In the thirteenth part of Small Gods<\/i>, NO. NOPE. TAKE IT BACK. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For mental illness\/ableism<\/b>.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like Brutha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s getting a tour of all the aspects of belief and faith, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? While in the midst of the living space of a once-powerful, now-forgotten god, Brutha talks about human sacrifice. He talks about the fear of death. He more or less admits that he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know<\/i> for certain what the afterlife is. And then Om starts opening up about the life of a god, and IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ALL SO INTERESTING. But nothing more so than Brutha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s angry outburst at Om when Om tries to avoid responsibility for what his followers did:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You could have helped people,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Brutha. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But all you did was stamp around and roar and try to make people afraid. Like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 like a man hitting a donkey with a stick. But people like Vorbis made the stick so good, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all the donkey ends up believing in.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That could use some work, as a parable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Om sourly.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is real life I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not my fault if people misuse the\u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is! It has to be! If you muck up people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s minds just because you want them to believe in you, what they do is all your fault!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be lying if I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t admit that I spent a good portion of the years after leaving the Church being angry. I would develop all sorts of arguments I wanted to have with God, most of them similar to what Brutha says here. In the end, they mostly came down to the same point: why hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t God done anything to stop horrible things from happening? I was not the first one to come up with this question, and the problem of suffering in an omniscient, omnipotent god\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world has been an issues for thousands upon thousands of years. But it felt like a very personal question to me. There were so many times I begged God to help me, and I never once felt like He listened to me. So whose fault is that? Is there even any fault to assign, or was I always looking at the situation the wrong way?<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the uniqueness of this situation. Brutha is face-to-face with the god he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s believed in all his life, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s realizing just how flippant and apathetic he is. Sure, in the future, things might be better. They might all be dead and in the afterlife, but I adore Brutha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s angry and righteous claim: Here and now, we are alive. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I choose to concern myself with. I am alive now, and I want to change the world for the better now<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier said than done, and we see why that is while Didactylos tries to win people over to his side. The problem, though, is that Didactylos is not interested in dogma. He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand how to convince people to believe in\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, facts. How do you convince someone the sky is blue when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right there, being all blue? The same goes for the Great A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Tuin. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care if you believe in it or not, the Great A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Tuin is just gonna keep moving through space. But both Urn and Simony have a different motivation: they want people to simply be against<\/i> the Church. And I understand that. Deacon Vorbis and his men have done monstrous things to the people of Omnia, and they deserve some retribution and justice for that. But then what? And given the end of this section, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m worried about what these people might face if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ill-prepared.<\/p>\n
Back to Om and Brutha. So, I am kind of pleased to be right about ONE SINGLE THING, since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m generally so unprepared for everything. But the small gods are<\/i> vying for Brutha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s belief! And they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing so by offering him untold riches and food and carnal gratification! Which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 none of those are going to work for someone like Brutha, but I imagine that these gods are wholly unaware of what a unique person Brutha is. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably keep trying, bless them, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to work.<\/p>\n
Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s St. Ungulant, unofficial saint and anchorite of the Church of Om, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an interesting character because, as I said earlier, he represents another aspect of belief on this journey of Brutha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. Where does fanaticism get you in the Church? Well, it gets you sent out to the middle of the desert, since one can apparently believe too<\/i> much for the Church. I do worry about the conflation between mental illness and faith in his characterization, only because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very, very common trope you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see not just in literature, but in real life. People are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153c***y\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for believing in god or having faith, and all the things they do are so wacky!!! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m more interested in how St. Ungulant came to live the life he does as a hermit in such an inhospitable place. What I do enjoy about him is how kind he is. He hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lost an ounce of hospitality, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really sweet!<\/p>\n
And then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m lulled into a terrible sense of security. Ephebe is taken back by the Ephebians, who are bound for Omnia. (Converging plotlines!!! My favorite thing!!!) Brutha and Om are getting closer to home! Brutha has never been more knowledgable about the world he lives in! Everything is progressing nicely!<\/p>\n
And then he saw Vorbis sit up, look around him in a slow methodical way, pick up a stone, study it carefully, and then bring it down sharply on Brutha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head.<\/p>\n
Brutha didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even groan.<\/p>\n
Vorbis got up and strode directly toward the buses that hid Om. He tore the branches aside, regardless of the thorns, and pulled out the tortoise Om had just met.<\/p>\n
For a moment it was held up, legs moving slowly, before the deacon threw it overarm into the rocks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK<\/i>. Was he faking it the whole time? Did he suddenly become conscious? WHAT IS HE DOING? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like this at all<\/i>. And I cannot ignore that that damn eagle shows up whenever Vorbis is around, so what the hell is that<\/i> about??? GODDAMN THIS BOOK, DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T DO THIS TO ME.<\/p>\n
The original text contains use of the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CjVXTz57tJg<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>.
\n– The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S. this summer and fall Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of\u00c2\u00a0The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the thirteenth part of Small Gods, NO. NOPE. TAKE IT BACK. 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":[463,501,248],"class_list":["post-3541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-small-gods","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3541","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=3541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}