In the sixth part of Moving Pictures<\/i>, Victor discovers a new affect that Holy Wood is having on others. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I DID NOT ANTICIPATE ANY OF THIS. I honestly started to think that I was supposed to have known who Gaspode was and just forgot. It happens! Since a week passes between reviews all the time, that means I get my canons mixed up occasionally. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that I finally understand this and IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SUCH A BRILLIANT JOKE. Holy shit.<\/p>\n
Detritus and Dibbler<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say that so far, this was my favorite section of Moving Pictures<\/i> to read aloud, and I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largely because so much of it revolves around dialogue. The scene in Borgle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is so great because you can hear the disgust in other patrons\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 voices; you can hear their defeat as they accept the defensive circle that the slugs have taken on their plates; and you can hear the haughty entitlement in Dibbler as he orders his gourmet meal from a man who has probably never eaten anything that qualifies as gourmet. I find Detritus to be endlessly adorable, though:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153An\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153will \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcave\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 er\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 a well-weathered basalt with a aggregate of fresh-hewn sandstone conglomerates.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He just tries so hard, and I love<\/i> it. Him blushing at Ruby? GODS, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO GREAT.<\/p>\n For the most part, though, Dibbler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role is one of panic; he knows that Victor and Ginger are his key to wealth and fame, and he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to let them slip through his fingers.<\/p>\n Gaspode<\/b><\/p>\n HOW DID I NOT THINK OF THIS? Of course<\/i> the strange power of Them would affect animals on the Disc. That makes me wonder: Will we soon have to deal with talking furniture, a la Beauty and the Beast<\/i>? What about insects? Vehicles? Food? How far will this power stretch? Will it escape Holy Wood and move to other parts of the Disc?<\/p>\n These are all important questions! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much here that Pratchett has already<\/i> thought of. It makes sense that Gaspode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Holy Wood dreams would manifest in a Lassie<\/i>-esque fantasy, since that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the sort of role that audiences eat up at the cinema. So what Pratchett does here with Gaspode \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and many of the other animals \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is juxtapose our perceptions of them with their true natures. Anthropomorphized animals are common in fiction, but they rarely, if ever, show up like this. The animals are aware<\/i> that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve suddenly got more thoughts, that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got human vocabularies, and they mostly HATE it.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You think we<\/i> wanted to talk?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d snapped the rabbit. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One minute I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just another rabbit and happy about it, next minute whazaam<\/i>, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a major drawback if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking for happiness as a rabbit, let me tell you. You want grass and sex, not thoughts like \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWhat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it all about, when you get right down to it?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n RABBIT EXISTENTIALISM, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL. Not just that, but the cat and the mouse become Looney Tunes<\/i> caricatures, unaware of why<\/i> they are compelled to behave as they are. Which leads to lines like this one:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What sort of person was he?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Victor.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Listen, buster, up to four days ago I had a vocabulary consisting of two verbs and one noun. What do you<\/i> think I thought it was?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n BLESS. So, does this mean that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to basically get a mystery novel with Victor leading himself, Ginger, and a ton of speaking animals in the quest? Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more or less what happens here. Since some of these animals actually lived<\/i> on the island, that means that they remember the man who used to perform<\/i> thrice a day. And get fish delivered to him? I get that this was a ritual; I get that this kept Them from breaking through into our world. So sure, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a mystery here, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like I know nothing. How does this keep my interest, then? My desire at this point is in seeing how<\/i> Victor is going to put two-and-two together. How is he going to come to a point where he knows as much as the reader does? This is not the kind of journey where the protagonist and the reader are on the same page, and Pratchett builds off that in order to keep our attention.<\/p>\n AND THAT ALSO MEANS THAT THE LIBRARIAN IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE IMPORTANT, TOO. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even care how shameless I am about my love of The Librarian, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Can he be in every<\/i> book in this series? CAN HE?<\/p>\n Anyway, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pleasantly surprised how much I am enjoying this book, and not just because it comes after Eric<\/i>. This is a dense story, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not confusing. On top of the mystery of Holy Wood, Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s laced this book with so much commentary on labor, exploitation, professional disappointment and the like that I find it a rich experience. I mean, this section ends with a contract negotiation, one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s both achingly real and deliberately surreal. (The dog negotiates. THE DOG.) And I feel like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just barely<\/i> getting started with Ridcully, too, which makes me eager to find out if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever appear in another Discworld<\/i> book. I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprised if he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, though. Not many Archchancellors survive\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, anything.<\/p>\n MORE, PLEASE.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HF-LMptaGbM<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a> In the sixth part of Moving Pictures, Victor discovers a new affect that Holy Wood is having on others. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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":[463,493,248],"class_list":["post-3330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-moving-pictures","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330","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=3330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often. My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>– Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a> I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!
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\n<\/a>– Please check out the MarkDoesStuff.com<\/a>. All Mark Watches videos for past shows\/season are now archived there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"