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{{work|wppage=Men at Arms}}
{{Infobox book
| title = Men at Arms
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}}
Within the week, Sam Vimes will marry Lady Sybil and retire from the Watch. At the same time, the Watch has been forced to take on three new constables from ethnic minorities - Cuddy the dwarf, Detritus the troll, and Angua the w- (oman)? Meanwhile, a penniless noble and retired assassin, Edward [[Meaningful Name|d'Eath]], spots Corporal Carrot around the city and deduces that he is the true heir to Ankh-Morpork's vacant throne. After failing to convince other nobles that they should work to restore the kingdom, d'Eath achieves full marks at the postgraduate course at the Assassins' Guild and finds a reference to a certain banned weapon...
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{{tropelist|page=Men at Arms}}
* [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]
* [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]: Big Fido is an obvious dog analogue of [[Adolf Hitler]] being {{spoiler|a small nervous poodle}} who nonetheless rants about the Natural Superiority of the Canine Race and how all dogs are spiritually wolves (just as Hitler was short and dark but presented tall blond Aryans as being the superior German race).▼
** Angua, who has run with wolf packs, is amazed at how ''off'' his idea of wolves is. It's basically just a collection of traits that humans don't want to acknowledge in themselves (and wolves lack altogether).▼
* [[All the Myriad Ways]]: "In a million universes, this was a very short book."
* [[Aluminium Christmas Trees]]: The highly flammable nitrocellulose billiard balls? ''Those actually existed.''
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* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Carrot and the [[Just Between You and Me]] example.
** Also the first book to insinuate that there may be just a little something more to Carrot's personality than meets the eye.
* [[
* [[Black Shirt]]: the Day Watch.
* [[Bluffing the Murderer]]
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* [[Bothering by the Book]]: Carrot's talent for this first begins to be really apparent here, as well as his way with [[Exact Words]].
* [[Breast Plate]]: Angua ''doesn't'' have one, and won't until someone takes one to the armourer and has him beat it out really well ''here'' and ''here''.
* [[Brick Joke]]: Probably one of the most extreme ever written. There's a brief aside near the beginning of the book where Vimes and Carrot look at the disused Post Office building and its sign reading "NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT..." (a parody of the motto on the US Postal Service building in New York). In its place, this seems to be just a typical joke about bad mediaeval spelling on the Discworld, but a full ''eleven years later'', Terry Pratchett wrote ''[[
** That ''tiny'' little thing about "cohorts", as it was Moist von Lipwig who mentioned that he used to think it was a piece of armor, and would imagine people polishing them... like the Watch did near the end.
** See [[Prophecy Twist]] below for an single-book example.
** The story of Fingers-Mazda stealing fire from the gods, here a one-off footnote joke, forms the basis of the plot of ''[[
** This is also the first mention of Koom Valley, which becomes a major plot point in ''[[Thud
* [[Bucket Booby Trap]]: at the Fools' Guild.
* [[Call Back]]: The Librarian wanting to be a {{spoiler|Best Man at a wedding}}, seeing as he'd [[
** Detritus recruits two trolls named Flint and Moraine to the Watch. Could be the same two from ''Moving Pictures'', though "Flint" changed his name a couple of times in that book.
* [[Character Development]]: Compare Vimes and Carrot here to how they appear in ''Guards! Guards!'' Right from his first appearance in the book Carrot has significantly more depth than he did in his first appearance.
* [[Characterization Marches On]]: Lord Rust here is shown as one of the more cynical and intelligent of Ankh-Morpork's nobles. In ''[[
** Possibly justified in that here, he is interacting with his fellow nobles, which allows him to come across as clever, and even kind of likeable in how he treats Edward d'Eath. When interacting with commoners, on the other hand...
** Another theory is that this Lord Rust is the father of Jingo's Lord Rust.
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* [[Magnetic Hero]]: Very subtly played out with Carrot, and part of what attracts Angua to him.
** It also gets [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] a bit too, in that Carrot doesn't really ''like'' the idea of people following his lead simply because it's ''him''.
* [[Medieval Stasis]]: Like ''[[
** The actual gonne even remains, despite [[Reset Button]], in the form of the "spring-gonne" crossbow.
* [[Metasyntactic Variable]]: Employed and then identified by name by Gaspode at one point:
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* [[Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate]]: Dr. Cruces head of the Assassin's Guild {{spoiler|and user of the gonne}} and the terrifying head of the Fools' Guild, Dr. Whiteface.
* [[My Significance Sense Is Tingling]]: {{spoiler|Werewolf!}}Angua can tell immediately when Carrot's been hurt, even if she's halfway across the city.
▲* [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]: Big Fido is an obvious dog analogue of [[Adolf Hitler]] being {{spoiler|a small nervous poodle}} who nonetheless rants about the Natural Superiority of the Canine Race and how all dogs are spiritually wolves (just as Hitler was short and dark but presented tall blond Aryans as being the superior German race).
▲** Angua, who has run with wolf packs, is amazed at how ''off'' his idea of wolves is. It's basically just a collection of traits that humans don't want to acknowledge in themselves (and wolves lack altogether).
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Uncharacteristically, Vetinari's attempt to manipulate Vimes into solving the murders backfires to a nearly catastrophic degree as he actually drives Vimes over the edge into genuine retirement.
* [[No Indoor Voice]]: SILAS! CUMBERBATCH!
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** A few pages later, a minor character is said to have died when an anteater fell on his head, so perhaps the same incident happened to Carrot in the other timeline.
* [[Not So Omniscient After All]]: When Vetinari is shot. Vimes' inner monologue says that he feels as though the very fabric of history is breaking up from being confronted with the invincible [[Magnificent Bastard]] bleeding at his feet.
** Vetinari ''seems'' to be considerably off his game throughout this story. Whether he actually is or not is never directly specified, though tantalising inferences {{spoiler|can be made by reading ''[[
* [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]]
* [[Offhand Backhand]]
* [[Off the Wagon]]: Still early in his resolution to become teetotaler (made at Sybil's insistence), poor Vimes falls prey to temptation in the face of his impending retirement.
* [[Oh Crap]]: When Detritus recovers from his [[Heroic BSOD]], he gets up and proceeds to the Assassin's Guild with bloody murder in mind. It is then we learn that some of the best trained killers in Anhk-Morpork have absolutely no way of dealing with a Troll... and ''they'' learn it too.
** Specifically, they have no way to fight a troll head-on. An assassin in ''[[
*** [[Fridge Brilliance]]: ''Soul Music'' happens after the events of ''Men at Arms''. The assassins probably figured out the back-of-the-neck thing because the Detritus made them realise how helpless they were against Trolls.
** When Colon orders two other Trolls to try and stop Detritus, they request time off to go to their grandmother's funerals. As one put it, "It her or me sir."
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** Meta example: the reader is led to believe that Vimes objects to Angua joining the watch because she's a woman. {{spoiler|It's really because she's a werewolf.}}
* [[Prophecy Twist]]: Nobby and Colon are discussing [[Royal Blood]] prophecies such as the king being able to pull a sword from a stone. Colon argues that being able to shove a sword ''into'' a stone is a more impressive feat. {{spoiler|Then at the end, Carrot stabs his sword through Cruces as he has his back to a stone pillar, and when he withdraws it there's a perfect rectangular slot all the way through...}}
** "A man would have to be a fool to break into the Assassins' Guild," he said. (Itself a re-use or [[Call Back]] to the same [[Prophecy Twist]] from ''[[
* [[Putting on My Thinking Cap]]: Justified with Detritus' hat, which has a fan in it to keep his brain cool.
* [[Repeat After Me]]: The Watchmen's Oath. Good lord, ''the Watchmen's Oath''.
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* [[Sword Over Head]]
* [[Tap on the Head]]: Subverted. {{spoiler|It accidentally kills someone}}.
* [[Throw the Book At Them]]: ''[[Doorstopper|How To Kille Insects]]''
* [[Thwarted Coup De Grace]]: {{spoiler|Vimes with Cruces}}.
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* [[Wham! Line]]: In the narrative:
{{quote|Lord Vetinari stood up as he saw the Watch running towards him. That was why the first shot went through his thigh, instead of his chest.
Then Carrot cleared the door of the carriage and flung himself across the man, which is why the next shot went through Carrot. }}
** And of course Carrot's "Personal isn't the same as important".
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** When he first hears it he says it's true. Why, he himself has saved more than seventy-eight dollars!
{{reflist}}▼
{{Discworld novels}}
{{The Big Read}}
▲{{reflist}}
▲[[Category:{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]
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