Tales from Earthsea

[Elfboy]

Arren: INFP 6w5 Sx/Sp (reminds me a lot of [MENTION=13609]Hazashin[/MENTION] )
Sparrowhawk: INFJ 8w9 Sx/So
Teru: ISFP 8w7 Sx/Sp
Cob: INTJ 6w5 Sp/Sx
Tenar: ESFJ 8w7 So/Sx

 

[SilkRoad]

Have you read the books or just seen the anime film? The film was rather disappointing, I thought, but Ursula Le Guin is one of the best writers alive.

 

[Totenkindly]

Have you read the books or just seen the anime film? The film was rather disappointing, I thought, but Ursula Le Guin is one of the best writers alive.

Agreed. She's excellent; I think the gender studies inherent within Earthsea and her other work (including scifi) are some of the best I've ever seen.

I wasn't sure whether he was referring to the actual books or to the really lousy visual media adaptations people have tried to do.

 

[SilkRoad]

Agreed. She's excellent; I think the gender studies inherent within Earthsea and her other work (including scifi) are some of the best I've ever seen.

I wasn't sure whether he was referring to the actual books or to the really lousy visual media adaptations people have tried to do.

I didn't hate the anime film but it was kinda dry/flat. I heard that the live action miniseries some years ago was awful and Le Guin totally hated it.

I entered her work through Earthsea and those are still my favourites, but her sci-fi is amazing too. I am not usually a big fan of sci-fi and I'm picky about fantasy. But she manages to be entertaining and incredibly thoughtprovoking. I am not joking when I say that I think if she weren't sci-fi/fantasy mainly - genres which are not taken so seriously - she might have won the Nobel Prize by now.

In terms of the books and types...hmmm...

I think Ged/Sparrowhawk might be INTP and I'd hazard a guess at counterphobic 6w7.

Tenar - from her role in The Tombs of Atuan she seems maybe ENFJ - or ENTJ? Enneagram, maybe 8w7 or 4w3?

 

[Elfboy]

[MENTION=7063]SilkRoad[/MENTION] I've only seen the movie (which I actually liked quite a bit didn't know there were books too. based on the movie at least, Sparrowhawk seemed like the polar opposite of a 6w7. the first thing I thought when I saw the guy was "sturdy". he had the kind of stable, calm, yet potent energy of an 8w9.

 

[SilkRoad]

[MENTION=7063]SilkRoad[/MENTION] I've only seen the movie (which I actually liked quite a bit didn't know there were books too. based on the movie at least, Sparrowhawk seemed like the polar opposite of a 6w7. the first thing I thought when I saw the guy was "sturdy". he had the kind of stable, calm, yet potent energy of an 8w9.

That's a good point... I would base the 6 assessment more on how his character develops in the first book, A Wizard of Earthsea. He is very young and commits some fatal errors out of bravado/efforts to prove himself. (I'd say counterphobic 6, 7 or 3 might fit there.)

You could argue that he settles down into something more like an 8w9 in the later books. I think that the movie was based mainly on the third book, The Farthest Shore, though if I remember right it was a bit of a mix of the books.

I really recommend the books, they are amazing. They should be read in order. The first trilogy was A Wizard of Earthsea, then The Tombs of Atuan, then The Farthest Shore. Years later she wrote Tehanu which was supposed to be "the last book of Earthsea." Then some years later she wrote a transitional book of short stories called Tales from Earthsea, and finally another novel, The Other Wind, which I think is really the last.

I don't remember the movie well enough to type the characters based on that, I'm afraid...

 

[Totenkindly]

I didn't hate the anime film but it was kinda dry/flat. I heard that the live action miniseries some years ago was awful and Le Guin totally hated it.

Yeah, that's what I heard too -- and I had to do was see the ad for it and immediately was turned off.

The problem with these adaptations is that they typically focus on the magic/fantastic stuff and lose all the meaningful underlying truth and characterization that actually is the heart of the stor(ies). This was one of my disappointments in Jackson's handling of the Istari in LotR too.

I entered her work through Earthsea and those are still my favourites, but her sci-fi is amazing too. I am not usually a big fan of sci-fi and I'm picky about fantasy. But she manages to be entertaining and incredibly thoughtprovoking. I am not joking when I say that I think if she weren't sci-fi/fantasy mainly - genres which are not taken so seriously - she might have won the Nobel Prize by now.

I read the original EarthSea series when I was probably 12 years old. It was one of my favorite for years and I still reread it once every 1-2 years. Her later additions to the narrative if anything just make it more richly textured, even if the narrative is not as easily encapsulated as the first three books were. Like I said, her understand and exploration of female characters in a traditional male world (and not female characters as typically show up in fantasy ... ie.., none of the "warrior woman acting like a man and able to beat up men" or "fantasy harlequin romantic woman in love with her exotic pets," but real, live, normal women carving out their existence and finding their meaning in daily life).

I think Tehanu was a big change in the narrative structure, where the stories moved more from a masculine approach to a feminine narrative style -- mirroring the changes in Ged's life and Tenar and his relationship to each other.

In terms of the books and types...hmmm...

I think Ged/Sparrowhawk might be INTP and I'd hazard a guess at counterphobic 6w7.

As an incorrigible P, I recognized in him much more a J than a P. I'd guess INTJ; but INFJ's not impossible, there's a personal-level fierceness to him (like the hawk of his name) that is not as detached as a T might be; and there's still an S practicality to his personality due to the environment in which he was raised (he could never afford to just be an ivory tower intellect). I could see the counterphobic 6w7, I think.

Tenar - from her role in The Tombs of Atuan she seems maybe ENFJ - or ENTJ? Enneagram, maybe 8w7 or 4w3?

I read her as FJ. Not totally sure on S/N, although she does seem to live in her thoughts a lot and what comes out is her determination/will being expressed and I tend to perceive her thought patterns as N; still, just like with Ged, she has a practicality about her. I think N's manifest very differently in cultures where they cannot afford to abstract as part of daily life.

Same thing with E/I. Tenar has a very forceful personality, both from being raised as the heir to the priesthood of the Tombs of Atuan and thus having authority as a child, and then as the mistress/manager of her husband's estate during her long marriage. I could go either way... but if she is E, she's got a very good sense of self-awareness and if she's I, she's certainly not afraid of taking charge.


... the big highlights above are "function expression differs depending on culture and life needs." i.e., types do not necessarily look alike from culture to culture, despite motivational similarities.

SilkRoad: I've only seen the movie (which I actually liked quite a bit didn't know there were books too.

ROFL! Oh noes!!!!! AKA "Wow, I didn't know there were LotR books, you mean they were books first?? Cool!" [Freebie trivia: The other big fantasy narrative of that time period, The Wrinkle in Time narrative by Madeleine L'Engle, are based on books too -- written across the span of the 60's and the 70's.]

LeGuin wrote the first three books of Earthsea, I think, in the late 60's and early 70's.

... Oh yeah, I briefly met her the year after I graduated from college; she came to give a lecture, so I went back to see her.

 

[Elfboy]

That's a good point... I would base the 6 assessment more on how his character develops in the first book, A Wizard of Earthsea. He is very young and commits some fatal errors out of bravado/efforts to prove himself. (I'd say counterphobic 6, 7 or 3 might fit there.)

You could argue that he settles down into something more like an 8w9 in the later books. I think that the movie was based mainly on the third book, The Farthest Shore, though if I remember right it was a bit of a mix of the books.

I really recommend the books, they are amazing. They should be read in order. The first trilogy was A Wizard of Earthsea, then The Tombs of Atuan, then The Farthest Shore. Years later she wrote Tehanu which was supposed to be "the last book of Earthsea." Then some years later she wrote a transitional book of short stories called Tales from Earthsea, and finally another novel, The Other Wind, which I think is really the last.

I don't remember the movie well enough to type the characters based on that, I'm afraid...

even that sounds more like a young, impulsive 8 who eventually settles down. many of the older 8s I've met IRL smile when they here stories of brash, impulsive youth in a "reminds me of me when I was a kid" sort of way. but then again, I haven't read the books, so I couldn't accurately type him based on that

 

[Nicodemus]

I just came in to say how disappointed I was with the film: fairly.