Monstrous Regiment: Difference between revisions

Line 32:

* [[Ax Crazy]]: Tonker will slice you open if you touch Lofty, Lofty {{spoiler|will torch the world if it does something she doesn't like}}, and Wazzer will try to take on someone 3 times her size if they bad-mouth the Duchess. The results are not pretty.

** It's ''not'' tearing their heads off that doesn't come easily to [[Our Vampires Are Different|Mal]].

⚫

* [[Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work]]: Repeatedly, Polly and the rest are saved from having to actually kill someone. First by Jackrum, then the other Borogravian soldiers.

* [[Badass]]: Very nearly landing three hits on Sergeant Jackrum in a bar brawl is something to be proud of.

* [[Balls of Steel]]: Polly is bitten in the crotch by a horse when disguised as a man, and only the [[Share the Male Pain|horrified reaction of a male onlooker]] makes her realize she should be bent double in agony.

Line 38:

Line 39:

* [[Becoming the Mask]]: see that page.

* [[Berserk Button]]: Never, ever, ''ever'' go after Tonker's girlfriend. Or insult the Duchess where Wazzer can hear you. Or interfere with Mal's coffee.

⚫

* [[~~Big~~ ~~Damn~~ ~~Villains~~]]: Repeatedly, Polly and the rest are saved from having to actually kill someone. First by Jackrum, then the other Borogravian soldiers.

* [[Blatant Lies]]: Subverted hilariously by Jackrum, who has a tendency to say "on my oath, I am not an x man" before doing something that falls firmly in the category of "x," such as violent, dishonest, or somesuch. {{spoiler|''She'' is being completely honest, we learn. She is not an anything ''man.''}}

* [[Boarding School of Horrors]]: The Girls' Working School. Blouse's "school for young gentlemen" wasn't as extreme, but the other soldiers have to wonder "what kind of life an officer could have led that inclined him to like scubbo."

Line 47:

** As it turns out this statement is {{spoiler|[[No Man of Woman Born|100% true]], just [[From a Certain Point of View|incredibly misleading]].}}

** Also: "You are ''my'' little lads and I will look after you."

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

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

* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: Polly's birdwatching know-how lets her catch on to how the group is being kept under surveillance, as Swires' buzzard doesn't seem right for the region. Lofty's {{spoiler|pyromania}} also comes in handy in a tight spot.

* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: Practically everyone at some point, but particularly Polly and Jackrum.

Line 68:

* [[Dropped a Bridget On Him]]: In-fandom example. A number of heterosexual fangirls were quite disappointed about Mal's [[The Reveal|Reveal]]. On the other hand, a number of lesbian/bi/[[Slash Fic|femmeslash]] fans were waiting for it hungrily.

* [[Dumb Is Good]]: Polly's brother.

* [[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'' is 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''.

* [[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'' in 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 ~~pupeteer~~ 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.

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: One puppeteer 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.

* [[Everyone Can See It]]: Blouse's immediate response to learning that Tonker's a girl is "''And'' Lofty?" Apparently even he could tell there was something going on there.

* [[A Father to His Men]]: Sergeant Jackrum, [[Sweet Polly Oliver|so to speak]].

Line 75:

** Polly, too. Twice; once when "storming" the castle and second {{spoiler|when promoted to Sgt after the court-martial}}

* [[Flashback Echo]] of the [[Vietnam War]]: you know things are bad when Maladict starts seeing "Charlie" in the bushes. Of course these are ''side-flashes'' of someone else's past, so things don't start getting serious until he hears helicopters.

* [[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.

* [[Flynning]]: Subverted. When Corporal Strappi picks out Polly to do a sword demonstration, she knows she's not supposed to hit his sword. This throws Strappi off completely, since he was looking forward to embarrassing an inexperienced new recruit and had adopted a stance designed to easily counter it but weak against a real attack.

* [[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 ''[[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.}}

* [[Freakier Than Fiction]]: Things declared [[Real Life]] "abominations" by Al-Qaeda include [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/2538545/Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq-alienated-by-cucumber-laws-and-brutality.html women buying cucumbers, and female goats, er, displaying their anatomy]. [[Sex Is Evil and I Am Horny]] springs to mind.