Demian and Earthsea
So, I was reading up on Gnostic motifs in "Shōjo Kakumei Utena" (as one does) and I found an interesting tidbit about Herman Hesse's "Demian". I've never read it, but, from what I gather, a recurrent theme in it is the idea that light and shadow shouldn't oppose each other, but rather complement each other. And one of the examples that it uses to illustrate that is the Gnostic deity Abraxas, who embodies both holy and evil. In the following line, that I believe will be recognizable both to readers of "Demian" and to viewers of "Shōjo Kakumei Utena":
>The bird breaks the egg's shell, the egg is the world. To break free, one must destroy a world. The bird flies to god, the god's name is Abraxas.
The bird is a sparrowhawk, which made me immediately think of Ged. Not only because of the climax of "A Wizard of Earthsea", but also because of all the dualities that permeate Ursula's work. I tried (not very hard) to find interviews and analyses commenting on possible connections between Ursula LeGuin and Herman Hesse but didn't find any. Does anybody know if this parallel was proposital on her part, or if they both happened to drink from the same sources, or if it was just a coincidence? I don't know a whole lot about the history of the symbolism of sparrowhawks, but I thought it was worth asking.