the farthest shore

“Can it be a kind of pestilence, a plague, that drifts from land to land, blighting the crops and the flocks and men’s spirits?”

“A pestilence is a motion of the great Balance, of the Equilibrium itself; this is different. There is the stink of evil in it. We may suffer for it when the balance of things rights itself, but we do not lose hope and forego art and forget the words of the Making. Nature is not unnatural. This is not a righting of the balance, but an upsetting of it. There is only one creature who can do that.”

“A man?” Arren said, tentative.

“We men.”

“How?”

“By an unmeasured desire for life.”

“For life? But it isn’t wrong to want to live?”

“No. But when we crave power over life -endless wealth, unassailable safety, immortality- then desire becomes greed. And if knowledge allies itself to that greed, then comes evil. Then the balance of the world is swayed, and ruin weighs heavy in the scale.”

Arren brooded over this a while and said at last, “Then you think it is a man we seek?”

“A man, and a mage. Aye, I think so.”

“But I had thought, from what my father and teachers taught, that the great arts of wizardry were dependent on the Balance, the Equilibrium of things, and so could not be used for evil.”

“That,” said Sparrowhawk somewhat wryly, “is a debatable point. Infinite are the arguments of mages… Every land of Earthsea knows of witches who cast unclean spells, sorcerers who use their art to win riches. But there is more. The Firelord, who sought to undo the darkness and stop the sun at noon, was a great mage; even Erreth-Akbe could scarcely defeat him. The Enemy of Morred was another such. Where he came, whole cities knelt to him; armies fought for him. The spell he wove against Morred was so mighty that even when he was slain it could not be halted, and the island of Solea was overwhelmed by the sea, and all on it perished. Those were men in whom great strength and knowledge served the will to evil and fed upon it. Whether the wizardry that serves a better end may always prove the stronger, we do not know. We hope.”

There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty. Arren found himself unwilling to stay on these cold summits. He said after a little while, “I see why you say that only men do evil, I think. Even sharks are innocent; they kill because they must.”

“That is why nothing else can resist us. Only one thing in the world can resist an evil-hearted man. And that is another man. In our shame is our glory. Only our spirit, which is capable of evil, is capable of overcoming it!,

“But the dragons,” said Arren. “Do they not do great evil? Are they innocent?”

“The dragons! The dragons are avaricious, insatiable, treacherous; without pity, without remorse. But are they evil? Who am I, to judge the acts of dragons?… They are wiser than men are. It is with them as with dreams, Arren. We men dream dreams, we work magic, we do good, we do evil. The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance, their being. They do not do; they are.”

Ursula K. LeGuin, The Farthest Shore

Chihiro: Haku, listen, I just remembered something from along time ago, I think it may help you. Once, when I was little , I dropped my shoe into a river. When I tried to get it back i fell in, I thought I’d drown but the water carried me to shore. It finally came back to me, the river’s name was the Kahaku river, I think that was you, and your real name is Kahaku river.

Haku: You did it, Chihiro, I remember, I was the spirit of the Kahaku river.

Chihiro: A river spirit?

Haku: My name is the Kahaku river.

Chihiro: They filled in that river, it’s all apartments now.

Haku: That must be why I can’t find my way home Chihiro, I remember you falling into the river, and I remember your little pink shoe.

Chihiro: So, you’re the one who carried me back to shallow water, you saved me… I knew you were good!