{"id":4835,"date":"2018-12-20T05:00:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T13:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4835"},"modified":"2018-12-19T10:00:13","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T18:00:13","slug":"mark-reads-thud-part-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/12\/mark-reads-thud-part-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Thud!&#8217;: Part 17"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the seventeenth part of <i>Thud!<\/i>, Vimes gets the truth from Helmclever. At least, most of it, that is. 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>This book continues to be Absolutely Too Much, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m blown away by it AND how much more of it is left. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, Vimes is <i>absolutely<\/i> going to Koom Valley, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he???<\/p>\n<p><b>A Night on the Town<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I love that Angua has aggressively refused to bond with Sally, and then her actions tell a completely different story. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice that these four women are all hanging out, though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious where Pratchett is going with this whole interrogation of Tawneee. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure at all! I get the phenomenons he is talking about: I have certainly met \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pretty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d people who are wholly unaware of just how attractive they are. But what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point of all of this? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still going to be excited about the prospect of all four of these characters bonding, but is this leading to them all accepting Nobby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship with Tawneee? And maybe there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no real message at work here; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always possible!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Interview<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this was INCREDIBLE. Pratchett manages to pack in exposition for a long-standing mystery into a story that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heavily character-focused (for Helmclever, that is) <i>and<\/i> invokes a terrifying mythology in the process. HOW DOES ALL OF THIS HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME???<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So yes, this is a lot, which is the understatement of all understatements. Pratchett takes so many threads and ties them together in this sequence alone, and he starts with the game of <i>Thud<\/i>, the very one we saw as having affected dwarfs and trolls so significantly that it almost casts a spell over them while they play it. So that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what Vimes uses to get Helmclever to do something automatic, something that is like instinct to him, and that way, Helmclever can be within something familiar. Once that happens, he starts talking, and OH LORD, DOES HE EVER REVEAL PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d figured out some of this, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be smug about what Helmclever says. To use the puzzle metaphor: I had a vague image in mind as I was assembling this, but Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interrogation provided the framework I was missing the whole time. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true that dwarfs were hired to find one of the mythical Devices that can capture a voice and store it for&#8230; well, for pretty much <i>forever<\/i>. They were managed by so called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dark soldiers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who I assume are deep-down dwarfs, too? Anyway, the deep-down dwarfs came to Ankh-Morpork <i>specifically<\/i> because a clue in the <i>Codex<\/i> led them to believe a vital cube had been discarded in the city, and they knew it was important that they get it. I assume as well that the <i>Codex<\/i> said it was a cube with B\u00e2\u20ac\u2122hrian Bloodaxe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice on it? Or had clues as to who was on it?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Look, I could go over and over these clues, many of which now make so much more sense, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore that in the end, it all leads back to Koom Valley. B\u00e2\u20ac\u2122hrian Bloodaxe commanded the dwarf army there; the deep-down dwarfs are <i>obsessed<\/i> with the mythology surrounding that day; the anniversary of it brings up the bad blood between the trolls and the dwarfs. The order of events is now clear, too; the digger dwarfs found the cube, heard it, and Hamcrusher immediately ordered them killed so that they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gossip. But then, whatever was on that cube was so offensive to him that he TRIED TO DESTROY IT, which would be the destruction of words to a dwarf, and then <i>Hamcrusher<\/i> was killed in the darkness and the ensuing chaos. And Brick witnessed the AFTERMATH of that.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Okay, the point is that I am guessing there was <i>something<\/i> in that cube that defied Hamcrusher and the deep-downers. Something had to be so utterly fucking wrong to Hamcrusher that he would react as he did! I JUST CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T FIGURE OUT WHAT THAT IS. Like, it would have to a contradiction, maybe? Some sort of contradiction to the whole philosophy of the deep-down dwarfs???<\/p>\n<p>HELP ME, I KNOW I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M CLOSE. I feel like that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it, but I just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the specific words.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Within this, though, is the story of Helmclever\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s guilt and confusion. As hopeful as Mr. Shine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s game cellar made me, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bitter sentiment from Vimes in regards to what Helmclever has gone through. A storm may have stopped the battle, but doubt crept into Helmclever\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, and it broke him. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sad about this is that he probably believed so wholly in what he had been told. And then, he witnessed what these people were willing to do to preserve their beliefs: murder. <i>Five<\/i> murders. Blaming the murders on a troll. Use the very club that Mr. Shine gave to Helmclever\u00e2\u20ac\u201da sign of empathy and unity!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto frame a troll for the crime. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so <i>sad<\/i>, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?<\/p>\n<p>Which is why as painful as this all is, as complicit as Helmclever was in this, I still felt awful when the Summoning Dark (or, rather, his belief in it) killed him. We get a glimpse of a dwarf who could have been someone else, who might have done something differently if he had been informed better, if he had been brave enough to stand up to the wrongness that he witnessed. The mythology of the symbols is a terrifying force here, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all powered by belief. And what Helmclever did fueled that belief:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153&#8230;we could hear him hammering on the door with his fists, and I stood in the tunnel and listened to him die and I <i>wished<\/i> him dead so that the noise would stop, but, but, but when it did, it went on in my head, and I could, I could, I could have turned the wheel but I was afraid of the dark guards who have no souls, and because of that the darkness will take mine&#8230;\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So when the lights go out, when Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s anger makes the candles extinguish, Pratchett writes what happens so that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to argue that the Summoning Dark is both literal and metaphorical. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>belief<\/i>, and Helmclever believed that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done something so heinous that he deserved his own fate, which is what he got.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to Koom Valley. I just know it, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. He <i>has<\/i> to. The secret to all of this is there.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/gm_jNUUhh1k<\/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 seventeenth part of Thud!, Vimes gets the truth from Helmclever. At least, most of it, that is. 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":[463,248,554],"class_list":["post-4835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-thud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835","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=4835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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