{"id":4541,"date":"2018-05-09T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4541"},"modified":"2018-05-06T06:50:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-06T13:50:50","slug":"mark-reads-on-ordeal-mamvish-chapter-2-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/05\/mark-reads-on-ordeal-mamvish-chapter-2-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8220;On Ordeal: Mamvish&#8221; &#8211; Chapter 2, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the second chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Mamvish,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d MAMVISH IS A BADASS. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Young Wizards<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>You know, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve warmed up to this story. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fucking <i>weird<\/i>, but I can see why the opening was as slow and detailed as it was. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of information that Duane had to give us about this specific world, much of which operates in ways that aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly familiar to the reader. Plus, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m getting this sense that this is a grand tale, a fantastical epic about one hero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey over the course of DECADES to fix her world. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>very<\/i> different from Roshaun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tale, and I appreciate that.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s be real: I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready for where this would go.<\/p>\n<p>So let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about how THIRTEEN YEARS pass at the opening of this section, and that time is spent with the same sort of commitment from Mamvish that we saw before. No matter the setbacks or the monotony, she continues to venture around her world, gaining knowledge, making other Tauwff younger, and approaching her mission with positivity and hope. So, when she hears tales of Ashmesh, a massive, ancient Tauwff who claims to be the bravest and wisest of his kind, she knows she <i>has<\/i> to get to him. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the pattern we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen over this story! Mamvish is <i>motivated<\/i>, and that singular motivation has gotten her <i>real<\/i> far.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is no exception, though the <i>means<\/i> by which she does it this time were new. It took the advice of her Sacrificer for Mamvish to realize that she had to approach this differently than her other encounters:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Only on the last night before Vish made her way up over the edge of the plateau did she whisper from behind Vish\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes, <i>Where wiles and guiles may struggle or fail, persistence oft cracks the egg<\/i>. And Vish dug deep under stone that night and turned the Sacrificer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words over in her mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting to me about this is that in a general sense, Mamvish already knew this. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say that her eighteen years of traveling, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>been<\/i> persistent. It perfectly describes this journey! As I mentioned before, nothing and no one has ever stopped her from trying to change the world. But persistence has a different meaning in this sequence because Mamvish uses it to wear down Ashmesh. Ashmesh is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 wow, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very full of himself, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he? (Oh god, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s technically a pun, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?) How exactly does Mamvish get what she needs from someone who is clever enough to see pretty much every plan she might have for attacking him?<\/p>\n<p><i>She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t attack him at all<\/i>. Instead, urged on by her Sacrificer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advice, she appeals to his desire to inflate his own ego, which means that she just gets him to talk.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure come of you have met a person who just loves talking about themselves. Maybe Ashmesh is an exaggerated version of that, but I still found this satisfying because she basically let Ashmesh talk himself to death. Yes, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a simplification, but IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S PRETTY MUCH WHAT HAPPENS. She gets Ashmesh talking about his conquests and successes, and at the end of every story, she asks him to let her consume him so his journey can continue for longer than it would if he just died on his own. And over time, that resistance to the idea wears down until he willingly gives himself over.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Holy shit.<\/p>\n<p>Yet that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even the biggest moment here! I actually think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>this<\/i> sequence:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But after having heard about her quest every day in fairly broad terms every day for three days running, he now began to question her more closely about it, attempting to get Vish to explain to him exactly what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153putting the world right\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <i>meant<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE BEEN WONDERING! I mean, I get <i>why<\/i> she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seriously considering this. Her goals up to now had been pretty straightforward: consume all the strongest, smartest, wisest, and bravest Tauwff. And after Ashmesh, I figured she would keep doing that\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but to what point? When have you consumed <i>enough<\/i>? Is there a point where she feels she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s finally ready? It seems like Ashmesh has pushed to her to accepting that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to change her journey, and that means: WIZARDS. IT IS TIME FOR WIZARDS OH MY GOD. I just love how different this aspect is also very different from Roshaun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story. At this moment in the story, this is the <i>first<\/i> mention of wizardry on the planet, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like she knew it existed and was working towards it. The obvious question I have is: How the hell does <i>she<\/i> get it? I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just eat someone and get the power of wizardry. So the Powers will grant it to her\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but HOW????<\/p>\n<p>I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait to find out.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/6Ko4aZycaBI<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>My YA contemporary debut, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2017\/9\/22\/i-am-proud-to-announce-my-ya-contemporary-debut-anger-is-a-gift\">ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the second chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Mamvish,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d MAMVISH IS A BADASS. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards.\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":[542,510],"tags":[513,511],"class_list":["post-4541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interim-errantry-2","category-young-wizards","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-young-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4541","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=4541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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