{"id":4563,"date":"2018-06-06T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4563"},"modified":"2018-06-05T18:29:33","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T01:29:33","slug":"mark-reads-on-ordeal-ronan-chapter-3-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/06\/mark-reads-on-ordeal-ronan-chapter-3-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8220;On Ordeal: Ronan&#8221;: Chapter 3, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second part of the third chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Ronan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d WELL, THIS WAS A PLOT TWIST. 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><b>Trigger Warning: For discussion of slavery<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I have a vague recollection that Ronan mentioned something about his Ordeal that referenced what we begin to see in this part of the chapter, but that was like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 two years ago? Maybe less time ago? I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite put my finger on what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s familiar here, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m close to SOMETHING. Regardless, there are parallels here to other books, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascinating to see how this short story exists alongside other canon.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get there. But let me first note that, once again, Ronan is alone when a major transformation occurs in his life. That theme of loneliness and isolation has popped up again and again throughout <i>Interim Errantry 2<\/i>. Each of these Ordeal stories features a character out of place, alone, and struggling with how to change their immediate circumstances. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly the case for Ronan, and much like the others, he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t figure out what it is he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to do <i>next<\/i>. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s avoided a dreaded confrontation with his parents, but he spends his time wandering around the main part of his town, hoping for a sign, then realizing it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to come.<\/p>\n<p>WHICH IS PRECISELY WHEN IT DOES, BY THE WAY. Much like the events in <i>A Wizard Abroad<\/i>, Ronan is dealt something akin to a timeslide. (I think? I could still be wrong about this.) And because we all understand the context of this story, it was easy for me to guess that this was the Lone One\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s big test for Ronan. Why send him to this place? Why strip him of <i>most<\/i> of the familiarity of Bray, but not <i>all<\/i> of it?<\/p>\n<p>In the midst of this, though, is a really cool scene. Now, Ronan had done a few smaller wizardries prior to this one, like the one where he asked the water to help him stay dry. But up until his first transit spell, Ronan hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done the sort of intensive wizardry that involved high levels of concentration and reading as he does here. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such an important part of his growth and his story, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually on the page. Even this far along in the series, I still feel like I can learn more about how wizardry functions and what the experience is like when a wizardry is enacted.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, initially, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure why Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ordeal was in THIS specific time period, though if I had to give a guess at the time, Duane was going to further address the history of slavery in Ireland. As we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen before, wizardry grants wizards a sort of casual access to knowledge of pretty much anything, all of it in the Speech, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how Ronan begins to realize where he might be. And look, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a value in this outside of it being an Ordeal experience: we <i>do<\/i> need to confront and deal with the violent, uncomfortable histories of our own countries and our own peoples. Most of us can probably point to something that we learned that shattered what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d always been told about a specific aspect of history, and it can be deeply upsetting to realize you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been lied to in this context.<\/p>\n<p>So, Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own anger and disgust over this part of Irish history dovetails right into what I suspect <i>is<\/i> the actual point of his Ordeal. Does Ronan save this ancient settlement from the ferocity of the oncoming storm? We know the Lone One <i>loves<\/i> fucking with history and timelines, so It appears to have given Ronan a terrible conundrum. Is this settlement full of slavers? Or is it a pivotal point in history that, if wiped out, will alter the timeline forever? What if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>supposed<\/i> to be wiped out, but Ronan accidentally saves it? THIS IS A TERRIBLE CONUNDRUM, OKAY. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one that we see in a lot of time travel narratives, but here, it feels different. Ronan was basically <i>brought<\/i> to this time and place expressly for the purpose of this test, and I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell at first which of these options was best. There are important lessons of wizardry in <i>either<\/i> action: sometimes you have to save people you dislike. Sometimes, failure is a good thing in the long run.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just gonna say that I love that an ACTUAL PUPPY is responsible for Ronan figuring out that he was gonna save this settlement. A PUPPY! In all seriousness, though, his logic is sound:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<i>Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just keep all these people<\/i> alive<i> and let them sort out the details themselves. This is their time, not mine. If there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be history, fine, let <\/i>them<i> be the ones who make it. But they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do that if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re dead!<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ronan seems to be good with water already, so\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 hope he can pull this off???<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/rifEgobb3vc<\/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 third chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Ronan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d WELL, THIS WAS A PLOT TWIST. 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-4563","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\/4563","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=4563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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