supercheesegirl

On this read, what struck me most is that Ged is totally a karma yogi! On several occasions, he talks to Arren about what it means to be a man of action, and how the best path is to take no action at all. In particular, their conversation after Ged rescues Arren from the slave traders is interesting: Ged talks about maintaining balance, acting with responsibility. He says, "It is much easier for men to act than to refrain from acting.... do nothing because it is righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do and which you cannot do in any other way" (67). This could have come right out of the Bhagavad Gita! I wonder if that's what LeGuin was reading in the early 1970s when this book was first published?