{"id":4995,"date":"2019-07-10T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4995"},"modified":"2019-07-08T07:12:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T14:12:13","slug":"mark-reads-unseen-academicals-part-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/07\/mark-reads-unseen-academicals-part-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Unseen Academicals&#8217;: Part 14"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourteenth part of <i>Unseen Academicals<\/i>, Ridcully experiences a reunion, and Mr. Nutt receives a promotion. 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>Hi, wow, this was somehow <i>worse<\/i> than I expected? SO MUCH WORSE.<\/p>\n<p><b>The Reunion<\/b><\/p>\n<p>So, my anticipation for this was\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, I knew it would be terribly awkward. Ridcully was still angry at the Dean for leaving for a position at Brazeneck, and he certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t respect the fact that the Dean was an Archchancellor there. But holy shit, despite all the clues that this would be intense, I still wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready!!! And initially, that was mostly because <i>I ACTUALLY FOUND OUT THE DEAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S NAME<\/i>. As I said on video, I was so used to him being the Dean that his name was just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Dean! That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s who he is! But nope, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually <i>Henry<\/i>. HENRY. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even that it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that I have a solitary name for him in my head. But Pratchett is intentional about that; I believe he introduced this here so that he could give Ridcully a means to diminish Henry. This whole time, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve known him by his position. Now, his position is something that angers Ridcully a lot. So what does he do? Ridcully won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t refer to his previous colleague as the Archchancellor; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>his<\/i> job, and as we see in the hat argument, only one of them has the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153history\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to back them. Nope, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just Henry. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>What transpires here is the wizards dropping one barb after another, insulting the other as many times as they can in every sentence. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S LIKE A TALENT OR SOMETHING. Because this went on way longer than I expected, and it was far more brutal, too. Like, holy shit, everything with Turnipseed!!! RIDCULLY WAS COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS TO THAT. Of course he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand how messed up that dynamic is because he treats Ponder Stibbons in the same way and thinks it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s normal! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also another reading I could see of this: Ridcully resents that Henry appears to have copied him and went and got his own version of Stibbons. Indeed, Ridcully sees himself as being the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153original\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Archchancellor of the two of them, and it makes a lot of sense that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hate someone not only leaving, but trying to replicate him. Even if that was unintentional! I suspect it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Henry feels way too purposeful for that. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: PEX. Pex!!! And Pex is supposed to be <i>better<\/i>, just like the <i>Higher<\/i> Energy Magic building. Henry came to rub all of this in Ridcully\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face, and he did not waste the opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>But what was truly surprising was how quickly this sputtered out. In the space of just a few lines, Henry and Ridcully bond over when they first met, and then they segue perfectly into talking about football. Now, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still an air of competitiveness within this conversation, but the tone absolutely changes. Has Ridcully fully accepted Henry as the Archchancellor of Brazeneck? I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go that far, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m now guessing that it will be through this experience that he comes to do so. What happens if Henry wins the Hat from Ridcully? Will he hand it over? I also suspect that Ridcully learning that Brazeneck is not swimming in money has changed his perception of Henry, too. Henry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life has changed significantly since moving to the new school, and yet, he still wants to <i>stay<\/i> there.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ponder<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Oh, I am SO PLEASED that this book features Ponder openly challenging Ridcully and standing up for himself so often. The long monologue he gives in this split is something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a long time coming. Most of the wizards rely on on Ponder to take care of the details, but at this point, the man has so many positions\/job titles that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe accumulated votes of all the posts I hold on the University Council mean that I do, technically, control it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And so, he rightly takes that power and refuses to cede it. AS HE SHOULD. If the other wizards are going to constantly give up responsibilities and expect Ponder to take them on, then he is by all rights allowed to accept the power that comes with it. GOOD FOR YOU, PONDER STIBBONS.<\/p>\n<p><b>Mr. Nutt Proves His Worth<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I actually forgot that Mr. Nutt was still in the Hall, LMAO. But he speaks up at the perfect time, reminding Ponder that he <i>does<\/i> know a lot about football, enough to hopefully help Ponder in an area he is severely lacking in. Plus, Pratchett puts this moment at the perfect place in the story: Ponder just stood up for himself for having too many things expected of him. This is him asking for help; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s him delegating a responsibility to someone who is not only able to but willing to help. Ponder is growing and changing, and I can barely believe this is <i>actually<\/i> happening, but it is!!!<\/p>\n<p>And then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ponder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision itself. I liked that we got some context for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the politics of wizardry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d namely that it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t unheard of to give people sanctuary, or to help someone hide within the school. So, Ponder doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know Nutt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s backstory, so he assumed he had done something wrong and was being given a second chance\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 of a sort? Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that far from whatever is <i>actually<\/i> happening here. Nutt <i>is<\/i> being given another chance. So, Ponder just continues to offer him that, asking him to continue to talk about football and eventually offering him the position of trainer. But Nutt\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbless his pure, kind heart\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddoesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to do this <i>without<\/i> Trev. Though Trev has complicated feelings about that! He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been trying to escape the shadow of his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notoriety for ages, and how is he going to do that <i>while<\/i> playing football? Which he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never technically played? But is probably terrifyingly good at???<\/p>\n<p>I really, <i>really<\/i> love how this book is shaping up. I honestly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect this much depth from a book about the wizards and football, but here we are. And now Mr. Nutt is going to take the team to the ballet??? This is only going to get better.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=J9-iNiqbXKk<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2019\/5\/7\/the-anger-is-a-gift-trade-paperback-is-out-today\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\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 fourteenth part of Unseen Academicals, Ridcully experiences a reunion, and Mr. Nutt receives a promotion. 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":[463,248,561],"class_list":["post-4995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-unseen-academicals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4995","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=4995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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