This is a great looping gif because now I just imagine Raiden having like a barrel full of cigarettes next to him he keeps grabbing from and Naomi is making this gigantic pile of cigarettes on the ground in continuation
Naomi keeps giving Raiden cigarettes from her big barrel but he is ungrateful
I see you’re trapped in my gay and stupid maze again
the first three books in the Earthsea cycle tell a pretty familiar story of a world where men are kings and wizards and women are wives and mothers and occasionally witches (rather insignificant people)
the only society that gives women any kind of power and position by choice is a cruel race of death-worshippers (who are incidentally the only white people in the books) and they’re still ruled by men, while the few other women with power are evil and unnatural
so you can read these first three books and you go with it because that’s what fantasy mostly looks like, but then the fourth book comes along and LeGuin says “hey, did you notice that this world I’ve created is really fucking sexist? Because I did, and it was on purpose, and now you’re gonna hear about it”
what I also love is that the overarching theme of the Earthsea cycle is healing breaches, bringing together that which has been driven apart through fear or hatred, and the division between men and women is one of these things that needs to be made whole for the world to be set right
but mainly I love that she tells this fairly traditional male-dominated fantasy story for three books and then turns on you and forces you to question why the story is that way and why you accepted it
if you kill the little mushroom men in darkroot garden i hate you
Some mers have “water wings” which can be large fins that trail down their body, multiple smaller ones that go down their back and tails, or for dragon types, are just what the word dragon implies: bat like wigs that either replace their arms for faster swimming through the water or on their shoulder blades.
