Monstrous Regiment: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"We know enemy forces are in the area. Currently they have no boots. But there will be others with boots aplenty. Also, there may be deserters in the area. They will not be nice people! They will be impolite!"''}}

 

 

The setting of the story is the fantastically aggressive country of Borogravia, a constantly-at-war theocracy under the apparently mad god Nuggan, probably the only god on the Discworld to update his holy text (mostly with Abominations against things like garlic, the color blue, and babies). The young heroine, Polly Perks, leaves home, [[Sweet Polly Oliver|dresses as a boy]], and joins the military to find her strong but simple brother Paul, who is the only eligible heir to the family inn and who vanished a year ago after going off to fight the Zlobenians.

* [[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.

** Presumably he also held that rank for part of the intervening time, since he had slowly risen from Lance-Constable to Captain when we first meet him.

* [[Crosscast Role]]: Lieutenant Blouse reminisces about playing one of these in an all-boy's school.

* [[Cute and Psycho]]: When Wazzer snaps she snaps hard, and you ''don't'' want to be in the vicinity when it happens. (Polly is continuously unnerved while she is "speaking to the Duchess" with a ''sabre in her hand!'')

* [[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!}}

* [[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.

* [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]]: Maladict, to the point of having Igor be ready with a stake if she snaps.

* [[Gentle Giant]]: Paul is described as big, kind, slow and able to lift whole beer kegs like toys.

* [[Glad You Thought of It]]: Polly tries to get Blouse to "suggest" the idea of sneaking into the keep disguised as washerwoman. He does so, but assumes he's the only one with a chance of pulling it off. {{spoiler|Amazing, he ''is!''}}

** And the reverse happens to the Duchess: an ordinary woman, after death, was elevated to something like godhood because ''so many people'' prayed to her.

* [[God Was My Co-Pilot]]: Everyone thought Wazzer was delusional, but apparently the Duchess had been guiding her footsteps the whole time.

* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: You don't get much more ragtag than {{spoiler|a hot-headed lesbian and her pyromaniac girlfriend, an expectant mother, the Discworld equivalent of Joan of Arc}}, a troll, an [[The Igor|Igor]], a [[Must Have Caffeine|coffee-crazed]] vampire, [[Only Sane Man]] Polly, and a naive clerk turned soldier. Fortunately, they've got a [[Badass]] sergeant watching their backs.

* [[Rape as Backstory]]: {{spoiler|Lofty was sent to work at the flour mill where she underwent what Tonker describes as "Beatings. And worse." When she got back from the flour mill she was pregnant, consequently forced to have the baby, and then beaten again for having gotten pregnant.}} Then, strangely, [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|the mill burned down]].

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: They're uncommon enough in Discworld that Blouse sticks out as one. He's got the good sense to let Jackrum handle the things he himself isn't suited for (ie: practically everything), is the first to crossdress his way into the fortress (his subordinates see this as a suicide mission), and has the perspective to take his platoon's crossdressing ...more or less in stride.

** Vimes, especially towards the end when he disabuses everyone of the notion that he is "Vimes the Butcher".