Monstrous Regiment/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Jackrum's grand entrance: "His face was red, but his jacket was redder, and his sergeant's sash was a pure quill of redness, its very essence. The red of dying stars, and dying soldiers."
  • Shortly afterwards, from the Duchess: "You must Invade Borogravia! In the name of sanity, you must go home! The Winter is coming, the trusting animals are not fed, old men die of cold, women mourn, the country corrodes... you believed I watched over you, and listened to you ...and so I had to, I had to listen to you, knowing there was no help." The entire speech qualifies, but those are the highlights.
  • The bit where Polly is speculating about how Wazzer's religious mania got started. I don't remember the exact wording, but she imagines Wazzer being hideously abused at the Girl's Working School... "And then, one day, you'd look up at a painting of the Duchess, and see the only smile you ever saw..."
    • Specifically, there's the part when Polly asks Wazzer what she used to do, and Wazzer replies, almost serenely, "I used to be beaten". Poor girl.
  • Tonker and Lofty have a bit of this as well.
    • A bit? Did you read Lofty's backstory? Just thinking about it makes you tear up...
  • Someone found Paul a box of colored chalks. You will cry.