In the sixth part of\u00c2\u00a0Pyramids<\/i>, Teppic is confused by the pyramid-choosing process, Dios is REALLY WEIRD\u00c2\u00a0I<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU<\/i>, and Ptaclusp is determined to fulfill his family destiny. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a slight nervousness to what happens in the first half of this section that I can attribute solely to Teppic. After the dire-ish ending to the last part of this book, we have to witness Dios further manipulating Teppic. And I have no qualms calling it such! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something deeply, deeply wrong with Dios, and I think I\u00c2\u00a0might<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on here. The man hates change, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for certain. Pratchett also calls attention to the physical pain he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feeling and then keeps having go \u00e2\u20ac\u0153across the river\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 something? I assume he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s healing himself somehow or blocking off the pain. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that line about his appearance that I thought was rather significant:<\/p>\n His gaze slid up the gray-clad arm to Dios\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face. Ye gods, he thought, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really true, he\u00c2\u00a0does<\/i> look like they got tired of waiting for him to die and pickled him anyway.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, Dios is\u00c2\u00a0old<\/i>. We knew that. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing that after helping out the last few pharaohs in Djelibeybi, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desperate to cling to that. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comfortable in his role as high priest, and he wants to keep it. Except\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 goddamn it, that totally falls apart once I start examining it. Look, he can only stay alive for so long, right? And how the hell does forcing Teppic to obey Djel tradition help him at\u00c2\u00a0all<\/i>? That makes no sense to me! I mean, I understand it within the framework of Dios\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obsession with permanence. The guy supports tradition for the sake of it. But does that\u00c2\u00a0help<\/i> him as well?<\/p>\n Regardless, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lying to Teppic and that his behavior suggests some sort ulterior motive. For example:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The king requires far more than that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I do?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Teppic, doubtfully.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Indeed, sire. It is your express wish that the greatest of monuments is erected for your father,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Dios smoothly. This was a contest, Teppic knew, and he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the rules or how to play and he was going to\u00c2\u00a0lose<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u00c2\u00a0did<\/i> find it funny that Teppic is aware of the power dynamic, and so he toys with Dios by being even more ridiculous about his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pyramid than Dios thought possible. DOUBLE THE SIZE. ALL THE BONUS FEATURES. HIS N\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 HERS MAZES. (My favorite detail.) YOU GET A PYRAMID, AND\u00c2\u00a0YOU<\/i> GET A PYRAMID, EVERYONE GETS PYRAMIDS. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a small victory amidst an utter lost. Dios doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t listen to Teppic, dismisses him constantly, and gets what he wants. Now, Teppicymon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s having a massive pyramid built for him in THREE MONTHS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 TIME, and then what? Is that the timeline we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got until Teppicymon is trapped in our realm? How can he communicate with his son to tell him what he really wants? AND Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with that whole section where Dios reveals that he believes\u00c2\u00a0every<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>religious tenet is real? I was fascinated by it initially, but the more I think about it, something about it bothers me.<\/p>\n He knew that a great many mutually-contradictory things were all true. If they were not, then ritual and belief were as nothing, and if they were nothing, then the world did not exist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What?<\/i> I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this is some clever pun or play on words. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen manifestations of this sort of thinking in Dios. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beyond obsessed with ritual! But\u00c2\u00a0why<\/i>? However, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something horrible on the horizon:<\/p>\n And it grew bigger and bigger, bigger than the world, so that at last the pyramid was so big that the whole world was a speck in the center.<\/p>\n And in the center of the pyramid, something very strange happened.<\/p>\n And the pyramid grew smaller, taking the world with it, and vanished\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n GREAT.\u00c2\u00a0GREAT<\/i>. I bet Dios is behind this\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 thing? Not the premonition itself or the dream, but whatever awful thing is in the pyramid being built. However, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still hung up on the same problem: WHY? Why do all this? Why make Teppic stick with tradition? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET IT.<\/p>\n The original text contains uses of the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153idiot.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bRfn9rg74wQ<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a> I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans! In the sixth part of\u00c2\u00a0Pyramids, Teppic is confused by the pyramid-choosing process, Dios is REALLY WEIRD\u00c2\u00a0I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU, and Ptaclusp is determined to fulfill his family destiny. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld.<\/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":[463,484,248],"class_list":["post-3055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-pyramids","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055","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=3055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know quite yet. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about Ptaclusp instead! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lovely continuing joke spread across this entire section, and Pratchett just sprints with it into the distance. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so great! Ptaclusp is more like a car salesman or an interior decorator, and so we get a depiction of him that parodies an entire industry. But aside from the humor of his characterization, we see how he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just as committed to ritual and tradition as Dios is. Well\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 okay, probably not to the same degree. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not manipulating anyone to build pyramids, THAT IS A CLEAR DISTINCTION. But when I look at the disagreement his twin sons have, it was obvious to me that Ptaclusp had no interest in ever\u00c2\u00a0changing<\/i> how he built pyramids. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care about the growing cost or inflation or updating the cosmic capabilities of his work; he just wanted to continue the business his father had passed on to him, as simply as that. So he commits to the absurd schedule that Dios required of him. Why? Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what always happens. Royalty is difficult. Royalty doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pay. And royalty is part of tradition.<\/p>\n
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