In the seventh part of The Color of Magic, Rincewind, Twoflower, and Hrun face off with Bel-Shamharoth. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Discworld.
I entertained making this review just a single sentence extolling the absurdity of the solution of Bel-Shamharoth’s appearance. I mean, WOULDN’T THAT HAVE BEEN GREAT. Just an all-caps, bolded sentence like, “SWEET GODS, THEY STOPPED BEL-SHAMHAROTH (WHO IS A GIANT EYEBALL) WITH A REALLY BRIGHT CAMERA FLASH I AM SO DONE WITH THIS BOOK.” That’s pretty much my style. (And April 1st, too!!!!) But then I figured I’d probably make more people angry than amused by that. (Hey, maybe Discworld fans have a better sense of humor than fans of The Princess Bride! You never know. Well, you might know, but I certainly don’t.)
But SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY. THERE’S SO MUCH HERE THAT’S EITHER THE BEST SENTENCE EVER OR THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE.
- “terror barrier.” God, I can’t get this out of my head. How have I never said these two words one after the other? It’s poetry.
- “How did you manage it exactly? It was very impressive.” HOWLING WITH LAUGHTER. If Rincewind had a business card, it would say, “Utter shit wizard who accidentally makes things happen. PS: Magic sucks.”
- OH MY GOD, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Twoflower purposely runs off to get into trouble. But HE’S JUST HIMSELF. Oh my god, his genuine nature is too much to handle. I also have a pet theory that Twoflower is meant to be the least genre savvy character in all of fiction. The dude runs up to a creepy abandoned alter and STANDS ON IT and is generally excited about the creepiest place ever. THEN HE WANTS TO TAKE PICTURES OF IT.
- I’m sure y’all understand, but I will not get over my utter amusement at all the different ways the narrative avoids saying the square root of 64.
- I was also amused that Twoflower never realized that Hrun wasn’t the Hrun from earlier.
- Also amused by Kring the sword ruining everything.
- ALSO AMUSED BY TWOFLOWER THINKING THAT THE MOST OPPORTUNE TIME TO TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH IS WHEN HIS GLORIFIED TOUR GUIDE IS BEING DRAGGED INTO A PIT OF FORGOTTEN TIME BY MYSTIC BLACK TENTACLES. YOU TRULY ARE THE MOST UNAWARE BEING IN THE HISTORY OF THE COSMOS.
- He kicked Bel-Shamharoth’s tentacle HE KICKED IT FOR TOUCHING THE LUGGAGE. How? How are you still alive?
- He’s like Isaac and Miria from Baccano! in that sense, isn’t he?
- Because I need to repeat it: Bel-Shamharoth is sent back into the pit after a giant flash goes off in its sole Eye. There are few set-ups to a punch line better than this. FEW.
- Not funny, but necessary: “It was black, the sort of black that is less a color than a graveyard of colors…” FUCK. Where was this sentence fragment during my brief and failed goth period?
- “The salamanders,” moaned Twoflower. “The picture’ll be overexposed, I know it… ” YOU JUST ESCAPED A SENSELESS, INDESCRIBABLE HORROR, TWOFLOWER. MAYBE YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THAT. Oh, who am I kidding? He wouldn’t be Twoflower if he did that!
- It didn’t really hit me until this section, but Hrun is the most stereotypical barbaric hero imaginable. It’s ~beautiful.~
- I don’t know that this qualifies under what I stated at the beginning, but fuck it. My list, my rules. I think the actual best part of this is the image of Time returning to reclaim the place that it had avoided while Bel-Shamharoth lived there. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of years pass, maybe even thousands! It’s an unsettling visual, but the haunting nature of it is also cool as shit.
- “I spent a couple of hundred of years on the bottom of a lake once.” STOP IT, THIS IS SO FUNNY TO ME. I’m also maintaining the headcanon that the Ring from The Lord of the Rings was down there, too.
And it’s with this that this specific “chapter” in the story is closed, which is TOTALLY UNEXPECTED. I thought this would last a whole lot longer, which means that I’m even more unprepared for what comes next. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this is the fact that The Lady won the game against Fate. She won! So… what happens with the gods next? Do they step out of the narrative, or will another game of theirs affect Rincewind’s life? What’s in Quirm that can help them? How long before Hrun is bored by the PR efforts of Rincewind? And, the most important question: How will Death get his revenge against Rincewind for constantly missing his appointment with Him?
GODS, I CAN’T WAIT TO READ MORE.
The original text contains the words “mad,” “idiot,” and “insane.”
Video 1
Video 2
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