Sadler's Lectures

Ursula K Leguin, Tehanu - Ged, The Former Mage Comes Back - 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 the return of the former archmage, Ged, to Tenar and Therru, after he has lost his power and struggled to make sense of his identity without it. He saves Tenar and Theru by defending them from the three men attacking the farmhouse.

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Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 17 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. One important turning point in Ursula K. Le Guine's fourth Earthsea novel to Hano is when Ged, the former archmage, going not only by his name, Sparrowhawk, but also just as Hawk reappears. And we should remind ourselves, why is this so centrally important? Well, early on in the novel in the fourth chapter, Ged is dropped off completely drained of power near death by the great dragon Kalesi. And Tenar takes him in and with the help of Auntie Moss, nurses him back to health. He is emptied of power, filled with fear, and you could say shame and humiliation. As we'll talk about a little bit later, and can't face the young king who's sent envoys out looking for him on Gaunt. And so he flees, he doesn't just head south, he flees to the south to herd goats. At first he was going to go north, and Tenar says that's a bad idea. You know, cutting hay, you're an old man, this would be rough work. At least become a shepherd or something. Auntie Moss sends him on his way with some victuals, some bread and some cheese and meat, and he's gone. And so he's out of the picture for a while, except in the memories of Tenar. And the story proceeds. Tenar ends up going back down to the farm, and she's there with Theru and all of the other people involved with the farm, and then something happens. The people who were involved with the horrific abuse that Theru, the young, burned child, had endured, handy in the two other men, come at night to try to break in, to take the child back and to punish both her and her adoptive mother, Tenar. And in the struggle, what we find is they're banging on the shutters. They say, "Let us in, we won't hurt you. "We just want to talk to you. "He just wants to see his little girl. "You know, let us in, and we won't hurt you." And Tenar knows that they will try to hurt her. Then, suddenly, there's a noise, a howl and a sucking gasp and a man yelled, "Look out!" Another shouted, "Here, here!" Then there was silence. Light from the open doorway shot across the black ice, puddles glittered on the black branches of the oaks and unfallen silver leaves. And as her eyes cleared, she saw that something was crawling towards her on the path, a dark mask, or heaped crawling towards her, making a high, sobbing wail. Behind the light, a black-shaped ran and darted in long blades shown. Tenar, stop there, she said, raising the knife. Tenar, it's me, Sparrowhawk, Hawk. Stay there, she said. And she looks at him and sees him with a long-tined pitchfork like a wizard's staff. Is that you, she said? He was kneeling now by the black thing on the path. I killed him, I think. He said he looked up over his shoulder and stood up. There was no sign or sound of the other men. And as it is, Geddon hasn't actually killed him. He stabbed him with a pitchfork. This is one of the people who was going to do harm to Thoreau and to Tenar. And it glanced off of one of his ribs, but did him some considerable damage. They bring him in and eventually, they will turn him over to the witch Ivy, who will bind him and heal him. Why? Because he's going to hang. He's going to hang or be condemned to a galley. And so, after these three men are attacking, Gedd is the hero who, in some respects, saves the day, right? Tenar is not completely without resources. She has a knife, she's trying to resist, but she probably would have been beaten. And it turns out that Gedd ran across these men. He says that he heard them talking on the way and he followed them down. So, he's essentially saved Tenar and Thoreau from a horrible fate, whatever these men were about to do to them. Gedd is going to stay the night with Tenar, just in case the men come back. He's also almost frozen stiff, it's winter, and they catch up a bit over time. So, that's an important thing. And there's no question of him being able to stay, in part because everybody recognizes that if he had not been there, catastrophe would have happened and evil would have been done. Now, after that, their relationship is going to, you could say change, but we might actually say instead, not change, but ripen, come into its fulfillment. And we need to remind ourselves who these people are. Gedd was the young wizard, the mage who went into the tombs of Antoine, seeking the lost half of the ring of Arath Akba. When he had the other ring, Tenar was the lone priestess, the high priestess of the tomb. The nameless ones were her masters and she and Gedd come to know each other within the labyrinth where she has him trapped. And then, they make their escape together after reforming the ring. She leaves Antoine, leaving behind her culture, her role, her power, everything about herself, coming with Gedd first to present the ring at the Isle of Haavnur in the center of the world, and then coming back to Gaunt and becoming the pupil of Gedd's former teacher, Ojion, until she decides to change that for becoming a farmer's wife and raising children and managing a farm. It's a long time for both of them that they've been involved with each other. Gedd recognizes, even back in the tombs of Atuan, the beauty and the resiliency and the power and the capacity of Tenar. She's an unusual person. She, of course, recognizes him and she thinks to herself several times earlier on in the story, why did we never become involved? And the answer is, well, he's a mage. He can't become involved. They're celibate. Why did we never even consider that? Now, that's going to change. Emptied of his power coming back as not quite a triumphant hero, but certainly the guy who saved the day for the people that he loves, Gedd and Tenar can now change their relationship. It can become romantic. It can become sexual. And she says to him, "Which bed shall I sleep in Gedd, the child's or yours?" He drew breath. He spoke low, "Mine, if you will, I will." The silence held him. She could see the effort he made to break from it. "If you'll be patient with me," he said. "Remember, too, this is an old man who has never had sex. "He has been a virgin this entire time. "He's essentially like a, as Auntie Moss has pointed out, "like a 15-year-old boy, the boy who went off to Roke." Then she says, "This is a very beautiful passage. "I've been patient with you for 25 years." She looked at him and began to laugh. "Come on, my dear, better late than never. "I'm only an old woman. "Nothing is wasted, nothing is ever wasted. "You taught me that." She stood up and he stood. She put out her hands and he took them. They embraced and their embrace became close. They held each other so fiercely, so dearly that they stopped knowing anything but each other. It did not matter what bed they meant to sleep in. They lay that night on the hearth stones and there, there's a beautiful line. She taught, "Get the mystery that the wisest man "could not teach him." And this is great, Laguine writing, you know, something that so many people have known, love, tenderness, having sex, the intimacy that comes with it, something that people have experienced throughout millennia. And it's not something that costs you anything other than commitment in this case, right? And in so many other cases. And yet it's not something that the wise mages can actually teach him anything about because they haven't experienced it and don't think about it for the most part. And this goes on, there's a tenderness between them. That Laguine is very good at depicting. They woke again at dawn a faint silvery light lay on the dark half leafless branches of the oaks outside the window. Tenors stretched out full length to feel his warmth against her. After a while, he murmured, he was lying here, hake right under us, get made a small noise of protest. "Now you're a man indeed," she said. Stuck another man full of holes first and lay in with a woman second. That's the proper order, I suppose. Hush, he murmured, laying his head on her shoulder, don't. And then there's a little bit more talking between them. Then they lay in warmth and sweet silence. And there's a lot of this going on through the story. This vignette ends here. He raised himself up on one elbow so he could look at her face. His own face was so open and vulnerable in its ease and fulfillment and tenderness that she had to reach up and touch his mouth. There where she had kissed it months ago, which led to his taking her into his arms again. And the conversation was not continued in words. So they now have this possibility of fulfillment, of as people called it back in the day, conjugal love. There are some formalities to get through. Ged cannot just immediately become her lover and have that ratified by everybody just nodding their heads instead. She's got to make a case for why he's going to be a central part of the farm. The chief of the formalities was to tell Clearbrook and the other tenants. She'd replace the old master with a hired hand. She did so promptly and bluntly. They could not do anything about it, nor did it entail any threat to them. A widow's tenure of her husband's property was contingent on there being no male heir or claimant. Going on a little bit further, to her relief, they made no objections at all. Hawke had won their approval with one jab of a pitchfork. Besides, it was only good sense in a woman to want a man to protect her. If she took him into her bed, well, the appetites of widows were proverbial and after all, she was a foreigner. The attitude of the villagers was much the same, a bit of whispering and sniggering, but a little more. It seemed that being respectable was easier than Moss thought or perhaps that used goods had little value. So Ged and Tenor are now accepted as a couple. She is still holding the farm. Ultimately, her son will show up and they will, in fact, leave the farm to him, but they're going to assume their roles in relation to each other as life partners. These two very unusual people, they will have rather intellectual, but also practical conversations. They will face the future together and they will move on into their life with tenderness. So Ged really does come home, come back to Tenor in a way that brings these matters to a successful close. The wards off, the danger that has been threatening them. Ultimately, of course, they're going to fall into another danger from which they will both need to be saved by Thero, who, by the way, Ged takes on as his own daughter as he takes on this new relationship with Tenor. So this is the fulfillment of Ged in a way that kind of echoes the ending of a wizard of Earthsea, except now it's not him by himself, it's Ged coming home to Tenor and to Thero and beginning a new life together. - Special thanks to all of my Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. You can find me on Twitter @philosfor70 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)