I really like how Le Guin is continually evaluating and re-evaluating her works and isn't afraid to challenge her original assumptions in later works. Names are complicated, elusive things for something so simple and omnipresent and there's literally a lot to unpack there.
Re: tolk as pebbles, I have to wonder about that, because surely all the different kinds of minerals have names (at least in English). Maybe the "pebble" bit the most prominent attribute if you just want to manipulate all the small stones on the beach, but where does it stop? When I look at pebbles on the beach, I can pick out and distinguish them by type of stone, but not everybody is so specific, nor do I need that level of specificity all the time.
This also ties into the question of new names--is that what Ged is doing when he "gives" a new name, by choosing a different but equally true attribute to focus on? To what extent are the wizards observers of reality and to what extent are they capable of changing it by deciding what they will focus on? Where did the names originally come from?
(I don't claim to have any answers, but I'm enjoying the questions! So far my only ventures into Earthsea fic have been Ged/Tenar fix-its and unusual Star Wars crossovers and fusions.)
Is giving a true name to an individual person separating the wave from the sea?
Perhaps, but we have to call people something, don't we? Treating people as indistinguishable waves doesn't work out so well on a practical level. And to get off Earthsea for a moment, I'll say that in my opinion, the true name of the self--inasmuch as I understand it IRL--is using language/imagery to connect/ground oneself to the world so as to participate in it and of it more thoroughly. It is the union of self/no-self and language/no language. Judging from the proliferation of rites of passage across human history and cultures, it seems there is something within us that cries out for a recognition of who we are from ourselves and/or our communities and the world, and Le Guin has taken the metaphor and made it a concrete part of her worldbuilding here.
I also think a lot of the Taoist elements of Earthsea, and the famous line from the Tao Te Ching that the true Tao is beyond language. I think Ged would definitely agree with that, though perhaps other wizards would not.
no subject
Re: tolk as pebbles, I have to wonder about that, because surely all the different kinds of minerals have names (at least in English). Maybe the "pebble" bit the most prominent attribute if you just want to manipulate all the small stones on the beach, but where does it stop? When I look at pebbles on the beach, I can pick out and distinguish them by type of stone, but not everybody is so specific, nor do I need that level of specificity all the time.
This also ties into the question of new names--is that what Ged is doing when he "gives" a new name, by choosing a different but equally true attribute to focus on? To what extent are the wizards observers of reality and to what extent are they capable of changing it by deciding what they will focus on? Where did the names originally come from?
(I don't claim to have any answers, but I'm enjoying the questions! So far my only ventures into Earthsea fic have been Ged/Tenar fix-its and unusual Star Wars crossovers and fusions.)
Is giving a true name to an individual person separating the wave from the sea?
Perhaps, but we have to call people something, don't we? Treating people as indistinguishable waves doesn't work out so well on a practical level. And to get off Earthsea for a moment, I'll say that in my opinion, the true name of the self--inasmuch as I understand it IRL--is using language/imagery to connect/ground oneself to the world so as to participate in it and of it more thoroughly. It is the union of self/no-self and language/no language. Judging from the proliferation of rites of passage across human history and cultures, it seems there is something within us that cries out for a recognition of who we are from ourselves and/or our communities and the world, and Le Guin has taken the metaphor and made it a concrete part of her worldbuilding here.
I also think a lot of the Taoist elements of Earthsea, and the famous line from the Tao Te Ching that the true Tao is beyond language. I think Ged would definitely agree with that, though perhaps other wizards would not.