What is magic for?

[marycatelli]

"Then what is magic for?" Prince Lír demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling.

Schmedrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for."

Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

a good, and memorable, line. And gets you thinking about heroism and magic, for sure.

[marycatelli]

Glad you like it!

[eric-hinkle.livejournal.com]

It will sound odd, but whenever I hear or am reminded of The Last Unicorn, I don't think of Schmendrick or even Amalthea, but of King Haggard, who is one of the most pitiful villains in fantasy. "I knew! I ALWAYS KNEW!"

[marycatelli]

Yes -- he's one of the great villains of the genre. Up there with Sauron.

[eric-hinkle.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Haggard was evil, yes, but he struck me more as a sad and selfish old man who desperately wanted to feel the only joy he ever felt again and again by catching and imprisoning the unicorns. He was pitiful. Sauron, on the other hand, does inspire a sort of pity from me (he was an angel once; and at the beginning of the world, he gazed upon all Creation alongside Eru Iluvatar) but by the time we see him in LOTR he's become just a hateful wasting Shadow that doesn't have any noble or even human emotions left.

But that aside I agree that they;'tr both great villains!

[marycatelli]

Err. . . .

You're contrasting "evil" and "selfish"?

That he was trying to obtain some good by his evil acts does not make them less evil; all evil is the deliberate sacrifice of a greater good to a lesser good.

[eric-hinkle.livejournal.com]

It might have been better to day that I have always felt some pity for Haggard but none for Sauron. And I suppose that if I'm able to pity someone then there's a part of me that thinks they must have been redeemable once if not any more.

[marycatelli]

Yeah, that is a difference.

[coffeesvp.livejournal.com]

"What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?"
A remarkable sentence.

[marycatelli]

Beagle had some real lovely ones in there.