{"id":4557,"date":"2018-05-29T05:00:52","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4557"},"modified":"2018-05-28T12:30:53","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T19:30:53","slug":"mark-reads-on-ordeal-ronan-chapter-2-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/05\/mark-reads-on-ordeal-ronan-chapter-2-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8220;On Ordeal: Ronan&#8221; &#8211; Chapter 2, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second part of the second chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Ronan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ronan learns something very important about himself. 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>So, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to do my best to talk about this part of chapter two as if it happened, but I cannot ignore one really weird element: the scene jump between the last one and this scene is jarring. And bizarre. AND UNEXPLAINED. Because how the <i>fuck<\/i> did Ronan end up next to Pidge on that wall? Are we just supposed to assume he met up with Pidge, but we never saw the journey on the page? Or is there something more sinister at work here? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T ACTUALLY KNOW. I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put it above Duane to trick us, but everything that follows feels so justified and interesting that I am also okay believing that this is how Ronan was offered wizardry and his Ordeal.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m about to be super wrong publicly, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t I?<\/p>\n<p>Well. Moving on. This whole chapter was a <i>delight<\/i> to read, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>part<\/i> of the reason I suspect it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a trick and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m meant to read it as a straightforward thing. Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to Pidge revealing the secret of wizardry is just so <i>pure<\/i>. And I mean that both in how excited he is <i>and<\/i> how much he still reacts like the suspicious person he is. He goes from venting to Pidge about how terrible he feels about his own life to giving Pidge a chance to explain what he means about there being a way to <i>actually <\/i>change the world. So there are equal parts exuberance and reticence within this sequence. Every time Ronan feels like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the edge of something exciting and transformative, he pulls himself back a little so he can interrogate what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being told.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>For example: look where he starts. He speaks very personally about his existential crisis and his sadness, then opens up about how he believes the world can do good <i>without<\/i> it necessarily being tied to religion. Pidge continues to get him to think larger and larger, right until he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s able to stop speaking hypothetically. But Ronan starts to recognize that this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just a story or a thought experiment:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A strange feeling started creeping along Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nerves. It was like the shiver that sometimes went with your hair standing on end\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 except that it brought with it a strange feeling of anticipation, of being about to hear something that could change the world.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, even knowing that this is important, he still questions it all. How many people would have this power the Pidge speaks of? How secretive would he have to be? Was Pidge misspeaking when he referred to <i>other<\/i> worlds? ARE ALIENS REAL? Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I love Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response to all of this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You up for some of that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Up for it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ronan said, amazed by how rough his voice came out. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was <i>born <\/i>up for it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>WHICH IS\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 A SLIGHTLY IRONIC STATEMENT, BUT ALSO BEAUTIFUL. Oh god, Pidge walks Ronan through the basic idea of the Speech! He introduces the concept of an Ordeal! Ronan is <i>shockingly<\/i> cool with the idea that he might die on his Ordeal, except once you think about it, of <i>course<\/i> he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be afraid of this. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not shocking at <i>all<\/i>. What genuinely did surprise me and still does was Pidge\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insistence that Ronan would have to consent to basically being a part of a secret. I assumed that this was in reference to the One\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Champion, especially because of this line:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be kind of a secret weapon, then.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pidge paused, then nodded. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>IT TOTALLY IS THE ONE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S CHAMPION, RIGHT? But what if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m <i>wrong<\/i>? What if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>not<\/i> what this is referring to? This story could be heading in an unexpected direction. I suspect I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve figured out the truth, and that once Ronan fully recites the Oath (which, as you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll note, he <i>also<\/i> interrogates heavily, too, proving his is a FANTASTIC fit for a wizard), this special Ordeal case is going to kick in. After that, though? There probably were clues as to what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening in this section, but I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t catch them. I feel like I have no idea what his Ordeal is gonna be.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/vLM6o37mHuI<\/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 part of the second chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Ronan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ronan learns something very important about himself. 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-4557","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\/4557","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=4557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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