"Come back, Tenar. I said, come back!"

After re-reading it for the first time in over a decade, I finally feel like I might be able to write something about it, so I'll give it a try.

Ursula K. Le Guin, translated by Masako Shimizu, "The Tombs of Atuan: Earthsea Cycle 2" (Iwanami Shoten, 2009)

I think that when I read this before, I was thinking about the false freedom of captivity and the weight of true freedom.

Arha, raised to become the High Priestess as the reincarnation of the previous one, walks freely through the dark underground tombs of Atuan, the world of the dark gods.
That place is Arha's own sanctuary, and the only playground permitted to her.
The other priestesses say it's boring to be in such a tomb and that they want to get out quickly, but Arha, who was brought there as a young child and remembers nothing of the outside world, cannot empathize with them.

Arha held the most power in these tombs.
Or at least, she was supposed to.
In reality, the older priestesses who raised and monitored the young Arha held more power than she did.
However, simply by being the "reincarnation of the High Priestess," Arha stood at the pinnacle of all the priestesses and was the ruler of the underground tombs.

The one who disrupted that fragile power balance was Ged, the Archmage, who had snuck into the underground tombs from out of nowhere.

Ged reminded Arha of her true name and urged her to return from the world of darkness to the light.
As the tombs collapsed and she was stripped of all the power she was supposed to have, Tenar trembled in fear before the freedom that lay ahead, and before the vast ocean.

I once thought, back when I was a teenager, around the same age as Tenar, that I understood that "true freedom is a heavy thing that comes with responsibility," and I felt as though I had stepped into the world of freedom alongside her.

There are many stories where a male hero liberates a captive princess.
The Earthsea cycle is quite dark, understated, and philosophical for a fantasy work, but this is likely a story of that same archetype.
However, what bothers me here is that Ged did not head to the tombs to rescue Tenar, but rather broke into the tombs in search of treasure and sought Tenar's help to escape from there.

As a result, Ged recovered the lost treasure, the "Broken Armband," and Tenar, as a noble who contributed to that, moved from the tombs of Atuan, ruled by the dead, to Havnor, ruled by the wizard.

Ever since I read "Firelight," released in May 2025, which contains short stories from Earthsea and transcripts of Le Guin's lectures, I have been constantly preoccupied with how to think about this story of Tenar.
In the Earthsea trilogy, Tenar is brought back as one of Ged's "spoils of war," and her role ends there.
And then, in the fourth volume that follows, she reappears as an "old woman" with no power at all.

Tenar lived and acted freely in the darkness ruled by the dead.
In the world of light led out by Ged, however, Ged does not stay by Tenar's side, and she is cast out alone.
In the light ruled by wizards, was Tenar truly able to live freely?