{"id":4777,"date":"2018-11-21T05:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4777"},"modified":"2018-11-18T05:07:34","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T13:07:34","slug":"mark-reads-going-postal-chapter-12-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/11\/mark-reads-going-postal-chapter-12-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Going Postal&#8217;: Chapter 12, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the first half of the twelfth chapter of <i>Going Postal<\/i>, Moist issues his challenge, and it is precisely as ridiculous as I assumed it would be. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Discworld<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Oh no. OH NO. I knew that Pratchett had written an inevitability into this story. Gilt and Moist were always prepped for some sort of showdown, but this is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, it was only surprising at the moment. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so <i>very<\/i> Moist von Lipwig, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got that almost devious, creative mind, and when he was faced with the possibility that Gilt would try to one-up him, he hit him with an absurd overkill. Because it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough to beat him in a race that was local; no, Moist chose something THOUSANDS of miles away, that historically has barely ever been traversed in less than two months, which the clacks have historically done in just a few hours.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So, how the hell is Moist going to make that trip in record time while also avoiding any interference from Gilt? Well, he has no plan to tell Vetinari of. I even entertained the theory that he <i>did<\/i> have a plan, but truly wanted to keep it from the Patrician. A con man doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reveal all his cards to anyone, right? Which I feel is the point of what happens here. First, we discover that Moist has <i>no<\/i> cards. He employs the Upwrights to help him, but they can only get him so far. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing terribly special about this, aside from the fact that Moist is honestly hiring people who do honest work, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing it for honest reasons. Which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 sounds pretty special for Moist, now that I spell it out like that. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t <i>once<\/i> discuss cheating or using anything than what is fairly at his disposal. He seems to be GENUINELY TRYING. Was there a lot of foresight put into this? Oh, no, not at all. But Moist is an impulsive man\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot all the time, of course\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut his quick-thinking has been a survival tactic. So, he often reacts before setting out to create some sort of plan. Did he anticipate the way in which stamps would catch on in Ankh-Morpork? Nope! But he fosters it (and fosters Stanley) because it <i>works.<\/i> It fits. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to him as this chaotic, complicated beast falls into place.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Look at Gilt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction, too. Gilt is utterly predictable, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s completely convinced that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll win. And the odds are certainly favoring him in terms of pulling it off. Not <i>literally<\/i>; seems like all of Ankh-Morpork is betting against him. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unrealistic that the clacks will beat Gilt. Except\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, look at all the problems Gilt has created. His refusal to allow the clacks to go down has led to disastrous breakdowns. His avoidance of Mr. Pony has created a dangerous work environment. His actions have inspired an intense hatred of him in the workforce, so much so that people appear to be <i>actively<\/i> working against the best interests of the clacks out of anger and spite. And even though Gilt has a clear and obvious advantage, he still wants to cheat. Accidents may happen, but what Gilt slyly refers to is <i>murder<\/i>. That ol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 thing. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done it before, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do it again, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get away with it.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe not. And let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s go back to what I said earlier about how con men don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show all their cards to anyone. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a major reason why Moist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to tell Miss Dearheart the truth of who he is and what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done is VERY HUGE. For once, someone knows <i>everything<\/i>. Now, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get much of a reaction from her; she keeps that to herself and instead, she recommends that Moist spend some time on the roof of the post office. I am hoping this means my prediction about the Smoking Gnu is true because PLEASE. I need to be prepared for something at least ONCE. That being said: I still want a little bit more from Miss Dearheart. How does she feel beyond saying that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153self-centered bastard, with the moral fiber of a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 rat?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She must trust him enough to send him to the roof, though, right? She wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reveal that secret unless it was something she felt he was ready for.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M NOT READY, I SHOULD NOTE.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/mK6rcGaafQY<\/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 first half of the twelfth chapter of Going Postal, Moist issues his challenge, and it is precisely as ridiculous as I assumed it would be. 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":[553,463,248],"class_list":["post-4777","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\/4777","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=4777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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