{"id":4859,"date":"2019-01-16T05:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4859"},"modified":"2019-01-13T17:14:35","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T01:14:35","slug":"mark-reads-wintersmith-chapter-4-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/01\/mark-reads-wintersmith-chapter-4-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Wintersmith&#8217;: Chapter 4, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the fourth chapter of <i>Wintersmith<\/i>, Tiffany prepares for a funeral, only to discover that the Wintersmith has left her a gift. 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>Oh, no.<\/p>\n<p>OH, NO.<\/p>\n<p>So, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely surreal that Tiffany is actively helping to plan out Miss Treason\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funeral, which Miss Treason fully intends on attending. If even one of these people in the local villages attends this funeral, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be in for the biggest surprise of their life. Except maybe they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprised? Miss Treason <i>is<\/i> a witch, so they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d probably just explain it all away as just&#8230; magic? Right? She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a witch! She can do things like show up at her own funeral!<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about the meeting of the coven. So, my take on Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s embarrassment wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what Pratchett was going for, and this scene helped shed light on the complicated things that Tiffany was feeling. She <i>was<\/i> indeed ashamed that people had possibly discovered what had happened, but then, something else occurs once no one brings up the Tiffany snowflakes:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;but&#8230; well&#8230; it would have been nice if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d known, if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been jealous or frightened or impressed. And she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell them, or at least she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell Annagramma, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d make a joke of it and almost but not exactly say that she was making it up.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I feel like this also sheds light on her previous reactions to the Wintersmith. Tiffany felt <i>flattered<\/i> by the attention. And lord, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relatable. Deeply so! That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the Wintersmith any less messed up, but I believe that Pratchett is trying to explore something that a lot of us went through at some point in our life. How do you deal with attention, and how do you determine when that attention is positive or negative? In this specific case, Tiffany has been told what a powerful being\/entity the Wintersmith is, and somehow, out of everyone, it chose <i>her<\/i> to fixate on? Thus, two thoughts exist at the same time in Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head: The Wintersmith is to be feared, and <i>also<\/i>, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kinda nice that he even noticed me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to talk about this without also acknowledging that even if the Wintersmith isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a person, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still IMMENSELY old, and so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a terrible power balance at work.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Which makes Petulia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s question so very, very important: <i>Has<\/i> the Wintersmith ever met a girl? The more I think about this, and the more I read this chapter again for this review, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m convinced that he <i>hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i>. He has no experience with human girls at all, right? And thus, he becomes <i>obsessed<\/i> with Tiffany, the bold girl with the power of the hills in her, who dared to dance in a spot that was not hers. It fits, and it also scares me. Is <i>that<\/i> what was meant about the Wintersmith not taking no for an answer? Has the Wintersmith not only never met a girl, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never been told <i>no<\/i> by a girl either??? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know! The problem is that all I have to go off of are the stories of the Wintersmith, the tales passed along in books like the one Miss Treason had Tiffany read. (Ha, and this <i>is<\/i> a book about stories, soooooo&#8230;)<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I feel like this is a very credible theory, though? And the longer scene between Miss Tick and Granny Weatherwax is about all the confirmation that I need, particularly this bit from Granny:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What happened in that moment?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Granny Weatherwax went on, unstoppably. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Summer, Winter, and Tiffany. One spinning moment! And then they part. Who knows what got tangled? Suddenly, the Wintersmith is acting so stupid, he might even be a wee bit&#8230; human?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, what is Tiffany supposed to do with this? Granny says she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change the steps\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to dance to the Wintersmith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tune for a while. Until <i>when<\/i>? At what point can she defy the Wintersmith? And how is she going to do this if Granny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nomination goes through? Because y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: her own <i>cottage<\/i>? I admit that sounds super cool, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a large part of me that wants that for Tiffany just because Annagramma would be upset over it. But the STRESS. Plus, would Tiffany ever dare to leave the Chalk? She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>their<\/i> witch. Why would she be interested in living in this place? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not actually sure what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen here; I could see Pratchett writing either storyline. Maybe Tiffany will get the cottage because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good that she is challenged by life; maybe she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll reject it because her role in the Chalk is too important for her. I GENUINELY DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Even so, there are much more immediate concerns in this book, and they all have to do with the Wintersmith being really, really creepy. He made her roses! By killing Miss Treason\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bush with ICE. And how did he ask Tiffany about them? <i>By using her mouth to ask her<\/i>. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a recurring motif in this book\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfirst with Miss Treason, now with the Wintersmith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof other people using Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body without her permission, and it makes this so uncomfortable??? Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, the Wintersmith is escalating his pursuit of Tiffany, and I get the sense that he has <i>no<\/i> understanding of boundaries or consent, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just gonna get worse and worse. Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it???<\/p>\n<p>I did want to make a brief comment about how this chapter ends. I do like the idea of giving Petulia the cottage, though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be a good fit for this steading. The people who Miss Treason helped seemed to <i>thrive<\/i> off the stories that she spread about herself, and Petulia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stark honesty doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly vibe with that. Even without Miss Treason\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s help, the stories about her\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall those Boffos\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhave a life of their own. They twist and adapt and turn into new things, all of which grant Miss Treason an energy that makes her who she is to these people. And, as Petulia notes, her people are <i>proud<\/i> of her. They are very happy to have a witch so strange, so terrifying, and so very much their own.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Who can fill shoes like <i>that<\/i>?<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/3kZ8yJChuW8<\/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 fourth chapter of Wintersmith, Tiffany prepares for a funeral, only to discover that the Wintersmith has left her a gift. 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":[463,248,556],"class_list":["post-4859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-wintersmith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859","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=4859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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