![]() ![]() The Sword in the Stone begins with Wart on a "quest" to find a tutor. The Broken King by Philip Womack Photograph: Troika Books ![]() TH White, through Wart, shows that all children have the capacity within them to overcome not only outside malevolence, but also the evils that threaten from within. ![]() He is by nature kind, generous and courteous, and very much a human (when Kay speaks contemptuously to him, he rages like anyone else would.) Wart, of the hay-fields, the forests and the laundry room, is an ordinary boy, but what he comes to do, as King Arthur of the glittering towers and fluttering banners of Camelot, is beyond extraordinary. Wart is the archetypal child that has power thrust upon him thanks to the workings of an implacable fate. It is magic as extended metaphor: poignant, beautiful and clear. This is true magic: turning Wart into a fish, where he learns about the wrong sort of power from a pike sending him amongst the horrible, bellicose ants or the calm, simple geese or even simply to quest in the ancient greenwood with Robin and Marian. The distinction is that what he experiences is, unlike Potter, geared to teaching him how to behave in the real world. Long before Harry Potter, here was a boy who finds respite in magic. He is largely pushed about by those in charge of him, whether it's the Sergeant-at-Arms, his nurse, or his kindly foster-father Sir Ector. We meet Wart – called so by his foster-brother Kay "because it more or less rhymed with Art, which was short for his real name" – when he is in a position of weakness. ![]()
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