History Headscratchers / MonstrousRegiment

* The obvious answer is "Borogravian", including a reference to a word that isn't in Polly's native language, but Polly and Mal have a fluent conversation with both Angua and Vimes, who (especially Vimes) are not likely to speak anything other than Morporkian. Vimes even butchers a sentence in Borogravian and Polly explains which word he messed up. Polly also reads the Ankh Morpork Times several times over the story, which suggests she's literate in Morporkian as well. Is she just especially bilingual? Borogravian seems similar to German and not especially similar to Morporkian and it seems unlikely that in a country where women aren't allowed to read and write Polly is fluent and literate in two languages, one from an enemy country.

*** Dracula himself could walk around in sunlight, so there's plenty of precedent for it.

* The obvious answer is "Borogravian", including a reference to a word that isn't in Polly's native language, but Polly and Mal have a fluent conversation with both Angua and Vimes, who (especially Vimes) are not likely to speak anything other than Morporkian. Vimes even butchers a sentence in Borogravian and Polly explains which word he messed up. Polly also reads the Ankh Morpork Times several times over the story, which suggests she's literate in Morporkian as well. Is she just especially bilingual? Borogravian seems similar to German and not especially similar to Morporkian and it seems unlikely that in a country where women aren't allowed to read and write Polly is fluent and literate in two languages, one from an enemy country.

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*** Plus, considering most of the top brass [[spoiler:are also women]], it's possible that the genders of any fallen Sweet Polly Olivers ''are'' noted, but that all the files manage to accidentally fall into a furnace, either out of solidarity or to keep the secret.

** Well, it has been [[Discworld/CarpeJugulum established]] that the Disc has as many kinds of vampire as tropical diseases[[note]]"presumably this means that some vampires are virulent and deadly, while others just make you walk funny and avoid fruit"[[/note]]. It's conceivable that even without the training posited above, some would not have the vulnerability to sunlight.

** Otto Chriek is also seen outside in the daytime (in the same book, among others) only turning to ash when exposed to the intense light from the salamanders. We know from Carpe Jugulum that vampires can train themselves to resist the usual ways of killing them, though the technique isn't perfect. Since both Otto and Maladict are Black Ribboners, this caused me to speculate that the vampire temperance league teaches the techhique to its members, perhaps as a sort of carrot: "give up the b-word and we'll teach you how ''not'' to burn in sunlight!"

* While the chronic failure of the Borogravian military to catch on to its inflitration by females is justified by RuleOfFunny [[spoiler:and the fact that so many of the brass are part of the SweetPollyOliver brigade]], it's never said why its army's ''burial details'' would fail to notice that the fallen aren't always the right shape. They ''do'' strip their own dead for uniforms and equipment, after all, and RuleOfFunny tends to lose its persuasiveness when senseless battlefield carnage is involved.

*** FridgeBrilliance: No wonder so many of them have risen to become the top brass. In a universe as troperiffic as Discworld, how could it be any other way?

** Once a SweetPollyOliver gets killed in battle, there's little call to report her gender to anyone, as there's no point in drumming her out of the army posthumously. There ''is'' ample reason to keep quiet about it, as a unit commander who admits he'd had a woman among his troops and not noticed is bound to be punished for such ignorance, or at least branded too stupid to ever promote.

** Well, it has been [[Discworld/CarpeJugulum established]] that the Disc has as many kinds of vampire as tropical diseases[[hottip:*:"presumably this means that some vampires are virulent and deadly, while others just make you walk funny and avoid fruit"]]. It's conceivable that even without the training posited above, some would not have the vulnerability to sunlight.

** Well, it has been [[Discworld/CarpeJugulum established]] that the Disc has as many kinds of vampire as tropical diseases[[hottip:*:"presumably this means that some vampires are virulent and deadly, while others just make you walk funny and avoid fruit"]]. It's conceivable that even without the training posited above, some would not have the vulnerability to sunlight.

** When Vimes asks Sally a similar question in "Thud", she states that she's fine with long sleeves and a brimmed hat. Maybe it's direct exposure of sun to skin?

** Or perhaps they borrow sunscreen from the city's trolls, who originally couldn't walk around in the sunlight either.