"Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!"
When Ged begins learning more about magic, he is eager to learn everything he can in a short period of time. His mentor however, has a different approach and he wants to first teach Ged the basics of magic before diving deeper into complex spells and more powerful things. What the first mentor wanted to teach Ged was that he first had to realize the power he had and the way his power could affect other people. Ogion wanted Ged to be a prudent wizard who knew when and how to act and who was not afraid to turn away from a battle when it was not worth fighting it. Ogion wanted to teach Ged that just like it was important to know when to fight, it was also important to know when to stand back and to let nature follow its course.
"A wizard's staff is passport and payment on most ships"
Every wizard in the book has a staff they carry around at all times. The staff is a visual representation of that person’s power and it also helps those from the outside to identify other wizards and magical beings. When a wizard loses his staff, it is implied that he actually lost his powers and that he is no longer valuable as a wizard. The staff also granted the wizard certain advantages such as free passage in any country and payment for any form of public transportation. This shows that a wizard was a person who was respected in his society and who could get almost anything he wanted simply because he was a wizard.
"He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun"
Ged realizes that in order to get rid of the Shadow, he must begin hunting the shadow on his own instead of waiting for the shadow to come for him. After he reaches this conclusion, Ged begins to actively search for the shadow until the shadow becomes afraid of Ged and runs away from him. At the end of the eight chapter, Ged manages to touch the shadow and when he makes contact with the shadow he realizes the true identity of the monster that haunted him. While it is not revealed until the last chapter, the shadow and Ged share the same name. knowing that names are important in the story, it is safe to assume that the name is not coincidental. What the author wanted to transmit through this is the idea that Ged and the Shadow were the same and that the shadow is just part of Ged’s personality.
