{"id":5036,"date":"2019-09-16T05:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5036"},"modified":"2019-09-15T21:42:10","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T04:42:10","slug":"mark-reads-i-shall-wear-midnight-chapter-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/09\/mark-reads-i-shall-wear-midnight-chapter-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;I Shall Wear Midnight&#8217;: Chapter 11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the eleventh chapter of <i>I Shall Wear Midnight<\/i>, Tiffany takes a trip with Letitia and discovers something awful. 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, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much subtle shit done here that demonstrates Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s knowledge of class and wealth. Let me first start with something Letitia says that Tiffany lets pass without comment, BUT I CANNOT DO THE SAME.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All that gets in the way, and if you excuse me, I really wish that I had been born with your disadvantages.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hi, maybe don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say this to people? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had more privileged folks say that they wish they grew up like me because I have such a good work ethic. As if that was the only ramification of growing up poor and brown? Like that was the only thing I got out of it? But I think Tiffany gets where she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming from, and even I have sympathy for Letitia in this specific context. The environment she was in was so repressive and restrictive; she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t explore being a witch in any real sense because of it. So, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the major reasons why Tiffany can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe what Letitia has told her. How has a bogus bit of spellwork produced such powerful magic? It makes no sense to her! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all Boffo magic, an illusion, a thing that makes non-witches feel like they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re playing at witchcraft.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And then the details start coming in. First: Letitia did her magic in a <i>library<\/i>. A room of books, all of which have their own power, but can accumulate life and power when placed near other books. So, there was a clue to a possible explanation, and it made so much sense that Tiffany <i>had<\/i> to go to the Keepsake home in order to find out the truth. The hare had to run into the fire, right?<\/p>\n<p>The fire, in this case, is the Keepsake manor. Mansion? Who knows! The home is RIDICULOUS, complete with two hundred and fifty servants, give or take. Which never stops feeling ludicrous and absurd, but Pratchett <i>does<\/i> give Letitia a chance to explain why there are so many and how that relates to her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sense of loyalty. I mean&#8230; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a lot? They have a <i>fishery<\/i>??? A pineaple pit? A whole house just for water-lilies? Come on, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a LOT.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, once inside the house, Tiffany has another epiphany, and you can watch me come to the same realization on video: the house is Letitia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s steading, and her people? <i>The ghosts that haunt the mansion<\/i>. She helps the GHOSTS!!! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so witchy, first of all, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a sign that Letitia, without any training at all, knew what to instinctually do. Can you imagine what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be like once she apprentices alongside an actual witch? Oh god, is this one of the reasons the Duchess hates witches so much? Has she always suspected that her daughter can do magic?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a totally separate point, though, and I wonder if Letitia will confront her mother over this. In the meantime, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss the library. It now makes so much sense that a book lover like Letitia would internalize the notion that because she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t <i>look<\/i> like a stereotypical witch, she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to be one. And yet, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the library that Letitia sets her fate into motion, all through intention and a bit of coincidence. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get over the fact that this family just <i>casually<\/i> owns one of the most evil books ever, and to them, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a collector\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s item. Like, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the most spot-on commentary on the rich in this whole book! I think you could even view the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spell\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a commentary, too, since Letitia played with something she did not understand, and in doing so, she set the Cunning Man on Tiffany. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the sole thing going on here. Letitia used intention to make her magic real, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s raw talent in her, talent that is in desperate need for some training. It is also darkly fitting that a witch who is repressed, who is upset over her fianc\u00c3\u00a9\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friendship with another woman, and who is in a remarkably vulnerable state, is the one to be exploited by the Cunning Man. It adds a little subtle layer of evil to it all.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. The Keepsakes own <i>The Bonfire of the Witches<\/i>. THEY OWN THE CUNNING MAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S HIGHLY VIOLENT AND MISOGYNIST AND ANTI-WITCH BOOK. They just have it!!! Laying around!!! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still reeling from this. But at least Letitia is very willing to stop this and to do Tiffany right. It starts with an apology; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a gift, too. And I do hope Letitia tells Roland the truth. Is that going to help? Maybe. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not certain. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so far in his own grief that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure he wants to hear the truth, you know? At least not yet. But what does give me hope is the growing&#8230; well, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what to call it. Friendship? Collaboration? Understanding? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something growing between Tiffany and Letitia, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heartwarming to see it unfolding at the end of this caste. Both of them are trying hard to understand one another, and I think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to need to it to survive the horrible things that are to come. Oh, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming next; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just assuming it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s awful. I AM BRACING MYSELF.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/B2qnE2tR9nw<\/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 eleventh chapter of I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany takes a trip with Letitia and discovers something awful. 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":[562,463,248],"class_list":["post-5036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-i-shall-wear-midnight","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036","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=5036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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