Night Watch (novel): Difference between revisions

{{quote|''The following article has been approved for publishing because it serves the cause of the Light.''|''Night Watch''}}

 

{{quote|''The following article has been approved for publishing because it serves the cause of the Dark.''|''Day Watch''}}

 

 

''Night Watch'' is set in Moscow in [[Present Day|1998-2007 (book timeline) / circa 2004 (movie timeline)]]. The world is pretty much the gritty ex-Communist concrete-a-thon we know and love, with a major difference. There are Others. Others are non-humans, born by humans and have special abilities. Vampires, shapeshifters, wizards, prophets, warlocks... and [[Incredibly Lame Pun|all others]]. What distinguishes Others from humans is their innate ability to manipulate "The Twilight", a "mirror-world" of magical energy. Others come in two flavors, Light and Dark, and the Light and Dark have been conflicting since the beginning of time. In the 12th century or so, the Others from both sides realized that conflicts between them, due to their vast power and influence over humans, could destroy the world. So they wrote and signed the Treaty, which basically states that each side is allowed to form a Watch to monitor the activities of the other side from becoming overly excessive, in turn monitored by a joint Inquisition. The Treaty has held up well, and all fighting between Light and Dark has moved [[The Chessmaster|into the shadows]].

* ''Face of the Dark Palmira'' follows the livings and doings of members of the Kievan Day Watch visiting St. Petersburg. The book was written by Vladimir Vasilyev with Sergey Lukyanenko's blessings. ''Twilight Watch'' and ''Face of the Dark Palmira'' take place in the same time period, and events of one book refer to those in the other (and vice versa) - though the plots never truly connect.

 

 

* [[Affably Evil]]: Zabulon may be the head of the Moscow Day Watch (making him incredibly powerful, several centuries old, and probably the most ruthless and dangerous Dark Other in the former Soviet Union) and the sworn enemy of the Night Watch in general and Geser in particular, but he is generally polite and friendly to everyone, seems to have a certain fondness for Anton, generally acts as though he is enjoying himself immensely, and regards Geser as a beloved rival (it is even implied in ''Twilight Watch'' that part of the reason that neither Geser or Zabulon have advanced beyond the rivalries of the Watches is because they enjoy playing out their rivalry). It's mentioned somewhere that Zabulon is nearly a millennium old. And he remarks to Gesar that he had dreamed that they would one day work together, during the climax of ''Twilight Watch''. While giggling in a slightly less-than-sane way.

* [[And I Must Scream]]

** The spell that the Inquisitors suggest that Anton use {{spoiler|to defeat the ultimate vampire Kostya}}, is called the Sarcophagus of Ages. It locks the victim and the caster in said sarcophagus together until the end of the universe.)

** Even more arguably {{spoiler|Tiger/the Twilight}} in ''The New Watch''.

* [[Badass Family]]: The Gorodetsky family.

* [[Being Good Sucks]]

* [[Being Evil Sucks]]

** The important difference between Light and Dark Others is that the Light Others are perfectly aware of the human vice and ignorance, while Dark Others consider their power a gift that is to be used. This explains why low-ranking Dark Others tend to use their powers for granted while high-ranked ones consider it an asset that has to be invested wisely. Light Others are taught from the beginning that the power corrupts and if not controlled, it may destroy its bearer (it is also the recurring theme in ''Night Watch'' and {{spoiler|a part of Zabulon's [[Evil Plan]] in ''Day Watch'')}}.

* [[A Day in the Limelight]]: In ''Day Watch'', the first part had as its narrator the secondary character Alisa, and the second part's narrator was a new character Vitaliy.

* [[Dropped a Bridge on Him]]: {{spoiler|Tiger Cub's death in ''Day Watch'' is described almost casually. Which is normal if you consider that the narrator is Vitaliy, a powerful Dark Other (sort of...) who had never met Tiger Cub before and killed her in self-defence.}}

* [[Eagle Land]]: Lukyanenko always was and still is rather strongly anti-American, and isn't afraid to show it.

** In ''Day Watch'', a low-level American Air Force officer is introduced on holiday in Prague. He's a member of the Light and was involved in the bombing of Kosovo. Russian Night Watch members are very surprised he's still aligned with good.

** In ''Twilight Watch'', one character has a shirt showing a Russian soldier killing an American with a message about who really won [[World War Two]]; Anton finds it somewhat amusing.

* [[Enemy Mine]]: The Watches work together when battling {{spoiler|Kostya}}.

* [[Evil Counterpart]]: The Dark protagonists of ''Day Watch'', Alisa, Vitaly, and Edgar, all present interesting counterparts to Anton's personality.

* [[Evil Redhead]]: Alisa Donnikova

* [[For the Evulz]]: Light Others are generally prone to seeing Dark Others like that. Dark Others tend to be more [[Pragmatic Villainy|pragmatic]] though. At some point, the Night Watch determines that a group of Dark Others are trying to resurrect an ancient and powerful Dark Other and confront the Day Watch over it. The Dark Others balk at the suggestion, wondering why ''anyone'' would resurrect a certifiably insane Dark Other who would be of no use in politics and would probably [[Scaled Up|turn himself into a dragon]] and [[Chaotic Stupid|burn down a few cities]] before [[Magic Versus Science|getting shot down by human jets]].

* [[Foreign Money Is Proof of Guilt]]: In ''Day Watch'', [[Amnesiac God|Vitaly]] discovers that his bag is full of dollars and immediately thinks he's up to something illegal.

* [[Four Eyes, Zero Soul]]: Zabulon

* [[Friendly Neighbourhood Vampires]]: Anton himself was friends with a family of vampires who lived in the apartment next to his until he killed a vampire in the line of duty.

* [[Fun Personified]]: Las

* [[Glamour Failure]]: Vampires can make themselves appear invisible to humans (then again, almost every Other can). However, if a human looks into a mirror, then the effect of the spell is broken (although, only for as long as they're looking into the mirror). This is the opposite of the typical vampire lore.

* [[Good Is Not Nice]]

** The Night Watch is considered good but Light Others can be as ruthless as any secret police (or more, given their powers). They also control population of vampires and sometimes authorize transformation and feeding on mundane people without any consent of the latter. This causes {{spoiler|Igor to become disillusioned with the Night Watch}}.

** The Night watch is also not above brainwashing humans in their social experiments. Olga was [[Baleful Polymorph|punished]] for sabotaging an attempt to make the normal people accept communism.

* [[Mathematician's Answer]]: In ''The Last Watch'', a powerful vampire in disguise is spotted by an Other, who is a teacher on a field trip with his class of Other children. The vampire is trying to remain hidden and kills the teacher in front of his students. All the kids run away except for one. The vampire grabs him and asks, using a spell of truth, if the kid has been taught yet how to remember auras (an easy way of identifying Others). The kid honestly replies that he hasn't been. The vampire lets him go and leaves. The kid didn't lie, nobody taught him how to remember auras, but he has been practicing on his own. His memory of the aura is vague, though.

* [[Mistaken for Gay]]: In the first novel, Anton is temporarily in Olga's body and goes out to dinner with Svetlana, his love interest. The combination of their body language around each other and Olga's short hair makes another character see them as a lesbian couple and react with disgust.

* [[Narrator]]: Anton in ''Night Watch'', ''Twilight Watch'' and ''The Last Watch''. For the two first parts of the second book, see [[A Day in the Limelight]] above, the third part averted this trope as it had no narrator.

* [[Never Found the Body]]: Subverted. Anton believes that {{spoiler|Kostya's}} body has never been found after the events of ''Twilight Watch'' and that he may be the new villain in ''Final Watch''. However, Geser almost immediately reveals that {{spoiler|Kostya's}} body was, indeed, recovered but this was kept secret from Anton because it was in a [[Deader Than Dead|very bad condition]] and Anton ''was'' his friend, after all. There is a good chance of the body simply disintegrating during re-entry.

* [[The New Russia]]: It isn't the most negative depiction, but there are a lot of references to the shady new money (with possible connections to [[The Mafiya]]) associated with this setting.

* [[No Periods, Period]]: Somehow averted; Olga jokes about it when she [[Freaky Friday Flip|magically switches bodies]] with Anton. He gets lucky though, it would have been one week later. Anton responds with his own deadpan joke, pointing out that every TV-watching man knows what to do with a tampon: put it in your fist and pour blue liquid on it.

* [[Not So Different]]: A repeated theme is that the line between Light and Dark Others is very fine indeed.

* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Afandi, an elderly but weak magician from ''The Last Watch'', "Part 2 - A Common Enemy"

* [[Pac-Man Fever]]: Generally averted. When video games are mentioned, they are treated as casual hobbies and the few games mentioned by name were indeed popular titles at the time of writing. The movie depicts them with reasonable realism as well.

** Special mention goes to a scene in the second film where this appears intentionally. Zavulon is playing a fighting game. At some point, he holds and swings his phone like a sword and his movements are imitated in game. That was two years before the iPhone came out. But this game he plays is {{spoiler|actually a vision of a possible future.}}

* [[Public Domain Character]]

** Merlin is a major historical figure for Others.

** It is briefly mentioned that [[Rammstein]] are all werewolves.

* [[Sophisticated As Hell]] / [[Precision F-Strike]]: In ''New Watch'' Anton describes the humongous fireball thrown at them: "It was a premium-class fireball, in terms of commercial managers. It was a Tzar-fireball, poetically speaking. A biologist would call it an Alpha-fireball. A very composed mathematician would note that it is a three meter-wide fireball. It was a "shit-your-pants-it's-so-scary" fireball!

** This is referenced in the novel with Anton suspecting he might be unconsciously manipulating the player.

* [[Take a Third Option]]

** The whole trope is also repeatedly subverted from here to the far side of Moscow when it turns out that Zabulon, Gesar or whoever is stringing Anton around at that point in time ''specifically didn't mention the third option so that Anton would pick it.''

* [[Tome of Fate]]

** Anton does this many times through the series.

** His friend and [[Plucky Comic Relief]], the [[punk Rocke|punk rocker]] Las<ref>Based on the real-life Moscow punk Alexander "Las" Ulyanov, leader of ''The Belomors'' and Lukyanenko's friend</ref>, tends to regularly end up together with him in those incidents that boost Anton's level and receive an upgrade too. He wasn't even the Other when he was first introduced, and ended up as a minor Night Watch official with third or fourth level.

* [[The Chessmaster]]: Both Geser and Zavulon.

* [[Urban Fantasy]]

* [[Vein-O-Vision]]

* [[Villain Protagonist]]: Alissa in ''Day Watch'' and to a somewhat lesser extent the other Dark Other protagonists of the novel.

 

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* [[Heel Face Turn]]: During the course of the PC game, the characters try to figure out why some Light Others inexplicably become Dark. {{spoiler|turns out that the new technology-based "remoralization" spell can flip the potential Others' alignments before they are initiated}}.

* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Stas, the main protagonist of the PC game. {{spoiler|Later in the game, it turned out that there is a reason for that - he was a "remoralized" Dark Other}}

* [[Unexpected Genre Change]]: One of the games based on the series is a racing game. Yeah, where you can enter the Twilight to avoid traffic.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Turn Based Tactics]]

[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]

[[Category:Literature]]