> In Le Guin's Earthsea series, magic is based on knowing the "true name" of a t... | Hacker News

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spoiler on March 17, 2017 | parent | context | favorite | on: Acing the technical interview

> In Le Guin's Earthsea series, magic is based on knowing the "true name" of a thing

This is a common thing among many fantasy fiction works, so it's hard to tell what inspired it; might not be Eartsea.

100k on March 17, 2017 [–]

It comes from ancient folklore (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name). I mention Earthsea here because Aphyr is referencing Ursula K. Le Guin specifically.

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