{"id":4996,"date":"2019-07-12T05:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4996"},"modified":"2019-07-08T10:20:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T17:20:51","slug":"mark-reads-unseen-academicals-part-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/07\/mark-reads-unseen-academicals-part-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Unseen Academicals&#8217;: Part 15"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fifteenth part of <i>Unseen Academicals<\/i>, Glenda changes, and the team prepares for its match under the guidance of Mr. Nutt. 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>YES TO CHARACTER GROWTH.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Glenda<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Pepe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comment came at the right time for Glenda to hear it, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so happy with the way this metaphor of a crab bucket has been woven through the text. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no mistaking that Glenda cares about the people in her own life. (And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of how she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been mistaken for Juliet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother.) But her <i>type<\/i> of caring has a side effect that she did not consider prior to this: Is she keeping people down? Is she another crab in the bucket, desperate to prevent anyone else from leaving? Pratchett has written Glenda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arc so that we can see her begin to change in subtle and not so subtle ways. Sometimes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a change in perception, such as how she felt about Juliet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s venture into modeling, or even how she views Juliet as a person. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a stunning moment in the opening of this split that I love: Glenda stops caring about what Mrs. Whitlow thinks of the Night Kitchen staff:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Something was still bubbling inside Glenda. It had started in Shatta and lasted all day yesterday and there was still some left today. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 she said.<\/p>\n<p>Juliet giggled and looked around in case Mrs. Whitlow was hiding near the bus stop.<\/p>\n<p>And I really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care, Glenda thought. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care. It was like drawing a sword.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For as long as Glenda has worked in the Night Kitchen, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s followed the rules and traditions that Whitlow has enforced. The Night Kitchen staff aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to be at the fancier functions at the university! And yet, Glenda wants to go to the banquet, and she wants Juliet to be there with her. Why should she not be allowed to be there? Because she works a different shift? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>it<\/i>? Again, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore how cool it is that the title of this book is probably an intentional reference to the fact that much of the cast is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unseen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d part of the university\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s staff! This presents another interpretation: the Night Kitchen staff has previously been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unseen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at certain functions, BUT THAT SHALL BE NO LONGER.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Growth of Football<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Simultaneous with this, Pratchett has done a splendid job at addressing how characters like Ridcully and Mr. Nutt have <i>also<\/i> grown over the course of the novel. (Seriously, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so pleased with the character arcs in <i>Unseen Academicals<\/i>.) I love that Ridcully was prepared to fight Henry, but once he showed up and they actually spoke? Well, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so easy to hate him anymore. I find that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too easy to build a narrative in your head about another person when that person isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t around. Ridcully was hurt by Henry leaving, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s irrational at all. There has certainly been animosity and friction between them, too! But Ridcully easily imagined insults and antagonism in <i>everything<\/i> that Henry did. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure that Henry did the same! And yet, that narrative crumbles once the two start communicating. COMMUNICATION IS SO POWERFUL, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, I also learned in this split just how much work Mr. Nutt has been doing to whip the UU team into shape. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just important to the plot, though. Mr. Nutt craves a feeling of worth in everything that he does. He wants to be useful, he wants to be appreciated, and he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever want to do anything to harm another person. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s found something that allows him to channel this desire, though, and in his direction of the football team, we get to see an outlet for his attention to detail. He brought the team to watch a ballet troupe, then had them practice poise and balance back at the University. He had them play a game blindfolded; he showed them the importance of being a team by taking them to see dogs hunt. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s FUCKING INCREDIBLE. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point! Mr. Nutt has such an incredible way of taking in information and then\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand this is the real challenge\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpassing it back to <i>other people<\/i>. Teaching is REALLY HARD, friends!!! How do you make things concise? Understandable? Easier to memorize? It seems that Mr. Nutt teaches by example! He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just tell people what they should know; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all through demonstration. Dancing, ballet, hunting, playing while blindfolded.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing all this <i>while<\/i> being appreciated. Granted, we still get lines like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcReally. Really,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ridcully, as though filing this away and trying not to think <i>How many of them were alive before you murdered them?<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Like I said on video, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve kinda given up on figuring this out because I feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m close, but not close enough yet. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to me, though, is seeing this transformation happen. Even if other characters in-the-know are wary around Mr. Nutt, their perception of him <i>is<\/i> changing, and the text makes that very clear. From Glenda to Ridcully to Trev, each of these people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see Mr. Nutt the same way they did at the start of the novel.<\/p>\n<p>So, all that being said: I am nervous that something is about to happen at the banquet. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t figure out how Mr. Nutt is going to light the chandelier, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to cause some big moment. Or maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the display that Mr. Nutt has prepared of the team? SOMETHING IS GOING TO GO WRONG, I AM REAL WORRIED.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uJCaztPFBQY<\/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 fifteenth part of Unseen Academicals, Glenda changes, and the team prepares for its match under the guidance of Mr. Nutt. 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-4996","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\/4996","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=4996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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