In the twentieth part of Snuff<\/i>, Vimes tries to determine what has happened onboard the stolen boat. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of slavery, torture, and death<\/b><\/p>\n
I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T WAIT FOR STRATFORD TO BE TAKEN DOWN. Holy shit, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s truly awful??? And I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even met him on the page!<\/p>\n
I wanna back up from that point, though, because I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to acknowledge that, much like most of this book, Pratchett is still writing about complicity here. Stratford is absolutely a huge antagonist, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even someone I would consider a Big Bad. Actually, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d argue that this book doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have one at ALL; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s split between so many various \u00e2\u20ac\u0153antagonists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that to choose a single one would diminish what Pratchett is trying to do. I was thinking of that at the start of this split, where Vimes is trying to find out what has happened onboard the Fanny<\/i> from Mr. False. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an interesting thing we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen over and over again in various forms throughout Snuff<\/i>. What is the complicated algebra of survival? Of necessity? Mr. False is just a (complicated) chicken breeder who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t attempt to stop Stratford because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, because he wanted to live<\/i>. His complicated algebra centered on survival. I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t argue that Mr. False is complicit in what Stratford has done; as far as I can tell, Stratford and his men stole this barge at the last minute, most likely to get their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cargo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d out of the Shires as soon as possible. Like, I would not be surprised to find out later that they knew Vimes was close to discovering the truth about the goblin slave trade, so they wanted to at least get out another shipment of goblins before things got stopped.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But the man that Vimes and Feeney find in the Wonderful Fanny<\/i> is definitely<\/i> complicit in what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening. The last barge the two reach contains the worst horror thus far: a container full of captive goblins, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tied hand and foot, every one, and they had been stacked like cabbages.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pratchett is clearly borrowing from how the slave trade operated around the world in our world, too, and this specific detail tells us just how poorly the humans view goblins. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re bundled like vegetables, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. And treated as such! God, and then what if Stinky hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even been here? I mean, I feel like the goblins would have been able to recognize that Vimes and Feeney were freeing them and not harming them. Still, Stinky is an important presence here. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing that he did<\/i> lead the goblins to freedom off the barge, but Pratchett hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t revealed that part yet. But there is one detail here that kinda messed me up? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a small bit, but y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be a holiday of sun, sea, surf and fun?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Vimes.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, sir,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Feeney, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it if it was, would they? Goblins like the dark.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hi, I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thought of this at all, and IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO FUCKED UP. Because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being forced to work in the sunlight ALL DAY in Howondaland. HOLY. SHIT. Like, this already felt so evil, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another layer to it all.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, back to that notion of complicity I spoke of at the beginning. Once Vimes and Feeney make it onboard the ship, they meet a young man named Eddie Brassbound who has a bow trained on a woman and a child. This young man was told to kill these people if the strings tied to his legs were pulled. That reality is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 super messed up, too? So, if the ships animals were disrupted\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 kill the hostages. If something happened to the engines\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 kill the hostages. Did Eddie know he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d face a decision like this when he agreed to help Stratford? The text makes it clear that the boy never did, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still the issue of what he was<\/i> willing to do. He still was willing to sit in that room with a bow trained on a mother and child, terrifying them with the possibility that their lives might end soon. And he was fine waiting until the last second to trick the original staff of the barge and take their ship from them. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way Eddie didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about the goblins, either. Hell, Vimes even confirms that while Eddie isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a killer, he is still a pirate, and he certainly isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trustworthy.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n How many people in this world are like Eddie Brassbound? How many of them have gone along with this situation and justified the things they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done? Maybe Eddie drew the line at not killing a human<\/i> mother and child, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contributed to the deaths of countless goblin mothers and goblin children. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, so very, very many. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what Vimes and Feeney are up against: a whole legion of people who just haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t learned when to say no.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/qL258BwwoCQ<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\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 twentieth part of Snuff, Vimes tries to determine what has happened onboard the stolen boat. 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":[463,563,248],"class_list":["post-5085","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\/5085","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=5085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}