Night Watch (novel): Difference between revisions

Line 17:

* Nevertheless, the fifth book was released in 2012, titled ''The New Watch''.

Aside from the movie adaptations, the book inspired a surprisingly interesting (if badly animated, buggy and poorly acted) PC game, a MMORG and a board game, not to mention the usual merchandising crap.

Line 30:

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

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

* [[Balance Between Good and Evil]]

* [[Being Good Sucks]]

* [[Being Evil Sucks]]

Line 45:

** 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.

* [[Defector From Decadence]]: the Dark Other Edgar leaves the Day Watch and joins the Inquisition because of his disgust for all of the machinations in both of the watches. It's not exactly a [[Heel Face Turn]], but it cements him as sort of a [[Friendly Enemy]] / [[Enemy Mine]] to Anton.

* [[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.

** There's also the issue when the Dark Other Edgar asks another American about spiritual experiences (Edgar's gearing up for a [[Hannibal Lecture]]), the American responds by citing a sports victory, essentially proving himself [[Too Dumb to Fool]].

** 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}}.

Line 55:

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

* [[Evil Redhead]]: Alisa Donnikova

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Both the Light and Dark have contempt for vampires and werewolves, with the Dark seeing them mostly as useful pawns and the Light tending to assume they are [[~~Always Chaotic~~ Evil]], since the Others who become them tend to be the type who would go for eating innocents. Interestingly enough, both groups provide examples of rare [[Dark Is Not Evil]] Dark Others. Not exactly [[~~Always Chaotic~~ Evil]] but rather too animalistic to be considered proper humans. In the case of vampires, they may also turn people into new vampires who, without proper initiation and guidance may turn into real monsters (as shown in the first part of ''[[Day Watch]]''). The same thing can happen with werewolves. Vampires and werewolves are the only Others who can turn humans into their kind ({{spoiler|until ''Twilight Watch'', that is}}).

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Both the Light and Dark have contempt for vampires and werewolves, with the Dark seeing them mostly as useful pawns and the Light tending to assume they are [[Exclusively Evil]], since the Others who become them tend to be the type who would go for eating innocents. Interestingly enough, both groups provide examples of rare [[Dark Is Not Evil]] Dark Others. Not exactly [[Exclusively Evil]] but rather too animalistic to be considered proper humans. In the case of vampires, they may also turn people into new vampires who, without proper initiation and guidance may turn into real monsters (as shown in the first part of ''[[Day Watch]]''). The same thing can happen with werewolves. Vampires and werewolves are the only Others who can turn humans into their kind ({{spoiler|until ''Twilight Watch'', that is}}).

* [[The Film of the Book]]

* [[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]].

Line 69:

* [[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]]

** Anton is anything but a nice person at times. In fact, sometimes he comes across as a complete Jerkass. This is, in fact, pointed out by Zabulon. (To paraphrase) "I've seen your true form, Anton, and it was no knight in shining armor."

** 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.

Line 92:

* [[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.

* [[No Such Thing as Wizard Jesus]]: Averted. Jesus ''was'' somehow connected to the Light, but it's unknown whether he was just an overpowered Light Other or [[Physical God|Light itself]].

* [[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"

Line 120:

** 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!

* [[Suspiciously Apropos Music]]: Anton, while listening to his mini-disc (later [[~~MP 3~~]]) player. He always puts it on random, and often the song that pops up has something to do either with the story, or with his present state of mind.

* [[Suspiciously Apropos Music]]: Anton, while listening to his mini-disc (later [[MP3]]) player. He always puts it on random, and often the song that pops up has something to do either with the story, or with his present state of mind.

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

* [[Take a Third Option]]

Line 132:

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

* [[Urban Fantasy]]

* [[Utopia Justifies the Means]]: The "dark side", so to speak, of the Night Watch, and the main argument the Light Watch uses against them. Even [[We Didn't Start the Fuhrer|The Nazis]] came out of their attempts to change the world.

* [[Vein-O-Vision]]

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

Line 166:

* [[Slobs Versus Snobs]]: The Light Others all look like common people, and the Night Watch even wears blue-collar worker uniforms. Their vehicle of choice is a power grid repairman's truck. The Dark Others all look rich and beautiful.

* [[Tagline]]: The Rusian tagline of ''Day Watch'' is "First movie of the year" (which, from Russian, can also be translated as "Movie number one of the year", as in the BEST movie). While it can seem pretentious, it is in fact to be taken literally: the movie's Russian premiere was on the 1st of January, 2006, at 3 a.m.

* [[Take That]]: ''Night Watch'' broke every box office record in Russia since pretty much ever. By the time ''Day Watch'' was in mid-production, ''9th Company'' (another Russian movie) surpassed that record. In ''Day Watch'', Anton used bill boards as portals. At one point, he emerges from a ''9th Company'' poster, ripping it apart. During the production, the creators of the movie expressed their hope for the movie to surpass ''9th Company'' at the box-office. It did.

* [[Time Stands Still]]: Geser does it.

Line 172:

=== Aside from above tropes, the video game adaptations contain examples of: ===

* [[Alternate Universe]]: The PC game was basically a combination of book and movie continuities. The character designs harken back to the movie, as does the usage of mundane items to do magic, but the characters can also use spells from the books and Twilight is closer to the way it was depicted in the books.

* [[But Thou Must!]]: sort of. Your choices won't alter the major plot points, but they will make it easier (or harder) to achieve your mission objectives.

* [[Capulet Counterpart]]: Anya, to Stas.

* [[Immune to Bullets]]: Played with. Ordinary guns (and later machine guns) are surprisingly effective against the lower-level Others in the PC game. Not so much with the higher-powered others, but they still do damage, which can be useful when you and your enemy are out of mana.

* [[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}}

* [[McGuffin]]: Orb of Power, as the name implies, can amplify any spell thousand-fold. Naturally, both sides want to use it for their own purposes.

* [[Plucky Comic Relief]]: Yuri (in the PC game).

* [[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.