The book opens with this kind of like, hey, listener, reader, let us tell you about this great guy named the Sparrowhawk. He's a great wizard who's done lots of cool stuff. Let's tell you about when he was a boy. And then like we do the, it's a big epic myth. And yet the rest of the book is kind of nice and slight. So slight like, like tonally slight in like the amount or type of stuff that happens.
Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? If you're a wizard of Earthsea, you can make it smell however you want if you know it's TRUE name. LeGuin's beloved fantasy novel is notable for how it plays both against and into common fantasy tropes, delivering a proper hero's journey without the same Sturm und Drang we've come to expect in the genre.
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