In the second chapter I have attempted, by virtue of textual analysis, to
dismantle Roke School—the hierarchical authority in the dualistic Earthsea world.
Le Guin’s descriptions on the school, its wizards and the whole wizardly hierarchy in the second trilogy, particularly in Tales from Earthsea, apparently collide with those in the first trilogy, which shows her distrust to the previous hypotheses in the first three Earthsea books. Thanks to the developing feminist awareness as displayed in her non-fictional pieces, Le Guin gradually realizes that the balance and equilibrium of Earthsea is founded on a dualistic basis that comprises a series of man-made stigmatization and discrimination against women, Nature and all the
minorities—namely, the Other. For the privileged wizards, as a result, the greatest mission is to maintain not simply the equilibrium but their domination over Earthsea.
As the centralized authority in Earthsea, Roke School plays the most significant role in upholding the Rule of Roke, which seems to seek out balance for the world but actually guarantees Roke wizards’ dominant position by distaining and then excluding the Other. On the one hand, the deconstruction of the wizard school along with its regulations helps readers learn of the inherent injustice in the highly hierarchical
wizardly world; on the other hand, it connects Earthsea to the real life because this kind of unjust power relation exists both in the magical and the real worlds.
Earthsea, in this sense, is Le Guin’s reflection on reality. It is obvious that Le Guin does not care for the hierarchical structure either in Earthsea or in the real world, so in
Tales from Earthsea she reviews Earthsea’s past and then puts forward quite a few
elements that challenge and thus destabilize the wizardly hierarchy, hoping to change the somewhat rigid power structure and gender construction of the first trilogy. It is these subversive facts posed in Tales that I have discussed in the second chapter.
Although Le Guin has deconstructed the wizardly authority and motivated readers to rethink the essence of the wizardly hierarchy through the historical review, she has not made radical changes to overturn the hierarchical order until she travels back to its present—in “Dragonfly,” the last story in Tales, and in The Other Wind. Therefore, in this chapter I would like to delve into the principal changes that now are taking place in Earthsea. In addition to representing Le Guin’s rethinking on the wizardly world, these changes, I would argue, will lead Earthsea to a new social order that also reveals the writer’s expectations for the real world —one that tends to be democratic rather than hierarchical.
This chapter is divided into four parts. First of all, I will read the novella
“Dragonfly” as a bridge between the fourth and the sixth Earthsea books—Tehanu and
The Other Wind. Besides, its main protagonist—Irian, who is both human and
dragon—blurs the originally rigid boundaries of human and animal and destabilizes the hierarchical hegemony established by male-dominated Roke School with its disciplines. In other words, the appearance of Irian highlights the beginning of changes and simultaneously foreshadows the decline of the biased dualistic structure in Earthsea. Secondly, I will investigate the changing view of wizardry and the meaning of dragons in The Other Wind, in which the most crucial modifications are made and being made in order to get Earthsea out of the dualistic entrapment. In this latest Earthsea book, the readers are explicitly informed that the appropriation of wizardry, which signifies men’s monopoly of power and greed for immortality, tears the magical world apart and therefore must be forsaken so as to mend the world.
Only through giving up on wizardry, that is, abandoning the wizardly hierarchy or, in a broader sense, relinquishing the dualistic world order can the unbalanced power relation in Earthsea be changed into a more equal one. Yet what needs to be mended is not only the world but also humanity. The Other Wind provides readers with another important fact that human and dragon are from the same roots despite that they have been separated since long ago. In the first trilogy, dragons are represented as evil beings against humans, just like witches versus wizards, and they are expelled to the furthest Western Reach by men. Le Guin’s dragons, in this sense, symbolize
the excluded others in Earthsea—women, children, the disabled, the elderly and so on.
In addition to the exiled minorities, part of humanity—such as sexuality—has been repressed and twisted by the wizardly hierarchy. Similarly, many of the Earthsea dragons have been damaged by the male constructed world so severely that they lose certain inherent capacities, such as flying, speaking and reasoning, and then become totally irrational. For this reason, I would argue that the Earthsea dragons serve as a trope for the repressed part of humanity—the primitive, the wild, the uncontrollable and the animal. Consequently, in the third part of this chapter I would like to probe into the changing images of dragons in Earthsea Cycle, trying to find out how Le Guin’s dragons help with the recovery of the world and that of humanity. Finally, I will specify all the major changes from the first to the second trilogy in the last part of the chapter. These changes can best manifest Le Guin’s feminist transformation and the power shifts in the fictional world—a movement from an order of oppression to that of freedom. By re-placing power, Le Guin has revised Earthsea, a revision which projects her expectations for the real world.
“Dragonfly” is the last story in Tales from Earthsea as well as a “dragon bridge” between Tehanu and The Other Wind as Le Guin claims in the foreword of
Tales (xv). For one thing, the story happens some time after the end of Tehanu and
before the start of The Other Wind. Chronologically speaking, “Dragonfly” bridges
the time gap between the fourth and the sixth Earthsea book. For another, although suspicion and doubt about the wizardly hierarchy have been brought forth, there are no concrete attempts being made to challenge or change the hierarchical authority in
Tehanu. In other words, the function of the fourth book is to equip its readers with
subversive feminist reflection on the hierarchical social order in Earthsea. Yet the crucial challenges and changes, after being implicitly foreshadowed in Tehanu, need some time to mature. They will begin to emerge in “Dragonfly” and soon flourish in
The Other Wind. “Dragonfly,” on this account, serves as a bridge again because this
novella in Tales connects the deconstructive thoughts in Tehanu and the upcoming radical changes in The Other Wind. To be more accurate, it is the rethinking of the wizardly hierarchy in the fourth book that brings about the initial challenges to the centralized authority—Roke School—in “Dragonfly”; furthermore, it is the surfacing challenges in “Dragonfly” that give rise to a changed social order in the sixth book.
That “Dragonfly” is the bridge of the two texts is therefore certain. But what exactly are the challenges that occur in this story and how do they connect Tehanu and The
Other Wind? After a brief summary of the story, I would like to scrutinize, in the
following, these challenges and their significances.
Dragonfly is the daughter of a declining landlord who used to own a rich domain called Iria on the island of Way. Her mother, a mysterious woman that
“came from some other island…somewhere in the west,” died in giving birth to her (185). Being left alone to her irresponsible drunkard father, Dragonfly grows up to be extraordinarily undisciplined but sturdy. Her life starts to change radically after she is given her true name—Irian—by the witch Rose, who feels very uneasy and confused about the girl’s true name as if it is unfinished. Then, Irian meets a young wizard named Ivory—an expelled student from Roke. Ivory reveals a lot of inside information about Roke School, with which Irian is so fascinated that she longs to go there, hoping to learn of what she really is in the school. After Ivory is aware of Irian’s aspiration, he makes up a plan to help her enter the wizardly school though his assistance is not fully out of good will. On the one hand, Ivory wishes to take revenge for his drop-out and make fun of the Masters as well as the Rule of Roke by getting Irian—a woman—into the school. On the other hand, he wants to gain her trust and, more importantly, her true name so he may cast a spell to force her to sleep with him, but this attempt comes to no effect in the end.
On their way to Roke School, Ivory changes Irian’s appearance and makes her look like a boy by a semblance spell in order to fool the guardian of the Great
House—Master Doorkeeper. The Doorkeeper is not fooled, however. Even if he always has the Rule of Roke—no women are allowed—in mind, the Doorkeeper still lets Irian in and believes that she “may have come to us [the Masters of Roke] seeking
not only what she needs to know, but also what we need to know” (216). The
Doorkeeper’s decision results in a serious quarrel and a schism between the Masters.
Those insisting on upholding the Rule of Roke and thus resisting Irian’s entrance are led by Thorion—Master Summoner, who craves to replace Ged and be the new Archmage; to them, Irian’s intrusion is going to endanger not only the school but also the equilibrium of Earthsea for “[s]he can bring only confusion, dissension, and further weakness among us,” as Thorion states (218). Due to Thorion and his
followers’ opposition, Irian is restricted from entering the Great House; as a result, she is sent to the Immanent Grove to stay with Master Patterner—Azver, who has
foreseen the coming of Irian and the possible changes she is going to bring to Roke.
Staying in the Grove keeps Irian a perfect distance from the Great House, so she may see through the nature of Roke School and Thorion’s ambition. She gradually realizes that the school is nothing more than “stone walls enclosing one kind of being and keeping out all others, like a pen, a cage” (231) and Thorion has returned from the
Dry Land20 to consolidate the wizardly hierarchy only for the good of the privileged
20 In The Farthest Shore, the Archmage Ged and the king-to-be Arren went to the Dry Land, that is the Death Land, in order to destroy the destabilizing power that threatened the equilibrium of Earthsea.
The Summoner of Roke, Thorion, was so worried about their safety that he brought his spirit to Ged with his wizardly skills (Shore 183-91). When Ged met Thorion in the Dry Land, he asked the Summoner to cross the wall between the living and the dead, and go back to the living world (Shore 228-29), which proves to be a wrong decision later. The readers are clearly informed in Shore that Thorion became a living dead after his spirit traveled to the Dry Land but without an explicit clue about what has happened to Thorion afterwards. Then in “Dragonfly” from Tales, Master Patterner related to Irian the subsequent happenings and completed the event. According to the Patterner, Thorion had returned from death before the eldest dragon, Kalession, brought Ged with Arren back to Roke. Then
wizards, instead of all the other Earthsea people. So Irian’s mission, as she claims to Master Patterner, is to put an end to the wizardly school as well as Master Summoner (237). In the end, Thorion comes to destroy Irian for she “defies the Rule of Roke”
and will “break the pattern [the order]” (242). When they confront each other, Irian, against all expectations, reveals her true form, which explains why her true name is not finished—she transforms into a dragon and eliminates Thorion. Then she flies to her people—the dragons—in the place beyond the West in search of her complete true name. Before she leaves, she gives Azver her promise that she will surely come back to Roke if he ever calls.
The significance of the story lies in that it poses a great challenge and then causes a fundamental change to the wizardly authority. The Doorkeeper’s letting Irian in the Great House constitutes an enormous menace to the Rule of Roke, according to which women are forbidden to enter the school. However, as is discussed in the second chapter of the thesis, the arts of wizardry was able to be kept and passed down largely owing to the Women of the Hand—a loose wizardly
organization formed up by women with very few men. Besides, when Roke School,
his heart not beating, yet he breathed” (Tales 228). The other Masters thought the Summoner was dead and thus had the young king replaced his place in their council in order to choose a new archmage.
In the council, the Patterner gave the prophetic words—“A woman on Gont” but no one understood the meaning of the prophecy. Before long, Thorion summoned himself back into life, as he was going to be buried, and claimed “The young king had had no place among us” as well as “ ‘a woman on Gont,’
whoever she may be, has no place among the men on Roke” (Tales 229-30). Since then, Thorion, the living dead, had clearly shown his ambition to be the Archmage and made others believe that being the
whose predecessor is the Hand, was first established, it gave admittance to both male and female students. The above facts show that women are not born to be less capable of understanding or learning wizardry than men; yet, women were still driven away, as Roke School was gradually becoming institutionalized and centralized, on the ground that they might corrupt the purity of wizardry. As a result, before Irian, there has not been a single woman being allowed to enter the school for such a long time that the Earthsea people have taken it for granted that Roke School, attributing its exclusive access to men, is not where women should ever go. Irian, for this reason, plays a particularly essential role in unmaking the fixed rules forged by dominant men.
To be precise, Irian’s “intrusion” presents a huge threat to the wizardly authority
because it may invoke the memories about the earliest history of Roke’s establishment, in which women used to participate as well. It is the very part of Roke’s history that the wizards have tried to hide and even erase by clinging to their made-up rules in spite of challenges or changes. So, they are afraid of Irian for her transgression against the Rule of Roke is a crucial challenge that leads to further understanding in the complete history and the genuine nature of the wizardly authority. Once Roke’s history is fully displayed and then restored as a whole, the dirty secrets of the
male-dominated authority will be revealed—keeping wizardry pure is nothing other than an excuse that ensures men with the sole control over the high arts of wizardry
and excludes women from the authority that grows more institutionalized, centralized and thus powerful. That is to say, the Rule of Roke, in a broader sense, is a cloak for men’s ambition to monopolize power by depriving women of their right to proper training in wizardry and reducing them to an inferior status in the hierarchical world.
Then, it is plain to see why Thorion and his supporters try to expel and even destroy Irian in order to vindicate the Rule of Roke.
In addition to the above-mentioned challenge to Roke School, Irian has brought a vital change to the wizardly authority by exterminating Master Summoner—Thorion.
That Thorion summoned himself from death is motivated by his ambition, which has been implicitly revealed in Shore21 and distinctly manifested in “Dragonfly.”
According to the Summoner, “Lebannen is not truly king, since no archmage crowned him;”22 therefore, Lebannen needs “the true crown,” that is, “a second coronation” on Roke by the Archmage Thorion (“Dragonfly” 235). The Summoner’s attempt is to
persuade people of the assumption that Earthsea’s equilibrium hinges on the
21 As early as in the second chapter of The Farthest Shore, Thorion has unfolded his eagerness to prove himself. When Ged was determined to take Arren, instead of any of the Roke Masters, in search of the black things that threatened Roke’s wizardry and Earthsea’s equilibrium, Thorion showed his distrust to Ged’s decision, considering Arren incapable of being a suitable companion for this great mission. Therefore, he volunteered to replace Arren but was refused by Ged. Although Thorion’s craving for the task did not convince the Archmage Ged, it gave rise to Arren’s self-doubts. In order to cast aside the young prince’s doubts, Ged honestly told Arren that Thorion was just jealous and thus desperate to prove his loyalty and show off his great skills to the Archmage. (Shore 31-36) I would argue that Ged’s remark on Thorion pinpoints the Summoner’s ambition for excellence, which will grow so much stronger as to force him to come back from death for the position of the Archmage.
22 After his messengers failed their mission—conveying Lebannen’s wish to have Ged crown for him, Lebannen went to Gont in person to visit Ged but in vain. Ged wouldn’t like to crown Lebannen not because he refused to admit Lebannen’s legitimacy as the king but because he, having lost all the
cooperation between the King and the Archmage; thereupon, he returned from the Dry Land, just like King Lebannen did, to restore order to the world.
Although the foregoing assumption has been widely accepted in Earthsea for centuries, it is an invention that twists the genuine history and consists of wizards’
ambition. Based on “A Description of Earthsea,” “[t]he name and office of