In the second half of the thirteenth chapter of Going Postal<\/i>, the race begins, and Moist enacts his poetic justice. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
What a goddamn spectacle, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n First, this was a lot of fun to try and guess, particularly since Pratchett has been leaving clues to this endgame for a while now. Even in the scene that opens this split, there are clues about sleight of hand, that reference the fact that Moist was desperate to cause a scene to direct people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention elsewhere, that reveal that Moist wanted Gilt to be angry<\/i> so that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d finally start making mistakes. Yet even once this started taking shape and I thought I knew how Moist would pull this all off, there was still one last surprise waiting up Moist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sleeve.<\/p>\n Before we get to that, though\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand lord, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so eager to talk about it!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthere is so much that happens in just over twenty pages. LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S GO THROUGH THIS.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a book!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mr. Pony. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take all night to code.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which answered a question I had, too! While Moist doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t plan for everything, one thing that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so captivating about this whole sequence is seeing Moist in his element. The text is very poetic in describing this, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so damn entertaining, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. His improvisational skills are ridiculous, and he twists what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s given. Everything is a tool for him, and that includes the book. Part of its use is for the spectacle; ripping out the pages gave the appearance that he was being charitable, despite that he was actually giving them mostly the images in the book. The same goes for the head start. The clacks didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually need it, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of the show. But nothing here was more satisfying than the broomstick, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m SCREAMING at how perfectly Gilt fell into that trap:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I protest, Archchancellor!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Gilt, spinning around. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This man intends to fly to Genua!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have no such intention!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Moist. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I resent the allegation!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not actually lying, is he??? Because he had no intent to do so; Moist wanted Gilt to complain so that he could then ask for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153even-handed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d treatment out of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fairness.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Thus, the set-up for the Woodpecker is PERFECT. Moist got Gilt to agree not to station horses at each tower in the event they went down. This meant Gilt would have to repair each tower if it went down, and the Woodpecker would ANNIHILATE the system.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Is Moist done, though? NOPE. And I loved that<\/i> aspect, too. He kept pushing the envelope further and further, adding one new aspect to this con despite that he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really need<\/i> to. Though I feel there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an emotional component here that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important: Moist wants<\/i> to destroy Gilt after what Gilt has done to him, to the post office, to the Dearhearts, and to others. So maybe he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to make the wager to defeat Gilt, but he had to do it to enact a more complete revenge, you know? And he did promise to bankrupt the man!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But despite that I may have figured out more of this book than I usually do, this is a Pratchett book. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always a surprise (or ten of them), and this one gave me one that is just DELIGHTFUL. Granted, I had noticed that Moist had some reluctance about executing the Woodpecker code, but I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure if anything was going to come to it. But then:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a wonderful plan, Jim!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Moist. And I shall have to make sure it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a moral component to Moist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision that is not something he would done at the opening of the book. Period! So much of what Moist does here is for other people<\/i>. It does not really benefit him to save the clacks system or to turn it over to those who genuinely worked on it and helped construct it. Oh, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll win him some favor with Miss Dearheart, sure, but even then, this is still something that will benefit so many other people that Moist will never meet. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not thinking of running away or of stealing money from people who worked hard for it. This is Moist becoming himself, and he chooses not<\/i> to destroy everything around him.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He chooses to build it all up.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He chooses a future in which people who love what they do\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe coders, the people who have made the clacks system so advanced, so incredible, who have created their own language and their own culture\u00e2\u20ac\u201dget to decide the future. And look, I understand why Al is furious with Moist changing this at the last second. The Woodpecker seemed perfect! In one act, they would have been able to deliver a brutal blow to Gilt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enter enterprise. But it was a plan that would raze the towers, that would leave them all inoperative for a long, long time. Not just that, but what if people lost their lives when the code hit? How many others would lose their jobs in the wake of Gilt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s failure? Many of these people, as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen throughout this book, are experts<\/i>. This is their whole life!<\/p>\n Thus, Moist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision echoes his claim that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get Gilt in a different kind of court. I had guessed the court of public opinion, which is close, but I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see how<\/i>. What he comes up with\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 my gods.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sitting up in the tower in the mountains and you get a signal like that? You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get it away and out of your tower as fast as you can.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if we ought to shake your hand or throw you off the tower,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sane Alex sullenly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That was evil. What sort of person could dream up something like that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n NO! I NEEDED TO KNOW! What message would be so bad as to nearly disgust these men but also excite them because they knew<\/i> it would pass from one tower to the next?<\/p>\n The answer to this had been told to us before: GNU. No one dies on the clacks, not as long as their name is repeated, sent from one tower to the next, all the way to the end and back again. The dead are alive in the system, and they always will be as long as it keeps running. (Which also makes it rather lovely that Moist doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to use the Woodpecker; he knows that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll shut down the clacks.) And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fitting that Moist returns back to Ankh Morpork to make an appearance at Unseen University just as the message makes it way to the omniscope.<\/p>\n Moist has surely got Gilt now:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who will listen to the dead? We who died so that words could fly demand justice now. These are the crimes of the Board of the Grand Trunk: theft, embezzlement, breach of trust, corporate murder\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Belief is everything on the Disc. And this is the court in which Moist has proven the charges against Gilt: in the court of the dead who live on in the clacks.<\/p>\n Holy.<\/p>\n Shit.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8EIVChGzjtc<\/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 second half of the thirteenth chapter of Going Postal, the race begins, and Moist enacts his poetic justice. 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-4784","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\/4784","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=4784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}