History Literature / TheUnknownSoldier

* TheNeidermeyer: Staff Sergeant Sinkkonen. Double Subverted by Captain Lammio, who is a strict martinet with NoSocialSkills and an ego the size of a small nation. He is also an insanely brave soldier and efficient leader, but his complete lack of weaknesses along with his other traits does nothing to endear him to the rank-and-file.

* TheFool: Private Salo. He's neither particularly bad or particularly good soldier, filling his place as needed. However, he comes from a region which in stereotypes is known for its brave, overtly masculine heroes, and Salo would like to try to live up to these expectations. Only he lacks the required courage to walk his talk. Also he's the most naive one of the platoon, always eager to believe the war propaganda or the shrewd cunning of the Soviet prisoners and civilians, even when the others have long ago accepted that the war will be lost, causing others to mock him for it.

* CurbStompBattle: First Finland and Nazi Germany deliver this to the Soviet Union. Then the tables are turned... The third act of the novel is basically the main characters taking beating after a beating to the point of ceasing to have any shame at running away from the enemy. Even those who would like to try to stand and fight don't bother too much, because they know that even if they hold their ground, the guys next to them will give in and flee. This is incredibly stressful and demoralizing to the officers, who are trying to organize defense, but nothing works when the men lack the will to fight.

* WriteWhoYouKnow: Many if not most of the characters are inspired by or composites of the actual people Linna knew during the war. Two of them - Rokka and Koskela - were meant to be [[CaptainErsatz direct literary counterparts]] of two men he knew there; Viljam Pylkäs and Einari Kokkonen, respectively.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: We'll now interrupt your action filled war story with an episode of our boys lazying around in an occupied city. The characters would have preferred never to return back to the old formula!

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: [[spoiler:Mäkilä]] is cut in half by a grenade when he tries to bring the men their food the field kitchen. The same grenade also kills the horse pulling the cart and the next one pours soil on them as if in a burial.

* AngerBornOfWorry: Hietanen, yelling at the NewMeat who immediately forgets his instructions.

* DarkestHour: During the retreat phase the battalion comes close to being entirely destroyed. The Soviets outflank it and cut it off from their own forces, the battalion leader dies, the counter attack attempting to open the route back to their own fails and the new battalion leader dies in the attempt, the battalion is almost closed in a cauldron and its remnant only manages to save itself through a dangerous outflanking maneuver through the marshes... once they get back to their own side of the front line, they're forced to engage the enemy again, only to have their leader die again and everyone fall into chaotic panicked escape. It's said the battalion perhaps would have fallen apart altogether if the fleeing men hadn't reached the Finnish soil again and regained their fighting spirit. Three of the four most central characters die during this sequence of events.

* DarkEqualsDeath: The deep dark of the nightly forests is full of danger and death, filling the men with terror of the unseen. [[spoiler:Lehto]] dies while trying to find their own in the darkness, unable to see the enemy just ahead of him.

* PrimalFear: The pure naturalism of all the misery and physical danger the men are in crawls out of the pages. The characters are exhausted and sleep deprived but still can't find shelter and have to stay alert and make life-or-death decisions, they're hungry for days with no knowing where and when they will find food, they're lost or in the danger of being lost far from home, in deep wilderness or in countryside of enemy territory, they cross rivers that could drown them and marshes that could swallow them, they try to find their own and avoid the enemy in dark nightly forests, they're exposed to freezing cold, to explosions and to gun fire, they're sent out far from their own and all they can do is hope that the higher ups know what they're doing and that they won't lose their communication to the operation control. Their bodies are shot through holes, torn apart, cut with shrapnels, burned and crushed...

* ComingAndGoing: The story is as full of life as it is of death, and almost as full of sex (or talk or dreams of it) as it is of dying. The men are constantly afraid of death, but they never speak about it, instead their topic of choice is almost always either sex or food (unless it's complaining about the circumstances and the bad decisions of the higher ups.) At one point, when they're trying to shrug off their shock at one of their own dying, someone comments that ''"All that's lost is life received through fucking."''. Lehto also compares [[ItMakesSenseInTheContext battle to horses having sex.]]

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Rokka is once again ranting about the officers, how he doesn't get along with them and wonders, what's wrong with them for him and them always to start fighting after just a few words. Vanhala, amused, asks him has he ever considered the possibility that perhaps the fault is in ''Rokka'' himself. Rokka is bewildered by such a thought.

* CastOfExpies: Linna consciously draw inspiration from a culturally important 19th century novel, ''Seven Brothers'' by Aleksis Kivi, and mentioned half seriously that his novel was the story of Kivi's brothers going to war. The story does have a core cast of about 7 or 8 men, all part of the BandOfBrothers, and similarities have been seen between them and the brothers of Kivi's novel. See also WriteWhoYouKnow.

* CastOfExpies and WriteWhomYouKnow: Many if not most of the characters are inspired by or composites of the actual people Linna knew during the war. Two of them - Rokka and Koskela - were meant to be [[CaptainErsatz direct literary counterparts]] of two men he knew there; Viljam Pylkäs and Einari Kokkonen, respectively. Additionally, Linna consciously draw inspiration from a culturally important 19th century novel, ''Seven Brothers'' by Aleksis Kivi, and mentioned half seriously that his novel was the story of Kivi's brothers going to war. The story does have a core cast of about 7 or 8 men, all part of the BandOfBrothers, and similarities have been seen between them and the brothers of Kivi's novel.

* ComingAndGoing: The story is as full of life as it is of death, and almost as full of sex (or talk or dreams of it) as it is of dying. The men are constantly afraid of death, but they never speak about it, instead their topic of choice is almost always either sex or food (unless it's complaining about the circumstances and the bad decisions of the higher ups.) At one point, when they're trying to shrug off their shock at one other own dying, someone comments that ''"All that goes is life that came by fucking"''.

* ScoundrelCode: As the men become more and more demoralized, they become increasingly accepting of things like thieving even from your own dead. But one last rule stands till the end: food must be shared. They all know hunger so well they don't the heart to deny their own small supplies from those who ask to get to share them.

* SlidingScaleofIdealismVersusCynicism: the story is basically the high browned, nationalistic patriotic ideology of the 1930s meeting the reality of war and dying a slow, whimpering death in the process. However, the story does have human heart - at it's core is empathy and pity for human beings, with all their flaws and follies. Author mocks all idealism that is distanced from and alien to everyday common life, but approves of the malleable practical morality that rises from genuine humanity.

* MoodWhiplash: Comic and horrible, beautiful and banal, enthusiastic and horrific frequently take over each other to create strong emotional contrasts.

** Also Lehto is said to have quite a rich, intellectual internal life under his stone cold, silent surface - he just never tells anyone what he's thinking, as he doesn't want to let anyone close him.

[[folder:Tropes D to L]]

* {{Gorn}}: purposefully averted by the author, with only a few small exceptions here and there. Linna wanted to make the reader to emphasize with the characters as if they were real people and thus feel sadness when they die, instead of trying to "shock" the reader by brutal descriptions of what happens to their bodies. As he said, important is ''what'' is dying, not ''how'' it's dying.

* [[TheSquad The Half-platoon]]: Most of the main cast belongs to the first and second squads of Koskela's platoon, or work closely with it.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: Lieutenant Koskela, who appears in Linna's major opus ''Under the North Star''.

* IControlMyMinionsThrough...: Fear, by Corporal Lehto.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: A sign of a good officer is to know when attacking isn't working. In the end, the whole country decides it's time to fold it and seek peace with Soviet Union.

* MatingDance: Suverted. Vera herself [[IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn doesn't she her dance as flirty]], she simply enjoys dancing for the sake of it, but the men watching it interpret it as sexual. Hietanen too is aroused by her movements, and thinks back to the wonder of her dancing long after they have parted for good.

* MenAreTough: The underlying assumption all the characters are trying to live up to, with varying success.

* MyCountryRightOrWrong: Almost every character has seed of love of their home country living within themselves, no matter how much they might mock the patriotic drivel thrown at them, and so they do what is asked of them, and the looming defeat genuinely hurts them.

* NervesOfSteel: Rokka, Koskela and Lammio. Makes for all the greater effect when they too start to get scared.

* NicknamingTheEnemy: Not only do the Finns call Russians as Russkies, Bush Russkies, Vanyas and the Neighbor, they get to find out how how Russians call them: Tshunas. Ensuing a scene where the Finns and their Russian prisoners stand in all friendship and laugh together at their nicknames. [[BigFun Vanhala]] even starts to call his friends with the Russian nickname for them.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: The true and tested method of throwing shade on war propaganda and rebelling against the officers.

* OddFriendship: In a society still deeply torn by a Civil War fought only 23 years ago, Kariluoto comes from a decidedly White background (right wing, upper class, highly educated, idealistic) and Koskela from a Red background (leftist, working class, lowly educated, down-to-earth). However, after initially somewhat looking down upon Koskela, after Koskela proves himself in the practical reality of war, Kariluoto comes to greatly appreciate him and even hold him as a personal role model, seeking for his approval and valuing his praise. Doubles as InterClassFriendship and FireForgedFriends.

* SceneryPorn: the forested wilderness and the countryside of Karelia are ''beautiful'' and Linna knows just how to describe them. The beauty and peace of nature forms a constant background to the violence, death, suffering and immorality taking place within its woods and fields.

* TheScrounger: Private Rahikainen. He never participates in the fighting in any meaningful way, but is absolutely essential to keeping the rest of [[TheSquad the platoon]] at least moderately fed.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Happens to one of the newer privates on the last page of the book.

* BigBrotherMentor: Rokka to the younger soldiers. He's much older than them, already a veteran and a husband and a father, while most of the platoon members were taken into the army from their childhood homes.

* TheBigGuy: Ironically the strongest, the most resilient and most stoic and reliable is Määttä, [[PintSizedPowerhouse the shortest]] of [[TheSquad the platoon]].

* BruiserWithASoftCenter: Sergeant Hietanen is strong, brave and badass... and emotional and tender. He not only feels acutely for the prisoners, the children and the civilians, and not only has genuine romantic feelings for women instead of the usual lecherous bragging about conquered women, he also speaks constantly and openly about his feelings, about his fears and his hopes and his joys.

** Also some characters speak like this, notably Lehto.

* CampCook: Corporal Mäkilä.

* CastOfExpies: Many if not most of the characters are inspired by or composites of the actual people Linna knew during the war. Two of them - Rokka and Koskela - were meant to be [[CaptainErsatz direct literary counterparts]] of two men he knew there; Viljam Pylkäs and Einari Kokkonen, respectively. Additionally, Linna consciously draw inspiration from a culturally important 19th century novel, ''Seven Brothers'' by Aleksis Kivi, and mentioned half seriously that his novel was the story of Kivi's brothers going to war. The story does have a core cast of about 7 or 8 men, all part of the BandOfBrothers, and similarities have been seen between them and the brothers of Kivi's novel.
* CharacterDevelopment: Most notably to 2nd Lieutenant Kariluoto, who grows from EnsignNewbie into TheCaptain. Likewise, 2nd Lieutenant Jalovaara, who is initially EnsignNewbie, becomes the most competent officer in the company, and Major Lammio's trustee. [[spoiler:Lammio becomes the battalion commander after the death of Major Sarastie.]] Sergeant Hietanen grows up from a carefree {{Manchild}} to a serious and even brooding man that can be counted on.
* ClassClown: Private Honkajoki A, A-1. He has assumed his comedic role to pass his and other's time during the slow, wearisome trench war of frozen fronts, and by now is so immersed by his role that he can't act normally again.

* CombatAndSupport: The rifle platoons and the [[{{BFG}} machine gun]] squads work this way. A platoon of riflemen attack the enemy, and a squad or two of machine gun men gives them support fire. The main cast belongs to Koskela's machine gun platoon, to its first and second squad, and their role in fighting is to support Kariluoto's platoon of riflemen.

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: The first act follows in detail how the young soldiers little by little grow apathetic to the horrors around them and begin to accept them as part of their daily life.

* DarkestHour: During the retreat phase, during the course of just two days, the battalion comes close to being destroyed, its leader dies, the battalion is trapped behind the enemy lines and almost closed in a cauldron, then the new temporary battalion leader dies trying to open the road back to friendly forces, the remnant of the battalion only manages to save itself through a dangerous outflanking maneuver through the marshes back into relative safety of their own troops... only to be forced to engage the enemy again, have their leader die again and everyone fall into chaotic escape where the battalion nearly falls apart altogether. Three of the four most central characters die during this sequence of events.

* DespairEventHorizon: A year or so into the war the soldiers start to suspect that the war will be lost. Others hold onto to hope of final victory longer than the others, but each must at some point come to face the reality and accept that there's no hope left.

* FatherToHisMen: Lieutenant Koskela. Actually he's only about 7 years older than his men, but he's [[ReturningWarVet already a veteran]], and [[HeroOfAnotherStory as the]] [[AllThereInTheManual readers of]] ''Under the North Star'' trilogy know, the perpetual big brother who already as a child tried to look after others, when the adults were distressed or weak.
* FarmBoy: Finland still being a relatively poor, agricultural, unurbanized country, many of the characters come from small low income farms. Linna himself did so too, and was fond of the character type. Hietanen, Rokka, Susi, Salo and Mäkilä all have farming background, and with Koskela it's emphasized that deep within, he's just a simple gentle FarmBoy.

** Notably Koskela drops his polite, considerate behavior once drunk, and lets out all his years-long bitterness caused by his Red family background and his inability to adapt to the company and mentality of the White officers, andso starts a drunken brawl with the other officers.

** Notably Koskela drops his polite, considerate behavior once drunk, lets out all his years-long bitterness caused by his Red family background and inability to adapt to among the White officers, and starts a drunken brawl with the other officers.

* MeetCute: How Hietanen meets Vera. The day after Petrozavodsk is occupied by the Finns, Hietanen is investigating the houses with rifle in hand, when all of the suddenly he walks upon Vera, who is looking down upon his pointed rifle with her beautiful eyes. Vera brings this memory up later on, to Hietanen's embarrassment.