In the eighth part of\u00c2\u00a0Maskerade<\/i>, Nanny and Granny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s night at the opera turns into a murder mystery. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For anti-Romani slurs.<\/b><\/p>\n
So, just as a heads up for the videos that will be made from this point on: I am going to avoid saying the word g***y. Please do not take my word as gospel here, and I encourage you to read up on why the Romani community considers this word a slur. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather not say it in videos, so if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re confused as to what the word is that I keep skipping over, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that one. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not Romani, so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my place to say it. (Same reason why I, as a dude, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel I should be saying b***h in videos either.) This specific stereotype \/ archetype is immensely common in fiction and in theater, too, so I imagine we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be seeing the word frequently from here on out.<\/p>\n
Anyway, LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TALK ABOUT MURDER MYSTERY AT THE OPERA. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m now wondering if the rest of this book will take place on this one night. IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE, ISN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T IT??? Pratchett doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cover more than half of the performance here, and this is just the beginning of the witches getting involved in the mystery of the Ghost. Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m selling them short. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get involved\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in a murder mystery; they also DISCOVER THE OPERA. Now, I know that opera and theater aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the same thing, yet there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still so much crossover between the two of them that this section gave me flashbacks to my time in theater in high school. Most of that came from the behind-the-scenes sequences, but Pratchett also provides commentary on theater etiquette, too!<\/p>\n
WHICH ISN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T TAUGHT TO PEOPLE WHEN YOU GO TO THE THEATER AND I DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW UNTIL I MESSED UP. One of my first live theater experiences was getting to see\u00c2\u00a0Into the Woods<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0in high school, and OH BOY, did I get yelled at when I:<\/p>\n So I learned the hard way how brutal it can be in the audience. Granted, I understand that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a different culture. Plus, theaters are not movie theaters; any sound in the audience is most likely going to be amplified\u00c2\u00a0terribly<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0and then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be embarrassed and trust me. Trust me, friends, you do not want to be the one in the room where it happens who gets stared at by half the audience. YOU DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T WANT IT.<\/p>\n Granny and Nanny don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really care. Well\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 okay, even that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not entirely true. Granny not only removes her hat when asked, but says:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I do beg your pardon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can see I was inadvertently bad-mannered. Pray excuse me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n DID HELL FREEZE OVER. DID I JUST READ THIS. I did, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and the fact that it made Nanny AND ME start is a sign of how unlikely it is that Granny would apologize for\u00c2\u00a0anything<\/i>. Well, the man might die, so maybe her apology is a parting gift? (How did she know he was about to die? Is that an after-effect of her scene with Death?)<\/p>\n Anyway, Granny and Nanny are in the theater for a very short period of time before things start to unravel. They\u00c2\u00a0appear<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to be the only people who notice that Christine is not singing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Departure.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even more alarming to them, though, is Box Eight. I LOVE THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING THIS, first of all, and I really want to know why the same man who has done so many nice things is now murdering people. But my favorite part of this whole section of\u00c2\u00a0Maskerade<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s narration of Granny using her magic to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ascend\u00e2\u20ac\u009d into the universe of the theater. It was evocative and spooky, and I found it to be a rare chance to see into the\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>other powers we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t often read about.<\/p>\n She discovers that\u00c2\u00a0fear<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is an undercurrent in the theater, and given recent events, I understand why that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the case. But\u00c2\u00a0this<\/i>???<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They beat him to death!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that, Esme?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And they throw him into the river!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Esme!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET THIS AT ALL. Even weirder? She uses the present tense, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she? Why? Is that significant? AM I READING TOO MUCH INTO EVERYTHING BECAUSE I HAVE SO LITTLE? But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reading too much into this. At the very least, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more than\u00c2\u00a0just<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0murder occurring in the theater. The palpable terror that these people feel is based on something real and nasty. The Ghost used to be a source of good luck, even pride, so\u00c2\u00a0something<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0must have changed him into the monster that he is. When Granny tries to get inside Box Eight, Mrs. Plinge isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t frightened in a general sense; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s terrified to upset the\u00c2\u00a0thing<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0on the other side of that door, especially after Mr. Pounder died. What if angering the Ghost makes\u00c2\u00a0more<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0people die?<\/p>\n I suspect that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually happening here. It seems too simplistic. Plus, from what we see of Nanny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time in Mrs. Plinge\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s job, Mrs. Plinge has been dedicated to pleasing others at the theater for a long time. So that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be the reason that the Ghost changed, right?\u00c2\u00a0Right<\/i>? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious if Pratchett will give us a POV bit with Granny as she walks Mrs. Plinge home, since I assume she knows a lot about the theater that could be of use to Granny.<\/p>\n For now, though, we get scenes where Nanny comforts others. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s her scene with Mrs. Plinge, of course, but I also found Nanny to be really adorable with Walter, too. She cares because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0right<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to care about others. I get the sense that Granny cares not so much because of a general moral sensibility, but because it can help her. I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go so far to say that Granny is careless, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a reason Nanny is better at comforting people than Granny is, you know?<\/p>\n Bah, I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on!<\/p>\n Diane Duane is still offering a massive discount on the first 9 books in the\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0series just to this community, so please take advantage of this deal while you still can:<\/b><\/p>\n http:\/\/bit.ly\/markreadsYW<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kiaEsPobEGM<\/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>. In the eighth part of\u00c2\u00a0Maskerade, Nanny and Granny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s night at the opera turns into a murder mystery. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/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":[463,514,248],"class_list":["post-3830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-maskerade","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3830","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=3830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! 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 Death Note<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/em>. 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":"