{"id":4570,"date":"2018-06-14T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4570"},"modified":"2018-05-16T11:03:22","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T18:03:22","slug":"mark-reads-on-ordeal-ronan-chapter-4-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/06\/mark-reads-on-ordeal-ronan-chapter-4-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8220;On Ordeal: Ronan&#8221; &#8211; Chapter 4, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the fourth chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Ronan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ronan completes his intervention. 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 brief discussion of slavery<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so proud of Ronan, and I say that knowing that Ronan<i> had <\/i>to succeed at his Ordeal. Indeed, each of these story had an endpoint that the audience knew, and Duane still managed to build a believable sense of suspense despite that. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the details, though, and those details are crucial. Even if Ronan succeeded in saving those people, what price would he have to pay? Had he saved all of them or just the most that he could?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s struggle becomes about that price here in the end as he finally finishes naming everything involved with this wizardry, but then must face the enacture of it. As Duane notes in the text here (and has said multiple times in the past) the act of <i>committing<\/i> to a wizardry is as important\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif not more important\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthan the preparation for it. And every second matters! Can he do it?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Ronan could feel that vast mass of calm already starting to weigh him down into compliance. And the longer he took about what he was going to do, the less chance there was that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever come back from it.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So how does Ronan push through that? Well, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of character who is dealt a challenge and feels something close to a compulsion to meet it. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen that so many times from him! He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not likely to back down from a fight, though this is admittedly less of a fight and more of a negotiation. How will he convince the Sea to do as he wants? Well, he takes a route I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect, though its one I found satisfying as a reader. It makes sense that the Sea would have a sort of emotional memory, especially if it is of memories that are wholesome, loving, and appreciative. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how Ronan manages to make a connection with something older and more powerful than he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever be. When the Sea examines Ronan and plucks out a memory of his Nan, frolicking in the ocean, a bridge forms between these two entities. And it <i>is<\/i> odd to think about that as a concept, but not in this context. If all things are alive in their own way, they were bound to have similarities.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Thus, he just convinces the Sea to spare the lives of the people on that ship because to someone, maybe far, far away, those people mean something to another person. And while I understand the importance of this for Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey, I do have to wonder how the Powers justify this act if the people who are being saved have dealt so much suffering and misery to other living beings. Like, is that a moral act, then? Slavers do not add anything of value to a society that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t based on greed and power, so, by saving them, did Ronan <i>increase<\/i> entropy or decrease it?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really get a sense for that. There is a long section at the end of this chapter that details out the paths that those sixteen people took, and only one of them is explored in any detail. They lived; they died; they affected people on a local scale; and one of them affected a wizard hundreds of years into the future. For Ronan, however, his test was a success. Even as the weight of his wizardry figuratively and literally pressed down on him, threatening to crush the life from his body, he still refused to let them die. In that sense, I feel like Ronan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lesson was learned. He saved lives because <i>lives are inherently worth saving<\/i>. And the price he pays is immediate and painful, too! He plunges from his spot above Bray Head and crashes to the ground, injuring himself in the process. Duane cuts away before we learn the full consequences, but I assume he was transported back to his time, and I assume that his injuries <i>are<\/i> going to be real.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m certain Ronan would do it all over again, given the chance.<\/p>\n<p>vid<\/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 fourth chapter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Ordeal: Ronan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ronan completes his intervention. 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-4570","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\/4570","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=4570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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