{"id":4014,"date":"2016-11-17T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T13:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4014"},"modified":"2016-11-13T20:06:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T04:06:28","slug":"mark-reads-the-wizards-dilemma-chapter-16-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2016\/11\/mark-reads-the-wizards-dilemma-chapter-16-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Wizard’s Dilemma’: Chapter 16, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first half of the sixteenth chapter of\u00c2\u00a0The Wizard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Dilemma,<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0Nita feels desperate. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For talk of death, grief, and cancer<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Oh, Nita. This was\u00c2\u00a0heartbreaking<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to read, not just because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so sad, but because I recognize my own self at fourteen, unable to concentrate, begging for a God I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really believe in to swoop down and save my mother. At the opening of this chapter, Duane makes a brief reference to Nita \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more or less\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sleepwalking through school, and it struck me how\u00c2\u00a0accurate<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0of a depiction that was. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that it was hard for me to concentrate. It was as if I was fading in and out of consciousness, or at least out of the universe everyone else was in. Time would pass, and I would have no recollection of it. When I did snap back to attention \u00e2\u20ac\u201c usually when a teacher would chastise me for not being in the moment \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the anxiety and terror would rush back in.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that cliche or trope or whatever you want to call that based so heavily in a real-world phenomenon that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reminded of here: of waking up and then suddenly remembering everything is awful, that what a person experienced was not a terrible dream and nothing more. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only now, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing this, that I realize how my brain\u00c2\u00a0must<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0have been making it hard to concentrate on purpose. Like a safety mechanism of sorts! Like Nita, every conscious moment was occupied by cancer and bodies and mortality.<\/p>\n

And just like Nita, I turned to religion (of a sort) out of desperation. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written a lot about my upbringing, so over the years, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had long, insightful conversations with people around the world about how religion factored into their lives growing up. One thing that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s struck me is how rare it is for someone (like myself) to have a strict conservative Christian home life, but to have church factor\u00c2\u00a0nowhere<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0in it. Until I began my conversion in my teens, I had never been to a church service in my life. My mom did not believe I needed them; every church was wrong, all of them had strayed from God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s path, and my mother was the sole arbiter of faith and virtue. At least for us, that is.<\/p>\n

There was a prayer room at the hospital where my mom waited for her surgery, just down the hall from where she lay in her bed recovering, and when things got too hard to look at, when I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bear to see her shrunken, pale face, I would go there and beg God to save her. I did what Nita did as well: I bargained. I promised God anything just to keep her alive. I was met with a resounding silence, each and every single time. Was I begging the wrong thing? Was my bargain not sincere enough? I had been told that God does not answer prayers solely out of need or desire. So what was I supposed to do? Was I not good enough?<\/p>\n

Maybe self-flagellation in the face of cancer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unending march was all that could make me feel better. I remember, years later, regretting that bargain, believing that a whole host of things \u00e2\u20ac\u201c homophobia, homelessness, loneliness \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was the penance I paid for my mother surviving. But in hindsight, the bargaining had no real effect, aside from what happened inside my head, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the main differences here. Maybe Nita was also met with a complete silence, but her words to the One are not the same as what I experienced. All my prayers were riddled with doubt and fear, and Nita? Well, perhaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same case for her, except she knows that the One is real, that they exist, that they are the central Power in existence.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more comforting or not.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how much comfort there is in this chapter. If anything, I was saddened that immediately after her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prayer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the universe seemed to answer: Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother had more seizures, had to be sedated, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now possible she might not make it to her surgery date, even though it was moved up. So what can Nita do? Practice. Apply herself. Push away the possibility that her mother might die. Yet even that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complicated by Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reluctance to get Kit involved. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s her partner in wizardry, and it would be smart to have him alongside her, but note that her doubt revolves around blame and failure. What if things\u00c2\u00a0don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0go right? What if Kit messes up Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intricate \u00c2\u00a0plans? Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always thinking of all eventualities, even if she pushes some of those conclusions away, and her anxiety makes her obsess over them and every possible option, even the ones that are impossible.<\/p>\n

Take her conversation with Pralaya. At one point, she speaks a frustration: why didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the Powers just undo what the Lone One did? Why let this play out when they could have easily erased it from existence? But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even something she could bargain for. The world is as it is, and neither of these wizards can change it. Which is slightly worrisome in a sense. Is Duane preparing me for the worst? Is she reminding us that there are certain things you cannot change?<\/p>\n

WELL, NOW I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M UNCOMFORTABLE.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/youtu.be\/LykpyAQRT8o?a<\/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>
\n– I have updated my list of conventions and events for the remainder of the year and much of next year.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00a0 Mark 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":"