History Main / NightWatch

** Special mention goes to a scene in the second film where 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 Nintendo Wii came out.

* NoSuchThingAsWizardJesus: Jesus was somehow connected to the Light, but it's unknown whether he was just an overpowered Light Other or [[PhysicalGod Light itself]].

''Night Watch'' (original title ''Nochnoi Dozor'', not to be confused with the painting, the ''{{Discworld}}'' [[Discworld/NightWatch novel]], the 1994 Danish horror film, the 1997 [[ForeignRemake American remake]], the organization in ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', the organization in ''[[BabylonFive Babylon 5]]'', or [[OverlyLongGag the sub-organization of an organization in]] "[[FallFromHeaven Fall from Heaven]]") is a book series by SergeyLukyanenko, an internationally (in the Eastern Bloc) acclaimed [[SpeculativeFiction speculative fiction]] writer. It had two movie adaptations, the first of which became the top-grossing Russian movie of the time. Because of this, the series received much attention internationally and spread Lukyanenko's name and work to the West.

* SnarkBait: This author and anything he ever wrote attracts the kind of attention [[Main/SmallNameBigEgo Karen Traviss]] and [[DanBrowned Dan Brown]] would get if they were one man. As a perpetual epicenter of a [[FlameWar Holy War]], he had to leave Russian [=FIDO Net=]. With the movies it's even worse: even his fans tend to claim it's beyond mere AdaptationDecay. ''Night Watch'' was parodied in every form possible, from Book-A-Minute to filmstrip-styled {{webcomic}} (''[[http://lleo.aha.ru/dozor/ Vegetable Watch]]'').

* NoSuchThingAsWizardJesus: Jesus was somehow connected to the Light, but it's unknown whether he was just a Light Other whose power can't be even ranked or [[PhysicalGod Light itself]].

* PowerCreepPowerSeep: Anton starts out a low-level mage. By the end of ''Night Watch'', he reaches Level 2. By the end of ''Twilight Watch'' [[spoiler: he becomes a Mage Beyond Categorization]]

* FauxCyrillic: [[BilingualBonus If you can read Russian]], look at the movie poster ... [[TheyJustDidntCare yeah]].

* WickedWitch: Played around with with Arina. Her true form is a greatly aged crone and her depiction definitely evokes Baba Yaga. Edgar seems to be a male version (both seem to practice the same kind of magic), and his true form is likewise very aged. However, both are a subversion. Neither are that evil, and Anton notes how their true forms show this- many Dark Others become hideous demons in the Twilight, and so the fact that those two still look ''human'' speaks to their relative goodness.

**** The important difference between Light and Dark other 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 NightWatch and [[spoiler: a part of Zabulon's XanatosGambit)]].

** The main idea seems to be that Dark Others value personal freedom over anyone's well-being, whereas the Light Others see it the other way around. Things get shady when it becomes apparent that personal freedom of a powerful mage comes at the cost of freedoms of less powerful mages and, eventually, humans, but the Dark Others are encouraged not to give a damn. Which doesn't really work. On a side note, Light Others are constantly faced with the dilemma of "killing a thousand to save a million".

* FantasticRacism: 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 AlwaysChaoticEvil, 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 DarkIsNotEvil Dark Others.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Somehow averted, Olga jokes about it when she [[FreakyFridayFlip magically switches bodies]] with Anton. He gets lucky though, it would have been one week later.

* CreatorProvincialism: Lukyanenko spent most of his adult life in Moscow, so it's not surprising that it's the main setting of the books. ''Final Watch'' takes place in the author's native Kazakhstan, and he makes use for a few bits of local trivia and folklore in that novel.
** Akhem, since when Tashkent (the capital of ''[[CriticalResearchFailure Uzbekistan]]'' for those less versed in Central Asian geography) moved to Kazakhstan? Also, Lukyanenko moved to Moscow only in 1996, when he was 28 and ''already'' an established author.

* XanatosRoulette:the plots of the first two books were basically about Xanatos Roulettes by Moscow Night Watch and Day Watch, respectivel, which usually lead to ThirtyXanatosPileup.

** [[spoiler:The big idea behind unanimity between "bitter enemies" is that both Watches are a XanatosGambit from the Inquisition, which runs both departments behind the scenes. The explanation given is that neither young Light Others nor Dark Others would readily accept unity among the children of the Twilight.]]

* AntiVillain [[spoiler: Kostya, who is one of the most idealistic and kind characters in the series]]

** ''The Shadow of the Lords'', a spell referred to in the ''Last Watch'', essentially made a whole opposing army into the stone statues... [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel while leaving everyone alive and conscious]]. They've spent ''four millennia'' [[FateWorseThanDeath like that]].

* XanatosRoulette (the plots of the first two books were basically about Xanatos Roulettes by Moscow Night Watch and Day Watch, respectively)

-->The following article has been approved for publishing because it serves the cause of the Light.

-->The following article has been approved for publishing because it serves the cause of the Dark.

-->The preceding article has been banned for publishing because it harms the cause of the Light.
-->--'''Night Watch'''

-->The preceding article has been banned for publishing because it harms the cause of the Dark.
-->--'''Day Watch'''