In the second part of the ninth chapter of I Shall Wear Midnight<\/i>, Tiffany confronts Roland and it somehow goes worse than I expected. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For extensive discussion of death, trauma, abuse, and grief<\/b>.<\/p>\n
The Discworld<\/i> series has a weird way of coinciding with the exact thematic shit that I happen to be dealing, and I would like it to not ruthlessly drag me every time I read it, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I mean that entirely in jest, as y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all know I love it when I can connect with a fictional work on a personal level. I daresay it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s half the point of Mark Does Stuff??? And while I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to say upfront that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really not sure I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever feel comfortable talking about my break-up publicly, I will say this: Pratchett captures the terrible awkwardness that arises when two people who once had some sort of relationship of any<\/i> sort don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have it anymore. This shit is brutal to read at times, but it felt raw. Real. Believable.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, with that said, I want to talk about grief and poison. I did not expect Roland to suddenly be fine once he got home, and my take was, as I wrote at the end of the last review, that either the Cunning Man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hatred followed him home or the Cunning Man itself. But I now think Pratchett did something much more nuanced with the text. Drawing from the repeated motif about poison, and combined with the scene that Tiffany witnesses as she approaches the Baron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s study, I feel that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re also getting a portrait of a young man in grief, who suffered immense trauma at a young age. And not just<\/i> grief, but I believe this is an example of how grief can start<\/i> to become toxic and harmful.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And want to make it clear that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the start<\/i> of something; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s potential here for this to go awry even further than it has, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a glimpse of Roland\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe one we knew\u00e2\u20ac\u201dburied deep within the person who must suddenly be the Baron. Roland is so very different in the scene in this split, and I say that knowing he hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had a TON of page time, either. Like other characters in this book, he asks Tiffany things that in another time would have seemed ludicrous and offensive to him. But now? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s totally reasonable for him to demand she address him differently, to accuse her of letting<\/i> his father die, and to tell others that SHE GAVE AMBER TO THE FAIRIES. Except then this happens, and it changed my perspective on him:<\/p>\n She softened her voice a little. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You remember something vague about fairies, yes? Nothing bad, I hope, but nothing very clear, as if perhaps it was something you read in a book, or the story that somebody told you when you were little. Am I right?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Roland, due to the soothings and<\/i> because he experienced so much trauma at a young age, LITERALLY CANNOT REMEMBER WHAT TIFFANY DID FOR HIM. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all a fuzzy, vague memory, if that at all. And thus, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly going to challenge the stories about fairies or fairy folk, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m certain that the grief over his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, piled on top of all of this, has led Roland to this exact behavior. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even considering the Cunning Man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s influence! Still, Roland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words sting; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to, especially when people like Miss Spruce\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho is like the human version of the Cunning Man when it comes to anger and spite\u00e2\u20ac\u201dare putting terrible ideas into his head. Or even Mrs. Petty, who apparently things that Tiffany did a whole bunch more than she actually did. And why do they think these things? They did long before the Cunning Man was even in the picture.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I think the text will address later, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll talk about Amber and her parents in a moment. Because lord, Roland is hurting. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hurting SO MUCH, and I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier for him to direct his anger at Tiffany, which is exactly<\/i> what the Cunning Man wants. The Cunning Man thrives on blaming witches for everything, and right now, Roland feels safest blaming Tiffany for\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, more than just his dad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, which is terrible enough. So what the hell can Tiffany do here? Roland doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trust her anymore, and the Petty family have their own narrative in mind. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even BEGIN to imagine what Mr. Petty is saying about all of this.<\/p>\n Pratchett focuses on Amber at the end of this split, though, and I really appreciated it. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the obvious parallel here between Roland and Amber, since both characters have received the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153last gift\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and struggle with recalling the traumatic things that were done to them. But while Roland seems to be doubling down on the awful things he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heard about Tiffany, Amber takes a much<\/i> different route than him. As someone who tends to be more forgiving than not\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI think I developed a ridiculous sense of patience a long, long time ago, most likely due to what I went through\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI related to Amber\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outlook. And perhaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what the fire in the bedroom meant: Amber was ready to run into<\/i> the fire that is her parents and to do so with an open mind. Which is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 wow, it hit hard<\/i> reading that because Amber still has so much hope and love within her. From talking with other abuse survivors, I know a lot of us are concerned about this! Will we have the capacity to love and trust other people after this? Are we so broken by these experiences that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever put goodness out in the world? So Amber approaches this so willingly and intentionally with understanding<\/i> in mind. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s her path, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s her choice. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no wonder Tiffany sees some of the kelda in Amber. At just thirteen years old, Amber is already thinking on a level most of the adults around her are not.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Shit, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this book is A LOT. I know I keep saying that, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taken so many interesting turns! Ugh, I just want Amber to be okay at the end of all this.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/uYZ_LofeAh8<\/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 second part of the ninth chapter of I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany confronts Roland and it somehow goes worse than I expected. Intrigued? 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