In the first part of the fourth chapter of A Hat Full of Sky<\/i>, the Feegles plan to help Tiffany, and Tiffany learns more about the responsibilities of a witch. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The PLN<\/b><\/p>\n
Oh my god, there is no way<\/i> this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be a disaster. Oh, the Feegle will probably succeed in some strange, roundabout way, but I am already picturing how badly the Feegle are going to re-create a scarecrow (or, rather, a tattie-bogle, according to Awf\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ly Wee Billy Bigchin Mac Feegle), and… it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna be bad. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never seen one, have they? If they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never seen one, how the fuck are they gonna make one that can act as a disguise or a deterrent? Oh god, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll look like a MONSTER, won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get humans out of their way, won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Right? Oh my god, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this is surely going to be one of the most hilarious and unsettling things in the whole book, and I still have no clue how it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll manifest. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M READY.<\/p>\n
Witchery<\/b><\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this book contradicts anything we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen in the Witches book about what exactly constitutes witchcraft; if anything, it just adds<\/i> to our collective knowledge of it by showing a more specific version of it. Indeed, the Granny, Nanny, Magrat, and Agnes all have done variations of what Miss Level describes here: filling what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s empty and emptying what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten so many scenes of the witches helping the people of the Ramtops and Lancre, and as far away as Genua. Here, Miss Level\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reach is much smaller, and while there are villages and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153isolated farms\u00e2\u20ac\u009d nearby, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a routine that allows her to see the same people every day.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But the main takeaway that Tiffany has at first is that being a witch is still not what she thought it was. Once more, we see how a character struggles with the notion of witchcraft and magic, believing the two to be so intertwined in a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153traditional\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sense that they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see witches\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 behavior as<\/i> magical. On top of that, Tiffany also<\/i> had trouble with how Miss Level worked because she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever get \u00e2\u20ac\u0153paid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for what she did. This is where Miss Level felt most magical to me, though, because the system she has worked out involves what basically amounts to a bartering system with a lite dose of socialism. (Sort of, and I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m butchering the concept, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kinda<\/i> there.) She believes, at heart, that everyone deserves help, that no people should suffer, that basic needs should be met regardless<\/i> of how mean, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unworthy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or uncaring a person is. So, often, she is doing thankless work, or at least thankless in the immediacy of the moment. Because the people she helps, often enough, return to fill up her<\/i> emptiness with gifts, food, services… it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a mutual system.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And what happens if Miss Level gets too<\/i> much?<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What do you do with all that food?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Store it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Miss Level.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But you\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I store it in other people. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing what you can store in other people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Miss Level laughed at Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s expression. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I mean, I take what I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need around to those who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a pig, or who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going through a bad patch, or who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have anyone to remember them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Look, I get why that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard for Tiffany to understand. I feel like most of us would balk at this because we are, usually, the people who need filling up, rather than those who can do the filling. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to think of how you can help others when you so badly need to help yourself, you know? Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t to say that Tiffany is spoiled or that she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t comprehend a system of exchange like this; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just different<\/i>. We all know Tiffany is a fast learner, so I suspect she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll adapt to this quickly. But I just wanted to say that I found this beautiful, and I truly believe that our world would be better if we could approach our lives and the lives of others like this.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also important to note that one of the ways Miss Level helps Tiffany approach this issue is through invoking Granny Aching. Again, I think that each witch has their own special way of being<\/i> a witch, even if the goal is the same. While Granny Aching may not have been a witch in any traditional sense\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand her day-to-day life definitely did not resemble Miss Level\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u201dshe still<\/i> helped people in a roundabout way. She did things without an expectation of return, but rather because it was the right<\/i> thing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the ways she gained such a reputation, and the donkey beating scene is an example of that. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a deeply uncomfortable moment, one that Granny Aching didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shy away from. She knew that the mistreatment of that animal was terrible, she reacted, and look what happened in response.<\/p>\n I can see a similar theme in Mr. Weavall\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story, too. Sometimes, people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have anyone, and Pratchett gives us an example that is probably all too common: someone who has outlived all their friends and family. Who takes care of them? Well, Miss Level does, not because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a nice person or because it makes her feel good. Everyone deserves someone, and, as she puts it, this is just what happens. Loneliness and isolation is common. Real. And it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that Mr. Weavall or anyone else deserves to waste away because they simply ended up alone.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/lHHBfpNHAlI<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\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":" In the first part of the fourth chapter of A Hat Full of Sky, the Feegles plan to help Tiffany, and Tiffany learns more about the responsibilities of a witch. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[551,463,248],"class_list":["post-4636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-a-hat-full-of-sky","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636","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=4636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}