Children, Magic, and Choices

Volume 6 Number 1 Article 2 12-15-1979 Children, Magic, and Choices Dainis Bisenieks Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Bisenieks, Dainis (1979) "Children, Magic, and Choices," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 6 : No. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Reviews the portrayal of children in a number of contemporary fantasies (including those of Lewis) and analyzes their success or failure. Additional Keywords Children in fantasy; Victoria de Nevyen This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss1/2 Children, Magic, and Choices by Dainis Bisenieks People this world, by chance created so, him, one to learn the patient and silent ways of Ogion, the w ith random p e rs o n s whom you do n o t know— other to go out into the world and to develop and use his powers. In time he w ill come to the end of the latter way, a s The Farthest Shore tells, and return to his master Ogion. But now he goes to the school for wizards on Roke Island Let the erratic couse they steer surprise where he meets an even stronger challenge to his pride, so their own and your own and your readers' eyes; that he summons the spirit of Elfarran and is felled by a Sigh then, or frown, but leave (as in despair) Thing not summoned. When at last he wakes, that is the end Motive and end and moral in the air; of his childhood, though he is to learn time and again the Nice contradiction between fact and fact consequences of ill judgment. W ill make the whole read human and exact. The story moves me by its attention to the shape of a That is part of "The Devil's Advice to Story-Tellers"— life, spanning a dozen years from the first incident, and perhaps from the same lot of correspondence that another by its refusal to look away from death and terror. If Ged w riter drew on. I found it in the poems of Robert Graves. judges and chooses wrongly, the errors are natural ones for an unformed boy: they are h i s errors, and their con But we know that a well-made story works toward a sequences and his subsequent choices are the making of him. meaningful end; seeming chance has its part in a design. The economy of something like "Oedipus the King" (and how I can say much the same of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain effective that is!) may be too extreme for our kind of books, though The High King o n ly ta k e s me to a happy end story-telling; we like some detail of local color and be which is but a beginning. As Ged desired the power of magic, havior. Yet characterization is not an end in itself: a so Taran wants to be a hero—and is told "the three founda common story-pattern is "The Man Who learned Better", and tions of learning: see much, study much, suffer much". In who the man is affects what he learns. A choice w ill have The Book o f Three he is at first hasty to act and to judge, consequences no matter how trifling it seems; while it but at least in his foolhardiness there is courage. On his advances the plot it tells us about the man. wanderings with Eilonwy, Gurgi, and Fflewddur Fflam, he learns some circumspection. From Medwyn he gets the advice, Especially is this true in fantasy. Of course we like very useful in a magical realm, not to "refuse to give help it for the fantastic, the enchanting things in it: but it when it is needed, nor refuse to accept it when it is allows of the making of a story where choices are momentous, offered." He acts on it in saving the wounded young gwy- where all the hero's resources are called on: where men thaint, a bird of a species enslaved to evil—and good comes walk with destiny. of his deed which his companions deprecate. So the tale is rounded off. Suppose now they are not men and women but children. In The Black Cauldron Taran's quick pride has been The same growth from innocence to experience and to ac backed somewhat with his first achievements. "Do you love complishment is still called for. (The catastrophe of tra danger so much," asks Gwydion. "Before you are a man, you gedy would not be appropriate.) Some stage of maturity w ill learn to hate it." A contest of pride between him and must be reached. Yet children are, after all, children; Ellidyr runs through the story. The provocation is most they have been known to preserve a childlikeness through often the latter's, but Taran is as often reproved for re some of the most dreadful experiences that history affords. sponding to it and so endangering the mission of his com Some well-known novels—I w ill cite The Innocent Voyage and pany. A hard choice is put before him when Ellidyr exacts Lord of the F lies —have presented a dark side of the psy an oath to give h im credit for gaining the Cauldron: one chology of childhood. Now our type of story does not call of those choices typical of high fantasy. Taran swallows on such possibilities—but it is fitting to characterize his pride, as the mission must be accomplished no matter by children properly. If— i f children are more likely to act whom; and Ellidyr redeems himself at the last by giving his capriciously and to be immune to certain kinds of teaching, life to destroy the Cauldron. might this not conflict with the requirements of a well- made story? But above these earthly desires is the desire for Magic. Thus far, magic has been used as a tool: weapon, I w ill call this an exploration; I do not wish to pre shield, concealment. The brooch which passes to Taran at scribe, but only to record how certain stories have worked Adaon's death is that, too: but Taran sees that it can on me and to suggest reasons for what I felt to be short raise his being to a new plane. So when the engagingly comings. Let me start in the safe haven of one that worked sinister Three Fates ask their price for the Cauldron, only surpremely well: Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard o f Earthsea. this most precious of gifts is acceptable; and Taran weeps at its loss. Ged, as I'll call him from the start, is seen as a child only in the first few chapters. After his prideful So do tales of high fantasy put their heroes i n e x t r e act of Summoning, he comes to a somber maturity: and at m is , granting them wisdom: and joy: and sorrow; and death. last to wholeness. He is gifted with the power to work (Death does not come to the principals in books that child magic. The first discovery of that gift, when he calls the ren w ill read; but it does in the works of authors as di goats to him, is frightening and prefigures the later dis verse as A. M erritt and Charles W illiams.) Now I have asked aster, as he cannot dismiss what he has called. But there how children fit these roles; and we may note that Fflewddur after the gift feeds his childish pride and eagerness to Fflam, who offered his harp for the Cauldron, sacrifices it excel above his fellows. in a later book. He wins thereby a gift of safety and great joy for himself and his friends. He is no child—and The daughter of the Lord of Re Albi challenges that that was for me the most moving incident in the five books. pride, so that he seeks for more power and looks in the Even so: it is the first experience of its kind that wizard Ogion's book, thus meeting the foreshadowing of evil. is most poignant. The heroes of these books are in their A fine moment of revelation here: two longings struggle in own worlds, where they must become kings and mages and so 13 ney from danger into danger is the story, except that p e r n a t u r a l danger gives the story its quality. It is in places a supreme test of courage, as in the escape through the tunnels.

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