I thought I'd read the first Earthsea book ages ago but I happened across some remark about reading it in my diary from March this year — and how it was helping take my mind off COVID. I also wrote that Ged's need to run after his fear to rob it of its power was somehow simliar to the psychedelic experience of ego death as described in Pollan's book that I'd read not long before.
Anyway, I loved that book and i really should get around to reading the second one soon.
It's a good one to compare to Harry Potter because there are certain similarities in the story (wizard school) but the concept of magic is entirely different in Earthsea, much less arbitrary and shallow. It's also a thousand times better written, of course. But it's also very unworldly, unlike HP, which makes magic pedestrian — which is actually part of the appeal of those books, because it makes it seem like the magical world exists right alongside our mundane world, and isn't actually all that different. And HP, for all its faults, has "relatable" lead characters and is often quite funny — Earthsea is (as far as I recall) entirely humourless.
Apparently the Ghibli Earthsea adaptation (Directed by Miyazake's son) is one of the very few Ghibli duds. When I read AWOES I definitely could see how it must have inspired Ghibli/Miyizake. That same sense of magic as lofty, mysterious, beyond human understanding.