The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 13: Gormenghast Pt. 2 (A Bit Damocles-y)

Episode Date: April 26, 2026

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel have emerged from Discworld and are now exploring the worlds of speculative fiction. This week, Gormenghast Part 2!Stormclouds! Villany! Isthmuses!  Find us on the internet:BlueSky: @makeyefretpod.bsky.socialInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on BlueSky @2hatsjo and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Benjamin Franklin's Glass Armonica - The Franklin InstitutePrimogeniture and ultimogeniture - Britannica Skewbald - Etymology, Origin & Meaning  blaze - WiktionaryMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I can't believe you're making me record when it's so nice and sunny outside. I hate you. I can't think as far ahead as next year. I can barely think as far ahead as June. Yeah, that's horrifyingly close as a concept, June. Yeah, I know. I said at some point near the beginning of the year to Jed that I want to have a birthday party.

I want to throw a birthday party for myself and have people over because we never had a housewarming or anything. No, we never did. Well, that's not surprising for me. You're not really a throwing parties person. You're a goat party's person. I'm a goody party person. And I'll help somebody set up a party

fairly confidently. You did throw me a wonderful birthday party. Oh yeah, but that was outside my house. Yeah. You don't entertain. I don't entertain. Not on purpose. My dear, you have nothing in you that makes a party go.

Not you. I'm referring to the book, obviously. But yeah, now I'm actually thinking about trying to plan myself a birthday party. I'm like, oh, actually that seems like effort. It does, yeah. and you're just not going to be able to fit a hot water bosom on top of your existing one. Not in June. Not in June.

The cold water bosom finally comes into its own. I'm going to become water cooled to make me more efficient. Yes. I also don't want to think about the fact I'm in my mid-30s, to be quite frank, I don't love this new webcam because it is just HD enough to be picking up some of the greys that are very prominent at the front of my hair. Yeah, I know you don't like them, but I do think they're good. I have a love-fate relationship with them. I still think I'm going to try dying my hair, sorry.

That'll fix it. Not to be dramatic. I might just die, though. Saying absolutely no, I will not do that while already starting on the task is one of my very favorite humours. It's satisfying to know it would fit in in a sitcom context. I think I am partial sitcom character. I think that is actually the basis of my being. Is it in the bones?

Yeah, laugh tracks just to follow me wherever I go. Oh, God, what a horrible type of madness. Yeah, no, actually, I don't like that. That's the much worse version of our desire to have a light motif. I would love to have it like my teeth. I'm really upset. What instrument? Would you choose for your light motif?

Neither of us are composers, so I shan't ask you to come up with one, but just an instrument. give a vibe. I feel like cello. I think I have cello energy. Yeah. What about you? Ceremon.

Oh, nice. I want to strike fear. Or that glass harmonica invented by Ben Franklin, which was apparently similarly madness and deusing. Well, in place of a leap motif, maybe we should play our theme tune.

Would you like to make a podcast? I'd love to make a podcast. Hello and welcome to Gormancast previously The True Shall Make You Fresh, a podcast in which we were reading and recapping every book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. We finished that. And now we're wandering down the drafty castle corridors of speculative fiction. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Prancing Carol. And this is part two of our discussion of Gormongass, the second book in Mervyn Peaks, Gormongass trilogy. Part two of part two of the book that sounds like it ought to be the first book. Yes, which is not at all confusing for us. No one. Spoilers before we crack on. We're not going to spoil anything major from the Discworld books, probably. spoilers obviously for Gormongars. Yeah. But only the second book, because we've not read ahead. No. And in fact, even I've not been spoiled on the third book. No, I've avoided reading anything about the third book because quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to know.

Francine, do you want to tell us what happened previously on Gorman Gass? Absolutely. Previously on Gormancast. We rejoined the castle and its cast of maladjusted malcontents in Titus's seventh year and lurched blindly through its snaking, unmapped innards, turning on occasion to its multitudinous scattered windows, through which sunbeams pours to caress the dust, as seasons suffuse the landscapes without. For should we turn our wretched eyes within, we might chance to see the horrors wrought by man upon man, by ritual upon psyche and by waxed floorboard and its

co-conspirator, gravity upon besieated headmaster. No, it is better that we go eroding to the artfully arranged pond, though the moon be not as bright as our desire, nor our bosom as honest as our carriage. It is better that we venture forth, rebellious and uncouth, to the moss-soaked forest, and lose ourselves in fever dreams of flying and despying lithe sprites of the woodland, to stumble upon the musket-need exile, the absent but most faithful servant of the crumbling stones, and linger a while in his cave. And if we return, at last, by a claustrophobic root-roofed tunnel, to Gormenghast, that sprawling, inky expanse from whence we came, and upon pausing in a desolate courtyard should happen to see a streak of fire plummet from a tower into the moat?

Why? That is an omen. Beyond our ken and none of our concern. I hope this has been unhelpful. I don't care about helpful. That was fucking fantastic. That is my inner monologue now, having read Goldman Garst. I don't know how long it'll take to fade. I feel like it was like a month last time. I need to do writing for the actual course I'm on and I have to keep correcting myself because it just keeps going Gorman Garnon's He's run on sentences I accidentally described a sunbeam for 40 minutes This is a video game

If you can make it into a game I'm in Oh what about a game Where you're just a dust moat in a sunbeam No, right That's not what we're doing We're talking about Gormongars Part 2 We're starting with chapter 40 Because we're finished on chapter 39

Chapter number to start with that Right Chapter 40 in which the child kills a bird in a sunlit forest. It's quite a short little chapter. Yeah. I'm sticking with calling the thing the child for this. But yeah, this is interesting. I just started thinking about what it is to kind of have absolutely zero education, human interaction. And her face is described as empty, like a mask that he'd rather than revealed her mind because she's not like learned to facial expression, I guess.

Yeah, well there's always these reasonably dubious accounts of properly feral children on there. Yeah. You know, like the wolf children found out of the woods. And I remember reading about them in those, you know, weird phenomena books you get when you're a kid. And I haven't really spent much time researching the same kind of thing in an adult and more skeptical context. But, yes. No, I've simply decided not to.

Yeah. Again, resigning, as I always do, to know such thing as a fish. I do remember them talking about a couple of occasions where scientists have tried to isolate children and see what kind of, I'd say scientists very much in inverted comments, see what kind of language they come up with on their own, which would in theory be the purest form of language, blah, blah, blah. But as I think one of them put it, somebody who is not an absolute psychopath always just goes in and talks to the trials. Yeah, like there is no ethical way. to do with stuff like that. I think we're better off not knowing.

Do you have a favourite bit of description and things? Oh, yeah. The trunks of the great oaks were blotched with honey-coloured shadows, and the prodigious boughs were stretched like the arms of bygone kings and appeared to be heavy with the weight of their gold bangles, the bracelets of the sun. Beautiful. I just thought that was lovely. There's so many great tree descriptions.

I don't think I went into it in the first half, but the descriptions of that copse of trees are all conspiring together, and that copse of trees have clearly all turned their back on one of them. Yeah. Oh no, I love that. Especially when you think of like, it was through Typhus's eyes, it was seven at the time. And you get like this, this real power of anthropomorphising when you that age, don't you?

Yeah, absolutely. It's made me look at trees differently, applying more personality as I walk through the forest. And then contrasting that, like, really beautiful description of that with, again, the child, just grabbing a thrush and plucking it. Yeah. There's also, it's quite, because Titus thinks of the child is this very dreamlike wistful thing and then eventually gets introduced to a harsher,

like that's a human being reality later on. It's kind of nice we get introduced to the harsher, that's a human being reality before Titus does. Yeah, definitely. Like when he's dreaming, we know that's also someone who will grab a bed and kill it. Yeah, and we get a little bit of her backstory, which helps, but this is a really good show, not tell of it, isn't it? Yes, very much so. chapter 41 then

in which the outer dwellers have started bringing their carvings in at night thanks to the violence of the child Yeah So that's really interesting right away isn't it Like This child who is again still pretty young here right Yeah well I think the idea is she would be slightly young

Well no she would be younger than Tysis Oh yeah of course yeah yeah So she would be like five or six I guess Yeah Yeah has already caused like this huge cultural change even. Yeah, this massive upheaval that they now have to take away their, take away their carvings every evening. And I think as we'll see like more of later the outer dwellers and the rest of everybody don't stop to think, oh, this is a consequence of our actions by alienating this child.

They think this is a underlining and proving us right that we should have alienated this child. Yeah. I love the, obviously in the first book, we had insight into the outer dwellers specifically through Kada and what happens to her. Yeah. But in this, it's much more, we're seeing the outer dwellers as a whole and getting more of an insight into their society. Yeah. And I love the idea of them being so, so proud, proud of their misery. And they're conferring an honour upon the castle bakeries

by eating the cross of bread that are lowered down to them. Absolutely. It's, yeah, I think similarly to practice, I think as soon as Peek starts describing people as a whole, they become a lot less flattering descriptions, don't they? Like, because society is not as good as a person. And then everything about them is very hardcore crab bucket. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Hardcore crap bucket. That's the name of my emo band. Good. I thought you were about to say drag name. Only on the weekends, darling. Chapter 42. earth, the meaning of life, the universe and everything, in which charred steerpike wakes and tells the doctor a story. Yeah, immediately managing to retain his deceptive ways

despite having woken from a days-long fever? Yeah, there's a few days, fever, coma, whatever he's going through. If I wake up from a nap, there's no way I'm being detested for 10 to 20 working minutes, at least. Yeah, it will take me at least 30 business hours. After a nap, so just never. Wait, I can't nap. I get so discombobulated when I nap that it does last like a full 24 hours, even when there's a night's sleep in there as well.

I had a nap this morning, but I felt like it was okay because I was lying in the warm sunshine. Oh, yeah, no idea, like a sunny nap. It was almost compulsory. It was either I was going to force myself to get off and be productive or it was going to have a nap. I could not just keep there awake. Oh, I just got around this by sleeping in until 1030.

Oh, very nice. Which is why I was late to start recording the podcast. Work for me. But yeah, no, I also, I quite enjoy him being kind of trapped, not fully being able to enact his evil right away. Yeah. Yeah, you get a moment to breathe. Yep.

And he is sort of frustrated by, you know, lying here inert and helpless and useless when he should be consolidating his power. And you get to see what happens when a man who considers himself completely of steel has a post-traumatic stress disorder response. Yeah, and he now has a very, very solid weakness, which is the fire and the fear of it. Which, by the way, I'll mention now because it's interesting to look out later, but I would make as a note later, I feel like the fear of fire in particular turns Steerfike into this more folkloric or fairy tale villain.

Like, a fear of fire is so... Yeah, no, very much so. Yeah. And I do like the way he becomes, he becomes less of a point of view character for a huge chunk of the book when he's in hiding. So you get this, he becomes like a myth. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Like a legend haunting the castle. Yeah. And it does then also play into the more problematic trope, probably, of having the disfigured villain. Yeah, there is that. In Peaks' defence, he was very much the villain before the disfigurement. Yes, he did not become a villain because he's disfigured. This plays him just more into the folkloric aspect of it, I suppose.

Yeah, because he becomes known as the skew-bold man. Yeah, yeah. Like, he's referred to. Iskewold like piebald? Yeah, no, actually, I've got it in my notes and why we've got a trip to Esomology Corner coming. Yay. I promise. Genuine excitement for Esomology Corner.

Thank goodness my friends. I don't know who else I would do this with. Friendship is based on, I found a cool folklore thing and some etymology. Pull a large tome from your pocket Much like otters give each other Those shiny rocks That's why I've got the big handbag Chapter 43

In which Irma and Belgrove Have an assination Oh yeah Little date I like the way We're keeping up on the romance a little bit here This is them pre-marriage But very much affianced by this point

Um Shout out to Irma for ranting at Belgrove in doing it. You man, you. You man. He turned her head from her. He had not yet learnt to admonish her without grinning weakly with the joy of it. It's like, yeah, he has this like, oh, what's the word? Like, stereotypical but old-fashioned stereotypical idea of romance that, you know, it's this old kernel figures, is a hush-hush woman.

And he just loves that idea so much. he's so annoying a weird thing to romanticise and the idea of these two characters like this central romance that runs through the story and just applying a romance to the two least two so incredibly unromantic people I know he could have been a romantic couldn't he both of them I suppose

are more like romantics who have had it warped by lack of attention yeah very much so it's like they've read about how to be romantic and they haven't quite got the knack of all the steps. Yeah. But they're also sort of this, I don't know, inevitability of it. They're going to win now.

They did then fast track themselves into the other stereotypical kind of old marriage couple. Yeah, well, that was, well, you say fast track. A lot of time does pass on this book and I got confused by it quite a few times. Yeah, it's helpful that occasionally we get to learn tight to this age. Yes. Completely threw me at one point. he was still 10 and then the book told me he was 17. Yeah.

And then I had to go back and work out how long he'd been 17 a while. Oh no. But you weren't expecting Twilight reference, isn't your Gorman Gass? Wait, Gorman Gassed in the style of Twilight. Listeners, for reasons that will seem become apparent, I'm starting to imagine terrible adaptations of things. Yes. No, I were quite like Gorman Gass in the style of Twilight.

What, me, song? shall we set the weird still walking scene too? I guess that's the equivalent of our baseball scene. Yeah. All right, we'll come back to this. Okay, I'm going with Starlight from the... Oh yeah, no, you're right, no, of course, yeah. Yeah, Black Holtz and Revelations album.

Right, chapter 44. We're getting into chunkier chapters now, in which the young groans visit Flay in his cave, and they show him the secret tunnel. Mm-hmm. I love the phrase marshalight of his intuition. Oh, incredible. Yes, that's a good one.

I'm happy for Flake. His knees have quietened down. That's happened while he's been out in the forest. Yes, it has, and somehow that does a dull to my attraction point. It was the knees. Yeah, it was the knees and the fact that it was very late on a Friday evening, Saturday evening. Saturday evening? I don't know when I recorded. All I know is I didn't sleep that week. Listeners, you'll be pleased to know. I no longer feel the need to find a romantic lead in this book. Oh, I'm still going for Flo. Yeah, no, fine.

and the Countess, obviously. Yeah, more so than ever. Yeah, I mean, obviously his knees quietening down is very helpful for the plot with all of his sneaking. But I'm happy for him still. Yes. And this way he's trying to care for the castle and sneak in and take his pulse. I know. And he can sense the evil.

Yeah. Also, greeting I intend to steal for my own use is, Hello, Mr. Flea, you look wonderful and wild. Oh, it is wonderful, isn't it? Yeah. If we remember, we're going to use that. Call each other wonderful and wild whenever possible. And then Fuchsia, and I love that she recognises him so immediately,

and that they love each other so, and in a completely uncreepy way. Although there are a couple of moments of Mervyn Peake writing a little bit creepily about Fusia. Yeah, but really not too bad. Oh, yeah, no. I mean, you know, not to excuse what. whatever, whatever, whatever, listeners, you know, where we stand on things. But, I mean, considering when you think of any other writer in this time.

Yeah, no, I noticed the creepy things, but it's honestly not very glaring. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, future recognising Flea, and he sort of looks and sees how she's grown and how she hasn't grown and swore these strangely melancholy girl, full of love and fear and courage and anger and tenderness. Yeah.

It's nice that the older men in this do seem to love her as a child even when she's a woman. Yes. Flai and the doctor. Yeah. Very much caring for her. And this is where we start seeing Steerpike becoming a wedge between her and Titus. Yeah.

And she's sort of, when Titus criticizes him, she sort of does it. Well, is it a crime for him to be so brilliant and brave? I say every time I'm criticised at work. It's such a crime for me to be so brilliant. It's not what I else don't see and asked if your report was ready. In this moment where she's defending him, she's a crime to be more brilliant than we could ever be. Is it his fault that he is disfigured?

Which, yes. It is very much his fault. Actually, fully is his fault. Yeah. He is very much reaping what he has sown in this. I know, but considering future doesn't. know that. It's a lovely testament to her character that she's, you know, really deliberately trying to overlook it. Yes. She's too good for this world. And then, yeah, just quickly,

this idea of children versus grown-ups and the fact that they're both so delighted that Flai wants to see their secret passage and takes it seriously in such a childlike way. And this idea, Fuchsia does not consider herself a grown-up in any way, shape or form. No, she's, what, mid-teens at this point? 20 at this point No of course yeah yeah yeah yeah or 20-ish 20 something

but she's been kept so separate from any sort of adult society I mean there is almost none is there yeah there is a real adult society unless she starts I don't know hanging out with the doctor and Emma more yeah she can't go and hang out with the servants

about her age and she can't no she can't read the doctor and Emma also kind of considered outsiders and not really part of the castle so it'd be beneath it to go and hang out with them. But yes, but the idea they're sort of delighted by it. Obviously, Flae is interested for completely different reasons, but it's still so nice. They don't think about the reasons he might be interested.

They're just really happy to share this with a grown-up who takes them seriously. They knew what was wonderful to them was usually of little interest to the adult world, but Mr. Flay was hungry for every detail. Oh yeah, and whenever we're in their perspective, he's Mr. Flay. Also delights me. Oh, no, I didn't notice that. Yeah. Well, that's nice.

They're respectful. Yes. Then Chapter 45, in which a harsh winter has a disastrous effect on the avian population, Flay risks ending his exile, and strange dual screams signify the end of the twins. Oh, yeah. This is simultaneously one of my favorite and least favorite chapters, maybe. Yeah. It's quite a long chapter, isn't it?

It is a very chunky chapter Like almost a normal size chapter This is also where I started Getting a bit confused about time passing But yeah Just a really short bit of description But the room that Flai adopts Is described as voluptuously soft with dust

That's weird how evocative that is, isn't it? Yeah, very much so Yeah Did you have a favourite bit of description? I mean just the The whole opening bit really that the description of the winter, of the harsh winter, is absolutely lovely. And I just read it and obviously, because always forefront of mine, does immediately think,

oh, winter smith, just that stark description. But the air itself was smothered with flakes the size of a child's fist and the terrain bulged with the submerged features of a landscape half remembered. In the wide white fields that surrounded the castle, the birds lay dead or leaned sideways, is stiffening for death. And yeah, the huge descriptive passages about the birds as well. The silhouettes of the dying birds and the whose meticulous contours might have been scored with the needle so exquisite was the drawing of their beaks like thorns, the hairs of

their feathers, their delicate claws and heads, a hieroglyphic of fantastic beauty. Like, fucking hell. It's absolutely gorgeous description throughout. And then, yeah, obviously we get to the horrible bits. We do get to the horrible bits. I mean in the bird stuff, obviously, we have the countess. And this is particularly harsh for her. She's very attached to the birds.

So she sets up, takes over the dining room much to the inconvenience of everyone. And she's putting out meat and breadcrumbs and grain laid in trails to encourage the birds into the castle. It is a nice set up for laser. Like she can take charge when she wants to of a project. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, this is like a little, yeah, a little practice run. Yeah, she's actually quite good. She almost said foreshadowing, but having been quite so mean about it last time, I can't remember what it means.

What's his foreshadowing? Psychic punishment upon myself. And then Flay gets his snow-covered return from exile. He's been shown this tunnel at the most useful point because he probably wouldn't have survived in the cave in that sort of winter. Yeah, definitely. It's, yeah, the fact that he's willing to end his own. exile and he had been exploring a little bit beforehand anyway, haven't he? But this gives him an easy

way to do so. I think shows that he really does feel the peril in the castle. Yes. Otherwise he wouldn't dare to disobey the countess. Yeah, which I had to go back and double check. I couldn't remember why he'd been exiled. Take a cat.

He threw a cat at Steer Pike because Steer Pike was making fun of Sepulgrave. I'd forgotten somehow in all of this that the exile was because he heated a cat. Oh no, that's great. Yep. He's not exiled for stabbing the chef or anything. No, no, no.

That was after his exile, isn't it? Yeah, that was post-exile. Yeah. Because he had to stick around for a little bit to do that before. Before he went off to the woods. And then, yeah, this is the end of Cora and Clarice, our first F5 of this section. Horrific. Did you, how long did it take you to realize that's what the sounds were?

It's a really great passage. This is Flay exploring in the dark And then he starts hearing this Echoing laughter I think one of the times He said the court Like not the first time But he said a few times

There was like a call and response thing Yeah I did start wondering And then But I'm not sure I was sure I don't think I was sure Until like it was just said I think I started thinking

It probably was when it was Then it came again with a kind of double note almost as though whatever throat that it was giving vent to this ghastly laughter was curiously formed. Oh yeah. And then I thought two throats and then I thought. Oh, there are two people. I was right. I felt very smug about it as well.

Good, as you should. As you should. But yeah, this is the chapter that opens with, this is where I start getting confused about time passing. The days flowed on and the walls of Gorman Gas grew chill to the touch as summer gave way to autumn and autumn to a winter, both dark and icy. And then we start getting into the depiction of that and the birds dying. It's quite difficult to work out when everything is happening because this has got to have been close enough to steer pike and Barkin's fight that the twins have enough provisions to survive, but not for that long. But it is apparently, at least a full season has passed. They died the day after the steer fight rose from his sick bed.

Ah. So they actually die before the winter sets in, but Flay is getting into the castle. We've just kind of rocketed back a little bit, I think. All right. Yeah. You see how this is confusing for me. So I think it's saying that it's just as well he had that tunnel because he wouldn't have survived this winter. And here's what happened when he first started moving in. Right. Yeah. No, that makes a long one sense.

I think. The descriptions of time passing are great. We get a lot of excellent montages. It's just not very clear. It's like having one of those animations of a calendar losing pages. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Except through a kaleidoscope. Yeah.

like yeah there's something happening there that is an excellent analogy right chapter 46 then in which skewbold steer pike uses silly ceremony to seize control so this is steer pike setting up as master of ritual the description of his

the effect of the burns this is the first time we get him the effect of the face was of something skewbald this is the first time we get that description torque crimson tissue forming fiery patterns against the wax-like pallor of his skin. Quick, our visit to etymology corner, Scoobald is a colour pattern usually referring to horses

and it's white patches on specifically a non-black base coat. Piebald, Pierbold is black and white. Ah, as a Magpie. Yes, the pie in Piebald comes from Magpie. I did start going down. Yeah. I did then start going down the etymology. of magpie but then I realized that we have a...

Did it start out as maggoty pie? Possibly, or the mag... Mag was referred sort of a slang term for a lot of birds. And mag as in Margaret and it is sort of because women chatter, basically. All right, I just come back to this, sir. Sorry, you say. What I found, I was thinking of the etymology of the skew, because I assumed it would have something she would say,

a skew. It does not. It's more likely that it's, of Scandinavian origin and comes from a similar route as sky. So if you think of patches of cloud. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. That is interesting.

Anyway, that was our visit to etymology corner. Yeah. And then bald B-A-L-D, obviously. Just referring to like bear patches, white patches. Brilliant. But yes, he's now taking over as Master of Ritual, partly from his sickbed. and absolutely doesn't believe in any of it, but he is using it to consolidate power and seize control,

holding the castle ever more tightly in the scolded palm of his hand. Yeah, gross. My favourite, I think, line about the rituals here is the grooms were in mourning and that the traditional equine masks were being worn at the correct angle of dejection. I noted this down as well. Oh, sorry. No, it's a great line.

Because this is the thing. We do not root for steer pike. We don't like steer bikes. Stierpikes are dick. So we're annoyed that he is taking over ritual and not using it for its intended purpose. But then the actual ritual is so fucking ridiculous. These masks are, it's the anniversary of the death of a nephew of the 53rd Countess, who is a daring horseman.

And that's why the grooms are in mourning and the equine masks are at the correct angle of dejection. It's just wonderful. What is the correct angle of dejection for an equine mask? That's what I want to know. Oh, I don't know. I haven't got the cross-referencing tomes to hand. Ah, right. Well, we'll summon those in the break.

Chapter 47 then. Yes. In which Titus stands up to Steerpike and then faints. Yeah, which is a great way out of any situation, of course. Yep, just stand on a desk and then pass out. That's how I get out of things. I feel like at least one practic character does that. Pass it out to get out.

of things. Oh, it's bloody, um, oh, it's the opera singer, the skinny one. Yes. Dramatically fainting every now and then. Titus and whatever a name is, naming more iconic duo. It doesn't matter. I can't remember. It's been a while since masquerade, darling. As much as I do, I feel very sorry for Titus and the ridiculous life he's being forced to live. He's kind of becoming a shit. Just occasionally, it would be nice if he thought about anything. else. Well, he might, but it's not relevant to the plot. That is very true.

I guess. But no, you're right. But it's easy to see how one becomes a shit in this situation, isn't it? Oh, yeah, no. I fully respect that he is becoming a shit. I would also become a shit in this situation. Yeah. You do sit there and wish for him to have some normal influences to sort him out of it.

Yeah. And the closest to normal influence he's got is Bellgrove. Fair play to Bell Grove. He gets a nice moment in the class where he literally says, don't overdo it, don't try and think too much, it's all right, go slow. You may have a breakdown just as I had long ago when I was young and ugly just as you are and just as dirty too. He's graduated from the Nanny Slag School of Insulting the ones you love. Yes.

Oh, you wicked thing. Oh, I was just as ugly as you. But I do like Titus standing up to steer pike, if he originally, like, tells him to shut up by accident. Yeah, but he can't bring himself to apologise. Yeah, he knew instinctively this was a moment in which to dare the blackest hell to apologize would be to submit. It is interesting, and throughout this, you never get a response to contradict it,

but it does seem like Titus's inherent hatred of Steer Pike is, is kind of given to him through the castle and through his slightly supernatural birthright. Yes. like Gorman Gass is projecting. We get a couple of moments as well where Titus straight up says, I don't hate him, like, even after he's gone into, Stipbikes gone into hiding after his kill-flay. He's all like, I don't hate him because he's fucked with the castle.

I hate him because he's mean and he was horrible to future and he upset people that I care about. Like he says very much on the surface, it's not to do with the castle at all. He just does not like that. This is before that. At this point, he hates him because he's being made on the surface because he's being, he's this authoritative.

figure making him do the things he doesn't want to do, all the rituals. But it does feel like it's coming from the sickness of the castle, and he is actually kind of attuned to it. Yeah. Yeah. Even if you would never admit it, because he doesn't like it. No. And it does, of course, sound ridiculous, but then so does everything in his life.

Yeah, there isn't a, we don't have a normal baseline. No, no. The baseline is a kaleidoscope. You've noted midnight feasts, and I'd like to hear about that. It's just, there's a very nice description of the boys as they spent their time in the evenings and Titus obviously being one of them. After the dark, the boys of his own age would light their shielded candles, squatting groups, perform strange rights or eat their pilfered cakes. And I just think it's a truth universally acknowledged that if there is some sort of boys' school

and dormitory, that there must be things such as midnight feasts and strange rituals of their own. Or indeed, girls' schools. And girls' schools, yes, obviously. Just a boarding school dynamic in general. There has to be midnight feast at a boarding school. My man went to boarding school and it does sound very much like all of the kids' books.

Certainly the story she's willing to tell me. They include things like, yeah, for going up onto the roof to eat the midnight snack once. Yeah. I obviously have never been to boarding school but I was obsessed with Mallory Towers. Deeply, deeply obsessed, read them over and over again.

So I have a very, very romantic view of boarding schools. I was convinced at one point and this was never going to be financially viable, but that boarding school would fix me and everything wrong with my life. In reality, I don't know if it would have fixed me or just completely broken me.

I fully know that boarding school would have completely broken me. Obviously, I would never have gone to boarding school. That was not the life I had. But yeah, I cannot imagine that would have ever done something good for my brain. What if any of our listeners? Did any of you go to boarding school? Do tell.

Yes, and how broken are your brains? And how broken are you? Listeners, tell us your deepest psychological horrors. Anyway, chapter 48, in which Irma squawks while the doctor ponders steer pike. Yes, I was going to say, segwaying with the speaking of deep psychological horrors, but that could be used to every chapter. Gormongast. Irma just saying, I'm tired to the doctor, I'm tired of your way of saying things with all its figures of eight.

Yeah. Because of speech. Why do you always say figures of eight? I'm assuming she's mixing up figures of speech with pieces of eight. She does like a parrot, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's got to be lovely Malifor. Lovely stuff.

One of my absolute favourites. The description of her hairstyle as the contours of the Hesuit knob, I think is a brilliant demonstration of Mervyn Peaks. I would say compulsion to describe everything unnecessarily and beautifully. Yes. The Hesuit knob. Once more for effect. That's my drag name.

The Hursuit snob. Good name for a drag club. Anyway, and then the doctor is turning over his mind, this phrase from Steerpike's Delirium, The Twins will make it five, and getting suspicious. And I just have multiple times in my notes, why is no one acting on this?

And the book does tell you, is it also spread out. You couldn't pinpoint it to one person. Yeah, yeah. but he's the only person anyone's really feeling suspicious of. Why is no one doing anything about that? It's very frustrating. Nobody talks to each other.

I think this is a pretty much direct consequence of the lack of communication between human beings in this castle. Or certainly the apparitalons of the human beings. I've mentioned before bar I used to working up behind the bar. We had a big sign that customers can see a week that said poor communication makes us all look a bit silly. And I feel that can be very much applied to Gormon. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

It does, it does make you wonder actually like, obviously we only see them, usually only see them when it's plot relevant, but what these people are doing? Yeah, also this cast, like, it sounds really boring. Yeah, that's right. Not if you're working, because then you're constantly having your fingers ground to the bone to prepare feasts for Barkin to show his crutch into and the like. I wish the word crutch wasn't here.

But yeah, obviously, you know, the professors are working, their teaching, and the children are being schooled. But people like the doctor and Emma, what are they doing with their time? And Fuchsia. I mean, the doctor at least has things to do. Yeah, he has some doctoring. Yeah, and does like drawings or whatever. But Fuchsia, once she stopped playing pretend all the time, I suppose she probably still does, but once she stopped doing it in that kind of absorbing childhood way. Poor thing. Future remains 15 for the book.

Yeah. was writing bad poetry, which is what one does at 15. It can be very time-consuming to write prolific amounts of bad poetry as a 15-year-old, and I say there's someone who has once been a 15-year-old who wrote a lot of bad poetry. Eventually wrote some good poetry, but not when I was 15. Speaking of Future, actually, in Chapter 49, in which the Countess takes Titus for a walk, and we learned that Future has relocated, not without much arguing in a sense of direct. uprooting to a more handsome district to a set of rooms which in comparison with her old

untidy bedroom of many memories were full of light and space. Also, she's hanging out with their little brother and he's got a nickname for her. He calls a few. I'm glad there's no school today, few. And I just really like that as just a small, normal interaction. And she loves it. She loves that she's got that bit of humanity in her life. And she's clearly, again, the way she thinks and talks about it is like, she's read about people having brothers who love them. And now she's one. Fantastic. It's incredible. I'm happy for her that she does at least have that. I also love the moment, and this servant comes and says, the countess was just Lord Titus to go on and walk with her. And they just stare at the messenger and then open their mouths and close them again.

They can't think of any. Because it's so abnormal. Yeah. This is such an alien idea. Do you mind if I read a longish bit of description about the cat's hearing? Please do. Please do. From 100 dim recesses, from favourite ledges, from shelves and draught-proof corners, from among the tattered entrails-fold sofas, from the scarred plush of chairs from under clockstands, from immemorial sun-traps, and from nests of claw-torn paper, from the inside of lost hats, from among rafters, from rusty casks and from drawers half open, the cats poured forth. Incredible.

There's a lot of places to hide a cat. There are many ways to hide a cat in Cornwall Castle. Sounds like a good saying. I'm not sure what it means, but let's use it. More than one way to hide a cat. Yeah. Better than the alternative. And this kind of absent expression of the countess as well,

and then she starts, until she starts doing the bird calls and becomes animated. And I like that the child is out there winding her up by answering back the bird calls. Yes. Yeah, and the kind of mask-like countenance as well, and Titus realizing that it doesn't necessarily equate to what's happening in her head. Yes. Yeah. And then chapter 50, in which it is Titus' 10th birthday,

which is celebrated in a completely normal way. Yeah. I mean, he's talking about it like it's extraordinary. So I think that's how we all celebrated our 10th birthday, isn't it? Yeah, big still performance. Carried up a mountain, blind folded. That was what I did. Yeah.

And then I think from my 11th, we went to Barry Bowl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Titus hates. much of this, even the fun bits. Yeah. And he wants to run around and be one of the kids. Like he loves the performance and the glory of it. But then afterwards, he just, he can't go back to being Titus.

He has to be the Earl and that's very obsessing for him and difficult. And a way that it sounds like Fuchsia didn't suffer quite that way. Um, because she loved it and she sold Titer. And I feel like Fuchsia more easily accepts her role as extraordinary. Which is why I think she wasn't schooled in the same way Titus was. I think probably because she was never going to inherit the title. She didn't have to do the thing where she was normal for a bit, but then also having to do duties on the side.

I think she's had less of that. I forgot to ask about this, actually. We might have found this out last time, but was she definitely not going to inherit the title? And also, I've forgotten the word for primogeniture or whatever. Premigensature. Premiginitia. Yeah, because steer pike and this is talking as though if he marries her, he'll be the count.

Yeah, I don't, well, if he marries her and Titus dies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it would be she can inherit the title, but if she was married and there was no one else to inherit, then her husband could inherit the title and she could be the countess. I assume that would be how it would work. I don't think it's ever properly stated, but it did seem very, very worrying that there wasn't. a male heir. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. Yeah. Although I suppose if, you know, if it came to it, because it's not like they've got this sprawling, it does sound like the twins, although they obviously did not have a fantastic grasp of reality, did seem to think that eventually they could be in charge.

Yeah, if you run out of groans, then it would sort of go to them by default. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I suppose it doesn't really matter. but it does Also I think it was written that the twins are older than

Sepul Crave so they felt it should have gone to them not him so they felt there should have been that line of inheritance but there clearly wasn't but yeah back to 10th birthday sorry I love how much future wants him to love it which is as wonderful as it was when it was all for me

and it's a better night than I had absolutely come with a great white moon on top yeah and she's so pleased for him she is pleased for him and she just wants him to take joy in it because she's not stupid she can see he doesn't get much joy in his life yeah yeah

hence throwing cake at him and sneaking him barley sugars and they're like barley sugar that's another thing that feels so in advice but yeah but yeah time passing again so we've jumped forward a few years

because Titus was seven-ish and is now ten yeah I don't know when that happened but we have I don't know when it happened either I'm glad we both don't know when that happened I'm just checking if I'm stupid or not I'm not the person to ask this week I'm afraid

but yeah no me neither absolute nonsense that this entire playroom exists just for this purpose love it and it's not used to any love it want to go the once a general or twice a generation playroom the Gorman Gar's soft play

yeah But real pointy. But quite pointy, yes. I wonder if any child has, the Gorman Garth line, oh, the groan line, sorry, has accidentally died during this. Oh, there is got to be one. They can't do anything about it. They've just got to be one.

Yeah. Yeah. There has got to be one. Yeah. And then the incredible nonsense of the still walkers, I do wonder, was this the birthday party that Marvin Peek always wanted? Yeah. Did you also try and find any kind of literary or mythological

all allusion here as to the horse, the wolf, the lamb and the lion. I felt like there was one. Yeah. And I couldn't. I didn't find one. An allegory was happening at me. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's specifically, the lion who's got a dunce at and holds daggers, the wolf carries poison, the horse, a horse unlike any other travesty of that noble animal that had ever been concocted, and yet it was more a horse than anything else. with the expression of fatuous melancholy and the horse also wears a massive hat

carries a parasol in the book of poems and then the lamb clasps its hands at its heart and is clearly very devout. I mean the wolf with the poison you can map on pretty clearly to steer pike. Yeah. And that's what made me think who else am I matching these people up with?

Who's got daggers and a dunt's hat? I think because lion I was wondering Bellgrove but the daggers don't make sense for that. Or the dants hat really. The horse could be fuchsia. the parasol in the book of poems and then I don't know who the lamb is very devout little lamb

that's what Titus should be if he wasn't rejecting his title or we might be completely wrong and he's referencing something else or this might just be the ones he thought would make a good show and he's written a whole play in his head we're never going to read it yeah I'm just going to let that allegory

yeat itself over my head but listeners please write your theories or well-informed speculations or very ill-informed speculations. Answers on, what are they going to come in on? God knows. Parasol and a book of poems.

Chard scroll. Copper plate handwriting, preferred, obviously. Also, if anyone else draw some fan art of the still walkers, please. I'd like an illustration of that, thank you. Again, chard. Chard, preferably. Chard like steer pike. Chapter 51.

in which an amount of time passes. Yep, certainly does. Time definitely passes. The doctor is concerned about fuchsia, and I am glad he is concerned about fuchsia because someone should be. He's reading her poetry. And he's delighted that she's willing to share that with him,

which I think is very sweet. And he is not trying to seek her out. He is letting her come to him. Yes. I would like to say that this, I think, is the longest, I'm not going to read it out, the longest run-on sentence in the book. I haven't checked this, but it's the one where we get the passing of time. There's a couple of really, really great descriptions.

This is the full, like, calendar, lots of calendar pages turning. So we have this idea of the season's changing. So as a future wanders across her room, the spring comes, like a whole season places. And the days move on and the names of the months change and the four seasons bury one another. spring again and yet again and the small streams that run over the rough size of Gormongast. I didn't write down a really run on one, I think. But you've also got the days where out the months, the months wear out the years, and a flux of moments like an unquiet tide eats at the black coast of futurity. I really love that one. Yeah, yeah, that's gorgeous. I think that first one

you were reading from was part of that really long run on sentence. It's so long that it barely registers as one sentence. Yeah, I think I just decided to not put in the whole thing because I thought you might kill me. I might have done, but I'd have done so with a little spring of my staff. Oh, delightful. Excellent. And while this is all happening, of course, we do learn that Flay has got himself set up and is spending quite a lot of time trailing steer bike, which is good.

And then chapter 52, some time it's passed now, in which the castle has weirder vibes than usual, and Titus is chieffing at his eldom. The vibes, to me, read a little like the sea kind of receding before a tsunami. Yeah. As though the labyrinthian place had woken up from its sleep of stone and iron and in drawing breath had left a vacuum. Yes. That's such a great line. Yeah, it is. And I like that we're getting a little bit more the castle being anthropomorphised here and there,

which also makes me think of the unseen university and this idea of granny borrowing a building. I think if this building, if Gormugust had a barometer, it would have to be constructed like Rincewind's death timer. Yes. Like imagine trying to work out what kind of fucking weird pressure shit's going on here with the metaphorical and literal storm brewing. Yes. Oh, the storm brewing is so good as well. My barometer doesn't have a metaphor setting. I don't have a barometer.

I'd like a barometer. I quite like a barometer. We started a barometer when I was a child. Yeah. I like an old-fashioned looking barometer. on a wall somewhere. I suppose I'd only buy one for the sake of having one because I do have a smartphone, but that's just not a farming. Yeah, it's not aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. Anyway, we see the marriage of Irma in Belgrove. They're now very much settled in. I hadn't wasted a moment before she began to

raise those formidable earthworks that can so isolate the marital unit from the universe. Yeah, it's, oh God, it's awful, isn't it? It's like this entire castle just refuses to allow human connection. Yeah. And they're both caught up in the idea of what the marriage should be and what their romance is that they cannot at any point just be nice and communicate with each other. Yeah. Until they get one sort of nice moment later in the book, but we're not there yet.

No. No, there are a few little punctuation bits, aren't there, where one of them try to reach through the earthworks. Yes. Yeah. Just. But then something just gets in the way, their ridiculous sense of romance and propriety. Yeah.

And it is gently sad, even though they are happier together than they were apart, just because neither of them are bad characters. Like neither of them seem to have any real spite in them. No, they're just... And we like Bellgrove because he's showing kindness to Titus. Yes, he comes in... Titus is now quite solitary, but sometimes goes and launches boats in the moat,

and Bellgrove sometimes comes and joins him and makes paper boats with him. Yeah. His paper boats is a little motif running through the book, and then you get the big solid boats later. That's just a nice thing. Yeah, is Titus by this point carving his own boat? Are we still paper? I think it's, I might be carving, actually. He's no longer a child and the end of his school days are in sight. So I think this is where we get to 17-year-old Titus, but I didn't realize he had become 17 at this point.

Because of the fever dream of that run-on sentence, which ended in some metaphor about the heart. And then that kind of distracts you from what you meant to have. Which is that about seven years have passed. Yeah, yeah. Because it's sevens. It is sevens. Of course it's sevens, fuck, thank you. Yeah, no, completely missed that quite a large chunk of time had passed.

I mean, I struggle with linear time at the best of time. Trying to get into Mervyn Peake's idea of linear time. Yeah. It's a lot like looking at the Gormongasperometer. Neither of us would have made it to ten years old in this castle. Oh, God, no. I don't have a sense of direction. You don't have a sense of linear time.

Yep. Fuck. Right, yeah. he's proud and he's now very aware of being Lord Titus and then isolating himself from everyone else. Again, kind of shit behaviour, but understandable. Shit behaviour. I have brackets understandable whenever I criticise Titus.

Yeah, yeah. And he is at least, I don't know if it's this chapter or later on where you get the explanation that he is, his face is not a reflection of what is happening behind there. I think it is a bit later. that that kind of, I wonder if that's what he learned from his mother on that walk, that you can just set your face however you want it and feel however you want behind it.

Yes, I think that's definitely. But then he's got that temper of a teenage boy who has no outlet. Yes, because God, what kind of outlet could he have with this life? Yeah. Moving on then to my least favorite chapter of the book, Chapter 53 in which Steer Pike has designs on Fuchsia. I just have brackets no a lot. my nose.

I'm not sure to what extent, but I think it is at least to some extent that when Peek uses the word seduce, he does mean rape. Yes. No, I think that is exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because it says like whether or not she fights it. Yeah.

I think there is an idea that he's sort of aiming for it to be consensual. Yeah. As much as this ever could be consensual, which is not at all. But then also wouldn't really, would still do it if it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. It was very uncomfortable to read. I very nearly texted you to just give you a heads up.

Don't worry that that's not going to happen. Honestly, I wasn't worried it was going to just because I couldn't imagine he'd have changed the tone of the book quite so. Yes. I didn't expect it, but I was still concerned for a minute. And it's horrible because we do Adolfocia and we're watching her being so taken advantage of in her overwhelming need for love for caring.

Her life had been loveless and he knew of the warmth and vibrancy of her nature. And yet it's just a horrible idea that he basically, this is another part of his consolidating power, is using fuchsia and blackmail. Yeah, yeah. And she's, you know, described here as being the happiest she's ever been, which is heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking.

Although I think that's his thought about her, so maybe. But even so, you can't imagine. Yeah. And then on to chapter 54 in which Flay, the doctor and the countess are getting suspicious. Yes, finally. Or not finally, they have for a while, but now they're all being suspicious in a more or less the same direction. Flai's suspicion comes from the fact that Steer Pike was disloyal to Simple Grove. That's his whole basis for it.

He doesn't know about the Twins make five line. no, but he must also have some castle-projected intuition in him. There's definitely some castle-projected intuition here, but the basis of it for him consciously is that back when he was a teenager, he made a rude comment about Cephalgrove. And then he went exiled, yeah. Yes. The basis of it is exiled.

This is also when we start seeing more and more of him being referred to as the skewbold man, which is nice. We're building up to him becoming this. horrific myth. Yeah. And then the countess and the doctor um, start thinking about the twins.

And the countess doesn't believe that they would have killed themselves. That's not who they were. Yeah. Uh, which makes me want to bring something up. The twins will make five. Who, who is the fifth?

I mean, obviously the twins are the fourth and fifth, but therefore who is the first second or third? Because the sourdust and barcantine, can be quite neatly laid at Stairpach's feet. and then the twins. I did some looking into this, and it doesn't seem like there is a confirmed fifth

in the first two books. There is a lot of debate about who the fifth is. Maybe he feels he did in Swelter or Safflegrave? I think the two prevailing theories, and I didn't have long to spend researching this, so if listeners have thoughts, please say, either he sort of takes responsibility for Sappelgrave in his mind because the library fire is what driven man,

and obviously that did. But he doesn't know what happened to Sepulgrove. Yeah. I wonder if he did in Mrs. Nanny Slag. That's the other very popular theory because he was stealing all that poison. Yeah, and we never saw her do that. Exactly.

Nanny Slag died in the next chapter. Yeah. So I think he would be just the kind of person to experiment with. Yeah. But I don't understand why Mervyn Peake wouldn't tell us if it was Nanny. No. Maybe he meant to.

You know, how there's. I'm distracted. I just think it's something interesting to think about. It is interesting to think about. Theorising on the five. Or maybe Marvin Peek just lost count. And then refuse to be correct in future edits, like with Bernard. Yeah, also the twins will make it five just sounds better than the twins will make it four.

The sound of the five in that sentence. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's a stronger syllable to end on. Any other thoughts before we move forward? I like the phrase By the black taproot of the very castle If my fear is founded That is a good one

Yeah Castle having a taproot does very much Places in that I don't know how many plants have tap roots Probably all of them But it makes me think of a dandelion Yep that's fair I respect that

Chapter 55 then In which Titus hates Steer Pike And Fuchs is frustrated Yeah Titus Titus not a fan of Steer Pike This is we really see it driving more and more of a wedge between him and future. And Titus is just over and over again.

I hate him. I hate him. And again, there might be some castle-fed intuition here, but his reason for hating him is he's making me do things. Yeah. This hatred is pretty much as his hatred of, of Barkington. Yeah. Yeah. But the fact that he never vocalises, he's making me do things. Again, makes me think that, I'm not sure, yeah, I'm not sure even in his,

in his head it's as easily laid at the feet of that. Like, it's, he just hates him. Yeah. Yeah. He also finds him really unpleasant to be around, which, same dude, same. Yeah. And to the point of falling out with Fuchsia over it. Which is horrible, because we want Clytus and Fuchsia to have each other.

But she refuses to fall out with him properly. So, well done, Fuchsia. Yes, good effort, Fuchsia. End of Chapter 56, in which Sierpike's mask slips in front of Lady Fusher, and a monkey can't make up for it. Oh, yeah. Fucking monkey. Yeah, I like the monkey.

I'm a fan of the monkey. I expected it to come back again by the end end, but we'll get back to that. Yeah, the monkey named Satan, and he claims he made the clothes himself. I've just put in brackets, fucking loser. I don't, I just have no respect for him

deciding to sew clothes for a monkey to try and pull. I have some clothes for my dog. Yeah, no, I respect that. it, I've never used that to then try and take control of a castle. Yeah, exactly. You're not using your dog to seduce the daughter of the Countess. No, but I bet I could. I bet I could. She is a specifically wonderful dog.

Yes, he's making his plans. He's started forging rituals that will put Titus's life at risk. So he's actively planning on murdering the current Earl. I mean, we know he's a bad guy already, but just throwing that. out in there. Yeah. It's a clever way of doing it though, isn't it? Yeah. Eventually he'll fall to his death type thinking. Yes.

Although I reckon the Countess would have, if this had happened, the Countess would have properly looked into the ritual and caught him out eventually, but too late by then. Yeah. The way he's tried to make the room artfully casual to impress future

and he fucking hates it, I find quite amusing. A book or two carefully chosen like casually here and there. Which, you know, if you're going to be 17 about it, I guess commit. If I, I'm going to start using the fact that I'm trying to be artfully casual to seduce someone as a reason for why my house is kind of a mess. Yeah, that's why I can't find my webcam.

Yeah, because you're being artfully casual, obviously. Yeah. I really look. And you'll be shocked by this. I don't think it's going to work to casually seduce my husband or my clutter. I think it's despite that, rather than because. of it that he loves me. And yeah,

Fuchsia's switch here is great. The way the affection is designed as so beautifully crystalline that it was actually very easy to shatter. Yes. And Steer Pike,

just failing to abusive boyfriend his way out of it, like his huge long explanation with, I called you a fool, yes, fool, after my love for you. I was like,

oh God, that's a familiar type of weird rant, isn't it? Yep. Well done, Fuchsia for not actually being 15. And having this moment of becoming Lady Fuchsia, the blood of her line rising in her, in bitterness, she was again the daughter of an earl. And then that last line of Stipak, I think you're going soft. Yeah.

You could see the countess that Fuchsia could have become. Oh, yeah. In this moment. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's like a, it's an interesting insight into the countess herself as well with that, because she probably had similar. She may have been silly and romantic in a similar way

and found nobility within herself. Yeah, yeah. And again, what influence you gain from the castle? I mean, the fact that the countess is the staunch defender of Gorman Gass's rituals and seems to, in her very bones, believe it. And how much of that is, through being suffused in it for so long

and having this, you know, the imprint. Yes Hmm Poor old fuchsia Or old fuchsia Chapter 57 In which Flay sees steerpike getting introspective at the thorn tree And enlist Titus and the doctor in giving chase

Love this chapter Love this chapter Stuff's happening Right this is something I noticed as well With the last few chapters of the book Lacer on When we get the action sequence with the flood and everything Mervyn P is capable of writing really good action Like very compelling.

I can't wait to see what happens next and this is great and this is great and this is great. Yeah, at a pace I can follow. It just does that in between a lot of meandering. Yeah, yeah, fine, fine. At this point, I've had enough sleep that I'm all for it. That's fair. Yeah, we are less hysterical this week. Yeah, sorry, listeners.

Apologies. I know some of you enjoyed our extended breakdown. We were attempting professionalism, she says, if she didn't drink a bottle of process. yesterday. There's a moment in this I really love. We're talking about how the morning seemed so far away. There was no such thing as dawn. It was an invention of the knights or of the old wives of the night. A fable, immemorially old, recounted century after century in the eternal darkness, retold and retold to the nomic children in the tunnels and the caves of

Gormenghisst. What is nomic? Good question. I don't have an answer for you, but it's a very good question. All right. Well, I'm going to forget to look it up, so listeners answers on it. On a midnight black. Not on a brick. Yes, thank you. Answers on a midnight dreary. Also, just more deep love of flow. We're going to squeeze it all in while we can. His love of Fuchsia, he cares about Titus, but Fuchsia gave to the flinty darkness of his mind, those touches of warmth, which, along with his worship of Gormongast, were seemingly so foreign to his nature.

Yeah. She is like this one sort of really bright spot in his life, and that makes me very happy. I also liken this chapter, the description of how weird everything is to the point where you know stuff's going to be weird. Like, he was caught up for one of those stretches of time, when for anything to happen normally would be abnormal. The dawn was too tense and highly charged for any. common happening to survive.

Yes. You know you are out of sequence here. Yeah, something is going to happen and it's all going to get weird. And this idea of the walls starting to close in on steer pike, we get these little insights into his in a monologue where he has a lean against the thorn tree and thorn tree and keeps working it out, sitting and making his plans and realizing time is not on his side. Yeah. And it's interesting, we get so much of this

of his inner machinations of him sitting there like a cold-blooded creature and Brighties finally kind of take the chances and do this and the other. And then in the very next chapter, it becomes irrelevant. Yeah, completely irrelevant. But I didn't stop him thinking it. No. And then we have a little insight into time.

This is where I've been talking about why Titus hates Steer Pike. It came from this moment. Deeply as Titus suspected Steer Pike of being intrinsically foul, correct? he'd never suspected him of actually doing anything other than his duty. He didn't hate him for any understandable reason. He just hated him for being alive at all. Yeah. So yeah, he doesn't suspect steer bike.

You just can't stand steer bike. Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, big mood. Yeah. And now he's like almost pleased to have that confirmed in a solid, you know. Yes, this is horrible, but also gratifying. Oh, you guys agree with me. And for a really good reason.

Okay, fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. And how nice of him to get included in this. And before we move on to the chapter where a lot actually happens, sunbeam at the thorn tree. Sunbeam. We've mentioned quite a lot about how much 11 Peak loves the sunbeam

and this particular band of livid yellow in the sky that the steer pike is sort of almost highlighted by as he leans against this thorn tree in the quadrangle. Saffron yellow. Yeah. I've always banned, not always, maybe, but certainly in the last few years. I've always found something very sinister about that particular band of yellow that you get at some sunrise and sunsets. Yes. No, I can see the sinister.

Yeah, it's a sort of vulgar. And we also get a honey-coloured dawn at some point, and there's a lot of sunlight like honey. Yes. In this book, so nice. Sunlight oozing and crawling, a very disc world light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it would be, I suppose, in Gormingast. If anywhere, other than Discworld is going to have the sort of light that oozes, it would be Gorman

Gorman Gust. It would definitely be Gorman Gust. Chapter 58, then, in which Steerpike finds the remains of the twins, the Dr. Titus and Flea bear witness, and Flae dies for his trouble. F-5, our next F-5 of the book, Flea. Yeah, the first tragedy,

of course, being the monkey's abuse. Yes. We've got Chekhov's Axe, which has somehow stayed suspended for 10 years, only to now drop and cut the monkey's tail off. Yeah. Accadamically's, Chekhov's Axe. there's no real yeah

he's a bit damoclese yeah yeah but it's the wrong thing but anyway yeah poor monkey oh the poor monkey and it runs to them to be picked up yeah

and they don't have time and steer bike I feel like it could have been really useful ally to them and it kind of is anyway but if they'd picked him up and been like all right monkey all right friend

and bandaged his tail up and also it's just as if we needed just an extra reminder that steer pike is evil as he's cock crowing around his the corpses

throwing the monkey to the floor and it's just a very it's the antithesis of save the cat yeah do something horrible

to an animal just to make sure the audience knows this guy's really evil after all the murders but the description of the monkey

its eyes were upon him and in them was a moist and lethal hatred as though all the spleen and gau of the vile tropics was floating

there beneath the small grey eyelids and same hard same for that one Yeah, I suppose the fact we don't see the end of the monkey suggests that he lived a long and at least slightly contented life because a Mervyn Pete would have told us otherwise.

I kind of assumed he drowned in the flood. Yeah. If he did survive having his tail off. He's a monkey. I mean, he could have climbed up. He sounds more of a chance with a lot of the people. Yeah, there's a good point. Maybe he is still just living in the rafters of Gormongar somewhere.

Yeah. maybe Emma and Bellgrove find him. Yes, maybe Emma and Belgrove find him and adopt him. That sounds quite likely, actually, doesn't it? Yeah, let's decide that's what happened to the monkey. No one's telling us otherwise, and he gets a nicer name than Satan. Which also, yeah, so Stier Pike has acquired this. We don't know where he's acquired the monkey from, by the way.

We kind of glossed over that, but where did he get the monkey? Yeah, I guess it kind of implies he's got some outside trading contact. I mean, there's got to be some outside trading. I don't think Gorman Gass is completely self-sufficient, although there is farmland and the like. Yeah, but with some, yeah, he's got his own contact somewhere, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah, pet monkey, sure, why not? But he's trying to, he's acquired the monkey as a gift for Fuchsia as part of this non-seduction, but he names it Satan.

Mm-hmm. I just, I feel like maybe for Fuchsia, would have tried giving the monkey a gentler name, perhaps. Is it the only reference we get to the Christian faith? I think it might be. We don't really have that. Maybe in this universe, Satan's just a nice name for a monkey. A lovely name for a girl. Like in Lancour, Chlamydia's a lovely name for a girl.

Exactly. The stuff with the cockerel is kind of darkly funny. Like when you actually try and imagine, he's just crowing around the corpses he finds. Yeah, and like this is some instinct or tick that you can't. possibly ignore in that moment, yeah. Yeah, and the way he's sort of, you get this in a monologue, and he clearly is going mad, but this, he's not mad. He's, he can stop whenever he wants.

It was though he were identifying himself with some archetypal warrior or fiend, and that's the doctor's kind of sense of it, had a ghastly gaiety, a lethal lightness that struck at the heart of the humanities. Like, yeah, like he's, It's a, like, he's a mischief god, almost, I guess. Yeah. Like a chaos. Yeah.

Chaos spirit. And then the switch, when he realizes, he's, he's been caught, there's no getting out of this. He sees who is watching him. The immediate realization. Yeah. And the incredible switch in his head, where he sort of goes immediately, not, maybe I can try and solve this. It's just, all right, I will become the devil then. Yeah.

Yeah. We do have the layers and warrens wear a monarch of darkness like Satan himself. He could wear undisputed crown no less imperial. So Satan does represent evil in some way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the switch is amazingly well-written. I loved it. And it's a fascinating thing to me.

I also want to shout out the doctor quickly who gets a couple of nice moments here. When he's grabbing a couple of pokers for him and Titus to carry his weapons, he does the bit where he puts them behind his back and has Titus pick a hand. Something very sweet about in all of this still giving Titus like a little game. Yeah, the doctor is just incapable of not being somewhat like... Avuncular. Avuncular, lovely, yes. And then when Titus brings him to Flay, he bows a little bit.

The doctor inclineded his body so splendidly sheathed in its dressing gown in the gaunt man's direction. Just manners. And he doesn't stop and go. actually what the fuck are you doing here. He's just like, this is clearly, this is clearly important. And also, you deserve to be treated with manners and respect, even if you are a gaunt exile. And it's like this immediate answer to Flay looking at him questioningly. Like, are we cool? Like, is this going to be a problem or can we just get on with you? Yep. And Flay himself, just, I haven't, in all caps, deserved better.

Yep. It's, um, at least you died quickly, I suppose. Well, yeah, there's that. That's about the best you can say of it. The forehands of Flay's friends were engaged with the weight of the long, ragged body. It's a hell of a thing. God, it is. It does confirm he has friends. He does have friends.

The long ragged body is very good. As a very good description. Yeah. I mean, he does sort of, in the next chapter, if we're ready to move forward, he does get a very nice bit of respect here. Yeah. Flay is laid to rest and the countess and the doctor prepared to hunt steer pike. Yeah. buried in the graveyard of the elect retainers.

Yes. Good, isn't it? Yeah. Had Flay been able to foresee his funeral, he'd appreciated the honour of joining so small and loyal a company of the dead. I'd love to hear some more about the other people in there. You know, despite my last week, then somewhat this week, moaning about the constant and unnecessary passages of detail.

I would like more lore and backstory on some of the ritual. I understand that it's left this way because it's meant to be inexplicable and weird and forgotten. But I would love to have, like, yeah, elect retainers' backstory would be great. Yeah, definitely. And the description of the ground as well. The description of the countess at the graveside

in draperies as black and intense as the plumage of her own ravens. And the idea that if Flae had known the countess had been at his graveside, then all of his wounds would have been healed. Yeah. Not obviously physically, but just the mental scar getting exiled.

They very much did get a knife to the throat, unfortunately. I loved the countess's reaction to hearing the news. Lifting the chair from the floor, methodically broken its curved legs off one by one, and in what seemed to be a state of abstraction, tossed the chair legs one after another through the glass panes of the nearest window. Yeah. There's a very quick bit of description here.

I want to shout out that the countess is kind of standing over, the doctor talking to him and when he realizes she's not making eye contact him with him anyway he gives up on craning his neck back and instead stares at the scallops of sartorial it's the idea that he's just staring at something on her dress or looking at her dress

but just that description scallops of sartorial absolutely excellent a piece of extremely peak description peak peak as it were there is no place on a so terrible and so suited to a game of hiding seek as this gaunt warren gaunt warren oh yeah gaunt warren's a good one and yeah the countess herself

just the way she we start seeing this movement of her coming into her own as she starts organising the hunt for steer pike um the way she is completely unmoving only her lips have moved and she talked very slowly and quietly but there was a thickness in her voice yeah and you know those people who do get very quiet and when they're angry there's something massively intimidating about it that I love. Yeah. I love a thickness to a voice in the description. Mm-hmm.

And shout out the poet, now in charge of ritual. Yep. Well done, but at this point, slightly still panicked probably, but he'll get into it. I mean, a decent candidate for it. Yeah. And then chapter 60, in which Irma and Belgrove discussed the threat of steer pike.

And the thing is, right, I'm as afraid to see if I could come after her. And she's very worried. She's trying to share these worried with her husband's. She's not, it's not inconceivable that he would. No, no. Not inconceivable. Not the most likely target, but not a bad target if you want to strike fear into people whilst not moving any of the important pieces around too much.

Yeah. I think she's not unjustified in this fear. She spent time around him. Yeah. Had a weird crush on him. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah, it's not like it's a complete strain.

Yeah. But, yeah, I suppose. Whitney's just sick of her. Yeah, she does get the great line. You're talking overmuch. If you could leave a sentence alone, it would be so much stronger. And she's hard. And I get that.

I tell myself that as I edit my own work. Same, same. Let's not talk about the work count of my mystery. And poor Belgrove, who is trying very hard to be brave, he's not thought as far ahead as what he would do if Sirpike come after them. What I would do is something no gentleman would discuss, because I'm not thought of it yet. Yeah.

But feeling his years, poor thing, and his voice in his heart crying, I am young. That was the black injustice of bodily decay. But three score years and ten is 70, isn't it? Score is 20. I must say, my stepdad who is turning 70 this year, is currently heading off to do 100 mile. in a day cycle, right?

Yes, but Bellground's a professor. I'm just saying it's not impossible. I had to go and look up what a score was because I thought maybe it was 24 and I got it wrong because 70 isn't like that. 70 is really not that old. Obviously, this is a different time and there's a different lifestyle. But yeah.

Yeah. It's nice, I suppose, that we now live in a time where 70 is not automatically sinking to your knees at the thought of having to deal with an intruder. Very much, though. Right, should we take a break? We shall. Onwards and upwards then.

Chapter 61, in which the child pines for a carved raven. Yes. Which, same. I also pines for a carved raven. We've got a quiver full of honey-coloured beams. Yes, I noted that one. Pools of amber, where all day long the chill inhospitable shadows had brooded. Lovely stuff. Gorgeous bit of descriptions.

And all I really have to say about that chapter is that that's a very nice bit of description there. Yes. And an interesting set up for a later moment in how much the child wants this toy. Yes. Which she gets over very quickly. Yes. Chapter 62, in which Titus and Fuchsia are angsty. Yeah.

Poor Fusher. I love the idea that he's just like, can we just burn it? Yep. Burn it all down. finish the whole dirty business and give the grass a chance. Yeah. Very teenage out first. But I will occasionally still indulge in at the age of 34.

Oh, absolutely. And Future has gone into this depression after what has happened and exhausted with the emotions that fought in her. Yeah, I mean, obviously Future's not... Future wasn't involved in the kind of immediate seeing of the skeleton trauma because Types, I think, was described as aging more than 60 minutes an hour. And obviously it's really affected brood squalor and really affected Flay, rather. Yeah.

Knife to the heart often offends. But, yeah, you think, like, future, this is her only attempt at romantic love. Her only, like, friend, well, apart from Titus, her only friend in the castle, her confidant. Her bright, yeah, the bright spot out of the doldrums. And it's like, oh, he's literally a murderer. And she's known for years and years and years. You think like when he first came in through the window when she was a real teenager. Yeah, and he was in Heretic and then the other, you know, the visits to her leaving a rose and his stupid card and that sort of thing.

This has not, this has been a constant in her life effectively that has gone away. And I mean, it's the only blessing is she, yeah, only blessing is she never found out that he was intending on sleeping with her and blackmailing her with it. Yeah, that is a blessing. I did put it in my notes. I want to give her a hug and some evanescence. Yeah. Yeah. God.

Oh, God, if ever a girl needed Evanescence. Yeah, she just, she needs a crap CD player. She can't even graduate to Paramortals. She's had a go on the Evanescence, I think. Could you not just see her singing along to My Immortal very loudly and slightly off key? And do you know what? She's the girl we all wished we were while singing along to it. Yeah, very much.

The Ravenhead Countess. Ravenhead, wistful in a tower somewhere. Yeah, yeah. And then. And then. Plot starts happening. Oh, God. Again? At Chapter 63. You know, which it is the day of bright carvings and a storm is brewing.

Mm-hmm. And here is where, for the rest of the episode, I'm just going to constantly bring up some of the descriptions of clouds and the storm and such, because it's so good. Oh, yeah. And you know me. I do love a cloud and a storm and such. Many faces were turned to the sky where a world of cloud was gathering together in its gloomy continents,

tear behind tier, like the foliage of some fabulous cedar. Yeah. Lovely. Incredible. I love seeing the word fabulous in, like, things like this, like something from the 1950s. The fabulous, not in the context we think of hearing the word in modern day. Yeah, yeah. In the same way, you know, wonderful or awesome is a better example.

Awesome. Yes. To have a different connotation. And Bright Carving's Day, that's come back. Yeah, yeah, we don't get to see as much of it as I wanted, honestly. Yeah, we don't get enough Rock Cod. But I wanted to know the winner. Yeah, I want to know how Rock Cod's doing. I wanted a little check in with him.

Oh, yeah, we didn't see Rock Cod. You're right. But I was thinking there was something nice about having this touch point, this thing that opened and closed the first, what opened the first book, the day of Bright Carvings, being like how we're introduced into the world of Gormengast. There's a line in here. They turn to a tradition as a child turns to its mother.

And then, for the reader, it's something familiar as well. We're also getting this, of little comfort of we know what this is, we remember this. Yeah. Here's something we know. We're also turning to tradition. Yeah, definitely. I like ricochained back slightly to the weather, how well Mavent Peak described, like,

the saturation of colour, and, you know, the kind of delight you get pre-storm. Yeah. Yeah. Everything about it. And the heavy, heavy heat hanging in the air and that pre-summer storm feeling, the way the air is, it feels charged. Yeah, good stuff. It is good stuff.

And chapters 64, in which the child steals the raven carving and a delighted Titus runs. Yeah, and so here we got the, just this moment, which is described, you know, explicitly as more of a dishonour to the castle than the actual murders and things. Yeah, because this is a breaking of the tradition. How dare it. Like a real big tradition. The first tradition we heard about in the trilogy. Yeah, this is the centre of Gormongarten.

This is the entire purpose of the bright carver, the outer dwellers being. Yeah. This is this huge sacrilege. It's amazing. And the fact that one of them being saved, you know, Types has been there cursing the waste that's about to happen. But one of them being saved, which you might think would please in some way the carver of it or something is just horrible to everybody involved. But of course they must be burnt. Yes. my beautiful work must be burnt

I did not win therefore it must be burnt another really good cloud description here the light of the bonfire was reflected on the bulging clouds that hung above it like the ghostly bolsters of some belldom's bed lovely excellent there's another description where I should have looked up whether there was a different definition of a rebel like himself who gloried in it

of a rebel like a lyric in Green Flight and I wondered here if a lyric sounds almost here like a lyric as a bird or something, doesn't it? Probably just like a piece of poetry. But it is a beautiful description. There's also an interesting moment for Titus here where a seditious fear that he was in reality

of no consequence came over him. Gorman Gast was of no consequence, and to be an Earl and the son of Sepulcray, a direct descendant of the bloodline, was something of only local interest and the idea was appalling. It's sort of his first remembering that, like, he's craved a break from this. He wants it all burned down, but it's the

first time it's occurred to him, what would be outside of it? Yeah. And because there is a nice world. He wouldn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. And for someone... He doesn't like being singular, but at the same time, he's never known anything else. Yeah. And he, it's almost impossible for him to fathom not being important because he's his entire, he is raised as, as the importance of the castle. Yeah. Anyway, I thought that was interesting. It is interesting. Chapter 65, in which Titus is in the woods seeking the girl, the thing, the child. Yeah. And in fact, this is where the Rebellin, lyric in Green Flight came from. I'd mislabeled that. It's a good lie, no, either way.

It's good lie. And this is him, he's not really chasing this physical being as much as he's chasing this fantasy of dreaming trees, of moths, of golden acorns and a sprig in flight. Yeah. Yeah, this memory of being seven or whatever, he was seven, yeah. Yeah. And the fact that that had stuck with him in a way that he could, and I know he'd started to think of it as a dream until he saw her again, but the fact that it could be recalled. Yes. I suppose it's just this, yeah, it was such a different moment in his line up of memories that it. Yeah.

The only one in saturation pretty much for a little while there. And this is his confirmation that it is something physical and real and now he can chase it and attempt to lay hands on it, which also does get a bit weird. a couple of chapters. Chapter 66, in which Titus is lonely in the rain, but he finds Flay's cave and has a nap. Another, got to throw in another good cloud description here, the clowns yawned like hippopotamai. Yes.

Deep holes or funnels, opening and closing mouth like canel here and now there. Another very good line. The fact that it's the first of the great rain came is a very efficient way of saying, we're going to have quite a lot of rain here, boys. It's going to be damp. It's going to be very damp.

And here we get an underlining twice in red pen of Titus's thoughts of being small. As he sat there alone, his knees drawn up to his chin, his arms clasping his legs. How small a thing beneath those continents of gushing cloud. Yes. And then you get the panning out and you can see that very clearly of this little, you know, 17-year-old, It's not a boy. Yep. Who is just so, and lonely.

He says lonely, not for his home, but lonely in the knowledge of his inward isolation. Yeah. Because he has rendered himself more lonely by so actively defying in a way he hasn't before. This is the most he has ever defied. Yeah. Him lying down under the arched arms of a great fern, by the way.

I can't remember if this is exactly what Cader managed to have a nice nap under when she first found that. By the way, almost forgotten in my head now, the old man's cave where she rest in... Oh yeah. What was all that about? Oh, God, I don't remember. That was last year.

It's another book. Is this connected? Sure. Right, I just remembering napping under a fern and drawing a tenuous line between the two. I mean, this is... Do I just want to have a nap in a cave? Yeah, probably. I'd love to have a nap in a cave.

It doesn't have to be a big cave where I can see the entrance. I get a bit close, pretty bit. But yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Also, I'm scared of spiders. So actually, maybe let's not nap in caves. No, okay, well, fine. Yeah.

To the silly place. We'll find a fern somewhere nice in the open. Yes, yes. There's nap among the open ferns. And Titus is thinking of his pursuit as something like love. He has decided it's not, he doesn't love her because she's beautiful, but because her arrogance, the wicked swagger and the effrontery, makes him love her or think he loves her.

And another lovely little description of her, this elastic switch of a girl. Yes. And then chapter 67 in which Titus stirs in the cave and the girl arrives. And this is a brief little interstitial chapter, but with another very good storm description this time, the next flash of lightning skinned the landscape ripping off its black hide, so that there was no part of its anatomy that was not exposed to the floodlight. I like as a writing device, the idea of lots of animals who would otherwise be at each other as a threat,

throat being in one place peacefully because to kind of highlight the biblical proportions of what's happening. Yes. And so in this case, the thunderstorm in a practical example would be when Granny's cottage, they all surround it to tell her something's wrong. Yes, even though they would normally be fighting with each other. Yeah. I like it as a writing device.

And also it makes me think about the animals that were. sound together in the aftermath of some of the great extinction events. And that makes me sound. Cool. Okay. Well, let's not get emotional about extinct animals just yet. We've still got 12 chapters to go. Okay, right.

Yeah. We can do that afterwards for our soon. I've put that in for about 4 o'clock. But the flash of lightning skin to the landscape, ripping its black hide off it. Lovely. Yes. Great, right? Chapter 68, then.

This is like 10 chapters of storm description. Yeah, no, it is. Most of my notes are just called the storm description. God, I love storms. Storms are so cool. Chapter 68, in which Titus and the child are in the cave unable to communicate, and the future arrives to see the child struck by lightning before her infatitis make their way back to a flooded castle.

Can I have a brief storm tangent? Yes. When I drove back from Shropshire last, there was a storm either ahead of me or to the side of me for almost the entire journey, and it was just like this wall of black cloud, could see even the lightning in it, but it wasn't raining on me. And there were just these most vivid rainbows I've ever seen everywhere and also appearing in the spray coming off the vehicles in front of me. Incredible. And I was very tired. And this was so beautiful. I decided,

despite that, I had to stop at services for quite some time until I was not so tired because I was like, this is a mixture, very engaging. And I might be having a stroke. And I might be having a stroke. I'm not safe to drive. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah, very surreal drives it. Yeah, it sounds amazing. Anyway, sorry.

Yeah, so this is quite a big chapter. Yeah, another one of these ones where I'm like, wait, what? Scroll back, scroll back. Action. And yeah, I don't really know what to say about the weirdness of Titus, suddenly very physically being interested in the girl. Yeah. It's well written.

It's very well written. It's also weird to read. It is well written. And I look a little uncomfortable. It shows, I think, what Titus might assume is, again, yeah, romance, because he thinks of it as a romantic thing. He does.

Somebody who's never had any kind of instruction in any social matter like this. Yeah. Somebody who thinks of himself apart in quite a dangerous way and thinks of himself superior in a dangerous way. seems to think that this is romance rather than an assault, even though the girl clearly does not want any part of it, can't communicate with him.

Yeah. There's things that he learned to crush and master them, and he was angry. Yeah. I think the hardest bit for me is we see the child's death. And she'll be second to realize she had died. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And Titus doesn't grieve her.

He's filled with ecstasy. He had no sense of losing her, only the blind and vaunting pride that he had held her in his arms, that naked creature that was now crying again derisively in a language of her own. Yeah. I think that's even harder to read. She dies and he is glad he knew her rather than sad she has gone. I think this might be a slightly more understandable moment in the enormity of it takes a little while to develop because he does grief her later. That is true. That is very true. But, oh God, the description's in here again. for God's sake, I mean, her head thrown back to catch the stream of translucent rain.

That split second of time, she was something cut out of black paper, her head meticulous and contour, the mouth wide open as though to drink the sky. Like, bloody hell. Oh, and also in this chapter, I think it was worth mentioning that how apart she is from everything and that she went to all this trouble to the point of tearing apart one of the most integral rituals of Gormengarde like jumping and grabbing this toy that she wanted and like it doesn't stand up

so she just kicks it into the corner of the cave like yeah she's impetuous and doesn't and part of it is obviously she's like weirdly impetuous because she went to such trouble to get this thing but then at the same time it's like just kind of shows you how

little she doesn't know what she what ritual she was interrupting really like yeah she had no idea she knew it was important and she wanted that and she didn't care as well we get some of the descriptions in the last chapter and this is one of her suddenly seeming

just very human in a way he'd not thought he thought of her as this the lyric in Green Flight and then suddenly she is there squatting like an animal and scratching her thigh it's a very teenage boy thing again isn't it, it's the stereotypical like oh these women I've been lasting after

on the posters on my wall are mammals do you have hair on their legs and yeah and yeah so that is that is the end of the girl the future then turns up and her favourite being for tight to safety she'd risked her neck for him and hoped he'd be proud of her

and then instead she finds him with the thing and she's so proud she's never going to ask him about it she's basically going to pretend it never happened and they're going to go back to the castle if he didn't tell her she doesn't want to know yeah and again I feel very much for future in that Yeah. And then when we do get back to the castle

and the tunnel is starting, the tunnel that they use, Flaze tunnel, is starting to flood. And by the time they get there, there are piles of books and furniture, hangings and crockery, crate on crate of smaller objects and carpets and swords so the landing was like a great warehouse or emporium

and this is the first idea we get. The castle is starting to flood and things are moving up. Yeah, I've got to say, with these waters rising, incredibly stupid decision to take the tunnel. Mm-hmm. don't go through a tunnel while water's rising.

That worked out okay this time, I suppose. But I was very stressed reading it. You know how I feel about the idea of being underwater and also in a cave. Oh, can I have a tenuous, we're going to blow this thing wide open moment. Yes. The fish of Gorman Gassd River swam out in every direction and could be seen steering through the castle's lowest windows. That's the next chapter.

Oh, is it? Yeah. Fine. Because I had that quote noticed down as well. Chapter 69, the castle continues to flood. Everyone's moving up, and the counters has taken charge. And yes, the fish steering in and out of the windows. Is this connecting to then to someone else steering in and out of a window in a boat a bit later?

Yes, and the counter saying about the pie underneath water. Yes. And that same little bit of description has the thunder continuous and the lightning went on and off as though a child were playing with a switch. Yes. It's great. This is a man who has watched many a storm. Yeah.

I also, I like, we are in the carvers first. We see the flooding of Gorman guys cast through their eyes and how they are coping with it before we kind of pan out into the bigger castle. Yeah. Which is a nice link from the previous chapters and the bright carvings into this. Yeah.

Yeah. I noted down before we got to, explicitly saying it was the Countess, who was organising all this, that I liked how organised and competent they were being. Yes. We're both like reading about logistics happening well. I really enjoyed reading about the logistics and the idea of driving cows up into higher and higher levels of the castle.

And the carthers deciding to start carving boats so they need access to wood so they're crawling around, going on excursions to work out which ceiling beams are ornate and decorative and which are actually load bearing. Yeah, yeah. Steering bits of floorboard. So tapping on it. Did you write down a good cloud description in this one? I didn't actually, if you've got one. Yeah, with every day that passed, the sky seemed thicker and fowler in the sagging horror of its black and glutted belly. Beautiful.

Horrific. And yeah, now we get the Countess's brain, yawning, stretching itself. Now fully awake. And I love this image as well seated with a great map of the Central District of Gormongost. You knew there was a map, by the way. Yeah. Oh, do we never see? It must have been flooded.

plays map. Oh yeah, of course. That's a shame. How are you things like that? He just describes in such detail and then they're like gone. Anyway, that's gone. Yeah. Coordinating the multifarious activities of salvage and resettlement, giving her subjects no time to think of the peril, only of their immediate duties. And it's just one of I like the idea of her as the centre of this web directing everything and suddenly being very aggressively competent alongside logistics that's something else I really enjoy. Yeah. And interesting that, What's driven this is at least in a large part wanting to get steer pike. Yes.

This is sort of... Like, as a side effect, we're going to save the population of this castle. Yes. I mean, because she was already organising that hunt, and now she gets to combine the two things. And the idea of him being driven up as well and how... Somehow going into the closer quarters makes the fact that he is definitely present. Really creepy.

Tell me, gentlemen, can traitors live in air and feed on it? Can they chew the cloud or swallow the thunder? or fill their bellies with lightning? The same pride, interestingly, in the last tractor, or seemed to. Didn't work, though, did it? No, well, no. But the idea he can't be forced out for thirst, because the one thing he definitely has an abundance of access to now is water.

Yeah. Oh, in fact, it is in the same chapter that she goes, or they can live beneath the surface of the water, like the pike I see below me in the darkness. Yeah. Yes. A pike a good moat fish, they must be. If I think of moat, I suppose Pike would be the correct thing to be in it.

Yeah, I think Pike would be a good moat fish. They're riverfish, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. And that's the extent of my pissine knowledge. Yes. I've never tried to say that word about. June in next week, or vague facts about fish, maybe.

Trout are also a fish. Hmm. I believe you live in rivers. Trout would make a good moat fish, actually. Yeah, yeah, probably. I do like trout. Anyway, chapter 70. Listeners who have moats, please tell us the best

fish. Titus returns from the forest and speaks to his mother. This is another very short little chapter. I like that she just does not fucking believe him. She's not willing to have the conversation about it. It's not really time for that, but she does not believe him for a second. Which, interesting really, because it does underline what she wants to know. How's I?

Wait, no, sorry, tell me again. Which? Chapter 70s. Titus goes to his mother and she's sort of asking what happened, has he seen future, and why he left. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So what she wants is for it to be like a mental illness. Yes.

And not a traitor. Yes, very much so. Yeah. So whereas later on she's willing, when her brain's shutting down again, she's willing to be like, yeah, no, it's probably just he didn't mean it. Whereas here, she's like, right. Sure, mate. Very universal feeling as well of being in trouble and not willing to admit to anything. Mm-hmm.

But at least TNPT show was sensible enough to get their story straight. Yes, well done then. Occasionally we do get a bit of brains amongst the grown family. Your oblivion was ill-timed. You may go now. And it's chapter 21 in which Titus takes out his new canoe to explore the floodlands. Mm. Which is lovely. a new biome somehow.

Yes. I was very much thinking like video game water level while reading a lot of this which also made me feel quite stressed because no one likes the water level in video games. They always stress me out.

Oh really? Yeah. I was a 2-rader 2. I was really bad at the controls while swimming because you're adding in an extra access and I drowned so many times. Yeah. It's a bit easier nowadays.

Yes, that is true. Yes, I understand dimensions a bit better than I did when I was six. also to be fair you're right i hate the ones where you like might drown because yeah yeah timed water specifically and that like hits something claustrophobic for me which he seems to make for himself by trying to go into that rapidly flooding room yeah yeah um probably my favorite bit of description for the whole book is here um great islands of sheer rock weather pocked with countless windows like caves or the iries of sea eagles archipelagos of towers gaunt-fisted

things with knuckled summits, another town was so broken at their heads as to resemble pulpits high and sinister, black rostrums for the tutelage of evil. It's very, who did it remind me of? Coleridge, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, that poet. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels very, like, romantic poetry, doesn't it? Yeah. Oh.

Yeah, and then just not letting go of the metaphor, because it is the most sensible one of it being like cliffs and bays and yes yeah just rewiring your brain a bit to and that is now how we think of the castle and the way it's all made up and yes we learn that lots of people have ships now obviously titus has his very delightful canoe the countress has a broad and handsome craft designed for oarsman yeah and space for her to sit and steer at the stern it's nice to know that the out the outer lands people are

enjoying themselves slightly carving the votes. And it's another thing I like of little items that get to reflect a character's personality because later we get the sort of raft that the doctor's using and the dugout that the professors are paddling around with them all towards. The comic relief from the depressed professors. Yeah, we do sort of get a little bit of a few vignettes before we then go into the action here. So the next chapter is the precursor to the action. Chapter 72, we're not. which Steer Pike steals Titus's boat.

I mean, not the worst thing he's done in the grand scheme of things. Stupidest thing he's done because he's seen and now Titus knows where Steer Pike is. Yeah, yeah. And has an extra layer of anger. Yes. He loves these boat. It's really good here as well because after Steer Pike runs, after he kills Flay, we don't see him again until here.

He is, Yeah. That's where he becomes the spectre in the castle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we get to have as much knowledge as the inhabitants. Yeah, so they know he's around because they're finding the people with pebbles in their skull from his slingshot, which was another thing that was nicely set up in the first part of the book. And now we jump into his brain again and realized just how mad he's gone.

Yeah, yeah. Slid into the skin of a solitary Satan as though he had never enjoyed the flourish of language or the delights. of civil power. It was war now. And the grisly bloodlight in his eyes. Yes. It's excellent. Yeah, it is. And then we go into our little series of vignettes before we get into the final action.

Chapter 73, the doctor sails by the professors. Yes. The poor doctor. Poor doctor, poor fluke losing his terrible armchair. Fluke brooding on the armchair. I do feel bad for him. Yeah. Perch prism taking command because that's what Perch prism would do.

Yeah. Poor cutflower as well. La. It was a mere shadow of the one vapid but a booliant wag who sat now staring at muley's heavily muscled back. Nobody liked to see a, see an abuliant wag reduced to such depression. No, poor dandy. La, sir. La, I'm comfy here.

I'm comfy where I am, la. La. And I feel for the doctor as well because we haven't had to, before we haven't seen him do a lot of doctoring. He obviously does it when needed. Yeah. And now he is very much full-time creating a disaster hospital. Yeah. And we don't go into a lot of detail about that, which I'm grateful for, because I imagine this kind of logistics with the triage and everything would be pretty grisly. Yeah, I don't want, I don't really want to read it.

I mean, in this case, his patient has simply got a bit of a fracture and just need splinting for a, a while. And then it's a clean fracture of the fibia or whatever it is, is a pretty gnarly break. No, it is a horrible break still. But, you know, he's not, it's very cleanly described as a, okay, done, fixed it. There's no amputation or anything. No, no, goodness me, no. Then chapter 74 in which Amma is bedeviled by the flood, but Belgrave offers comfort.

Yes. And I do, I feel for Irma, who had made things so beautiful in her way. if not in Belgrade's way and has now lost it all. Yes, I did mean to bring that up in a kind of antithesis to your idea of, and my aesthetics, nothing can clash because nothing's strong enough to clash. Yeah, that doesn't really, that's not how we operate. You do it with a bit more deliberateness than I do. Kind of.

More of a natural player, let's say. I felt like two colours I like and they're everywhere and that'll do. the end of this chapter once they've reconciled a little where they're staring at where a piece of plaster had fallen from the opposite wall and left a small grey pattern the shape of heart I thought that was very sweet the little tiny desaturated piddling version of the romance still there

and I do think we do see underlying in this they absolutely drive each other mad but they do care for each other Yeah. And they do still, they literally cling to each other in the storm. Yeah. And I think it's very sweet. And I'm sort of just lingering on this chapter as long as possible

because I don't want to talk about the next one. Yeah, here we go. Chapter 75 in which we lose fuchsia. F5. Oh, it seems too important for an F5. Yeah, that might be an actual F in the chat. Mashed the entire keyboard in disgust and grief. Let's not start a keyboard mashing while we're recording.

No, no, I have to edit it, yeah. Okay. Yes, and it's, this chapter is an ending in the same way that I appreciate Practa for his endings in that they are not fairy tale, they are not neatly wrapped up. Fuchsia, despite deserving it,

does not get the love or the life that she should have had. Richard is a dusky orchard. She'd never been discovered. She'd spread her green boughs, no travellers had come, and her love for others had never been suspected or wanted. I did write calm down

Marvin at the idea of the... But no, but it is very sad and it's very sweet. And this idea that it's sort of an accident as well. She wasn't actually going to do it. And there's real horror to how it's written because it's very slow and it's deliberate

and it's the child in her playing a game and she's climbed to the sill. And she's not going to do it. It's imagination. And then it happens anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, to be fair, Evan essence may have been dangerous for this girl.

That's a good point. Maybe she did need to start with some paramour. Also, I absolutely should not find this funny, but the sentence, the horror of her having been fondled by a homicide is unfortunately quite tickling to me. It is, and as largely because of a homicide as a description of a person no longer exists. Yeah. And fundled is just a great word. It is, unfortunately.

Yeah. It's a horrible idea. but fondled by a homicide has stuck with me as we read this book. Yeah. And this does, I was saying earlier actually that she doesn't play make-believe in the same way. Clearly she does, isn't she? Yeah. She would, and as the child in her was playing the oldest game in the world,

her body following the course of her imagination, they climbed to the sill of the window. Who was knocking on the door? Do we know? No, I don't think we do. I assume servant, messenger. Yeah, whoever it will. Yeah. Yes, because it was discovered that she was drowned pretty quickly, so I imagine.

Well, I imagine they saw and did their best to do something about it, possibly even pulled her out themselves. Yeah. Right. Anyway, I will say at least, again, like Flay, she got a pretty clean death. Yes, she didn't suffer. She drowned while unconscious, having smacked her head on all. Yeah. I mean, obviously she did suffer for like 15 years before that, but in that moment she didn't suffer.

Yeah. Chapter 76, then, in which Titus tells the countess tells the countess, of Steerpike stealing and both of them are informed about Fuchsia. And yeah, again, the countess is very fascinating in this, the way she is taking control. She should have a powerful grasp upon the smallest details as she had upon the comprehensive sweep of her master plan. Yes, yes. Yes, she's a big picture person and a little victim person and she has to be. And I find that very fascinating, just as a part of her personality, that she is able to, to do this.

And she's very gently rocking, like, shaking him by the shoulders. Yes. Like, the maternal instinct stops her from using the murderous strength of her arms, as he notices. Also interesting that she seems to know the proper names and locations of all the places in this dreadful castle. Yeah, she knows the castle very well.

You've been in the north headstones beyond gory and the silver mines. You've been to the twin fingers where little sark begins and the bluff narrows. So she's been pouring over maps as this has all been happening. So if the maps are well-abled, I don't know if this is not as she had already, or if this is something she has built up through her hunt for steer pike and then overseeing the flood and keeping up the hunt for steer pike. And yeah, we have Titus again explaining exactly why he hates steer pike here. He stole my boat, he hurt fuchsia, he killed Flay, he frightened me.

And I don't care if it was rebellion against the stones. Most of all, it was theft, cruelty and murder. Yeah. And he's got a point there. He does have a point there. He sounds childish, but he's right. He sounds childish, but he's right. At the moment at the end of the chapter,

when the countess pulls the sheet up with an infinite gentleness as though she feared her child might feel the cold and so must take the risk of waking her. She could have just tried being a bit more loving while future was alive. Not in an age, yeah. But she's not really built for that, is she?

Sounds out no. But yeah, that made me cry, but... No, that did get me a bit weepy. And now we start getting into the action. Yeah. Chapter 77, Steerpike is brought to bay in the flooded bullroom. This felt very Tomb Raider. It did.

I had it in my brain. The description, a firelit stage of water upon which every eye was turned. And stone sports of the window, where the scarred and ancient as they were, have become things of purest gold. And their reflection, into the black water as though to ignite it.

Yeah. It's an amazing. If you've ever seen like a, well, actually a castle, actually, you see like castles lit up at, I'm thinking very specifically, actually, of a castle in Jersey. It's Elizabeth's castle, you get it all lit up at nighttime and seeing the reflection. It is very. Yeah. It's an amazing.

Striking. Yeah. And yeah, in this case, obviously, there's the additional fear of steerpile. like hating fire. Yes, and being effectively surrounded by it now. Titus is going through it as well, and he is physically kind of wrecked, just getting back from where he was.

And then being taken, the chair, like the same chair they used on his 10th birthday, him remembering that that existed, then pulling it out. Yeah. Kind of getting carried on this adventure on a chair with some bread and some razors with you and some brandy. It sounds kind of fun.

It does, yeah. I'd quite like a go. I understand it's flooded, but this kind of was the case even before the flood. It is interesting that this place that they all live, like their home, is still described as this like hostile, immapable landscape. Yes. I just have to remember every now and then that the journey they're taking, the very Lord of the Rings kind of march across the landscape, is their house. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only place he has ever known.

Yeah. And yet it's still kind of weird and unknowable. And it's also now become somewhere else because of the flood. It's become a completely different world. And you get a great moment with Titus as well, where he starts wrestling with the temptation of power and authority. He tells someone to shut up, and then he sort of, oh, oh, it feels quite nice to tell someone what to do.

Yeah, yeah. The heady wine of autocracy tasted sweet upon his tongue. What great line. Yeah, that sounds like it could come from Vennari. isn't it? Yes, it does. The soup of the afternoon. The heady wine of autocracy tastes sweet upon the tongue, drumnot, sweet but dangerous. Where the naked cry of freedom would become faint, this idea of, oh, it's not just, oh, I could start being a dick, and that's risky and tempting, but also, oh, if I start enjoying power, then I'll stop pursuing

freedom. Yeah, definitely. Because I'll start embracing the eldom, and I'm trying very hard to rebel against that. I noticed down when he was thinking about why he was so cross about the canoe and like he didn't realize yet it was because it was kind of the thing yes it represented everything yeah I did I did know done it's like even without that symbolism though it kind of makes sense to focus on that because it's the least abstract and most graspable crime against him yes he took a boat yeah you took my boat but also like my sister is dead flay is dead you've done all these terrible things against my family

and my lineage or whatever, whatever, whatever, but also my boat. And that's an easy thing to keep in the front of your mind without becoming overwhelmed. Yeah. I mean, because even focusing on fuchsia doesn't quite work because, you know, anyone who thinks about it logically, he could not have physically killed Fuchsia. Obviously, he did kill Fuchsia. She was depressed because of him. It is his fault.

It's entirely at his feet. But they all know if thinking about it for a moment, it's not quite. And then Stierpike's mind in this, he is, he doesn't lose, because he's not someone who hopes in the first place. Yeah, yeah. He kind of, he knows like this can only really end one way. Yeah. It doesn't mean he's not going to keep fighting,

but he's kind of excited that this was no part of the ritual of Gormongars. This is something original. Yeah. Yeah, this very ritualistic looking thing. Yes. Like the glory of the hundreds of boats and the gargoy looking heads at the windows and all this stuff is all for him. Yeah.

Brackets gerometry. On the moment where he does find his little purge, he arranged his hair. He stops to comb his hair in the middle of all this. That made me hate him. I already hated him. That was just another bit for hating him. Yeah, is it this chapter he pulls himself up onto the... This is where he pulls himself up onto the ledge and hangs the canoe.

Yeah, it's very reminiscent of the day he escaped the kitchens, wasn't it, when he had to climb that very sheer wall. And there was all those painful descriptions of him pulling himself up by one finger and yeah and it made me feel just as uncomfortable as it did when I read that yeah well a different reason this time because this time I want him to die this time I do want him to just fall off and drown or die horribly and then we get the big one chapter 78 in which Titus wants in for the kill a volunteer approaches the ballroom as a hole is cut in the ceiling steer pike takes the volunteer's place but the countess spots his hanging canoe and draws a conclusion titus leaps into the

water as the Countess calls for the attack. Titus and Steerpike are embedded in the ivy and finally Titus plunges a knife into the traitor's heart. Yes. Yay. I'll tell you what, as he said before, he can write an action scene on Mervyn. Oh, this is cinematic. There's a line

when the first volunteer has gone into the room. this was the moment, if ever there was one, for an enemy of Gormengars to be caught and slain, now with the eyes of the world focused upon his capture and his punishment, and yet the man had cried only a room full of water. There's a moment where Titus escapes from the people holding him down so that you can't go get a stipe. It escapes by wriggling out of his jacket.

And that reminded me just of a couple of chapters earlier when the thing did the same escaping from him. By climbing out of the shirt she'd stolen. Yeah, but the same kind of he's grasping freedom in that way. Yes, taking off the trapping to dive into this. The actual description of climbing into the ivy, everything about climbing into that very deep, deep ivy was really great. Oh, yeah.

With what remained of his strength, he fought it. He tore at the scales of its throat, pulled himself into it, tore at its ligaments, broke its small waterlogged bones, forced its ribs apart as they strain to return to their ancient curves. He fought his way through them. Coincidentally, yesterday I spent quite a long time clearing ivy from the garden, so. Yeah, I've got a big chunk that needs clearing off the shed and mood, very much mood. I like ivy listeners. I'm not deliberately destroying a patch of biodiversity, but it does encroach somewhat on the entire garden if I don't keep track of it.

I like the little fairy tale corner in which it resides. I can't have it approaching the house, threateningly. Yes. And it is a very threatening thing, is Ivy. There's always something ominous about it. I just need to shout out as well, a much shorter description of the countess, her bosom heaved with a slow sea-like rhythm. Very nice.

Keeping the maritime theme. And she's had the maritime theme long before the castle flooded. Like we said the image of her is this woman who is a ship in full sail, the lady sybleness of her. Yes, yes. And I tell you what, if she was just a bit more lady sybil, I feel like this would have all been cleaned up a lot sooner. Well, yeah, a bit of empathy.

Yeah. Bit of empathy, fostering communication. Exactly. Might have sorted out sepulgrave. Maybe not. I'm not sure there was much hope for sepulgrave. Yeah, no. The repeating motif of...

the countess against a window with the red hair as well I love. And it's in the paragraph I noted here is my favorite bit, description, in a very descriptive chapter. Perhaps it was all a delusion. The heads at a thousand windows. The boats tossing like gold beetles at the foot of the midnight heights. The flooded window that yawned for blood and drama. The upper window where his mother loomed, her red hair smouldering, her face like marble.

There's another great description of her in an early chapter as well, where the doctor looks at it and she's a painting. Yeah, exactly. yeah, it's the same against a broken window, isn't it? Yes. And he's like, oh, I wish I learnt paint. No matter. I'll tell you what, that's why I aspire to.

She should just look really good whenever I stand at a window. Yeah. It seems like a realistic life girl. And she brewed out of windows more. And the moment when she realizes that that Steer Pike has taken the volunteers place, she sees the red and white of his face, had transformed her gloom, her brooding spleen,

her hungry malice, her disappointment, with a sudden overriding vigor of brain and body and her anger felt like a whiplash upon the waters below. Yeah, the anger is kind of a physical entity. You see it with Titus as well when he finds out about Fuchsia. Yes. Not again, a little bit pratchity, isn't it? Just the useful, the utility of anger.

Very much so. And then the kind of mad, the culmination of Steerpike's descent or ascent possibly into madness is when he cannot bring himself to kill his foe in silence and quiet. Yeah, he starts crowing. Spirling his arms, steaming in the cold night, suddenly drop his hands like talons to his breast and tear it open to expose a heart like a black vegetable. A heart like a black vegetable.

I'd forgotten that line. That was amazing. Haven't we all in a moment of passion wished to tear open our chest and expose our heart like a black vegetable. Yes. An arrogant wave had entered him and drowned his brain in black, fantastic water. Oh, fantastic. There's another one like fabulous. Yes. What was left of vigor in his body craved to strut and posture

inside of near drowning, going mad in the ivory, and just knowing death is coming for him, all he can do is crow like a cockerel. Yeah. Again, it's not meant to be funny, but it is quite funny. It is. And you know what? at least he then gets to die dramatically.

Yeah. Because that tiny mad part of his brain is right in that it's not a satisfying ending for such a effective villain to die in quiet and silence. Yes. There's also, I should just point out, the reason they're all coming at him with knives

and no one just shoots him is because he is supposed to die the same way he killed someone. This is one of the rules of Gormengars because he stab someone, he has to die by knife. Yep. Which, if we just had a little bit less of the silly rules, we could have probably just taken him out a little bit. I mean, he does die anyway.

Yeah. But maybe he could have been taken out a little bit faster. Maybe. But I don't know what kind of stage of technology we're on with the guns. I mean, it does say that firearms exist because he acknowledges that. Oh, yeah, but if it's like a musket or something, they are not accurate weapons. Yeah, that's a good point.

That's also a fair point. But still. But still, that's my entire point. Any other thoughts on this chapter before we jump into the end game? Oh, the fact that he wants to die of his own evil in the moonbeams. Yeah, whom'st among us. Whomst among us? I would like to die of my own evil in the moonbeams.

If ever I have to die, that's the only way I'll accept it. Yeah, yeah, in my own evil. I will not go gently into that good night. I will die with my own evil in the moonbeams. Right? Yeah. while crowing like a cockerel. Always.

I assume I'll be doing my very best cockerel expression as I die. It may even be the cause of my death. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. So Titus kills him. Titus kills him. Comes out with a huge scar on his face for his troubles. People think he's dead for a second.

He's not. And he gets probably the closest to get to a real bit of maternal love and pride. Yes. Also, the moment of Titus coming crashing down through the IV was also great. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm falling. Oh well, I'm falling.

Probably going to end up on top of the murderer. Wish me luck, chaps. But yes, and then we move on to his long fever and recovery. Yes. Chapter 79 and the rain has done. The flood's receding, but the castle's kind of fucked. It would be, yeah. Realistic depiction of a building after a flood.

Grimy. So grimy. And this idea that this is now a matter. massive ongoing project for God knows how long. Yeah. And the idea, Gormongast is going to be the cleanest it's ever been, but no one cares. Yeah. Like, cleanliness is not something anyone really worries about for Gormongast.

No, no. God, it's going to be, and if they're trying to stick to the rituals as well, trying to, like, find, I mean, I know he pops off out of here, but if he hadn't done, trying to, like, ship Titus to the right bit of the castle, despite no one living there anymore. I like the idea that the rituals are actually kind of adapt. though, like, because there are versions, you know, for whether it's a stormy day or whether the moat needs to be still. And so they found, right, okay, we don't have a son of Barkantine and the other guy turned out to be a murderer. The poet, fine, the poet can do it.

Yeah. And they'll probably... Bones of it are important. Yeah. As long as we stick to the bones of it, we can probably tweak quite a lot of ritual. Yeah. Yeah, it's like as long as you hit the main points of Macbeth, you can adapt it so it's in a... Set in a kitchen, yeah. Yeah, that's quite a nice thing. actually. And we get more personifying of the castle here. All that happened over the last decade,

all the violence, the intrigue, the passion, the love, the hate and fear, I'd need of rest, and that now with Steerpike dead, the castle was able to close its eyes for a while and enjoy the listlessness of convalescence. Good for the castle, I say.

Good for the castle. Good for the castle. But speaking of convalescence, as soon as Titus starts coming out of his delirium, his mother's like, all right, yeah I don't know how to talk to you now

yeah brain completely shuts down sweet that she's watching him motionless as a mountain well he's in danger but afterwards she's like maternal duty fulfilled

it does say the scar on his face was the pride of his mother as well as his own secret glory so she's proud of him even if she's not greater yeah she is and I think it's said now that she does feel proud of him

she doesn't know how to talk to him yes poor countess I mean, not really poor Countess. It would be nice if she stayed a bit more accurate. Yeah, poor Titus. Yeah, poor Titus. And then our final chapter, Chapter 80,

in the aftermath of everything, Titus leaves Gormongas. Yeah, and right at the beginning, actually, we get another counters having a maternal moment, battling her way to and fro across the dangerous ground to find a place worthy of her daughter's burial. Bury in Fuchsia. I thought that was quite lovely. Road across the flood in the most magnificent of the Carver's boats.

and the doctor didn't get to go because he was busy looking after Titus he means Titus also didn't get to go and that made me a little bit sad more the doctor not being able to go than Titus to be honest I know Titus did really love his sister but I feel if anyone should have been there it should have been Dr Prun Squalor

although I suppose Prune Squalor is sensible enough and separated from ritual enough that he will find his own comfort in visiting the grave himself not having to be part of the pomp but yeah, even so, yes, as her confidante, he should have. It's a shame. A little shout out to Isthmus. Yes, we've got an Isthmus.

I still can't say it, but there is... Islands of every shaped towels can be archipelagos and isthmus and bluffs. Name an isthmus, Gormengarde. Thank you. Carry on. Just a nice little insight into how the poet is handling being the master of ritual. he was forever turning over some fresh and absorbing variant of the problem of ceremony and the human element. Yes, it's lucky that the poet's in charge here, isn't it really? Because he's not as Richard. He's got the creativity of a poet in order to find ways to make ritual work without having to force people into ridiculous.

Silt-filled bits of castle. And I wonder if Titus hadn't already more than had his fill of the whole thing and needed to leave, whether he would have found a slightly happier life. Yeah, I think Titus would have. could have actually handled being under the poet's tyranny a lot better because the poet does seem less tyrannous about it and would probably be open to input

I mean the poet would walk and talk with Sepulcray if he'd probably be willing to actually converse with Titus Yeah yeah It's hard to be tyrannical if you're a poet isn't it Yeah you don't really get tyrannical poets I feel like we're missing something like major There's got to be at least one tyrant The Very Bad Poetry

No you're right you're right You're never a poet first and a tyrant second, are you? No, no, quite. You might be a tyrant who happens to fancy himself a poet, but very rarely do you get a poet who does tyranny in his spare time. Not never, but very rarely. Not never. We have the countess who, as you said, her brain's gone to sleep again.

It's been brought forth like a machine from the darkness set in motion, proved itself to be measured and powerful like the progress of an army on the march, and now it chose to halt. Yeah. I should also say, actually, I really like that Titus makes a point of saying goodbye to the doctor and Belgrove.

Yes. Of the two people, and bows to Irma as well. Yeah. He doesn't do a big goodbye speech or anything, but he does make a point of going and shaking their hands and doing a little bow, and I really like that. Which I think would be a comfort to all of them. Yeah, definitely to the two men

have been his mentors such as they were, but to Irma as well, who can say things like, yes, and the great Titus bowed to me as he left. Yeah. One of only four people he said goodbye to, I believe, and bowed to me. She's going to dine out on that for a long time. Oh, yeah. I think we need to talk about the very ominous countess's response to Titus saying he's leaving. Fantastic way to put a cloud over your son's rebellion, I must say.

You will only tread a circle, Titus groan. There's not a road, not a track, but it's. will lead you home for everything comes to Gormongast. And if this book has taught us anything, it's don't build a castle in a basin. Yeah, everything does come. Yeah, physics. Yeah, physics.

It's like one of those little coin things. Yeah, those charity coins. Yeah, and it spins round around and always goes down that little. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That the coin is Titus grown, maybe. We'll find out in the next book, I guess. And he's going to spin around and probably eventually come back to Gormongast.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a much more ominous way of saying all roads lead to Rome, isn't it? Yeah. Everything comes back to Commonwealthast. There is nowhere else. There is nowhere else. It's a good moment, but it's something's so ominous about it. That line actually had me wanting to go and pick up Titus alone straight away, but I'm going to wait.

I suppose so, yeah. I might. I might not wait. We'll see. We'll see. I've got a couple of other books are very high up there. reading list at the moment. So we'll see if I still have the madness within me in a month, we'll say.

I'm looking at the tower of my TBR that looms threateningly over me. I've got three or four folklore magazines I still haven't read. Do you have any more thoughts? No. I think overall, and it may just be due to more

sleep, I did enjoy the second half of this book a lot more than the first. I enjoyed it a lot more than first. I think it did have more pacey chapters within it also had the long bits of description but I mean, the end of the day, it was just a book that started much more slowly than it ended. Yes. I thought the second half was great. There's the thing, I do like the meandering description and the nonsense of it all. It's just nice to have a bit of action in there as well and some actual plot. Yeah, yeah. I can tell you the plot of the second half of the book. I'm not sure I could tell

you really the plot of the first one. I don't think there was. No, that's why I didn't even bother with the previously on. Yeah. It was a great previously on. That brings us full circle. I think that's everything we're going to say mostly about... Oh, no, Francine, do you have an obscure reference finial for me? Shit, yeah, sort of. When they're talking about... When Flay is leading the way and they're having to follow him

when they're chasing Stierpike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, I had it open. I had it open. Help me. There's nothing I can do, Francine. Do you know what? No, I'm going to say I don't have an obscure reference finial. You just cut out this whole conversation

It's fine Yes Blazing a trail Sorry blazing a trail In this context Yes Comes probably from originally A 1600's borrowing of Germanic

Which meant Blassey Which is like white or pale on animals So going back to the pie vault In the horse Blaze like on an animal Like a horse has a blaze on its head right? Yeah If it's a white thing

Yeah. That is then mirrored in making a spot on trees by tipping off a piece of bark, and that makes like a white. That's like a surveyors mark. And then in this case, the demeaning follows on and making a white mark that you can easily follow. So trailblazing is literally like making blases. Making white marks on things. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. That's very cool. Thank you. I'm glad I found that. I have about five tabs open. Right. I think there's everything we're going to say about Gwamagast for now. I'm probably going to say a lot more privately, but that's not for you to know, dear listeners. Nor even for me to know. I'm just going to say it to myself. Just going to lock herself in a dark room and say it.

We'll be back next month on the glorious 25th of May. We've got a fun episode coming. We're going to be pitching some imaginary adaptation slates. More on that to come. Until then, of course, dear listeners, you can join our Discord. There's a link down below. You can follow us on Instagram with the Truchamp, on Blue Sky at Makey Fret pod. On Facebook at the Tricham, Make You Frette. Join our subred. R-S-T-S-M-Y-F. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks,

albatrosses, ravens, sparrows, any other frozen birds, The Trush-Makey Freck Potter at gmail.com and if you want to support us financially, go to patreon.com forward to slash the truth show, make you fret, where you can exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense.

And until next time, dear listener, Titus rode out of his world. Lovely. We did it. We did. Yeah, so it's not going to get much of an edit, obviously.

Yeah. Because it's 25th 4. I'm sorry, you have to do such a crue town around. Oh, no, I'm not. It's not my fault. Yeah. All right, you don't need to be glad about it. No, I'm not.

I'm completely ambivalent. Right. I'll let you go. See you soon. Love, love. Bye.