Earthsea Information

Legend of Earthsea (later shortened to Earthsea) is a two-night television miniseries adaptation of the "Earthsea" novels by Ursula K. Le Guin. It premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel in December 2004.

Plot

In the land of Earthsea, in the village of Ten Alders on the island of Gont, a young wizard named Ged, the son of the blacksmith Dunain, is having visions about a priestess named Tenar. The Kargide king, Tygath, wants to unite the land and release diabolical demons called Nameless Ones to learn the secret of their immortality. By torturing an old wizard to death, he learns of the legend of a great wizard (Ged) who will rise up and could be a threat to his plans, so he sends some men to attack Ged's village. On Gont, Ged despairs in blacksmith work, preferring instead to learn witchcraft from an elderly woman who gives him a necklace. Discovering the invasion, Ged uses a spell of concealment to create mist around the Kargides, and shouts while running to draw them over a cliff, saving the village. However, a Kargide knocks Ged off the cliff, sending both falling to their deaths.

Tygath tries to convince the high priestess, Thar, to recite a secret incantation which will release the Nameless Ones, but she refuses. Tygath's lover Kossil tricks another priestess, Rosa, into poisoning Thar, in the hopes that Thar will name Kossil as her successor and tell her the incantation.

A magus named Ogion arrives at Ged's village and revives Ged. He tells Ged his soul's true name of "Sparrowhawk", which contains his power, and takes him for training. However, Ged recklessly attempts to learn magic quicker, so Ogion sends him to a magic school on the island of Roke. There, he meets Jasper, the school bully, and becomes friends with another student, Vetch. Ged shapeshifts into a hawk to compete with Jasper, who then challenges him to raise the spirit of the Lady Elfarran from the dead. While attempting this, Ged accidentally releases a Nameless One. The demon attacks Ged, scarring his face, until the Archmage Nemmerle drives it away. The Archmagus of Roke tells him that this Nameless One is extremely powerful, and can posesss anyone by killing and devouring souls, turning them into a Gebbeth, a being who will hunt Ged down and try to posess him, using Ged's power for further destrution. He tells Ged to go anywhere The Gebbeth will not expect to look for him, until Ged can find its true name and destroy it.

Tygath attempts to invade Roke, but Nememerle confronts them, warning them not to attack. However, Jasper helps Tygath gain entry to Roke, where Tygath stabs Nemmerle and gives Jasper the position of Archmagus.

As Ged travels with a man he believes to be a sailor met on a boat during the trip to Roke and later in a bar in Oskill, the man turns out to be The Gebbeth. Ged shapeshifts into a bird and flies away, but later collapses, where Ogion finds him and takes him to his house. He tells him that The Gebbeth will chase him endlessly, and that he should confront him instead. Before he leaves, Ged accepts Ogion as his true master. On a boat, he encounters The Gebbeth attempts to drown him using a snare. However, The Gebbeth escapes, after absorbing Ged's likeness and voice. The Gebbeth goes to a bar and kills a few people. Vetch, now a magus himself, uses magic to visualize the murderer, giving the appearance of Ged. Vetch chases after Ged, using a magic spell to halt him. Once Vetch realizes Ged is not possessed by The Gebbeth, he takes him to his house, and they decide to hunt The Gebbeth together.

Arriving where the Gebbeth has drawn them, they are attacked by the dragon Orm Embar, but Ged uses the dragon's true name to bind him and ask him three questions. The dragon tricks him into wasting his first question, and with his second he finds The Gebbeth's location. The dragon offers to tell him where to find the two pieces of the Amulet of Peace, which when reunited would save Earthsea, or Ged could ask the true name of the Gebbeth. Ged decides to ask where the pieces of the amulet are.

Meanwhile, Thar appoints the pure Tenar as her successor, and gives her the incantation. Tygath is furious with Kossil. She kills Rosa, who was beginning to suspect that Kossil poisoned Thar, and frames Tenar for it. Tenar is imprisoned near the entrance to the labyrinth.

Ged and Vetch go to Roke in search of help decoding the Dragon's puzzling answers. Roke is now under Jasper's control, but when Jasper leads them into his chambers, Jasper reveals himself to be the archmagus in disguise. He discovers that the elderly woman's ring from back in Ten Alders is one half of the amulet. A rhyme on the half says to unseal the Nameless Tombs on Atuan, near Tygath's castle. Ged and Vetch sneak through the castle, using weakened magic to avoid being detected by Kargides. Vetch gets through a wall by shapeshifting into a rat, but Ged is captured and brought before Thar, who mistakes him for an evil wizard due to his sneaking around and has him imprisoned next to Tenar. Kossil continues asking Thar to name a new successor, who now realizes that Kossil killed Rosa, before Thar dies of the poison.

In the labyrinth, Ged is locked in the cell next to Tenar. He breaks out and enters Tenar's cell, and they recognize each other from their visions. Then, Tenar is brought before Kossil, who threatens to kill her unless she reveals the incantation. Tenar refuses, and Kossil tries to kill her, but is stabbed to death by Tygath as punishment for her failure. Tygath has Tenar lead him toward the tomb of Atuan.

Vetch finds his way to the tomb first and is killed by The Gebbeth, offering to sacrifice himself in Ged's place. Ged encounters Tygath and fights him, but Tygath is an experienced warrior, so Ged runs into the tomb where he encounters The Gebbeth. Ged realizes The Gebbeth's true name is Sparrowhawk, because it is the darkness in himself, and Ged accepts this now. The Gebbeth is absorbed into Ged to make him whole again, and strengthening him in fighting Tygath when he enters the tomb. Tygath threatens to kill Tenar unless she releases the Nameless Ones with the incantation. Ged notices Tenar's ornate key to the labyrinth, and tells the incredulous Tenar to speak the incantation. The Nameless Ones are released, and attack Tygath before flying away to wreak havoc on Earthsea. Ged is able to revive Vetch the same way Ogion revived him, and then reveals a part of the key to the labyrinth's door to be the second half of the amulet. Ged and Tenar put the Amulet of Peace together, dispelling the Nameless Ones with a bright light, restoring peace to Earthsea. In the new light, Ged and Tenar kiss.

Characters

• Ged (Shawn Ashmore) - young mage-in-training
• Tenar (Kristin Kreuk) - priestess of Atuan
• High Priestess Thar (Isabella Rossellini) - high priestess of Atuan, Tenar's mentor
• Ogion (Danny Glover) - Master Wizard
• King Tygath (Sebastian Roché) - power-hungry ruler of the Kargides
• Kossil (Jennifer Calvert) - priestess of Atuan, lover of Tygath
• Vetch (Chris Gauthier) - mage-in-training, friend of Ged
• Jasper (Mark Hildreth) - mage-in-training, school bully
• Archmagus (Alan Scarfe) - headmaster of Roke Academy
• The Gebbeth (Mark Acheson) - the Nameless One that comes after Ged
• Dunian (Dave 'Squatch' Ward) - Ged's Father
• Lady Elfarren (Amanda Tapping) - priestess-mage who imprisoned the Nameless Ones ages ago
• Skiorch (Alessandro Juliani) - Ged's friend

Production

The series was produced by Hallmark Entertainment in association with Bender-Brown Productions. It was adapted by Gavin Scott (The Mists of Avalon) from the Earthsea novels for executive producers Robert Halmi, Sr. (Merlin, Gulliver's Travels, Animal Farm), Lawrence Bender (Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction) and Kevin Kelly Brown (Roswell). The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Critical reception

Reviewing the miniseries, the book The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy claimed Legend of Earthsea "totally missed the point" of Le Guin's novels, "ripping out all the subtlety, nuance and beauty of the books and inserting boring cliches, painful stereotypes and a very unwelcome 'epic' war in their place". The Moria website's review of "Legend of Earthsea" states "Earthsea feels exactly like tv filler. In the books, Ursula Le Guin expended a great deal of time creating a world with a depth and culture, but nothing of this survives in the mini-series". The review also argues Legend of Earthsea "is shabbily and indifferently directed" and "The dialogue is dreadfully clunky and often excruciatingly bad".

Author's response

Le Guin, author of the novels on which the miniseries is based, was not involved in the development of the material or the making of the production. She has written a number of responses to the handling of this adaptation of her works, "A Whitewashed Earthsea" and "Frankenstein's Earthsea". She noted, "When I sold the rights to Earthsea a few years ago, my contract gave me the standard status of "consultant""?which means whatever the producers want it to mean, almost always little or nothing.," and that, "Mr. Lieberman, one of the producers, published a statement telling people what 'Ursula' (whom he has never met) 'intended' by the books. That changed the situation. They were taking advantage of my silence by sticking words in my mouth. I put a reply on my website...."