Monstrous Regiment: Difference between revisions

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The'''''Monstrous Regiment''''', the 28th ''[[Discworld]]'' book, andis one of the few recentlate-franchise ''Discworld'' books not to center around one of the major character sets (The Watch, Death, Rincewind, or the Witches), though William de Worde from ''[[Discworld/The Truth|The Truth]]'' and Sam Vimes make a few appearances.

'''Spoiler Alert:''' There is one slowly-building twist that it is all but impossible not to reveal in a discussion about this book, so read on at your peril: {{spoiler|Polly comes to learn that she's not the only fighting "man" in her squad with something to hide...}} Mind you, is it fair to call this a spoiler when [[Genius Bonus|it's mentioned in the book's title]]?

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* [[Auto Cannibalism]]: Discussed.:

* [[Chekhov's Armory]]: The first scene with Vimes lays out a batch of [[Chekhov's Gun|Chekhovs Guns]]s that fire around the climax of the book.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: Vimes was mistaken by Polly as a lowly sergeant from Ankh-Morpork. He was a Sergeant(-at-arms) [[Discworld/Night Watch (Discworld)|thirty years ago.]]

** The "helicopters" conjured up by Maladict's coffee-jonesing hallucinations keep aloft using air-screws rather than rotors, as conceived {{spoiler|and eventually used to paint a ceiling}} by Leonard of Quirm in ''[[Discworld/The Last Hero|The Last Hero]]''.

* [[Ensign Newbie]]: Lieutenant Blouse. Plays the trope straight most of the time, but he does get one subversive moment when - in the face of Jackrum's protests - he uses what he learned while stuck in his desk job to intercept and interpret the Zlobenians' light signals. He's also very good at his ''original'' job as a clerk - he's only in field command [[You Are in Command Now|because so many other officers have been lost]]. He's quite intelligent and a fast learner - he infiltrates an enemy compound as a woman (when the ''actual women'' isin his squad couldn't), learns how to use a Zlobenian mobile clacks in five minutes, invents [[wikipedia:Run-length encoding|run-length encoding]] and avoids an enemy patrol by pretending to be their lookout and flat-out lying to them. He's just not good at ''fighting''.

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: One pupeteerpuppeteer gets run out of town because the puppet was beating his wife with a stick with a thickness greater than one inch, a standard found in the book of Nuggan.

* [[Flock of Wolves]]: The entire squad {{spoiler|and apparently, nearly a third of the Borogravian army (or at least a third of the top brass)}} is composed of women disguised as men.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: There ''are'' hints early in the book about {{spoiler|Sergeant Jackrum's real/birth sex,}} but it takes most people a few re-reads plus advance knowledge of the spoiler to notice them. The biggest one is Jackrum's reason for getting stuck on recruiting party despite his in-universe [[Memetic Badass]] status: he got his leg sliced open, then ''bit'' the doctor who tried to treat him, and tended to the injury personally, allowing Froc to slap him with recruiting duty as a "reward" while he was laid up. While it's easy to pass off as a throwaway gag to enhance Jackrum's [[Badass]] status, it becomes foreshadowing when you realize that {{spoiler|to treat his leg, the (presumably male) doctor would have either had to take Jackrum's pants off, or at least get close enough to notice that there were one or two things either missing or sock-enhanced. No wonder Jackrum bit him and did the work himself!}}

** If you've read ''[[Discworld/Thud|Thud!]]'' before this book, then the Reveal about {{spoiler|Mal's gender}} is hinted at by the fact that {{spoiler|the vampire never changes shape once, even when it'd be tactically useful for scouting purposes. Two novels later, we learn that female vampires wind up ''naked'' if they change into bats, then return to human form; therefore, Mal didn't dare use this power without exposing her sex and getting in trouble for losing her uniform.}}

* [[Gods Need Prayer Badly]]: What nearly happened to Om in ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'' apparently happened to Nuggan; people stopped worshipping the god and started fearing the Abominations and worshipping the Duchess instead, and Nuggan faded in power and was finally [[Discworld/The Last Hero|murdered by one of his own irate worshippers]].

** Alternately, the bard's saga about [[Discworld/The Last Hero|Cohen and the Horde]] might've revealed the truth that Nuggan was a fussy, annoying, undeserving little git, thereby discrediting him as a god everywhere that people still prayed to him instead of the Duchess. More than one way to use a lute as a weapon....

** It's actually mentioned that Nuggan is alive and well in other parts of the Disc, he's just an incredibly minor god, about on the level of [[Discworld/Going Postal (Discworld)|pre-Moist Anoia]], and in a way her opposite number (he's the god of paper clips and things being in their proper place).

** Those mentions were from ''[[Discworld/The Last Hero|The Last Hero]]'', which pre-datespredates '''''Monstrous Regiment'''''. It's implied that Nuggan died at some point between the two books, and ''Hero'' even foreshadows this event when Offler ponders how Nuggan's strategy for attracting followers doesn't seem very good for the long term.

* [[Reality Warper]]: [[Discworld/The Truth|Otto Chriek]] warns Polly that a Vampire going '[[Going Cold Turkey|Cold Bat]]' hallucinates so badly that ''other people'' see them. Once Maladict starts [[Vietnam War|muttering about 'Charlie']] the forest starts looking greener, and Polly keeps hearing distant rotor blades.

* [[Truth in Television]]: (This is a [[Too Much Information|''way'' too much information]] [[Schmuck Bait|spoiler-marking]]) {{spoiler|As part of her disguise, Polly has practiced peeing standing up, and is very proud of herself for having "kept her feet dry." Female-to-male[[Transgender]] transexualsmales can tell you that this is a very legitimate and shared pride.}}

[[Category:{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}Discworld]]