ellauri159.html on line 1335: Pure-blood supremacy was the belief that wizards and witches whose family had not married any Muggles or Muggle-borns were inherently biologically superior to wizards and witches who had done so. Proponents of this ideology typically regarded Muggle-born wizards as impure, unworthy of possessing magical ability, and often actively discriminated against them.
xxx/ellauri136.html on line 121: This “special snowflake” theme is taken even further when wizards from other countries are introduced. We loved the fact that there was one whole wizarding school in China. And, quite honestly, how exactly have they kept the Communists out???
xxx/ellauri225.html on line 273: Philosophical Taoism had a large role in Le Guin´s world view, and the influence of Taoist thought can be seen in many of her stories. Many of Le Guin´s protagonists, including in The Lathe of Heaven, embody the Taoist ideal of leaving things alone. The anthropologists of the Hainish universe try not to meddle with the cultures they encounter, while one of the earliest lessons Ged learns in A Wizard of Earthsea is not to use magic unless it is absolutely necessary. Taoist influence is evident in Le Guin´s depiction of equilibrium in the world of Earthsea: the archipelago is depicted as being based on a delicate balance, which is disrupted by somebody in each of the first three novels. This includes an equilibrium between land and sea, implicit in the name "Earthsea", between people and their natural environment, and a larger cosmic equilibrium, which wizards are tasked with maintaining. Another prominent Taoist idea is the reconciliation of opposites such as light and dark, or good and evil. A number of Hainish novels, The Dispossessed prominent among them, explored such a process of reconciliation. In the Earthsea universe, it is not the dark powers, but the characters´ misunderstanding of the balance of life, that is depicted as evil, in contrast to conventional Western stories in which good and evil are in constant conflict, wearing white and black stezons, respectively. The idea of leaving good enough alone, in particular, is deeply un-American.
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