In the fifteenth part of Monstrous Regiment<\/i>, Polly pitches her idea to Blouse, and I should have known just how spectacularly it would backfire. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of transphobia<\/b><\/p>\n
I SHOULD HAVE KNOW. I REALLY SHOULD HAVE. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this section of the book was a RIDE. A wild, hilarious, and at times disturbing journey, and I still have no idea where the fuck this book is going.<\/i><\/p>\n
I HAVE THINGS TO SAY.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Polly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Manipulation<\/b><\/p>\n I was<\/i> unsurprised that Polly had been able to pull off exactly what she set out to do. Hell, half the fun of reading the opening of this split of the book was seeing Jackrum try to keep his cool while clearly knowing what Polly was doing. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point: Blouse is brilliant every so often, but when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not, he is an unending disaster. He does not realize what Polly is doing to him as she leads him right to the idea she planted within him. So I was thrilled! She was going to get to head into the Keep and look for her brother, and all was well! SHE DID IT, I WAS SO PROUD OF HER AND\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On this issue, at least, the sergeant and I are of one mind, Perks,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Blouse. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Really, Private, it would simply not work. Oh, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re brave, certainly, but what makes you<\/i> think you stand a chance of passing yourself off as a woman?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh. Oh, no<\/i>. In a moment, this slides into disaster. A hilariously ironic disaster, of course, because Blouse has no clue who he is saying this to. And he continues to dig a deeper and deeper hole, not just by rejecting Polly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plan to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153disguise\u00e2\u20ac\u009d herself, but by then proudly stating that all of these soldiers are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too boyish\u00e2\u20ac\u009d enough to pass as women. WHICH IS WHAT THEY WANTED TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE FIRST PLACE, OH MY GOD. But honestly, this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even the worst part. No, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Blouse insisting that he<\/i> is the best person to disguise himself as a woman and infiltrate the Keep. Why? Because of the theater<\/i>. Because he played a woman multiple times in the past! Because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 oh god, how is this man real<\/i>?<\/p>\n And I can<\/i> read an important commentary into this, though I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intended or just accidental. Obviously, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written multiple times about the challenge of this trope, particularly in how it replicates a gender binary and either erases or insults people who are not part of said binary. And\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthis is important for me to acknowledge as I talk about this\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI am by no means an expert on this, nor should anything I say be taken as an authority or without a grain of salt. I do<\/i> feel like Pratchett subverts the obvious pitfalls of what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d normally see with this trope. In particular, one of the reasons that Blouse is so wrong is that he really doesn’t<\/i> understand what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like to be a woman. On top of that, dressing as a woman is a joke to him, and multiple times in this text, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made clear that this is not a good thing. Granted, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the context of being in disguise, but I think there is some value in saying that deriving humor from this is not necessarily a good thing. Blouse doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take this seriously at all<\/i>.<\/p>\n That being said, there was one part that felt odd to me out of context of the scene where it appeared:\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, but he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t listen, will he,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Igorina. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do the best with my scissorth and needle to make a woman of him but\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Igorina, when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s you<\/i> talking about this sort of thing, some very strange pictures turn up in my head,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Maladict.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This feels like it relies on making a joke of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, a few things. Given that Igors and Igorinas have body parts from all sorts of people, this comes off as a joke at the expense of people who might pursue gender confirmation surgery. Did Pratchett intend that? Probably not. But this joke hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t aged well, especially since Maladict calls these pictures \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strange.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t normalize this act, but rather makes it out to be weird, and that<\/i> trope is harmful.<\/p>\n Wazzer<\/b><\/p>\n I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET ENOUGH OF THIS PLOT. Surprise, I love stories about faith and religion. (My second book now heavily deals with this, I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T WAIT TO TELL Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL MORE ABOUT IT.) So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 who the fuck<\/i> is Wazzer actually talking to? Look, we know that gods in the Discworld<\/i> universe are real, and the more intense the belief, the more power they have. So the Duchess has<\/i> to have some real power? I mean, we also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a god or a real person. Is she<\/i> in the Keep? Will these characters re-think their beliefs by the end of the book? WHO ALLOWED THIS LINE TO EXIST:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anyway, why should she talk to you<\/i>?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Because I listen,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Wazzer quietly.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And what does she say?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sometimes she just cries.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She<\/i> cries?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Because there are so many things that people want, and she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give them anything.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What the fuck does this mean??? Is she actually<\/i> powerless as a god aside from talking to select people? And how will this affect someone like Tonker, who fully rejects the Duchess because the Duchess has done nothing for them? What if she really can’t<\/i> do anything?<\/p>\n The Truth<\/b><\/p>\n There are SO MANY SECRETS in this book, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so floored by how Pratchett weaves them together. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where Paul is, and Blouse and Jackrum don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that Polly has a reason why she enlisted. The soldiers are all in disguise. (Though Jackrum knew this??? FOR HOW FUCKING LONG???) And Jackrum might not be who he says he is, either. Is that even his name? How old is he? Has he been blackmailing his superiors for years to stay enlisted?<\/p>\n WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS BOOK?<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/ckY0cMobAjo<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\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 fifteenth part of Monstrous Regiment, Polly pitches her idea to Blouse, and I should have known just how spectacularly it would backfire. 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":[463,545,248],"class_list":["post-4592","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\/4592","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=4592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}