{"id":4673,"date":"2018-08-30T05:00:05","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T12:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4673"},"modified":"2018-08-26T10:49:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-26T17:49:01","slug":"mark-reads-a-hat-full-of-sky-chapter-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/08\/mark-reads-a-hat-full-of-sky-chapter-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘A Hat Full of Sky’: Chapter 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twelfth chapter of A Hat Full of Sky<\/i>, Tiffany finds the egress… sort of. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me just start out by acknowledge how very Tiffany this passage is:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You are<\/i> Death, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you? I know this might sound like a silly question.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
YOU ARE NOT AFRAID?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not yet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I LOVE YOU, TIFFANY ACHING. I feel like there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much depth<\/i> to this moment, too. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s witnessed death in the Chalk; you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t raise sheep without it. Her time in Fairyland certainly helped her… grow up? What I mean by that is that at nine years old, she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153knew\u00e2\u20ac\u009d things that other nine year olds were still blissfully unaware of. But it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t turn Tiffany into a dark person. Pragmatic, sure, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not jaded<\/i>. She just knows that death is a part of life, one that everyone has to deal with. So why would she be afraid<\/i> of it yet?<\/p>\n
Still, Pratchett allows Tiffany to be scared once the reality of her choice hits her: she came into Death\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dessert to guide the hiver to the next life, and now, she has to walk across the desert, too. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it. Those are the rules. And I have a theory: Granny knew this, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t immediately <\/i>save her. Why? Because Tiffany needed to learn another important less on about what witches must do, what sort of role they serve. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stunning moment where she worries that she was too selfish in all this:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I should have thought of other people,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said aloud.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Aye, weel, ye did,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Rob, sitting down by her foot. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yon Arthur went off happy, and ye saved other folk fra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 being killed. Ye did what ye had to do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad Rob pointed this out, because I also interpret it this way. Even if there was a selfish reason buried within this, Tiffany still<\/i> did this to save other people from the hiver AND to understand the hiver before guiding Arthur to their death. Look at her reaction to Rob and Jeannie, too. She wanted Rob to go back without her. She wanted him to tell his wife that she appreciated that she ultimately told Rob he had to keep her safe. SHE EVEN SAID SHE WISHED SHE HAD GOTTEN TO KNOW HER UNDER BETTER CIRCUMSTANCES. Tiffany might have dark thoughts that the hiver exaggerated and acted out, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good<\/i> person, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want her to forget that.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so thrilled by the conversation that Tiffany has with the other young witches after Granny opens a door back to the world for her. Tiffany did not understand it until she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d experienced it, but guiding a person to their death is an inevitability for a witch. And sometimes, that means that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to defy Death\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rules to get back from it, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of the job, so to speak. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something so noble in that idea, too, and it made perfect sense to me that out of all the younger witches, Petulia understood it, too.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
But before I get to Petulia, I did want to talk about the parallels here to The Wee Free Men<\/i>. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so frustrating for Tiffany is that this feels so similar to the experience. Something incredible<\/i> just happened, one that changed her worldview, and no one believes her. She can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk about it! But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so absurd because of all people, other witches<\/i> should believe her! BUT OF COURSE, ANNAGRAMMA DOES NOT. Oh my god, she is so ridiculous. She undermines practically everything that Tiffany says. She is argumentative. She does the same shit she did when we first met her in spite of everything that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened.<\/p>\n
However, that facade has started to crack. It cracked when the hiver, in Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body, tormented her. It cracked when Tiffany poked fun at that in this chapter, and then, the other girls began to ignore<\/i> her, which is such a huge step. And even when Annagramma counters every<\/i> single thing that Tiffany says, you can see how the other girls aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite as ready to agree with her. They fall in line a little bit, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not nearly as extreme as we saw earlier in the book.<\/p>\n
Which is why Petulia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role at the end of the chapter is so relieving. Petulia recognizes that witches will all have to do what Tiffany has already<\/i> done, and she opens up because of that. She stops saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153um,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and she speaks with such a beautiful and poetic voice. And she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right! If there ever was a time for them all to talk about this specific thing, this is it<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
And then Petulia stands up for herself, and it is so fulfilling. I LOVE IT. Yes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because of how terrible Annagramma has treated everyone in the past, but look at what Annagramma interrupts: Petulia talking about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153last thing you can do for someone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That plays a part in it, too.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so proud of Petulia!!!<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/40i4QkEeOxo<\/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 twelfth chapter of A Hat Full of Sky, Tiffany finds the egress… sort of. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\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":[451],"tags":[551,463,248],"class_list":["post-4673","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\/4673","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=4673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}