Ged
Fictional characterWikipedia
154
MENTIONS
5
EPISODES
4
PODCASTS
Search complete. 154 mentions across 5 episodes found for "Ged".
Oct 6, 2026
speaker_2HOST
Tell me about the plot.
speaker_3HOST
So we follow a young, profoundly gifted, but highly arrogant wizard named Ged, and in this reckless attempt to basically prove his superiority, he tries to summon a spirit from the dead.
speaker_2HOST
That never goes well.
speaker_3HOST
Never.
speaker_2HOST
Yeah, that's the standard formula.
speaker_3HOST
Le Guin rejects that entirely.
speaker_3HOST
The climax of Ged's epic journey is not a battle.
speaker_2HOST
Wait, really? Then what happens?
RyanHOST
[laughs]
AndrewHOST
... is a 1968 high fantasy novel that follows Ged, a young boy from the island of Gont who discovers he possesses immense magical talent and leaves home to train at the prestigious School of Wizards on Roke Island.
AndrewHOST
While attempting to prove his magical superiority, an arrogant Ged accidentally tears the fabric of reality and unleashes a nameless, terrifying shadow creature that pursues him across the archipelago of Earthsea, the name of the world we're in.
AndrewHOST
Within the broader history of fantasy literature, the novel's celebrated for pioneering the foundational magic school trope and establishing-
RyanHOST
Hm
12 MINS LATER
RyanHOST
And if I'm to understand this book correctly, and apparently, a- again, now I'm on shaky territory because I feel like some things were a little over my head.
RyanHOST
But someone has to give you your true name or reveal your true name, and Ogion being a great wizard comes to, to give Duny his full name.
RyanHOST
And it just so happens that Duny's full name, true name, is Ged.
Steven TaylorHOST
Yeah, I agree.
Steven TaylorHOST
I mean, I guess I expected more Ged.
Steven TaylorHOST
And of course, I remembered it was more Ged.
Steven TaylorHOST
But yeah, you're right.
Steven TaylorHOST
From a fresh reading perspective, there's no way to anticipate what's coming next, especially after the first two were so substantially different.
Tom GrantHOST
Right.
Steven TaylorHOST
We can talk about kingship and solving problems that simply later in the episode, but you know, it is that, that, that sort of foreshadowed pretty clearly at this point.
Steven TaylorHOST
And so in some ways, like I guess in this way, Like the other two novels, this also is a coming-of-age story, but it's for Arren in this case, not for Ged or Arhart.
Karen Joy FowlerGUEST
I loved just the place of Earthsea.
Karen Joy FowlerGUEST
And then I loved Ged, you know, the young man who makes one terrible mistake and spends the rest of the book paying for it.
Stefanie PetersMODERATOR
Yeah, thank you.
Stefanie PetersMODERATOR
And Nhi, how about you?
6 MINS LATER
Nghi VoGUEST
But the thing was, what it did do for me, which I didn't understand until many years later, was it caused me to question narratives in kind of a big way.
Nghi VoGUEST
And one of the ways it did this is with the character whose use name was Serret, I believe.
Nghi VoGUEST
She shows up early on the book as a girl that Ged calls fantastically ugly, I believe.
Nghi VoGUEST
And then later on when she appears, she's mysteriously beautiful.
Steven TaylorHOST
I don't have those copies anymore.
Steven TaylorHOST
But I, I mean, I, I certainly expected, I suppose, in simple terms, of the further adventures of Ged.
Steven TaylorHOST
That's kind of what I expected.
Tom GrantHOST
Right.
Steven TaylorHOST
And therefore, this book did not start how I expected.
Steven TaylorHOST
How about yourself?
Tom GrantHOST
Yeah, I, I had no in- inclination one way or another about how this book could or should y- kind of continue the story of Ged.
Steven TaylorHOST
Mm-hmm.