{"id":4682,"date":"2018-09-10T05:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4682"},"modified":"2018-09-09T16:45:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T23:45:15","slug":"mark-reads-the-book-of-night-with-moon-chapter-12-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/09\/mark-reads-the-book-of-night-with-moon-chapter-12-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Book of Night With Moon&#8217;: Chapter 12, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the twelfth chapter of <i>The Book of Night With Moon<\/i>, Arhu and Rhiow have important epiphanies. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Feline Wizards<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Trigger Warning: For death of animals<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. I HURT.<\/p>\n<p><b>Arhu<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Duane makes it clear <i>why<\/i> Ith believes as he does, why he is so cynical, and why he believes it pointless to fight against the Lone One. Ith had been indoctrinated to believe that the destruction of all worlds was imminent and that all saurians would be \u00e2\u20ac\u009dIts instruments\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in that process. But more than anything else, Ith believes that at the end of it all is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Laughing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In one of the most disturbing scenes in the entirety of this universe, Ith pushes Arhu to remember when he experienced the Lone One\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Laughing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s&#8230; a lot. As I said on video, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a <i>need<\/i> to know Arhu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life before he ended up on those train tracks beneath Grand Central. Its appearance here, though, is meant to sow doubt. Right as Arhu tries to convince Ith to fight alongside them all, Ith reminds Arhu of his lowest point.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel the need to recount every detail here because this kind of stuff both saddens me and infuriates me. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had pets most of my life, and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fathom people who do shit like this when there are so many other options available. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so <i>real<\/i>, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! I have a friend who works in rescue with dogs, and the stories he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s told me are just as horrifying as Arhu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, and he has like&#8230; five new ones <i>per week<\/i>. So this kind of monstrosity is a lot more common than you might think. Duane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s point here, though, is that at the bottom of everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heart is this darkness. It is a conscious choice to to be nice and kind and helpful, and wizardry is about making that choice <i>every day<\/i>. To me, then, Ith is trying to say that there is no choice, that everything eventually ends with the One\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Laughter. Why try at all? He brings up this brutal part of Arhu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life to prove that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always there, but Ith misses an important point: <i>There was always more to Arhu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life after that<\/i>. Look what followed such a low, low moment!<\/p>\n<p>But I also get why Arhu doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get to that realization immediately. He mostly forget this trauma, and now, he needs to sit with it. And while he does, Rhiow takes her turn, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a great passage! It works as a summary of how Duane has folded evil into the world of the wizards:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Evil isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t something the One made, Arhu. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a broke image\u00e2\u20ac\u201da perversion of the way things <i>should<\/i> work, purposely skewed toward pain and failure.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Thus, Rhiow tries her best to point out that as confusing and scary and inconceivable as this all might be, she believes that evil can be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153weaned off,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that over time, you can chip away at all of this. And we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen some of this before, particularly the fact that the Lone Power is not all evil either! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obviously hard to wrap one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind around something that could take hundreds upon thousands of years to actually enact, but <i>that<\/i> is why she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give up and why the others shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t either. AND I LOVE WHERE ARHU TAKES THIS:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why should we change the myths for ones that work better? What kind of gods would make you keep making the same mistakes that They made, just because <i>They<\/i> did it that way once? They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be crazy! Or cruel! If things have changed, and new problems need new solutions, why shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we enact them? If They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re good gods, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t <i>They<\/i>?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Urruah, and Saash, well awake now, both stared.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I mean, if They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re any <i>good<\/i> as gods,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Arhu said, with the old street-kitten scorn. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If They aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, They should be Fired.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I just!!!! LOVE ALL OF THIS!!!! Because look, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been this recurring bit throughout this book of Arhu struggling to deal with the notion of the Powers and feeling like they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re unfair. Indeed, asking wizards to give up years of their life to fight the Lone Power, being unable to fold time over their deaths, imposing rules that do not benefit them but benefit others&#8230; all of them have justifications that are understandable. But <i>fair<\/i>? I get why Arhu interprets things this way, and hell, I think Rhiow was in the right place emotionally to hear this. The spell\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe one hinted at multiple times throughout this book, the one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a hundred pieces,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the one Rhiow was just \u00e2\u20ac\u009daware\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of one day\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis the one that Arhu suggests to make <i>themselves<\/i> gods. WHICH&#8230; I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS??? Well, more that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what it <i>entails<\/i>. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bold. Exciting. And it fits! The Downside already makes their bodies into ideas of the past, manifestations of their true selves. Why couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t these wizards <i>become<\/i> the beings for their myths and fight as gods?<\/p>\n<p>If the rules don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work, <i>change the rules<\/i>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such an obvious conclusion in hindsight, but HOLY SHIT. Holy shit, GODS??? The Powers? IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING? Oh my god, this battle is gonna be ridiculous LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S GO, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M READY.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/jIS75CPZHmU<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>My YA contemporary debut, <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/AngerIsAGift\">ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\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 twelfth chapter of The Book of Night With Moon, Arhu and Rhiow have important epiphanies. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Feline 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":[547,548],"tags":[513,549],"class_list":["post-4682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feline-wizards","category-the-book-of-night-with-moon","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-feline-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682","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=4682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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