A Broken Hero

. . . Hugh’s body lying in a gush of slime and blood. . . . He lay on his back, both legs bent to the side, his face masked, effaced with blood. She tried to clean the stuff off his face with her hands, to get his nostrils and mouth clear, for he was breathing, a gasping shallow breath at intervals; but he lay motionless and his face felt cold. . . . He was broken.

— Ursula K. LeGuin, The Beginning Place

   When an author sets up a situation which has already been run to completion by dozens and hundreds of other authors, he is asking for trouble. Ursula K. LeGuin did so in her Beginning Place, a story which runs terrible risks of becoming stereotypical at every turn.
   The final operation of the plot, in which Hiuradjas (Hugh) and Irena are trekking from Tembreabrezi to the High Stair in an attempt to find and confront the mysterious fear which is controlling and destroying the little mountain town, seems at every turn to run a now-straight path to Standard Fantasy Plot 41-Q. However, at each apparent “out”, LeGuin craftily inserts a “not yet” which elegantly directs the plot in a new direction.
   When the climax arrives and the two face the monster, Hugh could have killed it with a single stroke and left. Now, as I read, I had been waiting for something to disappoint me: I had countless predictions for the outcomes of any situation. As I read on, it became apparent that if I were able to predict something, the odds were poor that it would actually take place: just like life. (And since Art imitates Life, I suppose that would make this book one of the few works of art within the entire Fantasy Literature genre.
   Well, surprisingly, Hugh does end up killing the monster with a single blow. However, in an unexpected turn (with which LeGuin is a master) he is trapped beneath the monster and left in an indeterminate state while Irena’s psyche is explored through her responses to the situation.