How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She knew nothing of the Balance and the Pattern which the true wizard knows and serves, and which keep him from using his spells unless real need demands. (1.19)
Trust us on this: later books will take a kinder view of women and their magic. But this quote shows a clear distinction between the minor wizards and witches who use magic carelessly and those school-taught wizards who understand that magic comes with a cost. If Ged starts out being a little too quick to use magic, we might blame it on the fact that no one has taught him about the Balance yet.
Quote #2
But Ogion let the rain fall where it would. (2.16)
Ged doesn't understand about the Balance until Ogion starts teaching and demonstrating the Balance. Letting the rain fall on him may be a minor example, but it seems pretty powerful to us. After all, if you had the power to keep rain off yourself, wouldn't you want to use it?
Quote #3
"But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world." (3.57)
This is the Master Hand telling Ged that it's easy (and fine) to make illusions, but hard (and dangerous) to actually change things. Now, Le Guin (or her editor) seems a little inconsistent with capitalizations – notice that sometimes it's "the Balance" and sometimes it's "the balance." (And sometimes it's "Equilibrium.") But this is one of the central issues about power and duty – that the wizards can't just go about doing whatever they want, but have to worry about the Balance too.
Quote #4
"Rain on Roke may be drouth in Osskil," he said, "and a calm in the East Reach may be storm and ruin in the West, unless you know what you are about." (4.3)
"Drouth" is an old way of saying "drought" – which is to say, a big lack of rain and water. This is the Master Windkey telling Ged about the Balance. If you're counting, this is probably the one-billionth time that someone has told Ged about the Balance. And since we follow Ged, we're also getting the lesson about the Balance. Notice how often teachers tell Ged about this – we might say that this is one lesson that Le Guin really, really wants us all to get.
Quote #5
It was only the dumb instinctive wisdom of the beast who licks his hurt companion to comfort him, and yet in that wisdom Ged saw something akin to his own power, something that went as deep as wizardry. From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees. (5.31)
Ged has just been saved from a coma by his otak, Hoeg, and this teaches Ged a lesson that he might not have learned so well at school: Ged realizes that he shouldn't set himself apart from nature. This is not only a big issue for Ged and his relation to the natural world, but also an issue that is important to his coming of age.
Quote #6
He stooped, and then softly picked it up in his two hands. It was the otak, its fine short fur all clogged with blood and its small body light and stiff and cold in his hands. (7.72)
Maybe we're just the type that coos over pictures of cute animals, but this part always gets us. After all, Ged basically has two friends – Vetch and the otak – and here he's failed in protecting this one friend. If the otak is a connection Ged has with the natural world, then how does it make us feel when the otak gets killed by Ged's shadow?
Quote #7
Every prentice-sorcerer learns the tale of the wizard Bordger of Way, who delighted in taking bear's shape, and did so more and more often until the bear grew in him and the man died away, and he became a bear, and killed his own little son in the forests, and was hunted down and slain. (7.84)
Balance is presented as an important attribute when dealing with the natural world, but it's also an important personal quality. That is, when you transform into an animal, you might want to balance that out with some time as a human being. Perhaps one way to think about this would be to remember one's place in the natural world.
Quote #8
Had he not used that magic he would have been hard put to keep the crank little boat on such a course, on that rough sea. (8.9)
This part confuses us: the whole book has been about maintaining the Balance, but then, as soon as Ged's hunting the shadow, it seems fine to use magic to sail. What makes sailing different than, say, when rain falls on Ged? Perhaps this is a reminder to us that Ged is engaged in serious business.
Quote #9
So he laid charms of heal and ward on children who were lame or sickly, and spells of increase on the villagers' scrawny flocks of goats and sheep… (9.3)
In his travels, Ged does some good work for people he meets, and that work involves a fair amount of magic. For instance, he heals one guy's eyes (9.2) before he goes on to charm his flocks and tools. Notice that this is also an intervention in the natural order, but it's one that Ged doesn't think twice about. Why is it OK to help these people and interfere with the natural world? Perhaps, in some ways, what makes this different is that he's doing it for other people, not for himself.
Quote #10
On the course on which they were embarked, the saying of the least spell might change chance and move the balance of power and of doom: for they went now toward the very center of that balance, toward the place where light and darkness meet. Those who travel thus say no word carelessly. (10.1)
Notice that the question of balance and spells often takes for granted the idea that spells may interfere with the Balance. But why couldn't it be the other way? Would it be possible to imagine this section written as if spells were important to maintaining the Balance?