{"id":4845,"date":"2018-12-27T05:00:50","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4845"},"modified":"2018-12-25T16:57:38","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T00:57:38","slug":"mark-reads-thud-part-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/12\/mark-reads-thud-part-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Thud!&#8217;: Part 22"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the twenty-second and penultimate part of <i>Thud!<\/i>, we learn what is on the cube that started this whole nightmare. 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><b>Trigger Warning: For discussion of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, fascism<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>HOLY SHIT THIS IS A LOT. I had said before that I figured that whatever was on the cube involved a contradiction of sorts to the deep-downers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 beliefs, but this is so much more than that??? Oh god, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much that happened here. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It works through living creatures, especially ones it finds&#8230; amenable. It found <i>you<\/i>, Commander, a cauldron of anger, and in small, subtle ways it saw that you got it to this place.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>HI, I MISSED JUST HOW EARLY THIS WAS PLANTED INTO THE STORY. Admittedly, I <i>completely<\/i> forgot about the nail on the door, and thinking back on those early sections, Vimes was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cauldron of anger\u00e2\u20ac\u009d long before the dwarf attack on his home. He was <i>pissed<\/i> at the growing antagonism between the dwarfs and the trolls, he was furious that this murder was being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from him, and he was angry that he had to do any of this in the first place. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, he was so primed for this entity to influence him, which now makes me want to re-read this one immediately, too, because HOW MANY SCENES WAS THE SUMMONING DARK PUSHING HIM TO DO OR THINK THINGS.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I did appreciate that once Vimes starts to reckon with this, he experiences guilt, particularly about Helmclever\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death. But now I understand the <i>real<\/i> importance of having Bashfullson in that scene to make sure Vimes did not harm Helmclever. He was a witness to the fact that Vimes never touched the dwarf, and thus, it really wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fault that he died. Helmclever\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own guilt and fear did him in:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What reason did he have to feel guilty?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Every reason, for a dwarf. That mine bore down so heavily on him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an intense exchange, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Pratchett says so much with so little!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, as a grag, my first resort, of course, is to my voice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said the grag. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The axe is nothing without the hand, and the hand is nothing without the mind. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve trained myself to <i>think<\/i> about axes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>HI, HELP, LOOK AT THAT FORESHADOWING.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You <i>let<\/i> them shackle you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He said.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, it seemed to be gettin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 all poll-itical, Mister Vimes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Detritus. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But say der word and me an\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Brick can have \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem off, no trouble.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I just&#8230; love Detritus a lot? Granted, he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the Summoning Dark pushing him to do anything, but I appreciate how he was able to recognize the delicate nature of this situation. He remains one of the most thoughtful characters in the Watch books, and this act\u00e2\u20ac\u201dplus his adoption of Brick\u00e2\u20ac\u201dare a sign of how much he tries to be a force for goodness. HE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO LOYAL, I WANT TO BE HIS BEST FRIEND.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On the soft underskin of Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrist, the sign of the Summoning Dark blazed as a livid scar.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>WELL. So much for everything just being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mystical\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for Vimes. As I said on video, I thought it was darkly funny that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done all these mental gymnastics in order to accept what had happened to him without having to accept that something had \u00e2\u20ac\u0153possessed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d his body. And then&#8230; well, <i>this<\/i>. A very physical sign! So, have fun, Vimes? That thing is gonna intimidate every dwarf he meets from now on, right?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So, I want to jump ahead to the cube. I liked the bits where we found out who nabbed it during the chaos and the back-and-forth about what word or sound might open it. But I was so eager to know the truth: What could possibly be so dangerous as to inspire the deep-down dwarfs to go against their own code? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hint of it in the opening, which mirrors the text of the Epigraph for this book, right up until it <i>doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> mirror that story. The change in Tak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story was a big thing, sure, but it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem like enough. Would the deep-downers <i>really<\/i> flip out over <i>that<\/i>? Yes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s significant that Tak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story showed that Tak \u00e2\u20ac\u0153delighted in the life that came unbidden\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when creating a troll. Yet the big twist was coming, and OH MY GODS.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThis outcome was not meant! We came to sign a treaty! It was the secret careful work of many years!\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Even before I found out the rest of what was said on the cube, I knew then exactly why this was so dangerous. The deep-downers believed that they were destined to hate the trolls forever, that their bigotry was written into their history, that it was such an undeniable fact that the very existence of these words was obviously, truly fake. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this one twist is perhaps the most tragically relevant bit in this entire book, and I can barely fathom how Terry Pratchett basically wrote about Fake News Conspirators all these years ago. Granted, as I read more about this peace treaty, about the mistaken battle where mist turned troll against troll, dwarf against dwarf, about how these trolls and dwarfs knew that they had to leave evidence that they wanted to live together peacefully, I thought about what Pratchett must have been thinking of as he crafted this. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to dispel the possible notion that this is cheesy or unbelievable because, sad to say, deliberate hoaxes have been <i>very<\/i> much a part of the spread of bigoted movements worldwide for hundreds of years. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of anti-Semitic works like the <i>The Protocols of the Elders of Zion<\/i>, a hoax that has been used to justify anti-Semitism to this very day, or the Dreyfuss affair, or the way in which <i>The Birth of a Nation<\/i> helped to continue to grow the white supremacist movement in the United States and elsewhere, or the infiltration of left-wing and radical movements by the FBI and the CIA that used techniques like this to kill dissent. (Sometimes literally.) There have been people determined to destroy history that does not agree with their worldview all throughout the past, and Pratchett is totally working within that space here. Ardent was willing to destroy all those bodies in the cavern because he literally viewed them not as corroboration of what was on the cube, but as evidence that those who opposed or disagreed with them had fabricated an entire history. Which is so much more difficult than they are even willing to admit! Are you telling me that someone in Ankh-Morpork used that technology despite that no one could even figure out how to open the thing, and they planted in that well in order to&#8230; no, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s way too fucking complicated!<\/p>\n<p>The sad thing is that this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t and cannot occur to the deep-downers. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so indoctrinated into this dogma that their belief system necessitates that they reject literally anything that contradicts them. A contradiction isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a chance to change one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an attack. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>designed<\/i> to distract and insult the true believer, right? To these dwarfs, it is a moral imperative to fight against such ideas because they dilute the purity of dwarfs everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why it is beautifully ironic that Ardent dies at the hands of a dwarf who so wholly believes in themself that they are able to kill <i>as if<\/i> they held an axe. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a poetic moment, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Bashfullson feels like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s achieved a purity of dwarfness that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rely on bigotry and exclusion, which is exactly what Bloodaxe and Diamond wanted:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcFor the enemy is not Troll, nor it is Dwarf, but it is the baleful, the malign, the cowardly, the vessels of hatred, those who do a bad thing and call it good.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Incredible. JUST INCREDIBLE. So&#8230; what the fuck did they find in the cave <i>below<\/i> the current cave???<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/iYW_aw3pSWU<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/19\/the-anger-is-a-gift-paperback-edition-is-out-may-7-2019\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now up for pre-order!<\/a> It comes out on May 7, 2019.\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 twenty-second and penultimate part of Thud!, we learn what is on the cube that started this whole nightmare. 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-4845","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\/4845","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=4845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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