I hope to actually use this place and make a fun little page to put art and other crap

to be honest the reason I showed up to Neocities was cuz I'm annoyed there's not a good Earthsea wiki
let's be real that shit ain't happening but I can dream

8/5/25

holy shit you guys I'm actually updating this bitch. Let's talk about Early The Wizard.

Early is the mage of the Losen, pirate king of Earthsea, in the dark era before the Rule Of The "Wise". The fact that google had no idea what I wanted when I typed in "pirate king of havnor earthsea" speaks to why I want to write these dumb little summaries. Anyway Early is a powerful mage. I don't think you get to be a wizard unless you're trained on Roke, but whatever. Early is a mage or a wizard or whatever, and he's a real dick.

We learn about Early in the beginning of The Finder, where we follow Otter (later to be Tern, later to be Medra, the first Archmage of Roke (and arguably the man who ruined magic for women for several hundred years)). Magic is much more dangerous in Otter's time, and him trying to enchant a slave ship he's helped build to suck at being a ship gets him the attention of Losen the Pirate King's magic goons, who come kick his ass and enslave him. Early is mentioned as the master of Gelluk, the mage who uses Otter's abilities as a finder to dig his rock boyfriend out of the ground (don't ask). The context Early is presented in makes him sound like a laptog of Losen, though the situation could not in fact be more different. We learn much later in the tale that Losen is aged and paranoid, his mind ensnared by Early, very much a Theoden/Saruman situation.

and yeah I realize I typed "laptog" up there.

It's funny so I kept it.

Anyway the reason I chose Early, a third act villain who comes out of the woodwork to try and fuck everything up in the last dozen pages of the story, is because I can't stop thinking about his fate.

To really skim right up to the end, Early turns into a big fuckoff bird and flies to Roke. He's gonna kill Otter/Tern/Medra, set the place on fire, really just make an example of every motherfucker in his path. He touches down on the Knoll and encounters Ember, a witch that's deigned to be Otter's wife. She says hi to him like nothing's wrong, and explaining to him that Roke is the source of all magic in the world, that his magic will now be returned, his power fades like a raccoon washing cotton candy. He's a fucking babe in the woods in the snap of a finger.

Does he die? I don't know. Does he realize the error of his ways and join the new society of peaceful wizards? Probably not. Whatever happens to him, we never hear about him again in that story. His magic is slurped out like the last pearl in the boba and he's instantly done for.

Is that fucking haunting or what? Isn't that just like a fucking stress dream? It's not explicitly framed as his wizardry having been evil and therefore punished. It's more like he stepped off a magic cliff and, cartoonishly, his magic did not fall until Ember pointed it out to him.

I'm on the last story of Tales, Dragonfly, and once I finish it I intend to go back and reread about Early. Expect more nonsense soon.

xoxo Ⓐ

8/15/25

holy shit you guys I finished Tales and The Other Wind and they were great and they fucked me up and guys they were just great.

Did not get any explicit answers about
The Power Of The Knoll
but I did get some insights for sure.

The Old Powers that come to font at the knoll do seem to threaten Deus Ex Machina, but never burst my bubble. The closest I got to that bubble being popped was in book for with Kalessin saving the day at the end of book 4. Of course, that was far as shit away from the Knoll and involves Dragon Power, not Old Power. No, the Old Powers righting things (whatever their definition of right might be) feels thematically correct. We're certainly not in a world that's just gonna be nice to its characters.

A peak example would be Alder, the first of our new main characters. He gets taken the fuck out the second he sets foot on the Knoll. He's spent the whole story trying to cope with the night visions of his dead wife in the Dry Place. She's trying to reach across the wall of the dead to him, and he's been having a terrible time not taking that (presumably) clammy hand. The Old Powers are like "oh that dude should be with his wife," and he's snubbed out instantly. The Master Summoner (I lost track of who's who) pops him back up but deep down knows he shouldn't have done that.