In the ninth part of\u00c2\u00a0Maskerade<\/i>, Nanny and Granny discover that Walter Plinge may be at the center of the mystery. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For talk of bullying and nonconsensual drugging.<\/b><\/p>\n
Oh, my heart goes out to Walter Plinge. The portrait painted by this section is of a young man who has a difficult, thankless job and, from what I can tell, absolutely no friends aside from his mother. Mrs. Plinge opens up to Granny (as everyone does whenever they speak with Mistress Weatherwax) about Walter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, and IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S JUST SO SAD:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They torment him so,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she mumbled. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They poke at him and hide his broom. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not bad boys round here, but they will torment him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He brings his broom home, does he?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He looks after his things,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mrs. Plinge. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always brought him up to look after his things and not be a trouble. But they will poke the poor soul and call him such names\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all that much different from his life at the theater either. His life is made up of other people, if that makes sense. His isolation from others\u00c2\u00a0 comes from how he is perceived. His mother sees him as an obedient, sweet kid, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a huge influence on how he behaves. I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprised if he was made fun of by the local boys because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a mama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s boy, though I suspect that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not winning any popularity contests by bringing his broom back and forth between his home and the Opera House.<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also talk about the Ghost, who makes NO SENSE AT ALL ANYMORE. Look, I was just as surprised as Granny was that the man in the black cape and white mask WAS PROTECTING MRS. PLINGE ON HER WAY HOME. Even more perplexing: the timeline makes it possible for him to follow Mrs. Plinge home, protect her, and get back to the Opera House so that Agnes can hear him singing in the empty theater. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to be the same person, and yet\u00c2\u00a0I don<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it<\/i>. How can someone so full of life and care about others and give company to Walter and MURDER PEOPLE JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT?<\/p>\n
As if this weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough to deal with, Pratchett also spends time detailing the aftermath of Agnes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first performance as Christine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ghost. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure if Pratchett intended it, but I saw a direct parallel between Walter and Agnes. Both of these characters are, more or less, ignored by everyone else around them unless someone needs something from them. In Agnes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treated worse than practically everyone around her because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not traditionally beautiful. Pratchett highlights this through absurdity by having everyone rush to Christine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s side when Dr. Undershoot is discovered. Even when it comes to something as strange as who is allowed to be comforted, Agnes is still left out:<\/p>\n
Christine, on the other hand, had just folded up. So had Dame Timpani. Far more people had fussed over Christine than around the prima donna, despite the fact that Dame Timpani had come around and fainted again quite pointedly several times and had eventually been forced to go for hysterics. No one had assumed for a minute that Agnes couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cope.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In this, Pratchett taps into a phenomenon that actually extends beyond body size. How many of you have been subject to this assumption? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk about it often, but most doctors I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen assume I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually feel pain or that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m already addicted to drugs. The world makes assumptions based on our bodies and what narrative they think should be automatically applied to them. In Agnes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, her size means that she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deserve to be comforted. Now, of course Christine is being ridiculous and dramatic. But no one even bothers to ask Agnes if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay. That kind of stuff matters! It is definitely exacerbated by the fact that Christine gets multiple curtain calls and ovations, and Agnes gets nothing, despite that she did all the work.<\/p>\n
Seriously, the parallels with Walter feel so clear to me!<\/p>\n
Where the two diverge, though, is in their reactions. Walter quietly goes about his routines and almost seems to cherish being invisible. Agnes, however, desires validation and recognition. Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a bad thing at all<\/i>, for the record. I see nothing wrong with that. I\u00c2\u00a0do<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0feel weird about her using herbs to guarantee that Christine stays asleep, but I know that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll always be biased about this sort of thing. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been drugged before, so any time a character uses something to keep someone else asleep, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna feel weird.<\/p>\n
I also wonder how this plot could possibly end well. Ideally, Agnes is recognized for her talent and allowed to sing the lead as she deserves to. But how can she get around the horrible prejudicial treatment she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s given? What about Christine? What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna happen when she finds out she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually sing? AND WHO THE HELL IS THE GHOST??? How do they have access to roses THAT ONLY BLOOM IN THE DARKNESS???<\/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=h8EWmPpTd5Y<\/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– 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":"In the ninth part of\u00c2\u00a0Maskerade, Nanny and Granny discover that Walter Plinge may be at the center of the 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-3831","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\/3831","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=3831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}