Plot Summary:
A Shadow on the World
A strange and troubling malaise is spreading across the world of Earthsea. Magic is failing, songs are being forgotten, and a profound sense of listlessness and despair is seeping into the hearts of men. Worried by this creeping blight, the Prince of Enlad sends his young son, Arren, to the island of Roke, the heart of wizardry, to seek counsel from the Masters.
Arren arrives and meets the Archmage, Ged, also known as Sparrowhawk. He presents the ill news: sorcerers on distant isles have lost their powers, witches have forgotten their craft, and people seem to be losing their will to live. Ged reveals that this is not an isolated incident; similar reports have come from across the Archipelago. The Council of Masters on Roke debates the nature of the threat. While some are skeptical of the danger’s scale, Ged is convinced that a fundamental wound has been opened in the world’s Balance, a wound that is draining life and magic from it. Against the counsel of some Masters, Ged resolves to seek out the source of this evil. He asks the young prince, Arren, to join him on this perilous quest, sensing that the boy’s destiny is intertwined with the fate of the world.
The Decaying Cities
Ged and Arren set sail in Ged’s boat, Lookfar. Their first destination is Hort Town, a major port in the South Reach. They find a city gripped by moral and social decay. Law and order have collapsed, the streets are filled with thieves and beggars, and many citizens are lost in a stupor induced by the addictive drug hazia.
In this squalor, they seek out a former wizard named Hare, who now lives as a hazia-addict. Hare, his power gone, speaks cryptically of a way to cheat death and gain eternal life, a promise that has lured him and others away from their magic. He offers to guide Ged to this “way” through a drug-induced dream. That night, as Ged attempts to follow Hare’s spirit into the dream world, they are ambushed by thieves. Ged is knocked unconscious, and Arren, in a desperate attempt to draw the attackers away, is captured. He is sold as a galley slave, chained to an oar, and taken out to sea.
Ged, upon waking, tracks Arren down. He intercepts the slave ship in a thick fog, revealing his power in a blaze of magelight. He frees all the slaves and rescues Arren, healing the boy’s spirit as they sail away from the corrupted city.
The Lure of Immortality
They continue their journey south to the island of Lorbanery, famous for its silk. Here too, the blight has taken hold. The people are joyless, their craft has deteriorated, and their magic is gone. They meet Sopli, the mad son of a once-powerful dyer. Like Hare, Sopli is obsessed with the promise of eternal life, believing it to be a physical place one can travel to. Consumed by this desire, he begs to join them, convinced that Ged seeks the same prize.
Reluctantly, Ged allows Sopli to come aboard. As they sail west into uncharted waters, Sopli’s fear and paranoia begin to poison Arren’s mind. The boy starts to doubt Ged’s intentions, suspecting that the Archmage is not trying to heal the world but to stop others from achieving immortality, a secret he wants for himself. Their journey becomes a tense passage across a seemingly endless ocean, with trust eroding between the prince and the mage.
They eventually sight the island of Obehol. Convinced this is the land of eternal life, Sopli demands they go ashore. As they approach the beach, they are ambushed by a tribe of savage islanders. Ged is wounded by a spear. In a frenzy of desperate faith, Sopli leaps from the boat to reach the shore and instantly drowns in the water he so feared.
The Children of the Open Sea
Adrift, with Ged weakened by his wound and Arren lost in despair, they are rescued by the Raft People. This remarkable community lives its entire life on massive rafts, drifting with the ocean currents, touching land only once a year. In their serene and timeless society, free from the world’s sickness, Arren’s faith in Ged is restored. He confronts his own fear of death and pledges his loyalty to the Archmage anew. Ged reveals the true nature of the enemy: a being who offers eternal life by denying death, and in doing so, denies the very cycle that gives life meaning, thereby upsetting the Balance of the world.
The Dragon’s Guidance
Their stay with the Raft People is cut short by a dramatic arrival: Orm Embar, one of the most powerful and ancient dragons, descends from the sky. He seeks Ged’s help, explaining that the same evil plaguing humanity is also destroying the dragons, robbing them of their ancient speech and driving them to madness. The enemy, a man who has somehow conquered death, resides on Selidor, the westernmost island of all Earthsea. Orm Embar offers to guide them.
Aided by Ged’s magic, Lookfar races across the ocean, following the dragon’s path. They pass through the Dragons’ Run, a perilous strait littered with dragon lairs, where they witness the terrible sight of dragons who have turned on and killed their own kind.
The Confrontation on Selidor
They arrive on the desolate shores of Selidor. There, they are confronted by a psychic projection of their enemy, a powerful sorcerer whom Ged recognizes as Cob, a rival he defeated years ago. Cob, now eyeless and twisted by his dark magic, has found a way to open a door between the world of the living and the Dry Land of the dead. He has achieved a form of immortality, but at the cost of his true self, becoming a hollow being who exists in a state of un-death.
Orm Embar attacks Cob’s physical body, which is hidden in a shelter made of dragon bones. The dragon is killed by Cob’s enchanted steel staff, but in his final act, he crushes and burns Cob’s physical form. The withered, spider-like creature that remains crawls through the shimmering door he has created into the realm of the dead. Without hesitation, Ged and Arren follow him.
The Dry Land and the Closed Door
In the bleak, starless twilight of the Dry Land, they pursue Cob to the source of his power: the very door between the worlds, a black hole in reality that is draining the life from the living world. Here, Ged confronts Cob, explaining that in his flight from death, he has sacrificed everything that constitutes life—love, light, and his own true name—becoming an empty vessel of fear.
With the last of his immense power, Ged performs the ultimate act of magic. He closes the door, sealing the breach between the worlds and restoring the Balance. The effort completely expends his magical abilities, leaving him a mortal man. He also gives Cob his true name back, releasing him from his cursed existence and allowing him to truly die.
His power gone, Ged collapses. Arren, now a man forged by his journey, carries his master on his back across the Mountains of Pain that separate the Dry Land from the living world. He emerges back on the shores of Selidor, where the ancient dragon Kalessin finds them. The great dragon carries them back across the world to Roke. Arren is now hailed as Lebannen, the king foretold in prophecy who would return to restore the broken kingdom. Ged, his great task complete, retires from his role as Archmage and returns to his simple home on the island of Gont, his journey done.
Characters:
Arren (Lebannen)
The young Prince of Enlad and heir to the lineage of Morred, the first hero of Earthsea. Arren begins the journey as a proud, confident, yet naive youth who has never truly been tested. His quest with Ged is a profound coming-of-age journey. He is forced to confront not only external dangers but also the internal demons of fear, doubt, and despair. His terror of mortality makes him vulnerable to the enemy’s lure of eternal life, leading him to momentarily betray Ged. However, by facing the Dry Land and accepting his own death, he discovers his true strength, loyalty, and identity as Lebannen. He evolves from a follower into a leader, ultimately becoming the protector of the powerless Ged and the king destined to reunite the realm.
Ged (Sparrowhawk)
The Archmage of Roke, the most powerful wizard in Earthsea. Ged is no longer the impetuous youth of his earlier adventures but a mature, wise, and weary leader burdened by the responsibility of maintaining the world’s Equilibrium. He is a master of restraint, using his immense power only when absolutely necessary. He serves as Arren’s mentor, guiding him through his fears with a stern but deep compassion. Ged’s journey is one of ultimate sacrifice; he understands that to mend the world, he must expend his entire being, giving up the magic that defines him to close the door Cob opened. He represents the wisdom of accepting life’s limits and the power that comes not from seeking to control the world, but from understanding one’s place within it.
Cob
The antagonist of the story, a powerful sorcerer whose defining trait is his obsessive fear of death. Once a rival of Ged’s, his terror drove him to pervert the highest laws of magic. He sought not just to commune with the dead, but to conquer death itself. By opening a permanent door to the Dry Land, he achieved a form of immortality, but in doing so, lost his humanity, his name, and his self. He becomes a hollow, eyeless creature, a king of shades who seeks to draw all of life into his own empty void to validate his existence. Cob is a tragic figure, a symbol of how the desire for ultimate power and safety leads to ultimate ruin and nothingness.
Core Themes:
Mortality and the Acceptance of Death
This is the central theme of the novel. The story posits that life derives its meaning, beauty, and value directly from its finitude. The desire for immortality, as embodied by Cob and the sickness spreading across Earthsea, is portrayed as a profound evil. It is a rejection of the natural order, a “misunderstanding of life.” Ged teaches Arren that to refuse death is to refuse life itself, as the two are two sides of the same coin, inseparable parts of the great cycle of being. True courage is not found in seeking to live forever, but in living fully within the bounds of one’s mortal life.
The Balance (Equilibrium)
A foundational concept in the Earthsea saga, the Equilibrium is the cosmic balance between all opposing forces—life and death, light and dark, creation and destruction—that keeps the world whole. Cob’s actions are the ultimate transgression against this Balance. By opening a permanent door between life and death, he creates a wound through which the world’s vitality, magic, and meaning drain away. The entire quest is a desperate effort to restore this fundamental order, demonstrating that the health of the world depends on maintaining the delicate tension between its constituent parts.
Coming of Age and True Identity
Arren’s physical journey across the sea mirrors his internal journey from boyhood to manhood. He must navigate the treacherous waters of his own fear and doubt to discover his true self. His name, “Arren,” is a use-name, a mask. His transformation is complete only when he can embrace his destiny and his true name, “Lebannen.” The story suggests that true selfhood is not found by clinging to a static self forever (as Cob tries to do), but by accepting change, responsibility, and one’s place in the larger cycle of life and death.
The Nature of Power and Evil
The novel contrasts two forms of power. Cob’s power is born of fear and aims at control and self-preservation above all else. It is a power that takes, consumes, and ultimately leads to emptiness. Ged’s power, in contrast, is rooted in knowledge, self-restraint, and a deep responsibility to the Balance of the world. He understands that true power is not about bending the world to one’s will, but about acting in harmony with it. The greatest evil is shown to be the selfish elevation of the individual self above the wellbeing of the whole world, a spiritual sickness that presents itself as a promise of salvation but delivers only a living death.
