Sadler's Lectures

Ursula K Leguin, Tehanu - Aspen, The Evil Wizard Of Re Albi - Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's novel, Tehanu, the fourth of six Earthsea books

It focuses specifically on Aspen the malevolent wizard of Re Albi and his hostility and hatred towards Tenar, Therru, and Ged

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Duration:: 17m
Broadcast on:: 19 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) Welcome to the Sadler Lectures Podcast. Responding to popular demand, I'm converting my philosophy videos into sound files you can listen to anywhere you can take an MP3. If you like what you hear and want to support my work, go to patreon.com/sadler. I hope you enjoy this lecture. In Ursula K. LeGweens' fourth Earthsea novel to Hano, we don't actually find out who the chief antagonist, the enemy, is in the novel until the very end of it in the last two chapters. And as it turns out, it is an evil wizard, a mage, actually, one who has been trained at the Isle of Roke, who has learned the high arts and who is using those arts for evil and is an evil person himself in the things that he expresses and does the attitudes that he has. His name is Aspen. He's a young man and he was hired three years before the main events in the book from the Isle of Roke for the Lord of Ray Albee. And he comes to Gaunt. He does the professional courtesies he needs to do. And then he mainly sticks to his place as we're going to see carrying out something quite evil. So we first encounter him as Ogean dies. And we have this description. When the wizard came down from the mansion house, a tall young man with a silvery staff of Pinewood and the other came up from Gaunt. Port a stout middle-aged man with a short-use staff. Auntie Moss did not look at them, but ducked and bowed and drew back gathering up her poor charms and witcheries. "Is the grave dog ass the wizard of Gaunt Port?" "Yes," said the wizard of Ray Albee. "It is dug in the graveyard of my lord's house." And he pointed toward the mansion house up on the mountain. "I see," said Gaunt Port. "I thought our mage would be buried in all honor in the city." He saved from earthquake. "My lord desires the honor," said Ray Albee. And they go back a little bit back and forth about this. The wizard from Gaunt Port is very diplomatic person. The young wizard from Ray Albee is kind of a jerk. And Tenar says his name was Aihal when they're talking about him dying nameless. His wish was to lie here where he lies now. Both men looked at her. The young man seeing a middle-aged village woman simply turned away. She is beneath him. He is contemptuous of her. Gaunt Port stared for a moment and said, "Who are you?" I am called Flint's widow, Goha, who I am as your business to know, but not mine to say. At this, the wizard of Ray Albee found her worthy of a brief stare. "Take care, woman, how you speak to men of power." And the young wizard is already taking an animus towards her. And what we see is that he views himself as a man of power. And there's two sides to that, a man and of power. If you don't have power, you're nothing to ask them. You don't matter. And he's a man. He's very misogynistic. It's clear that he hates Tenar, not just because she's accorded a certain power, but also because she's a woman and she has the temerity to speak up against him. So he's either contemptuous or he's hateful or he is fawning, you could say, in certain respects when you recognize that somebody actually has power. And he hates Tenar. It's very clear that he hates her guts for being a woman and being who she is. She is the princess or the priestess or however you want to put it, the one who brought with Ged the archmage, the ring of Arath Akba. She is a person who is honored and he cannot stand that. What we find is that when she goes to the manor, he's waiting. She's strolled on to meet him. It was Aspen, the wizard of the mansion house. He stood gracefully leaning on his tall pine staff as she came out into the road. He said, are you looking for work? No, my Lord needs field hands. This hot weather's on the turn. The hay must be got in. So he's deliberately doing this, as she knows. To go Hofflin's widow, what he said was appropriate and Goha answered him politely. No doubt your skill can turn the rain from the fields till the haze in. But he knew she was the woman to whom Ojian dying had spoken his true name. And given that knowledge, what he said was so insulting and deliberately false as to serve a clear warning. She had been about to ask him if he knew where the man handy was. Instead, she said, I came to say to the overseer here that a man he took on for haymaking left my village as a thief and worse. Not one he'd choose to have about the place, but it seems the man's moved on. Aspen said with an effort, I know nothing about these people. And she goes on, she had thought him on the morning of Ojian's death to be a young man, a tall, handsome youth with a gray cloak and silvery staff. He did not look as young as she had thought him or he was young, but somehow dried and withered. His stare and his voice were now openly contemptuous and she answered him in Goha's voice. To be sure, I beg your pardon. She wanted no trouble with him. She made to go her way back to the village, but Aspen said, wait, so now he's gonna force the issue. A thief and worse, you say, but slander's cheap and a woman's tongue worse than any thief. So you see the misogyny already there. You come up here to make bad blood among the field hands, cast in Calamian lies, the dragon seed, every witch sows behind her. Did you think I did not know you for a witch when I saw that foul imp that clings to you? Do you think I did not know how it was begotten and for what purposes? The man did well who tried to destroy that creature, but the job should be completed. You defied me once across the body of the old wizard and I forebore to punish you then for his sake and in the presence of others. But now you've come too far and I warn you woman, I will not have you set a foot on this domain. And if you cross my will or dare so much as speak to me again, I will have you driven from Rey, I'll be an off the overfell thrown off the cliff. With the dogs at your heels, have you understood me? And Tenar says, no, I've never understood men like you. So she's not giving into him as he's expecting and indeed demanding, he's threatening her. He's also saying, I know you're a witch and that child that you have Thero is a foul imp who should be killed. He's expressing his hatred. And he attempts to cast a spell on her at that point in time. He has his staff raised up. The magic is already starting to happen. And fortunately two of the king's men are there and they do honor to Tenar, which won't allow that to happen. But that is not the end of the story. We also find out that he is involved in stealing life from the grandson of the lord of Rey Albi, a very disgusting prospect, right? Moss tells this story. Tenar had asked her about the wizard Aspen, not telling her the whole story, but saying he threatened her. So she talked with the others. They all hated Aspen and were so quite ready to talk about him. Their tales must be heard as half-spyed in fear. But she found out that until Aspen came through years ago, the younger lord, the grandson had been fit and well, though a shy, solid man scared like she said. Then about the time the young lord's mother died, the old lord had sent a rope for a wizard. What for? With lord Ojian, not a mile away. And they're all witch folk themselves in the mansion. Aspen had come. He paid his respects to no more to Ojian. And always Moss said stayed up at the mansion. Since then, less and less have been seen of the grandson. And it was said now that he lay day and night in bed. Like a sick baby all shriveled ups at one of the woman who'd been into the house on some errand. But the old lord, 100 years old or near or more, the old lord was flourishing full of juice, they said. And one of the men for whom they would only have men wait on the mansion and told of the one of the women that the old lord had hired the wizard to make him live forever and that the wizard was doing that. Feeding him, the man said, off the grandson's life. So there is this vampirism almost going on, drawing from the weaker grandson for the stronger lord for pay or profit. Another evil act. We find also Aspen not only attempts to cast a spell on Tenor, but succeeds in doing so. And there's this, you know, description of like the smell of burnt hair. And it produces a deep confusion in Tenor. One of the things that's particularly insidious about this spell is that Tenor is unable to really make sense out of what's happening or how to deal with it. Here's the description, as soon as they entered the house, Tenor had knew someone had been there while they were in the village. It smelled of burnt meat and hair, the coverlet of their bed had been disarranged. When she tried to think what to do, she knew there was a spell on her. It had been laid waiting for her. She could not stop shaking and her mind was confused, slow, unable to decide. She could not think. She thought in her own language, I cannot think in heartache, I must not. She could think in Kargish, not quickly. And this is, you know, going to go on for quite a while. As a matter of fact, until they get out of there and manage to get down to the harbor and get on the sea. But not all of the effects of the spell are gone. It also makes her unable to really articulate or unwilling to articulate what is happening. There's a very interesting description while she's on the boat. She's asked, "Who is it that laid the spell on you?" And she said, "A wizard." She would not say the name. She did not want to think about all that. She wanted them all behind her. No retribution, no pursuit. Leave them to their hatreds. Put them behind her, forget. Now, that's not really characteristic of Tenar, is it? She is not a person who seeks revenge or punishment, but she's also somebody who gets angry at people doing wrong. In this case, she's like, "No, no, no, please just, I don't want to deal with it." And we find her unable over and over again to articulate what is going on. This is part of the insidiousness of the spell. There are also some emotional effects. She's able to ward off one of the emotional effects, which is quite interesting, a first spell, right? We find that there's an attempt to, here we go. That night as she lay by the sleeping child, Tenar couldn't sleep. She was restless, concerned with one petty anxiety after another. "Did I fasten the pasture gate? Does my hand ache from carding or is it arthritis beginning?" And so on. Then she became very uneasy. And thinking she heard noises outside the house, "Why haven't I got a dog?" She thought, "Stupid not to have a dog. A woman and child living alone ought to have a dog these days, but this is Ogion's house. Nobody would come here to do her evil, but Ogion is dead. Dead buried at the roots of the tree at the forest edge. And no one will come. Sparrowhawk's gone run away, not even Sparrowhawk anymore. A shadow man, no good to anyone. A dead man forced to be alive. And I have no strength. There's no good in me. I say the word of the making and it dies in my mouth. It is meaningless, a stone. I am a woman, an old woman, weak, stupid. All I do is wrong. All I touch turns to ash's shadow stone. I am the creature of darkness, swollen with darkness. Only fire can cleanse me. Only fire can eat me, eat me away like." And then she sat up and cries aloud in her own language, "Cargish, the curse be turned and turn." And she says, "You come too late, Aspen. I was eaten long ago. Go clean your own house." So the first attempt is trying to produce this emotion of despair and self-loathing within her. There's a lot going on here. The spell also has another effect, which is that when Aspen sets up this scenario with Moss to lure them back, saying, "Moss is sick. You need to come." We find that she's turned aside on the path. To the left were the roofs of Ray Albee slanting down towards the cliff's edge. To the right, the road went up to the manor house. "This way," Tenor said. "No," the child said, pointing left to the village. "This way," Tenor repeated and went off on the right-hand way. Ged came with her and they walk. And then they run into the one whose name she could not remember, Aspen, the wizard. "Welcome," he said and stopped smiling at them. So he's bewitched them. And this is where we get to the final confrontation. "What great personages have come to honor "the house of the Lord of Ray Albee," he said. "Tua'ho, that was not his name. "The bone dolphin, the bone animal, the bone child. "My Lord, Archmage," he bowed low and ged bowed to him. "And my lady, Tenor of Atuan," he bowed even lower to her. And she got down on her knees in the road. Her head sank down till she put her hands in the dirt and crouched until her mouth, too, was in the dirt of the road. He is abasing them with the magic that he has. And he's going to humiliate them as much as possible. Notice that in the humiliations that he imposes, he is very concerned, still with gender. And he wants to humiliate Tenor more than Ged. He ends up saying, "I thought the witch would bring her familiar with her, "but she brought you instead, "the Lord, Archmage, Sparrowhawk. "What a splendid substitute. "All I can do to witches and monsters "is cleanse the world of them. "He wants to destroy her. "He hates her and their own. "But to you, who used at one time to be a man, "I can talk, you're capable of rational speech, at least, "and capable of understanding punishment." So he thinks that women are not even capable of rational engagement. And this is very typical for many men, not only in his own time and the culture of Earthsea, but in our own. Now, he also reveals something really big. He is a follower of the wizard cub, who we encountered in the third novel, who had created this whole in the universe and was promising immortality to people. He says to Ged, "You thought you were safe, I suppose, "with your king on the throne, and my master, "our master destroyed. "You thought you'd had your will and destroyed "the promise of eternal life, didn't you?" He goes on and he says, "What a funny sight "to see the great archmage all got up like a goat herd "and not an ounce of magic in him." Can you say a spell, Archmage? No, not a word, my master defeated you. Now you know it. You did not conquer him, his power lives. I might keep you here alive awhile to see that power, my power, to see the old man I keep from death, and I might use your life for that if I need it, and to see your meddling king make a fool of himself with his mincing lords and stupid wizards looking for a woman, and this is also something that really sticks in his craw. A woman to rule us, but the rule is here, the mastery is here, here in this house, and then he reveals another thing. All this year I've been gathering others to me, men who know the true power, from Roke, some of them from right under the noses of the school masters and from Hovnor, from under the nose of that so-called son of Mored, who wants a woman to rule him. Your king who thinks he's so safe, he can go by his true name. And so this is a guy who was clearly aligned with the previous evil wizard, Cobb, who get had to use all of his power to, not just to defeat, to let go on his way, but to undo the damage that he had done to the dry land and to the world of the living. And Aspen says, "Well, you're now within my power." And of course we see, fortunately, even though he intends to kill both of them, he's actually gonna have Ged push Tenar off of the cliff. We find that there is a happy ending to this, which involves Aspen and his followers being destroyed by the dragon, Collison, called by Thero, who is herself, not a foul imp, but actually a dragon. And so the evil wizard comes to his end, but not before he does lots and lots of damage. And if he had survived, he would have attempted to redo, probably, what Cobb himself had done and to destroy both, you know, Roke and the new kingship of Lebanon. Special thanks to all of my Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. You can find me on Twitter @philos for 70, on YouTube at the Gregory B. Sadler channel, and on Facebook on the Gregory B. Sadler page. Once again, to support my work, go to patreon.com/sadler. Above all, keep studying these great philosophical works. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music)