G is for Gont

         (My A-Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Mythical and Imaginary Places.  Be sure to visit the Master List of participants to find enough blogs to keep you busy all day all month!)

        The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.  From the towns in its high valleys and the ports on its dark narrow bays many a Gontishman has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in their cities as wizard or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander working magic from isle to isle of all Earthsea.

        So begins A Wizard of Earthsea, first book in the Earthsea series by Ursula K. LeGuin, and with this we have our first imaginary place in this A to Z Challenge that is the creation of a single author rather than the shifting, morphing work of thousands of nameless storytellers over hundreds of years of folklore.  Unlike the mythical places of folklore, a single author’s geography is expected not to have contradictions or bits that don’t make sense.  It is generally much more detailed, more concretely imagined, and more deliberately crafted to support a specific story.

        Gont is something of a backwater in Earthsea, and the Gontish boy Sparrowhawk arrives at the school of wizardry on Roke in the center of the Archipelago with an enormous chip on his shoulder.  The geography helps drive the characters, and the character-interactions drive the plot and the themes.  Gont is then the setting of the fourth book in the series, where Sparrowhawk retreats in his perceived fall from grace, and former-priestess Tenar of the second book has also retreated to try to live the “normal” life of an “ordinary” person.  Gont, in other words, represents the ordinary world far from the court of the king and the school of the mages that are so often the settings of high fantasy tales.  And yet Gont is where wizards come from, and where ordinary people, too, perform deeds of great courage, wisdom, and yes, magic.

        The MORAL of Gont: Never underestimate a hero from humble beginnings.

              OR:  Seriously, I don’t care how much the other kids goad you; it is never a good idea to  perform black magic.

        So, what’s the place that gives you the roots you’d want to return to when you need to reset?

[Pictures: Gont, illustration by Ruth Robbins from A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, 1968;

Map of Gont by Margaret Chodos-Irvine from Tehanu by LeGuin, 1990.]