{"id":2643,"date":"2014-03-20T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=2643"},"modified":"2014-04-30T00:06:37","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T07:06:37","slug":"mark-reads-the-color-of-magic-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2014\/03\/mark-reads-the-color-of-magic-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Color of Magic&#8217;: Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the third part of <i>The Color of Magic<\/i>, Rincewind discovers just how much Twoflower has complicated his life. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to read <i>Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->OH MY GOD.<\/p>\n<p><b>The Iconograph<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i>what the everloving gods is going on in this book<\/i>. Twoflower owns a &#8220;camera&#8221; that has a tiny imp\/homonculous that spits out glass representations of what it sees. That is the weirdest sentence I&#8217;ve ever written, and even then, it&#8217;s a gross misrepresentation of the iconograph. IT&#8217;S SO MUCH WEIRDER THAN THIS. I mean, the being inside of it opens the door to the iconograph to give Rincewind <i>sassy advice<\/i>. MULTIPLE TIMES. Oh, and it also yells at Rincewind for taking so many photos of naked women. !!!!!!! I DON&#8217;T KNOW WHAT&#8217;S HAPPENING.<\/p>\n<p><b>Risks Are My Business<\/b><\/p>\n<p>See, Pratchett goes from the weirdness of the iconograph \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is undeniably surreal \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to the weirdness of the fact that back where Twoflower comes from, <i>HE IS AN INSURANCE SALESMAN<\/i>. THEY HAVE FUCKING <i>INSURANCE<\/i> IN HIS WORLD. Actually, I love how this is brought up: Twoflower wonders if anyone ever thinks of all the people who own or run bars and taverns, since that&#8217;s where all the fights happen. Doesn&#8217;t anyone care about the bar fixtures???<\/p>\n<p><b><i>reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p>what the fuck are those <i>what the hell<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Touring Ankh-Morpork \/ Chaos<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Essentially, Rincewind becomes a glorified tour guide to Twoflower. It&#8217;s kind of cute? Like, Rincewind doesn&#8217;t argue with Twoflower or try to ruin the experience for him. He takes him all over town, eagerly takes photos for him, and the whole thing is remarkably sincere. Like, I can already tell that Rincewind is fairly cynical about <i>everything<\/i>. The dude is a failed wizard who hates the system of magic he has to use. (Which feels very meta to me, y&#8217;all. Systems of magic can be super complex in fantasy novels, so it&#8217;s hilarious to me that Rincewind <i>hates<\/i> the magic in his world. Of course, I think it&#8217;s an intentional thing that references what Gorphal later states: Rincewind has the disease of dissatisfaction, at least in the Emperor&#8217;s terms.) But he&#8217;s getting paid \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a <i>lot<\/i> of money \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and Twoflower is genuinely one of the nicest beings that Rincewind has ever met.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why it&#8217;s so immediately upsetting when Twoflower disappears in a matter of seconds, Rincewind is surrounded by cruel thieves, and Twoflower&#8217;s living trunk just ate part of two people. And somehow, this all ends with Twoflower setting the city on fire. How? <i>HOW<\/i>?<\/p>\n<p><b>The Empire<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Interspersed with this are a couple scenes of the Patrician receiving news from the Golden Empire regarding their new tourist. It&#8217;s through this that I <i>finally<\/i> understand some of the more confusing parts of the interactions between these two nations. In direct contradiction to the first letter sent to the Patrician, the Emperor of the Golden Empire sends a <i>second<\/i> letter that definitively states that Twoflower <i>must<\/i> be killed. And the reasoning?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The Empire was not built by allowing things to get out of place. That is his view.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I begin to see \u00e2\u20ac\u201c&#8221; said the Patrician.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Quite so.&#8221; Gorphal smiled into his beard. &#8220;This tourist a thing that is out of place. After acceding to his master&#8217;s wishes Nine Turning Mirrors would, I am quite sure, make his own arrangements with a view to ensuring that one wanderer would not be allowed to return home bringing, perhaps, the disease of dissatisfaction. The Empire likes people to stay where it puts them.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This obviously provides a motive for Twoflowers kidnapping. Of course, he&#8217;s also <i>filthy rich<\/i>, so someone could have snatched him up entirely based on that. Seriously, this is all <i>chaos<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Rincewind and the Luggage<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Is it perfectly fine for me to imagine that the Luggage is basically Dug from <i>Up<\/i>? Just a lot more violent, of course. Rincewind finds that his efforts to escape the thieves that are chasing him is complicated by the fact that Twoflower&#8217;s Luggage <i>won&#8217;t leave him alone<\/i>. Actually, it&#8217;s not just that it follows Rincewind; it actively prevents him from leaving his side. If it wasn&#8217;t for the imp inside the iconograph, I don&#8217;t even know that Rincewind would have figured out that it was trying to <i>help<\/i> him. So, now Rincewind has a sentient piece of Luggage following his every move, he&#8217;s got a bizarre camera with a humanoid figure inside of it discussing the benefits of harnessing magic, and he&#8217;s off to find out why Twoflower&#8217;s been taken to Broadman&#8217;s. What the <i>fuck<\/i> is this book, y&#8217;all?<\/p>\n<p>Please note that the original text contains the words &#8220;mad,&#8221; &#8220;lunatic,&#8221; &#8220;insane,&#8221; and &#8220;whore.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Video 1<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pNR6uB1wlaw\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Video 2<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Tdqxeg8-YhE\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; If you would like to support this website and keep Mark Does Stuff running, <a href=\"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2013\/09\/help-keep-mark-does-stuff-running\/\">I&#8217;ve put up a detailed post explaining how you can!<\/a><br \/>\n&#8211; Please check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/markdoesstuff.com\/\">MarkDoesStuff.com<\/a>. All Mark Watches videos for past shows\/season are now archived there!<br \/>\n&#8211; My <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/calendar\/embed?src=815s3sbr8clhdi9tn8k7r3tim4%40group.calendar.google.com&amp;ctz=America\/Los_Angeles\">Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.<br \/>\n&#8211; I will be at quite a few conventions and will be hosting numerous events throughout the US, Canada, and Europe in 2014. <a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/tour-dates-appearances\/\">Please check my Tour Dates\/Appearances page often to see if I&#8217;m coming to your city!<\/a><br \/>\n&#8211; Inspired by last year&#8217;s impromptu park event in London, I am taking Mark in the Park on the road! <a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2014\/02\/the-official-mark-in-the-park-tour-2014\/#idc-cover\">You can see all the currently-planned dates and pitch your own city here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the third part of The Color of Magic, Rincewind discovers just how much Twoflower has complicated his life. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,465],"class_list":["post-2643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-color-of-magic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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