The Farthest Shore - themes

Death - is one of the most important themes of the book. The author revolves around fear of death and its hopelessness. Inhaitans of Eartsea are terrified of death and they would do anything to stop it. The book presents the motives for being immortal and protagoinists gain it by denying life and therefore death. There is a message that there is no life without death. It is also about balance as Ged states that life is joyless and not worth living without death. Only by accepting death individuals are able to live to the fullest. Taoistic Balance and Equilibrium of the universe - Ged is portrayed in this volume as a sage and a wise man, who know and understands the reasons underlying the necessity of keeping forces of good and evil, chaos and order, life and death in balance. He understands that life comes from death and other dependances.

The relationship between word and meaning - the use of magic is connected to the knowing of true names.

Vanishing magic - in Earthsea magic is vanishing and the words are loosing their power. This loss is a geographic specific phenomenon as Ged and Arren travel to places where the words have lost their meanings while in other places the words still work.

Bildungsroman - it is a coming-of-age novel, in which a new character goes through maturity. Arren devlops from a boy to a man, and eventually becomes the king who can unify the world of Earthsea. Ged is here a significant supporting character.

Thining - after Ged succeded at his quest, he lost all his magical power.

Sacrifice - to save others, maintain the Equilibrium and stop the necromancer, Ged had to sacrifice his own power and become a normal man.

Alter-ego - Cob can be considered Ged's alter ego, a version of him who successfully managed to summon the dead and control it. In the end then, Ged has to neutralize him in a way which resembles the confrontation with the Shadow, however this time he does not absorbs he evil power, but neutralizes it by sacrificing a part of himself.