Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Awesome / MonstrousRegiment

Go To

1* Vimes basically saves all their asses with his awesomeness and a sack of coffee.
2** With [[OvershadowedByAwesome Vetinari over two thousand miles away]], you can see just how much Vimes can play the world like a fiddle. It's especially notable when at the end, over a rickety desk, he asks Polly what Borogravia - the people, not the nation - actually wants. Once she gives an answer (basically, food and the chance to get themselves together), he makes it happen. Just like that.
3** It also reveals just how much Vimes has learned from Vetinari, outside of prior implications from Vimes' point of view that he's picked up a couple of tricks (like inviting the next appointment in to get rid of the current one), with Polly getting the distinct impression that Vimes can read her mind - in other words, the very same kind of impression that most people, Vimes included, get from Vetinari.
4* TheReveal at the climax, Sergeant Jackrum convincing the one third of Borogravia's high command by revealing how they are all women who she helped get into power to let Polly's squad go and force the country's first truce, was pretty awesome.
5** For some reason, this particular line manages to be possibly the most badass line in the entire book:
6-->'''Jackrum:''' ...so what is there that I don't know about you... ''Mildred''?
7** And then realising within a few moments that there's probably more than just that third.
8** General Froc was the only one to realise that she wasn't the only woman in the army and worked to help some of the others, even if she didn't realise quite ''how'' many there were. The statement cuts to the heart of the issue.
9--->'''Jackrum:''' And did you promote them if they were as good as men?
10--->'''Frock:''' Certainly not, Sergeant. What do you take me for? I promoted them if they were ''better''.
11* Jackrum's entrance.
12-->Jackrum stood there, shining like the sunset. The light glinted off his shako badge, polished to the point where it would blind the incautious with its terrible gleam. His face was red, but his jacket was redder, and his sergeant's sash was the pure quill of redness, its very essence, the red of dying stars and dying soldiers. Blood dripped off the cutlasses thrust into his belt.
13-->"Upon my soul, I am not a violent man."
14** Well, Jackrum ''is'' being honest. ''He'' is most certainly not an anything ''man''...
15* Lofty's...''innovative'' door-opening strategy. Series/{{MacGyver|1985}} would be proud.
16* The Duchess' critical and downright eerie intervention at the tribunal by [[WillingChanneler possessing]] [[JeanneDArchetype Wazzer]], shaming the High Command into making peace and actually sorting out Borogravia's many problems, rather than just clinging to old hatreds, to Nuggan, and to her. Oh, and also casually promoting Jackrum (who recognises the truth instantly, and in fact had worked it out a while ago) to Sergeant-Major. A single scene, but one that flips the entire climax on its head. Not bad for someone who can only move 'small things'.
17--> Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards. The dead are not your masters.
18* As part of the book's climax, Shufti finally finds the boy who seduced her and got her pregnant before he shipped off to war. Everything's been set up to this point that she's going to demand he marry her and help her look after their baby. Instead?
19-->'''Shufti:''' "I want my sixpence back, you son of a bitch!"
20* The Girls' Working School mysteriously burns down the same day two slim masked figures rob a bank. And we all wish Tonker and Lofty the best of luck.
21* Blouse gets several magnificent moments (even besting Jackrum at times - which is something that literally ''no one'' else manages to do, bar possibly Polly, once) when the [[BewareTheNiceOnes mousy, nerdy, naive lieutenant]] reveals his HiddenDepths:
22** First when confronted by the captive Captain Horentz (really Prince Heinrich incognito) who blusters threateningly and insultingly to him about his treatment at the squad's hands, demanding to be released at once. Blouse listens quietly then cuts loose with a blistering TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.
23-->'''Blouse:''' I know you, Captain Horentz. I mean I know your sort. I've had to put up with them all my life. Big jovial bullies, with their brains in their breeches. You ''dare'' to come riding into our country and think we're going to be frightened of you? You think you can appeal to me over the heads of my men? You ''demand?'' On the soil of my country?
24** Then when they find the enemy signal group, he calmly restrains Jackrum from attacking until they've finished signaling, then justifies it to a furious Jackrum by pointing out that not only would attacking while they were still transmitting have alerted the enemy that something had happened and caused them to send reinforcements, now they had captured the enemies' signal device and code book without them knowing. He proceeds to leaves Jackrum flabbergasted by giving the orders to set up camp himself.
25--->'''Jackrum:''' You just have to say "carry on, sergeant", sir! That's how it works, sir! You tell me what you want and I give 'em the orders!\
26'''Blouse:''' Times are changing, sergeant.
27*** Not to mention that it turns out later that Blouse has managed to mentally reverse-engineer the entire Clacks system--arguably the most advanced piece of technology on the Disc--purely by observation and logic, and independently come up with advanced algorithms that the Clacks company is ''only just exploring''. William de Worde and Otto are both stunned.
28** Later when the squad is camping, Blouse calls Jackrum out for directing Shufti to steal food from William de Worde's cart, which Jackrum calmly defends by citing military rules classifying it as "plundering" from an enemy resource and therefore legitimate. Blouse responds by actually ''pulling out a copy of the military rulebook'' and looking it up, then carries on to look up the bogus rule Jackrum invented on the spur of the moment to evade his forced retirement. Just when Polly thinks it's going to come to a fight, Blouse snaps the book shut and congratulates a nonplussed Jackrum on his encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules--he caught Jackrum lying, Jackrum ''knows'' he's been caught and subsequently Jackrum knows he's being ''allowed'' to get away with it, putting him on the backfoot.
29--->And there was a gleam in his eye. Polly remembered Blouse looking at the captured cavalry captain. This was that same look, the look which said: ''now'' I have the upper hand.
30** In the immediate next scene he executes his master stroke, responding to enemy signals using a modification to the captured signal tube to give the impression he's transmitting disinformation from much further away. When Jackrum strenuously objects, Blouse briefly turns to steel to put him in his place, reminding the squad that despite Jackrum's contempt for "ruperts", ''he'' is in command here:
31--->'''Jackrum:''' I protest, sir!\
32'''Blouse:''' Sergeant, I am about to tell our spy that we are seven miles further away than we really are, do you understand? And I am certain they will believe us because I have artificially reduced the light output from our device, do you understand? And I will tell them that their spies have encountered a very large party of recruits and deserters heading for the mountains and are in pursuit, do you understand? I am making us ''invisible,'' do you understand? ''Do you understand,'' Sergeant Jackrum?
33--->'''Jackrum:''' (''{{beat}}'') Fully understood, sir!
34* At the very end the country is going back to war because of inexcusable stupidity (paraphrased from Polly's thoughts). So, after some thought, Polly (1) decides to run away from home again, (2) rejoin the army openly as a woman, fighting the pandering attitudes of the men and disguised women, (3) become essentially a second, more progressive Jackrum, and (4) basically force those in charge to stop being so unforgivably stupid through prolific blackmail and bullying.
35* When the girls [[RecursiveCrossdressing dressed as boys dressed as girls]] are in danger of not passing while trying to infiltrate the fortress, Shufti -- probably the softest, least militaristic girl in the regiment -- proves their womanhood by flashing the guards, much to their acute mortification.
36** Fridge Brilliance: The rest of the girls were so bent on keeping their genders a secret at all costs that they didn't realize that in this instance, they didn't have to ''pretend'' to be soldiers disguised as women--they were actually women dressed in ordinary female attire. By then, they all thought of themselves as soldiers first.
37** She is also the only female of the group (who all grew up in conservative fanatical sexist theocracy) who actually had consensual sex and has willingly shown herself to a man before, being pregnant. All the other girls are either virgins [[spoiler: or a rape victim, who is even more unlikely to do it, because of trauma]].
38* At the end of the book, Polly runs into Strappi again. She makes like she's going to slap him, then punches him instead. And that's her being ''nice''. She'd been seriously considering killing him.

Top