In the eighteenth and final part of\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather<\/i>, all returns to normal. Sort of. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>.THIS BOOK IS TOO MUCH.<\/p>\n
Teatime<\/b><\/p>\n
Look, I\u00c2\u00a0knew<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0he was still alive, and I\u00c2\u00a0knew<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0that this book would need to deal with that, and yet, I still felt shocked by the way that Teatime tried to hurt Susan. And I already know why that is: he tried to use children to do it. Confronting Death and Susan? I expected them to be able to defend themselves. Throwing in two defenseless children as well? Yeah, NO.\u00c2\u00a0NO<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I must also admit that I just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the he interrupted the\u00c2\u00a0adorable<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0scene were Susan invites her grandfather in to make hot cocoa. THIS WAS A GREAT SCENE THAT WAS VERY NECESSARY, AND DEATH WAS THINKING ABOUT HUMAN NATURE WHILE EATING BISCUITS AND I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T ASK FOR ANYTHING MORE. Except\u00c2\u00a0then<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0Gawain and Twyla both walk in on Death, suddenly, I understood why it was so necessary that these kids had Susan as their governess. Because to them, a skeleton in a cloak and hood was not weird or abnormal. He was just another monster that Susan would attack with the poker. (Except\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 not really, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to that.)<\/p>\n
In that world, then, hat does Teatime represent? Is he as monstrous as the creatures they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve dealt with before? The reader can immediately recognize the threat that Teatime poses, though not just because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got\u00c2\u00a0that<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0sword. No, the horror of Teatime comes from the casual nature of his cruelty. We know for certain that he would kill all four of these characters as long as it amused him. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the bare minimum that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d need, you know? So when he forces Susan to call for the Gaiting children, my fear was that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d do something awful to them. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an entirely believable thing!<\/p>\n
However, Teatime is scary to the audience, and perhaps to Susan, too. But he is\u00c2\u00a0nothing<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0compared to the horrors that Gawain and Twyla have seen. If anything, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just another common creature. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important, of course, because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s viewed\u00c2\u00a0as<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0a monster. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what brings about his eventual downfall. He isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t scary to the kids, and when Susan throws the poker at him, it guarantees that Teatime will die, not Death. And out of every creation in\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather<\/i>, Teatime is the only monster that Susan\u00c2\u00a0actually<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0kills. This doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen with anyone else, and think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point Pratchett is trying to make. Who is worthy of death in this instance?<\/p>\n
Hogswatch<\/b><\/p>\n
Yeah, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still kind of emotional about Death\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gift to Susan, mostly because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so goddamn\u00c2\u00a0endearing<\/i>. Yes, he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite get all the references, but the fact that he tried so very hard \u00e2\u20ac\u201c MELTED SNOW, OH MY GOD \u00e2\u20ac\u201c warms my heart. Forever. The raven got a sheep, a whole sheep! And then, Pratchett flashes back to RUIN MY GODDAMN DAY by showing me the moment when Death bought Susan her rocking horse. Again, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a display of the kind of cluelessness we expect from Death, though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always coupled with sincerity, too.<\/p>\n
Resolution<\/b><\/p>\n
I am not\u00c2\u00a0as<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0big of a fan of who concludes this book, and I think it would have been stronger for him to switch the rocking chair scene with the conclusion of the plots in Unseen University. Now, I do think this resolution needed to happen, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not suggesting that this be taken out. I loved learning that there was an\u00c2\u00a0actual<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0GlingleGlingleGlingle fairy, which is so goddamn clever that it made my brain hurt once I thought about it. (It meant that these wizards had to\u00c2\u00a0believe<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0that that sound had to happen whenever a new Household God showed up.) I just thought it was strange to focus on Ridcully\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shower and the Librarian, but only because it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel terribly emotionally resonant. The same goes for the bit with Hex and Ponder, and perhaps even the beggars. It might be thematically appropriate , but I thought the story just fizzled out. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not at all a bad ending, and I do believe that\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is one of the best written books in this series. But I think ending with Death or Susan would have given this ending a bigger pop. Still, I loved this book. A LOT. And now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna go think about Banjo some more and get sad because BANJO LILYWHITE.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dymFU1XaVik<\/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. I POST A LOT OF CUTE PHOTOS, OKAY. Think of it like a private Tumblr blog that only SPECIAL PEOPLE get to read.<\/b> In the eighteenth and final part of\u00c2\u00a0Hogfather, all returns to normal. Sort of. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld.<\/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-3966","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\/3966","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=3966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– I have updated my list of conventions and events for the remainder of the year and much of next year.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Check 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":"