In the fourteenth chapter of The Shepherd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Crown<\/i>, Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unorthodox decision with Nightshade leads her down an even more unorthodox path. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/i><\/p>\n
I love this. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. One of the most fulfilling parts of reading the Discworld<\/i> books in publication order has been seeing how willing Pratchett was to change. Not just his style, not just the content of his books, not just the scope of his stories. No, he also changed the things he wrote. He did not set his own canon in stone, and as I mentioned before, I love how much he was willing to challenge himself.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Queen Nightshade<\/b><\/p>\n The Shepherd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Crown<\/i> deals so heavily in exceptions, and Nightshade now firmly fits in that. However, she only does because<\/i> of Tiffany Aching. If Tiffany had not interevened, the Feegles would have surely destroyed her. Even if they hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, her fate couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly have been anything but dire. With no wings and no power, what was she going to do? So in comes Tiffany, who is a witch first, and she sees someone in need of help. That part comes first in practically every decision that she makes in this chapter. Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t to say that Tiffany is naive and is ignoring that Nightshade is an elf. (Not only that, but the<\/i> very elf who tried to ruin her life and kill her.) No, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still taking precautions, and as she later tells Magrat, she definitely does not trust the once Queen of the Elves.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rather, Tiffany has a fascinating approach. She offers Nightshade what elves do not offer others. No\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not quite right. She offers this elf what elves are incapable<\/i> of offering others. Their culture, their mindset, their whole THING is a most violent and terrific lack of empathy. They do not see any living creature\u00e2\u20ac\u201dincluding one another!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u201das anything other than an object made for the self. They are truly the most horrifically selfish creation in all of Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because right down to the bones, they cannot conceive of anything else. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difficulty Tiffany faces throughout this chapter as she tries to talk to Nightshade. First of all: Nightshade, given just the most basic form of kindness, IMMEDIATELY TRIES TO USE HER GLAMOUR ON TIFFANY. She wastes almost no time trying to take advantage of her! And she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see this as anything but natural<\/i>. To her, the cruelty of appearing as the china shepherdess is both intentional and obvious. Well, of course<\/i> she is trying to hurt Tiffany. Why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that what elves do? Nightshade believes so because she has no reason to believe otherwise.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the question at the center of this? What is<\/i> an elf? Who decides what one can be\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe elves themselves or the people they interact with? Because literally EVERYONE who isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an elf HATES them, and Tiffany spells that out for Nightshade. Nightshade also admits that the elves are merciless, but she states it like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just nothing more than a fact. The concept of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mercy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hold any moral weight for her. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a feature, a trait, a quality of the elves that just is<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then what is this human doing helping her, when every bit of lore, every bit of truth, EVERYTHING says she should have no reason to ever help an elf?<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I did have a reason,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Tiffany. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a witch, and I thought it possible.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is such an incredible distillation not only of what it means to be a witch, but also how<\/i> Tiffany pratices witchcraft. Particularly in this book! Tiffany has been dealt so many challenging and complicated problems in all of her books, and she consistently finds a solution to them outside what is expected. She imagines<\/i> possibilities, and now that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in charge of this new steading, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s changing. It harkens back to what I said about Pratchett, too. Through this character, we get to see Pratchett adapt his world to a new exception. Nothing is certain, nothing is set in stone, and there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anything inherently wrong with changing a tradition. Why? Because you can imagine what is possible<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what Tiffany is currently imagining: that with continued exposure to a world so utterly unlike her own, Nightshade will begin to see things differently. It is a monumental task, of course. This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t merely about changing someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. Nightshade has to change the very essence of who she thinks she is. Is that possible? Is it possible to teach an elf to have empathy? To reject the notion of supremacy? To stop viewing living creatures as things and objects? To take what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s learned and convince other<\/i> elves???<\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. It is admittedly hard for me to imagine that because I have a perception of elves influenced by the terrible things they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done over the course of these books. In that sense, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m like Magrat. It just seems impossible<\/i>. But this is Tiffany Aching I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about. I accept that if anyone can make this possible, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely her. Tiffany is astoundingly patient in these scenes, too, like when Nightshade is asking her why she even bothers helping anyone. Plus\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Tiffany is honest. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give Nightshade a false view of humanity. Humanity is messy, and we get a lot of things wrong. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean Tiffany shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try, though.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And now, I have to wonder if Nightshade isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to try, too. What does that look like, an elf trying to live another way? I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re about to find out soon.<\/p>\n The Queen of Lancre<\/b><\/p>\n I really missed Magrat, so I was utterly delighted that we got such a long section from her point of view. Pratchett packs a lot of information into this regarding her life as a queen, but the thing I enjoyed the most was getting to see her be a witch again. Magrat has had a life far away from most of the action in recent Discworld books, yet I still managed to get a sense of it here. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a wonderful mother who cares about what lessons she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s passing down to her children; she is still deeply in love with Verence; the kingdom of Lancre respects and enjoys the monarchy, in no small part because Verence and Magrat are such good and thoughtful rules. I do think it was intentional that Pratchett put this right after Nightshade spent part of the text discussing how queens worked in the world of the elves. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a powerful contrast, you know?There is no cycle of violence and spite here, and that includes what Magrat does when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a threat in Lancre. She seeks out Tiffany because of her experience with the elves and<\/i> because she knows that Tiffany, no matter how talented she is, will need the help.<\/p>\n Which makes me think this is the beginning of a whole NEW twist in the story: What if Tiffany and Magrat are about to assemble EVERY WITCH POSSIBLE to combat the invasion of the elves? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this theory is all that risky, though; Magrat suggests Petulia and Letitia as possible help, and I bet they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be the first of many. (I can see a bunch of interesting ways in which these witches can help, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what the hell is Mrs. Earwig going to do? Does she even possess any skills to fight off the elves? She notoriously doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like getting her hands dirty, and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine a scenario worse than this one for someone like that.) I was also surprised but pleased that Tiffany was upfront about keeping Nightshade at her parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 farm. That was a good move; at this point, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll all need as much information about the situation as possible. And I also understood Magrat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reluctance; Magrat has a MUCH different experience with the elves.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Still, both of them have dealt with the terror of the elves. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fascinating to me, then, that Tiffany still wants to imagine a possibility that no one else has. It is a terribly risky thing, obviously, but I really want to see it come to fruition.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/3bvNfpHbCSI<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – You can now pre-order my second YA novel, Each of Us a Desert<\/i>, which will be released on September 15, 2020 from Tor Teen!<\/a> In the fourteenth chapter of The Shepherd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Crown, Tiffany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unorthodox decision with Nightshade leads her down an even more unorthodox path. 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":[463,248,567],"class_list":["post-5186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-shepherds-crown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186","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=5186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– Not only that, but my very first pre-order campaign is now live for North American readers! If you submit proof of pre-order, you can get a limited edition print that comes with the book<\/a>.
\n<\/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":"