pretty high goal to reach.

[00:19:01] It's just his use name.

[00:19:03] Yeah, yeah. His podcast.

[00:19:05] That's a stage name. Stage name.

[00:19:07] OK, OK. Yeah.

[00:19:10] And it's interesting that that

[00:19:14] Rose comments that people may go on using the use name,

[00:19:17] that the original name is a use name, but it's not her name.

[00:19:21] And it never was.

[00:19:23] So. I think in origin,

[00:19:28] this whole concept was rooted in.

[00:19:31] Le Guin's knowledge of the very ancient tradition

[00:19:34] that to have the name of the thing is to have power over it.

[00:19:37] Right now, we're seeing that expanded out some more.

[00:19:41] And instead of being, you know, your innermost self

[00:19:44] that can be harmed if it's shared,

[00:19:47] we're getting more about the relational nature of names.

[00:19:51] You know, if we didn't have a community, why would we need names?

[00:19:54] And something about Dragonfly

[00:19:57] is that she's really not afraid to share her true name.

[00:20:01] No, she kind of doesn't have the same

[00:20:04] awe of her true name and caution behind it

[00:20:07] that everybody else in this world seems to have.

[00:20:10] Everybody else in this world seems to get like,

[00:20:12] yeah, don't tell anybody you don't trust your true name.

[00:20:15] Yeah. She's like, ah, just take it.

[00:20:17] Irian, Irian, Irian, Irian.

[00:20:19] And perhaps that is because it's incomplete and she knows it.

[00:20:23] Yes, it's interesting.

[00:20:24] And we don't see too much of her taking in

[00:20:27] the knowledge that Rose tells her of.

[00:20:32] I feel like there's something more.

[00:20:33] No, it's just it's just later on that she's really like something feels off about it.

[00:20:38] And I really I mean, I want to talk about it when we get to the climax.

[00:20:41] But the sure, sure. When when that comes and when she goes,

[00:20:45] well, there's something not right about that.

[00:20:48] That's that that's really where the story sucked me in.

[00:20:51] She's very good at when at creating these

[00:20:55] very slow burns that suddenly explode.

[00:20:59] Yes. In this case, there's a lot of exposure that goes on.

[00:21:04] Yep. So to some degree that

[00:21:07] how much of that is her nature and how much of that is her nurture?

[00:21:10] That's another interesting question with probably no answer,

[00:21:13] but ripe for discussion if you feel like Rose a lot, though.

[00:21:17] I think Rose is a very wise person.

[00:21:20] She kind of definitely understands the issues with the world.

[00:21:24] But like she honestly seems like a very balanced parent.

[00:21:29] Right. Is here's how the world works right now.

[00:21:34] I don't necessarily agree with that, but you need to know what is happening.

[00:21:38] So, you know, the rules of the game that you're playing.

[00:21:42] And then you can later decide for yourself.

[00:21:45] Right. If you wish to take the risk of trying to change them. Right.

[00:21:48] Also, very cool that she can sense something within Dragonfly and go.

[00:21:54] I don't think I can teach you.

[00:21:57] Even if I tried. Right.

[00:21:59] Because of the map, the size of the power. Right.

[00:22:03] Again, if this world had allowed women to be trained as more than,

[00:22:08] quote unquote, you know, simple village witches.

[00:22:11] Rose would have been a pretty potent force, I think. Yeah.

[00:22:14] And she is a potent force.

[00:22:16] And the fact that she is not in a position of greater authority

[00:22:22] and respect to use that force has nothing to do with her

[00:22:25] and everything to do with the culture.

[00:22:29] It's kind of like, you know, when I look at her compared to Ivory

[00:22:32] and we'll get to him in a moment,

[00:22:34] but you look at his really standoffish nature

[00:22:39] and his his awful attitude towards his duties.

[00:22:44] And you see that Rose is on the ground doing the work.

[00:22:47] Like she's doing the literally.

[00:22:50] It almost reminds me I've heard, you know,

[00:22:53] I've spoken to a lot of nurses who basically say like,

[00:22:56] you know, everyone respects the doctors,

[00:22:58] but we're the ones on the ground doing the treatments. Yes.

[00:23:01] And a lot of patients will say exactly the same thing.

[00:23:03] You know, I see me doctor for 10 minutes once a day if I'm lucky.

[00:23:07] Right. That nurse is there.

[00:23:09] The work that nurse is there whenever I need something. Yeah.

[00:23:16] And one might have one might ask, is that in part

[00:23:20] is this difference in perception and difference in pay?

[00:23:26] Oh, yes. The part that nurses is predominantly a female profession.

[00:23:31] Well, speaking as someone who retired from a predominantly female profession,

[00:23:35] I would definitely unite with that idea. Yes.

[00:23:40] And of course, that's changing in, you know,

[00:23:42] in both directions with nurses and doctors.

[00:23:44] But, you know, I do think that we have to take historical patterns

[00:23:49] into account when we talk about things like social stigma.

[00:23:54] Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:23:57] So let's talk about Ivory a little bit.

[00:24:00] Let's move into the second part synopsis. Let's.

[00:24:03] Dragonfly is the only one who tends to the land

[00:24:07] and stands up to her abusive father with her anger,

[00:24:10] her curses and her strength.

[00:24:12] When a rich neighbor takes on a sorcerer named Ivory,

[00:24:16] Dragonfly becomes the center of his attention.

[00:24:20] He is both fascinated by and fearful of her.

[00:24:23] But Dragonfly keeps asking him about the Isle of Roke,

[00:24:27] where Ivory supposedly gained his wizard staff.

[00:24:30] Ivory's life has been one long deception, even of himself.

[00:24:36] Eventually, he decides it would be a great joke on the masters

[00:24:40] whom he despises to bring Dragonfly disguised as a man

[00:24:44] to enter the school for wizards, which rejected him

[00:24:48] after he was found having smuggled a woman into his bedroom.

[00:24:52] What a swell guy.

[00:24:53] Yeah, he doesn't have many of the attributes

[00:24:57] that I think of when I think of Gadd, for example.

[00:25:00] No, no, he's I do kind of like the I mean, like we've gotten

[00:25:05] adversarial wizards before and we've gotten mean spirited wizards

[00:25:09] before in this world.

[00:25:11] I don't think we've gotten the kind of bitter,

[00:25:14] incompetent wizard before, though.

[00:25:16] No, and the pouty wizard.

[00:25:18] Yeah, yeah. He's very pouty.

[00:25:21] A wizard scorned, one might say. Yes.

[00:25:23] Yes. Through his own actions, let us point out. Right. Right.

[00:25:27] He's very concerned with his image. Absolutely.

[00:25:31] Which is fine if you are never going to rise

[00:25:35] higher than the level of illusionist.

[00:25:37] You know, the master hand was one of the nine

[00:25:41] teachers on Roke and he would teach illusion and how you can

[00:25:45] supposedly turn a rock into a diamond and back again.

[00:25:49] With this particular type of magic, but it's not like

[00:25:53] what the master changer practices, which is you literally change

[00:25:56] the substance from one thing to another.

[00:25:58] So he's clearly very good at illusions with his,

[00:26:02] you know, fountains of golden wine and his swans flying through

[00:26:05] the great hall, which reminds me of the

[00:26:11] the Norse story about life is like the sparrow

[00:26:15] who flies in from the storm and flies through the hall

[00:26:17] and flies out the other side.

[00:26:18] And you don't know what's before and after.

[00:26:20] You only know what happens in the hall. Yeah.

[00:26:24] Yes, it's he is very obsessed with his image.

[00:26:27] And yet everything he does to enhance his image

[00:26:30] or to take revenge only further denigrates his image.

[00:26:36] Yes, certainly in the eyes of the reader.

[00:26:39] Yeah. But even in the eyes of the wizard, right?

[00:26:42] They're like, didn't we kick you out a year ago?

[00:26:45] Yes. Yes.

[00:26:46] And I don't think this island is very, you know,

[00:26:48] Dragonfly's Island is not at all find of him.

[00:26:52] You could say you could tell that they're like,

[00:26:54] why do we hire this guy?

[00:26:55] Yeah. Yeah. One by one, they start to think, well, you know,

[00:26:59] doesn't he notice that my daughter is sick and doesn't he care

[00:27:03] that the pairs may be blighted this year?

[00:27:05] And there is a sense in which if wizards are going to go out

[00:27:11] to serve people, then they have to serve people.

[00:27:15] Well, they if you've been an avid follower of this series

[00:27:19] before now, your eyebrows raised just by hearing that he's out

[00:27:25] on the town on duty without his final OK from everybody.

[00:27:30] Because you're like, right.

[00:27:31] Wasn't it a big deal for Ged to get out after passing his final test?

[00:27:35] Yes. Yes. Although, as you say, in this case,

[00:27:39] it wasn't a problem for him because he got kicked out

[00:27:42] for for reasons which, you know, he is questioning,

[00:27:46] you know, why should that have been such a terrible thing what he did?

[00:27:52] Nonetheless, he's kind of ruined his life.

[00:27:57] He he won't ever get his PhD.

[00:27:58] So how is he going to get a job kind of thing?

[00:28:00] So he he has to start with illusion because he has broken

[00:28:05] the thing that clearly he has some power and well,

[00:28:10] there's a wonderful line.

[00:28:11] So I don't want to spoil it much more to talk about

[00:28:14] what his ivories passed, but

[00:28:20] he he is ruminating to himself that when he's

[00:28:24] thinking of putting his plan into effect,

[00:28:26] that they're going to have to take a ship back to Roque.

[00:28:30] And he must ask Master Birch to provide him in advance on his salary

[00:28:33] to pay for ships passage and lodging.

[00:28:36] Since a wizard of Roque should not take advantage of people's

[00:28:38] willingness to give him whatever he needed, but pay his way like an ordinary man.

[00:28:43] This is exactly the opposite of Gett. Yep.

[00:28:48] You know, yeah, it's a similar in so far as,

[00:28:53] you know, he doesn't want to take advantage of anybody.

[00:28:55] So when they do give him things that he gives them things in return.

[00:28:59] No, he he when he and Tanard are traveling

[00:29:04] once they've left the tombs of Atuan

[00:29:08] and they stop at a goat herders place and ask for some milk.

[00:29:13] He tells her on the way she says our wizards used to begging and he said,

[00:29:17] well, yeah, but on the other hand, I did heal the goats.

[00:29:22] They had a sickness, an utter sickness, and I felt sorry for them.

[00:29:26] So that's kind of my way of repaying.

[00:29:28] But whether or not the farmer will notice, I don't know.

[00:29:33] Yeah, Gett doesn't need to be seen to do good.

[00:29:37] Right. And often doesn't want to be in the spotlight.

[00:29:42] I mean, when he's traveling with Lebanon,

[00:29:45] he's really trying to fly under the radar most of the time.

[00:29:49] Yes. He's in fact, I think he's having a better time because he's under the radar.

[00:29:53] He's like, I don't have to put on airs of the master of the arts

[00:29:55] means right now. Right. Right.

[00:29:58] And I think that some of his fellow majors

[00:30:01] realize that was exactly what he wanted to leave. Yep.

[00:30:04] He was sick and tired of the pomp and.

[00:30:08] Whatever of it's all, and wanted to just be out there again, sailing and adventuring.

[00:30:14] But also he wanted to have a low profile

[00:30:18] because, you know, he's on a hunt for something.

[00:30:19] He doesn't know what it is. Right.

[00:30:22] But he he doesn't want to be noticed and observed

[00:30:24] because some people could decide to interfere with, you know, the task at hand.

[00:30:30] I don't want to talk about Tolkien too much, but, you know, think about

[00:30:33] Saruman versus Gandalf. Right. Excellent.

[00:30:36] Saruman has to have his big tower in the sky

[00:30:39] and have everybody know how great of a lord he is.

[00:30:41] And he's going to, you know, be on the level with Sauron.

[00:30:45] And Gandalf's like, I'm going to go smoke some pipeweed with the hobbits.

[00:30:50] You know, he's the Grey Wanderer.

[00:30:51] He's the raggedy wizard going around the world, and he's the one who saves it.

[00:30:56] And he's the one who refused to be head of the council.

[00:31:00] Right. Right. Because he said he did not wish to have any obligation

[00:31:05] to any side.

[00:31:07] Yeah. He wanted to be free to act where he saw it was needed.

[00:31:12] Yeah. And boy, Saruman just never forgave him for that.

[00:31:16] Right. Even though he wound up being the head of the council.

[00:31:20] It wasn't enough because he knew that Galadriel and possibly everybody else

[00:31:25] really wanted Gandalf and didn't want Saruman to be leading.

[00:31:29] Right. Well, back to Roke, I think Ged is very much in the Gandalf camp

[00:31:34] and Ivory's more in the Saruman camp.

[00:31:38] Yes. And it is interesting they both are fooling themselves.

[00:31:44] You know, his specialty is illusion.

[00:31:46] Well, the biggest illusion is.

[00:31:50] His own concept of himself.

[00:31:52] Right. And what he can and can't do.

[00:31:55] The real illusion was the impression of ourselves

[00:31:59] that we gave ourselves along the way.

[00:32:03] Mm hmm. Is that a quote?

[00:32:04] It sounds like you're quoting. I'm just I'm just it's a parody on

[00:32:08] the real the real adventure was the friends we made along the way.

[00:32:11] Oh, OK. OK. OK.

[00:32:13] I'm just just but yeah, no, I mean, lying to ourselves is something

[00:32:18] I think we all do it at certain times.

[00:32:20] You know, we all I don't need to go to the dentist for that toothache.

[00:32:25] Oh, all that kind of stuff.

[00:32:27] And unfortunately, Ivory's taken it to the major leagues.

[00:32:32] Well, yes, fooling yourself about who you really are

[00:32:34] and what you can and can't do again.

[00:32:36] I think it's something that we all do at different points in our lives.

[00:32:41] Yeah, but. In the end, of course,

[00:32:45] it almost inevitably blows up in our face, and I just find it ironic

[00:32:50] that his particular gift was the gift of illusion. Yeah, yeah.

[00:32:55] But he couldn't see his own self clearly. Right.

[00:33:00] Yeah, I think that's intentional on the part of Le Guin.

[00:33:03] I think it's a really brilliant way to draw your eye towards

[00:33:06] what he is doing interpersonally.

[00:33:10] Yes, this is quote here from when he and Urien arrive

[00:33:16] in the ship in the harbor,

[00:33:19] and he's thinking over his all of his notions and his plots.

[00:33:24] Mostly, he just wants to stick it to the man.

[00:33:26] You know, he just wants to get back at

[00:33:32] the mages that threw him out.

[00:33:33] But he realizes now and says all his notions of humiliating

[00:33:37] the masters as they had humiliated him were moonshine.

[00:33:42] Obsessed with tricking the girl,

[00:33:44] he had fallen into the trap he had laid for her.

[00:33:47] Bitterly, he recognized that he was always believing his own lies.

[00:33:51] Caught in nets he had elaborately woven.

[00:33:55] Having once made a fool of himself on a rope,

[00:33:57] he had come back to do it all over again.

[00:34:01] A great desolate anger swelled up in him.

[00:34:04] There was no good, no good in anything.

[00:34:08] Well, that seems like an overstatement.

[00:34:10] Well, just slightly, just slightly.

[00:34:12] But that's, you know,

[00:34:15] not having the humility to see.

[00:34:18] His limitations.

[00:34:20] But also to recognize his strengths,

[00:34:23] because he does have strengths, but, you know,

[00:34:26] he couldn't get what he wanted and he broke the law.

[00:34:29] I mean, right.

[00:34:32] For whatever reason,

[00:34:35] what did he expect?

[00:34:38] To have happened to him.

[00:34:39] Right.

[00:34:40] And again, that was this self-deception.

[00:34:43] Oh, yeah, wouldn't it be funny to do this?

[00:34:46] Well, ha ha.

[00:34:48] Look what happened as an outcome.

[00:34:50] Not so terribly funny, I think.

[00:34:52] Right.

[00:34:54] Well, Marilyn, we've got to go to the Isle of Roke.

[00:34:57] Yes.

[00:34:58] But first, we need to take a quick break.

[00:35:00] OK.

[00:35:14] Hey, listeners.

[00:35:15] Aaron here.

[00:35:16] If you're watching Fallout on Amazon Prime Video,

[00:35:19] then we have just the podcast for you.

[00:35:21] Radioactive Ramblings has joined the Lorehounds Network.

[00:35:24] We are going to be breaking down the show episode by episode,

[00:35:27] making far-fetched theories and dropping some tidbits of lore.

[00:35:30] If you want to hear us ramble, tune into Radioactive Ramblings,

[00:35:33] linked in the show notes.

[00:35:35] We hope to have you join us in the Wasteland.

[00:35:46] And we're back.

[00:35:47] So we're halfway through the synopsis.

[00:35:49] We're up to part three.

[00:35:51] When they arrive at the island,

[00:35:53] Ivory realizes he had been deceiving himself once again.

[00:35:57] Dragonfly will never be admitted.

[00:36:00] Dragonfly decides she will later try to enter the school anyway.

[00:36:05] The doorkeeper who recognizes her immediately as a woman

[00:36:09] admits her in spite of the outrage of his fellow masters.

[00:36:12] They refuse to accept her,

[00:36:14] so the doorkeeper lets her out Medra's Gate,

[00:36:19] where she is met by Asver, who is the master patterner.

[00:36:24] It's so hard to say that word every time I tried to say it.

[00:36:28] Patterner.

[00:36:29] And lives in the Grove.

[00:36:31] Dragonfly spends several weeks with him

[00:36:34] and learns to come to peace with her past life,

[00:36:37] but still knows nothing about who she is or what she must do.

[00:36:41] Yeah, one of the things I like about this is we get to see

[00:36:47] what's actually happening on Roke now that Get is not there.

[00:36:53] And Ivory actually has some good reflections

[00:36:59] about the current condition of it.

[00:37:03] Yes, there are, the Archmage was great and wise,

[00:37:07] but he's gone and now the masters, some hold aloof,

[00:37:11] following arcane knowledge,

[00:37:13] seeking ever more patterns, ever more names,

[00:37:15] but using their knowledge for nothing.

[00:37:17] Again, this is Ivory's concept of it all.

[00:37:21] Others hide their ambition under the gray cloak of wisdom.

[00:37:24] Roke is no longer where the power is in Earthsea.

[00:37:27] That's the court in Havnord now.

[00:37:29] Roke lives on its great past,

[00:37:32] defended by a thousand spells against the present day,

[00:37:35] and inside those spell walls, what is there?

[00:37:38] Quarling ambitions, fear of anything new,

[00:37:40] fear of young men who challenge the power of the old,

[00:37:43] and at the center, nothing.

[00:37:46] An empty courtyard, the Archmage will never return.

[00:37:50] Now some of that I hear a younger man challenging the older man,

[00:37:54] that sort of thing you were talking about earlier,

[00:37:58] and I think most of it is overstated,

[00:38:03] but there is some truth in it, I think, don't you?

[00:38:07] I think so too.

[00:38:09] I mean, he got kicked out for a rule that

[00:38:13] we deal with this debate in our modern life, right?

[00:38:16] Should priests, in the largest form of Christianity,

[00:38:21] of Catholicism, and many other branches of Christianity as well,

[00:38:25] should they be vowing celibacy?

[00:38:29] Is that a helpful thing to do,

[00:38:30] particularly when they're giving things like marital advice?

[00:38:34] And you know, sexual relations is a very human thing.

[00:38:39] It's not like it's something that you can just turn off,

[00:38:42] turn on and off like that, so...

[00:38:45] Yeah.

[00:38:46] I think he is...

[00:38:48] It's right for him to be pissed if that's the rule, I think,

[00:38:53] to be against that being the rule.

[00:38:55] I think the way he goes about it

[00:38:58] makes him seem pretty like a petulant child who just got caught...

[00:39:02] Exactly.

[00:39:03] ...and doesn't know what to do about it.

[00:39:06] Now, of course, in the case of the mages,

[00:39:09] they can turn it off because they use that spell.

[00:39:13] Remember we learned that from Tehanid.

[00:39:14] I forgot about that.

[00:39:15] That they cast a spell on themselves

[00:39:17] so they don't even think about it,

[00:39:18] and they just tuck it away in the back of their minds,

[00:39:20] and they have their reasons and their justifications,

[00:39:24] but at the root of it all is a fear of women and women's power.

[00:39:28] Mm.

[00:39:30] And it may be that that was begun so long ago

[00:39:35] that they've forgotten that that was the reason,

[00:39:39] or they can't let themselves frame it that way

[00:39:42] because if you start questioning that,

[00:39:47] then I think an awful lot of things just kind of crumble away.

[00:39:51] Yeah, and if you fear women's power,

[00:39:53] you have to acknowledge that they have it.

[00:39:55] Excellent point. Excellent point.

[00:39:58] And contemporarily,

[00:40:02] you know, religious who swear celibacy,

[00:40:07] I don't know much of...

[00:40:08] I certainly don't know anything about experientially,

[00:40:11] and I never really talked to anybody who has done it,

[00:40:14] but from little bits and pieces that I've read,

[00:40:17] they understand perfectly

[00:40:19] that their sexuality is not going to go away,

[00:40:22] that it is a gift from what they conceive of as God

[00:40:27] and find, I think, different individual reasons

[00:40:32] for setting this aside,

[00:40:36] but they don't necessarily view it as ugly, shameful,

[00:40:40] dirty, evil, or anything of those things.

[00:40:42] I mean, yes, the story of Adam and Eve

[00:40:44] hangs heavily over gender relations

[00:40:47] in a lot of religions, I think.

[00:40:50] But those who actually practice it,

[00:40:53] it's possible to do so in a healthy way, I believe,

[00:40:57] but it has to be coming from the individual's understanding

[00:41:02] of why I am setting this aside, giving it up,

[00:41:06] putting it under wraps,

[00:41:08] whatever model or form they decide to take.

[00:41:11] I mean, I'd be fascinated to hear from people

[00:41:14] who have taken vows of celibacy,

[00:41:16] what their reasons were.

[00:41:18] And people take vows of celibacy

[00:41:20] outside of institutional religions too,

[00:41:22] so it is possible to see a value in it.

[00:41:26] It is a very powerful aspect of human relations.

[00:41:31] It's not the only one.

[00:41:33] Sure, sure, but it is one, right?

[00:41:35] Absolutely.

[00:41:36] I think that's the point.

[00:41:38] You're telling young men and young women,

[00:41:44] if they're admitted into this tradition,

[00:41:46] we're just talking about men

[00:41:47] because it's the only ones admitted into this tradition here,

[00:41:50] that they have to shut off a piece of themselves,

[00:41:53] and that's unfortunate.

[00:41:55] Do whatever you want.

[00:41:57] I'm not saying I'm judging you

[00:41:59] if you're taking a vow of celibacy.

[00:42:01] I'm saying that the systems that make people feel like

[00:42:04] they're obligated to do so are problematic,

[00:42:07] and that's present here.

[00:42:09] Yes, clearly, clearly.

[00:42:12] And it's only the mages on Roke and in Earthsea

[00:42:17] that can literally shut it off.

[00:42:21] Right.

[00:42:22] So in our world,

[00:42:25] you can see that you can shut it off.

[00:42:28] I just don't think that that's necessarily

[00:42:30] a good way of doing it, but what do I know?

[00:42:32] I've never once considered celibacy.

[00:42:36] Right.

[00:42:37] I really like the whole, besides the celibacy talk,

[00:42:43] I really like the whole motley crew we have here of wizards

[00:42:48] because it kind of shows the multifaceted staff here,

[00:42:53] you know, the Hogwarts staff here.

[00:42:55] Right, right, right, right.

[00:42:57] Where it is, throughout Tehanu,

[00:43:00] the wizards of Roke are kind of portrayed as like

[00:43:03] chickens with their heads cut off,

[00:43:05] just running around trying to figure out what to do without Ged.

[00:43:08] Sure, sure.

[00:43:09] But here we see it functions, right?

[00:43:11] And this is a recurring joke in various comedies.

[00:43:15] You take away the boss, people actually do their jobs.

[00:43:18] It's crazy.

[00:43:19] They just do it because most people just want order.

[00:43:23] Yeah.

[00:43:25] Most people want comfort and rituals, right?

[00:43:28] Yeah, right.

[00:43:29] And here you have the master patterner who reminds you so much

[00:43:34] of Ged when he talks, right?

[00:43:36] He's just so wholesome and really subtle about the way

[00:43:42] he sort of pokes at the edges of Dragonfly's power.

[00:43:48] Mm-hmm.

[00:43:50] And I thought it was absolutely awesome seeing him.

[00:43:53] And then you have the master summoner,

[00:43:55] who's a little bit on the other end of the spectrum of...

[00:43:57] Just a little.

[00:43:59] He's much more into the power of it.

[00:44:02] Oh, absolutely.

[00:44:04] And what you're saying about people saying,

[00:44:07] oh yeah, everything's fine.

[00:44:09] We're doing everything we've always done.

[00:44:11] We don't really need the big boss.

[00:44:13] That is true up to a point.

[00:44:16] And it's also quite typical of people in the disorder phase

[00:44:20] that I mentioned earlier in the podcast.

[00:44:23] The order has already been disrupted.

[00:44:28] And when you realize you're in the disorder box, as it were,

[00:44:32] a lot of people do their best to rush back to the order box

[00:44:35] and say, oh no, no, everything's fine.

[00:44:37] Nothing to see here.

[00:44:39] And of course we know that's just not true.

[00:44:43] Ged was able to stop the wizard...

[00:44:47] Spoilers for the farthest shore, for those who haven't read it.

[00:44:50] He was able to stop the wizard who had opened a hole into time

[00:44:55] and into the world and magic was draining out of it and so forth.

[00:45:01] But that doesn't mean that the consequences of that break

[00:45:05] have been healed as well.

[00:45:09] And we still have a very powerful person in the heart of Rogue

[00:45:16] who is not healthy, is not order,

[00:45:21] although he is trying desperately to be that.

[00:45:26] And it is not an order that is going to lead to reorder.

[00:45:30] It's only going to stay in disorder.

[00:45:34] Right. A good leader can delegate, right?

[00:45:36] They don't have absolute power.

[00:45:38] Ged was a good delegator.

[00:45:40] He knew if he went on an adventure, Rogue would function without him.

[00:45:44] Yes, and asked...

[00:45:46] Specifically asked one of his fellows,

[00:45:50] you stay and keep watch here. That's what you're good at.

[00:45:53] I'm going up because that's what I'm good at.

[00:45:56] Right.

[00:45:58] There's also this idea that the doorkeeper lets her in

[00:46:02] despite knowing that she is not a man.

[00:46:06] Yes.

[00:46:08] I really loved when they said, why did you let her in?

[00:46:12] And he said, she asked and I saw no reason to deny her.

[00:46:16] Mm-hmm.

[00:46:18] Just framing a decision as my default is yes

[00:46:25] until I have a reason why it's no,

[00:46:28] it's such a different look than my job is to be a gatekeeper.

[00:46:32] Right? My job is to say no until you give me a reason to say yes.

[00:46:36] Yes. It's absolutely flipped, isn't it?

[00:46:39] I really love the way that the doorkeeper puts it here,

[00:46:43] which is there was no reason to deny her.

[00:46:46] Of course I let her in.

[00:46:48] Beautiful.

[00:46:50] Even before that, when she is talking with the mages

[00:46:55] and is told, I've made a fool of you by trying to make fools of us,

[00:47:00] and Irie says, actually no, I used him to get here.

[00:47:05] I'm not here to fool anybody.

[00:47:07] I need to learn something, and I need to learn it here,

[00:47:11] and I need to learn what I need to learn.

[00:47:14] And the doorkeeper says, I've often wondered why I let that boy in.

[00:47:20] Now I begin to understand.

[00:47:23] So he wasn't fooled by Irie's quality or lack thereof,

[00:47:28] but he did what Quaker's like to say, he followed his leading.

[00:47:33] Even though I didn't understand it.

[00:47:35] Right.

[00:47:36] All he knew, as you say, his default is yes,

[00:47:40] come in until I picture a good reason for not letting you in.

[00:47:46] And in this case, he saw lots of reasons for not letting him in,

[00:47:49] but he still said, all right, there is a reason.

[00:47:53] And now I begin to understand.

[00:47:56] And the changer looks at him and says,

[00:48:01] doorkeeper, what have you in mind?

[00:48:03] Which is a Nifl-Away saying, are you crazy?

[00:48:07] Yeah.

[00:48:08] And the doorkeeper says, I think Irie, in a way,

[00:48:11] may have come to us seeking not only what she needs to know,

[00:48:14] but also what we need to know.

[00:48:17] The doorkeeper's tone was equally sober and his smile was gone.

[00:48:20] I think this may be a matter for talk among the nine of us.

[00:48:23] And I will say here and now,

[00:48:25] the doorkeeper has always been my favorite.

[00:48:27] I know you mentioned it the first ever podcast we did on this.

[00:48:30] I did.

[00:48:31] You said the doorkeeper is my favorite.

[00:48:33] And you won me over on this one.

[00:48:35] This is the one where I really felt like, okay, he's the vibe.

[00:48:38] He's the vibe we're going for.

[00:48:40] Yeah.

[00:48:41] He guards the threshold.

[00:48:43] He's a guardian of that liminal space, of transition,

[00:48:46] of moving from one box to another,

[00:48:49] the pre-knowledge to the knowledge.

[00:48:52] And he knows everyone's name.

[00:48:56] It's interesting because the telling of your name in this instance,

[00:49:01] in one sense is meaningless because he already knows it.

[00:49:06] But what it represents is your acceptance of the need to be vulnerable,

[00:49:13] at least to your fellows.

[00:49:16] And a recognition that, okay, once I'm in there, you know,

[00:49:19] they've got me so I better watch my step.

[00:49:22] Irie didn't figure that out.

[00:49:25] No, he didn't.

[00:49:26] He did not.

[00:49:28] Irie too, we kind of glossed over,

[00:49:30] but there were some weird scenes on the boat and all that.

[00:49:33] And when they're getting up where he really cons her out of her name,

[00:49:37] right?

[00:49:38] He's like, give me your true name.

[00:49:40] Sure.

[00:49:41] You need to.

[00:49:42] You got to trust me.

[00:49:43] And then she touches him and he's honest with her.

[00:49:50] Is that the power going through her or is that something else?

[00:49:56] It's a very complicated dance that he's been doing.

[00:50:00] I mean, at first he wanted, I think basically he wanted to,

[00:50:05] you know, coerce her into having sex with him.

[00:50:07] Right.

[00:50:09] And he's honest with her about that later, right?

[00:50:11] Yes, he is.

[00:50:12] He says that later, right after she touches him,

[00:50:15] which is what I'm saying is, what was that?

[00:50:19] She got through his defenses.

[00:50:22] Maybe.

[00:50:23] Yeah.

[00:50:24] She, you know, he had been keeping himself aloof from everything and

[00:50:28] everyone.

[00:50:29] She just, she's just this one great big massive ball of courage and

[00:50:34] honesty.

[00:50:35] And says things as they are.

[00:50:39] She's coarse.

[00:50:40] She's vulgar.

[00:50:41] She's all of these things, but she is true.

[00:50:45] And that, it seems to me that that disarms him.

[00:50:50] And he finally begins to consider himself and what he has and hasn't

[00:50:54] done.

[00:50:55] And he actually eventually, you know, apologizes to, well,

[00:50:58] as we hear the majors say he used you and Arian says, no,

[00:51:02] actually I used him.

[00:51:04] You know, I don't think he fools her about much of anything.

[00:51:07] No, no, I think, I think he,

[00:51:10] he thinks he's a lot smarter than he is.

[00:51:15] But also you mentioned her being blunt and honest.

[00:51:18] I think that's something he lacked in rogue, right?

[00:51:20] I think that the, the wizards of rogue, while they are brilliant,

[00:51:25] hide behind long phrases and delusions.

[00:51:29] And I, and I think that they, you know,

[00:51:31] the patterner is pretty direct when you need them to be,

[00:51:33] but there's still some kind of trickery there, right?

[00:51:36] Not necessarily in a bad way,

[00:51:38] but you know, he, he's sort of, as he talks to Arian,

[00:51:43] as he talks to dragonfly,

[00:51:45] he's sort of testing her with these subtle prods.

[00:51:50] One might say.

[00:51:51] Yeah. He thinks he's playing a game.

[00:51:53] Right.

[00:51:54] And I think that the,

[00:51:56] the language of the majors isn't necessarily that they want to

[00:52:01] cloak things in obfuscation or to sound wise or whatever.

[00:52:05] I think they genuinely have a hard time putting words to what it is

[00:52:10] they do. Yeah.

[00:52:11] I mean, think about the very beginning there when Rose was trying to

[00:52:14] describe to Arian, what is the power?

[00:52:17] How do you name somebody? What is that process?

[00:52:20] And at first she says, I'm not sure I can explain it.

[00:52:25] And I think that very same thing would be true of,

[00:52:29] of the majors and, and the lesser magicians.

[00:52:33] And the lesser magic users that, that they train on rogue.

[00:52:40] Because it's more than what they have the ability to do than what they

[00:52:44] have the ability to understand. Now for some of them, I mean,

[00:52:47] the Neymar and some of the other, you know, the herbal for sure.

[00:52:50] You do have to know,

[00:52:51] understand what you're doing with your medical treatment and whatnot.

[00:52:55] But if you're talking about the mysteries of the art magical,

[00:52:59] it's very difficult to put words to that.

[00:53:03] And for many mystics and contemplatives and, and even, you know,

[00:53:07] ordinary everyday people quote unquote,

[00:53:10] who have some kind of sense of connection of this,

[00:53:14] whatever this power is for them.

[00:53:18] How do you explain it?

[00:53:20] How do you name it without it sounding like 16 other things that people

[00:53:23] know, but what is, what is the metaphor?

[00:53:27] So you can cloak it in this sort of austere language or in effect,

[00:53:33] say, look, you wouldn't possibly be able to understand this without years

[00:53:37] of study because they don't really understand it either.

[00:53:40] At the end of the day, they know how to do it.

[00:53:43] They know how to allow it to be done.

[00:53:45] Remember one of the things that gets says is at the end of the day,

[00:53:49] the art magic is doing only what you must do.

[00:53:53] Yeah. I like that.

[00:53:54] We kind of lose that sense.

[00:53:56] I think as she moves along in her storytelling,

[00:54:00] because now it really is, she really is exposing the weaknesses

[00:54:06] of the old order and the things that were wrong with it and the things

[00:54:10] that need changing and healing and you know, the doorkeeper again,

[00:54:16] when the changer can't believe that the doorkeeper is proposing,

[00:54:19] bringing Arian into the council room.

[00:54:21] He says, you know, well, who is Arian?

[00:54:24] The changer stands silent.

[00:54:25] And then he says, well, what is it that you think to do to learn?

[00:54:30] What is she that you ask this for her?

[00:54:32] And the doorkeeper says, who are we that we refuse her

[00:54:36] without knowing what she is?

[00:54:41] They're dealing with mysteries.

[00:54:44] Some of them are wise enough and and they're not

[00:54:47] Some of them are wise enough and brave enough and humble enough

[00:54:52] to acknowledge that.

[00:54:54] Others, because they've been designated as mages, you know,

[00:54:58] their whole concept is, well, I'm the one who's supposed to know things.

[00:55:02] Right.

[00:55:03] And if suddenly things happen that I can't explain,

[00:55:07] what does that do to my credibility?

[00:55:09] Right. It's kind of like, you know, it's been a big discussion

[00:55:13] among millennial parenting circles about how, you know,

[00:55:17] when our parents were asked a question,

[00:55:19] they felt like they needed an answer.

[00:55:22] And now today we try to say, I don't know, but let's find out together.

[00:55:29] Perfect answer.

[00:55:31] That's that's what we're trying to do now.

[00:55:33] Instead of making something up, we work together to learn together.

[00:55:37] And and that feels more right to me.

[00:55:40] It also allows for the possibility that you can have different answers,

[00:55:43] and neither of them are necessarily 100 percent wrong or 100 percent right.

[00:55:51] Right.

[00:55:53] I believe there's a very concrete stage that children go through.

[00:55:58] And maybe I'm in speaking away at a turn because I've never been a parent,

[00:56:01] but maybe part of the role is to be able to show

[00:56:06] that you're comfortable with not knowing,

[00:56:09] that it's OK to have questions you don't have answers to.

[00:56:12] Someday maybe you will have answers to them.

[00:56:16] And maybe there are things that people can answer

[00:56:19] or that each person has to answer for themselves.

[00:56:21] Right. There's one more passage I wanted to talk about in this section.

[00:56:29] Only in dark the light. Yeah.

[00:56:33] That really struck me because we talked a lot in the tombs of Atman

[00:56:38] about sort of this magic that Tenar did have.

[00:56:43] You know, she did have access to these dark entities,

[00:56:47] to these dark powers like is it evil?

[00:56:52] And here we have only in dark the light.

[00:56:56] What's she getting at here?

[00:56:58] Well, that's the epigram that she starts the first three books with.

[00:57:08] Only in darkness the light, only in dying life.

[00:57:13] There's a third line which I'm not remembering.

[00:57:15] And then the fourth line is bright the hawk's flight across the empty sky.

[00:57:21] So it started out, I think, as a representation of equilibrium,

[00:57:26] of the balance, of the recognition that both halves are needed.

[00:57:30] The yin-yang, we talked about that. Yeah.

[00:57:34] And so it's wonderful that it is Irian who comes back to that.

[00:57:43] And when Asfer, the patterner, is questioning things.

[00:57:51] I mean, at first she's saying I should go.

[00:57:54] I can walk on the grove. I can't live there.

[00:57:56] It's not my place.

[00:57:57] And the master chanter said I did harm by being here.

[00:58:01] And the patterner says we all do harm by being.

[00:58:04] Right.

[00:58:06] So how do we know if we're doing harm or not doing harm?

[00:58:13] We have to assess that for ourselves.

[00:58:17] And the discussion that they have about the powers and the old powers

[00:58:24] and women's powers, Asfer tells her that his people,

[00:58:31] you know, they worship gods but they also have the powers

[00:58:35] and the darkness of the earth.

[00:58:38] And Irian calls them the old powers.

[00:58:40] And Asfer says yes, there women know the old powers here too,

[00:58:44] but they're called witches.

[00:58:46] And the knowledge is bad, eh?

[00:58:49] Dark is bad, said the patterner, eh?

[00:58:52] Irian drew a deep breath and looked him in the eye as they sat there.

[00:58:56] Only in dark the light, she said.

[00:58:59] Ah, he said.

[00:59:00] And he looked away so she couldn't see his expression.

[00:59:04] I think she blew him out of the water there.

[00:59:06] I think so. I think so.

[00:59:08] And really unpacked.

[00:59:09] He's like write that down.

[00:59:10] Yes, seriously.

[00:59:11] Really unpacked this whole question of gendered power.

[00:59:16] Yeah, yeah.

[00:59:19] I mean, Ivory needs somebody to feel superior too.

[00:59:22] Otherwise you can't feel superior at all.

[00:59:25] Yeah, there's there.

[00:59:26] There can be more than a few Ivories out there or can't there.

[00:59:29] Yeah, no.

[00:59:33] So we've got one more part of this story.

[00:59:36] Eventually, Irian and the master supporting her, the patterner,

[00:59:42] the patterner, the doorkeeper and the herbal,

[00:59:46] are confronted by those masters who rejected her,

[00:59:49] including the master summoner Thorian.

[00:59:53] Dragonfly, who is known by her true name Irian,

[00:59:56] challenges Thorian to come and meet her on the Hill of Roke

[00:59:59] where all deception is removed and things are as they are.

[01:00:02] Thorian reverts to the corpse that he has been ever since he summoned himself

[01:00:07] back from the other side of the wall in the land of the dead.

[01:00:10] And Irian becomes her true self, a dragon.

[01:00:13] She tells Asfer that she will fly into the West beyond West

[01:00:19] to find her people and receive her true name, not in water, but in fire.

[01:00:24] Talk about balances.

[01:00:26] Yeah.

[01:00:28] Big ending.

[01:00:29] It's massive.

[01:00:31] And I think the first time it comes as a real shock and a punch to the solar plexus.

[01:00:37] Can I ask you, the name in fire,

[01:00:41] is she going to get just the other half of her name from the dragonfly?

[01:00:46] No.

[01:00:47] She's going to get the other half of her name from the dragonfly.

[01:00:50] Is she going to get just the other half of her name from the dragons?

[01:00:55] Or can the dragon sell her her full name?

[01:00:57] Because to me, I'm almost reading it as part of her is human

[01:01:02] and that part needs to be named by humans

[01:01:05] and part of her is dragon and that part needs to be named by dragon.

[01:01:09] That's exactly how I understand it.

[01:01:11] Okay.

[01:01:12] Yeah.

[01:01:13] Because we have this origin story, if you will,

[01:01:18] the Kargish people still have a hold on

[01:01:22] that the Hardic people have forgotten,

[01:01:27] except little individual people here and there scattered widely,

[01:01:32] because this is who they are.

[01:01:34] And somehow somebody conveyed that to them

[01:01:38] or they learned it themselves at their cost.

[01:01:41] I mean, think of Tehanyu's whole story.

[01:01:43] How many other Tehanyus were out there?

[01:01:45] Irian could easily have been a Tehanyu.

[01:01:48] Yeah.

[01:01:49] Except she was not disfigured.

[01:01:52] She was not a child when this happened.

[01:01:57] And she had friends.

[01:02:00] She had rose.

[01:02:02] She had her connection with animals.

[01:02:05] There were people on the farm who cared about her and what happened to her.

[01:02:08] But she was sexually abused, as was Tehanyu.

[01:02:11] I mean, it just seems that particularly when it's women

[01:02:15] who are this combination person,

[01:02:19] their power is so immense and so intense that it's frightening.

[01:02:25] And most often that level of power and fear was enough to provoke violence.

[01:02:33] Yeah.

[01:02:35] Somehow Irian had the strength to fight back.

[01:02:38] Yeah.

[01:02:39] And to push back.

[01:02:40] So she did not lose herself in the way that Tehanyu did.

[01:02:45] Right.

[01:02:47] There's a passage earlier where Ivory says something like,

[01:02:51] I've been trying to dominate her since the beginning of this.

[01:02:54] I've been trying to get her to submit to me,

[01:02:56] but I keep dreaming of myself submitting to her.

[01:02:59] And it really puts you into perspective.

[01:03:04] That's what patriarchy is, right?

[01:03:07] What patriarchy is, we're trying...

[01:03:10] People in patriarchy, men in patriarchy,

[01:03:13] whether intentionally or unintentionally,

[01:03:16] or rather the system of patriarchy is meant to make sure that men stay above women

[01:03:22] whether they are more powerful,

[01:03:24] whether they are smarter,

[01:03:25] whether they are more qualified or not.

[01:03:28] And here you have Ivory who seems to implicitly and internally know

[01:03:34] that she's stronger than him, that she's smarter than him,

[01:03:38] that she's better than him.

[01:03:40] Still trying to dominate her in some way

[01:03:44] because he wants to feel like he's still superior.

[01:03:48] Yeah.

[01:03:50] He's negging her, right?

[01:03:52] If we could bring that term in here.

[01:03:54] Is that what that means?

[01:03:55] I've encountered it, but I've never really been sure what it is.

[01:03:57] Negging is deliberately insulting a pretty person

[01:04:02] to make them feel ugly so that they find you more attractive.

[01:04:06] It's a disgusting thing.

[01:04:09] Yeah, pretty much.

[01:04:10] Yeah, it's those like Playboy kind of things.

[01:04:13] Like gaslighting and other sorts of behavior.

[01:04:17] And so I think this whole time, Ivory is basically negging her, right?

[01:04:21] He's like, well, yours are so stupid from your tiny island and you're a girl

[01:04:24] and they're not going to let you in without me, so you got to trust me.

[01:04:27] And the whole thing is a play to make sure that she's going to trust him

[01:04:33] and that she's going to feel subordinate to him.

[01:04:35] And it doesn't work.

[01:04:36] She still winds up on top.

[01:04:40] And yet she does not use violence with him.

[01:04:44] No.

[01:04:46] When she could.

[01:04:47] Right.

[01:04:48] But most of it, I think, lies with her not knowing who she really is.

[01:04:56] That she knows she's powerful.

[01:04:58] She knows, you know, she hit her true name is Irian,

[01:05:02] which has to do with the land that she has come to despise

[01:05:05] because of all the grief and trouble and pain it's brought her family to.

[01:05:10] And it's made a wreck of her father.

[01:05:12] Right.

[01:05:13] But she also knows that she is something more.

[01:05:17] And nothing in her world is going to affirm her in that except Rose.

[01:05:24] And even Rose can't really, she just knows there's something else.

[01:05:28] There's something different.

[01:05:29] Right.

[01:05:30] But she can't say anymore, partly because that spell of patriarchy is so strong

[01:05:38] that it's very difficult to see through clearly.

[01:05:43] And Irian knows enough to know that this is the case for her.

[01:05:50] But she's not going to learn from this island of utter complete and utter masculinity,

[01:05:57] except for the cows and the female birds and the female bees and all the creatures.

[01:06:02] She's not going to learn this from here.

[01:06:05] And there was a moment when she was looking at the school of Roke and just wonders.

[01:06:19] She thought about the school where she had been so briefly from here under the eaves of the grove.

[01:06:24] She saw it as stone walls and closing one kind of being and keeping out all the others like a pen cage.

[01:06:32] How could any of them keep their balance in a place like that?

[01:06:37] And well, that hit me right between the eyes the first time I read it.

[01:06:41] Because the whole basis of magic is balance.

[01:06:44] And yet the place that produces majors is utterly out of balance.

[01:06:48] Right, right.

[01:06:50] And she's the only one who can see that.

[01:06:52] Or if maybe others see it, she's the only one who's brave enough to name it.

[01:06:59] Yeah, I mean, again, the youth aspect, but also the outsider aspect.

[01:07:05] Definitely the outsider aspect. Yes.

[01:07:07] Yes. Yes.

[01:07:08] You can see that in a lot of dichotomies in our own culture.

[01:07:13] And even a species outsider, in this case.

[01:07:16] Yeah. If you're considered a subordinate, then you have to study the dominant ones very closely to the point where you get to know them better than they know themselves because in that lies your safety.

[01:07:30] Right.

[01:07:33] You know, I'm thinking about what you said about Rose being her supporter.

[01:07:38] I'm thinking of a book that I can't remember the name of that discussed how a huge part of human development that we don't acknowledge enough is aloe parenting.

[01:07:49] And this idea that people, adults who are not the biological parents of a child.

[01:07:57] But are in the child's life in some way, often play one of the most important roles in that child's life.

[01:08:35] I think that's an excellent point because it's been documented that women survivors of sexual abuse, particularly incest.

[01:08:47] Often, you know, you ask the question, well, how come some of them manage to thrive and some of them don't?

[01:08:54] And one of the answers is if they know that they have a trusted adult that they could tell.

[01:09:02] Right.

[01:09:03] Even if they never do tell, just the knowledge that they could is enough to help to build that sense of self and cohesiveness and some degree of safety so that they come out the other end as pretty well functioning adults.

[01:09:22] Right.

[01:09:23] So I'm interested that it now has a name, though of course this is not strictly limited to issues of sexual abuse.

[01:09:31] I did find the book, by the way. Oh, good for you. Mothers and others.

[01:09:36] Sarah Blaffer Hurte.

[01:09:39] Yeah, I think I've heard of it. It is all about how and she's an anthropologist, I believe.

[01:09:44] It's all about how people really need these third parties to develop in a healthy way.

[01:09:51] Sure, sure.

[01:09:53] No, it's long been sort of, call it folk wisdom if you like, but every teenager needs a trusted adult they can talk to about things that they can't talk to their parents about.

[01:10:06] Right, right. It takes a village, right? How many times have you heard that in your life?

[01:10:11] Oh well, yeah, quite a few. Quite a few.

[01:10:17] The master summoner.

[01:10:19] Right. Dragonfly builds her village with those four wonderful mages who recognize that she's onto something or they're onto something with her or that she brings something that they need because they recognize that the rift is still not made good, but they're still in the midst of disorder.

[01:10:44] And they're papering it over madly.

[01:10:48] But they realize, no, this is not good.

[01:10:54] The pattern says what goes too long unchanged destroys itself.

[01:11:00] The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives.

[01:11:04] I will not let this dead hand touch me. He's talking about the summoner.

[01:11:10] Or touch the king who brought us hope. A promise was made, made through me. I spoke it.

[01:11:15] A woman on Gaunt. I will not see that word forgotten.

[01:11:20] So he recognizes that patterns are being disrupted and are still in disorder and that something is needed.

[01:11:29] They have no idea what. And you don't have an idea of what because all you know is the old order isn't working.

[01:11:37] And trying to figure things out can only land you back in the old order.

[01:11:41] Right. And it's certainly about imposing control and so forth.

[01:11:44] So those who are willing to allow disorder to be disorder for the purpose of eventually accepting and transcending

[01:11:56] what had happened to get to a new order.

[01:12:01] Those are the ones who can sit in uncertainty.

[01:12:05] Right. And receive something completely new if they sense that yes, this is what we need.

[01:12:14] Maybe she has something to teach us.

[01:12:18] And I'm glad you brought up a woman on Gaunt. Where are we going with that?

[01:12:23] That goes back a long way, doesn't it?

[01:12:26] Well, so my initial instinct of course is Tenar, right?

[01:12:31] But then there's a pretty strong sentiment that it's not Tenar.

[01:12:37] Like they bring her up and they say, yeah, it's not her. It's not her though.

[01:12:41] So is this Tehanu? Is this Tharu?

[01:12:46] You're going to have to read the other way. Oh boy.

[01:12:49] I'm not going to spoil it, John. Come on.

[01:12:52] Well, I'm excited now. Well, good.

[01:12:55] It got me on the hype train as the cat's gate.

[01:12:59] All right. And Asfer names this thing the other breath, you know, and eventually we get the other wind.

[01:13:10] What he meant was she spoke with the other breath, meaning the voice of prophecy,

[01:13:14] which was the voice he used when he said a woman on Gaunt.

[01:13:18] Right. Right.

[01:13:20] So we must follow her, the herbalist asked.

[01:13:23] This time the doorkeeper nodded. He smiled faintly and said, so it would seem.

[01:13:32] So the master summoner, how did he get this way? How did this happen?

[01:13:38] This comes from the end of the farthest shore where Ged and Arian,

[01:13:48] Libanan are traveling there and they're following the trail of Qab.

[01:13:55] And Ged runs into the summoner who had himself without instruction or really telling anybody,

[01:14:07] had tried to summon to see Ged, to see where he was, to see what was going on and wound up in the dead land

[01:14:19] and could not find his way back.

[01:14:22] Oh, wow. And Ged on his way down the hill, following the trail of Qab,

[01:14:28] encountered the summoner in the dry land and told him it's that way.

[01:14:34] Go uphill. But he had to keep going and he never knew what happened to the summoner.

[01:14:40] And the body of the summoner was lying in some kind of a trance or coma or whatever you want to call it

[01:14:48] and eventually did wake up and seemed to be, you know, whole and healthy and, you know, returned.

[01:14:59] But in point of fact, he had summoned himself back from the other land.

[01:15:05] And this is going to be a very key piece in The Other Wind, this action that he undertook.

[01:15:13] So he's, you know, if you want to talk about the walking dead.

[01:15:19] There you go. This is the Earthseas version of the zombie, I suppose you could say.

[01:15:26] Because he was such a powerful summoner, he could summon the dead.

[01:15:31] And himself. That's pretty crazy to me. That's what really, like, yeah, I'm in the dead.

[01:15:36] Everybody's done it. Everybody's done it. Wizards and books.

[01:15:39] But summoning yourself from the dead. Now that's something else.

[01:15:43] Well, and remember, it was summoning the dead that got Ged into his trouble and got him his scars.

[01:15:49] Right. Had the whole first plot of the first book.

[01:15:54] So it doesn't seem to be a very good thing to do.

[01:15:58] But again, this is, you know, who's going to say no to the summoner? Right.

[01:16:03] He's very powerful. And the people who were not in favor of Irian, who were terrified of her,

[01:16:11] were following the summoner because he represented power and, OK, he's going to be our next archmage.

[01:16:17] You throw this woman out now and the mage will definitely carry her away.

[01:16:22] And one of the four who are protecting her say, I have no doubt of that.

[01:16:27] But I also have every doubt that Irian is going to cooperate. Yeah.

[01:16:33] And, you know, we're not going to let you. Yeah.

[01:16:37] And so it's interesting because by allying themselves with the eventual villain

[01:16:44] and the minute the master summoner comes in, you're like, OK, that's the villain.

[01:16:47] She doesn't hide it very well. I wrote in my notes, incoming villain, the master summoner.

[01:16:53] But yeah, you know, the fact that he was so kind of I don't want to say evil, but getting there in the end.

[01:17:04] Very dark in the end and clearly lacked the wisdom to be able to let go.

[01:17:10] Let's let go of himself into death. Yes.

[01:17:13] The word I'm thinking right now is inflexible. Yeah, I think that the his allies now are going to be forced to reconsider their position.

[01:17:22] Oh, yeah. Because now they know that they were allied with the madman.

[01:17:26] Well, and let's remember to what does Asra say?

[01:17:29] The force dies and dies and therefore it lives. Right. Right.

[01:17:34] The summoner, just like Cobb has rejected death. Yeah.

[01:17:38] And that's the theme that comes up again and again and will eventually come up in the other wind as well.

[01:17:44] Because let us also realize that this concept of the dry land with the wall is the antithesis of the equilibrium and balance.

[01:17:56] Because it's there is no life in it and there's no sense that there can ever be life.

[01:18:03] Right. So at the heart of this system, again, just like at the heart of major is this out of balance place called Roke.

[01:18:14] Right. We have this other place that is very much not about balance.

[01:18:19] Right. And yet the mages can make use of it.

[01:18:23] And I think initially when she first conceived of the series, she conceived of this place as an alternative afterlife to what we were most accustomed to seeing in other speculative fiction.

[01:18:38] But the more she considered it, the more she realized there's not there's something not right here.

[01:18:45] It doesn't match the flow of things.

[01:18:48] It stops the flow. And that's not equilibrium.

[01:18:54] So it's just so amazing that climax. I just love it.

[01:19:00] They climb up on the hill of Roke where everything is what it is and not what it seems.

[01:19:07] Right. And still the summoner is trying to defeat her, trying to, you know, he summons her by her name and binds her to obey him.

[01:19:17] Which, by the way, it's her incomplete name that saves her. Right.

[01:19:22] It's her dual name that saves her. Yes. Right.

[01:19:25] Irian is her complete name as her human self.

[01:19:29] Right. Right. She also has a dragon name.

[01:19:32] She doesn't know it yet because you can't know your own name.

[01:19:35] Somebody else has to give it to you, which is exactly what Rose said.

[01:19:40] Right. But because she has enough knowledge that she is not only Irian.

[01:19:47] She is able to not be bound by him because he hasn't spoken both of her names.

[01:19:52] He's only spoken one of them.

[01:19:55] And as she exerts her power, she suddenly the fire breaks out from him.

[01:20:04] She towers above him impossibly.

[01:20:08] A flame of a flare of red flame in the dusk air, a gleam of red gold scales of vast wings.

[01:20:13] Then that was gone.

[01:20:16] And there was nothing there but the woman standing on the hill path and the tall man bowing down before her, bowing slowly down to earth and lying on it.

[01:20:27] Of them all, it was the herbal, the healer who was first to move.

[01:20:30] He went up the path and knelt down by Thorion.

[01:20:33] My lord, he said, my friend.

[01:20:36] Under the huddle of the gray cloak, his hands found only a huddle of clothes and dry bones and a broken staff.

[01:20:45] This is better, Thorion, he said.

[01:20:48] But he was weeping.

[01:20:55] She knows how to write her some language and description and storytelling, doesn't she?

[01:21:00] Especially as someone as pithy as she is.

[01:21:03] And she really, I mean, this story is so short, but it has so much meaning packed into it.

[01:21:09] It's dense.

[01:21:11] It's like soccer torches, like really thick chocolate cake.

[01:21:14] I feel like not a ton more happened in this than most of the other books.

[01:21:20] No.

[01:21:21] Event wise, right?

[01:21:23] Yeah, yeah.

[01:21:24] No, the events are fairly simple and straightforward.

[01:21:28] Right.

[01:21:29] Can be told in 10 minutes, but it's the meaning.

[01:21:33] Right.

[01:21:34] And the implication because I think we're left with this many questions as answers.

[01:21:39] I mean, you know, she gives the doorkeeper the last word here because Asver is looking around and then saying, well, what do we do now?

[01:21:51] And the doorkeeper answered.

[01:21:53] He said, I think we should go to our house and open its doors.

[01:21:57] I love that.

[01:21:59] Yeah.

[01:22:00] Such a great closer.

[01:22:01] It really is.

[01:22:02] It really is amazing because it leaves the door open for the next book.

[01:22:10] Right.

[01:22:11] Right.

[01:22:12] And can I just say, I really loved when I realized that we're reading this book in the Year of the Dragon.

[01:22:19] Yeah.

[01:22:20] And we've now had two women who are, you know, are drag are closely associated with dragons or, you know, children are dragons or become dragons, whatever you want to describe it.

[01:22:30] At Colby, I spoke to several women of Asian descent, Asian Americans or from Asian countries who follow the same Chinese system of Asian system of the year of, you know, whatever animal.

[01:22:49] And they said that mothers really didn't want their daughters to be born in dragon years, that it was a very bad thing for a woman to be born in a dragon year because it was very difficult culturally for a woman to embody all that power and strength.

[01:23:09] And they admitted to having trouble with it themselves because of their cultural messages, both given and received about how hard it is to be a woman in a dragon.

[01:23:25] And as we said before, we see that in Irian slash dragon name, whatever it is, we have a Thera without the disabilities who had some friends and a support system.

[01:23:37] And two very different outcomes.

[01:23:40] But of course, we haven't seen Thera's complete outcome yet.

[01:23:44] Sure.

[01:23:45] Yeah, it's big difference when you have a different upbringing and when you have a different support system.

[01:23:54] And I think when Theroux did have a support system she was able to become Tehanu.

[01:23:59] Yes, yes, she was.

[01:24:01] And she comes to think of Ged and Tanar as her parents.

[01:24:08] She hasn't yet done that for Kalesan, I don't think so.

[01:24:13] Watch this space.

[01:24:16] Well, that's a good note to leave it on.

[01:24:19] But we've got some listener feedback.

[01:24:21] Excellent.

[01:24:22] Just one, just one this time.

[01:24:24] We've got, you know, you can join us next time.

[01:24:27] You don't have to just sit here and listen.

[01:24:29] You can join us next time by going to thelorhounds.com and heading to the contact page where you can leave a contact form entry or a voicemail.

[01:24:37] You can also send an email to book at thelorhounds.com.

[01:24:42] But we've got one voicemail tonight from Brian 8063, longtime friend of the pod and lawmaster.

[01:24:49] Yay, Brian.

[01:24:51] Hi, Marilyn, John and David.

[01:24:53] David's not here.

[01:24:54] Dragonfly is another good installment in our series.

[01:24:57] Here are a few observations for me.

[01:25:00] On one level, I sense it's about equality.

[01:25:03] Dragonfly wants to enter the rogue school, just like many women who wanted to go to college and they were denied.

[01:25:10] My institution did not become fully coeducational until 1970.

[01:25:16] In the Earthsea world, there's no mention of legal courts that help colleges in this world become coeducational.

[01:25:24] I see a critique of elite college admissions here when Dragonfly says, quote, they get into the school because they're rich and they study there just to get richer or to get power, end quote.

[01:25:39] The character Ivory threw me at first.

[01:25:42] In the beginning he seemed okay, but like other wizards in the previous books, you cannot trust all of them.

[01:25:49] His motive for getting Dragonfly into the schools revealed, quote, all his notions of humiliating the masters as they had humiliated him were moonshine, end quote.

[01:26:01] This made me angry, then pitiful.

[01:26:04] Ivory clearly is damaged.

[01:26:07] Finally, as some of the mages turn their back on Dragonfly, opposed to her admission, they say, quote, witcher, sacrilege, defilement, end quote.

[01:26:21] I was wondering if these are the same prejudicial words that the Catholic Church and some other denominations think to oppose female priests and clergy.

[01:26:32] Probably the word used or thought more often is sacrilege.

[01:26:40] Thanks once again for all your insights.

[01:26:43] Still without a book, Brian, 8063.

[01:26:48] Brian.

[01:26:49] Lovely to.

[01:26:50] Yeah, go ahead Marilyn but I think you were going to say the same thing as me.

[01:26:53] It's always lovely to hear from you, Brian.

[01:26:55] Yeah.

[01:26:56] You really, you think deeply about things and it shows.

[01:27:01] So thoughtful.

[01:27:02] So thoughtful.

[01:27:03] And I think Brian echoed a lot of the same things that we were saying throughout.

[01:27:07] Interesting that he landed on universities and so forth.

[01:27:10] Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.

[01:27:12] I think which is funny that we didn't think of it because it's a pretty obvious comparison, isn't it?

[01:27:16] Well, it is like many comparisons, you know, it's obvious once you see it.

[01:27:20] Right, right, true.

[01:27:22] The thing is there is only one quote unquote university on Roke and it does have one qualification, which is you have to have, you have to have the innate power, however that manifests for you.

[01:27:36] But of course the truth is it manifests in all genders.

[01:27:40] And it's the cultural overlays that have said oh no no no no when it manifests in women it's evil, wicked, bad, etc.

[01:27:49] Right.

[01:27:50] I was reminded of, you know, 19th century and even late 19th century statements by people that women should never attend college because their ovaries would shrivel and they would not be able to reproduce which was their true function in life.

[01:28:08] Boy, there's a lot of cause and effect issues there.

[01:28:11] Wow.

[01:28:13] And, you know, this question of why the resistance within the Catholic Church and possibly still other denominations and other religions against women priests, women imam.

[01:28:27] I don't, I don't know much about Islam and whether or not women could be leaders.

[01:28:32] I tend to think not but that may be my ignorance.

[01:28:34] Please anybody who knows please write in and correct me.

[01:28:40] I think it's a clinging to tradition, a desire to maintain order in the face of chaos, in the face of, you know, but how can we possibly do this and then finding reasons to justify.

[01:28:59] And whether it's words like heresy or witch or never before.

[01:29:05] I mean, that's a big one.

[01:29:07] You know, we can't do that because it's never been done before.

[01:29:09] Classic attempts at staying within an order which really no longer applies.

[01:29:18] And, you know, I've lived through the times when within the Episcopal Church and actually it's the Anglican Communion in England were working on this question of women bishops.

[01:29:31] And I was asked to give a talk.

[01:29:33] I was, this is a sabbatical year I was working in the York Minster Library which was fabulous time I was working in an archive that had materials that were thousand years old so talk about a pig and clover.

[01:29:44] I mean, I was just having the time of my life.

[01:29:46] And they knew that I was studying feminist spirituality and so I was asked to give a talk to the local groups that were meeting together to consider this men and women.

[01:29:58] It was a very good process, I think.

[01:30:01] But they just wanted to hear more about, you know, the feminine aspect of some of these issues.

[01:30:09] And so I asked the person who was inviting me to do this.

[01:30:12] Well, I just need to get a sense of my audience.

[01:30:15] You want me to talk about feminist spirituality?

[01:30:17] If I say the word goddess, are people going to get up and leave?

[01:30:22] And she said, well you might raise a few flutters if you do.

[01:30:28] So I gave an entire talk about feminist spirituality and I never said the word goddess because I wanted my audience to hear me.

[01:30:35] Right.

[01:30:36] And I knew there were certain things that if I said it would the walls would come down and that would be the end of it.

[01:30:41] And why would I want that?

[01:30:43] So I gave a talk about feminist spirituality and didn't use the word goddess.

[01:30:46] And afterwards, people came up to me and said, well, you know, our Catholic practice in our particular country, which was not, you know, the UK, we basically relate to Mary in the same way you're talking about people relating to, you know, goddesses.

[01:31:02] They used the word.

[01:31:04] Right.

[01:31:05] So it's going to happen.

[01:31:07] It's going to happen.

[01:31:09] And the only question is, do you want to be part of the change or are you going to, you know, drag your heels into the last possible minute?

[01:31:17] Right.

[01:31:18] And then decide to leave.

[01:31:20] I mean within the United States there are Episcopal churches that have separated themselves over this issue of female feminine priests.

[01:31:33] The Methodist Church is being sundered.

[01:31:35] It's sundered.

[01:31:36] It's split in two over the question of LGBTQ plus ministers.

[01:31:41] Now, I knew at least three in Maine alone in central Maine.

[01:31:46] And this was 40 years ago.

[01:31:49] So it seems to me that, you know, that door was opened a long time ago and people just weren't saying much about it.

[01:31:58] But it's also a regional issue.

[01:32:00] You know, you ask this question in different parts of the world, parts of any country and you're going to get different answers.

[01:32:07] Yeah.

[01:32:08] But also, I think generally and whether it's religion or politics or just social movements in general, when a new idea is starting to win, when the tides are starting to shift, you will see an aggressive last gasp at the old regime.

[01:32:29] Yeah. That's when the nastiest behavior begins.

[01:32:32] And that here, bringing it back to Earthsy, that here is the master summoner trying to make Eurian submit.

[01:32:39] Yeah.

[01:32:40] And clinging to power and clinging to the old ways.

[01:32:45] Right.

[01:32:46] Which, yeah, it's just you wonder, knowing that he's basically a dead human,

[01:32:56] shuffling around, although presumably he's not shuffling around.

[01:32:59] But you know, you get those echoes of, you know, the walking dead and zombies and all those other kinds of things.

[01:33:08] For what? For what reason?

[01:33:11] And how is that possibly connected with balance and equilibrium and the flow of life?

[01:33:17] Only in dying life.

[01:33:20] Yeah.

[01:33:22] Well, I think that instead of clinging to life like that, we should all become goat farmers in our retirement.

[01:33:31] Yes. Well, we're beginning to see the signs of reorder.

[01:33:35] Yes.

[01:33:36] We're beginning to see pointers to the direction it might come.

[01:33:41] But there's still a huge, huge supporting story and body of knowledge that we have only just begun to hear hints of.

[01:33:54] Right.

[01:33:55] And that's what is accomplished in The Other Wind.

[01:33:58] That's where we really see the reorder taking place.

[01:34:03] I think that's a good place to leave it.

[01:34:05] And I'm excited to talk about The Other Wind with you.

[01:34:08] I'm just excited to read it because now I want to know what happened.

[01:34:11] Got to find out.

[01:34:13] Yes, yes.

[01:34:15] You may want to read it twice.

[01:34:16] It's another book that not unlike Dragonfly.

[01:34:19] Yeah, I probably will.

[01:34:21] I probably will because it's dense.

[01:34:24] It's all done stuff.

[01:34:26] Well, thanks everyone for being with us on another lovely episode of Earthsea.

[01:34:30] Let me tell you all about what we're doing next.

[01:34:33] Of course, on Earthsea, we're going to be doing The Other Wind next in full, I think.

[01:34:38] We'll see.

[01:34:40] But we will be at least covering part of it.

[01:34:42] We'll finish it off eventually.

[01:34:43] Yeah, yeah.

[01:34:44] Come on.

[01:34:45] You know what I mean.

[01:34:46] In one podcast.

[01:34:47] How many pieces are we going to do?

[01:34:48] Right, right.

[01:34:49] In one podcast or seven.

[01:34:51] So we've got a lot of other shows going on right now in the Lorehounds Network.

[01:34:55] We've got Marilyn's own podcast, Rings and Rituals.

[01:34:58] Just dropped a new episode the day that we're recording this, which will be about a week ago by the time this comes out for the public.

[01:35:05] But you can check that out now.

[01:35:07] It's the episode on Adar.

[01:35:08] So you are...

[01:35:10] Well, why don't I let you pitch it, Marilyn?

[01:35:11] What's Rings and Rituals about?

[01:35:14] Rings and Rituals is taking a look at the series Rings of Power through the lens of ritual.

[01:35:21] And looking at the ways that Payne and McKay conceived of the different communities that we know from the Legendarium.

[01:35:31] And episode three, Adar, in many respects is probably my favorite one.

[01:35:37] It was the one in which I realized I've got to do something about this misconception.

[01:35:43] And I don't want to write a book.

[01:35:45] Articles aren't going to reach everybody.

[01:35:47] Maybe I should do a podcast.

[01:35:51] That's where it all started.

[01:35:53] It's a dangerous inclination, Marilyn, because it starts to take up all your time.

[01:35:58] Well, there is that.

[01:35:59] But you know, it was already taking up my time with the Lorehounds, you know, all the wonderful times that you guys asked me on to talk about things that I love so much.

[01:36:09] So I have a co-host in Dr. Saurabh Brown, who is a she is a Tolkien scholar.

[01:36:17] I know stuff and so forth, but she's head of faculty at Signum University.

[01:36:22] And she writes amazing papers and she gives amazing lectures and she teaches online.

[01:36:27] So if you're no of her ever interested in taking courses from her, Signum is an online university.

[01:36:35] And you can she does teaches a lot of what they call space courses, which are not for credit.

[01:36:40] And you don't have to write papers.

[01:36:41] It's just a bunch of Tolkien lovers getting together and talking about Tolkien or about Earthsea or about all the other things that they do.

[01:36:48] Anyway, we're going to be doing one episode for each episode that was in the series.

[01:36:56] Plus a bunch of extras.

[01:36:57] We have sort of two prequel series.

[01:36:59] And John did one bonus episode with me on music and ritual in the series.

[01:37:06] And that was a lot of fun.

[01:37:07] So and I've had we've had feedback that people say, yeah, I didn't really like the series that much.

[01:37:14] But this is really interesting because you're giving me a new perspective or you're showing me more about ritual or, you know, they're finding other reasons for deciding to watch it.

[01:37:23] One person had written to say, you know, I don't really know the series all that well, but I'm really interested in the topic of ritual.

[01:37:33] And, you know, do you think I would enjoy it?

[01:37:35] And we basically said, well, give us a try.

[01:37:37] And in fact, they did enjoy it and they're just sticking with us.

[01:37:41] So that's always very gratifying.

[01:37:43] If you're enjoying this Earthsea podcast, you're going to like it.

[01:37:46] I'm just going to tell you that.

[01:37:47] So please go subscribe to the feed.

[01:37:49] Give it a nice positive rating and there will already be a bunch of episodes waiting for you there.

[01:37:53] Yes, a whole bunch that you can binge if you decide you want to.

[01:37:57] Yep.

[01:37:58] Well, that's another thing to say is that we we we drop episodes every other week.

[01:38:02] So I know that can be a little difficult to follow along, but hopefully you'll be sufficiently engaged that they'll figure it out in two weeks.

[01:38:11] They'll figure it out.

[01:38:13] We've also got another pretty new feed called Radioactive Ramblings.

[01:38:18] And Aaron and Chase are currently covering the fallout series on Amazon Prime, which is getting rave reviews.

[01:38:25] And people are loving the podcast.

[01:38:28] It's growing quick.

[01:38:30] And you can find that in the show notes.

[01:38:32] I know they're going to be covering something after fallout, but I don't know what it is yet.

[01:38:38] I'm waiting with bated breath.

[01:38:41] But yeah, they're doing a great job and they've already covered most of the series.

[01:38:45] They're going to cover the last two episodes very soon.

[01:38:50] We've also got Wool Shift Dust.

[01:38:53] Alicia's covering Beacon 23 Season 2, another book adaptation by Hugh Howey.

[01:38:59] She did an interview with author Hugh Howey.

[01:39:01] So check that out on her feed.

[01:39:03] And she's got some Dune stuff coming too, as well as something Star Wars related.

[01:39:08] But I don't know how much they're allowed to say about that yet.

[01:39:12] Yes, actually I've conversed with her a little bit about that.

[01:39:15] Yeah, sounds really fun.

[01:39:16] So there are some interesting possibilities.

[01:39:18] Then the silliness of Properly Howard is also back with Season 2 of Properly Howard.

[01:39:25] Is it Season 2? I don't know.

[01:39:27] It's a new season theme, Felonies and Fugazies.

[01:39:32] And they are covering a bunch of movies in the crime genre.

[01:39:38] Point Break, Shakedown, Tango and Cash, Pulp Fiction, Gross Point Blank and Rocky.

[01:39:46] Point Break is out now already.

[01:39:48] And by the time this podcast comes out, Shakedown should be out too, at least on the public feed.

[01:39:53] Patreon, their podcast, might not be out yet.

[01:39:56] But yeah, it's a great time.

[01:39:58] I don't even watch the movies usually and I listen to them and it's really fun.

[01:40:03] They just kind of joke around about the movies and make fun of them a little

[01:40:06] and decide whether they are better, worse or on par with the average Ron Howard movie.

[01:40:15] Are you going to explain what a Fugazi is?

[01:40:18] Should I? I don't even remember.

[01:40:20] Didn't we talk about this last night?

[01:40:22] We did, but some people might not listen to...

[01:40:25] It's used as a term to describe a situation as fucked up.

[01:40:30] Oh man, I ruined our clean rating for this podcast.

[01:40:33] That's alright. They'll get over it.

[01:40:37] A snafu.

[01:40:38] If you will.

[01:40:40] Well, that includes the unspeakable word that she just spoke.

[01:40:47] So it's a clean way to say that.

[01:40:49] Fugazi. Alright.

[01:40:51] So we'll also be back with Stephen Anthony to cover Severance once that's back.

[01:40:56] Of course, we've got plenty more on the Lorehounds feeds.

[01:40:59] We've got Shogun going strong.

[01:41:03] One or two more episodes coming depending on when you listen to this.

[01:41:07] And it's a really amazing season.

[01:41:09] Like if you're at all interested in Game of Thrones-y type stuff,

[01:41:12] this is the show for you.

[01:41:14] This is coming in hot.

[01:41:17] Speaking of hot, Hot D is just around the corner.

[01:41:20] House of the Dragon.

[01:41:22] And we are going to be doing a season one re-watch in the lead up to season two.

[01:41:26] Because we didn't cover season one, but we're going to give you guys some coverage.

[01:41:29] I think one podcast for every two episodes of the show leading up into season two.

[01:41:35] And then we're going to be doing full coverage from there.

[01:41:38] Also in June is like every other show that's coming out this year.

[01:41:41] Like Doctor Who, The Acolyte, The Boys, The Bear.

[01:41:45] And we're going to figure out what we're doing.

[01:41:48] We're going to do some kind of coverage for all those things.

[01:41:51] We just need to figure out exactly what we're doing.

[01:41:53] And how many hours a night you're going to sleep.

[01:41:55] I know, I know, I know.

[01:41:57] I know Alicia is going to be helping us out with some coverage of some of those shows.

[01:42:00] So that will be a big help.

[01:42:02] Yay, Alicia.

[01:42:04] The Halo Lorehounds play episode is out now with me, Brandon and Jon.

[01:42:08] We're talking about the game series and also a little bit about the TV series.

[01:42:14] Marilyn, you have a Dick Turpin one-shot coming out with David soon.

[01:42:18] Whenever you can record that.

[01:42:20] It's a wonderful light lanyard to sort of clear the palette from all this heavy murder, sex, wars, battles, aliens.

[01:42:31] It's just very funny, interesting historical references.

[01:42:36] Yeah, a roll of good time.

[01:42:38] And yeah, David's also doing another one-shot with Civil War.

[01:42:42] I'm not sure exactly who's on that.

[01:42:44] I think it's Jon and Ron Dawson, who you may have heard on one of our previous podcasts.

[01:42:49] And I know he also did another one-shot.

[01:42:52] You know, everybody's doing one-shots these days on Mr. and Mrs. Smith with David.

[01:42:56] Right, right.

[01:42:59] So plenty of stuff coming.

[01:43:01] Oh, and I didn't even mention if you're into books, still Merlion stories.

[01:43:04] We just did that of men.

[01:43:06] Yes.

[01:43:08] Lots of stuff on the feeds.

[01:43:10] Whole bunch more chapters to come.

[01:43:12] You know, I poked fun at David the other day because he did a 15 minute outro with Alicia.

[01:43:17] And I'm like, it's kind of hard to do it in less than that because we have so much going on.

[01:43:21] Yeah, it really is.

[01:43:23] It's time for Patreon and shout outs.

[01:43:27] Patreon is a lovely way to support us, to help us keep doing these things.

[01:43:31] Keep doing late nights.

[01:43:32] Keep doing two hour podcasts on short stories.

[01:43:35] And it's as little as three bucks a month.

[01:43:38] You get early and ad free episodes of the podcast.

[01:43:41] Patrons are going to get this one pretty early.

[01:43:43] So, you know, you're missing out.

[01:43:45] You're missing out.

[01:43:46] And you also get access to Second Breakfast, our monthly show where we talk about nothing and everything.

[01:43:52] We talk about everything.

[01:43:53] Lorehounds related, personal life related, and just kind of BS about some things.

[01:43:59] And we talk about one breakfast food every month too, which is a lot of fun.

[01:44:03] I'm really looking forward to the next Second Breakfast.

[01:44:06] I think it'll be good.

[01:44:07] And I think it'll be a return to form because I was going through a lot at home last Second Breakfast.

[01:44:12] So we it was just there was a cloud upon it.

[01:44:15] But now we're all back.

[01:44:18] Both you and David have been through the mill lately.

[01:44:20] I know.

[01:44:21] I know.

[01:44:22] Well, I think that we're in a good spot now and I appreciate everybody, especially our Discord server boosters, Opus and the Machine, Narls, Aaron K.

[01:44:32] Tiller the Thriller, Dork of the Ninjas and Doof71.

[01:44:37] And I also really appreciate our Lore Masters, our top tier patrons and Supercast subscribers, which are Submarshion, Mark H, Michael G, Michelle E, David W, Brian P, Nick W, SC, Peter OH, Bettina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Doof71, Brian8063,

[01:44:56] Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Eric F, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Andra B, Kuang Yu, Dead Eye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, SubZero, Aaron K, Dally V21, Mothership61, our newest Lore Master, Narls and Adrian.

[01:45:19] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:45:22] And the last shall be first. David's writing these weird phrases under here. I don't know what he means by them.

[01:45:30] All right, thanks everyone. Thanks to all our patrons. Thanks to all our listeners. It's been a fun ride through Earthsea with you again, Marilyn.

[01:45:37] Oh, it's delightful, John. Thank you so much. And yeah, looking forward to the other wind.

[01:45:44] I'll see you there.

[01:45:45] To wrap things up. Yes, see you there.

[01:45:49] The Lore Hounds podcast is produced and published by the Lore Hounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the lorehounds.com slash contact.

[01:45:58] Get early and ad free access to all Lore Hounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lore Hounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.

[01:46:09] Thanks for listening.

[01:46:14] Hey listeners, if you've been listening to our show, chances are you've heard the wonderful contributions of our favorite Tolkien scholar Marilyn R. Pukila. Marilyn just launched her own podcast on our network called Rings and Rituals.

[01:46:27] Join me and Dr. Sara Brown on our journey through the Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power, through the lens of ritual. Episodes drop every other Wednesday on the Rings and Rituals feed linked in the show notes. See you there.