Virtual Thought

My friends Nick and Jim are tremendous Tolkien fans. They’ve read the appendices, they know their genealogies… I only read “The Lord of the Rings” before the movies came out (and just in time), though I know that Tolkien has colored every fantasy novel and RPG ever, many of which I’ve participated in gladly.

My Tolkien is Ursula K. LeGuin. My “Lord of the Rings” are the Earthsea books. Because of these books, my number one career choice was wizard. Because of these books, my whole philosophy of life was made to grow and expand. These books fundamentally altered the fabric of my being. They are immeasurably important to me.

And now SciFi is going to screw them up.

In a statement on her personal website, Mrs. LeGuin has admitted that she was never consulted on the miniseries that starts in early December and that she fundamentally disagrees with the direction the director is taking the series. Dammit.

As these forum posts illustrate, the many fans of Mrs. LeGuin’s work are equally as outraged as I am. It was too much to hope, especially after reading Mrs. LeGuin’s initial comments, that this miniseries would be good. And now, I know, this travesty will be just that: a travesty.

Dammit dammit dammit. Oh well.

Just as a sad side note to the tale, here’s what I dislike about the miniseries based just on the teasers and trailers:

• Only the Kargs in Earthsea are pale-skinned. All other people in the Archipelago are red-brown. The only actor of color that seems to be involved in the production is Danny Glover who plays Ogion.


• The shadow that Ged chases throughout the first third of the series is just that, a shadow, which is metaphorically significant. Apparently it has been replaced by some Gollum-like beast.


• Tenar and Ged were not romantically involved until Tehanu, and even then there was no grand unifying sappiness about their love. The stories are not about love as a unifying force but are mostly about self-discovery and personal growth and learning a sense of balance about one’s life.


• In his first confrontantion with the shadow, the gebbeth, Ged is raked by its talons down the side of his face. Again, this is metaphorically significant because his outward appearance is marred by his search to unite his divided self. However, that is left off the series as well.


• There is a character that is credited on the IMDB.com listing as “King Tygath”. There is no king in Havnor since the Rune of Peace was lost with the Ring of Erreth-Ekbe, so I am assuming that this king is the Godking of the Karego-at whose name, as far as I know, is never mentioned by name in the books and is, at best, a secondary character. The fact that he is now a named character suggests that the series is going in an unexpected and, simply, a wrong direction.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 27th, 2004 at 4:18 pm and is filed under soapbox, thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.