In this series, I’ll be working my way through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea works and analyzing her prose chapter by chapter. Spoilers follow.
Chapter 3: The Dragon Council
Length: 25 pages
Setting: Havnor
There are higher trapeze acts in this chapter, but I adore Tenar’s first meeting with Seserakh. It is so funny and so true and we learn so much about Earthsea all at once. I also love the reality in their relationship throughout the rest of this book. Poor Tenar walks stately into any given situation and comes out with children sticking to her like brambles.
I love that Tenar, who in truth had a very limited and cruel experience of her homeland, still finds great comfort in talking with people from that faraway land who speak her native tongue.
I also adore how all the talk of the court and the throne acts as worldbuilding but is in fact character development, reassuring us that Lebannen is the man we hope he is.
Until next time.
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