A Wizard of Earthsea Characters

Pride goeth before the fallGed is just like us, if we were super magical wizards with a lot of emotional baggage and personal issues. (Which we are, clearly.) A Wizard of Earthsea tells Ged's story...

Ogion is the type of teacher we all want – he doesn't talk a lot, and he lets his students wander around all afternoon. He's actually Ged's second magic teacher, but he's the first person to teac...

Vetch, Ged's BFF, gives Ged magical power over him by sharing his true name, Estarriol. Best friends share everything, even true names. Also in the tradition of school fiction, Vetch isn't super in...

If Vetch is in this book to show us how a magician lives when he's not being tortured by his own pride and his own shadow monster, then Yarrow and Murre are here to really drive that point home. Ya...

How do you know that Ged's main fight will be against himself? Because his main rival in school is named Jasper. Has anyone named Jasper ever been really villainous? We don't think so.Jasper comes...

There are two important things about Yevaud and you already know both of them: a) Yevaud is a dragon, b) the dragon's name is Yevaud. (Did you follow all that?)Yevaud is supposed to be an old, wise...

If Jasper were a girl and met Ged earlier, he would be the daughter of the lord of Re Albi. That is, just as Jasper mocks Ged, which goads Ged into casting a spell that's too powerful for him, so t...

The only thing – seriously, the only, only, only, only thing – that's interesting about old man Benderesk is that he's a magician who uses the evil Stone of the Terrenon (and you know it's bad...

Chances are you're never going to talk about this guy in class, but we want to be thorough here. This is the man who tells Ged to go to the Court of the Terrenon to find a weapon to deal with the s...

Like Ged and Ogion, Nemmerle is from Gont, so he probably has the same brown skin. But he's so old that "His hair and beard and robe were white" (3.15) – because your clothes turn white when you...

Gensher provides an interesting contrast to Nemmerle. Compared to Nemmerle, Gensher doesn't seem so nice. As an example of not being so nice, when Ged comes to him (after waking up from his coma),...

1. Master Chanter – who teaches the history songs, including the Creation of Ea, as mentioned in the epigraph.2. Master Windkey – who teaches weatherworking.3. Master Herbal – who teaches her...

There's a saying in Earthsea: "Weak as woman's magic." Also, "Wicked as woman's magic" (1.19). What does that all mean? It means that Ged's aunt isn't very educated … because she's a woman. (Don'...

Ged's father … well, there's not much to say about him. He's a bronze-smith, he doesn't talk much, he occasionally hits Ged, and we don't even know his name (true or otherwise). Maybe the fact th...

Ged's time on Low Torning teaches us an important lesson about magic: it's good for stopping dragons, but it's less good for saving little boys who are too feverish. That is, Ged can take care of Y...

There are a lot of people on the islands of Earthsea, but there are four that we think make an interesting group:The fisherman of Gont who sells Ged a boat (8.4)The old man on West Hand who gives G...

We promise we're not going to go through every minor character in the book – we're not going to talk about the witch of Tesk Isle who fails to help Ioethe, or the master of the ship Shadow who as...