In the twenty-fourth part of Unseen Academicals<\/i>, the game begins. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Holy shit, this was BRILLIANT. I feel like there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very meta joke here, which is that narrating an entire football match within a book could get very, very tedious, so Pratchett finds a way to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 narrate the football match. Every detail of it. THROUGH A CHARACTER WE HAVEN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T SEEN IN A WHILE. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so funny and absurd and not the least bit boring. Honestly, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this whole split is such an accomplishment??? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to say the same for the entire match itself, but let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just focus on what happens.<\/p>\n
Because holy shit<\/i>, this is a lot. Pratchett does a wonderful thing here by building up the sense of grandeur to this game. Right from the start, we are well aware that this is perhaps the biggest event in Ankh-Morpork that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever encountered in the Discworld<\/i> series. I mean, sure, giant dragon attacking the city might technically count as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153event,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but this feels so different<\/i>. Everyone seems to be headed to the hippo for this showdown, and it adds to the suspense, to the dread, to the unknowable future that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about to unfold. The city knows: something huge<\/i> is about to happen, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most likely gonna be real violent. And what do Ankh-Morporkians love more than a public spectacle of violence? Actually, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. The point being: Pratchett briefly sets this up, then filters it all through the eyes of Sam Vimes, who makes a hilarious and foreboding appearance here to warn the wizards that when shit inevitably goes down in this stadium, the Watch is not going to step inside it to stop anything. And why would they? Vimes is well aware of how this will go down and how it will look, so why risk it? (As a side note: I love the definitive answer that this is placed in the aftermath of Thud!<\/i>)\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Basically: all of this is an excellent use of setting, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a masterful way to build suspense, and it all feels deeply in character for those involved and Discworld<\/i> as a whole. I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really commented on this in a long, long while, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so nice that I never truly question this world? Discworld<\/i> is what it is, and even though this book introduces things like the popularity of football, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unseen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d staff at the university, and both orcs and goblins, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel out of place to me. I recognize from reading the comments on recent posts that this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily the case for the whole fandom, and your mileage obviously varies in any fictional world that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lasted this long. Despite that these are all \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new\u00e2\u20ac\u009d things, I believed<\/i> they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d always been there, and thus, it helped me sink into this scene, to surround myself with the sheer excitement of this game that has been set-up for well over 450 pages.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And then the National Anthem hit, and Trev had his epiphany, and OH LORD, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize what Henry had actually done. Like Trev, I assumed that this was an issue of willpower, that the wizards would just promise not to use magic, and then just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it? But nope!<\/p>\n He has done that, we all saw him! He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kept his own staff inside the field where you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do magic. He looked at Andy and Andy nodded. Yes, he had worked it out as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, Pratchett has taken two possible failsafes\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Watch and<\/i> the wizards\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand immediately removed them from the equation. Unseen Academicals has neither<\/i> one left to protect them. Trev\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s panic is very apt! I would be panicking, too!!! And yet, I expect Andy and the other bullies to immediately go after the other side. Why waste any time? But their plan was so much more insidious, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and I curious if they really did intend to let Unseen Academicals have some success before taking advantage of the situation.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But before I get to that: Mr. William de Worde. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL!!!!! I was pleasantly surprised by his appearance and even more thrilled that Pratchett allowed us to watch the action through him. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so goddamn funny, first of all, but it also let Pratchett provide the experience of a live commentator within a book without just a huge block of dialogue. Because we get his notes, there are asides, bonus jokes, and a play-by-play of the action. I LOVE IT. Plus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just<\/i> that; Pratchett still weaves in the general third-person perspective on this, too, which is how we get that great moment where Mr. Hoggett is furious that UA gets the kick off after they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve scored a goal.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, the game itself. UA scores TWO GOALS, because Professor Macarona is a BEAST, and the Librarian has an incredible throwing arm. And really, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not surprising in hindsight. We knew Macarona was talented, but I suspect that this was a sign: the other team is not all that invested in winning, are they? Oh, I think they believe<\/i> they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to win, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to do so by being better. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna do it this way:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m watching Andy and Andy is watchin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Bengo. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re bindin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 their time. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lettin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the poor old buggers get into a hell of a fix and then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just take over.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like Trev is wrong. Again, I understand why Mr. Nutt didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really get this. He was observing the gameplay, not the terrifying undercurrent of the game. So of course Mr. Nutt would think they were doing well and that there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much to worry about! I wonder, then, if y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all agree that Ridcully may have inflamed things further with his little psychological game. He gives<\/i> Ankh-Morpork United one of the two goals scored by UA, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not long after this rather brilliant strike at their ego that Macarona is horrifically<\/i> injured. Not gonna quote that part because I have a thing about knee injuries after I injured my own many years ago. But maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why Andy and Jimmy finally decided that this was the best time to take out Macarona. The other team was gloating<\/i> about how good they were.<\/p>\n Even if that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the case, this is the first major escalation, and it makes me nervous. I still think UA will be fine in the end, but at what cost? Mr. Nutt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about to take the field to replace Macarona, and there is no doubt in my mind that the other team is going to ruthlessly go after him. They despise Mr. Nutt, yes, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also really fucking good<\/i>. And strong! At some point, Trev will play, too. Right??? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely going to happen. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 who the hell else gets removed from the game\u00e2\u20ac\u201dprobably due to injury\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor that to happen? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SCARED.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/-hmZJ1cTMj8<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the twenty-fourth part of Unseen Academicals, the game begins. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/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-5011","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\/5011","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=5011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}