{"id":5076,"date":"2019-11-04T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5076"},"modified":"2019-11-03T16:47:42","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T00:47:42","slug":"mark-reads-snuff-part-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/11\/mark-reads-snuff-part-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Snuff&#8217;: Part 14"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourteenth part of <i>Snuff<\/i>, Vimes visits the goblins again. 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 discussion of poverty, death of a child, homophobia<\/b><\/p>\n<p>OH NO I AM WORRIED.<\/p>\n<p><b>Sergeant Colon<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I am only somewhat confident that I might be on to something, but, as has been the case with the last few <i>Discworld<\/i> books (or&#8230; way more than that, perhaps), I feel like there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some major piece missing that will link everything together. That being said, Sergeant Littlebottom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report on Colon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s condition leads me to think that the unggue pot that is stuck to the Sergeant is slowly turning him&#8230; goblin-like? Or into goblin-lite? At this point, Fred Colon:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153acts as if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very hot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/li>\n<li>He refuses to let go of the pot.<\/li>\n<li>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153shouts if anyone tries even to get near it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which reminded me of how the goblins below Hangman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hill reacted when Vimes did the same.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Fred\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sounds like a man who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gargling rocks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And to me, that last bit is the most damning part. Why would his voice be changing like <i>that<\/i>? Additionally, the conversation had <i>around<\/i> this reveal is telling to me, too. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all about the apparent custom that some goblins mothers practice in times of extreme need: they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll consume their newborn child if they do not have food. On the surface, this seems like such an appalling nightmare of a choice that, like the characters in this book, we react with horror and disgust. How could anyone do such a thing? But I love that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s immediately given a different context by both Cheery and A.E. Pessimal (who has a delightful return to the <i>Discworld<\/i> series!). This is about a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dreadful algebra,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a terrible \u00e2\u20ac\u0153logic of necessity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This decision is not made lightly, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only in a situation of extreme hunger that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even considered. So, if Cheery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s earlier claim of what is in the pot stuck to Colon is true, we can assume they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re related, right? Is the soul of a child in that unggue pot <i>because<\/i> a mother was stuck in a dreadful algebra? And if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the case, does that mean somewhere out in the world, the goblins are being <i>starved<\/i>? From a later scene, we know the goblins in the Shires are dealing with food issues, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe this is all just a coincidence. But how did that pot end up in tobacco? And was it the same pot that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s missing from the murdered goblin that Vimes is investigating?<\/p>\n<p>Another thing of note here that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only briefly brought up: how little anyone \u00e2\u20ac\u0153knows\u00e2\u20ac\u009d about goblins. Well, except for Harry King. Carrot is flabbergasted that the University can have so many hyper-specific professors, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no expert on an entire species of talking humanoids.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Well, why is that? As I said on video: no one considers them worth studying. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re <i>beneath<\/i> the professors, and I bet it is directly tied to the fact that people view them as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153savages\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vermin.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And why does Harry King know anything about them?<\/p>\n<p>Because he actually works with them. He at least sees them as worthy of <i>that<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Back to the Goblins<\/b><\/p>\n<p>With Young Sam in tow\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho brilliantly transfers his fear to Mr. Whistle because OF COURSE HE DOES he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so cute I LOVE YOUNG SAM SO MUCH\u00e2\u20ac\u201dVimes returns to talk to the goblins. It may seem obvious, but seriously: Pratchett continually shows us that if you spend time with a group, you learn more things about them. It is gloriously simple, yes, but coming off the previous POV, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that virtually no one every spent any significant time with the goblins and tried to understand them. But Miss Beedle has, and the insight she gives Vimes is vital to him changing his perception of them. Like finding out they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interested in fashion! Or the fact that they are having a difficulty with a variance of food, which leads to health problems. Even that works as a superficial metaphor for something like food deserts, for example. If a population has limited access to a variety of foods, then it stands to reason that there would be health issues caused by that.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one part here that just GUTTED me:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What they really need is a first-class theologian, because, you see, they agree with the rest of the world: <i>they<\/i> think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re rubbish! They think they did something very bad, a long time ago, and because of it they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lived like they do. They think they have it coming to them, as you might say.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It hurts because\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I realize I am most likely projecting something onto this that Pratchett may not have intended\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthis was how I was raised. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that Pratchett <i>did<\/i> want to address how religion can make people feel like they deserve terrible things that happen to them in this life. And while it might be a stretch, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think about how religion and a warped view of Christianity was used against me in a very similar way. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written about this many times before! I was made to believe that I had been born \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wrong,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that all the horrible things happening to me growing up were deserved because I had not renounced this part of myself.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Again, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit over the metaphor that Pratchett has written, and I can see like&#8230; ten other contexts in which it works. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how internalized oppression operates, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? A system can lean so heavily biased against a person that they start believing all the horrible stereotypes about themselves, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what is happening to the goblins. How do you break a person out of something like that?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And then Pratchett had to go and heart punch me with this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That was a strange thing: when he got past the features, which at best could be considered homely, depending on what kind of home you had in mind, the eyes were as human as you could imagine. They had a depth that not even the brightest animal could achieve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, the text reinforces that the rest of the world views goblins in the wrong way. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re vermin or livestock or a legal source of labor to other people, and Vimes is quickly realizing how immensely, immensely fucked up this is. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not long after this that he offers up something of <i>his<\/i> heart in exchange for getting Tears of the Mushroom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unggue pot. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a photo of Young Sam, which&#8230; FIRST OF ALL, HOW DARE YOU, I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS. But look at Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction when Tears of the Mushroom takes it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Then Tears of the Mushroom said in her strange voice, like a living filing cabinet, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hearts have given.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Which almost brought Vimes to his knees.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He thought: it could just as well have been her head grinning on the pub wall! <i>Someone<\/i> is going to burn!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The connection has been made. What has been enacted on the goblins by humans is truly monstrous.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/Gnhc-FzRpG0<\/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 fourteenth part of Snuff, Vimes visits the goblins again. 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":[463,563,248],"class_list":["post-5076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-snuff","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076","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=5076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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