{"id":4836,"date":"2018-12-21T05:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4836"},"modified":"2018-12-16T17:45:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-17T01:45:06","slug":"mark-reads-thud-part-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/12\/mark-reads-thud-part-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘Thud!’: Part 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the eighteenth part of Thud!<\/i>, Vimes tries to assemble the puzzle. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

HELP ME, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SO CLOSE, WE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE ALMOST THERE. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I feel like I am bursting at the seams while trying to put this together. The pacing! The excitement! THIS IS SO MUCH FUN TO READ. And now that Sir Reynold has been brought back, I got to read in that terrible voice I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing, and it also means MORE PUZZLE PIECES. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss those, as there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a few things I missed before, despite how obvious they are now in hindsight.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And they dug into the cellars of my museum?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, so that means that Nobby was<\/i> right, yes? Wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he the one who theorized who cut up the painting in the first place? Well, at least now we know how the thieves got into the museum, but… oh god, why the painting<\/i>? That was the question of this whole entire sequence, and much like Vimes, I was confused by its purpose:<\/p>\n
So why the painting? It shows what the box is talking about? Where the box is? If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the box in your hand, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that it<\/i>?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Right? If the box has B\u00e2\u20ac\u2122hrian\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice on it, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the purpose here? Why steal the painting, too? Not only that, but this whole book, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard about the secret \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hidden\u00e2\u20ac\u009d within this painting. Ever since Methodia Rascal completed it, people have obsessed over it, determined to solve the mystery. Even Sybil, whose family owned the original for some time, participated in this strange mythology. So, I hoped that Sybil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s copy would provide Vimes with the last piece he needed. And it made sense that it would; no one had approached the painting with the same context and experience that Vimes had. That could make the difference, right? Except… then all of Rascal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notes are just ambiguous enough to mean something or nothing at all at the exact same time<\/i>. And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no color, and the painting was<\/i> set in the wrong place in Koom Valley, and suddenly, this big, important discovery was not as phenomenal as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d thought it would be. Pratchett does a fine job communicating that tone, that slight disappointment that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mixed with Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dogged nature. Even though he isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t getting the answer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s from Sybil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s copy, and even though he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deflated a few times, he refuses to give this up.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how he realizes that Mr. Shine gave him a clue, though! Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s persistence pays off, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how he comes to rethink how<\/i> the painting was displayed. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL, THE MUSEUM WAS GOING TO EXHIBIT IT IN A CIRCULAR ROOM. And with just one shift of perspective, this whole thing looks different. (A fitting metaphor for the book, no?) What if the painting was done from a central point?<\/i> What if the whole thing itself is a map that can be used by finding the spot Methodia Rascal anchored it in??? Except… Sir Reynolds knew that. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why he was going to display it as such, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apparently a cave that Methodia Rascal mentions as where he made the painting?<\/p>\n
UGH THEY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE SO CLOSE. But not close enough for Vimes. Fulfilling Bashfullness\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s promise, Vimes decides it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to head to Koom Valley. And why not make it a family affair? Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL I AM SO EXCITED THAT YOUNG SAM AND SYBIL ARE COMING. Does this count as baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first police case? YES??? It totally does. And gods all bless Sybil telling off Sir Reynold for trying to say this is too dangerous for her. Sir, she just survived a dwarf blasting her with a flamethrower. I THINK SHE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122LL BE JUST FINE. Everyone should be afraid of her<\/i>, though.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
So, one last bit: Vetinari. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think Vetinari would have stopped Vimes at all, and his expression of concern here is because\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe wanted to make sure Vimes thought through this. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little impulsive, yes, but Vimes is<\/i> doing as Vetinari asked him. How else is he going to drag the truth out into the light? However, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one particular part I wanted to highlight because in my zeal to figure out this whole book, I forgot something:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Vimes, Archchancellor Ridcully tells me he believes it may be a quasidemonic entity that is untold millions of years old!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh. Right. THAT THING. Who we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten a few POV sections from!!! Yes, okay, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely what Ridcully says it is, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absolutely going to be there in Koom Valley, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? And what a volatile notion: a entity of pure vengeance in a location where multiple parties want revenge. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s… that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad. Really, really bad.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/5XeSR6HQVg8<\/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 eighteenth part of Thud!, Vimes tries to assemble the puzzle. 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-4836","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\/4836","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=4836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}