{"id":4857,"date":"2019-01-11T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4857"},"modified":"2019-01-06T09:16:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T17:16:38","slug":"mark-reads-wintersmith-chapter-3-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/01\/mark-reads-wintersmith-chapter-3-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Wintersmith&#8217;: Chapter 3, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the third chapter of <i>Wintersmith<\/i>, Tiffany learns the secret of Boffo. 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>Well. WELL. So, Miss Treason <i>knows<\/i> she is like this! The second half of this chapter fascinates me because it adds a new layer to this character that was not there before. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like the concept of a Boffo is new; we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen <i>many<\/i> witches and wizards represent themselves in similar ways to this. The pointy hat is a prime example. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just never been <i>called<\/i> a Boffo. But Miss Treason\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s whole personality and reputation is predicated on countless \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Boffos,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and it grants her a power within her community. She loves the drama of it all, too!<\/p>\n<p>Yet it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s within this chapter that we see, for the first time in the book, the softness of Miss Treason. She absolutely exaggerates herself to the extreme, and once the Feegles are gone, she reveals just how much of herself is an act. I suppose I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m intrigued by that, too. Exactly how much of it <i>is<\/i> an act? Once she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not angry at Tiffany anymore, she genuinely feels like a different person. Well, right up until she does that thing with her thumbnail. I COULD DO WITHOUT THAT. Even Tiffany recognizes that her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153public\u00e2\u20ac\u009d persona is drastically different than her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d self:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, I meant, why do you want to seem so\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dTiffany hesitated and went on\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153awful?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have my reasons,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Miss Treason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I feel like the remainder of this chapter answers this question in part. The stories that Miss Treason has made up about herself and spread about her community have granted her an undeniable power. People are afraid of her; they see her as powerful; they view her as a good judge of character and morality. Indeed, Miss Treason uses the stereotypical perceptions of herself to her advantage, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of amazing. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all Boffos, items purchased from a joke shop to enhance her witchiness. Which she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need! She just likes what they grant her, how they add a texture to how she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perceived.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wondering: Will Tiffany start using Boffos? Will she adopt one? Or will she stick with the pointy hat? With the respect she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gained by being great at making cheese or tending the lambs, or carrying the Aching name? Actually, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about cheese because WHAT THE HELL. I mean&#8230; Rob Anybody <i>did<\/i> warn us about Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dream? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like I should be surprised that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an actual cheese man (named Horace!!!) in the story, yet HERE I AM. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say I have a single idea how Horace is going to fit into the greater plot because&#8230; well, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an angry wheel of blue cheese? What am I supposed to do with this??? IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO WEIRD. Delightfully weird, I might add, and Pratchett doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put random shit into his work just for the sake of it. So Horace is important! For&#8230; reasons!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the truly concerning thing in this chapter is the way in which Tiffany thinks about the Wintersmith. I am continuing to enjoy the fact that this book really feels like Tiffany is growing up before my eyes. Like I said before, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s getting a story about her messing up and dealing with the ramifications of that, but I can <i>also<\/i> tell that this is wrapped up in her exploration of her emotions. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a while since the events of <i>The Wee Free Men<\/i>, but since then, her friendship with Roland, the Baron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s son, has evolved. I see them beginning to come into their understanding of attraction and how complicated it can be to <i>possibly<\/i> start to develop feelings for someone. Is this definitively where this arc is going? No, of course not. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a lot of awkwardness and silence, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reading into it the possibility of something. In particular, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a section where Tiffany talks about feeling like she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153normal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d friends because how kids are now \u00e2\u20ac\u0153respectful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of friendly. So, she and Roland have something in common, and that emotional ground between them is certainly a reason why they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still friends.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But I also can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore the way that Tiffany seems to be developing an affinity for the Wintersmith, how willing she is to explain away things he does or says, how she interprets things as having a positive intent, etc. Like the return of the horse necklace! I get why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to see this as a positive thing, but what if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not? Ugh, I know I just said that I hope that Tiffany doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make any more big mistakes, but she might??? Which she should be able to! There needs to be space in fiction, <i>especially<\/i> for kids and teens, to see characters mess up terribly and then deal with the fallout from it. And that seems to be what Pratchett is setting up here. Tiffany is intrigued by the Wintersmith, despite that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been told that the Wintersmith is one to be avoided. I hope my guess at the end of the video is right, because it supports this notion. The Wintersmith is <i>much<\/i> more interested in Tiffany than the other way around, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m assuming the weird thing about the snowflakes? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tiffany. They look like <i>her<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/0wC4uuhjndg<\/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 second half of the third chapter of Wintersmith, Tiffany learns the secret of Boffo. 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":[557,248,556],"class_list":["post-4857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-wintersmith","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-wintersmith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4857","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=4857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->