In the third part of\u00c2\u00a0The Last Continent<\/i>, the wizards try to locate Fourecks while Rincewind\u00c2\u00a0lives<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0Fourecks. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Wizards<\/b><\/p>\n
I am fascinated by quite a few things revealed in this section. First, I never quite comprehended just how large and complicated Unseen University was as a whole. Pratchett has mostly given UU a narrow focus, and the five or six characters he usually talks about are all in this scene. But now, knowing the size of the campus and the sheer number of staff members it has, I really want to meet\u00c2\u00a0other<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0professors and wizards. Who are they? What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s their take on the weirdness of UU? Why is it that Pratchett never\u00c2\u00a0names<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0these characters and only offers up their job title instead? What hallways have we never seen? WHAT SECRETS DO THEY HIDE?<\/p>\n
If anything,\u00c2\u00a0ignorance<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is the theme of this book so far. There are professors the wizards can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall ever meeting. There are wings of Unseen University that no one has ever been in. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s magic that allows the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography to do that\u00c2\u00a0thing<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to his office. And once you think about Rincewind and Death, this still pops up. These people know so very little about the Discworld. That includes us as well! There have been only passing references to XXXX in the past and a single scene set there in\u00c2\u00a0Interesting Times<\/i>. Even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a clear analogy\/parody of Australia, I still can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t claim to know much of anything about the Continent. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even point it out on a map of the Discworld!<\/p>\n
Which is sort of the point. As the wizards poke around the Egregious Professor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office, it became crystal clear to me that these men knew\u00c2\u00a0shit<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0about XXXX. The same goes for the books they manage to read. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no definitive volume or all-encompassing, general history; everything they read basically says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably there? Most of us don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real, but, like, five people think it is. So maybe?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Well, then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It says the continent has very few poisonous snakes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Oh, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a footnote.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His finger went down the page. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It says, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcMost of them have been killed by the spiders.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 How very odd.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n FUCKING AUSTRALIA, OH MY GOD. So yeah, there are rumors and speculation, like the bit about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153noble savages\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (which I dearly hope is subverted and not used uncritically in the pages to come), but I still didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a sense for what Four Ecks actually was like.<\/p>\n That is, until we got to Rincewind.<\/p>\n Rincewind<\/b><\/p>\n Well, at least Rincewind\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0story<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0feels familiar, despite that he is in a place that is not. Now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never been to Australia, but what little I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard from those who have or who live there, much of the Australian landscape is pretty fucking harsh. I was told by someone earlier this year that there was a\u00c2\u00a0reason<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0the major cities are clustered on the coasts: most of that continent is actively trying to murder you. If not the creatures, then the unrelenting sun coupled with a lack of water. And given Rincewind\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journal entries, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say that XXXX isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all that different. And I\u00c2\u00a0do<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0feel bad for him! He has been dropped into so many hopeless situations, and yet this one feels grittier than all the rest. There are no magical barriers for him to get past; no, he just needs to survive a harsh and unrelenting desert.<\/p>\n He has some interactions with the indigenous people of XXXX\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I\u00c2\u00a0think<\/i>? And I\u00c2\u00a0think<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re supposed to be Aborigine? But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really sure because so little details are offered to the reader. All I\u00c2\u00a0do<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0know is that he keeps pissing them off whenever he talks about rain, which I suspect is a joke about how\u00c2\u00a0little<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0it rains in XXXX. As for that weird smoke\/creature thing that comes out of the waterhole\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I have no clue. Apparently it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s responsible for petroglyphs? Something like that? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET IT.<\/p>\n Death<\/b><\/p>\n Rounding this all out, even\u00c2\u00a0Death<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know much about Fourecks. His inclusion here is intriguing because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meant to signal an end to Rincewind. The man has escaped Death so many times that perhaps this is it for him. Is Rincewind finally up against something he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come back from? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know; it was just a thought that popped in my head. However, my big takeaway is that XXXX is a mystery to practically everyone who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live on it, so I love the idea that Death is gonna go check it out, too. Not even necessarily to keep an eye on Rincewind, but just out of pure curiosity for a land where the only non-lethal creature is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153some of the sheep.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Oh god, Australians, tell us about your lovely non-lethal creatures. I know you have them!<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UuR_VA7EAGQ<\/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 third part of\u00c2\u00a0The Last Continent, the wizards try to locate Fourecks while Rincewind\u00c2\u00a0lives\u00c2\u00a0Fourecks. 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":[463,248,522],"class_list":["post-4043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-last-continent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043","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=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4043"}],"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":"