In the first half of the eleventh chapter of Going Postal<\/i>, Moist reveals how he got what he needed. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/i><\/p>\n
Seriously, one of the things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve enjoyed about reading this book is examining Moist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s identity. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve brought up a few times before. Who is this man without all his alternate identities? When he gets to be himself for an extended length of time, does that mean he borrows from those masks? Or is there a part of Moist that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always been there, deep down?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This chapter complicates that question, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good thing. Moist reveals to the reader that the hundred and fifty thousand dollars that the gods gave him is part of a con. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not surprising, but I was<\/i> impressed that this was actually the stash that Alfred Spangler had hid. (It also answers a question I had very, very early on in this book: exactly what did Alfred Spangler do???) So, faced with the problem of the Post Office, Moist doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t run away. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give up. And yes, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore that he does<\/i> feel disappointed that he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep any of the money for himself. But the impulse here\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto provide the city with Hope through this con, while turning everyone against the Grant Trunk Company\u00e2\u20ac\u201dstill feels like a huge development in his character. He finally decided to give back something he stole, and in this instance, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be giving back<\/i> to Ankh-Morpork. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an impulse we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never really seen, at least not on this level. So what does it mean for the story as a whole? Could you say that Going Postal<\/i> is about one man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unknowing rehabilitation of himself? Was that Vetinari\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plan the whole time, or was it merely an added bonus to what Vetinari wanted to accomplish?<\/p>\n Look, I tend to err on the side of believing that Vetinari rarely manipulates or orchestrates things so that there are accidental<\/i> ramifications. But maybe Vetinari didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually plan for Moist to start to become a good person; maybe he just hoped his shrewd, calculating mind was enough to figure out how to resurrect the post office. In the end, though, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure how much that actually matters in terms of the book itself. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need this spelled out, because Vetinari putting Moist in this position is enough for me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enough to appreciate how much he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s changed over the course of Going Postal<\/i>. It might seem strange out of context, but the man actually experiences the reward of doing a good deed, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. And granted, that deed hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite begun yet, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m eager to see that, too!<\/p>\n There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still the other shoe dropping, though, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still<\/i> Reacher Gilt. I know that the chapter heading hints at a meeting of the board, and I am fully expecting that to escalate to ridiculous and terrifying levels. (And bless this chapter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insults at the expense of Gilt. THEY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE SO GOOD.) But what of Tolliver Groat? Is he someone who can change? I imagine that his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clean\u00e2\u20ac\u009d bill of health (and I use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clean\u00e2\u20ac\u009d lightly) is actually going to inspire him to keep up his natural remedy routine, but also HELP THIS WAS A LOT. Oh my god, the trouserectomy WASN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T A JOKE, they had to SURGICALLY REMOVE HIS TROUSERS. But hey! His routines saved his life; Mr. Gryle would have killed him if it had not been for his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153creative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d protection.<\/p>\n Onwards, friends!<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/2zROqZEjvg4<\/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 half of the eleventh chapter of Going Postal, Moist reveals how he got what he needed. 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":[553,463,248],"class_list":["post-4770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-going-postal","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770","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=4770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}