In the fifteenth part of Small Gods<\/i>, the rebels and heretics assemble to take down Vorbis. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of racism (specifically anti-Asian) and racial slurs, war, torture.<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m nervous about the ending to this because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever felt like the set-up was so dire<\/i>. Nothing has gone right! Everything is broken or on fire or being tortured! At this point, Om is literally the only possible hope. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss!<\/p>\n
Lu-Tze<\/b><\/p>\n
Like, I want<\/i> to believe that Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s criticizing this behavior, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m unsure. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already proudly wrote that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no racism in the Discworld, and yet there are two glaring examples of it here. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not even subtle! First of all, Deacon Cusp calls Lu-Tze a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ghastly little yellow fool.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even one of those examples where I have to explain in detail why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a damaging thing to say. Calling an Asian character a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153yellow fool\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is about as racist as you can get without using a slur.<\/p>\n
Oh, and Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ready for that, too.<\/p>\n
That was the best and the worst of civil war, at least at the start \u00e2\u20ac\u201c everyone wore the same uniform. It was much easier when you picked enemies who wore a different color or at least spoke with a funny accent. You could call them \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gooks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or something. It made things easier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My father was a Japanese-Hawaiian. Dark-skinned, so much so that often, from a distance, people would assume he was black. He enrolled in the military after high school because, as is very common in my country, it was the only option available to him as a poor graduate that might better his life. When he enlisted, he expected to go through training and spend time somewhere in the States until his time was up.<\/p>\n
Then the Vietnam War broke out.<\/p>\n
My father did multiple tours in Vietnam, and he spoke of that time with an alternating sense of pride and revulsion. He was so proud of his military service that he spent the entire time he was alive urging me to enlist. He would do this after<\/i> telling my brother and me stories of the war and the horrible conditions of the jungles he was in. He would do this after telling us of watching American planes fly over his battalion, spraying everyone with some mysterious substance that caused his skin to itch and his head to ache.<\/p>\n
And he would tell us how his fellow soldiers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many who fought by his side and some who went to boot camp with him \u00e2\u20ac\u201c would call him a gook. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d constantly make him prove he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153their\u00e2\u20ac\u009d side. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d make fun of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gook\u00e2\u20ac\u009d food he ate, the width of this nose, the shape of his eyes, and the color of his skin, which often wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that different than some of the people they killed.<\/p>\n
My dad was a walking contradiction, but he still told us everything. I stood next to him at a Wal Mart once when I was nine and watched as\u00c2\u00a0an older white man in a Marines hat berated my father for taking to long. He told my dad that he once shot gooks like him in the jungle. Little did he know that my father did too.<\/p>\n
My point is this: that word invokes such an ugly, horrific, and violent image that its use should be carefully<\/i> considered. I think that Pratchett intended to poke fun at the mentality of soldiers, or perhaps this is related to Urn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claim that Vorbis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true evil is his ability to turn people into him. Regardless, that word should never, never<\/i> be used casually EVER<\/i>. It shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be used as a joke or to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153poke fun\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at something. And it certainly shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be employed as flippantly as it is here.<\/p>\n
Inevitability<\/b><\/p>\n
I made a comment in the video for this part that I just felt sad<\/i> for Brutha. I know why now: this all feels like someone making a slow march to their death. Without Om to help him, and without a single soul who understands what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going through, Brutha is completely alone. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heartbreaking. After the kind of journey he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been through, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s uncertain of what he believes in anymore. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had his religion taken away from him by learning how false it was. And now, the man who lied to everyone for years, who killed people himself, who ordered those below him to murder, is now placing himself on the very top of this violent hierarchy, and not a single fucking person will listen to Brutha.<\/p>\n
He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s utterly alone.<\/p>\n
Urn and Simony aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there to help him, despite that Urn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friendly towards him. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a disaster of their own to deal with. (And lord, does it ever<\/i> turn into a disaster.) So he stands in front of the gates to the city and cries out for Om, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a remarkably touching moment. Granted, we learn of it through Dhblah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s narration, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kinda<\/i> funny, but I still thought it was a powerful scene. So what does Brutha do once he gets past the gates? Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascinating, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I was a little confused at first, but I think I understand it better:<\/p>\n
The part of him still capable of thought was thinking: there is nothing you can say. No one will listen. No one will care. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter what you tell people about Ephebe, and Brother Murduck, and the desert. It won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be fundamentally <\/i>true.<\/p>\n
Fundamentally true. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what the world is, with Vorbis in it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So Brutha abandons logic and reason and he prepares to just smack Vorbis a good one. But he stops. Why? <\/i>Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that have been incredibly cathartic? Absolutely. But I noted that Vorbis smiled<\/i> when he saw what Brutha was about to do. That seemed like a weird reaction, unless Vorbis wanted<\/i> Brutha to hit him. Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it have made a perfect narrative twist? Just before ascending to the Cenobiarch position, Vorbis was STRUCK by a NON-BELIEVER, but Vorbis PERSEVERED!<\/p>\n
Brutha denied him, so Vorbis sent him to die as the first person to demonstrate what Vorbis new turtle can do.<\/p>\n
Everything is so messed up. Simony\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s turtle doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work. Om is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 somewhere? I mean, at least he got an eagle carrying him to the Citadel. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s somewhat<\/i> hopeful. And there was a million-to-one-chance that Urn and Fergmen would cause the gates to open right when Brutha needed them to. Still, I have no idea how this is going to be resolved in like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 forty pages. HOW???<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dzJ-1AXgcck<\/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 fifteenth part of Small Gods, the rebels and heretics assemble to take down Vorbis. 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-3545","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\/3545","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=3545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}