Worldbuilding: Earthsea

[ermingarden]

Day 4 of the book meme:

4. A book with a worldbuilding detail that has stuck with you

A Wizard of Earthsea (and the rest of the Earthsea cycle) by Ursula K. Le Guin.

I'm perpetually intrigued by the connection between magic and language in Earthsea, the idea of all things – including people – having true names, and the knowledge of the name giving power over the named entity. (A secret: I have always wondered what my own "true" name would be.)

The remaining questions:

5. A book where you loved the premise but the execution left you cold

6. A book where you were dubious about the premise but loved the work

7. The most imaginative book you've seen lately

8. A book that feels like it was written just for you

9. A book that reminds you of someone

10. A book that belongs to a specific time in your mind, caught in amber

11. A book that came to you at exactly the right time

12. A book that came to you at the wrong time

13. A book with a premise you'd never seen before quite like that

14. A book balanced on a knife edge

15. A snuffed candle of a book

16. A book you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers

17. A book that taught you something about yourself

18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion

19. A book that started a pilgrimage

20. A frigid ice bath of a book

21. A warm blanket of a book

22. A book written into your psyche

23. A book that made you bleed

24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to

25. A book that answered a question you never asked

26. A book you recommend but cannot love

27. A book you love but cannot recommend

28. A book you adore that people are surprised by

29. A book you detest that people are surprised by

30. A book that led you home

Comments

[hhimring]

This series of meme fills is really interesting!

I find that concept in Earthsea really interesting, too.

[ermingarden]

Thank you! Glad you're enjoying it <3

[pauraque]

That always stuck with me too! Oddly enough, even though I changed my name when I transitioned, I never felt that was my "true" name either. All the names I've ever had, online and offline, have felt like use-names to me. I answer to them, but they're just conveniences, nothing deeper than that.

[ermingarden]

I hated my name when I was younger; it just never seemed to "fit." These days I definitely think about it more as a designation for convenience than an expression of self, and I don't mind it as much.

[atamascolily]

There is certainly magic in language, in being able to put a name to previously elusive concept and give it form, which is one reason I love learning new words. However, the older I get, the more clear it becomes to me there is equal magic in the unnameable, that which is knowable only through direct experience and cannot be fully conveyed in words. Ironically, it is the understanding that words are simultaneously empty and meaningful that allows me to use them that much more effectively as a writer. It also makes me appreciate culturally specific and seemingly untranslatable concepts that much more.

I daydreamed about being a taxonomist at one point -- I gave it up when I realized that life was a slippery and elusive concept, one that didn't fit so nicely into human-constructed languages and concepts, and I did not have the personality to either ignore that truth OR handle the cognitive dissonance that inevitably resulted. It's not that taxonomy and names are useless, just that at a granular level, they start to break down and one has to become accustomed to a certain level of uncertainty within a model not quite flexible enough to fully accommodate reality-as-it-is.

I also saw a lot of people learn the names of creatures around them and believed that they knew everything there was to know about them as a result. I believe that knowing the name of something is like knowing the name of a person: a good first step, an introduction, but only the beginning of a relationship.

Obviously, things are different in Earthsea where true names are possible, and it's a fantastic metaphor! But I think true names must be verbs, not nouns; alive, not static; and slippery and elusive in ways that the Masters of Roke might not be comfortable admitting to themselves, and I wonder what the witches and wise-women might say of them.

[ermingarden]

This isn't super coherent, but: I find it very interesting how the concept of true names changes over the course of the series. In A Wizard of Earthsea, the idea seems to be that true names are inherent in the thing or person named, and wizards are able to learn the true names of things and perceive the true names of people, so a naming ceremony for a young person involves the wizard perceiving and revealing the name to the named person; the true name would be the same with or without the wizard's involvement, just unknown. But in The Farthest Shore we see Ged actually take away someone's true name:

Presently the mage stopped, there in the ruined orchard, and said, “I took her name from her and gave her a new one. And thus in some sense a rebirth. There was no other help or hope for her.” (p. 108)

It's not something done lightly, and it makes her a different person, in some sense; so in The Farthest Shore it seems like wizards may give true names to individuals rather than simply revealing them. (Yet the story of Irian implies it's purely revelatory, that the wizard doesn't dictate the name.)

The names of objects or animals don't seem to be individual in the same way. In Tehanu, Tenar teaches Tehanu that the name of a pebble is tolk; this seems to be a name for pebbles in general rather than that pebble in particular.

Then, in The Other Wind, we see that the true names of individuals (and only Archipelagans) have been imposed, are "unnatural" in some sense. Again, we don't have the same sense with the category names applied to things or animals. Perhaps the distinction – and, ultimately, the downside – of giving a true name to an individual is that it draws artificial boundaries between them and the rest of the world. My favorite line in The Farthest Shore is Ged's question to Lebannen:

That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself? (p. 155)

Is giving a true name to an individual person separating the wave from the sea?

[atamascolily]

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.