[weyj4]

Well said, but your word choice ("potent") reminded me of this great essay of hers: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ursula-k-le-guin-the...

tl;dr she's making a feminist argument that a lot of our stories (Joseph Campbell, monomyth, etc) involve this phallic potency of going out into the world with our pointy sticks and poking wooly mammoths or whatever. she thinks maybe instead of pointy sticks we could think about this carrier bag model. but I can't figure out what she really means in practice, because surely she wants her politically-oriented work to be...potent? if her stories aren't effectively pointy sticks then what should they be? anyway I haven't even read Earthsea so I should probably shut up and go do that, but if anybody figures this paradox out lmk.

[grey-area]

Great link, thank you. She really is an interesting thinker, and her stories have a lot to tell us. Earthsea is worth reading.

Re potency, I think she’s saying it is more common, if less glamorous, to receive and collect than to fight and conquer. Perhaps she chooses to collect and share stories and questions rather than tell you what to do. That is why her tales can seem slow to some - there is a lot under the surface, a lot of meaning nameless or unsaid.

I think of her stories more as questions than answers.

[fractallyte]

Thank you for that link!

Now I'm wondering what is the story of the Heroine with a Thousand Faces?

Where is the other half of human (pre)history?