{"id":4556,"date":"2018-05-28T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4556"},"modified":"2018-05-28T01:03:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T08:03:20","slug":"mark-reads-monstrous-regiment-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/05\/mark-reads-monstrous-regiment-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Monstrous Regiment&#8217;: Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourth part of <i>Monstrous Regiment<\/i>, the future looks pretty damn grim. 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><b>Trigger Warning: For extensive talk of war and its effects<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This is <i>real<\/i> messed up, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. And not in a quiet, subtle way, though Pratchett uses subtleties to communicate the horrors of war. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not subtext either. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>the<\/i> main text. As the soldiers get closer to the camp where they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll receive their weapons and their uniforms, the injured, the dying, and the disenfranchised march the opposite direction. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a brutal scene because it is impossible to ignore. I mean that in reference to both the characters\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall of whom <i>immediately<\/i> question their superiors about what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re seeing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the reader. We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore it because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>right there<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all the more disturbing because Pratchett pairs this with an intense, absurd devotion to country and religion. The most effective propaganda allows people to lie to other people, despite the truth being right in front of them. In that sense, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of propaganda that <i>doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> work on these people. Maladict, for example, is quick to point out the dire nature of the stream of refugees who are fleeing in the opposite direction, and he is even quicker to snap out a comeback when Corporal Strappi tries to silence him. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the only one to voice his concerns and anxieties either! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a persistent theme throughout this part of the story. Who can blame these people??? Every new piece of information that they receive <i>screams<\/i> at them that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on the losing side of a war, that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not about to find glory and joy wherever they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re headed.<\/p>\n<p>Take the snippet of the <i>Ankh-Morpork Times <\/i>that Polly manages to save. It <i>could<\/i> be good news, but there are so many sentence fragments that suggest otherwise. Like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153surrender had been rej,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which I suspect is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rejected.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153desperate situ\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153-spread fami\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Famine??? Is that FAMINE? No alternatives? Invasion???<\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why this conversation is just so, so damning:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are winning this war, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Polly. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d given up correcting him.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly, every ear in the squad was listening.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you bother yourself about that, Parts!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d snapped the corporal. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your job is to fight!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Right, Corp. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be fighting on the winning side, will I?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And Strappi <i>never actually gives an answer. <\/i>He evades. He deflects. He does anything but tell them the truth, and y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because he knows it. He knows they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re probably losing. But the type of military reverence that Strappi is obsessed with doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allow for anything other than a complete worship of what they do. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s victory at all costs, even if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not actually any victory at all.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So when they arrive at Plotz and meet Lieutenant Blouse, it only gets worse. Look, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like I assumed it would get <i>better<\/i>, but this just confirmed that everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fears were <i>very<\/i> justified\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and it goes even further than that. First of all: WHAT SECRET WERE STRAPPI AND JACKRUM HIDING? Why is Jackrum so upset about his honorable discharge? He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to fight anymore! Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that a <i>good<\/i> thing? Why does he say he is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fit and well <b>again<\/b>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Strappi himself is so terrified of having to go to the front lines that he wets himself. AND HE WAS TRAINED! What of all the recruits, who get <i>no<\/i> training and have to go along with him? How are they supposed to deal with this?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is <i>bad<\/i>, friends. REALLY BAD. And you know, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually feel better knowing that Polly will work as the lieutenant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s batman. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still going to be close to the action, and Blouse didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t inspire any confidence in me.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make me feel like the WORLD was ending was Lofty. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, ANOTHER GIRL IS IN DISGUISE!!! Holy shit, I genuinely was surprised by that, and I also agree that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably not the same person who helped Polly in the privy. MORE MYSTERIES, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/yBgAcWCmt5Y<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>My YA contemporary debut, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2017\/9\/22\/i-am-proud-to-announce-my-ya-contemporary-debut-anger-is-a-gift\">ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\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 fourth part of Monstrous Regiment, the future looks pretty damn grim. 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":[463,545,248],"class_list":["post-4556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-monstrous-regiment","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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