In the ninth and final part of The Last Hero<\/i>, the Silver Horde accepts their destiny. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
WELL, SHIT, THAT WAS UNEXPECTED. I feel like this just snuck up on me because I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think through the ramifications of Captain Carrot being a part of the team to stop the horde. I started<\/i> to, by the way, when I said while reading this section that if anyone was talented enough to succeed in a battle against the Horde, it would be him.<\/p>\n
But I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow that through at all. Carrot came to save the world from the side effects of the Horde\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s final stand against the gods. From his side of things, that<\/i> is a hero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey, though I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t suggest that Carrot considered himself a hero. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little more humble than that. Still, I never really considered the impasse that these characters would arrive at. This was a hero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey for the Horde! It was what they were meant to do! But what if that hero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey comes at great expense to someone else? If a hero is meant to save the day, what if that very act ends the world?<\/p>\n
Obviously, that was the predicament at the core of The Last Hero<\/i>, and yet I never once even theorized quietly that the Silver Horde would give up their quest. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what they do, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. EVER. When Carrot faced them down and told them that they were going to end the world, I actually thought that they were going to go through with it. Why? Well:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153S\u00e2\u20ac\u2122not much of a world,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Cohen muttered. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not any more.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The world of heroes had changed. If anything, The Last Hero<\/i> was a chronicle of that reality. These men were old, there was little that they could conquer or raid, and was there really even a need<\/i> for heroes anymore? So, in a tragic sense, it seemed possible that the Silver Horde would find a way to take the whole world out with them in a blaze of glory.<\/p>\n Two things stopped them, though! First, the minstrel:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There will be no one left to remember,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said the minstrel, as if he was talking to himself. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no one left alive, no one will remember.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And then\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, they had to be heroes, right? And if the world was going to end, then they had to be the ones to save it, right? I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just ignore that they were saving the whole world from themselves<\/i>, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s totally unimportant MOVING RIGHT ALONG. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incredible to me how well this fits in with the logic of heroes. The minstrel remains alive and behind to tell the story of how the Silver Horde willingly plunged off the top of Cori Celesti with a massive bomb in order to save the world. (Well, and Cohen wore a fish head. DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T LEAVE THAT OUT, VERY IMPORTANT.) The palace of the gods isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blown up, and THE MINSTREL GETS TO CONFRONT HIS GOD. Oh, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this was such an incredible treat!!! I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect that, or the Librarian getting much-needed supplies from Blind Io, or the minstrel being transformed into a character worthy of a thrash metal record. (SERIOUSLY, HE LOOKS SO BADASS IN KIDBY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ILLUSTRATION, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.) And in the end, the Silver Horde still gets to have one last long adventure, even if they are dead. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where that will take them, but Pratchett has often been ambiguous about what a person does before they pass on to their final resting place.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a touching end to this book. I absolutely loved<\/i> the illustrations, which improved the experience of The Last Hero<\/i> by EIGHT BILLION PERCENT. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also cool to see Pratchett do a fable rather than a more straightforward novel. Now I kind of wish all<\/i> the books had Kidby illustrations in them, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n Anyway, on to Book #28, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents<\/i>!<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/0ZLyj-RKSLg<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the ninth and final part of The Last Hero, the Silver Horde accepts their destiny. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\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":[463,248,539],"class_list":["post-4405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-last-hero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405","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=4405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}