In the first part of the eleventh chapter of The AMazing Maurice and His Educated Rats<\/i>, the rat king rages, and Maurice makes the most important decision of his life. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For extensive talk of death<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Maurice is an unlikable character, though I admit that I feel like I have to divorce him from being a cat. Otherwise, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just like every cat ever<\/i>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He is selfish. He is quick to judge. He thinks about his own gain and only thinks of others as a means to help himself. Indeed, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Maurice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fault that the rats came to Bad Blintz in the first place! He pressured them to do One Last Job, despite that he was already scheming to keep these jobs going as long as possible. They benefitted him so much! Why would he stop them? There was only one of Maurice and countless of the rats, right?<\/p>\n
So, when the rat king psychically attacks those prepared to attack him (I LOVE THAT I GET TO TYPE THAT), it wipes out the Changed part of Maurice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. Gone is his scheming. Gone is his self-interest\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 outside of pure instinct, that is. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like Maurice was distilled down to the pure essence of a cat, one that would fiercely fight for its survival and nothing else. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s precisely this aspect of Maurice that the rat king underestimated, and it assumed that its willpower was enough.<\/p>\n
OH GOD, WAS IT EVER NOT. Maurice devolves, and in that devolution, he becomes ferocious. Single-minded. Vicious. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not necessarily a bad thing! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because of this that Maurice is able to un-do the terrible magic of the rat king, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because of this that many of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d rats aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t able to do much damage. But the downside of this is horrific:<\/p>\n
Maurice isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t able to distinguish Changed rats from the regular ones.<\/p>\n
I figured that Dangerous Beans was dead, and that was bad enough. But once Keith and Malicia managed to break into the room to survey the chaos (GOOD LORD, I THOUGHT THE WAVES OF RATS WAS BAD), they watch as Maurice carries a dead Dangerous Beans, and then:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6he gently dropped the bundle to the floor. He prodded it once or twice, to see if it would move.<\/p>\n
He blinked slowly when it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t move. He looked puzzled, in a kind of slow-motion way. He opened his mouth to yawn, and smoke came out. Then he put his head down and died.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reader for his death OR the matter-of-fact way in which Pratchett stated this. TO SAY IT WAS A SHOCKER IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Yet it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s through this twist that we finally get the end result of Maurice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s character growth. He definitely<\/i> dies, and he watches as the Death of Rats comes to claim Dangerous Beans, and his reaction was A LOT FOR ME TO HANDLE.<\/p>\n
After all I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been through? That is not happening<\/i>!<\/p>\n
He sprang into the air and landed on the Bone Rat. The little scythe skidded across the floor.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay, mister, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hear you talk\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 Maurice began.<\/p>\n
SQUEAK!<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Er\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Maurice, as the horrible awareness of what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done caught up with him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
With virtually no hesitation, Maurice tries to stop the Bone Rat from taking Dangerous Beans life. And I love when you can point to a moment in a character\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arc and say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This would have been unbelievable at the start.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absolutely the case here. After all this, Maurice couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deal with the thought that he was responsible for Dangerous Beans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death.<\/p>\n
SO HE NEGOTIATES WITH DEATH TO TAKE AN EXTRA LIFE OF HIS SO THAT DANGEROUS BEANS CAN LIVE. i just!!!!!!! can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t!!!! believe!!!!! we!!!! finally!!!! are!!!!! here!!!!! Maurice finally did something at his own expense TO BENEFIT SOMEONE ELSE. I adore his conversation with Death, too, and the way it highlights just how significant<\/i> this change is for Maurice. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all very uncatlike, no?<\/p>\n
But this conflict isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still the hired rat piper to deal with, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why<\/i> Maurice thinks cotton will work. And what of Darktan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s final stand against the big rats? WILL THE CHANGED RATS SURVIVE THIS??? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very worried! Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t surprising, since that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like my default state, but STILL.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/dWLziIJuDfE<\/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":"
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