In the sixteenth part of\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather<\/i>, Susan fights Teatime and discovers what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the room at the top of the tower. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For talk of abuse (specifically child abuse)<\/b><\/p>\n
I honestly was not ready for this section. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reminded of the endings for both\u00c2\u00a0Moving Pictures<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Feet of Clay<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0here, as those books had a more somber message about identity and morality attached to them. But in her confrontation with Teatime, Susan exposes his central flaw: he is too confident. Too arrogant. Too certain that everyone and everything is below him, worthless, disposable.<\/p>\n
I could not help but feel sad for most of this section, though. Even the victory over Teatime and the Auditors is bittersweet, especially since so many of Teatime\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s henchmen are killed by this place. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel great about Sideney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, especially since he died at the monstrous personification of his childhood bully. (Now I understand why Pratchett brought him up earlier in the book.) And then, as Teatime toyed with Susan and Banjo and Medium Dave, I just wanted him\u00c2\u00a0gone<\/i>. In this character, Pratchett has a creation that is made up of cruelty and spite. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s terrifying, not because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the bogeyman hiding under our beds, but because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so\u00c2\u00a0real<\/i>. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we all know someone who has a bit too much of Teatime in him? Someone who uses their cleverness to cause suffering in others? Someone who views themselves as so superior to the world that they can destroy everything they touch out of some misplaced morality?<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no part of this that is more indicative of his cruelty than his treatment of Banjo. Now, multiple characters in this book mistreat Banjo; they view his childish nature as a flaw and evidence of his inferiority. Teatime, on the other hand, feels\u00c2\u00a0entitled<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to Banjo because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not as immediately clever as Teatime. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really what spooks me so deeply when it comes to Teatime. That expectation that he\u00c2\u00a0deserves<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0subservience from someone like Banjo is simply horrifying. So yeah, it was satisfying as hell to watch Susan tear Teatime down, to see her openly insult him because he was a weird kid. Well, weird is an understatement, of course, but you get the idea. She tears him down, distracting him, and he starts lashing out at the Lilywhites, all while trying to defend himself from Susan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s accusations, and then the nightmare becomes real.<\/p>\n
Ma Lilywhite arrives.<\/p>\n
Now, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a difference between a strict, overbearing parent and what we see here. Remember, this place twists a child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worst fear into a nightmare that terrifies them. In no universe should a child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parent represent that nightmare. Yet I related to this on a sadly personal level, given that the only recurring nightmares I have anymore are all about my mother. Thus, I was heartbroken by Medium Dave\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death. He died from the fright of his mother, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seriously, seriously awful.<\/p>\n
But then the fight shifts, and I was SO PLEASED that this became the fight between the Eternal Child (Teatime) and the Eternal Babysitter (Susan.) IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO SATISFYING. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting here, thinking about how genius it was to make Susan a governess so that this dynamic could play out over the book, and I AM NOT OKAY. Susan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role has a symbolic importance on top of her being the main character. In this story, she represents someone who never really had a normal childhood, despite that she quietly wishes she had one. Thus, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the polar opposite of Teatime, since he\u00c2\u00a0is<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0perpetually a child. (You could also argue that Teatime and Susan both want normalcy, but can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it. WHEW, THERE ARE SO MANY POSSIBLE LAYERS HERE.) Their fight is visceral, literal, and metaphorical, and I LOVE IT.<\/p>\n
And then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0The<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0Bogeyman. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really come into this final sequence with the hope that the tower (or this world) would ever be explained. It seemed obvious enough that children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s minds created a place like this, but now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quite happy to find out that\u00c2\u00a0The\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>Bogeyman \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the very first one ever \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was responsible for this realm as the world outside it changed and the primal fears that man held long ago didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exist anymore. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great twist because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a fascinating study of fear and childhood belief at the heart of\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather<\/i>, and this subplot plays a part in contributing to it. In this case, The Bogeyman stopped scaring children and began to\u00c2\u00a0protect<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0them, especially since children represented the purest form of that primal fear that The Bogeyman used to represent itself.<\/p>\n
So when The Bogeyman dies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c really, truly dies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Pratchett does an amazing thing: he gives Susan the responsibility of figuring out how to preserve this world and this way of believing. In turn, he makes\u00c2\u00a0Banjo<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0the protector of all children. It is absolutely one of the most emotionally satisfying moments of this book and the\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0series as a whole. If Teatime is Pratchett at his most cruel, then Banjo is Pratchett at his most pure. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a character who may have a simpler understanding of the world than everyone else, but they care.\u00c2\u00a0Intensely<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0so. He just wants to do what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, to make his mam proud, to be purposeful, even if he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t express himself in that way.<\/p>\n
And it works so well, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n
vid<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– I am now on Patreon<\/a>! There are various levels of support, from $1 up to whatever you want! You’ll get to read a private blog, extra reviews, and other such rewards.<\/b> In the sixteenth part of\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather, Susan fights Teatime and discovers what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the room at the top of the tower. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather.\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":[519,463,248],"class_list":["post-3962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-hogfather","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962","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=3962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\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 have been announced here.<\/a>
\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":"