Because Le Guin wroteso many different kinds of books, her influence has been diverse.
My incredulity was at the critics who found the first book wonderfully original.
She has many virtues, but originality isnt one of them.
Credit: Disney/Pixar; HMH Books for Young Readers; Everett Collection
Paolini borrowed heavily from Earthsea while constructing his world of Alagaesia.
Perhaps most importantly of all, bothEarthseaandEragonwere adapted into terrible films.
Very few characters in Earthsea have white skin.
Ged has red-brown skin, as does his royal young friend Prince Arren and most of their other associates.
It didnt even make sense.
Thankfully, some in the entertainment industryarefinally starting to produce big-name stories with diverse characters.
DisneysMoanais a shining example of this.
Every human character in the film is Polynesian, including the god Maui (Dwayne Johnson).
ButMoanadoesnt just share surface-level similarities with theEarthsea Cycle.
Le Guin finally returned with a fourth installment,Tehanu, nearly 20 years afterThe Farthest Shore.
In the Dry Land.
I had to do that.
But now I have nothing to drink.
Is the desert gone?
Similarly, Ged wonders whether his various battles against evil actually helped Earthsea at all.
But some fans have taken issue with them for other reasons namely, their centering of female characters.
As always, Le Guin was ahead of her time.
So far as I know, I had no spasms and didnt betray Ged.
Quite the opposite, I think.
InTehanuhe can become, finally, fully a man.
He is no longer the servant of his power.
This is where Le Guins many successors have failed to honor her example.
But to truly honor Le Guins legacy, storytellers should make a run at always seek new storytelling horizons.
How else will we learn new things, new ways of being in the world?
