Vikings Vs Pirates
The Kargs of Earthsea are raiders with particular savagery who frequently attack seaside villages, carting off loot and people. Remind you of anything? You guessed it, pirates. Those cutthroat thieves that pillaged regardless of flag.
Or was it Vikings? Pirates are mentioned on the same page the Kargs are introduced, which makes one wonder the difference. Le Guin writes that “the Lords of Gont were busy with their piracy and paid small head to the woes of other lands” (A Wizard of Earthsea, 8). Later, she again emphasizes that Gont was not famous for warriors, “but goat-thieves, sea pirates, and wizards” (A Wizard of Earthsea, 9). However, while the Gonts seem to engage in piracy, Kargs seem more closely inspired by Vikings for a few reasons. Why then are Kargs described as evil and the Lords of Gont merely apathetic?
“The slave markets of the Viking world: comparative perspectives on an ‘invisible archaeology’” by Ben Raffield, at one point refers to the Vikings as pirates: “Viking groups regularly engaged in conflict with each there, either as mercenaries or in order to further their own political ambitions, while Adam of Bremen noted that pirates in the seas around Denmark during the eleventh century would regularly attack shipping in order to take captives” (Raffield, 686). So what is the real difference? Well Vikings are a type of pirate, but it is a much more specific term. The Vikings were confined to a specific era, and they had a stronger sense of culture than pirates in general. They had particular ways of burying their dead, customs regarding mingling with local populations, and their own styles of fighting and seafaring. The fact that the Kargs are carrying out calculated raids, and the level of brutality they exhibit, make them seem much worse than the pirates from Gont, who aren’t acting out of a sense of nationalism, and aren’t described as unnecessarily brutal. It will be interesting to see what other aspects Kargs share with Vikings as we read on.
